Public speaking tips for lawyers

March 6, 2013 by
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Public speaking is a great way for lawyers to build their reputation and meet new contacts. But great material isn’t enough to make a great presentation. You have to deliver that material with a great performance.

The first rule of public speaking is displaying good energy. You may be passionate about your subject matter but unless you transfer that emotion to the audience, through your words, tone of voice, and body language, your message won’t get through.

I’ve had to work on this myself. I recall a time about ten years ago I gave a presentation and when I got off stage I asked my co-presenter what he thought about my talk. He said, “Do you drink coffee?” When I said I did, he told me I should drink more.

If you do any live presentations (or want to), here are a few tips for doing a better presentation:

  • Don’t attempt to teach your audience everything. A few key points is all you need and all anyone can handle.
  • Never tell “the history of” anything. Get to the point: what do I need to know right now?
  • If you use slides, don’t cram them with text. A few lines with a few words each.
  • Speak into the microphone and project your voice to the back of the room. Nobody will hear you or understand you if you sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
  • Modulate your voice. Use a mixture of highs and lows, fast and slow pace.
  • Talk to the audience, not at them. Ask questions, tell stories, say something unusual or funny.
  • Make eye contact with as many people as you can. Use their names if you know them or you can read their name tags.
  • Don’t just stand there, move. Walk around, gesture, throw something (just kidding).
  • Keep it short. Twenty minutes is about all anyone can handle before their mind wanders.
  • Tell them what to do next. Give them a web site and tell them what to do when they get there. Offer something in return for their business card. Or give them a homework assignment.
  • Thank your hosts, thank the audience, and thank God nobody fell asleep.

I’m certainly not the best speaker in the world. But I’m better today than I was last year and I’ll be better next year than I am this year. Speaking is a skill and it can be learned. Practice, get feedback, and practice some more.

Being an attorney will get you asked to speak. Being a good speaker will get you asked back.

Want more ways to build your reputation? Here’s The Formula.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Personal development, Presentations, Public Speaking Tagged With: ,

What to do when you forget someone’s name

March 5, 2013 by
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I once had a friend who had an almost uncanny ability to remember people’s names. It allowed him to build a large network of contacts and a very successful business.

We did a lot of networking together so I got to watch him in action. Like the rest of us, he would often forget the name of someone he had just been introduced to, but soon thereafter, he was introducing his new contact, by name, to others in the room. How did he do it? He did it by getting his ego out of the way and simply asking his new contact to “tell me your name again,” sometimes two or three times before he had it.

Most of us are too embarrassed to admit we forgot a person’s name so we skirt around it. Not my friend. He felt it was vital to know and use people’s names and he was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish that.

Time and time again I’d watch him ask people to repeat their name. Even with people he supposedly knew for a long time. Sometimes he’d tell them he had a poor memory and if they say their name again it will help him remember. He was genuine and easy going about it. I think most of them appreciated that he cared enough to ask.

My ego is too fragile, I’m afraid. I’d rather rely on tricks. I’ll give you my favorite: only network where everyone wears a name tag.

How about you? What do you do to remember names? What do you do when you forget?

Marketing is everything we do to get and keep good clients. Start with this.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking, Personal development, Relationship marketing Tagged With: ,

Google Adwords for attorneys? Read this first.

March 4, 2013 by
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An attorney who reads this blog asked me what I thought about attorneys using Google Adwords to get clients for a law practice.

I’ve done a lot of advertising over the years, including Adwords, both as an attorney and in my attorney marketing business, and overall, I’ve had positive results. But I don’t recommend Google Adwords for most lawyers, at least not until they have many other ducks in a row.

Here’s what I mean.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, advertising of any kind can be a huge financial sinkhole. There are lots of things you have to get right and if you don’t, you’ll get poor results or spend way too much money for the results you do get. True, with Adwords you can get started with a small investment (e.g., $50 or $100) and you aren’t locked into a long term contract. But it’s far too easy to get caught up in the game of trying to make make your ads work, and that can be a very expensive game to play, especially for attorneys who might pay up to $50 per click.

If you don’t have the budget and the stomach to play that game, you should probably stay on the sidelines, at least for now.

In other words, don’t start with Adwords (or any advertising), to get traffic to your law firm’s web site. Start by building organic traffic by posting high quality content. Use referral marketing, social media, speaking, writing, networking, and other means to build your practice, before you even think about advertising. Once you have a sold base of clients and lots of disposable income to invest in further expansion, then you can consider advertising to provide an incremental increase in that income.

You might use Adwords short term, to test headlines and offers, however. Invest a couple hundred dollars to test several different report titles, for example, and see which one gets the highest response. When you know which one pulled best, you’ll know which one to use for your report.

Advertising is only part of the challenge. You may have great ads that pull lots of traffic, but is it targeted traffic, appropriate for your practice? Are they looking for a lawyer or just free information? At $50 a click, you need to make sure.

In addition, you must have effective landing pages. You may be getting lots of the right traffic but if they don’t opt-in or call you when they get to your site, it is all for naught.

You also need to be able to handle those leads and convert them into appointments. Someone needs to be available when they call and that could be long after business hours. And whoever takes the calls must be good at closing the appointment. The goal isn’t traffic and clicks, it’s appointments and clients.

If you do want to try Google Adwords (or Facebook ads or any other kind of Pay-Per-Click or Pay-Per-Action advertising), here’s what I recommend:

  • Make sure Adwords is right for a practice like yours. Do your ideal clients use search engines to find lawyers? Do they click on paid ads? Do you have high enough margins to justify the per client acquisition cost of advertising and associated overhead?
  • Learn all you can about Adwords. Start with the Google Adwords help center. Read books and blogs and take courses.
  • Start small. Open an account with no more a few hundred dollars and be prepared to lose it all. Take a break and evaluate your results.
  • Start with bids on low volume key words: “brain trauma law south bay” should cost a fraction of what you’ll pay for “Los Angeles personal injury attorney”.
  • Be prepared to roll out your winners and pull the plug on your losers. You must spend enough on your ads, however, to get enough clicks so you can quantify the difference.
  • Be prepared for constant monitoring, testing, and tweaking. You will need to know which headline, displayed in response to which key words, and sent to which landing page, is producing traffic that opts-in or calls. Then, you have to compare those results to other combinations, so you can maximize results and minimize costs.
  • Don’t expect that what works today will work tomorrow. Or vice versa. Advertising is never “set it and forget it”. You can never stop testing and making changes.
  • Get help. Hire consultants to design and track your campaign, and write your ads and landing pages. Let them do what they do best so you can do what you do best.

I’ve spent millions of dollars in advertising over the years and I love what it can do. If you get the pieces right, there is no faster way to bring traffic to a web site (aside from having something go viral, and that’s something you can’t control.) And yet. . . I’m not doing any advertising right now. I don’t want to work that hard.

What are your experiences with Google Adwords? Please share in the comments.

If you want to get more clients without advertising, you need The Attorney Marketing Formula.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Technology, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , ,

How to get lots of five star reviews and social media mentions

March 1, 2013 by
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I found out how my wife’s new dentist is getting so many testimonials and five star reviews. Yesterday, she got an email from the dentist that said:

“Would you please take a minute to let us know about your last experience with our office? You will be able to share this information with your friends via Facebook, or you may choose to keep your identity anonymous to everyone – including us.

Please answer a couple quick questions for us here:”

A link led to a survey page that prompted her to

  1. Rate the service with one to five stars for (a) Staff, (b) Facilities, and (c) Overall Experience
  2. Provide feedback by answering four questions:

1. “Did the staff take the time to listen to you?”
2. “Did the staff take the time to communicate with you?”
3. “Would you recommend our office to friends and family?”
4. “How long after your appointment time did you wait to be seen?”

There is also a box to add comments and another for suggestions.

You can then submit your review to be published anonymously, with your name, or your name and post it on Facebook. You can also keep your review private meaning it is sent to the doctor without any name attached. The patient is also prompted to refer other patients through the web site.

The dentist uses a service that automates this process for him.

So, a few thoughts come to mind:

  1. If you use a service like this (or do it yourself), you’re going to get a lot of reviews and mentions on Facebook. If you deliver great service to your clients, this could bring you a ton of new business through Facebook, through referrals, and by virtue of the positive reviews you will then be able to post on your web site.
  2. If you do this and you don’t deliver great service, you’re going to kill your practice. Of course if you don’t deliver great service, your practice is already dying; this will just speed things up.
  3. If you want to deliver great service so you can survive and prosper and get lots of positive reviews and referrals, set up something like this because it will force you to work hard to deliver great service.
  4. If you’re nervous about what your clients might say, do it in two steps. First, send clients a questionnaire and ask for feedback. Ask for permission to quote them by name, first name only, or anonymously. If they send back positive feedback, contact them again, thank them for taking the time to respond, and ask them to post their review on Facebook (or whatever). If the feedback is less than positive, apologize and ask what you need to do better.

When he was mayor of New York, the late Ed Koch, was famous for walking around town and asking people, “How am I doing?” He heard a lot of criticism and complaints from his constituents, but he also heard a lot of praise.

Your clients will help you grow your practice. All you have to do is ask.

If you want to earn more and work less, get this.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Marketing legal services, Social media marketing Tagged With:

How clients find lawyers

February 28, 2013 by
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My wife needed dental work. After she was seen by her dentist and the work was scheduled, she saw an article in one of the newsletters she reads about a new and “better” procedure. After reading more about the new procedure, she was convinced that this is what she wanted to do and started looking for a dentist who offered it. She found one close by, had her first visit, and booked an appointment to have the work done.

She found “candidates” through a search engine. She choose the dentist she did because

  • They have a great web site. It has lots of information about the dentist and their office, and about the technology and procedures they use. There are also lots of testimonials on the site.
  • They have over 200 five star reviews on Yelp
  • They were friendly and helpful on the phone and when she went in for her first visit. They made her feel like she could trust them and that they cared about her.

By contrast, aside from not offering this new procedure, her now former dentist

  • Doesn’t have a web site
  • Doesn’t have any reviews on Yelp, or anywhere else she could find
  • Didn’t make her feel like he cared

Oh yeah, the new dentist is actually less expensive than the former dentist. Not critical, but nice.

People find lawyers like they find dentists. I’m just saying.

Marketing is easy. But you have do it. Here’s how.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Where will your next client come from?

February 27, 2013 by
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Check your records. Where did your last twenty clients come from?

It’s important. You need to know because the odds are that’s where your next client will come from.

If most of your clients are coming from ads or search engines or social media, that’s not good. Most of your clients should be coming from referrals.

Nothing wrong with ads or search or social media. But if you’re doing a good job for your clients and you’re building relationships with professionals and other referral sources, at least seventy to eight percent of your new clients should come from referrals.

If your clients aren’t thrilled with your work and the way you treat them, you need to fix that. If you’re not letting clients know that you appreciate their referrals, you need to start. If you aren’t sending referrals and helping to promote your professional contacts, this needs to be a top priority.

Referrals are waiting.

Now, if most of your business does come from referrals, congratulations. But don’t rest on your laurels. You need to figure out how to get even more referrals.

And better referrals.

Better referrals? Yes. Bigger cases, higher paying clients, clients with lots of legal work, and clients who have lots of contacts they can also refer.

Better referrals.

You can get better referrals by continuing to improve on what you’re already doing. Even better service and more value. Not just sending referrals to your professional contacts when they fall in your lap, but actually going out of your way to look for people you can refer or introduce to them.

To get better referrals, you also need to make room for them.

Prune your client list and dismiss clients who aren’t the best. Get rid of the trouble makers, the no-pays and slow-pays. Let go of clients who can’t or won’t pay top dollar. Decline to take the smaller cases.

If you continue to accept less than the best clients, you’re telling the universe that you will settle for less and that’s what you’ll continue to attract.

It’s like cleaning out your closets: if you want new and better, you have to get rid of the old and tattered.

Marketing for smart people: The Attorney Marketing Formula.

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Filed Under: Client relations, Marketing legal services, Referral sources, Referrals Tagged With: ,

What to say when a prospective client’s first question is, “How much?”

February 26, 2013 by
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The phone rings and a prospective client is on the line. His first question is, “How much do you charge for [a service]?” Is this a danger sign? Should you avoid price shoppers like him?

Yes, it is a danger sign. This is someone who is no doubt calling several attorneys and comparing fees. We can assume he intends to choose the lowest priced attorney and I will assume that this is not you.

But that doesn’t mean you should automatically reject him.

Just because someone is shopping price doesn’t mean he is incapable of understanding and appreciating value. Once he sees that you offer so much more than other attorneys, even though your “price” is higher, he may persuade himself that you are the better choice.

The trick is in how you handle his question.

If the initial question is, “How much do you charge for a Living Trust?” most attorneys would answer with a dollar amount. If you do that, then what you offer is a commodity and commodities are bought and sold based on price.

Let other attorneys compete on price. You don’t sell a commodity like they do, you offer professional services and your services are unique.

The better answer is something like this: “We offer a variety of estate planning and protection packages; the attorney needs to speak to you to determine which one is best for your situation.”

You want to be different from other attorneys. You don’t want people comparing the price of your apples to the price of their apples. Get prospects into the office where you can do a complete job of diagnosing their needs and showing them benefits they won’t get from other attorneys.

You should be prepared to give callers a broad idea of what they can expect if they hire you, however. If your least expensive package is $15,000, and they have a $1,000 budget, you’ll be doing both of you a favor by letting them know.

When someone asks, “How much?” answer with a lawyer-like, “It depends.” Because if it doesn’t depend, you are selling a commodity and there will always be someone else with a lower price.

Want to know how to ask for (and get) higher fees than other attorneys? This has the answer.

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Increase your income, Law office management Tagged With: ,

Why thin lawyers starve to death

February 25, 2013 by
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You can almost hear the death rattle.

Lawyers who are too thin, offering too many services to “anyone who can pay” instead of a focusing on what they do best and offering it the most profitable clients. Settling for leftovers when they could be enjoying a feast.

Forbes did a piece on why too many choices hurt a small business. (Replace “small business” with “law practice.”) When you offer too many options or otherwise spread yourself too thin, you have problems:

  1. Focus. Trying to be all things to all people dilutes your efforts to become excellent. (One reason specialists earn more is that they focus on what they do best .)
  2. Brand. You can’t build your reputation or stand out from the crowd when you do everything for everybody.
  3. Delays. If you give customers too many choices, you make it harder for them to choose. (I don’t think this bedevils most attorneys, but we do need to keep things simple when presenting our services because “a confused mind chooses nothing.”)
  4. Capital. The more products you offer, the more you have to invest in inventory. (The more practice areas you offer, the more you have to invest in maintaining your skills, library, procedural safeguards, and mental energy.)
  5. Competition. You can’t compete with everybody. (Better to be a big fish in a modest sized pond than a guppy in an ocean.)

The author says that to be successful, small business owners should develop a niche expertise and I agree. Focus on what you do best. Offer it to the best clients. Let go of the rest.

Marketing is easier when you focus. More effective, too. Choose one or two strategies and master them. Spend an hour on one thing instead of a few minutes on ten things.

When it comes to your health, being thin may be in, but in building a law practice, fat is where its at.

Focus is one of the six keys in The Attorney Marketing Formula. Learn more here.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services Tagged With:

Post Google calendar events to Evernote with KanMeet extension for Chrome

February 22, 2013 by
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In Evernote for Lawyers I wrote about how I use Evernote with my calendar, specifically, to track future events and tickler items. Until Evernote comes out with a native solution, I use a manual workaround–posting “note links” on my calendar that allow me to call up the note that corresponds to the calendared event.

I said I expected we would see various third party tools for coordinating calendars with Evernote. I’ve tried Tusk Tools, a Windows app, and Zendone, a web and iOS app. Both connect your Google calendars to your Evernote account, and do this well.

Yesterday, I discovered KanMeet, an extension for Chrome. It does not offer two way synchronization between calendar and Evernote, but simply sends newly created calendar events to Evernote as a new note. Not a perfect solution, but what it does it does well.

When you install the extension, it adds an option to the new event creation page to “Post to Evernote.” Events are sent to your designated Evernote notebook when you click, “Create Event,” or “Save.”

After installing the extension and restarting my browser, I created a new event, filled in the details, and saved. A new note appeared in my default Evernote notebook with the details of the event. I can then add additional details, documents, checklists, or anything else that might be needed for the appointment or event.

Very handy.

But because KanMeet does not offer two-way synchronization, on the day of the event, you have to find the note manually. Here are three ways I can think of for making this easier:

  1. You can record the “creation date” of the note (the date you created the event) in the details section of the event. Then, you can search for the note in Evernote by creation date, with or without additional key words.
  2. A second method is to add an “Event” tag to the note and click on that tag to find all of your event-related notes. They will, however, be listed in the order you created them, not the order of the event date, so you would also want to use key words or other tags in your search. Alternatively, you can put all event-related notes in an Event notebook.
  3. The most accurate way to find the note is to paste the Evernote “note link” into the details section of the event detail on your calendar. This is what I currently do. On the day of the event, that link will call up the corresponding note. However, the note link is not clickable (Google’s limitation) and you have to copy/paste the link into a new browser window to launch the Evernote note. It’s a clumsy extra step but it works. (NB: on iOS, the note link is clickable in the calendar apps I’ve tried.)

Despite its limitations, KanMeet works well and does save time. Until Evernote provides us with another option, such as the long awaited “Due Date” field which will allow us to add future dates to notes and sort by those dates, this allows me to quickly create notes from calendared events.

To use KanMeet, you must use Google Calendar and Chrome. You can find it in the Chrome store.

Have you found other ways to coordinate your calendar with Evernote? Please share in the comments.

Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity is available here.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What to say when someone asks, “What’s new?”

February 21, 2013 by
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How do you typically answer when someone asks you, “What’s new?”

One expert says that answering, “Nothing much,” squanders an opportunity to promote your practice. She says, “Highlight recent successes or certain aspects of your practice.”

What do I think? I think that most people don’t really care about what’s new in your world, they’re just being polite.

They really don’t want to hear about how great you are doing, unless it benefits them. “I just settled a multi-million dollar case,” would be great news to share if you are talking to your spouse or partner. Nobody else cares.

Most people aren’t listening, anyway. They’re thinking about themselves. Their problems. Their unfinished business. If they have good news, they’re thinking about that and waiting for you to stop talking so they can tell you about it.

Yeah, maybe that’s a bit cynical. But no less true.

If you do have some good news, it’s okay to share it. But be brief. If they don’t pick up on it and ask for details, move on.

If they do pick up on it and ask questions, the odds are they’re still being polite. Don’t fall into the trap of telling them all about it. Turn the conversation back to them.

Let the other guy do most of the talking. Ask about his work or what he’s doing for fun. Ask him, “What’s new with you?”

If you don’t have good news to share, please don’t tell them about your problems. Yes, they might be happy to hear that your life is actually worse than theirs, but you can forget about them hiring you.

“What’s new?” “Nothing much. How about you?”

Works for me.

Want more clients? Click here.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking Tagged With: , ,
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