Do you have too many clients?

November 8, 2011 by
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Attorneys with too many clients to serveMost attorneys say they want to get more clients but if they’re not ready for more clients, it can actually cost them.

If you can’t serve your clients, they aren’t going to stay. You must have the staff and other resources in place to do the legal work and support functions or new clients will leave as quickly as they came.

What about “one time” clients? You’re going to handle their divorce or bankruptcy or injury claim, do their estate plan or handle their closing, and you’ll probably never see them again. Can you have too many of them?

Yes. These clients may not themselves return but if you treat them well, they can and will send you referrals. If you don’t, not only will they not send you new business, they’ll tell everyone they know that you are sloppy or slow and did not do a good job for them.

Taking on too many clients is especially a problem for firms that grow quickly. Legal services do not scale in the same way selling widgets does. We are in a personal service business and we need people to provide that service. It takes time to find the right people, hire and train them. Unbridled growth can cause serious financial problems, inordinate stress, and an increased risk of malpractice for the firm that is unprepared.

Rapid law firm growth is not uncommon. A dramatic upsurge in “intakes” can occur for a variety of reasons. Every firm needs to have a plan in place now, before that growth occurs.

If your practice tripled in the next 90 days, where will you go to find the personnel, the technology, and the other resources you need to accommodate that growth?

Will you partner with another firm? Turn away the smaller business to handle the bigger cases or clients? Will you hire a head hunting firm or consultant?

Start thinking about these things right now, and not just because you need to be prepared. Think about these things because in doing so, you will send a message to your subconscious mind that you are ready for and expecting that growth. You will then start seeing things you need to see and attracting the information and the contacts you need to make that growth a reality.

Too many clients? A nice problem when you’re ready for it.

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Filed Under: Client relations, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing Plan, Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Are you getting the RIGHT things done?

November 4, 2011 by
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three most important tasks for todayPeter Drucker once said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” Far more important than “doing things right,” he said, is “doing the right things”.

Every day, I review my task lists and choose the three “most important tasks” for the day. My most important tasks are those which advance my most important objectives. My “MITs” go at the top of my list and I make an effort to do them before I do anything else. If I get these three things done, I consider it a good day.

Three is a good number, but sometimes there are only two. There are days when a fourth MIT slips through and makes it to my list, but I try to focus on no more than three.

Three MITs keeps me from getting overwhelmed by a longer list and gives me a sense of accomplishment. When I get my three MITs done, I then take care of less important tasks. Or, if it’s early in the day and I feel like it, I might add another MIT to the list.

At times, you may find it difficult to choose three MITs. You may have ten things that MUST get done today. No problem. Of the ten, which three are the MOST IMPORTANT? Make those your MITs and do them first.

Each day, you will have MITs and you will have other tasks. The other tasks may be important and need to be done. They may even be urgent. I’m not telling you to ignore these other tasks. Do them, but whenever possible, do them after you do your MITs.

The GTD methodology helps me to get things done. A daily list of MITs helps me to get the right things done.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Using Followupthen.com email reminder service (with or without Evernote)

November 3, 2011 by
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Follow up then and evernoteAs you know, I use Evernote for everything: notes, writing, web clips, and task and project management. (Read my posts about how I use Evernote).

A missing element in using Evernote for task management is calendar integration. If I want to see a note on a certain day in the future, I have to manually put a reminder on my calendar, with a link to that note. I calendar “ticklers” to remind me of all kinds of things: reviewing a task, starting a task, calls–anything I need to do or review at a future date.

There is only one issue with this, but one I can live with until something better comes along: The note links that I paste into my Google Calendar aren’t clickable. To find the linked note, I copy and paste the link into a new browser window, hit enter, and the note is launched in my Windows desktop client.

Followupthen.com is an email reminder service that can be used to send reminders to yourself or anyone else (e.g., employees, partners, clients), at pre-set days and times. For example, you can use the service to send yourself an email reminder to call a client three days from today or to begin working on a brief three hours from now.

I’ve tried the followupthen.com service and I like it. It’s easy to use and requires no registration. Simply send an email (To, CC, or BCC) to (time interval) [@] followupthen.com to schedule a future email. The service is free and they have an upgraded version with additional features.

You don’t have to use Evernote to benefit from the Followupthen.com service, but you might want to. Fellow attorney and Evernote lover, Daniel Gold, author of a new ebook on using Evernote for GTD, just posted a video showing how he uses the Evernote Note Links feature with Followupthen.com to remind him of his Evernote tasks:

[mc src=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAsKUFHlA60″ type=”youtube”]Evernote and followupthen.com reminders[/mc]

Followupthen.com may sound like the ideal solution to Evernote’s lack of calendar integration, but there are two issues that preclude me from using it exclusively:

  1. The Evernote note link that is returned to you in the reminder email isn’t clickable (at least not in my chrome browser). I still have to copy and paste it as I do with links in my calendar. This may not be the case if you use Outlook or another email client, but I still have the extra step I have when using gCal. Of course you can use the reminder without note links but then, once reminded, you have to search to find the note in Evernote.
  2. Email isn’t as reliable as a calendar. If an email doesn’t arrive, or you don’t see it when it arrives, you won’t get another reminder. The corresponding task that lies buried in Evernote (or whatever you are using) might forever be forgotten. On my calendar, when I do my weekly review, I can see all of the tasks I did and did not do that week. To re-schedule a task, all I need to do (on gCal) is slide it to another day.

I recommend Followupthen.com but I don’t see it as the best solution for tracking reminders. I can see using it for reminders in addition to using a calendar or other application, but not as a replacement.

Evernote said they are going to release a “due date” field, at which point we will be able to use Evernote itself or other third party applications for reminders.

If you use GTD and Evernote (or want to) and you want to know how to use the two together, Dan’s ebook is only $5. (My review). Dan is currently running a promotion and will be giving away one year of Evernote Premium.

If you are new to Evernote and want to get up to speed quickly, Brett Kelly’s “Evernote Essentials” ebook is highly recommended.

What are your thoughts on Followupthen.com and Evernote reminders?

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

The one competitor no attorney can afford to ignore

November 2, 2011 by
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competition for legal servicesMarketing legal services can be cut throat. And yet I often write that while attorneys should keep an eye on their competition, they should not fear them. Competition makes us better lawyers. It educates and expands the market for our services. And it provides us with a way to convince prospects to choose us by showing them how we are different or better.

But there is one competitor that no attorney can afford to ignore.

This competitor is stealthy. If you aren’t careful, he will steal clients from under your nose and you will never know it. There is no competition more powerful, or more deadly than this one, and you need to be prepared.

Who is he? He goes by several names: apathy, indecision, and fear.

Your biggest competition isn’t the other attorneys in your market. Your prospects have another option, as Seth Godin reminds us: the option of doing nothing.

You may do a good job of showing prospects why they should choose you instead of any other attorney, but you must first show them why they need to hire any attorney. If they don’t see the need or their fears preclude them from making a decision, you’ve lost the client, just as surely as you would had he hired the guy down the street.

The good news is that you can defeat this competitor. Make sure your prospects understand the risks of doing nothing and the benefits for making the right decision. Tell them the facts and share the stories.

Once they know why they need to hire an attorney and are persuaded to do so, then show them why the attorney they hire should be you.

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Filed Under: Closing the sale, Handling objections, Marketing legal services, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Can pro bono legal work help you grow your law practice? Yes it can.

November 1, 2011 by
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marketing legal services with pro bono workWhen I opened my own office shortly after law school, I had an abundance of free time and a lack of clients or experience. Once or twice a week, I volunteered the day at a legal clinic for women. The clients had mostly domestic violence and other family law issues. When I began, I knew very little about family law but I quickly learned. I was able to use those skills in my private practice.

Last week was “pro bono” week. This article presents the “Top 5 Reasons to Do Pro Bono Work“. I’m sure I can lay claim to all five. The article misses a reason, however. My pro bono work helped me to build my practice.

The clinic I worked at allowed us to offer our paid services to the clients. Granted, most of them had little or no money, but I did get some paying work. And little or nothing was definitely better than nothing. It allowed my nascent practice to stay afloat, which allowed me to continue to volunteer.

I also got some referrals from those clients. Yes, most of them were in the same financial shape as the clients who referred them, but not all of them.

I was also able to network with the administrators of the clinic, their benefactors, and the other attorneys who volunteered. I met people who introduced me to others and as my network grew, so did my practice.

I’m not ashamed to admit that growing my practice was one of the reasons I volunteered at the legal clinic. I don’t think any of the hundreds of clients I saw for free or almost free would have any objections.

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Career satisfaction, Image, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Networking, Referrals Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing legal services: doing things you don’t want to do

October 31, 2011 by
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Conventional wisdom says that success lies outside of your comfort zone. If you want something you don’t have, you have to change what you are doing and this will probably be uncomfortable, as is anything new. Over time, you will become comfortable with your new activities and you may actually enjoy them.

But then, you will have a new comfort zone. To get to the next level in your growth, you will once again need to go beyond your comfort zone into new territory.

Success, therefore, requires continually being uncomfortable.

This is what we are told, but is it true?

Let’s take marketing for example. Let’s say you really don’t like networking. You’re shy, you don’t like being away from your family, you’re not a “people person”. Whatever. You just don’t like it.

But networking is a proven way for attorneys to build their practices. So what if you don’t like it, there are lots of things we have to do in life that we would rather not do. Shouldn’t you just get out of your comfort zone and do it anyway?

No.

If you tried it and truly don’t like it. . . you don’t like it. Don’t do it.

There are other ways to bring in clients. You don’t have to continue to do things that make you uncomfortable, you can do something else.

Ultimately, success lies inside your comfort zone.

When you like something, you’ll continue doing it. The more you do it, the better you get at it. The better you get, the more successful you will be and the more you will enjoy doing it. And the cycle will continue.

In contrast, when you force yourself to do something you despise, you are miserable. You’ll find ways to avoid going to your networking event, even to the extent of getting sick. You won’t get better at it and your lack of results will only frustrate you and make you hate it even more.

Doing what you enjoy doing is the recipe for success.

Don’t fight how you feel, don’t try to talk yourself into it, and don’t do it because you think you must.

There, did I just hear a big sigh of relief from you?

Good. I’m glad I could help. Just don’t be too quick in deciding what is and what isn’t inside your comfort zone.

Often, we decide we don’t like something based on too little information. Sometimes, we never try at all, basing our opinion on what we’ve heard from others or what we imagine. Sometimes, we try it once, have a bad experience, and never try again.

Don’t give up too soon and don’t assume that when you try something and it is uncomfortable, it will always be so.

Give it a fair try. Study and learn how to do it better. Find mentors who can counsel you. Give the new experience enough time for the newness to rub off.

If it really isn’t your cup of tea, relax, you don’t have to do it. On the other hand, you might discover some things you thought you hated that you’re actually quite good at and now enjoy.

My wife and I grew up with dogs in the house. Cats? Not for us. We don’t like them. All that changed when our daughter was young and wanted a pet but nobody wanted to walk a dog. So we got a cat. Then another.

We gave them a chance and today, Seamus and Andre are like members of the family. That’s Andre in the photo with me, sharing some love with his daddy.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Inspiration, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Seven Reasons Prospective Clients Don’t Hire an Attorney

October 28, 2011 by
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why clients don't hire attorneys lawyersIf prospective clients don’t hire you, there are only seven reasons:

  1. No need: They don’t need (or see the need for) what you offer.
  2. No want: They know they need it but they don’t want it.
  3. No trust: They don’t believe you can and will deliver (at all, when promised, or sufficient quality).
  4. No like: They just don’t like you: your attitude, how you answered their questions, “bad chemistry”.
  5. No urgency: They need and want it but “not now”. It’s not yet painful enough.
  6. No authority: They want to hire you but they need someone else’s permission (and can’t get it).
  7. No money: They want to hire you but they can’t afford it.

Any one of these reasons can knock you out of contention. But one of these reasons presents a bigger challenge for many attorneys than the other reasons, not because it is insurmountable (it isn’t) but because it creates so much frustration and wasted time.

Can you guess which one? Go ahead and read the list again. Give it some thought. I’ll be here when you get back. . .

Okay, what do you think?

It’s number two, “no want”.

If they don’t want it, they don’t want it. Fighting this will only frustrate you and alienate the client. He may have wanted it next year but because you pushed him, he will probably hire someone else.

This issue has confounded more sales people than any other issue in the history of sales. A customer doesn’t want the product but the salesman has been taught that it’s not a “no” until he’s heard it seven times and he should use the 37 scripted techniques he’s been taught for overcoming objections to convince the prospect to say yes.

Uck.

Oh they may get the sale. But the time and energy they spend in doing so is usually better spent finding someone else, someone who may have some questions or issues to resolve but otherwise WANTS what is being offered.

It’s no different with legal services.

Notwithstanding studies that prove that most sales take place after the fifth or seventh or twenty-seventh “no,” smart sales people and attorneys believe the prospect when he says he doesn’t want it.

You can overcome the objection. You can convince someone who doesn’t want what you offer to hire you anyway. It happens every day. Crafty sales techniques, fear and intimidation, and outright lies are used to get prospects to sign. The sales person or attorney rationalizes this by saying to themselves, “the prospect didn’t want the service, but they really did need it; all I did was help him to do what is in their best interests.”

But you don’t want these kinds of clients. You want clients who are thrilled they found you, relieved that you can help them achieve something they desperately desire.

You want the low hanging fruit.

I’m not saying you roll over and play dead. When a prospect hesitates, you must make sure he understands enough about his situation, the risks he faces, and the benefits he can get by hiring you. You must inform him. But if it’s a no, it’s a no. Move on.

What if nobody wants what you’re offering? What if you’re offering your services the right way, to the right people, and nobody’s buying? If the demand isn’t there for your services, you must also move on.

Just because you’re really good at (put your skill here) doesn’t mean the market wants it. If the demand isn’t there, you need to find out what the market does want and offer that.

Times change, people change, wants change. Yesterday, people wanted to protect what they owned. Today, they’re trying to replace what they owned and lost. Tomorrow, they may be looking for a place to live.

If business has been off for you, it might be because you haven’t been listening to your prospects and to the market. It’s time to do that.

Think of it this way, you can either create demand or you can satisfy demand that already exist. Guess which one is easier and more profitable?

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Filed Under: Closing the sale, Marketing legal services, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cutting costs can increase net income but it can also put you out of business

October 27, 2011 by
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cost-cutting-for-attorneys-law-firmsWhen attorneys are getting fewer clients and their income is waning, it’s only logical to look at cutting expenses. After all, every dollar you don’t spend on overhead is a dollar more in net income.

There are a lot of ways to reduce overhead. Go through your ledger (or bank and credit card statements) and I’m sure you’ll find many small items that can be reduced or eliminated. or a month expenses may not jump out at you, but when you add them up, you may find yourself spending thousands of dollars you don’t have to.

Also look at big items. Can you move to a smaller office? Can you work from home and use another attorney’s office to see clients? Can you get by with a less expensive car?

There’s one category of expense that you should not cut. In fact, when times are tough, it’s the one expense you should look at increasing. When times are tough you should spend more on marketing.

Attorney Philip Franckel explains why on his blog:

Reducing your advertising and marketing budget will cause your law firm. . . to fall further behind and allow your competitors to gain a substantial advantage. When revenues increases, you will have to start all over again. Additionally, all previous work and investment in branding will have been for nothing. In a bad economy, this is preciously the time to take advantage of lower marketing costs.

I agree completely. Think about it, the business is out there, at least enough business for YOU. If they aren’t finding you now, what makes you think they will find you later? You’ve got to help them find you. So when business is down, you must increase your marketing, not cut it.

Franckel also commented on another attorney who boasted that his firm had cut expenses by eliminating advertising contracts in favor of “variable” marketing expenses, ostensibly allowing the firm to spend more when they can and less when they cannot. Franckel points out that this strategy will wind up costing the firm more, not less:

Fixing marketing costs can be a huge benefit. When entering into a large five figure advertising spend on TV, I committed to a 12 month budget to fix the cost of media. This allowed me to pay the same known cost for media every month. Otherwise, I would have faced huge increases, or have been forced to temporarily discontinue advertising, because of temporary changes in media demand such as elections.

I agree with this, too. In the past, when I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on advertising, I saved as much as 70% and sometimes even more by locking in a yearly contract, versus what I would have paid “month to month”. (NB: I only agreed to the contracts, however, after testing the ads and the publications.)

Now, what about attorneys who don’t spend money on advertising or marketing? It may be time to consider it. You don’t have to start advertising if you’ve never done that before and don’t want to do it now. But how about improving your web site or joining a new networking group? How about doing a mailing to your former clients?

Note also that your time (spent marketing) is another expense. Don’t cut down on this, either.

When business is slow, yes, cut your overhead but don’t cut marketing. Investing more time and more dollars in growing your practice will always be the best way to increase your net income.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Internet killed all the good clients

October 26, 2011 by
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questions clients ask attorneys lawyersI’ve represented thousands of clients in my career. As far as I know, only one prospective client interviewed me and chose not to hire me. The rest I either signed up or I chose not to.

I say “as far as I know” because there may have been others who interviewed me and I wasn’t aware of it. But the woman who thanked me for my time and was never seen again stands out in my mind because the experience was so unusual.

New York criminal defense lawyer, Scott Greenfield, says that in the Internet age, things are different. People read articles and blog posts that provide lists of questions a well educated consumer should ask lawyers before retaining them, and that’s what they do. Questions like, “how many cases do you have,” “how many have you handled in the past,” and “how many have you won?” are now common.

The problem, Greenfield says, aren’t the questions but the prospective client’s inability to interpret the answers. Greenfield quotes Matt Brown’s original post at Tempe Criminal Defense:

They want numbers about my experience, my practice, the system, and their case. It’s because numbers make an unscientific decision like hiring a lawyer seem somewhat scientific. It’s a complex decision, and the idea of boiling the process down to comparing statistics comforts some people.

Unfortunately, a little knowledge can be a bad thing. A numbers-obsessed prospective client can easily end up worse-informed than someone who doesn’t ask any questions. The problem isn’t the information, but their perspective. Information, especially numbers, can be misleading without context.

Greenfield says this is a relatively recent phenomenon, and I agree. “Rarely did people run around interviewing a dozen criminal defense lawyers whose names they found online. They sought recommendations and then acted upon them. Weeks and months weren’t lost to interviews, not to mention many hours of both lawyer’s and potential client’s lives, in this strange new process.”

Matt Brown wrote about the challenge of being interviewed by a prospective client with a list of questions:

They wanted an exact number, so I told them. At the time, the number was fourteen. I immediately realized they weren’t going to hire me.

The number startled them. They asked me how I kept them all straight. Fourteen seemed like a huge number to them. Without a frame of reference, I might as well have told them I was too busy to handle the case.

One client hears “fourteen,” thinks that’s a big number and that you won’t have time to handle their case. The next client hears “fourteen” and thinks, “that’s all; you must not be very good.” This is an issue you must be prepared to deal with, but it’s not a problem. It’s an opportunity.

When a prospective client comes to see you, armed with a list of questions, it is an opportunity for you to educate him and give him the context they lack.

Show them what the numbers mean in the real world. Explain how attorneys work and how you are different. Tell him what he needs to know and give him credit for being intelligent enough to make the right decision. And ask him questions to find out what he wants and to make sure he understands what you are telling him.

You see, it’s not his job to interpret the numbers, it’s yours.

Most attorneys provide a proforma answer to these questions and cross their fingers. Some attorneys get frustrated and wish people would stop asking. Smart attorneys are not only prepared for these questions, they welcome them.

Questions from prospective clients open the door for you to demonstrate your knowledge, your experience, and your compassion. In teaching prospects what the articles do not, with patience and respect, you provide value to the prospective client that he doesn’t get anywhere else. That value fosters trust and ultimately, clients hire attorneys they feel they can trust.

That’s why referred clients ask so few questions. Because a friend referred them, they already trust you.

Yes, it takes effort on your part to earn that trust when a client finds you online. If you want their business, if you want them to choose you instead of the many other attorneys they find online, you need to give them a reason.

Take a few minutes to teach them what they need to know, answer their questions, and make sure they understand and are satisfied with your answers. The extra effort is worth it. Once they trust you and hire you, they will refer other clients to you and you won’t have to work so hard.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Referrals, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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