David M. Ward, Author at The Attorney Marketing Center

What would have to be true for that to happen?

September 7, 2022 by David M. Ward

I’ve heard versions of this question from different sources. I like it because it makes you think, not just about what you want but the prerequisites for making it so.

“What would have to be true for me to double my referrals this year,“ for example.

What conditions would have to be in place? What additional skills, knowledge, or contacts would you have to acquire? What would you have to do?

A question like this can lead you to new insights, ideas to research, and projects to get to work on.

It will also make you think about things you know but haven’t thought about or done.

You can take it deeper. If you said you would need to have more referral sources to double your referrals, you might then ask, “What would have to be true in order to get more clients and professional contacts to send me more business?“

You might get even better answers by making the question more specific: “What would have to be true in order to get 50% of my clients to send me 1 additional referral this year?”

You can use this approach for any goal. “If I wanted to work a 4-day week and continue to earn what I now earn, what would have to be true?“ for example.

You can also ask follow-up questions: “If [that] was true, what else would need to be true?“

The key to these types of questions is that they are assumptive. When you ask this way, you direct your subconscious mind to look for the answer you’ve told it is there. It will keep looking until it finds it.

Choose a subject. Phrase the question any way you like, as long as it assumes a favorable response. Write down the ideas that come to mind.

Any of these ideas might be the precise idea you need to make your goal come true.

How to get your clients to send you more referrals

Filed Under: Personal development, Referrals, success

4 categories of newsletter content

September 6, 2022 by David M. Ward

What kinds of content can you post in your newsletter or on your blog? Actually, there are only four types and each has a different purpose:

Pure content. Providing information to your readers about legal matters or anything else they might find important, interesting, or even fun. This includes teaching them what you do and how you do it, and what they can do themselves.
Stories. You might write about clients you’ve helped, prospects you’ve spoken to, cases you’ve handled, speakers you’ve heard, books you’ve read, other lawyers (and their cases or clients), and a lot more. Stories illustrate your points and provide context and relatability.
Promotion. Selling your services (or products), or persuading readers to do something — sign up for an event, download a report, share a link, provide feedback, watch your video, and anything else you’d like them to do.
Hybrid content combines some or all of the above. You might write about a legal situation you handled recently and use one or more stories to illustrate what happened, followed by promoting a free consultation or upcoming webinar so the reader can learn more.

You can find an example of these categories here, in this post.

What you’re reading is content, of course. Yes, content can be very basic and brief, and it doesn’t have to be unique, just informative.

I found this list when I was reading a longer post about general email marketing and adapted it for the legal market. Yes, this is a story, and stories can be about you and nothing more than a mere mention of where you heard or read something.

Finally, I will promote my newsletter course for attorneys which shows how to start a newsletter, build a list, create content that does most of your marketing (like mine does for my business), and do everything you need to do in less than an hour per week.

And that’s an example of how you can promote a product, service, or event in a single sentence and without hyperbole. Mention what it is and some benefits, and provide a link where readers can learn more.

Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters

When blawgs ruled the earth

September 2, 2022 by David M. Ward

Ten million years BC, before blogs ruled the earth, a few early adopters with law degrees ventured forward into the world of weblogs and brought forth something they called blawgs.

That was then and now is now and the question is, are blogs (or blawgs) still relevant for lawyers?

I’d have to say a big no to blawgs, and a really big yes to blogs.

Blogs are relevant and valuable for lawyers today more than ever. Because when someone wants to find a lawyer, or check out a lawyer they’ve found, a lawyer’s content is one of the best ways to do that.

And a blog is one of the best ways to deliver it.

When a lawyer wants to give the world a glimpse of what they know and do, posting articles is much better than merely posting a list of practice areas and bullet points.

Also known as most lawyers’ websites.

A blog can also post podcasts (and transcripts), videos (and transcripts), forms and checklists and reports visitors can download, photos depicting the lawyer’s glorious battles (and friendly staff), and a a contact form and email signup form on every page.

Lawyers with a blog get free traffic (and leads therefrom), because content (done right) is usually seen as more authoritative and valuable (and thus worthy of a search engine’s blessing) than a simple directory listing.

Clients and other professionals are also more likely to send people to a blog for the same reason.

So yeah, content is (still) king.

Competition? Too many lawyers have blogs, you say?

Really? So I suppose you don’t think too many lawyers have websites?

Do people still read, you ask?

Only those who are looking for an attorney and want to know something about what said attorney thinks and knows and can do for them (or someone they might refer).

Okay, okay, but writing a blog takes a lot of time.

Write faster. Or less often. Or get help.

Or don’t do any of that, just put up a webpage with a list of your practice areas, your bio and some fancy graphics. That’s enough, isn’t it?

If you were looking for an attorney, would that be enough for you?

How to write a blog that makes your phone ring

Filed Under: Blogging

Put this in your phone

September 1, 2022 by David M. Ward

A Connecticut attorney and long time subscriber recently wrote a newsletter article with some common sense advice for her readers about what to do if they get served.

Essentially, “It’s scary. Don’t panic. Call or text me (and her phone number).“

Good advice for any lawyer to offer his or her clients, because anyone can be sued or subpoenaed, most don’t know what to do and may indeed panic, and we want them to know they can and should turn to us for help.

Which is why this attorney also recommended her readers program her phone number into their phone, “because you never know when you might need it”.

This is also smart because while most clients won’t get served, they might think of other legal issues they need to ask about and having the phone number programmed in their phone makes it more likely they will call.

It might also prompt them to think of their attorney when someone they talk to has a legal matter. “Let me give you my lawyer’s phone number. . .” means more calls for the lawyer.

I really like her final suggestion, that readers program her phone number not under her name but under the word “Lawyer,“ because, ‘“when you need a lawyer, you might not remember my name but you will certainly know you need a lawyer.“

Small thing, but a big thing. Maybe a very big thing. Which is why I’m stealing this idea and passing it along to you to use in your newsletter.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Referrals

You had one job

August 31, 2022 by David M. Ward

You had one job. You still do, and you always will.

I’m talking about persuading prospective clients who need your help to choose you as their lawyer and to sign up. Now, not someday/maybe.

If you don’t do that job, you’re letting them go their way without getting the help they need (and want, but may hesitate to get).

If you don’t persuade them to take action, their problems might worsen. Become more painful, more difficult to solve, and more expensive. They might also lead to secondary problems.

Yeah, a mess.

If you don’t do everything you can to make the case, create urgency, and make it easy to say “yes,” you’re doing them a disservice. (You’re not doing yourself any good, either).

Don’t wait for them to figure it out. Tell them. Give it all you’ve got. Tell them how it is and how it might be, without sugarcoating or equivocating. They need to hear this from you and hear it often.

They need to hear it in your posts and articles. They need to hear it in your presentations. They need to hear it when you speak with them and write to them.

Give them the facts, tell them what to do, and why.

That doesn’t mean being obnoxious or sounding like a broken record. You should talk to them as you would a friend who is in trouble, or might be, and needs your advice and help.

It also doesn’t mean showering them with nothing but doom and gloom. A litany of what might happen if they don’t act, try to fix it themselves, hire the wrong attorney, or wait too long.

Important points, but nobody wants to listen to a never-ending stream of awfulness. Too much of that and people shut down. And unsubscribe.

So make sure you also give them a healthy dose of benefits and happy endings. The good things that happen when take the action you recommend.

The trick is to know how much of each and how often. The answer to that is a big fat “it depends”.

But you need both. The bad and the good, the warnings and the solutions.

And you need to keep at it until they hire you.

Their future (and yours) depends on it.

Filed Under: Closing the sale

What you do is more important than how you do it

August 30, 2022 by David M. Ward

I’m good at a few things. Most things I’m just average. Better than some, not as good as others. Some things, I’m bad at but do them because they have to be done (by me) and don’t take a lot of time.

How about you? Pretty much the same story?

The thing is, somewhere we got it into our heads that we should work at getting better at everything we do. But that’s not true.

Excellence in a few things is much more important. Besides those few, our core competencies, everything else takes a back seat.

But. . . having them in our back seat matters.

Let’s take our old friend marketing for example.

It may not be your thing. You may not be good at it, you have to force yourself to do it, spend too much and accomplish too little. But at least you’re doing it.

Which means you’re getting better results than the lawyer who does no marketing.

Because what you do is more important than how you do it.

How you do things speaks to your efficiency. What you do is far more important because doing it at all contributes to your effectiveness.

Want to write a book but not sure you can? “Write two crappy pages a day,“ Tim Ferriss recommends. Want to grow your practice but don’t have enough time or skills? “15 minutes a day (doing anything marketing related)” says I.

Over time, you can accomplish a lot by writing two crappy pages a day or doing anything marketing related 15 minutes daily.

Much more than you would if you didn’t.

The converse is also true. You may be a brilliant writer or consummate marketer, but if you do no writing or marketing, you can’t expect much to happen.

Because what you do, and don’t do, is more important than how you do it (or could).

Filed Under: Productivity, success

I like pain. It feels so good when it stops.

August 29, 2022 by David M. Ward

So, how was your week?

Mine started with back spasms that lasted two days and nights without stopping. That was fun.

I had website problems and spent a very long time writing to and talking to tech support who took forever to get back to me and, sadly, had nothing helpful to tell me.

Next up, equipment failure. Specifically, a modem that wasn’t modulating or demodulating properly but was working enough that I didn’t know it.

And, to top it all off, our power went out and stayed out for nearly an entire day, only to go out again for several hours two days later. No power, no air conditioning.

But all is back to normal. I’m a happy camper.

My back is fine, thank you.

A new modem works crazy fast. Believe it or not, the old one was causing the website issue, but now, everything is steady as she goes.

The power is on, but we just ordered a couple of power bricks for our phones, just in case.

A bad week, yes, but not so bad when you compare it to what some folks are going through, and we’re grateful for that.

I finished the week by finding a shiny new task management app to play with and had fun all weekend. I was getting bored with my previous set up and this might be just what the doctor ordered.

So, if you have a bad week or a rough time recently, remind yourself that problems usually get resolved and that bad times make the good times that much better. And they will get better.

If you’re having trouble believing that right now, go find a new app to play with. It might not solve your problems, but it couldn’t hurt.

Filed Under: Inspiration

The big ‘mo’

August 25, 2022 by David M. Ward

When you study the lives of massively successful people, you often notice that there was a defining moment or incident in their life that accelerated their growth.

Something happened and they got big, fast.

Not always. Many take years to come into their own. But more than a few don’t and the reason is because something allowed them to achieve momentum.

Sometimes momentum occurs because of a strategy. Sometimes a new person comes into their life—a key client, an employee, an advisor, or a source of referrals. Sometimes it’s an opportunity that opens new doors, or an influx of cash which they put to good use.

You can’t predict what it will be, when it will happen, or to what extent. In fact, these kinds of things often sneak up on you.

But momentum isn’t always a lucky occurrence. There is something you can do to create it. You can create momentum by compressing time.

Compressing time means doing more in less time. It means moving quicker than you usually do. You take less time off. Work longer. Try more things and more often.

Instead of making one or two calls, you make ten. Instead of writing one article, you write three. Instead of waiting for someone to follow up with you, you follow up with them and more than once.

You don’t wait for things to happen, you make them happen. You compress time and create momentum by hustling.

Because you’re moving faster, you might make more mistakes. You don’t always know how to do what you’re doing because you’re learning as you go. But by moving faster, even if mistakes occur, more things happen, some of which might lead to big results.

But establishing momentum is just the first step. Once you create momentum, you must sustain it by continuing to hustle. If you don’t, if you slack off, you lose momentum. You need to keep going long enough that even if things do slow down, you won’t fall too far back.

And then, once you have created and sustained momentum, if you want to make it to the big leagues, you have to advance momentum. This is where you bring in other people, more capital, better systems, and expand into other markets.

That’s how you build an empire.

You can create momentum, sustain it, and advance it, and you can start by hustling.

How to create momentum in your practice

Filed Under: success

Should lawyers outsource content creation?

August 19, 2022 by David M. Ward

You can hire people to write blog posts and newsletters and other content. Should you?

It depends on what you intend to do with it.

If you intend to use your content to connect with people who can hire you or refer you, the answer is no.

Write your own content. You can’t outsource you.

People connect with you and hire you because they relate to you. They hire you not just because of what you know, but because of who you are.

Let them hear your voice, not a generic voice speaking about generic legal issues. Let them hear about the cases and clients you’ve helped and what you did to help them.

Let them get a taste of your personality and a sense of what it is like to have you as their attorney.

You can have people help you with research and editing your content, but that content should come from you.

On the other hand, if you intend to use content to generate traffic and leads, for advertising and direct mail and other purposes where a “generic” you might be sufficient, it’s okay to hire people to create that content for you.

Some attorneys buy “canned” newsletters from companies that provide the same newsletters to many attorneys. The attorneys don’t pretend this content is coming from them, however. It is (or should be) positioned as “from the firm”.

Attorneys who buy canned content know (or should know) this content won’t do much more for them than allow them to put something in their subscribers’ mailboxes and remind them they are still around.

There’s nothing wrong with this.

It’s better than sending no content to clients and prospects. Much better.

Some attorneys send out a canned newsletter and also write their own content, which they publish in a separate newsletter.

Their content is by them and from them and uses stories and examples from their practice. It is this content that builds trust and relationships with readers.

Similarly, some attorneys outsource content for a blog, and use that blog to attract search traffic. They might have several such blogs, each focused on different practice areas and keywords and markets, all of which send traffic to their regular website or into their lead capture funnels.

But again, they don’t (or shouldn’t) position that blog or those blogs as having been written by them.

They might also write their own content, but, as with a newsletter, it should be separate from the outsourced lead generation blog.

Outsourcing some of your content creation might be right for your practice. But it will never do what your own content can do.

How to write an email newsletter that brings in more business

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Newsletters, Online Marketing