David M. Ward, Author at The Attorney Marketing Center

Why attorneys fail at marketing

April 4, 2022 by David M. Ward

Compared to everything else attorneys do, marketing is easy.

So why do so many attorneys mess it up?

It’s not because they lack smarts, charisma, or resources. It’s because they don’t do enough of it.

They write an article or two and then nothing for months. They meet a few people but never follow up. They get invited to do a presentation or interview, but don’t seek feedback (or listen to it) and don’t get invited back.

So they get disappointing results and conclude that “it” doesn’t work.

End of story.

The secret to success in marketing legal services is that there is no secret. As with any skill, you have to keep at it. Do it over and over again until you get good enough to see some meaningful results.

Your first effort might be crap. Do it again and you’ll get better. Keep doing it and eventually, you’ll get pretty good.

Simple. So why don’t they do it?

They might tell you it’s because they don’t have the time, but we all know that’s not true. I ask them, “If you knew for certain that you could triple your income in the next 12 months, would you find the time?“

They might tell you “it” won’t work for their practice area or market, or it might have worked in the past, but it doesn’t work anymore—but that’s not true, either.

If they’re honest, they’ll admit that they don’t keep at it because they don’t want to. They don’t like it, shouldn’t have to do it, feel it is beneath them.

But that’s their ego talking. They should tell their ego to shut up.

The attorneys who get good results from marketing don’t let their ego get in their way. They aren’t smarter, more skillful, or harder working than other attorneys.

They just kept at it.

End of story.

Marketing legal services made simple

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, success

A little pain goes a long way

April 1, 2022 by David M. Ward

People buy legal services to solve a problem. The bigger the problem (or potential problem they’re trying to prevent), the more motivated they are to do something about it.

They’re in pain and want relief. It’s your job to remind them about that.

In your presentations, articles, posts, videos, reports, and other marketing documents, the best thing you can do for your reader and prospective client is to remind them that they are in pain, or will be if they don’t take action, and tell them why their pain is unlikely to go away by itself.

Tell them what their problem is costing them—or will cost if they do nothing.

Tell them about ancillary problems this might cause and what those might cost.

Tell them about how bad things can get if they ignore the problem or wait too long to do anything about it.

And then present the solution you offer and tell them how to get it.

But don’t just “mention” their pain, dramatize it. Make sure they feel it in their gut. Get them to imagine the worst-case scenario and feel the urgency of their situation.

But (and this is important) don’t overdo it.

You don’t want to come off as an alarmist or make them think you’re trying too hard to get their business.

Easy on the drama queenery.

The other reason for not overdoing it is that you don’t want to scare them off.

If you frighten them too much, pile on the urgent talk, rail at them to do something immediately, they might put their head under the covers and do nothing.

Or run into the welcoming arms of another lawyer who sounds more sympathetic and hopeful.

State the problem. Agitate the problem and the pain it is causing or could cause. Present the solution. And close by talking about the benefits of that solution.

Always offer hope.

One of the simplest and most effective ways to do all of the above is to tell them about one or more of your other clients who were in the same situation before they came to you—and how they’re doing now.

A little pain goes a long way, but only if you also offer hope.

The Attorney Marketing Formula

Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Writing

Onboarding

March 31, 2022 by David M. Ward

There are two key moments in your client’s relationship with you that can make or break that relationship. The day you deliver the outcome or work product and the day they first become your client.

The first day is the most important of the two because it influences everything that happens after that.

New clients are often nervous, worried about their situation, and not yet sure they can trust you or the legal system. You may have met with them or spoken to them before, but everything changes when they write that first check.

Your new client onboarding process is your first and best opportunity to make them feel good about their decision to hire you, set the stage for a successful outcome, and lay the groundwork for repeat business and referrals.

When you do it right, the new client will have more confidence in you, be more hopeful about their situation, know what to expect and what they can do to help you help them.

No pressure.

Okay, there’s pressure. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to your onboarding process, and to regularly update and improve it.

Start with a list of goals. What do you want the new client to know, what do you want them to do, and most importantly, how do you want them to feel after they leave your office?

Then, make a list of what you can do to achieve those goals.

What will you tell them about

Their case
The law
The process and time table
Contingencies, risks, and options
Your office, staff, and resources
What happens first, what happens after that
What to do if they have questions
What you want them to do, and not do
What to expect about fees and costs

Will you introduce them to your staff? Give them a tour of your office?

Will you give them or send them (or direct them to download) any forms, checklists, documents—things to read and things to fill out?

And, because relationships can’t be only about the work, what will you ask about them about their personal life, and what will tell them about yours?

You’re not going to give them everything on their first visit—you don’t want to overwhelm them. Figure out what you will do immediately and schedule the rest.

When they leave your office, you want them to feel a sense of relief, knowing that their problem is in good hands. You’ll prove that to them in the weeks and months that follow, but it all starts on day one.

Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management

Who is Elvis Presley?

March 30, 2022 by David M. Ward

I did a double take when I came across a video with a woman looking at a picture of The King as she queries, “Who are you?” Turns out she knew who he was but hadn’t heard him sing a particular gospel song and was stunned at what he did with it.

But there are people, of all ages, who don’t know Elvis or Frank or Bing or other greats from the past.

Why do I mention this? To remind you that when you’re speaking or writing to a general audience, not everyone will know what you mean when you make a cultural or historical reference. And if that reference is important, it’s probably a good idea to add some context, to help them appreciate the reference and better remember your point.

If you “explain” too much, however, you risk a good portion of your audience rolling their eyes and thinking less of you for talking down to them.

“Of course Peggy Lee sang, ‘Is that all there is?‘ Who doesn’t know that?“

So, as a practical matter, you shouldn’t assume your audience knows nothing, any more than you should assume they know everything.

How do you find the right balance? You have to know your audience. And appeal to your ideal client rather than everyone who might visit your digital door.

If you’re writing about estate planning, for example, and your ideal client is in an older age group, don’t even think of explaining you mean Presley, not Costello.

Nor should you spend a lot of time explaining the need for estate planning. You can safely assume your readers know they need estate planning; that’s why they’re reading your blog.

Know your audience. Be aware of the need to explain certain things, but not others. Err on the side of explaining too much rather than explaining nothing.

And be cautious about using the phrase, “as you know”.

Filed Under: Communication, Content creation, Writing

Tell less to sell more

March 29, 2022 by David M. Ward

When a prospective client goes online to look for a lawyer, they’re usually looking for help with a single legal matter. One case, one problem, one issue.

Even if they have several issues, one issue is usually the most pressing and they search for a lawyer or firm who can help them with that problem.

They might be interested in hearing about your other services and solutions at some point, but right now, they want to know how you can help get out of jail, get a divorce, incorporate their business, collect a debt, plan their estate, or protect their intellectual property.

So, tell them about that.

Too often, lawyers don’t. They want prospective clients to know about everything they do, no doubt thinking this will impress them, or that the more services and solutions they show people, the more likely it is they will get hired (for something).

But that’s not the way clients search. Or ask for a referral.

Am I saying you should market each service separately? I am.

Because when you don’t, your message gets muddled, prospects get confused, and often continue their search for someone who is talking about solutions to their specific problem.

Marketing each of your services separately fosters clarity, builds trust, and allows you to appeal to the prospect’s emotions. You can talk about things your prospective clients are thinking about and experiencing, and use examples and success stories that show them how you have helped others with the same problem.

It also helps you appear to specialize, even if you don’t, and clients prefer lawyers who specialize.

You can also market all of your firm’s capabilities and offerings with another website and other marketing materials. But don’t make that your first or primary showing.

Show them what you can do to help them solve their problem, alleviate their pain, or get what they want and need right now.

Show them “what else” you do after they’ve hired you or are close to doing that.

More: The Attorney Marketing Formula

Filed Under: Marketing legal services

How to get bigger, faster

March 28, 2022 by David M. Ward

We’re told that it takes time (years) to build a successful law practice. It takes time to learn what to do and time to do it.

It takes time to develop your writing and speaking skills, negotiating skills, and people skills. It takes time to bring in good clients, keep them happy, returning, and referring. It takes time to find good business contacts and build relationships with them. It takes time to build your reputation, make your mistakes, recover, and grow.

And while you can’t shortcut the entire process, there are things you can do to speed things up.

The first thing you can do is to try everything. Until you do, you really don’t know what will or won’t work for you, what you will be good at, or where what you do today might lead you tomorrow.

Try lots of things, including (or maybe especially) things that take you out of your comfort zone, things you swore you’d never do, or do again.

You might find that, with practice, some things you’re bad at or hate you come to love. Or prove to yourself that you shouldn’t waste time on some things, giving you more time to double down on others.

The second thing you can do is meet a lot of people. Instead of trying to do everything yourself, find people who already do it and learn from them or hire them or read their books and do what they did.

Buy a lot of lunches. Not forever. Just enough to meet a few people who inspire you or introduce you to other people you need to know.

We’re in a people business. Go meet more people.

The third thing you can do to speed up your success is perhaps the most important.

Move faster.

When you move slowly, you often waste time, over-analyze, procrastinate, and lose confidence, because things are taking too long. When you move quickly, you don’t have time to dwell on what’s not working, you’re busy doing other things that are.

When you move quickly, you compress time and develop momentum. Small wins lead to bigger wins and they happen more often. Your growth accelerates and compounds and you accomplish in months what might otherwise have taken years.

It’s easier to build your practice quickly than to do it slowly. Especially when you try lots of things and meet lots of people.

If you want to take a quantum leap in the growth of your practice, here’s how

Filed Under: success Tagged With: momentum

Pick two?

March 25, 2022 by David M. Ward

I don’t know who first said it, but people are still saying it today. “You can get the work done quickly, you can get it done well, or you can get it done cheaply.” “Pick two,“ they say. “Because you can’t have all three”.

We’ve heard that said about all manner of products and services and undertakings. We may even say it ourselves.

But is it true?

Who says we can’t have all three?

In our world, the practice of law has three areas:

Core legal skills: research, writing, presenting, strategizing, negotiation, etc.,
Managing: hiring, budgeting, supervising, productivity, etc., and
Marketing: bringing in the business, client relations, etc.

Who says they can’t be good at all three?

Clearly, they can. Many lawyers are excellent at all three.

But there are also many successful lawyers who are good at only one of the above.

They may be good at lawyering, all thumbs when it comes to running a practice, and clueless about marketing.

They may be good at running their practice (and making the most of what they have), but only “okay” in the other two areas.

They may be good at marketing but only adequate or reasonably competent at doing the work and running the practice.

So, I’m calling BS on the adage that you can only pick two. I say you can be good at all three. I also say you can be successful when you’re good at only one.

Now, something else they say. They say that we should focus on our strengths and not worry about getting good at everything. They say we can hire our weaknesses. They say we can be good enough at what we’re good at that we can succeed despite our weaknesses.

And to that, I’m going to agree.

Don’t ignore your weaknesses. But don’t spend a lot of time improving them (unless you want to). Get better at what you already do well, and everything else will take care of itself.

The Attorney Marketing Formula

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Increase your income, Law office management, success

How to get ‘em to sign up

March 24, 2022 by David M. Ward

You don’t need to be salesy to get clients to sign up. But you do need to close the sale.

For the client’s sake and for yours.

You don’t need to follow a formal process to get there, however. You can do it organically, by asking questions.

No doubt you know the power of asking questions and use them every day in your work. You know that questions allow you to control the conversation and find out what you need to know.

Questions also allow you to guide the client towards signing up. They do that by helping you to:

Assess the problem and/or what the client needs and wants
Assess their personal urgency and readiness to do something
Give you key points you can repeat back to them, to show them you listened and understood, and to let them hear, in their own words, why they need your help
Make sure they understand their options
Make sure they understand the risks of waiting or not taking action
Find out about their ability to pay and/or if anyone else needs to approve hiring you
Find out if they’re ready to sign up, need more information, or have any objections

All of which helps you to move them forward, from problem to solution, from first meeting to new client.

If you do it right, the client might signify they want to get started, or at least ask the kinds of questions someone would ask if they are ready to do that. If they don’t, or if you’re not sure, ask more questions.

Closing questions don’t have to be complicated. You can ask

Are you ready to get started?
Is there anything else you need to know before we get started?
Would you like me to start today or next week?

Or, simply, “What do you think?”

You find out what they think and what they want to do. You sign them up, continue the conversation, or, if they’re not ready, schedule a follow-up.

You can also “assume the sale”—hand them the paperwork and a pen and see what happens.

If you’ve asked the right questions, and answered theirs, that’s often all it takes.

Filed Under: Closing the sale

You will be judged

March 23, 2022 by David M. Ward

Prospective clients (and referral sources) who encounter you for the first time usually don’t know a lot about you. They don’t know if you are competent, honest, fair, or someone they’d like to work with or represent their friend or client.

And they only have a few ways to find out.

They can read your bio. They can look at your online reviews or see what others say about you on social media. They can talk to the person who refers them to you. Or they can take you up on your offer for a free consultation, ask questions, and see for themselves.

But there’s one more thing they can and will do to “check you out” and it can be the deciding factor. Especially when your background appears so similar to that of many other attorneys.

What is this difference maker?

Your content.

Your blog posts and articles, audios and videos, books and reports and presentations.

They read or listen and see what you say and how you say it.

And judge you by it.

If they think you know what you’re doing and are confident, thoughtful, and want to help people, that’s good. If they can’t deduce these things because you provide little information, don’t show them (with examples and stories) how you’ve helped others, or they think you’re arrogant because of the way you talk about yourself, that’s not so good.

If you are generous with the information you provide, if you teach them something or help them do something better or faster, help them make better decisions, or inspire them to take action, they appreciate that and are more likely to take the next step.

If your content lacks substance, if it makes you sound boring, close-minded, or hard to work with, people may (and often do) move on.

Your content doesn’t need to be great. But it needs to be good. Because what you say and how you say it helps people decide how they feel about you.

And how they feel is much more important than what they think.

Recently, I found a guy online who creates content (and sells his products and services) on a subject that interests me. I signed up for his newsletter and downloaded his free report.

And I was very disappointed.

It looked like he spent ten minutes throwing it together.

He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know. He didn’t show me how to do anything better or faster. He didn’t inspire me or show me something that made me think, “I want to hear more from this guy”.

That first impression told me everything I needed to know. And I moved on.

Our content speaks to prospective clients for us. It either convinces them to take the next step or convinces them not to.

Our content doesn’t have to be great. But it has to be good.

How to create good content for your blog or newsletter

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Newsletters, Writing

5 tips for writing quicker blog posts and newsletters

March 22, 2022 by David M. Ward

Notice the word “tips” in the title of this post? I recently said I rarely use that word to describe things I write because it suggests something common and of lesser value. I’m using it here to illustrate that there are exceptions.

It’s okay to use the word when you’re sharing quick ideas, short bits of information, a list of resources or recommendations.

It’s also okay to use the word because you want to.

But always consider when you might use a more powerful alternative.

Today, I’m using the word because it fits this article—simple practices that allow you to write brief articles in less time.

As you know, I write an article every weekday. Here’s how I do it:

No research. Write from your knowledge and experience, from something in your notes or files, something you read, watched, observed, or thought.
Collect ideas. Set up a file and save articles, notes, observations, quotes, and fleeting ideas you find or think of throughout your day. When you have hundreds of ideas at your fingertips, you never want for something to write about.
Choose your topic the night before. Your subconscious mind will “work” on the idea overnight and the next day, you won’t have to decide what to write. You can sit down and write it.
Short and simple. A few paragraphs are fine. A few hundred words are plenty. Don’t obsess over images, SEO, link building, or formatting.
Watch the time. Give yourself 20 or 30 minutes to finish (at least the first draft). Train yourself to write, publish, and get on with your day. Adopt the motto: “Done is better than perfect.”

Bonus tip: write often. The more you write, the quicker you get.

For more ways to write quicker (and better), get this

Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters, Writing