80 percent of client relations is just two things

February 4, 2020 by
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Ah, client relations. The key to repeat business and referrals.

The key to fewer complaints and better reviews.

The key to lower marketing costs and higher profits.

And 80 percent of it just two simple things.

The first one: be nice.

Treat your clients with respect, do what you said you would do, bill on time, and show them you care about them as individuals and not just as a source of income.

Treat them the way you’d like to be treated if your roles were reversed.

See, I told you it was simple.

The second: stay in touch. Also simple.

While you’re handling the case or matter, keep them informed. Send copies of everything, explain everything, and show them everything you’re doing for them.

Between cases or matters, stay in touch via email at least, to strengthen your relationship and show them what else you can do for them or for people they know.

And, that’s it.

You know what? That’s not 80 percent of client relations; it’s probably 90 percent. Maybe more.

And so simple even a lawyer can do it.

Email is the best way to stay in touch. Here’s how to do it right

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Filed Under: Client relations

How much time do you waste looking for things?

February 3, 2020 by
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If you spend just 5 minutes per day looking for things–on your computer, in paper files, on your desk–over the course of a year you’re wasting more than 20 hours.

Non. Billable. Time.

How can you reclaim some of that time?

I do my best to organize files logically so I can find things by drilling down through file category but documents are still filed in multiple directories and use different naming conventions so I still “misplace” things.

So, I use a program called “Everything“.

According to the site, “‘Everything’ is search engine that locates files and folders by filename instantly for Windows. Unlike Windows search “Everything” initially displays every file and folder on your computer.”

I’m sure there are similar tools for other OS’s.

For notes, I use Evernote and Workflowy, both of which have robust search capabilities. I search by tag and/or keyword to find names, dates, emails, phone numbers, and project-specific keywords.

I also make sure to add details to my notes that I might otherwise not record, so I can search and find what I’m looking for when I recall only random snippets of information, e.g., the client drove a Yugo and used to live in Paraguay or opposing counsel wore bow ties.

Paper? Physical files? Not anymore. But if I did, I’d set up a digital index that told me which file, which drawer, which box, contains the document or information.

How about you? How do you find what you’re looking for?

Asking your secretary or assistant to find it for you doesn’t count.

Check out Workflowy; use this link to get extra space

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Filed Under: Productivity

A simple plan for getting more clients

January 31, 2020 by
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There are lots of ways to get more clients. Here is one of the simplest:

FIRST:

  1. Identify a problem you solve or benefit you deliver and the legal services you provide to do that.
  2. Describe your “ideal client” for that service. Who is likely to have that problem or want that benefit?
  3. Make a list of the types of people who might know people with the problem or desire you identified. Lawyers in other fields, other professionals, business owners, centers of influence, etc.
  4. Go through your contact list and find people you know who fit that description. If you need/want more names, go through directories, lists, and search engines to find additional names.

THEN:

  1. Email them or call them. If you know them, catch up, ask what they’re doing. If you don’t know them, introduce yourself, mention something you have in common and/or say something nice about their website or profile, and ask them to tell you more about what they do.
  2. Offer to send them a report or checklist or form that (a) can help them in their practice or business, or (b) they can send to their clients or customers.
  3. Send the report or checklist along with some information about you: the types of problems you solve, the types of clients you represent.
  4. Stay in touch with them.

You’ll renew old acquaintances and make new ones. Eventually, you’ll get more visits to your website, sign-ups for your newsletter, and followers on social media, all of which will result in new clients.

You’ll also get referrals.

To see how to do this in detail and step-by-step, go here

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Referrals

How to upgrade your client list

January 30, 2020 by
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Go through your current client list. Look at the numbers: how much did each client pay you over the last year and over their lifetime?

How much are they likely to pay you in the next few years?

Some clients might not have a lot of work for you but may send you a lot of referrals.

Add this to your numbers.

You should see that some of your clients (and cases) are worth a lot more to you than others.

Let’s call those “high value” clients.

Everyone else is either “average” or “low value”.

Study your numbers. You should see some patterns.

You should see that a large percentage of your total revenue comes from a small percentage of your client list.

Maybe 80/20, maybe a different ratio, but you should find that “a precious few” of your clients and cases bring in a disproportionate amount of your income.

Obviously, you want more of this type of client or case.

One way to get them is to reduce the number of low value clients, and also perhaps many of the “average” clients, to free up your time and other resources so you can focus on attracting more high value clients.

How do you “reduce” the number of low value clients in order to do that?

You could increase your fees. That’s the easiest way to do it. If it doesn’t, keep raising them until it does.

You could ask for bigger retainers. Reject cases with smaller damages. “Fire” clients who slow pay or who are “more trouble than they’re worth”.

I know, the idea makes perfect sense to you but it also makes you nervous. So you’re unlikely to go “cold turkey”. You don’t want to let go of low value clients until you see more high value clients coming your way.

Okay. Go through your list and study the high value clients you identified.

Where did they come from? What marketing methods did you use to attract them? Did they find you through search? Referral? Ads? Did they hear your presentation or meet you at an event?

Who are their colleagues, clients, friends or neighbors? Who do they know who might have legal needs or know people who do?

Then, get busy.

You might not be ready to let go of (all) low value clients just yet but there’s something you can do. You can stop marketing to them.

From this day forward, focus exclusively on marketing to your high value clients.

This will help

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services Tagged With: ,

How to get people to listen to you

January 29, 2020 by
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You have a lot of experience. Many ways you can help people. You’re good at what you do.

You want people to know these things and you should tell them. But if that’s all you talk about, readers and listeners and prospective clients will eventually tune out.

Nobody wants to hear all about you. Not even your mother.

They want to hear about themselves.

If you want people to listen to you, talk about them.

When you speak to a prospective client, ask lots of questions–more questions than you may need to diagnose their situation–to get them to talk about their problems, their pain, their desire for relief.

And then talk to them about that.

Talk about yourself–your bona fides, your services, how you work with clients–to show them how they can get what they want.

You can do something similar in your marketing documents. Ask questions to get them to think about their situation, and then tell them about clients you have represented with the same or similar issues and how you helped them.

If you want people to listen to you, talk about them more than you talk about yourself.

Documents that can bring you more referrals

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Filed Under: Communication, Marketing legal services

The Wizard of OZ and your law practice

January 28, 2020 by
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In The Wizard of OZ, each of the main characters wanted something. The Scarecrow wanted brains, the Tin man wanted a heart, and the Cowardly Lion wanted courage.

To succeed as lawyers, we need all three.

Of the three, the most important trait for financial success is courage, according to a large study of wealth in America.

You can read it about the study and its conclusions in The Millionaire Next Door by Dr. Thomas Stanley.

Dr. Stanley tells us:

“Courage can be developed. But it cannot be nurtured in an environment that eliminates all risks, all difficulty, all dangers. It takes considerable courage to work in an environment in which one is compensated according to one’s performance. Most affluent people have courage. What evidence supports this statement? Most affluent people in America are either business owners or employees who are paid on an incentive basis.” [emphasis added]

So, are you paid on an incentive basis?

You can be.

Whether you bill by the hour, flat fees, or any other type of fee, look for ways to add incentives–extra fees, bonuses, stock, percentages of the deal–to be paid to you if and when you achieve certain results for the client.

You can also do this in contingency fee cases. A higher percentage or bonus that is triggered when you reach one or more specified thresholds.

You should do this because there are only so many hours in a day and if you want to earn more than the average attorney, this is a good way to do it.

Assuming the client agrees and the state Bar approves.

I know, the idea both excites you and scares you. You have a lot of “what ifs” going through your mind. It may not even be possible in your jurisdiction.

Do yourself a favor and find out.

“Most affluent people have courage,” Dr. Stanley says. How about you?

For more creative billing ideas, get my book

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Filed Under: Fees and Billing

Vaccinating clients and prospects

January 27, 2020 by
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I watched a CLE video on what to do when you have “bad facts”. The evidence is weak, the client is a bad mamma jamma, the witnesses have a history of making things up.

Your case or client has issues; what do you do?

The presenter talked about inoculating the jury by bringing out the negatives of your case yourself because they’ll be better received when they come from you instead of opposing counsel.

The presenter told a story about Domino’s Pizza that took this to an extreme.

They ran a series of ads in displaying negative comments they’d received about their pizza. “The crust is cardboard, the sauce is thin and tasteless, it’s not real cheese,” and so on.

Can you imagine running ads telling the world things like this?

Domino’s did it. And then they said that most companies would never admit things like this, they’d try to cover it up or excuse it, but Domino’s took this seriously and have made dramatic improvements.

They said that the crust, the sauce, the cheese, the whole product is better, and we think you’ll like it. Come try it and see.

Within six months, sales were up 17% company-wide, which is an extraordinary increase for a company of that size.

Domino’s admitted their flaws, fixed them, and won the day.

Which reminds me to remind you to do the same with your practice.

If you’ve been criticized for not doing something other lawyers do, for example, inoculate clients and prospects by admitting this “flaw”.

And then, turn it into a strength.

I don’t handle X, I only handle Y. By specializing (focusing), I’ve been able to develop expertise many other lawyers don’t have. . .

If your competition does a lot of advertising and some prospective clients wonder why they’ve “never heard of you,” explain that you get most of your business by referrals and don’t “need” to advertise.

If clients think your fees are high, make it a selling point: “You can find lawyers who charge less but you get what you pay for. . .”

Inoculate your clients and prospects (and juries) by admitting your flaws before someone else points them out.

Careful, though. If your crust tastes like cardboard, change your recipe before you tell anyone.

Marketing strategies that can help your practice take a quantum leap

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

Decision making 2.0

January 24, 2020 by
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We have so many options today it’s hard to choose. Which project, which task, which app? Which marketing method, which market, which topic for our next article or talk?

Should we recommend settlement or to hold out for more? Should we accept juror number 10 or challenge them? Should we vote for this candidate or that one?

We’re logical creatures and nit-pickers and smarter than the average bear so you’d think we would make good choices.

Too often we don’t.

So, I propose a new way to make decisions. A new standard for choosing what’s best.

And it’s not based on logic or weighing the facts.

This new way to decide is to look at each option and see how we feel about it.

And. . . if it’s not “hell, yes!” then it’s “hell no”.

We choose what excites us. Even if it goes against conventional wisdom or the counsel of our partners, colleagues, or friends.

Because our gut knows best.

If you gut tells you option A is the right choice, that’s what you go with. If you’re excited, you’ll give it everything you’ve got, making success that much more likely.

You’ll also have a lot more fun.

Especially when everyone thinks you’re crazy and you prove them wrong.

So, what do you think about my idea?

Actually, wrong question. How does this idea make you feel?

Are you with me?

Is it a hell yes or a hell no?

NB: if you have to think about it, you’ve already made your decision.

Which marketing method? Here’s what I’d choose

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Filed Under: success

How to get your SECOND client

January 23, 2020 by
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Let’s say you just got your first client.

Congratulations. What’s next?

Where will you get your second client? Or, if you have 100 clients, where will you get your next 100?

Many lawyers go back to doing whatever it is they did to get their first client (or their first 100). Networking, advertising, blogging, speaking, and so on, and that’s fine.

But there’s another way:

Leverage your relationships with your existing and former clients to get more.

Yes, I’m talking about referrals. But not just referrals in the way we usually think of them. And expanded view of the concept of referrals.

You know that some of your clients are willing to send you referrals but don’t have anyone to send you right now.

What else could they do?

They could refer you to (introduce you to) other professionals they know, some of whom might have clients they can refer.

Hold on. Those professionals might not have clients they can refer right now, or be willing to refer them.

What else could they do?

They could introduce you to other professionals they know who might have clients who need your help.

Hold on. What if they don’t know other professionals in your target market or they’re not willing to introduce them to you?

What else could they do?

They could introduce you to bloggers and podcasters and meeting planners and other people who write for, sell to, or advise your target market.

They could share your content or promote your event to their clients and contacts, subscribers, social media connections, and others they know.

Some of those people may need your services. Or know someone who does. Or know someone who knows someone who does.

Building a referral-based practice isn’t just about who you know. It’s also about who they know.

Everyone you know knows hundreds of people you don’t know.

And those people know hundreds of people.

Each person knows an average of 250 people, we are told. If each of those people knows 250 people, that’s 62, 500 people in your extended network.

You can build your practice by tapping into that network.

Where do you begin?

Start with my (currently free) introductory referral marketing course.

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Filed Under: Referral sources, Referrals, Relationship marketing

Watching Netflix all day can actually be productive

January 22, 2020 by
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Laura Mae Martin is Google’s in-house productivity expert and just offered some of the most useful productivity advice I’ve ever heard.

Instead of defining productivity in terms of how much we get done, she says, we should define it as doing what we intended.

“If you spent a day watching Netflix. . . that’s a productive day–if you had intended to watch Netflix,” she said.

If you’re tired and need to take some time to re-charge and do something effortless, that’s a good use of your time. But her point isn’t about respecting our need for rest so much as redefining productivity in terms of intent.

If you intend to do legal work but binge-watch Netflix instead, you’re just procrastinating. That’s also true if you intend to do legal work but you bug out of the office to do some networking, because that’s not what you intended either.

“The secret is “knowing what you want to do, intending to do it, and doing what you wanted to do,” she explained.

When we define productivity in terms of doing what we intend, we become more aware of what we put on our plate, and what we don’t. We think about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

Which means we’re more likely to do what’s important, not just what’s next on the list.

At the end of the day, when you look at what you accomplished, ask yourself if you did what you intended. If you did, great. You had a productive day.

If you didn’t, you’ll be more mindful of what you put on your plate tomorrow.

If you intend to get a lot more clients this year, get this

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Filed Under: Productivity
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