The Attorney Marketing Center--Earn More. Work Less

Sorry, I’m not the right attorney for you

February 11, 2020 by David M. Ward

One of the advantages of developing a profile of your ideal client is that it allows you to quickly see who is–and isn’t–a good fit for you.

Knowing who isn’t right for you allows you to spend more time and resources marketing to and attracting those who are.

Most lawyers promote their services to “everyone” with a certain problem or need and qualify the ones who respond when they speak to them.

What if you did some of the qualifying first?

What if you aim your marketing bullets primarily at people with a specific type of case, in a certain business or industry, or who represent a certain amount of annual billing?

What if you didn’t advertise to, network with, or invest time or money getting your message in front of people who are likely to be a poor fit?

What if you spelled out in your marketing documents the kinds of clients you prefer to work with or cases you prefer to handle?

Two things will happen. First, many prospective clients will disqualify themselves and you won’t waste time speaking with them.

Second, you will attract more of the type of clients you want.

They will be attracted to your clarity and confidence. Clients prefer lawyers who specialize and when you specialize in clients like them, that’s even better.

This will help you develop a profile of your ideal client

Filed Under: Marketing legal services

A newsletter isn’t a newspaper

February 10, 2020 by David M. Ward

Some lawyers’ email newsletters are too long. They cram too much information into each “issue”.

This is especially true of newsletters that are published infrequently.

You can see the logic. If you publish once a month, you’ve got a lot more to say than if you publish daily. But only the stalwart reads these tomes.

Most people don’t.

They may skim them, to see if anything catches their eye, but when there’s nothing but lengthy discussions about the law and documents and procedure, eyes glaze over and your reader is not long for this world.

Do this consistently and they won’t even open your email.

The solution is simple. In addition to being shorter–something that can be read in a minute or two–your newsletter needs to have some “human interest”.

You’ve got to talk about people.

Your clients. Litigants in cases you’ve read about. People in your community or in your client’s niche market.

Your office staff, your family, your neighbors, and yourself.

It’s not difficult to do. Just uncommon. But if you want people to read what you write, which is kind of the point, you’ve got to give them what they want, and they want to read about people.

Something else. When you write about the law or the news, don’t “brief” them, tell them what you think about it.

Because people want to know what you think.

Because that’s how they get to know you, which is the first step towards building a relationship with you and hiring you or sending you traffic and referrals.

If you want to know how to write a newsletter people want to read, without breaking a sweat, check out my email marketing course.

Filed Under: Email, Newsletters

How to waste time productively (and why you should)

February 7, 2020 by David M. Ward

We’re all bombarded by well-meaning experts telling us not to waste time. They acknowledge the need to take a short break between tasks but remind us that “time is money” or caution us about the need to get back to work.

Truth is, most of us don’t want to follow this advice and most of us don’t.

We’d go nuts working eight hours a day every day focused on nothing but work.

So, offered for your approval is another approach–two ways to “waste time” productively.

When you feel the urge to stop working on whatever you’re doing:

1) Work on another case or something else important.

A bit of research, knock out some emails, make calls, dictate some letters or pleadings, or work on marketing.

You may not be working on your main task but you’re doing something productive.

Keep a list of tasks you can turn to when you tire of whatever you’re currently working on. Your mind craves variety so give it some.

2) Do something mindless and unimportant.

Go have some fun, run an errand, play a game, watch a video.

Distract yourself from your work by taking a bigger break than usual, and don’t feel guilty about it because your “fun” break serves a purpose.

It allows your conscious mind to rest, so you’ll have more energy when you get back to work. And it allows your subconscious mind to work on the problem while you’re “goofing off”.

When you return to work, you may find that the break has allowed your subconscious mind to bring you new ideas and solutions.

Take 20 or 30 minutes to play and do something that doesn’t require a lot of thought or effort.

But do put a time limit on it or you might find yourself spending the rest of the day binge watching pet videos and getting nothing done.

Taking a marketing course is never a waste of time

Filed Under: Productivity

Focus on the fundamentals

February 6, 2020 by David M. Ward

You don’t need a fancy website or expensive office. You don’t need a big marketing budget or a long list of big-name clients. You don’t need to be the best lawyer in town.

What you need is relentless attention to the basics:

Clients expect you to competently deliver the solutions and benefits they want and need.
They want you to pick up the phone when they call, reply to their emails, and keep them informed so they don’t have to ask you for a report.
They want you to listen to them, answer their questions clearly and completely, and be attentive to their needs.
They want you to bill “as agreed” and not “nickel-and-dime” them.
They want you to solve problems for them, not create new ones.

Clients don’t care if you’re telegenic. They care about what you do for them and how you make them feel.

Getting the basics right isn’t sexy. But they are fundamental to the success of your practice.

Marketing is simple when you know The Formula

Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Converting clients to advocates

February 5, 2020 by David M. Ward

You want your clients to send you referrals, promote your events, share your content, provide positive reviews, and otherwise help you expand your reach and grow your practice.

You deliver good results and treat your clients with respect, and because you do, some of your clients will advocate on your behalf simply because they like you and want to help you and the people they know.

If you want more clients to do that, however, and do it more often, make it easier for them to do it.

One thing you can do is provide them with tools (hash tags, review templates, sample language for social media posts, emails they can forward to friends, etc.) so they can share their experiences with you.

Another thing you can do is make it easier for them to recognize your ideal client by providing them with a description.

Teach them what a good referral looks like, what they should tell them about you, and the best way to make the referral.

The more you inform and equip your clients to advocate for you, the more likely it is that they will do that.

How to equip your clients to send you more referrals

Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Referrals

80 percent of client relations is just two things

February 4, 2020 by David M. Ward

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

Filed Under: Client relations

How much time do you waste looking for things?

February 3, 2020 by David M. Ward

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

Filed Under: Productivity

A simple plan for getting more clients

January 31, 2020 by David M. Ward

There are lots of ways to get more clients. Here is one of the simplest:

FIRST:

Identify a problem you solve or benefit you deliver and the legal services you provide to do that.
Describe your “ideal client” for that service. Who is likely to have that problem or want that benefit?
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.
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:

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.
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.
Send the report or checklist along with some information about you: the types of problems you solve, the types of clients you represent.
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

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Referrals

How to upgrade your client list

January 30, 2020 by David M. Ward

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

Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services Tagged With: 80-20, the pareto principle

How to get people to listen to you

January 29, 2020 by David M. Ward

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

Filed Under: Communication, Marketing legal services