Marketing a law firm like a strip club

October 3, 2014 by
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One of the biggest challenges in marketing a law firm is getting prospective clients to see how you are different or better than other lawyers who do what you do.

It takes a lot of thought and wordsmithery to come up with the right benefit statement. I don’t have any shortcuts to offer, but I can give you a place to start.

Imagine that instead of an office you work from a retail store in a big shopping mall. All of the other attorneys in town also have stores at the mall. The lawyer next door? He offer the same services you do. The lawyer across the hall? The same.

In fact, the entire mall is filled with your competitors. The shoppers in the mall are your prospective clients. They came to the mall looking for a lawyer to hire and they walk through the mall trying to decide which one to choose.

Will it be you? Or the guy down the hall?

You don’t want to leave it to chance, do you? You want to get them into your store.

What will you do? What will you put in your store window? What signs will you put up to entice them to stop?

Hold on. We know it’s only a matter of time before one of the other lawyers starts standing at the entrance to his store calling out things to passing shoppers. Yeah, like those guys who stand on the street in front of strip clubs encouraging passers-by to come to see their show.

You’re not going to let them get all the business, are you? Hell no. You’re going to stand outside your store, too. Whatcha going to say?

Before you know it, all of the lawyers in the mall will be standing outside their store hawking their wares. It’s going to get extremely noisy in that mall. You’ll need to be really clever if you want clients to choose you.

Yes, this is a picture of a nightmare. But it’s also a decent analogy for the real world. You don’t stand outside a store shouting at passing clients, (at least I hope you don’t) but you do something similar on the Internet, in ads, and at networking events.

Use this exercise to brainstorm ideas for headlines you can use to get the attention of prospective clients who are scanning lawyers’ ads, web pages, or listings in a directory.

What could you say to get their attention? What could you offer? How can you stand out from the crowd?

Here’s a hint: Your name or your firm’s name is not a good headline. It’s not going to get anyone to come into your store. Nobody but your mama cares about your name.

The good news is that all of those ads and web pages your competitors use with their firm name as the headline make things much easier for you. You can say almost anything else and get more clients than they do.

Write a headline that promises benefits. What do you do for your clients that other lawyers don’t do (or don’t say they do)? What makes you unique or better? Why should they come into your store?

The Attorney Marketing Formula helps you choose a benefit statement for your practice. Go here.

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Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , ,

Maybe you should procrastinate more

October 2, 2014 by
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There are countless articles and books about overcoming procrastination, offering hundreds of techniques for doing so. But maybe procrastination has been given a bad rap. Maybe it’s not something we must always defeat.

We procrastinate because it serves us in some way. We resist doing things for a reason. Maybe we’re not ready and need more information. Maybe we need help. Or maybe we would be better off letting someone else do it.

If you procrastinate, ask yourself why? What’s the message? What is your subconscious mind telling you? If you need more information, go get it. If you’re not ready to address the jury or give the speech, practice. Burn the midnight oil. Do what you have to do.

If procrastination is hurting your reputation or income, you need to do something about it.

Otherwise, don’t sweat it.

In school, I routinely put off writing papers and studying for exams until the last minute. But I got them done and got good grades. No harm, no foul.

Okay, maybe I could have gotten even better grades if I didn’t put things off. But I enjoyed the challenge of getting a good grade on a paper I wrote in two hours that other students wrote over six weeks.

Plus, procrastinating gave me a great excuse in case I did get a bad grade. “Hey, I barely studied!”

But I was a kid. I’m not recommending this strategy for operating a professional practice. “Sure, we lost the case, but hey, we did pretty good considering I did no discovery.”

Yeah, not so much.

If procrastination is hurting you or your clients, fix it. Immediately. Otherwise, when you find yourself putting off something, figure out why and learn from it. Listen to that inner voice. It’s trying to protect you and guide you towards a better future.

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

Creating a walk-away law practice

October 1, 2014 by
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How do you build a law practice you can one day own but no longer run? It starts with wrapping your mind around the concept that you don’t have to do everything yourself, or even closely supervise everything yourself.

You have to (eventually) delegate all of the work in your office.

If you don’t, you’ll never be able to walk away.

This is very difficult concept for many attorneys. We’re used to being in control. We thrive on micro-managing. Our egos fight against the notion that someone else can do what we do.

We also have a very difficult time dealing with the risk.

The truth is, your employees and outsourcers can get you in a lot of trouble. It is a very real risk. But that’s what errors and omissions insurance is for. That risk, and the insurance premiums we pay to minimize the potential damages therefrom, are a cost of doing business.

Building a business (law practice) is not about the elimination of risk. It’s about the intelligent management of risk. You do the best you can and if things go wrong, you deal with it and move on.

You can either live with this risk and the stress it might cause, or you cannot.

If you’re willing to take these risks, or you’re not sure if you can, dip your toes in the water. Delegate something and see what happens. Then delegate something else. Hire someone if you have to, but get someone else doing some of the things you now do.

The second thing you need to do to ready your practice for a walk-away future is create a detailed operations manual for your office. Everything you do should be memorialized, with forms and checklists and documentation of every process.

Pretend you are going to franchise your practice. Someone is going to open an office and do everything you do. They’re going to pay you to learn how to clone your systems, and then pay you a percentage of their revenue.

Make the effort to document your systems in enough detail that someone else could truly step into your shoes.

When you get this right, it will allow you to open a second office if you want to (or third or fourth). You’ll also have a valuable resource for hiring and training new staff or temps. And, if you’re ready, you can start reducing your work hours at the office. Eventually, you can tip-toe away to semi-retirement.

For more on delegating and creating systems, see The Attorney Marketing Formula

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Productivity Tagged With: , ,

It’s better to own a law practice than to run one

September 30, 2014 by
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An article in our local newsletter featured a neighbor who recently changed careers. I don’t know what they did before but a couple of years ago, they bought a fast food franchise and they recently opened a pizza restaurant in the food court of our local mall.

The couple have two young children and my wife commented that running two restaurants sounds like a lot of work. I pointed out that running a restaurant isn’t the same thing as owning one.

As the owner, you have employees who run the day to day operations. You may check in once a day, once a week, or once in awhile, but as long as you have good people working for you, and good people supervising those people, there isn’t lot for the owner to do. And, if you get big enough, you could structure things so that you don’t have to do anything at all.

Many restaurant chains are owned by investment groups. The owner-investors are not involved in the daily operations.

Most small businesses, and that includes most small law practices, aren’t there, however. The owner, or the partners, are still very much involved in running the business, and running a business is a lot of work.

Would that it could be otherwise.

What if you didn’t have to go to the office today, or for the next six months? What if the practice ran without you?

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Scary, but you could get used to it, right?

Granted, a law firm isn’t a restaurant. Lawyers have more rules to follow with respect to supervising employees and such, and great penalties if they don’t, so you might never be able to go home and be a passive investor.  But you can come close.

And you should.

Because then, you could use your time any way you want to, to do anything you want to. You could even go to work if you want to, but because you want to, not because you must.

I encourage you to work towards this ideal. Work towards the point where other people do most of what needs to be done. You can (eventually) hire all the lawyers and legal assistants and other employees you need, and people to supervise them.

Seriously, put this on your list of goals. Because it’s better to own a law practice than run one.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Leverage, success Tagged With:

What kind of attorney are you?

September 29, 2014 by
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When you hand someone your business card and tell them you’re an attorney, what do they typically say to you? They ask, “What kind of attorney are you?” or “What kind of law do you practice?”

They can’t tell from the word “attorney” and most attorneys don’t identify their practice areas on on their card.

If you simply answer the question and state your practice area(s), you’re missing out on a big opportunity. Instead, you should say something like this:

“I handle [whatever you handle]. I also know a lot of attorneys who handle other matters, and many other professionals and business owners in town. If you ever need a referral to anyone, for any reason, please give me a call, okay?”

You can modify this to suit your practice and the people you’re speaking to. If you know a lot of financial planners, for example, and you’re speaking to people you think might benefit from financial planning, you can add “financial planners” to the list of professionals you know.

So what does this accomplish? It gets the person to see you as a resource and a nice guy or gal. Not just someone with a service to sell, but someone who can and will help them. All they have to do is ask.

It also suggests that you are very good at what you do. If you know lots of professionals, then lots of professionals know you. That speaks to your success and reputation.

Finally, it gives them a reason to hold onto your card. And, because you added the word “okay?” to the end of your statement, whether or not they verbalize a response, it makes it a little more likely that they will call you when they need a referral.

It’s a simple way to make a good first impression, and it gets more people calling. When they do, not only will you have a new contact who is grateful for your help, the professionals you refer them to will also be grateful and primed to reciprocate.

There are other things you can do when you meet a new contact, especially if you think they may be a prospective client, but this is something you can and should do with everyone. When people need help, you want them to think of you and remember that they have your card.

By the way, when someone asks me what kind of lawyer I am, the first thing I usually say is, “A good one”. I do it with a little smirk and it gets a laugh or a smile and suggests that I’m not overly serious or full of myself as many lawyers are thought to be. I follow that with my “real” answer.

Marketing legal services is easier when you know The Formula.

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Filed Under: Business cards, Communication, Marketing legal services, Networking, Referral sources, Referrals, Relationship marketing

A simple way to find hot ideas for blog posts

September 26, 2014 by
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Are you running out of ideas for blog posts or newsletter articles? Do you want to zero in on topics prospective clients want to know about?

No problem. Your competition can help you. Ideas are just a few clicks away.

Go find a few popular blogs in your niche. You can find legal blog directories here, here, and here, just to name a few. While you’re there, submit your blog. Get you some links and traffic.

When you’ve found a few popular blogs by lawyers in your practice area, (in any jurisdiction), visit those blogs and have a look around. Subscribe to their feeds. Follow them on social media.

Then, look at their sidebars, “Start Here” pages, and lists of “Popular Posts”. Look at the posts that have received the most “Likes” or shares and comments.

These are the posts visitors are reading and sharing. They are likely to be about topics they have been searching for.

Got ’em?

Now, what do you have to say about that topic? Do you agree? Disagree? Think you could do a better job?

Is the law different in your jurisdiction? Any pending legislation you know about? Have you had any cases on these issues you could write about?

Chew on these posts and brainstorm ideas and get writing.

For more ideas for blog posts, traffic, and getting clients online, get this.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Web traffic, Writing Tagged With: ,

Use the two-minute rule to beat procrastination

September 25, 2014 by
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In “Getting Things Done,” David Allen speaks about “the two-minute rule”. He says that as you go through your list of tasks, anything that can be done in two minutes or less should be done immediately. Don’t schedule it for later, do it now. The time you would take to schedule a task or make notes about it could be used to get the thing done.

I do my best to follow the two-minute rule and find that it not only aids my productivity, it is also very satisfying. It allows me to clear my plate of “open tasks” and it feels good knowing I’m getting things done.

Part of the appeal of the two-minute rule is that psychologically, two minutes seems like no time at all. We don’t get caught up in thinking about what we have to do, we just do it.

Get ‘er done!

I use the two-minute rule in a different way, to beat procrastination when I find myself stalling on bigger tasks and projects. I know I’m not going to get the thing done in two minutes, but I can get it started, and getting started is the most important part.

So, I give myself two minutes to do something, even if it’s just re-writing the list of the tasks I’m not doing. I might make some notes, grab a link to a website to check out, or create an index page to the Evernote notes I’ve been collecting on the subject.

I might free-write for two minutes. Now that I think of it, I started this post with a two-minute stream of consciousness. I didn’t know what I would say on the subject, but once I started writing down my thoughts, I was on my way.

In two minutes, I might set up a new folder on my hard drive and add documents to it. Or prioritize my task list by putting tasks in numerical order.

Two minutes of activity also sets the stage for another two minutes. I might grab my newly prioritized tasks list and do two minutes on item number one. Or I might skip down to number eight and do two minutes of outlining, research, or brainstorming.

It’s all good. And it’s all just two minutes.

I suppose one could argue that any project could be completed in two-minute increments. All I know is that once I’ve started a project with one or two two-minute drills, I usually keep working on it.

Learn how I use Evernote for Getting Things Done. Go here.

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

When the yogurt hits the fan

September 24, 2014 by
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You might lose a huge case. Or have your best client fire you. It might be an injury or illness, a financial disaster, or a drug or alcohol problem.

I don’t know what it might be, but whatever it is, it doesn’t have to destroy you. There are two other possibilities:

1. You will survive. You will come back,bigger and better than before. You’ll learn from the experience and be stronger person because of it.

Or. . .

2. You’ll start over. If the worst case scenario rears it’s ugly head, as long as it’s not fatal, you will start a new chapter in your life.

You may lose your license, but you won’t lose your knowledge and abilities. You’ll do something else for work. Maybe something better. Maybe something you’ve always wanted to do but didn’t have the courage or the time. Now you do.

Life goes on.

It’s not the bad things that happen to us, it’s what we do about them. We can let them hobble us, or we can see them as lessons and opportunities. We can wallow in self-pity or we can suck it up and get back in the game.

Alexander Graham Bell had many failures in his career. But he didn’t let those failures define him or decide his fate. He didn’t dwell on the past, he kept moving forward, and he encouraged others to do the same:

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

If you have something bad going on in your life right now, figure out what you can do about it and do it. If there’s nothing you can do, move on. Start again. Or do something else.

Yes, you might fail again. Things can get worse. But they can get better, too. F.W. Dupee said, “Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.”

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Personal development, success

A recipe for better clients and bigger income

September 23, 2014 by
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The other night my wife and I watched “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” a documentary about “Sukiyabashi Jiro,” a famed sushi restaurant in Japan and it’s master chef and owner, Jiro Ono. Actually, she watched it while I dozed, but I caught enough of it to realize a few things.

First, if the reaction of the restaurant’s patrons is any indication, I probably should try sushi one of these days. His customers practically swooned as they consumed their meal, and this in a country that eats lots of sushi.

The second thing I realized is that Mr. Ono is earning a small fortune. The bill for a meal starts at 30,000 yen, which is around $300, and you have to make a reservation a month in advance. That’s for locals. Customers fly in from all over the world and book a year in advance.

What’s the reason for his success? He charges premium prices for a premium meal. He uses only the best fish, which is laboriously prepared and presented. The result is an amazing culinary experience, earning Mr. Ono’s restaurant a coveted “Three Stars” in the Michelin guide.

And it’s a little hole in the wall.

Clean as a whistle, but no atmosphere. Just ten seats. You sit at a counter, Mr. Ono serves you and watches you eat, gauging your reaction. No dilly dallying, mind you. He serves, you eat, and you’re done. “No soup for you!”.

Actually, there is no soup. Or noodles or appetizers. Just sushi.

Anyway, the point is that if you want to have better clients who fly in from all over the world to hire you and pay you higher fees and tell everyone they know about you, you can, if you offer a premium service. Find something you do and make it the best of it’s kind.

You will attract the best clients, the ones who value quality and are willing to pay for it. By charging premium fees, you need fewer clients. But you will have just as many hours available each day and can devote more time to each client. This will allow you to deliver remarkable service that generates repeat business and referrals.

You’ll have it easier than Mr. Ono, however, because he has discerning customers who instantly know that his work product is the best they’ve ever tasted.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Fees and Billing, Increase your income, Marketing legal services Tagged With: ,

Yes, it is your fault

September 22, 2014 by
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We all know people who live a life of blame. When bad things happen, it’s someone else’s fault. It’s the economy. It’s the government.

I got screwed by the judge. The other side’s attorney is an [expletive]. My client didn’t listen.

But as long as you blame someone or something else for what ails you, you can’t improve anything. Stuff happens and it’s not your fault.

But it is your fault. And that’s good because it means you can change things.

Jack Canfield says, “If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything you experience in your life.”

If you don’t take responsibility, you relinquish your power. You become a victim. You go through life letting things happen to you because, of course, there’s nothing you can do about it.

But we all have a choice. We can choose to say, “oh well, that’s just the way it is,” or we can choose to accept responsibility and reclaim our power.

Sure, bad things happen. There is evil in the world. Sometimes the bird of happiness craps on your head. But you don’t have to accept any of it.

Canfield says, “If something doesn’t turn out as planned. . . ask yourself, “How did I create that? What was I thinking? What were my beliefs? What did I say or not say? What did I do or not do to create that result? How did I get the other person to act that way? What do I need to do differently next time to get the result I want?”

Okay, so people are out of work and can’t afford to hire you. Those are the circumstances. You can’t change them. But you can change what you do about it.

You can do things to attract clients who are working and have money. You can change your practice area. You can get set up to accept credit cards. You can do a better job of marketing than other lawyers in your market.

There are many things you can do, but only if you first accept responsibility.

Better billing and collection practices: go here

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Filed Under: Personal development, success Tagged With:
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