The Harley-Davidson of law practices

August 24, 2012 by
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Seth Godin pointed out that it is more profitable to be #1 in a small market than number three in a larger market.

I agree.

He says the market leader sets the agenda and attracts the leading customers.

That’s true.

He says that Harley-Davidson isn’t #1 for all motorcycles but they are clearly #1 in their category.

Yes they are. They have a very loyal following and get lots of word of mouth referrals (or maybe that should be “word of ear” referrals).

There is great wisdom in this concept. I followed this in my practice where I targeted a small niche market, I preach it daily in my private consulting, and I write about it extensively in my new course, The Attorney Marketing Formula.

Let others fight over the mass market while you go fishing in a small(er) pond. Marketing is easier, the clients are better, the profits are greater.

As Godin points out, by redefining your focus and the way you serve your clients, you redefine (and come to own) your market.

As attorneys, it’s easy to stroke our chins, nod our heads, and say, “yes, this is truth.” But most attorneys go right back to swimming in the vast “mass market” ocean. Sadly, most attorneys will never come close to being #3, or even #333 in the mass market. But they could easily be #1 in a smaller market.

Yesterday I corresponded with an attorney who told me he is struggling to find a good niche market. I pointed out that in his email, he mentioned that his practice served many same sex couples and that this is a niche market.

By networking with other professionals and businesses owners who target that market, by working deeply in that market, he could become #1 in that market for his practice area.

Then he could afford a fleet of HOGS.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking, Referrals, Relationship marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Targeting the Hispanic market by going in the side door

August 22, 2012 by
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In most of the many offices I have had in my legal career I have had Spanish speaking employees. This only made sense in a city like Los Angeles.

According to this article on the dramatic growth of the U.S. Hispanic market, today you might want to have Spanish speaking employees no matter where you practice. But there’s another way you can leverage this growing market.

The article lists seven industries that will benefit most from the growing Hispanic population:

  1. Residential buying, food (grocery and restaurants)
  2. Retail (especially clothing and electronics)
  3. Education (higher education and technical schools)
  4. Financial services
  5. Transportation (automotive and airline)
  6. Entertainment
  7. Media

Legal is not on this list, but it doesn’t matter. You can leverage the growth of the Hispanic population by aligning yourself with professionals and businesses in these industries who already target the Hispanic market.

Let’s take financial services, for example. By networking with bankers, brokers, financial planners, and CPAs who target the Hispanic market, you can grow with them.

What this means is that you don’t have to re-brand yourself for the Hispanic market in order to benefit from its growth. You can piggy-back on the influence of business owners and professionals who have already established themselves in that market.

Of course this is good advice in any market. When I moved out of Los Angeles and started over in a city where I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t merely hang up a shingle and try to compete with already established firms. I hired someone who had a lot of contacts in the market I chose to target and through him, met many professionals and business owners who already had influence in that market. My practice grew quickly because I wasn’t really starting from scratch.

The next time you want to get into a new market, try the side door.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Legal industry, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Relationship marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to get a much higher return on your marketing investment

August 21, 2012 by
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Yesterday, I said “don’t settle for good when you can get great.” Clients agreeing to pass out your cards if and when they meet someone who needs your services is good. Clients knocking on doors, looking for people to refer is much better.

What I didn’t say is what might happen as a result.

Imagine what your practice would be like with an army of “unpaid sales people” beating the bushes on your behalf. Every day, people who know, like, and trust you are spreading the word about you. They’re making calls or posting on Facebook. They’ll putting your reports in their waiting rooms and forwarding your emails to their colleagues. They’re introducing you to referral sources and inviting you to speak to their employees or church group.

Do you think you might get more repeat business and referrals? Traffic to your web site? Attendees at your seminars?

Your practice would grow exponentially and your clients would do all of the marketing for you.

By the way, you can (and should) do everything I talked about yesterday not just for clients but for referral sources and other “friends of the firm.” Your clients want to help you but may not be able to do as much as a handful of equally inspired professionals with big lists.

It’s true that all of this extra attention I’m suggesting you give to your clients and professional contacts requires extra effort on your part. It takes time to get to know people on a personal level, beyond what is needed to handle their legal matter. You’ll probably spend a few dollars, too. Where do you get the time and money to do that?

Well, think about all of the time and effort (and money) you spend on marketing right now. What if you didn’t have to do that? What if you put that aside and re-invested everything in delivering to your clients the exceptional level of service we’ve talked about?

It would be worth it, wouldn’t it? Especially if you no longer had to spend time on networking or social media, or spend money on advertising or SEO.

Most attorneys finish one case and go looking for the next one. They help one client and then go looking to replace them.

Dollar for dollar, hour for hour, marketing to your clients and professional contacts is far more effective and profitable than marketing to strangers. You can market to strangers too, but you’ll get a much higher return on your investment by marketing to the people who already know, like, and trust you.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Referrals Tagged With: ,

Marketing legal services: never settle for good when you can get great

August 20, 2012 by
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Your client is in the office and tells you he’s pleased with what you have done for him. You give him a handful of your business cards or brochures and ask him to pass them out. He says he will.

That’s good, isn’t it?

Yes. Very good. But why settle for good when you can have great?

Great would be if your client not only agrees to refer people who need your help, he actually goes out of his way to look for them.

He calls people he knows, tells them about his experience with you, and asks them if they know anyone who might need what you offer. He posts a similar message on Facebook or Twitter. He calls and introduces you to his uncle the insurance broker who has many clients who could benefit from what you do. He posts a link to your web site on his web site. He mails a letter to all of his customers recommending you. He invites all of his friends and neighbors to your seminar.

How do you get this kind of help from your clients? How do you go from good to great?

First, you have to deliver an experience to your clients that wildly exceeds their expectations. They can’t be merely satisfied, they have to be thrilled.

As you might suspect, this usually has very little to do with the core services you provide and everything to do with the way the client is treated. It’s the little things you do for them, the extras and surprises, the courtesies and comforts.

It’s not the documents you draft or the depositions you take. It’s writing a letter of recommendation for your client’s son so he can get accepted into your alma matter. It’s mentioning your client’s charity in your blog or newsletter or Facebook group and encouraging your friends and followers to contribute their time and money. It’s referring customers to your client, introducing him to a lower priced supplier, or sending him and his wife to a nice dinner on your dime.

If you are doing these things, you can ask for your client’s help.

Give him suggestions, based on what you know about his personal and professional life–what they do and who they know. Or give him a list of things they could do based on what other clients have done and let them choose the ones they prefer.

You can give your clients a good experience or a great one. They can do the same for you.

Never settle for good when you can get great.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Marketing legal services, Referrals Tagged With: , ,

How to grow your law practice by establishing routines

August 17, 2012 by
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Lifehack has a post today on improving productivity by turning important tasks into routines. The idea is that you are more likely to do something when it’s part of a regular routine, just like you do, for example, every morning when you get ready for work.

How might this be applied to marketing?

We know it’s important to regularly reach out to clients and former clients, via email, regular mail, phone (and possibly, social media). The return on your investment of time, in terms of repeat business and referrals, is tremendous. A few minutes a day spent connecting like this could bring you thousands of dollars in additional revenue every month.

Arguably, there is nothing more important to the growth of your practice.

It’s important, you know it’s important, you WANT to do it, but somehow, you’re not doing it. Life keeps getting in the way.

What if you established a new routine whereby every day at lunchtime, before you eat or before you leave for a lunch meeting, you take ten minutes to connect? You send out ten emails, make three phone calls, or write and mail a handwritten note.

Easy stuff. And because it’s your part of your daily routine, you do it.

At first, you schedule this ten minutes on your calendar. You see it there every day, reminding you to take action. You have an app send you an alarm. Later, when you’ve been doing it for a month or three, when it has become a habit, you won’t need to be reminded. It’s as much a part of lunchtime as eating.

Make a list of marketing activities you do, or know you need to do. Look for ways to make them routine.

Marketing is easy. The hardest part is remembering to do it.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Start where you are with what you have

August 13, 2012 by
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I think we can agree that most attorneys are analytical. We wouldn’t be much use to our clients if we weren’t.

But many attorneys are overly analytical. They get caught up in crunching the numbers and sifting through the facts. They can’t stop saying “what if” and “on the other hand”.

At some point, decisions must be made and advice must be given. And ultimately, it is. The attorney delivers their recommendations.

They are able to do this because they are accountable to their clients or employer. They are paid for their advice so advice they must deliver.

But what happens when an overly analytical attorney has to make decisions about marketing or the management of their practice? When there is no client to answer to, very often they can’t decide.

They procrastinate. They defer. They make no decision and take no action.

This is one reason why many attorneys stagnate and struggle to find success.

There have many times in my business and professional life where I have found myself fighting this very tendency. Most of my bigger projects would still be on the drawing board had I not found some solutions.

If you find yourself holding back because you’re uncomfortable with moving forward, here are three things that can help:

  1. Give yourself permission to do it badly.You’re the only one who will see it for now. You’ll have time to make it better. You can edit a bad first draft, and turn it into something great, but only if you have a first draft. When I wrote my first marketing course, I was afraid it wouldn’t be any good. Instead of fighting my fears and trying to talk myself out of them, I acknowledged those fears. “Yep, it’s gonna be bad, but I’ll make it better,” I told myself. Of course when I read the first draft it wasn’t bad, it was actually quite good. My fears and doubts had lied to me.
  2. Focus on activity, not outcome.You can’t control your results, only your activities. If you do the activities, you are successful. The results will come. If you focus on results, however, your ego gets in the way. If the results aren’t what you want, you may become discouraged and give up too soon. “Progress, not perfection,” is the byword. I wrote about this in this post about how to stop procrastinating.
  3. Start with easy. Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview, “I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.” I wrote about this before:

Many people who start a business project, myself included, tend to focus on the hardest parts first. My thinking has been, “I can always do the easy things, I need to conquer the toughest challenges first because if I can’t lick those, this project will never get off the ground.”

How about you? Do you start with the easy things or, like me, do you first jump into the deep end of the pool?

Perhaps we equate “easy” with “having less value,” but in the practical sense, that isn’t true. The things we can do without a lot of thought or effort are often of greater value because they allow us to get started and getting started is the most important part.

Most business projects never see completion because they never get started.

When you start with the easy things, you have started. You’re on your way.

I think these three tips for moving forward are effectively summed up by something Theodore Roosevelt once said: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Do you find yourself procrastinating on projects? What have you done to move forward?

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: ,

Why a detailed outline may not save time in writing

August 10, 2012 by
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I just read an article that says you can write faster if you do a complete outline before you begin. I say that’s not always true, at least for me.

The author says a simple outline might be a series of questions–who, what, where, why, and when. A complete outline will answer those questions. With the questions and answers in hand, logically organized, you will have enough material to write faster than you would with just a simple outline.

Basically, she recommends thinking through what you want to say before you say it.

That’s often good advice. But sometimes, it’s not.

This blog post is a good example. I started with the idea that I wanted to say something about outlining, but I didn’t know what I wanted to say. It wasn’t until I started writing that I could see what I thought.

When you don’t know what you want to say, rather than forcing yourself to think it through, (a very left-brained process), just start writing. Let the right side of your brain, your creative mind, tell you what you think. It’s called freewriting. Just start typing or moving your hand across the page and see what comes out.

That’s how I wrote this post.

If you do know what you want to say, sometimes a short outline is all you need. That’s what I use for most of my blog posts. I jot down four or five points I want to cover and get started. It wouldn’t be worth it to take the time to create a detailed outline, nor do I believe it would make for better writing.

What takes the most time is crafting the opening and ending. You’ve got to get the reader’s attention and leave them with a memorable twist or marching orders. You can’t outline these. I often re-write openings and endings several times in order to get them right.

For longer writing, a detailed outline makes sense, and sometimes I use them. But sometimes, longer writing is nothing more than a collection of shorter writing and a detailed outline isn’t needed.

I just completed a new course and I did create an outline. Some parts were very detailed. Others were very brief. What I found is that the writing I wound up with is very different from the writing I imagined (and outlined) when I started.

Writing is like that sometimes. A creative journey. No maps, no GPS. You just fill up the tank, and go.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, Newsletters, Presentations, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

How to use someone else’s blog post to get traffic to your website

August 9, 2012 by
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You read lots of blogs, right? For work, for news, for fun. You might think most of it isn’t something of interest to your clients and prospects. But you might be surprised at how much of it is.

Your clients and prospects are interested in lots of things that can make their lives better. They want to make more money, cut expenses, protect their credit, and get a better return on their investments. They want to get their kids into college and plan for retirement. They want to know how to be safe when they travel.

No matter what your clients are, they are also consumers.

So when you see an article entitled, 6 Things You Should Never Say to a Police Officer, and share it with your list, you’re providing them with value. The next time they see something from you, they’ll be more inclined to read it. And the next time they need a lawyer, they’ll be more inclined to think of you.

When you come across a post that’s interesting or useful, you probably do share it via social media. But when you share a link to a story and someone clicks on that link, it will take them to the website with the original story. Wouldn’t you prefer to have them go to your website?

Why not write your own article on the subject and share that link?

People will come to your website to read your article (and then onto the original), but by coming to your website first, they may see something else you wrote and be reminded that they need to hire you. When they share your link with their friends and followers, those folks will also come to your site first and hire you, sign up for your newsletter, or see something else they want to share with their friends and followers.

If you are a criminal defense lawyer, an article on what not to say to a police officer is a natural. You can add your comments, agree or disagree, and tell stories about your clients who messed up. What you have to say could be even more interesting than the original post.

If you are not a criminal defense lawyer, you can still comment on an article like this. You might have a personal experience you can share or know someone who has. You can ask a criminal defense lawyer for his take on the subject and add his comments or stories. A quick search may lead to a another article or two you can link to.

A blog post doesn’t have to be authoritative. It doesn’t have to be long. A few short paragraphs are fine. Tell your readers you found something you want to share, and why you like it (or don’t).

If there is a connection with what you do, yes, that is better. Your post will be longer and readers will stay on your page longer to read it. Your post will also be more valuable. That can only lead to more sharing and more appreciation.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Client loyalty, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The problem with video marketing

August 8, 2012 by
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Everyone (and his brother) is touting video as THE marketing tool you MUST use. You have to deliver content using sight and sound and movement. You have to entertain people. Nobody reads anymore. Yada yada yada. . .

Of course it’s true that a well done video is a great way to engage people. Video also allows you to control the staging of your material, so you can deliver it for maximum effect. Millions of youtube views per day demonstrate the public’s appetite for video content.

But there’s a problem with using video in marketing: there are too many of them.

With everyone (and his brother) using videos, with so many coming at me every day, I don’t have time to watch them. So I delete the email or close out the web page. Or I bookmark it to watch later, and we all know that later never comes.

A brilliant video that nobody watches is worthless.

The written word is, and always will be, better than video.

People can skim a written message, and get the gist of it. If they like what they see, they will find the time to read more.

People can print a written message. When it’s in front of them on their (real) desktop, they are more likely to read it.

People can read a written message in their email inbox, without doing anything more than opening it.

And if people read your message, even if it is only mediocre, it will always outperform the brilliant video they do not watch.

I’m not saying ‘don’t use video’ in your marketing. Use it if you can. Audios, too. A lot of people like to listen while they are commuting or at the gym.

But if you don’t also use the written word, you’re missing out on a boatload of people who might be interested but didn’t have the time (or bandwidth) to find out.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Communication, Email, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Technology, Web traffic, Writing Tagged With:

What would you do if you lost all of your clients and had to start over?

August 7, 2012 by
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I was a guest on a panel of experts taking questions from a group of business owners. One asked, “What would you do if you lost all of your clients and had to start over?”

In response, I asked, “What would you do if you didn’t?” In other words, do what you did to build it the first time. Go back to basics. Stick with what works.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the flavor of the day. The latest social media platform, software tool, or psychological technique. But these are almost always distractions. Let someone else try them. You stick with the fundamentals.

Jim Rohn said, “There are no new fundamentals. You’ve got to be a little suspicious of someone who says, “I’ve got a new fundamental.” That’s like someone inviting you to tour a factory where they are manufacturing antiques.”

I had to start over once. I got out of practicing law to pursue a business. After two years, I came back. But I had no clients and we had moved to another county where I didn’t know anyone. I had to build my practice again, from scratch.

In some ways it was easier the second time because I knew what I was doing. In other ways, it was harder because I knew how much effort it required. But I did it, by going back to basics.

Jim Rohn: “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”

What exactly would I do if I was starting over? I answered that in my post, If I were starting my law practice today, here’s what I would do to bring in clients.

If you have lost everything and have to start over, don’t dwell on the loss and don’t look for short cuts. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development Tagged With: , , ,
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