How to use scarcity to get more clients and increase your income

April 2, 2013 by
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Scarcity creates value. When something is in short supply and people want it, its value increases. A soda may cost less than a dollar at any supermarket but that same soda costs $4 at the baseball game where there is no competition.

If you are the only attorney in town, the value of what you do increases. When a client needs you, they will pay a premium price for your help. On the other hand, if there are lots of attorneys in your market who do what you do and a client can choose any of you, the value of what you offer goes down.

This is why you must show prospective clients that you aren’t like other attorneys. You must show them that you are different in a way that is important and valuable to them.

If you specialize in personal injury cases for clients who ride motorcycles, for example, and ride one yourself, your superior knowledge and commitment to that niche market gives prospective clients a clear reason for choosing you instead of other attorneys.

You can learn more about showing people why they should choose you instead of other attorneys you in The Attorney Marketing Formula. Right now, I want to talk to you about another form of scarcity you can use in your marketing: “limited availability”.

You know that people want what they can’t have, right? When you put a time limit or a quantity limit on something you are offering, (assuming it is something people want), it tends to increase demand.

Why?

The first reason is “fear of loss”. They don’t want to miss out. Limited availability suggests that other people are getting something that could be theirs, thus, they are losing something they already “own,” i.e., whatever you are offering. Fear of loss is one of the most powerful motivations there is.

The other reason is “social proof”. As people see others buying what you are offering, it strengthens the perceived value of your offer. It’s like when you see a long line waiting to get into a restaurant. It tells you the food must be good.

You can use limited availability to get more people to sign up for your webinar or other event by letting them know there is limited seating or phone lines. If they wait too long, they might not get in.

You can use the same idea with impending fee increases. “Book your appointment now and lock in our current rates before they go up on the first of the month”.

Anything with a deadline invokes scarcity. If you ever use special offers–discounts, bonuses, freebies–a time limit on the offer (e.g., “This week only”) will almost always increase response.

I do this when I release a new product or service. I offer a discount to early bird purchasers and put a strict time limit on that discount. Wait too long and you miss it. I do the same thing when I hold a sale. The time limit forces people who might otherwise procrastinate to make a decision that allows them to get something they want.

Limited availability also applies to you and your time. If you are always available, you appear less valuable. If you answer your own phone, for example, it suggests that you are not “in demand” by others. Better to have someone else answer your phone and grant limited access to you and your valuable time.

The same goes for setting appointments. You don’t want clients to think you aren’t busy and that they can see you at almost any time. Put them off for a day or three or give them a short window of availability (i.e., “The only time available is Tuesday between 4 and 4:30 and Thursday at 2”.)

Put limits on what you offer, including your time. Especially your time. You’ll get more people waiting in line to get it.

Learn how to get prospective clients to choose you instead of other attorneys. Click here.

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Filed Under: Image, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services

Pros and cons of starting a law practice

March 27, 2013 by
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I was reading some statistics about the failure rate of small businesses. The numbers are brutal. 50% fail in their first year. 95% are out of business within five years.

It got me thinking about the survival rate for a new law practice. I don’t know what the actual numbers are but it wouldn’t surprise me if you told me that 95% are still going after five years.

Then I got to thinking about why. What is it about the business model of a small law practice that allows for such a high survival rate compared to other small businesses?

If you’re thinking about starting a law practice, here are the pros and cons I came up with:

THE PROS

  • Lower start up costs. You have rent deposits, furniture and computers (which can be financed), but no inventory or expensive equipment, and you can start without any employees.
  • Lower overhead. Your biggest fixed costs are rent and insurance. As you grow, you can hire employees or outsource, unlike a restaurant which cannot operate without employees.
  • Lower marketing costs. You need a web site. You can bring in business by networking. You don’t need to advertise.
  • Higher margins. You don’t sell a $10 product, you sell a $5,000 product. You can break even with just one or two new clients a month.
  • Steady work (business clients). Business clients tend to have ongoing legal needs. (But see below.)

THE CONS

  • Limited time. There are only so many hours in a day available for you to produce work product. If you have employees, you must supervise them. You have to reach a certain size before you can justify hiring staff to manage staff.
  • Limited growth options. You can’t franchise. You can’t take on investors. Bank financing is more difficult without inventory or other assets as collateral. If you want to open additional offices, you must be willing to stretch your time even thinner.
  • Competition. There are more lawyers today and fewer clients (with money). You also have competition with legal form companies, paralegals, and legal plan companies.
  • Feast or famine. Business clients go out of business and take their legal work with them. Consumer clients hire you once and often never again.
  • Limited retirement options. It’s difficult to sell a law practice for a decent multiple. You usually have to carry a note and depend on the buyer’s ability to pay (and many of your clients won’t stay with the buyer).

So, what do you think? Did I miss any? Does it look like a law practice is a sound business model? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Learn how to earn more than you ever thought possible in your law practice. Click here.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Legal industry Tagged With: ,

Gmail users now have another way to achieve inbox zero

March 18, 2013 by
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In my Evernote For Lawyers ebook, I described how I (finally) achieved “inbox zero”. In case you don’t know, that means my email inbox is empty. The short version of how I did it: I identified the important emails that needed a reply or further action or that I needed to save and then archived everything else.

If you’ve never experienced an inbox zero, you should try it. Looking at an empty inbox and knowing that you have everything under control is a great feeling.

Now, what about the important emails? No surprises. I forward them to Evernote where I tag them for further action or assign them to a project. This allows me to keep my email inbox empty.

But there is a niggling issue. To reply to the original email I have saved to Evernote, rather than starting a new email, I have to find the original email in my Gmail archive. Not terribly difficult, but I just leaned something that makes it so much easier.

It turns out that Gmail allows you to bookmark your emails. Every email has a unique URL that you can access from your browser address bar. By copying and pasting that URL into an Evernote note or other note taking app, you can retrieve that email by clicking on the url. If you are logged into your Gmail account, the bookmarked email will open, ready for your reply.

Gmail gives you other options for curating and retrieving emails. Labels, filters, and stars are all helpful. But there’s nothing faster or more accurate than clicking on a URL to find a specific email.

You can also use this function to bookmark emails you need for an upcoming meeting or event. Paste the URL into your todo app or calendar and everything you need is just one click away.

Do you bookmark your email URLs? How has this helped you become more productive?

Evernote for Lawyers shows you how to get organized and increase your productivity

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Filed Under: Email, Law office management, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Improve law firm marketing with daily and weekly routines

March 12, 2013 by
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My wife and I know a family who eats roast chicken for dinner every Monday night. Tuesdays, it’s meatloaf. On Wednesdays, you’ll find them chowing down on pasta.

Every day of the week has a specific dinner meal and they have been eating that way for years.

I always thought this would be boring. I like not knowing what’s for dinner. Variety is the spice of life.

And yet, I can see the logic behind it. Shopping is easier. You don’t have to learn any new recipes. Besides, don’t most people regularly eat the same five or ten basic meals for dinner? We just don’t eat them on the same day every week.

Anyway, while routine dinner planning may not be your cup of tea, when it comes to marketing legal services or managing your law office, a routine could be just what the doctor ordered.

“Did he just put three cliches in one post? He’s weird.”

Homage to one of my favorite comedians, Jim Gaffigan.

Hot Pockets.

Back to work.

What if you established a routine in your office where every Monday was “communication day”. That’s the day you send out emails to former clients, make calls to check in with your professional contacts, and write an article for your newsletter or blog.

Tuesdays might be networking day. You have lunch with a professional or a prospective client, and schedule lunch for the following Tuesday.

Wednesdays could be “clean up and organize day”. You clean out your email inbox, tidy up your desk, consolidate notes, and plan the rest of your week.

Thursdays, might be seminar day. You work on planning, writing, and promoting your latest seminar, teleconference, or video.

Fridays? Pizza day, of course. You bring in pizza for lunch, meet with your staff, and brainstorm marketing and management ideas.

You could set aside two hours every Thursday and make that “writing time”. Or 30 minutes every morning at 10 am as “calling time.” You call people you met at networking functions or you call former clients to say hello and update their contact information.

You get the idea.

With daily or weekly routines, you don’t have to think about what to do. You already know.

And because you know that next Wednesday is writing day, throughout the week, your subconscious mind will come up with ideas. On Wednesday, you’ll be ready.

Do you use routines in your practice? Please share in the comments.

Marketing is simple. Click here to find out what you’re missing.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Productivity Tagged With: , ,

How clients find lawyers

February 28, 2013 by
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My wife needed dental work. After she was seen by her dentist and the work was scheduled, she saw an article in one of the newsletters she reads about a new and “better” procedure. After reading more about the new procedure, she was convinced that this is what she wanted to do and started looking for a dentist who offered it. She found one close by, had her first visit, and booked an appointment to have the work done.

She found “candidates” through a search engine. She choose the dentist she did because

  • They have a great web site. It has lots of information about the dentist and their office, and about the technology and procedures they use. There are also lots of testimonials on the site.
  • They have over 200 five star reviews on Yelp
  • They were friendly and helpful on the phone and when she went in for her first visit. They made her feel like she could trust them and that they cared about her.

By contrast, aside from not offering this new procedure, her now former dentist

  • Doesn’t have a web site
  • Doesn’t have any reviews on Yelp, or anywhere else she could find
  • Didn’t make her feel like he cared

Oh yeah, the new dentist is actually less expensive than the former dentist. Not critical, but nice.

People find lawyers like they find dentists. I’m just saying.

Marketing is easy. But you have do it. Here’s how.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing Tagged With: , ,

What to say when a prospective client’s first question is, “How much?”

February 26, 2013 by
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The phone rings and a prospective client is on the line. His first question is, “How much do you charge for [a service]?” Is this a danger sign? Should you avoid price shoppers like him?

Yes, it is a danger sign. This is someone who is no doubt calling several attorneys and comparing fees. We can assume he intends to choose the lowest priced attorney and I will assume that this is not you.

But that doesn’t mean you should automatically reject him.

Just because someone is shopping price doesn’t mean he is incapable of understanding and appreciating value. Once he sees that you offer so much more than other attorneys, even though your “price” is higher, he may persuade himself that you are the better choice.

The trick is in how you handle his question.

If the initial question is, “How much do you charge for a Living Trust?” most attorneys would answer with a dollar amount. If you do that, then what you offer is a commodity and commodities are bought and sold based on price.

Let other attorneys compete on price. You don’t sell a commodity like they do, you offer professional services and your services are unique.

The better answer is something like this: “We offer a variety of estate planning and protection packages; the attorney needs to speak to you to determine which one is best for your situation.”

You want to be different from other attorneys. You don’t want people comparing the price of your apples to the price of their apples. Get prospects into the office where you can do a complete job of diagnosing their needs and showing them benefits they won’t get from other attorneys.

You should be prepared to give callers a broad idea of what they can expect if they hire you, however. If your least expensive package is $15,000, and they have a $1,000 budget, you’ll be doing both of you a favor by letting them know.

When someone asks, “How much?” answer with a lawyer-like, “It depends.” Because if it doesn’t depend, you are selling a commodity and there will always be someone else with a lower price.

Want to know how to ask for (and get) higher fees than other attorneys? This has the answer.

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

Why thin lawyers starve to death

February 25, 2013 by
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You can almost hear the death rattle.

Lawyers who are too thin, offering too many services to “anyone who can pay” instead of a focusing on what they do best and offering it the most profitable clients. Settling for leftovers when they could be enjoying a feast.

Forbes did a piece on why too many choices hurt a small business. (Replace “small business” with “law practice.”) When you offer too many options or otherwise spread yourself too thin, you have problems:

  1. Focus. Trying to be all things to all people dilutes your efforts to become excellent. (One reason specialists earn more is that they focus on what they do best .)
  2. Brand. You can’t build your reputation or stand out from the crowd when you do everything for everybody.
  3. Delays. If you give customers too many choices, you make it harder for them to choose. (I don’t think this bedevils most attorneys, but we do need to keep things simple when presenting our services because “a confused mind chooses nothing.”)
  4. Capital. The more products you offer, the more you have to invest in inventory. (The more practice areas you offer, the more you have to invest in maintaining your skills, library, procedural safeguards, and mental energy.)
  5. Competition. You can’t compete with everybody. (Better to be a big fish in a modest sized pond than a guppy in an ocean.)

The author says that to be successful, small business owners should develop a niche expertise and I agree. Focus on what you do best. Offer it to the best clients. Let go of the rest.

Marketing is easier when you focus. More effective, too. Choose one or two strategies and master them. Spend an hour on one thing instead of a few minutes on ten things.

When it comes to your health, being thin may be in, but in building a law practice, fat is where its at.

Focus is one of the six keys in The Attorney Marketing Formula. Learn more here.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services Tagged With:

How to break bad news to a client

February 14, 2013 by
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A lawyer asked for advice on how best to break bad news to your client when a case is lost.

Great Question.

The answer is simple. Man up and tell them. Don’t make excuses, don’t cast blame, and don’t parse words. Tell the truth and tell it point blank.

If it was your fault, admit it, and deal with the consequences.

But here’s the thing: if you manage things right, the bad news shouldn’t devastate the client. Disappoint, sadden, yes, but not unreasonably anger. You shouldn’t need to hang a “Gun Free Zone” sign in your office.

What do I mean when I say “if you manage things right”? I mean that from the time you first take the case and throughout its execution, you should manage the client’s expectations about its outcome.

That means not sugar coating the prospects of winning the case or the potential size of the verdict. In fact, you should do the opposite. Under promise. Project low. Tell them there’s a good chance you won’t win at all.

Yes, they might have second thoughts about having you as their attorney and go somewhere else. Let them go. They’ll be nothing but trouble. You want clients who appreciate your honesty and openness, and who appreciate your hard work in the face of big challenges.

Throughout the case, keep them informed. Let them see the ebb and flow, the positives and negatives. Help them to detach emotionally from the outcome. When something is good, remember to show them the other side. That’s why God invented the phrase, “On the other hand. . .”. When it’s bad, do the same thing. You don’t want to be a Debbie or Dennis Downer.

If you’ve done it right, by the time the case comes to a conclusion, they will be mentally prepared for any outcome. Win or lose, big verdict or not so big. They may not be happy, but they will be prepared.

Need more clients? Better clients? Get The Attorney Marketing Formula and start gettin.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Law office management, Personal development Tagged With: , , , ,

Make your clients smile by writing THIS on your next billing statement

February 11, 2013 by
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Did you see this story: “Parents’ shock after restaurant bill shows $4 discount for their ‘Well Behaved Kids”.

The kids said “please” and “thank you” and were quiet during the meal.

Imagine that.

Even if the restaurant didn’t get world-wide attention for what they did, do you think the parents of these kids might tell some people about their experience?

I think so, too.

If the restaurant advertised a discount would be given to anyone whose kids are well behaved, the idea would have flopped. “Hey, my kids didn’t start a fire this time, where’s my friggin discount!”

What makes this work is that the discount was given after the fact. Totally unexpected. A happy surprise.

Guess what? You can achieve the same result with your clients.

Find a reason to give them a small discount on their next bill. Maybe they showed up at their first appointment on time. Maybe they were especially brave in the face of fear. Or maybe they did a great job at their deposition.

Find something positive and reward them.

You might even want to zero out something. The client expects to get charged for the letter you sent to their landlord. They open their bill and see a zero balance. Nice. Maybe it is their birthday. Or yours. Or maybe you did it because you like them.

Do you think you might score some points in the good will department? I think so, too.

Do you think you might get some world wide press?

“Client’s shock after attorney’s bill shows $100 discount for their ‘well behaved mother-in-law’.”

Nah, me neither.

Get more clients and increase your income. Click here to learn how.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Fees and Billing, Law office management Tagged With:

Do you offer the iPad of legal services?

February 8, 2013 by
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I was reading an article on why the iPad beats Android tablets. The author concluded thusly (I love that word, don’t you?), “Having reviewed the options, the reason for Apple’s continued dominance in the tablet market seems clear – it makes the best product. It also makes the most expensive product, but that doesn’t seem to deter consumers, who continue to buy the iPad in droves.”

The article points out that there is and will be a big market for Android, and many people prefer that platform for reasons other than lower price.

Something for everyone.

Now, how do your legal services compare? Do you offer iPad-ish services–high quality and high price–or Android-ish–lower quality and lower price?

You can make money in either category, but not both.

Many attorneys lean towards the lower end of the market. I suggest you resist the temptation.

Set your fees at Apple levels. High end. Then, make sure you’re worth it.

Higher margins provide huge benefits:

  • You get better clients. Yes, more demanding (like Apple’s), but better in every other sense
  • You don’t need as many clients; you can take your time and turn out a better work product
  • You can hire better talent and delegate what you don’t enjoy
  • You have a marketing budget so you can expand and grow
  • You earn more profit and enjoy a better life style.

Delivering high quality legal services does cost more. A nicer office, the best employees, a higher level of “customer service” all come at a price. But it’s not how much you spend that counts, it’s how much you earn.

The Attorney Marketing Formula shows you the six keys to earning more without working more. Click here.

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Fees and Billing, Increase your income, Law office management Tagged With:
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