“The choice isn’t between success and failure; its between choosing risk and striving for greatness, or risking nothing and being certain of mediocrity.†— Keith Ferrazzi
Every day you make decisions in your law practice. You’re usually right but sometimes you make a mistake. It’s okay because when you make a mistake, you can usually fix it. If you can’t fix it and your client suffers a detriment, you have insurance.
Your clients pay you to make decisions. It’s what you do. It’s what you get paid for. Every time you make a decision, however, you take a risk. But are you being compensated for those risks?
In business, the bigger the risk, the bigger the potential reward. When you are the principal, your fortunes rise or fall on the outcome. As advisors, however, we are paid by the hour or the case or the work product. Other than contingency fees, our compensation is almost never commensurate with the risks.
You prepare a “simple” will. You get paid a few hundred dollars. But what if the client needed something different? What if you leave something out? Hundreds of thousands of dollars could be are at stake, but you are paid a few hundred dollars.
It seems to me we should be paid according to the risks we take in our work. Our insurance carriers are. Our business clients are. But we are not and we probably never will be. We can’t charge thousands of dollars for a simple will.
But while we probably won’t get paid more for taking risks in our legal work, we can get paid more for taking risks in our marketing. Ironically, these are risks most attorneys avoid.
If you want to reap bigger rewards in marketing your services, you need to take bigger risks.
Time, money, ego–invest more, risk more. Yes, you might waste that time or money, or take a big hit to your ego. But you might also get rich.
Great advice on starting a new law practice (or growing your old one)
Marketing legal services is simple. A lot of common sense, really. You don’t need a bunch of high tech solutions or a complicated process. What you need are people.
An article in today’s Forbes Magazine tells the story of a Los Angeles lawyer who started her own practice in the summer of 2010 and in less than two years built a successful estate planning practice.
In, How I Got My First Client and You Can Too, attorney Sonia Tatiyants outlines what she did to get her first client and beyond.
She didn’t advertise or build a powerful web site. She didn’t have the money to do that, even if she wanted to. What she did is decidedly low cost and low tech. She began by contacting everyone she knew to announce the opening of her new practice.
It doesn’t get simpler than that.
By the way, if you’re not new, find a reason to contact everyone in your database and remind them that you are still here. Someone on your list needs your services, or they know someone who does.
Taking things a step further, Tatiyants also realizes that her clients can not only send her referrals, they can become a source of business for the professionals in her network. In positioning herself as a “trusted advisor,” her clients and contacts look to her for referrals when they have a problem or need. She refers them to the other lawyers, CPAs, financial planners, and insurance agents in her network.
She also understands the importance of keeping her clients happy. One way she does that by making sure they know what to expect with their case. By managing their expectations, her clients don’t get frustrated with delays or when they get something in the mail.
Finally, she understands that for her practice to continue to grow she needs to put systems in place that will allow others to do administrative tasks so she can focus on the lawyering (and marketing).
Great marketing advice for new lawyers and old. Even lawyers who are very old.
But there’s something she left out of the article that I know every lawyer would like to know. How did she get featured in Forbes magazine?!