Why you should consider increasing your legal fees

June 18, 2012 by
Share

Times are tough. Clients are having trouble paying their attorneys. And that’s exactly why you should consider increasing your fees.

When times are tough for your clients, you also feel the pinch. But your overhead keeps increasing, doesn’t it? At some point, some of the services you offer will no longer be profitable. “We lose money on every client but we make it up in volume,” is an old joke. But some attorneys don’t understand, the joke is on them.

What would happen if you raised the price on those services? You may lose a percentage of your clients, but the increased revenue from your remaining clients would provide a profit on every “sale”. And if you lose more clients than you expect, you will have more time to do more (higher paying) work for other clients.

True, you may not have other clients to fill the gap right now, but you will have more free time for marketing so you can bring in new clients, something you may not have time to do right now.

And you may find that you don’t lose many clients when you increase fees. Prices for everything are going up these days, so to some extent, your clients expect you to follow suit.

When an airplane loses cabin pressure we’re told to put the oxygen mask on our mouth first. Once we’re out of trouble, we can help the people next to us. It’s the same thing in a law practice. If your practice is in trouble, you won’t be around long to help your clients with their troubles.

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

How to get prospective clients to see you as the ONLY attorney to choose

June 11, 2012 by
Share

Imagine you are looking for a new accountant. You’ve collected information about several candidates, but you haven’t spoken to any. You’ve narrowed your list to three accountants you plan to contact.

You call the office of the first accountant and tell the receptionist you want to talk to Mr. Roberts about possibly hiring him. You are told that you will need an appointment and you set one up for the following week.

You have a similar conversation with the second accountant’s office, but in this case, you are transferred immediately to Mr. Green. He tells you about his background and practice. He’s friendly and open and you schedule an appointment to meet with him as well.

You call the third accountant, Mr. Jones, and are transferred to his personal assistant, Sally. She asks you some questions and also sets up an appointment with Mr. Jones.

So far so good. Three decent candidates. You’ll meet all three in person within the next ten days and you hope you can choose the right one. You start making a list of questions you will ask when you meet.

You check your email. There’s a message from Sally, Mr. Jones’ personal assistant, thanking you for your call and confirming your appointment. Attached are some documents for you to review before you meet:

  • A letter confirming your appointment, directions, and parking instructions.
  • A F.A.Q. brochure about Mr. Jones, his firm and staff, fees, payment options and other basics a prospective client would want to know
  • Three articles by Mr. Jones, one about saving time and money with bookkeeping, one on how to minimize taxes, and one published in a bar journal about tax issues lawyers need to know that will help with do a better job for their business clients.
  • Another article, an interview of Mr. Jones that was published by a prominent CPA Journal
  • Three back issues of Mr. Jones’ newsletter
  • A booklet of testimonials from Mr. Jones’ clients, including several attorneys, and endorsements from other CPAs, financial planners, and a professor of taxation
  • Mr. Jones’ CV listing his education, experience, awards and honors
  • A two-page questionnaire to be filled out in preparation for your appointment, about your practice and your tax and accounting needs

Every page includes links to Mr. Jones’ web site. There you find additional information, articles, blog posts, white papers, and back issues of his newsletter. There is also a link to subscribe to his ezine via email and links to connect with him on social media. You follow several links and see he is connected to many attorneys, including many whose names you recognize.

The next day, you get an email from Mr. Jones himself. He says he’s looking forward to meeting you the following week, encourages you to fill out the questionnaire, and says he has already visited your web site to get some preliminary information about your practice.

Mr. Jones invites you to send him additional information about your practice that you would like him to see, and any questions you would like him to address.

The next day, in the postal mail, a hand written note arrives, signed by Mr. Jones. It says, simply, “I’m looking forward to meeting you next Wednesday.”

Over the next few days, you get two more emails from Mr. Jones.

The first is an article written by one of his other clients, a lawyer who practices in the same field as you. The email says something nice about this lawyer and Mr. Jones says he thought you might like to read the article, that a lot of his clients have found it helpful.

The second email contains a checklist Mr. Jones gives to all of his clients and a report that shows how to use it to save time and better prepare for tax time. The email invites you to contact Mr. Jones if you have any questions. The email is signed “Bob”.

Next week rolls around and two days before your appointment, you get an email reminding you of the appointment and asking you to either send your questionnaire in advance or to bring it with you.

The next day, the day before the appointment, Mr. Jones’ assistant calls you with a courtesy reminder. She asks if you have any questions, reminds you that they have free parking, and says she and Mr. Jones are looking forward to seeing you.

You haven’t even met Mr. Jones but you already know: he’s the one. You will probably meet with the others, just to be sure, but unless Mr. Jones has two heads and a forked tongue (and maybe even if does), he will be your new accountant.

What can be learned about this experience?

  • Mr. Jones used a “shock and awe” campaign to overwhelm you with reasons for choosing him over any other accountant. Even if you never read the documents he sent you, you are impressed by his diligence and thoughtfulness and convinced he has the requisite experience.
  • The personal touches he adds to the process made you feel good about him. He treats you like a client before you became one. He shows you respect, like you are a valued individual, not a name on a file folder.
  • He provides social proof (articles, testimonials, endorsements) of his experience with and commitment to attorneys as a niche market for his practice. He makes you believe he understands what you do. He shows you that he has helped others like you, suggesting that he can do the same for you.
  • He uses content (articles, blog posts, etc.) to do the heavy lifting. It proves he is good at what he did, without him having to say so himself.
  • It doesn’t take a lot of time to do what he does because almost everything is written in advance and he and his staff obviously use a checklist to manage most of the process.
  • He doesn’t do anything you couldn’t do. You may not have all of the documents he has, but you can start with what you do have and add more later.

I’m sure you can imagine what Mr. Jones will do when you arrive at his office, during the appointment, and after the appointment. Marketing is actually very simple: Treat people like you would like to be treated.

Take some time to outline the process for communicating with a prospective client for your practice. What can you do to show them what they need to see and hear so that they fall in love with you?

Done right, they will “know, like, and trust” you before they even meet you. You won’t just be the best choice, you’ll be the only choice.

Share
Filed Under: Client relations, Closing the sale, Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Social media, Specializing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The most important person in your law office

June 8, 2012 by
Share

The most important person in your law office is the person who answers the phone. What they do, or don’t do, is critical to your success.

That’s not an exaggeration. Your “receptionist” can be a major factor in the growth of your practice, or they can destroy it.

When a prospective client calls your office for the first time, they don’t know what to expect. Their legal situation is weighing on their minds and if they’ve never talked to an attorney, they’re probably nervous. They’re looking for solutions, sometimes desperately, and they want someone to comfort them and tell them everything will be okay.

How well does your receptionist do his or her job?

Have a friend call your office and pose as a prospective new client. You listen in. How are they treated? You may be surprised by what you hear.

I’ve talked to some excellent receptionists and I’ve talked to some awful ones. I can tell with surprising accuracy how successful the attorney is, or will be, within a minute or two of calling their office.

A professional receptionist will make the caller feel important. They listen carefully, ask appropriate questions, and explain what the caller needs to know. They don’t talk “at” people, they talk to them. They care about helping people, and it shows.

What are you paying the person who answers your phone? You should either fire them or give them a big raise. They are either making you a lot of money or costing you dearly.

What’s that? You don’t have a receptionist, you answer your own phone? Record yourself answering a few calls and then listen to those recordings. You may be surprised by what you hear.

Share
Filed Under: Client relations, Communication, Law office management Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How many lawyers really work from home?

June 4, 2012 by
Share

According to the latest US Census, 2% of lawyers now telecommute. That’s up 166% in the last ten years and it’s one of the fastest growing categories. But it’s still a small number.

I’m guessing that most of these lawyers don’t see clients. They write, research, and perform other functions that don’t regularly require meeting people in person.

I’m also guessing that if The Census had used a different word than “telecommute,” the results would have been different. I think a lot of attorneys do at least some of their work from home. They don’t call it telecommuting, however, a word that is not usually associated with professionals.

I also think a growing number attorneys, sole practitioners primarily, work almost exclusively from home. They see clients at an office suite where they have so many hours a month available for that purpose, or other arrangements, i.e., using a conference room or spare office in another attorneys suite.

I work from home. When I “see” a client (lawyer), it’s done over the phone. My overhead is a fraction of what it was when I had an office and I love not having to commute. If I was practicing today, however, I would still have an office.

For one thing, I got a lot of walk-in clients in my practice. Existing clients would bring their papers to the office when it was convenient for them and if they needed help with those papers, someone needed to be there to provide that help.

In addition, my clients needed to see me in person, even if it was only greeting them before turning them over to a member of my staff. They needed to see me wearing the uniform (suit and tie) and to see that I was successful (i.e., nice furniture, etc.) Most of all, they needed to see that I was physically present, committed to the community and niche market that I served.

Over the years, I’ve talked to attorneys who have an office in their home and see clients there. I think this is a mistake. Clients have expectations about what an attorney does and they expect attorneys to have an office. When you deviate from what they expect, they get nervous. They may not say anything but they are surely wondering why you can’t afford a real office.

Without an office, it’s more difficult to attract clients. There are exceptions–entertainment law, for example, where working from (an expensive) home may actually provide even better posture. But for most attorneys, not having an office, in my opinion, costs more in terms of lost business and referrals than the amount saved by working from home.

I would probably have a smaller office today, however. You don’t need as much space today because a lot of work attorneys need done can be outsourced to virtual assistants or employees who work from home. I talked to a secretary for a California attorney recently. If she hadn’t told me, I would never had known she lives in Florida and works from home.

How about you? Do you do some or all of your work from home? Do you have a smaller office than you had in prior years? Let me know in the comments.

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

Could you charge more for your legal services? Here’s how to find out

May 24, 2012 by
Share

Could you charge higher fees for your legal services than you charge right now?

What if you could get paid one-third more than you now get without losing any business. Wouldn’t that be cool? Or, maybe you might lose some business but increase your net income because of the higher fees you are paid from everyone else. Also cool.

Most attorneys set their fees by looking at what other attorneys in their market charge. They don’t want to charge a lot more or a lot less so they play it safe. But some attorneys do ask for more and they get it.

True, these higher paid attorneys may have more experience or a higher-profile reputation. They might offer more value to their clients. Perhaps they are better “sales people” or have more chutzpah. Maybe they took a chance when quoting fees and got lucky.

The point is that some attorneys get paid more than other attorneys for doing essentially the same work. What if you could, too?

There is a way to find out if you could charge more. No, not by asking your clients or prospects if they would be willing to pay more. They have a certain, um, bias, don’t you think? No, if you want to find out if people are willing to pay more you have to charge more, and see if they pay it.

But hold on. Don’t raise your fees across the board just yet. That’s too risky. You don’t know if this will be successful. What if you ask for too much and lose too many clients? Not good. Conversely, what if you don’t ask for enough? Your clients may pay ten percent more without flinching, but how do you know they wouldn’t have paid twenty percent more?

The answer is to test higher fees with small groups of clients and/or prospects and measure the results.

Pay-per-click advertising is a great way to do “split testing”. Basically, you quote one fee to the first inquiry and a higher fee to the second. You alternate quotes until you have a meaningful sample of responses and clients. With enough responses, you’ll be able to see which fee is producing (a) the most clients, and (b) the highest income.

Pay-per-click advertising has become extremely expensive and you might not want to use it as an ongoing marketing tool. But for short term testing purposes, wouldn’t it be worth it to find out conclusively that you could safely charge a lot more than you do now?

If your practice isn’t amenable to advertising, there are other ways to test fees with smaller groups of prospects. If you do seminars, for example, you could quote every other attendee a different fee. Or quote different fees at every other seminar.

The results of price testing are often surprising. You would think that charging higher fees would decrease the number of sales (clients) but that is not always the case. Sometimes you sell just as many at the higher price. And sometimes, believe it or not, you sell more at the higher price.

But you’ll never know unless you test.

Share
Filed Under: Advertising, Attorneys fees, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Great advice on starting a new law practice (or growing your old one)

April 10, 2012 by
Share

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.

Tatiyants followed that up by starting a lunch group where she could network with other estate planning attorneys. She also networked with “like minded, driven, entrepreneurial individuals. . .,” who collaborated with her and became a source of referrals.

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?!

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

Are you paid enough for the risks you take in your law practice?

April 6, 2012 by
Share

“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.

Share
Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Fees and Billing, Law office management, Legal industry, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , ,

How to find out what your clients want (so you can give it to them)

April 4, 2012 by
Share

Attorneys ask a lot of questions. We ask to find out what our clients want and need so we can prepare the right documents. We ask questions through discovery, to avoid surprises, develop a strategy, and gain an advantage. Questions are how we tell a story in the courtroom or negotiate a settlement in the hallway. Questions are even how attorneys answer questions they don’t want to answer.

We’re good at asking questions.

We know when to ask open-ended questions and when to ask leading questions. We know how to question a hostile witness, an expert witness, and our own client. We know when a question is proper and when it is objectionable.

All day, every day, we ask questions in our work. Why don’t we do the same thing in our marketing?

Your clients and prospective clients can tell you what you need to do to grow your practice. They can tell you what you need to say to get them to say yes. They can tell you what you need to do (or not do) to make them happy. They can give you information you can use to improve every aspect of your practice.

All you have to do is ask.

You can ask about the specific handling of their case, what they liked best in your latest newsletter, or how they were treated when they called to make an appointment.

You can ask what topics they would like you to write about in your newsletter, whether they are interested in other services you’re thinking about offering, and whether they think your fees are too high, too low, or just right.

You can ask them what you did well for them, and where they felt you could have done better. You can ask which headline they like best, which blogs or magazines they regularly read, or whether they want paper copies mailed to them or if email is just fine.

You can ask in person or over the phone, through email or online surveys and polls. You can ask directly or, for more honest feedback, let them answer anonymously.

You can ask anything, and they will tell you, and what they tell you could be worth a fortune to you.

What if you have always assumed your clients wanted updates only when there is something important to report but in reality, most of them want to hear from you every month? What if you’ve been writing about how to avoid infringing on others’ patents but they want to know is how to minimize employee lawsuits? What if you have always assumed your receptionist is doing a good job but half of your clients think he is rude?

And guess what? People like being asked. They like giving their opinions and they will appreciate you for asking. It tells them that you care about what they think, and that you want to make them happy.

Make a list of questions to ask your clients and prospects and business contacts. Get in the habit of regularly asking people what they want, what they like, and what you can do to improve. And then do something even more important: listen.

Share
Filed Under: Client relations, Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Get bigger results with a DMO (daily method of operation) with these 4 components

April 3, 2012 by
Share

Most attorneys handle their day by (a) looking at the calendar and (b) responding to phone calls, emails, and regular mail. They handle the work in front of them and never seem to find time for much of anything else.

They know they “should” spend some time on marketing, for example, but that time never seems to materialize.

The solution is to create a “daily method of operation”–a written list of daily activities that help you move forward towards your long term and short term goals.

Your “daily method of operation” is a broad plan for the day. Rather than spelling out the specific tasks you need to do each day, a DMO focuses on the big picture. It reminds you to pay attention to what’s important, rather than what’s in front of you. It allows you to run your practice instead of your practicing running you.

Every attorney’s DMO should have these four components:

  1. Professional and personal development. Every day you should be reading or listening to training, learning new ideas, and finding ways to improve what you already know and do. Without continual development, you will stop growing and eventually begin to decay. This category includes continuing legal education, but also things like practicing your next presentation in front of a mirror, reading books on sales and business, and spending time with a mastermind group or a workout partner.
  2. Money making activities. This is work that brings in revenue. Make sure you’re doing things that allow you to bill or settle cases, not wasting time in pointless meetings.
  3. Marketing. Marketing is everything you do to attract clients and you must do it every day. It includes staying in touch with former clients and making sure your current clients are happy. In fact, from a marketing standpoint, there is nothing more important than “client relations”. Whatever you do for marketing–blogging, speaking, networking, social media, advertising–schedule time and do it every day.
  4. Administrative. If you run your own practice, there will always be things you need to do or to supervise to make sure things are running smoothly. If you aren’t in charge, there are things you need to do to stay organized and out of trouble. Schedule time each day to make sure you’re on top of things, but not so much time that the other components get short-changed.

To stay on track, you should also set goals for each component. There are two types of goals–activities and results:

  1. Activities: e.g., make one “how are you?” call each day to a former client, attend one networking function per week, etc.
  2. Results: e.g., one new client per week via online marketing, increase revenue 25% this quarter, etc.

Create a daily method of operation for your practice and schedule time for all four components. If you spend only 15 minutes a day on marketing but do it every day because it’s part of your DMO, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

Share
Filed Under: Law office management, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Who the hell are you and why are you contacting me?”

March 15, 2012 by
Share

Begin rant. . .

I got this voice mail message the other day: “Hi David, this is Joe Blow. Please give me a call at [telephone number]. . .”.

He didn’t say who he was (other than his name, which I did not recognize) or why he was calling. He didn’t give me any reason to call him back.

Guess who I didn’t call back?

I shouldn’t have to tell anyone this but it happens often enough so I guess I do: when you leave a message, tell people who you are and why you are calling.

Are you a client? A colleague? A fan? Do you want to hire me? Is there an issue I need to look into? Do you have something to propose?

When you leave a voice message, give them a good reason to call you back.

And. . .

State your name clearly. Spell it (unless it’s very common). Say your number slowly so they can write it down. Repeat the number so they don’t have to listen to the message again. Give them your time zone and the best time(s) to reach you. Say please and thank you.

Common courtesy and common sense.

And. . .

The same goes for email.

Tell people who you are and why you’re writing. What do you want them to know or do? Give them a web site so they can find out more. Use correct grammar and spelling. Format your email so it doesn’t look like a DECLARATION OF WAR! And get to the friggin point!

When you contact someone for the first time, you’re making that proverbial first impression. The only thing they have to go on is that email or voice mail message. Make it professional. Show them you care. Because if you don’t care, why should they?

Rant over. . .

Share
Filed Under: Communication, Email, Image, Law office management, Personal development, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »