I don’t know if my marketing is working

April 7, 2022 by David M. Ward

You’re spending money and time engaging in marketing activities, but you don’t know which of those activities are working or to what extent. You’re thinking you’re spending too much on advertising or wasting time on ineffective strategies and you’re thinking about cashing in your chips and looking for a Plan B.

Before you do that, here are some things to think about.

If you’re spending serious money on advertising, you need to track keywords, clicks, leads, clients, and revenue. Software can do most of that for you and you shouldn’t advertise without it. If you don’t know how to interpret the tea leaves, hire someone who does.

You should also ask everyone who calls or comes to see you where they heard about you, which keywords they used to search, and/or who referred them, or you won’t know if what you’re doing is working, or how well.

You need to know if that $1000 ad is showing a profit. If it isn’t, change it or pull it. But before you decide, you need to consider your back end—the lifetime value of a new client.

If you’re good at getting repeat business and referrals, you can actually come out ahead on ads that break even or lose money.

If you’re not doing a lot of advertising, or decide to cut down or move away from that, focus on other marketing strategies that don’t require a lot of money: referrals, networking, blogging, interviews, presentations, and other forms of content marketing.

You have to include the cost of your time, and/or the time of the people you hire to do that or help you do that, but if you do it right, you should see a significant return on that investment.

If you’re still not clear on what’s working and what isn’t, you might stop relying exclusively on bottom line numbers like the number of new clients and the amount of revenue, and consider “leading edge” metrics like email and/or channel subscribers, video views, leads, and appointments.

Because if those numbers are growing, your practice is probably growing—or soon will be.

Yes, who is on your list is important. But all things being equal, if you’re seeing more people watching your videos or listening to your podcast, if your email list is bigger today than it was six months ago, if you’re taking more calls and talking to more prospective clients, you’re doing something right—and you should continue doing it.

But don’t stop looking for ways to do it better.

Quantum Leap Marketing System—when you’re ready to get big, fast

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan

Onboarding

March 31, 2022 by David M. Ward

There are two key moments in your client’s relationship with you that can make or break that relationship. The day you deliver the outcome or work product and the day they first become your client.

The first day is the most important of the two because it influences everything that happens after that.

New clients are often nervous, worried about their situation, and not yet sure they can trust you or the legal system. You may have met with them or spoken to them before, but everything changes when they write that first check.

Your new client onboarding process is your first and best opportunity to make them feel good about their decision to hire you, set the stage for a successful outcome, and lay the groundwork for repeat business and referrals.

When you do it right, the new client will have more confidence in you, be more hopeful about their situation, know what to expect and what they can do to help you help them.

No pressure.

Okay, there’s pressure. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to your onboarding process, and to regularly update and improve it.

Start with a list of goals. What do you want the new client to know, what do you want them to do, and most importantly, how do you want them to feel after they leave your office?

Then, make a list of what you can do to achieve those goals.

What will you tell them about

Their case
The law
The process and time table
Contingencies, risks, and options
Your office, staff, and resources
What happens first, what happens after that
What to do if they have questions
What you want them to do, and not do
What to expect about fees and costs

Will you introduce them to your staff? Give them a tour of your office?

Will you give them or send them (or direct them to download) any forms, checklists, documents—things to read and things to fill out?

And, because relationships can’t be only about the work, what will you ask about them about their personal life, and what will tell them about yours?

You’re not going to give them everything on their first visit—you don’t want to overwhelm them. Figure out what you will do immediately and schedule the rest.

When they leave your office, you want them to feel a sense of relief, knowing that their problem is in good hands. You’ll prove that to them in the weeks and months that follow, but it all starts on day one.

Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management

Pick two?

March 25, 2022 by David M. Ward

I don’t know who first said it, but people are still saying it today. “You can get the work done quickly, you can get it done well, or you can get it done cheaply.” “Pick two,“ they say. “Because you can’t have all three”.

We’ve heard that said about all manner of products and services and undertakings. We may even say it ourselves.

But is it true?

Who says we can’t have all three?

In our world, the practice of law has three areas:

Core legal skills: research, writing, presenting, strategizing, negotiation, etc.,
Managing: hiring, budgeting, supervising, productivity, etc., and
Marketing: bringing in the business, client relations, etc.

Who says they can’t be good at all three?

Clearly, they can. Many lawyers are excellent at all three.

But there are also many successful lawyers who are good at only one of the above.

They may be good at lawyering, all thumbs when it comes to running a practice, and clueless about marketing.

They may be good at running their practice (and making the most of what they have), but only “okay” in the other two areas.

They may be good at marketing but only adequate or reasonably competent at doing the work and running the practice.

So, I’m calling BS on the adage that you can only pick two. I say you can be good at all three. I also say you can be successful when you’re good at only one.

Now, something else they say. They say that we should focus on our strengths and not worry about getting good at everything. They say we can hire our weaknesses. They say we can be good enough at what we’re good at that we can succeed despite our weaknesses.

And to that, I’m going to agree.

Don’t ignore your weaknesses. But don’t spend a lot of time improving them (unless you want to). Get better at what you already do well, and everything else will take care of itself.

The Attorney Marketing Formula

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Increase your income, Law office management, success

It’s alive!

March 18, 2022 by David M. Ward

My not terribly ancient desktop computer got so slow I stopped using it. I’ve been using my laptop but missed my big monitor and mechanical keyboard.

While I was pondering what to do next, I heard Google is releasing a light-weight operating system, Chrome OS Flex, which can be installed on older Windows and Mac laptops and desktops and convert them into Chromebooks.

Who would want a Chromebook, I thought? Someone who’s current computer is all but useless, for one.

What do I have to lose?

I watched a couple of videos, and within minutes, my old desktop had been reincarnated. And works great. Incredibly fast and fun to use.

If you’ve got a closet full of old machines gathering dust, you might want to do the same thing.

A few points:

Chrome OS Flex is still in early development. It is the “dev” version, so many features don’t work yet and/or are buggy.
It works on most Windows and Macs with an Intel or fairly recent AMD processor. It doesn’t work on every machine.
The OS allows you to install Linux, but it’s not smooth sailing, at least not yet. Install it if you know what you’re doing; if you’re like me, you might want to wait until the full release.
You can’t access The Play Store. Hopefully, that will change.
You can (and I did) boot the OS from a pen drive, to try it out before you install it.
If you install it, it will wipe out your hard drive, so back up everything first. (NB: if you have multiple hard drives on the same machine, it will wipe these, too.)

Without Linux and Android apps, Chrome OS is very limited. You can run web apps and extensions and not much more. That’s fine for many use cases, since most people use a computer for email, watching videos, and other basic functions.

For the rest of us, with apps we depend on that won’t run on a Chromebook, there is a decent workaround.

As soon as I got the machine up and running, I installed the Google Remote Desktop extension, allowing me to run those apps remotely on my laptop.

Anyway, if this sounds like something you’d like to try, YouTube is your friend.

Let me know how it goes.

Filed Under: Law office management Tagged With: Tech

March 4, 2022 by David M. Ward

A simple way to lose clients

You want to increase your fees. It’s time, you deserve more, but, like many lawyers, you’re nervous about it because you don’t want to lose any clients who can’t or won’t pay more.

Understood.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

The wrong way is to do what a certain app company did not long ago when they wanted to increase their revenue. They alienated a large percentage of their customers by taking away from them a bundle of features those customers were used to getting free and would henceforth have to pay for.

That’s a no.

Don’t take things from customers because when you do, you’re taking away something they already own (even if they got it free).

The company lost a lot of customers, suffered a slew of bad reviews and a loss of good will. Apple told them that they had violated their terms of service and they were forced to reverse course and come up with a different plan.

And that’s the plan I’m going to recommend to you.

Grandfather in existing customers (clients) and charge new customers or clients the higher rate (or make them pay for things your old clients got free.) Who says you have to charge all clients the same rate?

New clients won’t know and old clients won’t care.

You keep your old clients happy, at least until a suitable point in the future when you can justify raising rates for them, too. But whatever you do, don’t take away from any client anything that’s “theirs”.

Get the Check: Stress-Free Legal Billing and Collection

https://www.attorneymarketing.com/2022/03/04/13297/

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

Big shots focus on the big picture

February 18, 2022 by David M. Ward

You are a leader. Even if you are a one-person band, you are the guiding force in your practice or career.

You should do what leaders do.

You should spend most of your time and energy focused on big picture strategies that help you achieve your goals.

Most lawyers don’t. Most lawyers spend their days doing client work and mundane tasks, not building for the future.

Leaders lead. They choose the destination, the tactics and tools, and create an atmosphere that attracts and supports others who accompany them.

Leaders focus on

Strategic planning
Casting vision
Creating culture
Building relationships
Improving reputation
Professional development
Personal growth

The leader understands that the firm delivers professional services, but is also a business and must be profitable. The leader continually seeks ways to increase revenue and decrease expenses, to ensure the firm’s viability and future growth.

The leader prefers to grow the business by hiring new people, creating new marketing alliances, and expanding into new markets rather than putting in more hours.

Yes, someone has to see the clients, draft the documents, and win the cases. Sometimes the leader does that. Sometimes the leader delegates much of that to their team. Sometimes the leader delegates all of that to their team while they focus on the big picture.

As you look at this list, think about how you spend your time and ask yourself how much of it you spend doing what leaders do.

Filed Under: Law office management, Leverage, Personal development, success Tagged With: leadership

Work-work balance?

January 24, 2022 by David M. Ward

The world is coming to realize that working too many hours is counterproductive. You can’t do your best work if you’re always exhausted, or win friends and influence people if you’re always grumpy.

We all need time off. Which is why folks are talking about and starting to implement a shorter work-week.

That might be a problem for those who bill by the hour, which is why I stopped doing that years ago and have urged you to do the same. A lawyer’s value is (should be) measured by the value you create for your clients, not the time it takes you to create it. If you can create that value in a four-day week instead of five (or more), why wouldn’t you?

But there’s more to work-life balance than the number of hours worked. Creating balance can also be achieved by changing how you do what you do.

The CEO of Doist, creator of the Todoist app, manages his time a bit differently:

Amir Salihefendic, CEO of Doist, prides himself on having a nearly empty calendar. “Being in meetings all day long, resolving things via meetings, that’s not really an effective way to scale and grow,” he said. Instead, he’s become a loud evangelist over the last year of the idea that remote and asynchronous work — or async — are the future. Async boils down to this, Salihefendic said: “When you send a message, you don’t expect a response right away.”
So what does a truly async day look like? For Salihefendic:
A couple of hours with his kids in the morning before walking over to a co-working space.
He tries to do deep work all morning, take time in the middle of the day to recharge and then spends the afternoon catching up on messages and the rest.
If there’s something hugely time-sensitive — which Salihefendic bets is true less often than you think — he turns to Telegram, or (gasp) a phone call.
Since nobody expects Salihefendic to be around every second, he said, nothing bad happens when he’s not.
Source: https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/protocol-workplace/remote-work-wars?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6

A non-traditional approach may work for some (enlightened) corporations, but would it work for lawyers?

Show of hands: Who wants to find out?

Filed Under: Law office management, Productivity

Spying on clients and competitors

December 22, 2021 by David M. Ward

Do you know what’s going on in your clients’ businesses? The latest good news? The latest dirt?

You should. And you can. Just set up google alerts for the business and their key people and you’ll get an email whenever something happens.

When someone gets sued, investigated, or arrested, when someone wins an award, gets married, or dies, you won’t have to wait for someone to tell you, you’ll know. You can contact your client and congratulate them or express condolences.

Do the same thing for their industries and major competitors. When you learn something your client may need to know, they’ll appreciate your telling them, even if they already know.

If you represent consumers, set up alerts for their employers, their employer’s industries, their places of worship, and their local markets.

While you’re at it, set up alerts for your major competitors, your practice area, your referral sources, and yourself. You need to know when someone is talking about you or doing something that interests you or may concern you, things that present an opportunity or a threat.

And yes, you can also get a lot of ideas for your newsletter or blog this way.

Go here and set up an alert or two. You can always remove it, modify it, or add more.

Automate your market (and marketing) intelligence. Let technology bring the information to you so you don’t have to go looking for it.

The Attorney Marketing Formula

Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management, Marketing legal services

Know thy client

December 21, 2021 by David M. Ward

I read an article in the Wisconsin Lawyer that provided “tips for writing in ways that attract the attention of search engines, readers, and new clients.”

It’s good information. And a good reminder about the importance and value of writing in building a law practice.

But that’s not why I’m telling you about it.

At the end of the article, in her “bio,” the author tells a story about one of her consulting clients who was unhappy with her advice:

A few years ago, an attorney I was working with called me to complain because one of their former clients gave them a bad online review. I had encouraged them to follow up with clients to thank them for their business and ask for reviews, so the bad review they received was, in their mind, my fault. It didn’t occur to me that I needed to tell attorneys that they should only ask for reviews from clients they suspected had a positive opinion of them. I now emphasize that you should never ask for a review you don’t want. It’s the legal marketing equivalent of the age-old advice that you should never ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to!

It seems so simple. Ask for reviews; don’t ask for reviews from clients who might not love ya.

You want reviews. You need reviews. Good reviews can bring in a boatload of clients.

Seriously.

So you should ask for reviews.

But how do you avoid bad reviews?

Simple.

Ask for reviews, but do it in stages:

Routinely send every client a form to fill out to provide feedback about you, your services, your office, etc. Include a question asking if they would recommend you to others, and why or why not.
When the client provides positive feedback and says they would recommend/refer you, ask them to post this in a review (and give them a link to the site you prefer).

Keep your enemies close. Keep your friends (and clients) closer, because you never know what they might say about you.

The Quantum Leap Marketing System

Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Writing Tagged With: reviews

You can’t hire someone to do your pushups for you

December 8, 2021 by David M. Ward

Jim Rohn said it, and he was right. Some things can’t or shouldn’t be outsourced.

Your marketing is one of them. Because professional services are personal services.

Committees and corporations may pay you, but you are hired by and build relationships with individuals.

You can outsource or delegate many marketing activities, but most of them should either be done by you or supervised by you.

You wouldn’t hire someone to go on dates with your spouse and you shouldn’t do that with your clients. You need to know them, so you can serve them, and they need to know you so they will give you that opportunity.

Staff and outside vendors can assist you, advise you, and do a lot of the legwork for you, but they shouldn’t do everything for you.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe you should delegate as much as possible. I’ll say it again, “you should ONLY do those things which ONLY you can do”.

One of those things is building relationships.

Where do you find the time to do that and also do the legal work?

I’m glad you asked.

The answer is to delegate as much of the legal work as possible.

If it can be done by an employee, it should be.

You diagnose the problem and write the prescription. Your staff carries out your orders. You supervise, make sure they’re doing the right things, and doing things right.

Marketing is a lot more than building relationships, but with a professional practice, it’s the most important part.

Make sure you allocate time to do that.

Ready? Quantum Leap Marketing System