Do you have a back-up plan for your practice?

July 7, 2016 by
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My hard drive started making a noise so I ordered a new computer. I also ordered a new external hard drive for back- ups. And yes, I also back up to the cloud.

So I’m good. If disaster strikes, I’m ready.

Going through this process made me think about back-up plans for other areas of my life. I have multiple sources of income but I’m working on new ones. I don’t rely on one marketing method, so if something went awry, I could lean in on the others.

How about you? Do you have back-ups for your machines, your marketing, and your sources of income? Do you have extra food and water at home?

If something bad happens, will you be ready?

In the marketing department, most lawyers get most of their new clients through referrals. At least they should. And when you think about it, referrals have their own built-in back-up plan because referrals come from, or should come from, dozens of individuals–former clients, existing clients, professional referral sources, friends, and so on. If one decides they no longer like you, you still have others.

Referral sources die off, however, and need to be replaced. And you should never rely on referrals just happening, even if they presently do. You should work at making them happen, consistently and in ever-increasing numbers. There are ways to do this, as detailed in my several courses on referrals.

Okay, you’re with me. You regularly do things to stimulate referrals. You’re getting most of your new clients from referrals and that number is growing. Or at least you’re working in that direction.

Good. But what’s your back-up plan?

Yes, a back-up plan for your back-up plan. What else do you do to bring in business? What else will you start doing?

Suggestion? A content-rich website. Just make sure you back that up, too.

How to get more client referrals

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

It’s time for me to confess

July 6, 2016 by
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I have a confession to make. I don’t like marketing. Never have, never will.

That may sound crazy coming from me but it’s true. So if you don’t like marketing, that’s cool. We’re on the same page.

What I like is what marketing can do. The new business it brings. The lifestyle it affords.

I like knowing that because of marketing, I will never have sleepless nights worried about where my next client will come from, or if they will come at all.

And, compared to some of the other things I’ve had to do in my career, marketing really isn’t difficult. Or time-consuming. Or expensive.

At least it doesn’t have to be.

And hey, marketing lets you use the very skills that made a career in law attractive to you: writing, speaking, thinking, planning–using your brain instead of your brawn. And let’s not forget that marketing also allows you to help more people.

So hate on it, if you must, but find a way to do it. Because marketing is your friend. Even if you don’t like your friend and wish you never had to see her again.

Marketing is easier with this

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

What to do about freebie seekers

July 1, 2016 by
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We all get people asking us for free advice. It goes with the territory. But sometimes it gets to us, as a friend of mine expressed in a recent email:

“Hi David –

Do you get requests to provide free advice?

I’m feeling insulted by professionals – many of them strangers – expecting me to provide free advice.

I hear “I just want to ask a few questions” or “I don’t have money to pay you” and the like.

Am I putting the wrong vibe out there? Or, is it a universal problem?

What do you think?

Thanks for your input.”

I said, “So you’re asking me for free advice about what to do about people who ask for free advice?”

Okay, having a bit of fun, but isn’t that what she’s doing? Even if we are friends and even if she is only letting off steam and looking for me to tell her this is normal (which is it), her request makes plain how easy it is for people to ask for free advice.

That’s just the way it is.

I get these, too. Are we putting out the wrong vibe? I don’t know but I don’t worry about it.

In fact, it’s a good thing. It means that people feel comfortable reaching out to us. It means they value our advice, yes, even if they are unwilling or unable to pay for it.

So don’t let it get to you.

The question isn’t how many people don’t want to pay, it’s how many do. Are you making money? Are most of the people who contact you willing to hire you? When they do, are they willing to pay top dollar?

Focus on them and you will attract more of them.

And hey, just because someone emails you doesn’t mean you have to respond. Or explain why you charge for your services, or why you charge as much as you do.

If you do respond, point to the page on your website that explains your policies, enumerates the services you offer, and tells them what to do to hire you or take the next step.

Or ask them, as I often do, “Do you want to book a consultation?” I usually don’t hear from them again.

Be firm. But be nice. Because today’s freebie seeker might be tomorrow’s paying client.

And if you are inclined to respond substantively, as I am doing here, turn your response into a blog post or article, as I am doing here. Think of it as your compensation. Because you don’t work for free.

How to use your website to weed out freebie seekers

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With:

Would you do me a favor?

June 30, 2016 by
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Your clients are willing to help you. They’re willing to send you referrals, provide positive reviews, promote your event, and tell others about your new article or blog post.

All you have to do is ask.

But you have to ask.

Yes, many clients (and prospects) will tell their friends and social media connections about your free report or email newsletter without being asked. But with a little prompting, many more will do it.

You can have your website and email do much of that for you. Put buttons on your site that make social sharing a one-click effort. On your “contact me” page or widget, add a check box that says, “I have a referral”. Add a call to action to your emails asking subscribers to forward the email or share your link.

When clients are in the office or on the phone, have your staff ask for their help. Have them remind clients that you “get most of your new clients from referrals” and then give the client “referral devices” that make it easy for them to send you business.

Of course you can ask, too.

When someone says something nice about you or your services, after you thank them, say, “Would you do me a favor?” Then ask them to email you their kind words [and then put them on your site] or go to a review site and post their feedback.

You can also ask, “Would you do me a favor?” when they don’t come forward with a compliment.

Give every client your business cards, reports, and referral devices and ask them to pass them out. Tell them about your upcoming webinar and ask them to invite their friends or business contacts. Ask them to add you or follow you on social media. Ask them to “tell your friends about us”.

Can it really be that simple? Why not? You’d do a favor for them, wouldn’t you?

When a client asks you to buy their daughter’s girl scout cookies, you do it. You do it because you want to help them, just like your clients want to help you. But you wouldn’t buy those cookies if you didn’t know about them, and you won’t know about them until the client asks you to buy a box.

Let me show you how to create the perfect referral device to give your clients and other lawyers

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Referrals

How to compete with bigger firms

June 29, 2016 by
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You’re a small firm or a solo, competing against bigger firms. They have more employees and bigger budgets. They have more buying power and can advertise for half of what you’ll pay. They have marketing committees and dedicated staff who do marketing-related activities all day long.

How do you compete against them?

You don’t. If you want to win, you have to choose the right battles.

If you have a small team, perhaps just you and an assistant, don’t target big clients who would never consider a small firm. Target smaller clients who not only would consider hiring a sole practitioner or small firm, they prefer it.

As a small firm, you are quicker and more agile. You don’t need committees to make decisions or change course. You make the call and do what needs to be done.

Unlike big firms, you don’t handle “everything”. You’re not adequate at many things, you specialize and are excellent at what you do.

You don’t have a huge staff or rent entire floors so your clients save money when they hire you.

You work closely with your clients and develop a personal relationship with them. When they need you, they can speak to you. You understand their business and industry. You know their staff. You are more than just their lawyer, you are a partner in their success.

Big firms have their strengths. Don’t compete with them. Don’t approach big companies and try to dazzle them with your successes. Even if they are impressed and love you they’re not going to hire you.

Create a profile of your ideal client and target only them. Tailor your marketing materials and your approach and show them that they are your ideal client and you are their ideal lawyer.

To create a profile of your ideal client, use this

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With:

The hidden value of content marketing

June 28, 2016 by
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Education based marketing means providing prospective clients with information about their problems and the available solutions. As they contemplate the severity of the issues and the nuances of the solutions, they get closer to hiring a lawyer. Your content shows them that you understand their problem and have helped others to solve it, and you thus become the lawyer they are mostly likely to hire.

In other words, the quality (and quantity) of your information does much of the selling of your services for you.

So, plus one for content.

But in what form do you deliver that content?

William Glasser said that we learn. . .

10% of what we read,
20% of what we hear,
30% of what we see,
50% of what we see and hear,
70% of what we discuss,
80% of what we experience,
95% of what we teach others.

So you want to give prospective clients options to read, watch, and listen to your information. You also want to involve them with that information by engaging them in a conversation about it, through commenting on your posts and emailing and calling you to ask questions about how the information applies to their specific situation.

In a live presentation, you can engage the audience by soliciting feedback and asking people to talk about their experience with the subject. On your website, you can post surveys and other types of involvement mechanisms.

The more senses your prospects use, the more they learn; the more they learn, the more likely they are to see you, the teacher, as the best solution to their problem.

But there’s a hidden value to this process. As you create your content, you learn more about the subject and get better at teaching it.

You spend more time thinking about what you know and verifying what you think you know. You read what other teachers (lawyers) say about the subject and how they say it. You find more examples and stories to illustrate your points. And as you write and re-write your information, and practice your delivery, you become a better teacher and thus better at attracting clients.

If you want to get better at content marketing, use this

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With: ,

How to put (a lot of) your marketing on autopilot

June 21, 2016 by
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Writing a weekly blog post and emailing that post to your email subscribers is one of the smartest things you can do to build your practice. If you don’t have an email list and a sign-up form on your website or blog, put that at the top of your project list under the category of “incredibly effective marketing”.

Don’t argue with me, just do it. And then email something to that list at least once a week. You’ll thank me later.

See, one reason many lawyers don’t do this is because it seems like too much work, relative to what they believe will be the outcome. That’s because they don’t know how effective this can be in bringing in new clients, repeat clients, referrals, and other marketing goodness.

If you found out that doing this could double or triple your client intake this year, would it be worth it?

One way to ameliorate the “burden” of writing a weekly email is to collect some of your past emails and add them to your autoresponder sequence.

Autoresponders let you send “broadcasts,” which is what you do when you write and send fresh material, and “newsletters” when you want the software to automatically send emails you have already written on a schedule of your choosing.

Are you with me?

Go through the emails you previously sent to clients and prospects and website visitors and select the best ones that are “evergreen”. You may have some that you can edit (remove dates and time-bound offers and “current” events) and add them to your list.

Still with me?

If you have 20 evergreen emails, you can put them in your autoresponder queue and send them to new subscribers automatically. Those new subscribers won’t know (or care) that you wrote them in the past; to them, the information is new and valuable.

That’s 20 weeks of new emails you don’t have to write. You can also send these to “old” subscribers, many of whom have already received those emails. Just because you sent it to them before doesn’t mean they received them, read them, related to them, or were ready to act on them.

When you have 52 evergreen emails, you can add them to your queue and take the next year off. When the year is over, you can instruct the autoresponder to repeat the process and start sending those emails again.

You’ll want to add new emails (broadcasts) throughout the year, however. To notify your list when you have a new article or blog post on your site, invite them to your event, or make a special offer. But that’s easy to do because you won’t be writing emails every week. Unless you want to. But that’s a subject for another day.

Here’s how to do it: Marketing online for attorneys

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Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing Tagged With:

Are you stuck in first gear?

June 20, 2016 by
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Do you ever feel like you’ve stuck? You work hard and do the right things but you don’t seem to be getting ahead?

You’re in a rut, my friend, but don’t worry. It’s nothing five new clients can’t fix.

Five new clients who pony up big retainers or five big cases could be all you need to jump-start your machine and shift into high gear.

You know I’m right.

So yes, I’m going to pound on marketing yet again. Can you handle it? Unless you utterly loathe what you do and you need a new career, marketing is always the answer to what ails you.

But today, instead of digging into your bag of attorney marketing tricks, I’d like to see you go in another direction.

What do I mean? I mean exposing yourself to a completely different field. Immerse yourself in something unrelated to the practice of law and see how others have built or are building a successful business or practice.

Read a book, take a class, talk to someone. Get inspired by what they did and adapt their methods or ideas to your practice.

You might be surprised to discover some great ideas that have been right under your nose this whole time.

This morning, I downloaded a Kindle book, The College Entrepreneur. I’m not in college and I’m not interested in starting a new business right now but the book is receiving high marks and was free, so clickity-click and I own a copy. I haven’t read it yet but I’m almost certain I’ll find something in it that I can use in my business.

Get thee to a bookstore and start browsing. Don’t leave until you find something to read that has nothing to do with law or even marketing or business. Learn how others have climbed the mountain of success in whatever it is they do, and then go climb your own mountain.

When you’re ready to apply what you learn to your practice, get this

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Marketing legal services, success

Is it better to find clients or help them find you?

June 15, 2016 by
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Is it better to find clients or help them find you? Okay, I know which of these options you prefer. You want clients to find you, call you, and hire you.

You want to put up a website and have people find it, on their own, without any prompting by you. You want them to become enamored by what they see and call you to hire you or take the next step.

You want to be a fisherman, putting hooks in the water and letting the fish find them. You don’t want to be a hunter, finding prey and taking it down.

You want to advertise. Or write articles for someone else’s publication, or speak at someone else’s event. You want your clients and other professionals to recognize your greatness and tell their friends and clients about you.

Who doesn’t?

In marketing professional services, posture is important. You don’t want to knock on doors, you want clients to knock on yours. You want clients to see you as important and successful. You don’t want them to think you need them.

So make “clients finding you” your priority.

But. . . don’t turn up your nose at the idea of you finding clients.

Besides, what exactly does that mean?

When you network with prospective clients, are you finding them or are you giving them the opportunity to find you? When you friend or follow a prospective client on social media, are you finding them or allowing them to find you?

Want to know what I think? I think it’s a bunch of semantics and, as Rick said to Ilsa, “it don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Letting clients find you is great. But finding clients is not a bad thing.

Your number one marketing method? Referrals.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Selling ice to eskimos

June 10, 2016 by
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I took a speech class in college. When it was time to deliver my presentation, I talked about insurance and retirement planning. Yep, to a bunch of 18-year olds.

A friend was selling insurance and provided me with information I could use in the presentation. I made the case for buying insurance when you’re young and the insurance is cheap. I told them I had purchased a policy for that reason and encouraged them to do the same. I offered to introduce them to my friend who could tell them more.

As you might have guessed, despite doing a good presentation (according to my teacher), there were no takers.

I had a good message (arguably) but delivered it to the wrong audience.

If my audience had been a group of newly married young people or young couples who had just had a child, I might have gotten better results.

There are many elements that go into crafting a marketing message but none is more important than your audience. If your audience doesn’t have the legal problem you’re talking about, for example, and believes they are unlikely to ever have it, your message will fall on deaf ears.

A well-crafted message with a crazy-good offer heard by the wrong audience will fail. A mediocre message and offer delivered to the right audience, however, might do just fine.

Before you do any presentation, write a blog post or article, record a video, send mail or email to a list, or run an ad, the first question you must ask is, “Who is the audience?”

If you have the wrong audience for your message, you either need to change the audience or change the message.

If you’re a personal injury lawyer and you’re addressing a group of people who have never been in an accident, don’t talk to them about how to get the highest settlement, talk to them about what to do when they do have an accident.

Sales people pre-qualify prospects and leads before talking to them, and you should, too. Find out if your audience needs what you’re selling and if they can afford to buy it. If they don’t need it or can’t afford it, go talk to someone else.

Get your website to pre-sell your services to visitors. Click here

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Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Presentations
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