Five keys to growing a law practice and increasing cash flow

September 29, 2015 by
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You probably know most of what I am about to tell you, but knowing something doesn’t mean you’re doing it or that you can’t do it better. So consider this a helpful reminder to regularly examine these five areas of your practice:

1) Marketing

Marketing is everything you do to get and keep good clients, and it should be your top priority. Examine the marketing activities you now do and see how you can do them better. Look at other strategies you can implement. Look for ways to expand what’s working and minimize or eliminate what’s not.

2) Systems

Every practice should set up and maintain manuals that detail every aspect of work flow and office management. Detailed checklists, forms and templates, and the like, help you do what you do more quickly and efficiently, train new hires and temps, reduce mistakes, save money, and increase profits.

3) Personal Development

Everyone associated with the practice needs to continually re-fresh and improve their professional and personal skills. These include staying current on law and procedure, learning how to use technology, and improving their writing, speaking, salesmanship, marketing, and productivity skills and habits.

4) Human Resources

Hiring and outsourcing are an important part of improving profitability. You need to regularly review who’s working for you, what they’re doing, what else you can assign them, training, scheduling, and incentives. You should also consider when to hire additional staff or replace the ones who aren’t doing a good job.

5) Infrastructure/expense management

Every dollar saved is a dollar earned. This category includes offices, leases, service contracts, technology, library, supplies, repairs, insurance, etc. Can you get it for less elsewhere or by buying in bulk? Can you negotiate? Can you eliminate it? Also look for ways to make the work environment safer, more compliant, and more pleasant for staff and clients.

Of these five categories, most lawyers should focus 70-80% of their time and resources on marketing. When you bring in more clients, bigger cases, or higher fees, the rest of the things on this list will be relatively easy. When you don’t, the rest don’t matter.

Marketing plan for growing a law practice: Go here

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

Building a successful law practice without marketing

September 8, 2015 by
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Is it possible to build a successful law practice without doing any marketing?

The answer is no. It’s not possible, because there’s no such thing as practicing law without marketing.

Everything you do in your practice is marketing. Everything.

You’re either doing a good job of it or you aren’t.

The way you treat your clients is marketing. Treat them well (good marketing) and they will come back to you and send referrals. Treat them poorly and they won’t.

Building a successful law practice takes more than just winning the case or delivering the work product. Not when clients can choose one of your many competitors instead of you. Building a successful law practice means getting a lot of little things right, to make your clients feel appreciated and see the value you deliver, and you either do a good job of that or you don’t.

When someone asks, “What do you do?” the way you answer that question is marketing. Your response either tells them how you can help them or someone they know, and makes them want to know more, or it doesn’t.

Good marketing or bad marketing, but marketing nonetheless.

Do you have a website, social media accounts, or a listing in a legal directory? Do other lawyers ever send you referrals? Have you ever handed out your business card to anyone?

You’re marketing.

You might hate marketing, and refuse to admit that you’re doing it, but doing it you are.

Even if you have a job that doesn’t require you to bring in clients, you’re marketing. Every day you go to work and “sell” your employer on continuing to employ you. Do a great job of marketing and they might give you a raise. Do a bad job of marketing and they might let you go.

Everything you do is marketing.

The question is, how well are you doing it?

No matter how well you are doing it, or how poorly, you can improve your marketing and get better results.

You can also do MORE marketing. There are other ways to attract clients than whatever it is that you’re doing now.

Speaking, networking, writing, advertising–they all work. You can do some of them, or all of them, or you can decide to stick with what you’re doing now and do more of THAT.

So we agree, then, you are marketing. You can improve your marketing and you can do more of it, but you cannot avoid marketing, and you can’t build a successful law practice without it.

Need a marketing plan? Here you go 

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

What’s next?

August 20, 2015 by
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What are you working on right now? What will do after that?

What project(s) have you lined up for next week, next month, and later this year?

It could be anything: hiring a new virtual assistant, updating your website, or getting trained on a new contact management system. Whatever it is, you need to know what’s next.

I just finished a project (Lawyer to Lawyer Referrals) and I’m already working on the next one. I also know what I’ll do after that.

For me, knowing my next project gives me time to think about that project before I start it. I can do research, outline and plan. My subconscious mind will cogitate on the subject and prompt me with ideas and questions.

Knowing what’s next also means I don’t have any “dead air”. I go from one project to the next without missing a step. And if I have any challenges with a project, or it fizzles out, I always have something else to turn to.

It’s exciting to think about what I’ve got lined up. Thinking about future projects inspires me to finish the current one.

I don’t know my next ten projects, just the next two or three. But I have a list of hundreds of ideas to draw from, and as I complete the next few projects, I’ll have the next few lined up.

Mind you, I’m not obsessed with planning. I like a little spontaneity in my life. When I stumble upon a new idea that excites me, I’m fine with pushing aside my other projects to make room for it.

No matter what productivity system or method use, or if you don’t use any, develop the habit of always knowing what’s next. Whenever you start a project, ask yourself, “What’s will I do after this?”

When you know what’s next, your productivity will soar.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing Plan, Productivity, success

You can expect what you inspect

August 13, 2015 by
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In marketing legal services, you need to know your numbers. You need to know where prospects and new clients and website traffic are coming from so you can do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t.

Knowing your numbers allows you to cut expenses (time, money) and increase profits.

For starters, ask your new clients how they heard about you. If they found you through a search engine, ask which one, and which keywords they used. If they saw one of your articles or blog posts or videos, on your site or elsewhere, ask them to identify it. If someone shared one of your blog posts or social media posts, which one?

Do the same for prospects who call to ask questions or schedule a consultation.

If the client or prospect was referred to you, you need to know the source of the referral. Was it a client? Another lawyer or other professional?

Who was it? What did they say about you?

You need to know so you can thank the referral source, even if the referral doesn’t become a client. When you show people that you appreciate what they have done, they are more likely to do it again.

What you recognize, grows.

Of course you also want to know which of your referral sources deserves more of your thanks and your attention. You may know 100 lawyers, but if four or five are sending you more referrals (or better referrals) than the rest, you’ll want to send your referrals to them.

When someone calls your office, they should routinely be asked where they heard about you. Your intake form should ask this question.

Because you need to know.

You can track referrals and other metrics with a simple text document, a spread sheet, or on a legal pad.

Once a month, examine your global numbers, i.e., how much new business (traffic, opt-ins, etc.) you got for the month, and from what sources. If one of your articles is drawing lots of traffic to your site, you need to know this so you can write more articles like it. If you’re getting more business from referrals and less business from social media, knowing this will help you know where to invest your time.

In addition, once a month, look at your numbers for each individual source of business–each ad, your blog, speaking, individual referral sources, etc.

Know your numbers, because you can expect what you inspect.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Referral sources, Referrals

If Donald Trump managed your law office

August 5, 2015 by
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If Donald Trump managed your law office, you’d be in for one hell of a ride. On the first day he arrived, he’d call a meeting and lay out the plan to take you into the big (or bigger) leagues.

Before he arrived, he would have had his people study you. They would know your operation better than you do, and they would have recommendations. Lots of them. They will have briefed The Donald and he will be ready to sell the plan to you and your staff.

And that plan would be breathtaking.

Everything that you have always taken for granted would be back on the table. Every document, every procedure, every employee would be examined, and that includes you. Some of your staff will be given raises. Some will be fired. New people will be brought on board.

Waste will be eliminated. Opportunities will be exploited. Everything will run smoother, faster, and more profitably.

I imagine The Donald will tell you (repeatedly) why a business person and not a lawyer should run things. He’d point out that lawyers aren’t good at taking risks, they don’t appreciate marketing, and they are often better with paper than people.

Yes, he’d ruffle feathers and leave you breathless trying to keep up, but as a result of implementing his plan, new clients would come in, bills would go out, and your bank account would grow.

The lesson? Hire a business person to manage your law firm. Or change your thinking, crack the books, and become one yourself. Embrace the notion that your firm is a business and needs to be run like one. Change the way you think about things, and change the things you do.

Because Mr. Trump is a little busy right now and probably won’t show up at your office any time soon.

Here’s a good place to start

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

Getting the right things done

July 28, 2015 by
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Venture capitalist Mark Suster has a rule he lives by that helps him be more productive and successful. The rule: “Do Less. More.” It means doing fewer things overall, and getting the right things done. “Success often comes from doing a few things extraordinarily well and noticeably better than the competition,” he says.

Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle, says, “Everyone can achieve something significant. The key is not effort, but finding the right thing to achieve. You are hugely more productive at some things than at others, but dilute the effectiveness of this by doing too many things where your comparative skill is nowhere near as good.”

Koch also says, “Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.”

So, what do you do better than most? What should you focus on? I asked this question in an earlier post:

Look at your practice and tell me what you see.

  • Practice areas: Are you a Jack or Jill of all trades or a master of one? Are you good at many things or outstanding at one or two?
  • Clients: Do you target anyone who needs what you do or a very specifically defined “ideal client” who can hire you more often, pay higher fees, and refer others like themselves who can do the same?
  • Services: Do you offer low fee/low margin services because they contribute something to overhead or do you keep your overhead low and maximize profits?
  • Fees: Do you trade your time for dollars or do you get paid commensurate with the value you deliver?
  • Marketing: Do you do too many things that produce no results, or modest results, or one or two things that bring in the bulk of your new business?
  • Time: Do you do too much yourself, or do you delegate as much as possible and do “only that which only you can do”?
  • Work: Do you do everything from scratch or do you save time, reduce errors, and increase speed by using forms, checklists, and templates?

Leverage is the key to the 80/20 principle. It is the key to getting more done with less effort and to earning more without working more.

Take some time to examine your practice, and yourself. Make a short list of the things you do better than most and focus on them. Eliminate or delegate the rest.

Do Less. More.

This will help with getting the right things done

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

Another “fee raising” success story

July 24, 2015 by
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I spoke to another attorney yesterday who told me that, at my urging, he increased his fees approximately 40% and has received no resistance. His fees were low to begin with, he said, but this has emboldened him to increase his fees even further.

He said the top of the market is still 70% higher than his new fee, and we talked about what he would need to do to justify another increase.

You don’t have to be the top of the market, I told him, but you should at least be in the top one-third to 20%.

But don’t be so quick to dismisss “top of the market” fees. Why couldn’t you be the most expensive guy in town?

You could. The question is how.

Much of marketing is about perception. To some extent, you’re worth more because you say you are. Who’s to say any different?

Your lower-priced competitors, you say? See, that’s where you’re missing the boat. There is no competition at the top of the market. It’s at the lower 80% of the market where everyone does pretty much the same thing and competes on price and good looks.

If you’re mucking about in steerage, you’ll never maximize your potential.

But there is a limit to how much more you can charge simply because you want to charge more. You’ve got to find something you do better or different than other lawyers, and make that a point of differentiation.

One way to do that is to specialize not only in the services you offer but the clients for whom you perform those services. Choose a niche market to target, focus on it, and groom yourself to become the “go to” lawyer in that niche.

There are big advantages to this strategy. Besides being able to charge higher fees, marketing is easier and more effective. Instead of networking with or advertising to “anyone” who might need your services or be able to refer clients, for example, you can concentrate your efforts on marketing exclusively to prospective clients and referral sources in your niche market.

That’s what this attorney said he will do.

He’ll save time, spend less on advertising (if not eliminate it completely), and develop a name for himself in his niche.

Word of mouth travels fast in niche markets. By next year at this time, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he has indeed become the “go to” lawyer in his market.

Learn more about niche marketing, with this

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Image, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Networking, Specializing Tagged With: ,

The thrill is gone? Here’s how to get it back

July 17, 2015 by
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The thrill is gone. You’ve lost the spark you had when you started practicing. You’re spinning your wheels and getting nowhere fast.

You’re doing okay, but you want to move on up, to an east side apartment in the sky.

Or maybe things aren’t so good. You’re struggling and falling behind.

What can you do? How do you get things moving?

You need to start over. Go back to the beginning and be “new” again. Forget what you have and what you know and begin from square one.

Before you can construct, you have to destruct.

I know, starting over might hold some bad memories for you. It does for me. I was scared to death. Everything was riding on my making a go of things and I didn’t have a clue about what to do.

But I was excited. The world was mine for the taking. Anything was possible.

And I was hungry. Determined. Open to anything. I had nothing, so I had nothing to lose.

You too? Good. Go back to those days in your mind. Be hungry again. Be open again. Be excited again.

Pretend you have nothing. No clients, no lists, no website, no ads. Chuck it all and start from scratch. You’ll add them back one at a time. Or maybe you won’t.

Yes, but what do you do? That’s not really important. If your head is on right and you are truly reborn, you’ll figure it out.

You’ll try lots of things, with no expectations. Some will work, most won’t. You want this thing to work and you’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Get out a legal pad and a pen. Time to start building. Start by taking inventory.

Who do you know? Write down the names of people who might be able to help you. Clients, prospects, referral sources, other lawyers who can give you advice, friends and family who can support your dreams.

What do you know? What are you good at? What are your skills (legal, marketing, management, leadership, speaking, writing, etc.)

What do you want? Write down one or two goals for the month. Forget next month for now; you’ve got a rent payment coming due.

Are you excited yet? Scared? Itching to do something? Good. Pick up the phone and call someone on your list.

Call a friend and tell him you’re re-launching your practice today and just wanted to share the good news.

Call a lawyer and tell her you’d like to meet for coffee and talk about how you can work together.

Call a former client and see how they’re doing. They might need you for something, or know someone they can refer.

Call a current client and tell them how much you appreciate them.

Spend the rest of the day talking to people. Tonight, write down some marketing ideas. Tomorrow, get up early and do it again.

Need a marketing plan? Get this

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Inspiration, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, success

One two three, one two three, drink

July 16, 2015 by
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How’s biz? Yes, I know, it’s great. But really, how are you doing this month compared to last month or last year?

You need to know.

You’ve got to track your progress. Otherwise, you won’t know if what you’re doing is working.

How many new clients did you sign up this week or this month? Write that down.

How much revenue came into your coffers? You should probably make a note.

How many leads/inquires/prospects do you have in your pipeline? You’ll want that number going up.

Look at your calendar. How many appointments do you have this week? How many of those are with prospective clients?

How many subscribers signed up for your newsletter this month?

You’re running a business. You’ve got to know your numbers. You don’t need to obsess over them, but you should at least know what they are.

Your numbers tell you if what you’re growing. Because if you’re not growing, you’re dying.

But these aren’t the only ones you need to track.

Revenue, new clients, and the like, are all “history”. They are the results of things you did in the past. They tell you what happened, not what will happen.

You need to track your activities as well as as your results.

What did you do this week that might bring you some business?

Whatever else you do that for marketing, I suggest you start tracking these two activities:

1) Calls

How many outgoing calls did you make–to prospects, referral sources, prospective networking partners, former clients, etc.

2) Words

How many words did you write for marketing purposes, for your blog, website, articles/guest posts, books, presentations, letters/emails, social media content, etc.

Are these numbers growing? Holding steady? Declining? You need to know.

Results are the destination. Activities are how you get there.

Grow your practice with The Formula

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

Herding lawyers

July 14, 2015 by
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Our cat is getting his teeth cleaned this morning. Fun times.

As I grabbed him up and settled him in his cage, I thought about a consultation I did the other day with the marketing support person at a mid-size law firm. We talked (a lot) about her challenges in getting the lawyers to do anything marketing related.

She’s a lawyer wrangler. So am I.

It’s frustrating to talk to lawyers, give them million dollar advice, and know they probably won’t follow any of it. Lawyers don’t like change. They don’t like getting out of their comfort zone.

We talked about several ways she might get buy-in about the marketing agenda. I suggested she start by trying to get at least one lawyer on board and doing something, e.g., write an article for the website. I told her to make a big fuss about the article in the firm’s internal newsletter (which I suggested she start). As the other lawyers see one of their own being feted, their competitive nature might kick in and a few others might get with the plan.

You might want to do that yourself. Talk to some attorneys you know who are doing a decent job with marketing and ask them about what they’re doing. Find out how much business they’re bringing in. Get jealous, and then do something.

Start small. Outline an article, perhaps. Call a client you like and say hello.

The hardest part of marketing is getting started. The best way to do that is to schedule time for it. Schedule a 15 minute “marketing” appointment with yourself each week day. Put it on your calendar and tell your staff not to book anything during that time.

Go ahead, block out the rest of the month.

Will you do this? Today? What do you mean, you’re not sure?

Come on, you can do this. Stop looking like Grumpy Cat and block out a few minutes a day for marketing. If you do, I’ll let you sleep for the next 16 hours.

Marketing is easier when you know The Formula

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan
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