A simple way to promote your blawg you’re probably not doing

December 16, 2011 by
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increase-blog-trafficDo you have a print brochure for your law practice? Most attorneys don’t. They pass out their business card with the url to their web site or blog but a business card generally doesn’t tell people what you do or the benefits you offer. People have to go the your web site to find out and too often they simply don’t.

A brochure would help. But if you don’t want to spend the time or money hiring professionals to create one, there is a simpler alternative.

Take your best and most read blog post or posts and print them. You don’t need to re-set the text so it looks like a brochure, just print out the the posts as is. Add a cover sheet on your letterhead or add a screen shot of your blog’s home page. Or just staple your business card to the front and you’re done. Instant brochure.

No, it’s not slick and polished like a “real” brochure, and that’s okay, it’s not a brochure, it’s a reprint. In truth, your reprint is more effective than a brochure because it’s not slick and it’s not a sales document, it is valuable content that prospects want to read.

Hand out your reprints when you’re you’re speaking or networking. Put some on the table at the back of the room. Put a few copies in your new client welcome kits. Ask your referral sources to put them in their waiting rooms.

You can use this idea online, too. Gather up some of your better posts and assemble them into a PDF.

One of the easiest ways to get more traffic to your blawg is to give people a taste of what they get when they visit. This is a simple and very effective way to do that.

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

Cutting costs can increase net income but it can also put you out of business

October 27, 2011 by
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cost-cutting-for-attorneys-law-firmsWhen attorneys are getting fewer clients and their income is waning, it’s only logical to look at cutting expenses. After all, every dollar you don’t spend on overhead is a dollar more in net income.

There are a lot of ways to reduce overhead. Go through your ledger (or bank and credit card statements) and I’m sure you’ll find many small items that can be reduced or eliminated. or a month expenses may not jump out at you, but when you add them up, you may find yourself spending thousands of dollars you don’t have to.

Also look at big items. Can you move to a smaller office? Can you work from home and use another attorney’s office to see clients? Can you get by with a less expensive car?

There’s one category of expense that you should not cut. In fact, when times are tough, it’s the one expense you should look at increasing. When times are tough you should spend more on marketing.

Attorney Philip Franckel explains why on his blog:

Reducing your advertising and marketing budget will cause your law firm. . . to fall further behind and allow your competitors to gain a substantial advantage. When revenues increases, you will have to start all over again. Additionally, all previous work and investment in branding will have been for nothing. In a bad economy, this is preciously the time to take advantage of lower marketing costs.

I agree completely. Think about it, the business is out there, at least enough business for YOU. If they aren’t finding you now, what makes you think they will find you later? You’ve got to help them find you. So when business is down, you must increase your marketing, not cut it.

Franckel also commented on another attorney who boasted that his firm had cut expenses by eliminating advertising contracts in favor of “variable” marketing expenses, ostensibly allowing the firm to spend more when they can and less when they cannot. Franckel points out that this strategy will wind up costing the firm more, not less:

Fixing marketing costs can be a huge benefit. When entering into a large five figure advertising spend on TV, I committed to a 12 month budget to fix the cost of media. This allowed me to pay the same known cost for media every month. Otherwise, I would have faced huge increases, or have been forced to temporarily discontinue advertising, because of temporary changes in media demand such as elections.

I agree with this, too. In the past, when I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on advertising, I saved as much as 70% and sometimes even more by locking in a yearly contract, versus what I would have paid “month to month”. (NB: I only agreed to the contracts, however, after testing the ads and the publications.)

Now, what about attorneys who don’t spend money on advertising or marketing? It may be time to consider it. You don’t have to start advertising if you’ve never done that before and don’t want to do it now. But how about improving your web site or joining a new networking group? How about doing a mailing to your former clients?

Note also that your time (spent marketing) is another expense. Don’t cut down on this, either.

When business is slow, yes, cut your overhead but don’t cut marketing. Investing more time and more dollars in growing your practice will always be the best way to increase your net income.

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

The Big Idea: Taking a Quantum Leap in the Growth of Your Law Practice

September 30, 2011 by
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Donny Deutsch’s cable program, “The Big Idea,” features interviews with entrepreneurs who scored big (or are trying to) in the world of business. The guests discuss their “big idea,” the one that makes their company or product different from all the rest.

In the crowded, competitive world of business, a big idea can propel a company from the depths of obscurity to the heights of financial success. But the big idea isn’t necessarily a new invention or a revolutionary concept. More often, it is a new spin on an old idea that capitalizes on a current trend (e.g., “fast food” restaurants that serve nothing but breakfast cereal).

Allstate Insurance company is running ads that promise to pay cash rebates for every six months of good driving. That’s nothing more than a new way of offering a good driver discount but in my view, it qualifies as a big idea because instead of a discount, the customer gets paid. Getting a check from your insurance company every six months re-sells you on staying with that company because you don’t want to lose “your” check. (It also reminds you to drive safely.)

Amazon’s latest big idea is low priced tablets. They don’t do everything an iPad does but they will probably appeal to a big segment of the market that will pay $200 (or less) but not $500 (or more).

How could you create a big idea in your practice? It might be as simple as taking something every attorney in your market does (e.g., house calls), and re-positioning it (e.g., “We’ll send a limo to pick you up”). It might be something few attorneys do, like the radio spot I just heard by an estate planning firm that prepares living trusts. Their big idea: “free lifetime updates”.

Take some time to brainstorm ideas with your employees or mastermind group. What do you do that everyone else does that you could promote as “your big idea”? Or, what do you do (or could you do) that nobody else does that could be an even bigger big idea?

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Wealth Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Zen of Attorney Marketing: Quietly Building a Successful Law Practice

August 22, 2011 by
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What if you could build a successful law practice quietly–without shouting your message but by letting your message be heard, without trying to find clients but by letting clients find you?

In my father’s day, attorneys didn’t do any marketing. Oh, they did a little networking or public speaking or they wrote the occasional article, but they did these things because they naturally flowed from what they were doing in their practice. They didn’t attend a bar meeting because they were “marketing”; they went because they enjoyed being there, catching up with their friends, and learning some things they could use in their practice.

It’s different today. Not because there is more competition, higher overhead, or a faster paced world. Yes, the world is much more complex than it was fifty years ago when my father started practicing, or thirty years ago when I did, or even fifteen years ago, before everyone had broad band and smart phones. But our world is not different so much because of those things but because we make it so.

We run and push and struggle because we’ve bought into the notion that to be successful, we have to shout louder, promote harder, and spend bigger. We advertise or jump on board the latest social media concept, not because it feels natural, not for the joy of doing it, but because we fear being left behind.

Is the effort worth it? We might bring in more clients but are we any happier? Too often, the answer is “no”.

How do we get back to the way it used to be when a lawyer’s practice grew naturally? By getting out of your own way and letting things happen, instead of constantly trying to make them happen.

It starts with letting go of assumptions that don’t serve us and realizing that marketing can not only be organic, for sustained success and true contentment, it must be. Marketing can never be something you loathe or feel like you “have to do.” It cannot be something you do, it must be an expression of who you are.

Leo Babauta, who writes the Zen Habits blog, reminds us that sustained success and contentment don’t come from following the herd or from doing things you resist doing but feel you must, they come from delivering value, something my father didn’t need to read, he just did.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Inspiration, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to market legal services on Facebook

October 26, 2009 by
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Facebook is a great place to meet prospects and potential referral sources. With a few clicks, you can find and connect with exactly the kinds of people you’re looking for, at no cost whatsoever. The ease with which this can be done, however, too often leads otherwise smart professionals to do things that actually chase prospects away.

Facebook is not an advertising medium, it is a networking medium, and the rules of networking are the same online as they are in the “real” world. Use Facebook to meet people, just as you would at a Chamber of Commerce or Rotary event, and then build a relationship. It’s okay to let them know what you do–that is what people do when they meet, after all. It’s not okay to assault them with self-serving promotional messages.

Just as it’s easy to add friends on Facebook, it’s just as easy for them to block your messages or delete you. Understanding and applying a few simple rules of networking etiquette will go a long way towards helping you use Facebook and other social media sites to build your law practice.

Make your profile about you. People want to be friends with real people, not companies or products or causes. Use your real name, and provide information about yourself–what you do, what you like, where you have been, what you think about the world.

You can describe your practice in your profile and add links to your web sites. Think of this area as your online business card. If someone wants to see what you do, they can look in this section. If they want to know more, they go to your web sites. You can also establish a fan page or group for your practice and link to this from your profile.

Your profile photo should be, not surprisingly, a photo of you. Photos of your dog or a pretty sunset can go in your photo album, but when I’m considering a friend request, I want to see who’s asking. Use a decent head shot and don’t clown around. You really do have only one chance to make a first impression.

Be appropriate. The world is watching –and judging you. If you use inappropriate humor, if there are photos depicting you as inebriated, if you are too extreme in your viewpoints–these can all have serious negative consequences.

Use spell check. Use correct grammar. Be judicious in your use of emoticons, abbreviations, and slang. Your real friends may not care about any of this but I can assure you, many of your business prospects do. All they have to go on is what they see on your page, so be careful about what you post.

As for invitations to join your cause or attend your event, please be aware of how your friends might perceive you in light of your activities. Are you involved in anything ill-suited to your profession or the image you wish to portray? Are you always playing games or taking surveys and, seemingly, never working?

Don’t advertise. Don’t post an ad (or a link to your website) on someone’s wall. Ever. Disguising it as an offer for a free ebook that is part of your sales process doesn’t fool anyone. Don’t do it.

Look, you wouldn’t like it if someone came to your house and stuck a sign in your lawn advertising their services, so why would you think anyone wants your ad on their Facebook property? If you post an ad on my wall, I will delete it. If you do it again, I will delete you.

The same goes for email. If I accept your friend request and you immediately send me messages about your product or service, that’s a big turn off. You might have something I want, the best price, the greatest service, but don’t be surprised if I don’t buy from you.  It’s not quite spam, but it’s close, so don’t do it.

Your status message is different. It’s on your property–I only see it if my settings so allow. But don’t abuse this by posting a never-ending stream of promotional messages. Once in awhile is fine. Do it every hour, like I see some people do, and we’re done.

I change my status message usually once a day. That works for me. It’s okay to change yours several times a day, but make sure you have something meaningful to say. Some say it’s okay to make your status posts two-thirds about you, one-third about your business or offers. I say that’s too much advertising. There are other, more subtle ways to spark interest in what you offer. (See below.)

Add value. Your profile, your status updates, your notes, your videos, your comments on others’ posts, should be perceived, by and large, not as self-serving or frivolous but as adding value.  That doesn’t mean you can’t let your sense of humor show or that everything you do must render a benefit. It does mean that you should show people that you have something to say and something to contribute to the relationship.

You can offer tips and advice, share resources, or describe interesting experiences. I  try to post an interesting quote every week day, and I post occasional videos and links I believe my friends would like to see.

You could write articles (“notes” on Facebook), and provide helpful information. This note is an example. When you post articles, not only do your friends see you as making a contribution, they also get a demonstration of your expertise.

By contrast, updates about the sandwich you just ate or the movie you watched are of no value to anyone unless they come with a meaningful recommendation. I don’t care that you are walking your dog or checking your email. You wouldn’t call me on the phone and tell me these things, so why tell me online? Someone who posts something merely for the sake of posting isn’t adding value, they are simply adding clutter to an otherwise over-cluttered Facebookisphere. [I just coined that word; feel free to use it.]

Adding value also means making an effort to patronize your friends’ businesses.  You’d do that in the real world, wouldn’t you?  And if you can’t hire them or buy something yourself, provide referrals. When you do that, you help two friends and earn the gratitude of both. Be a matchmaker. If you have a friend who is looking for a new employee, for example, and you have another friend who might be a good fit, introduce them.

Add value and people will want to be your friends. Waste people’s time with meaningless information and you might soon find that when you do have something of value to offer, nobody’s listening.

Be yourself, but be normal. Don’t hide your personal side. The things you do for fun–hobbies, games, surveys, widgets you post on your page, and so on, define you and make you interesting. When your friends see they share those interests it can strengthen your relationship. But if you are on Facebook to build your business, you must establish a balance between your personal and business identities. When in doubt, always lean towards your business persona.

In the real world, if you came to my office and I threw a sheep at you or gave you photo of a chocolate martini, that would be weird, wouldn’t it? And yet that’s what people do online. Look, I do silly things on Facebook. I’m opinionated and have a profoundly warped sense of humor and I like to stir things up from time to time. But the majority of my Facebook friends who have an opinion of me would, I think, describe me in positive, business-like terms.

A little flair now and then is interesting. All flair, all the time, is clownish, and people don’t do business with clowns.

Friends first. There is a maxim in marketing that says, “All things being equal, people prefer to do business with people they know, like, and trust.” Be that person.

“How To Win Friends and Influence People,” written decades before the father of the founder of Facebook was born, offers great perspectives on how to do business on Facebook.

Dale Carnegie counsels us to focus on other people,  not ourselves. Talk to your Facebook friends (through messages (email), IM (instant message), and, eventually, by phone and in person) about themselves. Ask questions and listen. Let them do most of the talking.

What do they want in their business or personal life? What problems do they wish to solve? Look for ways you can help them. Provide advice or information or referrals, if you can. Just listen if you cannot. Again, that’s what friends do.

If your services can help them solve a problem or obtain an objective, offer them. If not, don’t. And if you do offer them and they aren’t  interested, drop the subject. They may come back to you some day, when they are ready, or they may not, but they will never hire you if you pushed them or annoyed them to the point where they deleted you.

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

How to get big personal injury cases

June 23, 2008 by
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A personal injury attorney wrote and asked me if I have a strategy for bringing in bigger cases. I was a personal injury attorney for most of my legal career and when I look back at what I did, I have to say that I did not have that strategy. In fact, I intentionally focused on bringing in a volume of smaller cases.

My thinking was that quantity would bring quality. Bring in thousands of clients over a period of years and you are bound to have some big cases in the mix. And that was certainly true for me. But I also recall thinking, as every personal injury attorney does, that one day, I’ll get a case that will bring me millions of dollars in fees and I’ll be able to retire if I want to. But in twenty years, that never happened. Big cases, yes, but not a single practice-making monster.

But there’s something else I understood and that was that I was not one of the big boys. The biggest cases are almost always handled by the biggest names and most of the time, they are referred there by other attorneys. I wasn’t prepared to compete in that arena. I didn’t have the expertise and, more importantly, I didn’t have the passion for developing it.

The best strategy for getting the biggest cases is to become one of the best lawyers. Win bigger and bigger verdicts, develop your skills and your reputation amongst the bar, and when you have the respect of your colleagues, you will get their referrals.

Another way to get big cases is the one adopted by a lot of attorneys who aren’t one of the best and that is to appear to be. They swing a big stick with multiple full page yellow page ads and TV commercials, they sponsor charitable events attended by centers of influence in their community, they network with the right people, send press releases celebrating their victories, and otherwise promote themselves so that they appear to be one of the biggest and one of the best. And by and large, it works.

To do this, you need money and some marketing skills, but most of all, you need drive. The biggest promoters have big, healthy egos. They are driven as much by the desire for attention as the desire for money. I’m not taking anything away from them. They are usually good enough to serve their clients well and smart enough to bring in one of the best when they aren’t.

If you’re not one of the best and you aren’t willing or able to become one, and if you’re not willing to do what the big promoters do, there is an alternative: target niche markets. Become the biggest fish in a small market where word of mouth is strong and limited resources (and hubris) can go a long way. Become the attorney everyone in that market thinks of when they think of injuries. Network in that market, write for that market, serve that market and the centers of influence in it, and over time, you’ll get big cases. Do it well enough and long enough and you may even get one of the very biggest.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Image, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Networking, Press release, Publicity, Referrals, Specializing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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