There are two things that can help you manage these precious resources and use them efficiently and effectively.
I call these assets the legal marketing multiplier as this video explains.
The legal marketing multiplier looks like this:
Action X Intensity = Fantastic Success
In order to be effective at legal marketing you must give 100% effort and you must be focused on achieving a specific goal.
That being said, you should test your initiatives before full implementation. All marketing and advertising campaigns should be tested on a small scale. Test, monitor progress, adjust and then fully implement.
You can multiply your success but first you must take action.
At last count there were 15 people promoting themselves as attorney marketing experts who were lawyers at one time or are currently lawyers. Some of these folks offer marketing advice on a part time basis and some of them have quit the practice of law altogether.
The recession has these faux marketers coming out of the woodwork. Legal work drying up? Go become a law firm marketing expert. Can't hack it as a lawyer? Teach other lawyers how to get clients.
These people look for unsuspecting lawyers, mostly in small or solo law firms, and they con them into forking over their hard earned money for attendance at a few events each year and some conference calls.
There is little one-on-one interaction with the Guru. There is little customization to the advice they dispense. It is a one-size-fits-all approach also known as "pitch 'em and ditch 'em".
You need to be careful because many of these folks are cunning. They will use whatever they have at their disposal to get you to sign up with them. They think the fact that they have a law license and a story to tell is just the right catnip to lure you in. Don't fall for it.
Why am I warning you about these characters? After all, isn't it better to just live and let live? Isn't there enough business for everyone?
Quite frankly, there should be enough business for everybody. Although I am a law firm marketing consultant, and I coach some lawyers in a one-on-one setting, I am expensive. I charge $10,000 for a day of consulting work, and that is if the client comes to my office. So in most cases, I am not going to compete with the "conference call coaching program for lawyers".
But I do have a problem with lawyers conning other lawyers in the name of law firm marketing. It gives me yet another obstacle to overcome when I meet someone. A lot of lawyers will mention one of these faux marketers and they will tell me a story of how they were conned into subscribing to a conference call of the month program and went to a pitch 'em and ditch 'em event and got taken for a lot of money.
I made the video below to help you uncover the charlatans who are out there looking to take your money. It gives you just three of the many lies these folks will tell in order to get your business.
Here are the big lies attorney marketers will tell to get your money:
Double Your Income in Twelve Months or Less
This is a sneaky little lie because if you are making very little money, you can double your income in a short period of time. The truth is that good marketing takes time. Good marketing is work. Good marketing requires building systems. But that is not sexy. Nobody is going to tell you to work hard and you will get rich. People don't want to hear that.
The Magic Bullet
Nobody has a ONE magic bullet that can help you grow your law firm. There are good, solid systems that will help your get off to a fast start. There are great habits you can develop that will help you become a great attorney marketer. But there is no magic bullet that will fix your law firm.
Only a Lawyer Knows Law Firm Marketing
This is a terrible lie. In fact, lawyers are the worst people to ever ask for advice about building a law firm. Why? Think about it. Do you have to go to a doctor who HAS A DISEASE to cure you?
Think about the reason these people are taking on this part time job. How good could they be at growing their own law firm? If they have quit practicing law, ask them why?
If you want marketing help, go to a marketing expert. Go to someone who has developed good marketing for many different businesses. After all, isn't your law firm different from the law firm down the street? Go to someone who knows more about marketing than the average lawyer who bought a "Bootcamp in a box" DVD set.
Hey, you are an adult. You are a lawyer. Do your research. Interview all the Gurus before you hire them. Don't hire me if you can't afford to or if I don't fit your personal style. That's totally fine. But don't hire some faux lawyer marketer just because he talks a good game.
Do your homework. There are some legitimate law firm marketing experts out there but you may run through a bunch of charlatans before you find a good one.
One of the things most lawyers miss when they look to engage a new client is the thing that should be most obvious. Although it is one of the key tenants in marketing for lawyers, most attorneys do not do an adequate job creating urgency.
The client needs to feel urgency to hire a lawyer, preferably the lawyer in front of him. There is only one way to do this: Sell the pain.
The client must fully comprehend how bad things can get. The client must realize that the worst case scenario is not only possible; it is probable if they do not act quickly. The client must FEEL the danger of not making a decision.
Read that statement carefully because it is different than what most lawyers think. You are selling against indecision and not against another lawyer.
Here is the process for selling the pain to the client:
First: The client must feel that they need help. They really have to be moved, on an emotional level, to take action. This means they need to visualize the worst case scenario and believe it can happen to them.
One of the ways a skilled lawyer can do this is by asking some seemingly harmless questions. These questions should be designed to have the client visualize the potentially negative consequences of the case.
Next: The client must admit they need help. Knowing and admitting are two distinctly different things. The way to help the client admit they need help is to give him permission. You must nurture the client until he feels comfortable with you and then you give him permission to confess his need for assistance.
Finally: The client must feel compelled to act now. This always seems to be the component of the process lawyers get hung up on. The best way to help your client gain a sense of urgency is by showing them examples of past cases where the client failed to act quickly. Nothing sells like the truth. You should always be prepared with examples and case studies that support making an immediate decision.
Keep in mind that you can never force this process on a client. You must do your best to draw it out of them. You need to use your strategy of asking powerful questions to lead the client exactly where you want him to go. If this is your idea, it means nothing but if hiring you is the client's idea, it means everything.
One of the topics that comes up most frequently among my clients is securing speaking engagements. Many attorneys want them but few know how to secure them. Here is a sure-fire process you can use to secure as many speaking engagements as you can handle.
Step one: View This As a Marketing Process
Securing a speaking engagement is not easy. You have to put forth significant effort in order to make certain you are on the top of the list to be selected. As part of a marketing plan, you must have a message targeted at the right market delivered via the right media. The steps that follow will help you do that.
Step Two: Make a Video of Your Speech
You should video tape yourself giving your speech to an audience and then put that speech up on Youtube. This will allow you to send out links to this video when you start to market yourself.
You should also post this video on your website on your Facebook profile and on any other social media sites you are a member of.
Step Three: Break your Speech into Weekly Emails
Each week you should send out some of your content in a weekly email with a link to the Youtube video as your call to action. This will get the meeting or event planner interested in what you have to say.
Step Four: Use Regular Mail To Send Out a Postcard Every Week
Every week you should send out a postcard via regular mail. This postcard should contain a quote or some other tidbit of interesting information and it should also include a link to your video site. This is a valuable follow-up step that must be included.
Step Five: Follow Up with a Phone Call
The final step is to place a monthly phone call to the meeting or event planner. This phone call will help you secure your impression in their mind and it will also help them understand how serious you are about speaking to their group.
It is very important that you do not get discouraged at any point in this process. Just because people do not respond to you immediately does not mean they are not receiving your information. Your persistence will be part of the brand you establish in their mind.
Remember that securing a speaking engagement is a marketing process in and of itself. Give it the effort it deserves. Have your message, market and media ready to go and work hard at it. The payoff from this process will be well worth the effort.
The title of this article is a popular search term for people who find this website. Since you may have been searching for this exact topic I decided to give you a brief crash course on how to get clients as a lawyer. Keep in mind this is simplistic and brief (given the fact that this is an article on a blog and not a course in marketing). But my desire is to give you're a few actionable steps that will help you find your way in the world of law firm marketing.
One of the most important points I make when people ask me how to find clients as a lawyer is to help them face reality. By that I mean that nobody cares about your background or your experience or your fancy office until they know that you can solve their problem. That is a huge lesson for many attorneys.
Most lawyers will lead a business development conversation with their qualifications and their background and that is certain to turn any client or prospective client off. Instead, you should take a consultative approach and understand the needs and the desires of the client. This will not only help you build a relationship with him, it will also help you tailor your approach when it comes time to offer your services.
That is the initial advice I offer lawyers when they want to know how to get clients in a one-on-one setting. Getting clients to the point where they are in your office and ready to sign up means you must attract many prospective clients who need your services. That requires skill at law firm marketing.
In this video I share a few ideas on how you can attract those prospective clients.
Here is an outline of the three steps I share in the video.
Pick a Niche for Your Law Firm Marketing: Marketing to everyone is a disaster. You do not have the time and financial resources to launch a law firm marketing campaign to everyone who could possibly need your services. You must pick an area of focus even if it is just for law firm marketing purposes. This will help you tailor our message to a specific group.
Differentiate Your Law Firm from All the Others: Your law firm marketing must answer this question: Why should someone hire you instead of everyone else? The answer should be something that is difficult for other firms to replicate. And the answer should never, ever focus on your fees. Being a low fee lawyer is the quickest way to become a broke lawyer.
Educate Prospective Clients: There are two key points to educational marketing: First you want to educate your clients on why they need to solve their problem now and second you need to educate your prospective clients on how to choose the correct lawyer to solve their problem.
Notice I did not mention the need to give your background information anywhere. Notice I did not mention the need to boast about your impressive record. Notice that everything I shared with you is focused on the client and his needs.
There are a number of lawyers out there who supplement their income by working part time as law firm marketing experts (like Tupperware salespeople). There are also lawyers out there who couldn't cut it as lawyers and now profess to be experts at law firm marketing. Finally, there are retired lawyers who are teaching lawyers about marketing as a way to supplement their income.
No matter what they call themselves, you need to do careful due diligence on ANY law firm marketing expert before you hire him. You need to be particularly wary of anyone who gave up a career working in The Law and now professes to be an expert. How can they teach you to do what they were unable to accomplish.
This video provides you with five questions to ask before you engage a former/current/part time lawyer to help you with law firm marketing.
I would love to tell you that lawyers make the best law firm marketing experts but they don't. The best law firm marketing experts tend to be people who are experts in marketing and who immersed themselves in the law and embrace it as their focus.
Many lawyers experience peaks and valleys in income during their career. During the times when they have business they do not do any marketing and when they have few clients they obsess over their legal marketing initiatives. In this video, legal marketing expert Dave Lorenzo discusses how to level off some of those peaks and valleys.
The key to consistently keeping your law firm fully stocked with good clients and great matters is to have several legal marketing systems. These systems work for you when you are busy focusing on the practice of law.
We just released a new FAST START System designed to help attorneys get you off and running quickly, even if you have never done any legal marketing. The system is affordable and best of all it is guaranteed. If you do not like it, you can return it ANYTIME. That's right. It comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Who wouldn't want more clients? Take a look today and tell us what you think. You can find more information at: http://www.LegalMarketingFastStart.com
