Legal Marketing | Attorney Marketing | Marketing For Lawyers

One of the problems with making a resolution for the new year is sticking with them. This is particularly true when the resolutions involve law firm marketing.

In this video conversation we discuss how to stick with those pesky New Year's Resolutions and goals for longer than the next 30 days.

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and successful 2011.

Happy New Year!

If you have your sights set on making a great living and living a great life as a lawyer, it's likely there are market place barriers standing in your way. However, the mental barriers holding you back may be just as strong, if not stronger. Most attorneys underestimate the power these mental barriers can have over your ability to develop new business.

Here are the four most common mental barriers attorneys face when it comes to law firm marketing:

Developing a Marketing Mindset: Learning how to self promote and sell your services is difficult enough. When you add the stogy old school culture that decries "just be a good lawyer and the clients will come" you have the recipe for a mindset that will lead to business prevention instead of business development.

This is best combated by embracing the fact that your law firm is a business and it must be operated as such. New clients are the lifeblood of any business. If you can't source them and convince them to hire you, you will be out of business quickly.

Developing Confidence in your Ability: Confidence in your ability to perform is important. If you do not believe you are the best lawyer for the client then you should not be sitting in front of them.

If you do believe you are the best lawyer for the client, then you have an obligation to let them know it. And you also have an obligation to do everything possible to convince them to use your services. If they settle for someone else, they will not be getting the best representation.

Presenting the Value You Can Provide to the Client: If you can provide the client with extraordinary value for their investment, you need to tell them. The trouble is, many lawyers don't know how to create value much less demonstrate it.
Your obligation in this area is simple: First make a list of all the possible ways your services can benefit your client. Next assign a dollar amount to the savings. Total up the savings from each initiative and present it to the client. When this is compared to the cost of your services, the investment will seem negligible.

Lack of Ability to Emotionally Engage the Client: Most lawyers like to follow and present fact patterns. This is just the way they are. Clients find this dull and uninteresting.

As an attorney hoping to develop a relationship with a client, you need to be emotionally engaging. You need to help people understand that you feel their pain. They have to be able to make a connection with you before they will consider hiring you. Law firm marketing should be emotionally engaging.

This video provides more detail.

When it comes to law firm marketing, most lawyers are in their own way far more than the competition or clients are in their way.

Focus on removing these four internal barriers to success and you will notice a dramatic increase in the amount of clients you retain. Fighting through your mental barriers can be difficult but it is worth the effort because happiness lies on the other side.

Your attitude can have a huge impact on client selection. When it comes to attorney marketing, attitude is everything. This video describes how an attitude adjustment on your part can lead to financial gain.

Your attitude is a big part of attorney marketing. If you have confidence you can increase your profitability and improve your cash flow.

Have you ever wondered how to instantly get someone to like you? Building rapport is critical to success in a face-to-face meeting. This short video describes how you can instantly build rapport with your prospective client.

You can also use the technique described in this video to disarm your client and get him to open up and answer any questions you may have. Bonding and rapport are two essential elements to legal marketing. Try this technique at your next meeting.

When it comes to law firm marketing being persistent always pays off. I am not talking about being annoying. I am talking about persistently keeping in touch with your perspective clients in a way that educates, informs and entertains them. This video offers some guidance.

How persistent are you with your law firm marketing? Do you keep in touch with everyone you meet? Do you follow up with discipline? Add some persistence to your law firm marketing plan today. It will pay big dividends down the road.

One of the constant battles in law firm marketing is the myth that lawyers do not sell. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Lawyers sell their ideas to their clients. They sell to judges and juries. They sell during a negotiation. Selling is simply persuading someone to take action. This video provides more detail.

Law Firm Marketing and sales are not the same thing. Law firm marketing helps to bring prequalified, presold clients to your doorstep. You must get them to take the action of hiring you. Inviting them to take that action is what sales is all about.

How do you feel when you meet with a new client? Do you look forward to sitting down with them and discussing their matter? Do you feel as though you can improve the condition of every client you sign? Most of your success is determined by the valuable real estate between your ears. This video describes how confidence can influence legal marketing.

Being confident is important in all aspects of life. This is particularly true of legal marketing. Being confident in your ability will help you walk away from bad clients. It will help you command higher fees and it will help you aggressively focus on legal marketing.

Here are three quick exercises you can do to help improve your confidence in advance of a client meeting:

Imagine a successful outcome. Play a mental movie in your head of how the client meeting will go. Watch yourself quoting the fee and see the client shake your hand and sign on the dotted line. Imagine a big smile on the client's face as he writes you the check. He is smiling because you have provided him with great piece of mind and he trusts you implicitly.

This sounds a little hokey but it works. Your mind cannot discern between imagination and reality. This mental movie is training your mind for success. Once this training seeps into your subconscious, you be less likely to sabotage your next potential big fee matter. You will also feel good when you receive the fee.

Focus on the value you are providing to the client. If you are closing a deal for a client worth ten million dollars and you are charging just twenty thousand to make the deal happen, isn't that a bargain? If you are helping a client get rid of her cheating spouse, isn't that priceless? If you are keeping a foreign national with his family in the United States, isn't that worth a huge sum of money?

What other people charge is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the value you are providing to the client. If this client walks away because of the fee, they were not the right client for you.

Believe that you have earned the right to be here. You do not need to pay your dues any longer. You have earned the right to high fees and great clients. Feel comfortable in that and you will have all the confidence in the world.

The most powerful aspect of any legal marketing plan is the confidence the attorney has in his ability. If you are confident, you are unstoppable.

There are three different kinds of lawyers in the world today. They are differentiated by their personality. Each of them can be successful but some are better at legal marketing than others. This video explains.

The Counselor

This is the lawyer who spends 80%-90% of his time working on the matter at hand. He loves the detail. He loves to dig into the issues. Time goes by rapidly for him when he is focused on writing a brief or putting together a contract.

The Counselor is best at handing complex legal work. Spending time writing marketing copy or going to networking events does not interest him. He will do it because he feels he has to do it.

The Counselor needs to partner with someone who likes to develop business. He needs to work with an Expert or a Rainmaker if he is going to own a law firm.

The Expert

This person spends 50% of his time working in the law. He also spends 50% of his time developing business. He has developed a market niche so he can command a fee premium when he does legal work.

The Expert must hire people to work for him. He needs an associate or a paralegal to do some of the "non-expert" work. He needs to be a good manager as he has significant responsibilities. He must be excellent at delegation.

The Rainmaker

The Rainmaker spends 80%-90% of his time developing relationships. He does not do much legal work. He is a visionary. He MUST partner with a Counselor or an Expert or he will be sunk. The Rainmaker often cannot manage and he doesn't want to do the legal work.

The ideal law firm has all three of these people as partners. But you don't need to have all three to be successful. You just need to recognize which personality you have, leverage your ability, and then hire others to compensate for areas where you need assistance.