If you’re ready to take your practice to a much higher level, you might have to make a few changes.
Changes in your attitude and your policies. Changes in how to present yourself to prospective clients.
First up: accessibility. You shouldn’t be available to everyone who calls. You’re busy. Highly sought after. Important. And your time is valuable. When someone calls for the first time, they don’t get to speak to you. Maybe not the second time, either. Maybe not until their first appointment. And maybe not even then.
The same goes for email and social media. You shouldn’t reply to every email or every comment on your blog. In fact, you should consider turning off comments altogether.
You can’t be seen spending hours on social media. Nobody wants to hire a lawyer who has time to play games, post pictures of their dinner, and share every detail of their life. Yes, they want you to be “real†but if you’re too real, you’ll scare them off.
Next up: money. You need to charge top dollar and you need to get most or all of it up front. No explanations, no exceptions, if they want to hire you, this is how it works. How can you expect anyone to see you as the best of the best if you do otherwise?
On that note, prospective clients shouldn’t be made to think that hiring you is a given. You are selective. You don’t work with everyone. There is a waiting list and you turn down more clients than you accept. Prospective clients need to fill out a questionnaire and convince you to accept them as a client.
You don’t go to see clients, they come to see you. You don’t use an “away†message in your email because it’s nobody’s business whether you are or aren’t in the office. You don’t explain when or if you will respond to them. You have people they can talk to, but not you.
You’re a rockstar. Everyone wants you, but not everyone can have you.
Rockstars have lots of people who want to hire them and are willing to pay more for the privilege. When you’re a rockstar, clients respect you and your time. They won’t pester you with silly questions or ask for freebies. They’re thankful they can work with someone of your caliber. They don’t want to hear you say, “No soup for you!â€
They’ll tell their friends about you but let them know that you are very selective. They might have to wait in line, and even then, you might not accept them as a client.
Of course, you have to deliver. You have to offer services (and service) that are different and better than what everyone else offers. And you have to specialize because people won’t believe that you’re “the best†at everything.
Okay, you get the idea.
Can anyone pull this off? Probably not. You would have to have a little badassery in you to begin with. But maybe you can adapt parts of this approach, and add parts later.
The point is that people want what they can’t have. They don’t want any attorney, they want the best. They want expensive things that not everyone can have. They want to be an insider, a groupie, someone with a backstage pass.
If it’s too easy to have it, they don’t want it as much. So don’t make it easy.
Because if it’s too easy, they might conclude that you need them more than they need you.
The keys to building a successful law practice can be found here
