You don’t have to outspend or outwork other lawyers in your field to get to the top. You don’t have to go to more networking events, create more content, increase your ad spend, or improve your speaking, writing, or interpersonal skills.
There’s an easier way, and it’s more likely to take you where you want to go.
The simplest way to get to the top is to choose a segment of your field or market—a niche—and dedicate yourself to it.
Instead of promoting your services to “everyone” who might need or want your legal services, tailor your message to your chosen niche.
Focus on their industry or market and the people in it. That doesn’t mean ignoring everyone else who might need your services, it means concentrating your marketing message and activities towards your chosen niche market.
Study that niche. Learn all you can about their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Learn their stories and share them in your marketing. Use their buzzwords, reference their events and milestones, and notable legal issues.
And meet the leaders in their market and ask them to introduce you to others.
Why go to this bother? Because your goal is to stand out in that market. When someone in that niche, industry, or market has a legal issue, question, or case, you want them to think about you and reach out to you or think, “I’ve heard of you” when you meet them or they see your name.
If you do estate planning, you compete with thousands of other attorneys who do what you do. Instead of trying to show the world you are better, show up for the people in your niche, show them you “speak their language” by using their buzzwords, referencing their stories, and talking about problems and solutions that are important in that niche.
If you choose “health care professionals,” for example, you won’t talk about what other estate planning layers talk about, you might speak to them about medical/ethical/legal/tax issues for physicians and administrators and the need to protect their assets and plan their estates accordingly.
Dedicate a website or blog to that niche. Create content for that niche. See and be seen by key people in that niche.
When they see you understand their niche better than other lawyers and are actively working with their colleagues, clients, and contacts, as your name becomes well known, eventually, perhaps sooner than you think, you will become the expert in their niche, and the top lawyer in your field.
To choose the best niche for you (and how to approah it), The Formula will help
