How to grow your law practice by laughing at stupid people

September 13, 2012 by
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NYC Mayor Bloomberg has done it. He convinced the board of health to pass a ban on sodas and other sugary drinks being sold in public venues in cups bigger than 16 ounces. The vote was 8-0, with one abstention, the latter a doctor who said the ban doesn’t go far enough.

Can you believe the arrogance of these people? “We don’t care what people want, we know better. It’s for their own good.”

Can you believe the stupidity of these people? Like nobody is going to figure out that they can order two 16 ounce Cokes and call it a day.

As a lawyer, you can write about how this won’t pass constitutional muster, you can file lawsuits, or you can get angry and join protests, and many lawyers will.

Me? I’d have some fun with it.

Yes, it makes me angry to watch the erosion of freedom and common sense in our country. But I’d rather laugh than cry.

So, if I practiced in NYC, I might hand out 17 ounce cups with my firm’s name and phone number on it, and offer free re-fills at my office. I might sponsor a soft-drink drinking contest, like Nathan’s does with hot dogs. I might make a Youtube video where I offer to sue the city on your behalf if you get injured on your way for yet another refill.

Have some fun and get some clients. And thank Mayor Bloomberg for making NYC a healthier place to live and work. After all, laughter is good for your health.

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

Get more client referrals by giving away a $6 t-shirt

August 30, 2012 by
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I had a client once who liked me so much she showed up at my office one day with a gift. It was a t-shirt she had made up that said, “My Attorney is David M. Ward” printed in big letters on the front. She had one made for me and one for herself.

Imagine your happy clients going shopping or taking the kids to soccer or ballet, wearing a shirt with your name on it. Do you think this might start some conversations? Can you see how you might get some referrals?

You can buy imprinted t-shirts in quantity for a few dollars a piece. You can be “professional” and print your name, a slogan or practice area, and your web site in the breast pocket area. Or you can do something whimsical like my client, with big, block letters “bill board” style. Or something in between.

Give away the t-shirts to all your clients. Prospects, too. Give them extras for their spouse and kids.

You would be surprised how many people will wear them, even if only to run errands or go to the gym. They’ll advertise your firm and get people asking about you. New clients can’t be far behind.

The Attorney Marketing Formula shows you how to earn more than you ever thought possible. To learn more, click here! 

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

The most important question you can ask a new client

August 28, 2012 by
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How many new clients did you get last month?

If you don’t know the number, either you didn’t get any new clients or you’re not keeping track.

You need to keep track.

You also need to keep track of where they came from. Who referred them? Which keyword did they use to find your website? Which ad did they click on?

You need to know how every new client made his or her way to your doorstep. That’s why the most important question you can ask a new client is: “How did you hear about us?”

You need to know so you know what’s working. Are your ads pulling or are you throwing your money away? Which ad is working better? Are you getting clients through your efforts on social media or are you wasting your time? Which social media platform is working better? Which posts?

John Wanamaker, who owned department stores in the early part of the twentieth century and spent a fortune on advertising, once said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

Department stores do “brand advertising”. They don’t usually track response. Although they can do focus groups and track coupons, they don’t know with any degree of accuracy if what they are doing is working. You won’t have that problem if you ask, “How did you hear about us?”

Don’t just ask new clients, however, ask everyone. If they call your office, if they contact you through email, if they show up at your door, ask them.

In my office, our new client intake form had a space to record the name of the person who referred the new client. We kept track, so we knew who to thank. It also allowed us to bring up the subject of referrals with the new client.

We had a form next to the phone to record the name of the referring person or the phone book or other ad that prompted them to call. We tracked them after the call, to see if they became a client. In this way, we learned which of our ads generated new business and which ones didn’t. (Some brought a lot of calls but not a lot of clients.)

Today, there are other options for measuring response to ads and traffic to our web sites. But nothing beats asking, “How did you hear about us?”

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Filed Under: Advertising, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Referrals Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The problem with video marketing

August 8, 2012 by
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Everyone (and his brother) is touting video as THE marketing tool you MUST use. You have to deliver content using sight and sound and movement. You have to entertain people. Nobody reads anymore. Yada yada yada. . .

Of course it’s true that a well done video is a great way to engage people. Video also allows you to control the staging of your material, so you can deliver it for maximum effect. Millions of youtube views per day demonstrate the public’s appetite for video content.

But there’s a problem with using video in marketing: there are too many of them.

With everyone (and his brother) using videos, with so many coming at me every day, I don’t have time to watch them. So I delete the email or close out the web page. Or I bookmark it to watch later, and we all know that later never comes.

A brilliant video that nobody watches is worthless.

The written word is, and always will be, better than video.

People can skim a written message, and get the gist of it. If they like what they see, they will find the time to read more.

People can print a written message. When it’s in front of them on their (real) desktop, they are more likely to read it.

People can read a written message in their email inbox, without doing anything more than opening it.

And if people read your message, even if it is only mediocre, it will always outperform the brilliant video they do not watch.

I’m not saying ‘don’t use video’ in your marketing. Use it if you can. Audios, too. A lot of people like to listen while they are commuting or at the gym.

But if you don’t also use the written word, you’re missing out on a boatload of people who might be interested but didn’t have the time (or bandwidth) to find out.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Communication, Email, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Technology, Web traffic, Writing Tagged With:

Take inventory of your marketing to save time, save money, and improve results

July 11, 2012 by
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Taking inventory of your marketing can help you gain clarity about where you are and make it easier to get to where you want to go.

Here’s how to do it:

Pick a period of time in the past. Six or 12 months will do. Write down how many new clients you took in during that period, who they are, and the amount of income those clients have or will generate for you.

So far, so good.

Next, look at the names of each of those new clients and write down where they came from. You need to know whether they were referrals (including self-referrals, aka repeat clients), or they came from some other source.

You can break this down any way that makes sense for your practice, but I suggest something like the following:

  1. Referrals from clients (including self-referrals)
  2. Referrals from professionals, others; networking
  3. Online (Blogging, SEO, social media, webinars, articles, etc.)
  4. Paid advertising (PPC, direct mail, display, radio, directory, ezine, banners, self-hosted seminars, etc.; if you do a lot of adverting, you should break this up into different categories)
  5. Other (Public speaking, publicity, writing (i.e., trade pubs), etc.)

Okay, now you know where the business is coming from. What now?

Here are my thoughts on how you can use this information:

  • Most of your clients should come from referrals. If they don’t, ask yourself why and what you can do about it
  • If you’re not getting business from some of your marketing activities, or they are too expensive relative to the business they bring you, consider eliminating those activities.  For example, if blogging and social media take up a lot of your time but you’re not getting the clients from it, why do it? Use that time for something that is producing.
  • There will be some cross-over or ambiguities. For example, blogging may not be producing a lot of traffic, inquiries, and new clients for you but it still has value as authoritative content you can show to prospects who come to you via referrals, or to add value for your clients.
  • If something is working for you, do more of it. You can find more time for networking, for example, by reducing or eliminating some or all of the time you spend on (whatever is not working). If advertising in trade publications regularly brings in new clients, increase your media buys in trade publications.
  • Before you cut anything, consider the “back end”. For example, you may be breaking even on advertising (or even losing money) but if you are able to get referrals from the new clients that are produced by that advertising, you’re still earning a profit.
  • If you aren’t in the habit of recording where your clients come from, you need to start. Instruct whoever answers the phone to ask everyone, “Where did you hear about us?” and add a line to your new client intake form.
  • Track these numbers going forward so that you can periodically take inventory and see where you are.

A friend of mine says, “You have to inspect what you expect”. He also says, “You have to slow down to speed up.” Take his advice. Once or twice a year, shut off the phones and email and take inventory. It will help you save time, save money, and improve your results.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Blogging, Increase your income, Law office management, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Networking, Productivity, Public Speaking, Referrals, Social media marketing, Time Management Tagged With: , , ,

The Attorney Marketing Center: Official Blog of Successful Attorneys Everywhere

June 26, 2012 by
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My wife saw a coupon this morning for a dry cleaner (seems to be a theme with me lately) that had just changed its name from “Luck Cleaners” to “Joy Cleaners”. Or something something like that.

What caught my attention was the statement, “Official Cleaner of [a well known clothing company]”.

I wondered how they had achieved that. “How does one become the official anything for a well known company?”

Were they doing the cleaning for the company and simply asked if they could advertise that they were the official cleaner? Or did they approach the company and offer to do their cleaning for free or at a big discount, in return for being able to say they were the official cleaner?

It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that a law firm could do the same thing.

If you have a business client who is well known in your niche market, ask them if you could mention the fact that yours is the official law firm for their company. Then, mention your official-ness everywhere. You will be providing social proof of the worthiness of your firm.

You could approach any well known company and offer them free legal services in return for an official designation. But what do you do if the better known companies already have lawyers they are happy with and they aren’t willing to switch, even to get free services from you?

Find a charity and see if they would like some free legal services.

It doesn’t matter how well known the charity’s name is. When your marketing messages say that your firm is the official law firm for the “Save the Platypus Foundation,” or whatever, people will notice. Your name will be associated with doing good work for a good cause.

The press will notice, because you will send out a media release and announce it.

Similar charities will notice because, well, they are similar.

And every company your charity does business with will notice, especially if your offer requires the charity to mention your firm in all of their mailings and advertising collateral.

You should also be able to get yourself invited to the charity’s dinners and fund raisers, hang a banner at the charity’s booth at their industry’s conventions, and network with their board of directors, major donors and supporters.

And because you are the “official law firm. . .,” you’ll be able to reach out to other professionals, business owners, politicians, and other influentials, to invite them as your guest to one of the charity’s events.

I don’t know how this will all play out for you, but I can tell you that this could bring you a lot of business. Even if you never mention that you are the “official law firm,” the contacts you will make and the paying clients that result, will more than pay for the services you donate.

Choose a charity you believe in, of course, something you would support regardless of personal gain. Get excited about their cause. And tell everyone to join you in supporting them.

You will have great Joy and great Luck. I’m not sure if your clothes will be any cleaner, however.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Image, Marketing legal services, Networking, Press release, Publicity, Relationship marketing Tagged With: ,

The economy sucks. What are you doing about it?

June 22, 2012 by
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Okay, I’m not going to go all save-the-world on you but yes, if you can do something to make things better, you should. Get involved in local politics, volunteer at a charity, help someone in need.

The best thing you can do is to grow your practice. A bigger income would mean you could do more to help others. And you know what they say about the best way to help the poor: don’t become one of them.

I saw this photo on Facebook yesterday and it touched me. In case you can’t see it, it’s the window of a dry cleaner’s with a sign that says, “If you are unemployed and need an outfit clean for an interview, we will clean it for FREE”.

Nice.

Do you think the owner will get some business from this, beyond what he does for free? Publicity? Positive word of mouth? Do you think anyone who takes him up on his offer will continue to patronize his store in the future? Do you think he will tell everyone he knows about the business owner who helped him when he really needed a break?

No question about it. Doing good is good for business.

Could you do something similar for your clients and prospects? For your community?

A discount, a free service, even some non-legal advice. Offer a free financial literacy seminar to help people get a handle on their debts. Get someone a job interview at one of your client’s companies. Offer struggling entrepreneurs two hours of free advice.

Lots of people need help right now. Unemployed, struggling military families, people losing their homes.

What can you do?

Don’t do it solely because it might bring you some business. Do it because it makes you feel good to help a fellow human being.

If we all do that, even a little, everyone will be better off. Including us.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Image, Inspiration, Marketing legal services, Publicity, Social media Tagged With: , , , ,

Could you charge more for your legal services? Here’s how to find out

May 24, 2012 by
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Could you charge higher fees for your legal services than you charge right now?

What if you could get paid one-third more than you now get without losing any business. Wouldn’t that be cool? Or, maybe you might lose some business but increase your net income because of the higher fees you are paid from everyone else. Also cool.

Most attorneys set their fees by looking at what other attorneys in their market charge. They don’t want to charge a lot more or a lot less so they play it safe. But some attorneys do ask for more and they get it.

True, these higher paid attorneys may have more experience or a higher-profile reputation. They might offer more value to their clients. Perhaps they are better “sales people” or have more chutzpah. Maybe they took a chance when quoting fees and got lucky.

The point is that some attorneys get paid more than other attorneys for doing essentially the same work. What if you could, too?

There is a way to find out if you could charge more. No, not by asking your clients or prospects if they would be willing to pay more. They have a certain, um, bias, don’t you think? No, if you want to find out if people are willing to pay more you have to charge more, and see if they pay it.

But hold on. Don’t raise your fees across the board just yet. That’s too risky. You don’t know if this will be successful. What if you ask for too much and lose too many clients? Not good. Conversely, what if you don’t ask for enough? Your clients may pay ten percent more without flinching, but how do you know they wouldn’t have paid twenty percent more?

The answer is to test higher fees with small groups of clients and/or prospects and measure the results.

Pay-per-click advertising is a great way to do “split testing”. Basically, you quote one fee to the first inquiry and a higher fee to the second. You alternate quotes until you have a meaningful sample of responses and clients. With enough responses, you’ll be able to see which fee is producing (a) the most clients, and (b) the highest income.

Pay-per-click advertising has become extremely expensive and you might not want to use it as an ongoing marketing tool. But for short term testing purposes, wouldn’t it be worth it to find out conclusively that you could safely charge a lot more than you do now?

If your practice isn’t amenable to advertising, there are other ways to test fees with smaller groups of prospects. If you do seminars, for example, you could quote every other attendee a different fee. Or quote different fees at every other seminar.

The results of price testing are often surprising. You would think that charging higher fees would decrease the number of sales (clients) but that is not always the case. Sometimes you sell just as many at the higher price. And sometimes, believe it or not, you sell more at the higher price.

But you’ll never know unless you test.

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

The one thing attorneys need to know about advertising, networking, and social media

March 13, 2012 by
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I’ve run a lot of ads in my lifetime. Big ads, small ads, and everything in between. And direct mail. And with every ad or campaign, there’s only one thing I wanted to know: the rate of response.

How many calls, opt-ins, or return cards? How many leads or appointments or new clients?

Response is the only that thing that matters.

You need to know which publication or web site is producing more response. Which headline, which offer, which key words.

You have to track response and then test one variable against others. It’s the only way to know if you’re wasting money and it’s the simplest way to increase your profits. One ad, letter, or web page can sometimes pull fifty times more response than another. FIFTY TIMES! Wouldn’t you want to know which one?

“What about “branding”–getting your name out there, isn’t that worthwhile?” Sure, but while you’re doing that, why not also get a response?

So, if you have a web page you need to track your stats. Google’s analytics is free and provides lots of information. If you do any offline advertising you need to put codes in your ads (and articles) so you can see which ad (article) is pulling best. At the very least, ask people who call your office how they heard about you.

One more thing. Track the time you spend networking offline and on social media. If you’ve been attending a group’s meetings for several months and you’re not getting any clients, growing your list or seeing any kind of response you can measure, don’t continue. The same for social media platforms.

You might not know as quickly as you might with an ad. I’ve run ads one time and pulled them when the response wasn’t there. Building relationships and getting referrals almost always take longer. But eventually, you’ll know. If nothing is coming from your networking with group A, either change what your doing or move to group B.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Networking, Social media marketing, Technology Tagged With: , ,
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