Law office management Archives - The Attorney Marketing Center

Don’t sign up one new client when you can sign up three

February 21, 2025 by David M. Ward

If you want to grow your practice quickly, structure your marketing and practice management so that each new (or existing) client introduces you to their friends and business contacts.

Their contacts might have the same or similar needs and interests and have work for you. Immediately or sometime soon.

How can you meet their contacts? You ask. “Who do you know who might need/want/be interested in…” your services or offer? When they acknowledge they know someone, ask, “Will you introduce me to them?”

Yes, in can be as simple as that.

But there is something even simpler.

Instead of asking for an introduction, which might be premature, inappropriate, or uncomfortable for you, offer to make your valuable content available to their contacts.

Their contacts might like to read your newsletter, watch your videos, or see your presentation. They might love to have a free copy of your valuable report or dial in to your conference call.

When you offer to allow contacts to access your content, you’re likely to get a ‘yes’. Much easier on you.

It’s also easier for your clients.

They don’t have to tell their contacts much about you, because the offer isn’t about you or your services (yet), it’s about your information.

Their contacts consume your content, and your content sells them on you.

That’s how you get three new clients instead of just one.

Filed Under: Law office management

You and only you

February 13, 2025 by David M. Ward

You’re not merely good at your job, you’re the best in your marketplace. That should be your mindset and marketing message.

You’re the best lawyer for the job. The only lawyer your clients should choose.

Yes, it borders on arrogant and is open to dispute. But it is the very message your clients want to hear, the very message that will attract them to hire and refer you.

Clients want to know they’re getting the best advice possible. Not just good advice, the best.

They want to know that you will take care of them, work hard for them, and competently and completely solve their problems. And do it better than anyone else.

You want them to know you are the best lawyer for the job, and hiring anyone other than you would be a colossal mistake.

To accomplish this, you have to believe it’s true. If you don’t, if you think you’re good but not necessarily better than anyone else, it will show.

If you don’t believe you are the best of the best in your market, you need to work on that. You need to improve the quality of your services, add more value, work harder, or target a different market, one that is aligned with who you are and what you offer.

Or all of the above.

So that when you say you’re the best, you believe it, because it’s true.

When you believe it, your clients will believe it and you won’t have to use clever marketing (or lie) to be seen as the best choice.

You, and only you.

Filed Under: Communication, Image, Law office management, Marketing legal services

The power of risk reversal

January 9, 2025 by David M. Ward

In the 1980s, a lawyer friend and I started a real estate seminar business. We took out full-page ads and invited people to come to our office in the evening to hear about buying real estate with “no money down,” something my partner had had extraordinary success doing.

We charged $150 for the initial seminar, and at the end, invited attendees to sign up for our primary program, which required an investment of several thousand dollars.

This was during the real estate seminar boom, and we did extremely well.

One key to our success was offering a 100% money-back guarantee. At the end of the initial presentation, if they didn’t feel what we taught them was worth the cost, all they had to do was tell us they weren’t happy and we would refund the fee.

We had thousands of attendees and only a handful asked for their money back.

We also offered a guarantee on the primary program. If they did what we taught them to do to find properties and didn’t earn a profit of more than they paid for the program, we would likewise refund their investment.

Only one or two clients requested a refund.

The business worked because we were good at what we did and made things “risk-free” for our clients. They were satisfied or they paid nothing.

You might offer something similar in your law practice.

You might “guarantee” the first hour or two, or the initial document you prepare. Your clients are happy with your advice or your work or they pay nothing.

When prospective clients see you stand behind your work and there is no risk to them, when clients know they can hire you with total peace of mind, your bold and unique promise is likely to attract many clients who might otherwise hesitate to hire you.

Clearly, risk reversal won’t work for every law practice but it might be worth considering for yours.

Filed Under: Fees and Billing, Law office management, Marketing legal services

What to do when you get a bad review

January 7, 2025 by David M. Ward

It happens. A client is unhappy about something you did or didn’t do and posts a negative review. And those reviews can hurt you.

But bad reviews are a fact of life. No matter how good you are and how hard you work to keep your clients happy, you can’t please everyone all of the time.

So, what can you do?

Don’t ignore these reviews. Contact the client immediately. Take responsibility, apologize, promise you’ll fix things, and then fix them. Once you’ve made amends and fixed what needs fixing, ask the client to update their review.
If necessary, and the review platform allows it, consider responding to the review with an explanation. Show readers you care and have made improvements or are in the process of doing that. But be careful. A vindictive client might not let it go. At least prospective clients will see that you made the effort.
Encourage clients to talk to you about their concerns early and often. Let them complain privately instead of waiting to tell the world. Consider scheduling regular phone calls to review “how you’re doing” and learn what you can improve.
Ask your happy clients to leave reviews. Get enough of those and you might “bury” the bad ones.

Finally, learn from your reviews, good and bad. Find out what you’re doing well so you can do more of it, and what you need to change to keep clients better informed and happy.

Client feedback is always important. Negative feedback can be invaluable.

Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Law office management

Do you need a brochure to market your legal services?

October 3, 2024 by David M. Ward

A brochure looks nice. Just like having a nice office, nice furniture, and a nice suit.

At a glance, a prospective client or fellow professional can see you are no slouch. You’re successful.

You need a brochure, right?

It can’t hurt. But a brochure isn’t necessary. Your website can accomplish the same thing, but do it better.

Your website can tell people all about what you do, your background and story, your successful cases and big-name clients, share your victories, tell people how you work, and tell people what others say about you.

Your website doesn’t need to be fancy. Or expensive. A simple “off-the-shelf” template will do.

You can add as much information as you want whenever you want. If there’s something you need to change or fix, you can do it in minutes.

You can include information that helps people understand their problem and what to do about it. You can add a blog or articles, forms and checklists, and other goodies to help visitors understand their situation and why they should choose you to help them.

A brochure tells people what you do. A website proves you can do it.

Yes, there may be times when you want to have something you can hand out at a meeting or put in the mail. Something brochure-like, like the big kids have.

You can do that. Full-color brochures are impressive. Get some if you want to.

Or put your website address on your business card and call it a day.

Filed Under: Image, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing

Pre-marketing

September 12, 2024 by David M. Ward

Everything we do that qualifies as marketing—networking, content creation, staying in touch with clients and prospects, running ads—is easier and more effective when we “prepare” before we “do”.

Let’s call it “pre-marketing”.

Before you attend a live event, for example, you don’t just show up. You make a list of people you want to connect with, what you want to ask, offer, or tell them, notes about the speaker and his or her topic, and so on.

If you have a blog or newsletter or regularly post on social media, your pre-marketing activities would include collecting content ideas, creating a backlog of new content, verifying links, and updating your calls-to-action.

Yes, it’s all marketing. But pre-marketing activities can be done ahead of time, when you have an easier schedule.

Do these things so that when it’s go time, you’re ready to go.

Things like

Learning more about your target market and ideal client
Looking for articles to send to your key clients and referral sources
Signing greeting cards and thank-you notes so they are ready to mail
Reviewing your competition’s content
Taking seminars about SEO and AI and tools you can use to improve your marketing
Creating new forms and updating old ones
Finding and working with a “workout partner”
Reading blogs about marketing and productivity

Keep a list of these activities close at hand and schedule time to do them.

Boring? Maybe so. But you can delegate a lot of this.

Do enough pre-marketing and you might be able to hire a full time pre-marketing assistant.

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services

Get more clients by making it easier for clients to contact you

August 26, 2024 by David M. Ward

You can get more new clients (and repeat clients) by making it easier for clients (and referral sources) to contact you.

Especially via email since this makes it easier for them (and for you).

The key? The contract form on your website. Encourage visitors to fill this out any time they have something to ask you or tell you. Tell them when you will reply, e.g., within 24 hours or 48 hours if it is a weekend, and what to do in an emergency.

Making it easier for people also means not requiring too much information on your contact form. Ask for the minimum, just enough for them to hold up their hand, which usually means just their email and question or reason for contacting you.

Don’t make them fill out a lengthy questionnaire (as I’ve seen some lawyers do). Don’t pre-qualify them before you speak with them. Don’t tell them what you will or won’t do or what you do or don’t need from them.

For now, you just want to know their name and an email address. You can get the rest later.

Yes, you will get a lot of inquiries that go nowhere. But you will also get a lot of inquires from prospective clients who fill out your form because you made it easy to do that, and your competition didn’t.

If you get inundated with inquires and you can’t handle the volume, well, that’s a nice problem to have. There are things you can do to mitigate this but it is likely to be more profitable not to.

Keep your form as simple as possible. If you need to talk to them, you can invite them to call or ask for their phone number so you can call them. You can also direct them to your FAQ page or an index of your articles.

Show people it is convenient to connect with you and more people will.

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing

The cost of marketing your legal services

August 16, 2024 by David M. Ward

Lawyers choose which marketing strategies to use based on a variety of factors, not the least of which is cost (money, time, other resources). But cost is a misleading factor.

It’s not how much we spend. It’s how much we earn in return.

We might think a certain ad campaign (or any marketing strategy) is “expensive” but if the ROI is high enough, it might actually be “cheap”.

If you spend $1,000 per month on an ad, for example, and it brings in $5,000 per month in net revenue, that ad is profitable. If you can continue to get that kind of ROI, you would want to invest as much as you can in as many ads as you can.

The same goes for seminars, mailings, video production, other content, or other marketing endeavors.

It’s also pertinent to hiring additional staff (or better staff), a bigger office, or even a better wardrobe.

Nothing is expensive if it pays for itself and helps you increase your profits.

You might be reluctant (or unable) to spend $50,000 per month on advertising, but if you’re getting a 5-1 return (and you can handle all the new business), you’d be foolish not to beg, borrow, and steal to get more money to invest in that slot machine.

There is a risk that you won’t continue to get a sufficient ROI, however, so you have to watch your numbers.

But many lawyers don’t. They allocate a monthly or quarterly budget for “advertising” or “marketing” and hope it pays off.

But that’s not how a profitable business (or practice) should be run.

Filed Under: Advertising, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services

The quickest way to generate additional income for your practice

May 6, 2024 by David M. Ward

The quickest way to increase your revenue is to sell new services to your existing clients. It’s easier and faster and more profitable than finding new clients for your existing services.

Your existing clients know and trust you. They hired you once and will hire you again. And you can communicate with (sell to) them at no cost.

Start getting excited.

Hold on. What if you don’t have another service to offer?

Could you re-configure your existing services to create a “premium” version? Something worth more that can justify a higher fee?

(Start working on that.)

How about optional add-ons or extra services to add to your current services? Perhaps an annual consultation package advising clients about taxes or investments, for example. You might team up with other professionals who specialize in those areas.

Could you develop a smaller version of your standard services, without all the trimmings, to appeal to clients who don’t need (or can’t afford) your standard package? How about branching out to different niche markets with specialized services for those markets, or by appealing to different languages and cultural features?

Could you develop a consumer “division” of your business firm? Could you start a small business division for consumer clients who are interested in starting or buying a business?

And, if you don’t want to develop a new service, or change any of your existing offers, there are always referrals—to and from other lawyers and businesses who may be able to reciprocate.

Your clients have lives and interests beyond the services they hire you to perform. Find out what else they need or want and figure out a way to help them get it.

Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services

Who, not how

March 26, 2024 by David M. Ward

When you have a task to do, before you start, ask yourself ‘Who can do this for me?” Delegating or outsourcing work saves you time, leverages other peoples’ skills, and lets you focus on what you do best.

This philosophy and practice has been game changing for me.

In fact, in my practice, my motto was to “Only do what ONLY I can do (and delegate everything else).”

You might want to follow suit.

It’s not always easy to do. We resist delegating things because we believe we do them better, but that’s not always true. I’ve had employees who did things I could never do as quickly, efficiently, or as well.

We also resist because it’s risky to entrust certain tasks to other people. If they make a mistake, we pay the price or we have to spend more of our time fixing their mistake. But while that is generally true, crunch the numbers and you’ll see, in the long run, you come out ahead.

“It’s quicker and easier for me to do it myself.”

Also not true. Yes, we have to invest time training and supervising others; the question is, is that investment worth it? For me, it is almost always more than worth it.

So, that leaves our egos. We don’t like the idea of turning over our work, our important clients, to other people. But you get used to that. Especially when you see how much more profitable and satisfying your work is. And, did I mention how much more profitable it is?

Will it be as profitable for you?

Make a list of the things you do that ONLY you can do and imagine what it would be like if you could spend almost all your time doing just those things.

Yeah. . . it’s worth it.

Filed Under: Law office management, Productivity Tagged With: delegation, outsourcing