If you want to quickly get new clients, here are three marketing methods you should consider.

(1) Advertising

An effective ad program can put your offer in front of a lot of prospective clients literally overnight.

If you’re not permitted to advertise your services, or you don’t want to, consider advertising your book or report or other information product.

You can sell that information or give it away, and each person who buys or downloads it will learn what you do and how you can help them. They also get added to your list so you can stay in touch with them, leading to more clients over time.

(2) Referrals

One of the best ways to build a law practice is through referrals from clients and professional contacts. For most attorneys, referrals happen when they happen. With a little effort, however, you can make them happen.

One reason people don’t give you referrals is that they don’t think about it. You’ll get more referrals if you contact them regularly and remind them how you can help their friends, clients, and colleagues.

One of the best ways to do that is to create a written document that describes your ideal client and explains the best and easiest ways to make a referral. My two courses, Maximum Referrals and Lawyer to Lawyer Referrals show you how.

(3) Joint ventures/strategic alliances

Another way to quickly bring in business is to align yourself with people with a list of clients or contacts who might need your services.

Professionals with a similar target market to your own can promote your webinar to their list, for example, in return for you doing the same for theirs. You can write guest posts for each other’s blogs or newsletters. You can promote each other as speakers at your respective networking events.

Advertising, referrals, and joint ventures give you access to other people’s lists, listeners, readers, or contacts. You can quickly get new clients by leveraging their relationships and getting your name and message in front of a large number of prospective clients.

Quickly get new clients through referrals

Okay class, as you know, we’re having an essay exam today so take out a sheet of notebook paper and a pencil and write today’s date and your name in the upper right corner.

At the top of the page, write, “The best time for marketing”. That’s the subject for the exam. You have 30 minutes to write your essay. Are there any questions? Okay. Ready? Begin.

[Teacher: reading magazines, making shopping list, checking students to see who’s cheating. . .]

Time’s up. Pencils down. Please pass your paper to the front.

Okay, we have a few minutes left until next period so does anyone want to share a few thoughts about the subject of the exam? Yes, David?

[David]: Most people will say that marketing should be done all the time, that is, every day, and while that’s true, the question is about the BEST time for marketing. In my essay, I said that the best time is when things are going well in your business, when you are busy and really don’t need new clients or customers.

The reason is that there will come a time when business will drop off and that’s the worst time to ramp up your marketing because you’re under pressure to make payroll and you don’t have time to do the kinds of marketing that are likely to have a big, long-term payoff. It’s harder to say no to lower-quality clients when your rent is overdue.

Also, when you’re busy, the marketing you do is often more effective. Success breeds more success. When your phone is ringing and you’re constantly signing up new clients, you’re excited and confident, and those qualities attract even more clients.

Nobody wants to hire someone who is desperate, they want to hire someone who exudes success. When you’re busy, there’s a positive vibe in your office and clients pick up on it, signing up more quickly and with less resistance. That vibe also leads to more positive word-of-mouth and referrals.

When you’re busy, you have the resources to try out new marketing ideas. If they don’t work, you can absorb the loss. If they do work, you have some new arrows in your marketing quiver.

The bottom line is that when you need clients, you’re playing catch up and marketing is more difficult and less effective. When you’re busy, marketing is easier and you get better results.

So yeah, the best time for marketing is when you don’t need it, just like the best time for exercise is when you’re healthy and in shape.

[Teacher]: Uh. . . thank you David. Class dismissed.

Get on board the attorney marketing train

When I was a nine or ten-year-old punk, I went to a summer day camp. The guy who owned the camp picked us up in a yellow school bus and took us to parks to play games and do other outdoorsy things. Sometimes, he took us to do indoorsy things like bowling.

One day, I had a particularly good bowling outing but I had bowled ten frames and was done for the day. I didn’t want to be done, I wanted to keep bowling, so I got creative.

The camp owner’s five-year-old son was with us and he had not had a good game. C’mon, he was five. He could barely roll the ball all the way to the pins. His name was Scotty (and no, I don’t know how I remember that) and I asked Scotty to let me bowl a frame for him. “I promise I’ll get you a strike,” I said.

Scotty resisted my offer but finally relented. I’ll tell you what happened in a minute.

I thought about this story this morning as I was thinking about the election. Bowling promises and campaign promises? Why not?

Anyway, as lawyers, we would love to be able to promise results to our clients, but we can’t do it. Aside from the fact that it’s ethically verboten, and the fact that we lose all credibility when we can’t deliver on our promise, it’s bad marketing because most people won’t believe you.

Better to say you’ll try. Give it your best. Or point your finger at the camera and proclaim, “I’ll fight for you!”

Your marketing messages should demonstrate your prowess by showing what you have done for other clients and making the case for hiring you. But then edit them and back off on the chest pounding a bit and inject a dose of humility into the picture. Let people can see that you’re not just saying what you think they want to hear.

It’s called verisimilitude–the appearance of truth. Because sometimes, the truth sounds too good to be true.

Unfortunately, had I told Scotty that I would do my best to get him a strike, he probably would have turned me down. I had to promise a strike. But hey, we were kids and kids will say anything to get what they want. Just like politicians.

So, what happened? I bowled a strike. Scotty was happy, I was happy (relieved), and the other campers who had heard my boast were impressed.

But I wonder if there might have been a better lesson for us kids had I not rolled that strike. Perhaps we would have learned that we can’t always trust things that are promised to us or that we shouldn’t look to others to make us successful, we have to learn how to do it ourselves.

Nah, screw that. We were kids having fun and there’s nothing wrong with that. I promise.

Get this and you might get a lot more referrals