You don’t know what you don’t know

August 6, 2015 by
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I’ve hired hundreds of people in my career (law and business). I’ve looked at thousands of resumes and conducted more interviews than I can count. One thing I’ve learned is that while resumes and interviews and checking references help, you really don’t know how someone will do until you give them a try.

Some people look good on paper but aren’t right for the job. Some don’t present well in an interview but turn out to be great at doing the work.

You make an educated guess, but you don’t know until you hire them.

This is also true in the world of marketing. You don’t know how something will work out for you until you try it.

If you don’t have a blog, how do you know it’s too much work or won’t be worth the effort?

If you’ve never tried advertising, or only advertised (unsuccessfully) in the yellow pages, how do you know it’s not for you?

If you tried networking once or twice and hated it, how do you know you won’t love it if you find the right crowd?

You don’t. Because you don’t know what you don’t know.

Just as you have to hire a lot of people to find the ones who work out and stay with you long term, you have to try out lots of marketing techniques to find the ones that are the right fit. If something doesn’t work out, fine. But before you “fire” that activity, you might want to give it a second chance.

With a little time and a little coaching, it might turn out to be an amazing addition to your team.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services

If Donald Trump managed your law office

August 5, 2015 by
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If Donald Trump managed your law office, you’d be in for one hell of a ride. On the first day he arrived, he’d call a meeting and lay out the plan to take you into the big (or bigger) leagues.

Before he arrived, he would have had his people study you. They would know your operation better than you do, and they would have recommendations. Lots of them. They will have briefed The Donald and he will be ready to sell the plan to you and your staff.

And that plan would be breathtaking.

Everything that you have always taken for granted would be back on the table. Every document, every procedure, every employee would be examined, and that includes you. Some of your staff will be given raises. Some will be fired. New people will be brought on board.

Waste will be eliminated. Opportunities will be exploited. Everything will run smoother, faster, and more profitably.

I imagine The Donald will tell you (repeatedly) why a business person and not a lawyer should run things. He’d point out that lawyers aren’t good at taking risks, they don’t appreciate marketing, and they are often better with paper than people.

Yes, he’d ruffle feathers and leave you breathless trying to keep up, but as a result of implementing his plan, new clients would come in, bills would go out, and your bank account would grow.

The lesson? Hire a business person to manage your law firm. Or change your thinking, crack the books, and become one yourself. Embrace the notion that your firm is a business and needs to be run like one. Change the way you think about things, and change the things you do.

Because Mr. Trump is a little busy right now and probably won’t show up at your office any time soon.

Here’s a good place to start

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Productivity

Help clients find you before they need you

August 4, 2015 by
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Hockey great Wayne Gretzky was asked how he was able to get so many good shots on goal. After all, he wasn’t the only one on the ice. How did he get the puck so often?

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been,” he said.

Lawyers need to do that with clients.

Figure out where your clients will be and what they will be doing before they need your services, and get there first. All of the other lawyers “on the ice” are waiting until prospective clients go looking. You’ll already have the puck and they won’t have a chance.

What are your clients doing one month or six months before they hire you? What are they reading? Who are they confiding in? What are they doing?

Answer this question, and get your name in front of them before they decide to hire a lawyer.

If you handle divorce, for example, your clients are probably reading books and blogs and articles and watching youtube videos about property rights and custody standards. Create your own books and articles and videos and advertise on or write for sites that offer this type of content.

Your clients are probably talking to people, like counselors, tax advisors, financial planners, real estate agents, and business lawyers. These folks can send you referrals, so find them and network with them. Stay in touch with your former clients because their friends will talk to them and ask about their experience, and if they can refer them to a good lawyer.

You can also create generic consumer or business content. If you handle personal injury, write a report on how to save money on auto insurance. If you represent small businesses, write a report on how to negotiate a better lease. Promote your reports and build a list.

Help clients find you before they need you. Figure out where they will be and get there first.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Referrals

I just met you, and this is crazy. But here’s my number. . .

July 31, 2015 by
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You just met someone. You give them your card. Then what? What do you do?

Do you tell them to call you? Do you give them a reason to do it? Something you’re going to share with them, or something you want to discuss with them?

Or do you leave follow-up to them?

Okay, maybe it’s too soon to call. Fine. Tell them to go to your website, to see an article you think they’ll be interested in, or a checklist they can fill out, or to download a report that covers the topic you’ve been discussing with them.

Because if they see that article or download that report, they will be one step closer to knowing what you do and how you can help them or the people they know.

Tell them what to do. Give them a reason to do it. Don’t leave it up to them. Don’t say maybe.

Too aggressive? Nah. You’re telling them about something that might benefit them. If they don’t want it, they won’t do it.

By the way, what’s on your card anyway? I see some attorneys make the mistake of not putting their website and email on their card. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they don’t have a website or use email, and if that’s true, that’s an even bigger mystery.

Hello, is this on?

But then making it easy for people to find out more about you and how you can help them is only one of the reasons we carry cards, and it’s not the most important one.

It’s not? No. The most important reason for giving someone your card is to get their card. So you can contact them. Because it’s your practice, not theirs, and marketing and following-up with people you meet is your responsibility. It’s also your best bet for turning a one-time meeting into new business.

So, I just met you, and this isn’t crazy. Here’s my card, may I have yours, so I can call you or send you something?

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Filed Under: Business cards, Communication, Marketing legal services, Networking, Online Marketing, Relationship marketing

Be different or be gone

July 30, 2015 by
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Albert Einstein said, “The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before.”

Most lawyers don’t want to walk alone. They don’t want to stand out. They do what other lawyers do, read what other lawyers read, and do what other lawyers do. They even look like other lawyers look.

And that’s why the average lawyer is just average.

If you want to be better than average, if you want to earn a bigger income or leave a bigger mark on the world, you can’t do what everyone else does. You have to be different.

You can’t network in all the same places most lawyers network. You can’t write what they write, say what they say, or do what they do. When they zig, you need to zag.

You often hear me say that you need to tell the world (clients, prospects, referral sources, etc.) how you are better than other lawyers, or how you are different. You have to differentiate yourself and give the world a reason to notice you and choose you.

You don’t have to be a radical, or a visionary. Just different.

Speak out about something. Join a group. Or start one.

Change something about how you do your work. Or change your appearance.

Move away from the mainstream and follow your own path.

Do things other lawyers don’t do and you will go places other lawyers don’t go.

Learn how to differentiate yourself

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Filed Under: Image, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, success

Getting the right things done

July 28, 2015 by
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Venture capitalist Mark Suster has a rule he lives by that helps him be more productive and successful. The rule: “Do Less. More.” It means doing fewer things overall, and getting the right things done. “Success often comes from doing a few things extraordinarily well and noticeably better than the competition,” he says.

Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle, says, “Everyone can achieve something significant. The key is not effort, but finding the right thing to achieve. You are hugely more productive at some things than at others, but dilute the effectiveness of this by doing too many things where your comparative skill is nowhere near as good.”

Koch also says, “Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.”

So, what do you do better than most? What should you focus on? I asked this question in an earlier post:

Look at your practice and tell me what you see.

  • Practice areas: Are you a Jack or Jill of all trades or a master of one? Are you good at many things or outstanding at one or two?
  • Clients: Do you target anyone who needs what you do or a very specifically defined “ideal client” who can hire you more often, pay higher fees, and refer others like themselves who can do the same?
  • Services: Do you offer low fee/low margin services because they contribute something to overhead or do you keep your overhead low and maximize profits?
  • Fees: Do you trade your time for dollars or do you get paid commensurate with the value you deliver?
  • Marketing: Do you do too many things that produce no results, or modest results, or one or two things that bring in the bulk of your new business?
  • Time: Do you do too much yourself, or do you delegate as much as possible and do “only that which only you can do”?
  • Work: Do you do everything from scratch or do you save time, reduce errors, and increase speed by using forms, checklists, and templates?

Leverage is the key to the 80/20 principle. It is the key to getting more done with less effort and to earning more without working more.

Take some time to examine your practice, and yourself. Make a short list of the things you do better than most and focus on them. Eliminate or delegate the rest.

Do Less. More.

This will help with getting the right things done

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Filed Under: Law office management, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Productivity, success Tagged With: , , ,

Another “fee raising” success story

July 24, 2015 by
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I spoke to another attorney yesterday who told me that, at my urging, he increased his fees approximately 40% and has received no resistance. His fees were low to begin with, he said, but this has emboldened him to increase his fees even further.

He said the top of the market is still 70% higher than his new fee, and we talked about what he would need to do to justify another increase.

You don’t have to be the top of the market, I told him, but you should at least be in the top one-third to 20%.

But don’t be so quick to dismisss “top of the market” fees. Why couldn’t you be the most expensive guy in town?

You could. The question is how.

Much of marketing is about perception. To some extent, you’re worth more because you say you are. Who’s to say any different?

Your lower-priced competitors, you say? See, that’s where you’re missing the boat. There is no competition at the top of the market. It’s at the lower 80% of the market where everyone does pretty much the same thing and competes on price and good looks.

If you’re mucking about in steerage, you’ll never maximize your potential.

But there is a limit to how much more you can charge simply because you want to charge more. You’ve got to find something you do better or different than other lawyers, and make that a point of differentiation.

One way to do that is to specialize not only in the services you offer but the clients for whom you perform those services. Choose a niche market to target, focus on it, and groom yourself to become the “go to” lawyer in that niche.

There are big advantages to this strategy. Besides being able to charge higher fees, marketing is easier and more effective. Instead of networking with or advertising to “anyone” who might need your services or be able to refer clients, for example, you can concentrate your efforts on marketing exclusively to prospective clients and referral sources in your niche market.

That’s what this attorney said he will do.

He’ll save time, spend less on advertising (if not eliminate it completely), and develop a name for himself in his niche.

Word of mouth travels fast in niche markets. By next year at this time, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he has indeed become the “go to” lawyer in his market.

Learn more about niche marketing, with this

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Image, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Networking, Specializing Tagged With: ,

How to increase your income ten-fold

July 21, 2015 by
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What would I have to do to increase my income ten-fold? That’s a question you should ask yourself periodically.

Yesterday, I did a consultation with an immigration lawyer and asked him a similar question. We were talking about his fees and I said, “With your experience and reputation, you could probably triple your fees, right now, and get it, no questions asked. Who’s to say you’re not worth three times what you now charge? What you need to do is figure out how you could increase your fees ten-fold. What would you have to do? How would you have to package your services in order to get that?”

Because he could. Because you can, too. The challenge is to figure out how.

Okay, too much to ask? I’ll ask a different question that might make you more comfortable. “What would you have to do to increase your income ten-fold in the next year?” The answer would entail a combination of increasing fees and getting more clients, yes?

Good stuff.

I heard an interview with an author recently who said his goal was to increase his income ten-fold within the next year. His plan calls for a combination of writing more books and selling more of them (marketing).

Will he reach his goal? I don’t know. But I do know that as a result of thinking this way, he’s bound to increase his income, undoubtedly much more than he would if he didn’t ask “how”.

Ten fold is big. But not impossible. You have to ask questions like this. It’s no fun to ask, “How could I increase my income five percent?” Snore.

So, what would you have to do to increase your income ten-fold? What new services would you offer? What new (higher-priced) markets would you target? What would you have to do to increase your fees? What would you have to do to get more traffic to your website, viewers of your ads, or attendees at your seminars? What would you do to get more referrals?

Think. And maybe you’ll grow rich.

How to increase your income ten-fold: Go here

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Goal Setting, Increase your income, Inspiration, Law office management, Marketing legal services

What to write when you don’t know what to write

July 20, 2015 by
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“I don’t know what to write.” “I’ve said it all before.” “What I have to say is boring to most people.” “I’m not a good writer.”

This is what many lawyers tell themselves. These are the reasons they offer for not writing to their clients and prospects.

No articles, no blog, no emails. Or very few and far between.

Have you avoided setting up a newsletter or blog because you don’t think you have anything to say? I’m talking to you.

Yes, time is a factor. But you’re smart enough to know that it’s worth finding 30 minutes a week if it means bringing in several new clients per month.

No, if you’re not writing, it’s probably because you don’t think you have anything to say.

You know what? You might be right. You may not know what to say and you may not be a good writer. But it doesn’t matter. If you don’t know what to write, write anything.

You don’t have to be brilliant. You can write something that’s “just okay”.

Why? Because building a digital relationship with your clients and prospects isn’t about information or elegance, it’s about engagement.

It’s not what you say or how you say it that’s paramount. It’s that you said something.

You showed up in their life again, reminding them that you’re still practicing and still interested in knowing them. You shared an idea or observation, or shared something about your practice or your personal life. You asked for their feedback, and asked them to tell you how they are doing.

You don’t need to be brilliant, or even good. You just need to show up regularly and say hello.

Tell them something you did this week, or something you thought. Tell them about a website or book you recommend. Tell them about an interesting case or client you have, or one that another lawyer told you about.

A few paragraphs, once a week, is enough to maintain your relationship.

But here’s what happens.

You keep doing it and your writing gets better. And faster.

You find more interesting things to say, and better ways to say them. You start to enjoy writing, and you look forward to it, especially when you see how it is helping your practice grow.

You don’t have to be good to start, but you have to start to be good.

Here’s what you need to start your newsletter or blog

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Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Writing

The thrill is gone? Here’s how to get it back

July 17, 2015 by
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The thrill is gone. You’ve lost the spark you had when you started practicing. You’re spinning your wheels and getting nowhere fast.

You’re doing okay, but you want to move on up, to an east side apartment in the sky.

Or maybe things aren’t so good. You’re struggling and falling behind.

What can you do? How do you get things moving?

You need to start over. Go back to the beginning and be “new” again. Forget what you have and what you know and begin from square one.

Before you can construct, you have to destruct.

I know, starting over might hold some bad memories for you. It does for me. I was scared to death. Everything was riding on my making a go of things and I didn’t have a clue about what to do.

But I was excited. The world was mine for the taking. Anything was possible.

And I was hungry. Determined. Open to anything. I had nothing, so I had nothing to lose.

You too? Good. Go back to those days in your mind. Be hungry again. Be open again. Be excited again.

Pretend you have nothing. No clients, no lists, no website, no ads. Chuck it all and start from scratch. You’ll add them back one at a time. Or maybe you won’t.

Yes, but what do you do? That’s not really important. If your head is on right and you are truly reborn, you’ll figure it out.

You’ll try lots of things, with no expectations. Some will work, most won’t. You want this thing to work and you’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Get out a legal pad and a pen. Time to start building. Start by taking inventory.

Who do you know? Write down the names of people who might be able to help you. Clients, prospects, referral sources, other lawyers who can give you advice, friends and family who can support your dreams.

What do you know? What are you good at? What are your skills (legal, marketing, management, leadership, speaking, writing, etc.)

What do you want? Write down one or two goals for the month. Forget next month for now; you’ve got a rent payment coming due.

Are you excited yet? Scared? Itching to do something? Good. Pick up the phone and call someone on your list.

Call a friend and tell him you’re re-launching your practice today and just wanted to share the good news.

Call a lawyer and tell her you’d like to meet for coffee and talk about how you can work together.

Call a former client and see how they’re doing. They might need you for something, or know someone they can refer.

Call a current client and tell them how much you appreciate them.

Spend the rest of the day talking to people. Tonight, write down some marketing ideas. Tomorrow, get up early and do it again.

Need a marketing plan? Get this

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Inspiration, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, success
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