Why should I buy your hamburgers?

December 12, 2016 by
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If you were going to open a coffee shop, you would start by researching the market. You’d look at the existing restaurants in town and size up the competition.

How many coffee shops are there in a one-mile, three-mile, and five-mile radius? What’s on their menu? Do they have any specialties? What are their prices?

You would look at population density, traffic patterns, parking, and a hundred other factors, in an effort to find an unmet need in the market or an opportunity to improve on what other coffee shops do.

And then, you would come up with an angle, something that would make your coffee shop stand out from the competition. It might be the furniture, lighting, or decor. It might be the name of your coffee shop, your menu, or prices.

You would look for something you could do to get customers to notice you and give you a try. You would then give them the best experience possible so they would come back again and tell their friends about you.

Which is exactly what you need to do with your law practice.

You need to give people a reason to notice you and hire you instead of the legions of other lawyers in town with a similar menu. You need to stand out from the competition by being better or different.

So tell me, why should I buy your hamburgers?

How to develop an angle for your practice

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With: ,

Marketing a law firm like a strip club

October 3, 2014 by
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One of the biggest challenges in marketing a law firm is getting prospective clients to see how you are different or better than other lawyers who do what you do.

It takes a lot of thought and wordsmithery to come up with the right benefit statement. I don’t have any shortcuts to offer, but I can give you a place to start.

Imagine that instead of an office you work from a retail store in a big shopping mall. All of the other attorneys in town also have stores at the mall. The lawyer next door? He offer the same services you do. The lawyer across the hall? The same.

In fact, the entire mall is filled with your competitors. The shoppers in the mall are your prospective clients. They came to the mall looking for a lawyer to hire and they walk through the mall trying to decide which one to choose.

Will it be you? Or the guy down the hall?

You don’t want to leave it to chance, do you? You want to get them into your store.

What will you do? What will you put in your store window? What signs will you put up to entice them to stop?

Hold on. We know it’s only a matter of time before one of the other lawyers starts standing at the entrance to his store calling out things to passing shoppers. Yeah, like those guys who stand on the street in front of strip clubs encouraging passers-by to come to see their show.

You’re not going to let them get all the business, are you? Hell no. You’re going to stand outside your store, too. Whatcha going to say?

Before you know it, all of the lawyers in the mall will be standing outside their store hawking their wares. It’s going to get extremely noisy in that mall. You’ll need to be really clever if you want clients to choose you.

Yes, this is a picture of a nightmare. But it’s also a decent analogy for the real world. You don’t stand outside a store shouting at passing clients, (at least I hope you don’t) but you do something similar on the Internet, in ads, and at networking events.

Use this exercise to brainstorm ideas for headlines you can use to get the attention of prospective clients who are scanning lawyers’ ads, web pages, or listings in a directory.

What could you say to get their attention? What could you offer? How can you stand out from the crowd?

Here’s a hint: Your name or your firm’s name is not a good headline. It’s not going to get anyone to come into your store. Nobody but your mama cares about your name.

The good news is that all of those ads and web pages your competitors use with their firm name as the headline make things much easier for you. You can say almost anything else and get more clients than they do.

Write a headline that promises benefits. What do you do for your clients that other lawyers don’t do (or don’t say they do)? What makes you unique or better? Why should they come into your store?

The Attorney Marketing Formula helps you choose a benefit statement for your practice. Go here.

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

It’s Better to Be Different than It Is to Be Better

August 20, 2013 by
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In marketing, we often hear that we need to be better than our competition and if we can’t be better, be different. One expert says being different is actually better than being better.

Tsufit (that’s her full name) was an attorney who started a second career as an entertainer. Today, she helps professionals develop their personal brand. She says, “It’s better to be different than it is to be better. If you focus on creating differences and distinctions between you and everyone else, you don’t have to focus on boasting or showing that you’re better.”

Tsufit says that in building your brand, you don’t want to come across as too perfect. “Drop the excessive professionalism and simply be yourself,” she says. Showing your vulnerabilities makes you more credible, she says.

Tsufit also says that the biggest mistake in personal branding is “not standing for anything, not having a slice of the market that is yours and yours alone.” “If you say you’re for anybody, you’re really for nobody because there’s no way to find you among the sea of other people who do what you do.”

Wise words from someone who has obviously followed her own advice. You can read more about her in this profile.

If you want to know how to be different, get The Attorney Marketing Formula

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

How to stand out from the crowd

June 4, 2013 by
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“There are so many attorneys who do what I do. How do I stand out from the crowd?”

I was thinking about this the other day as I was browsing through the app store. There are thousands of apps for writing, note taking, outlining, and task management. I love checking out new productivity apps, but they are all so similar, more and more I find myself not even bothering to look.

Attorneys have the same challenge. If you do what all the other attorneys do, why should anyone choose you? How do you even get them to look?

App developers and attorneys have three ways to differentiate themselves.

THE FIRST WAY TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

If your services (or app) are extraordinary, meaning so much better than what everyone else offers, you will eventually be noticed. The cream will rise to the top.

I have my favorite note taking app. I consider it the best in it’s class. I even wrote a book about it. However, if I ever found something demonstrably better, I would be open to switching. It wouldn’t be easy to convince me, but it could be done.

Attorneys can stand out from the crowd by working hard to serve them in every way possible. Since many attorneys don’t “get” this, however, this is not as difficult as it may appear. You don’t necessarily have to be the best, just better than the crowd.

THE SECOND WAY TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

Jerry Garcia once said, “It’s not enough to be the best at what you do; you must be perceived as the only one who does what you do.” You may not be any better than other attorneys, but you can stand out from the crowd by being different.

Are you the only one who does what you do? Do you have a “unique selling proposition” (USP)?

The key word is “perceived”. You don’t really have to be unique. Jerry Garcia wasn’t the best musician and he certainly wasn’t the only musician. But he definitely did stand out from the crowd.

THE THIRD WAY TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

The easiest way to stand out from the crowd is by defining what you do in terms of for whom you do it. By marketing to well defined niche markets instead of the mass market, you can clearly differentiate yourself from other attorneys.

In addition, through your knowledge of and experience in your niche market, you will be able to provide better service and more value than other attorneys who don’t have that knowledge and experience, so you will be perceived as better as well as different.

How do you stand out from the crowd? By being seen as better, unique, or by serving a particular niche market. Any one will get the job done. Get all three right and you may find clients describing you as “the only one who does what you do”.

The Attorney Marketing Formula shows you how to craft your USP. Get it here.

 

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