The Rainmaker Blog : Law Firm Marketing and Business Development : The Rainmaker Institute : Stephen Fairley : Professional Legal Marketing

Over the weekend I had the great privilege of being a panelist at the State Bar of Arizona’s Grand Slam or Foul Ball . . . Social Networking for Lawyers - Co-sponsored with The State Bar of California.  It was a glorious day in Arizona filled with good conversation, excellent panelists, magnificent food, and of course, baseball.

During the seminar portion of the day – I won’t tease you with the food and baseball – the participants were treated to some great discussion of social media and how it can benefit, and hurt an organization.  One of the more interesting thoughts came from Peter Woodfork
Vice President & Assistant General Manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. 

He spoke about the issues involved with athletes using social media and some of the guidance that Major League Baseball is providing to its member clubs.  There are legitimate concerns with athletes posting to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN etc. and many clubs discourage athletes from posting during the season. 

This brings up an important business principle – make sure the individuals utilizing social media on behalf of your organization are the appropriate persons to be speaking for the organization.   Once something is posted on Facebook, it can live forever on Google.

I shared with the attendees my analogy on where social media fits into a law firm marketing plan. Imagine you have a cylinder and you have to fit large rocks, small rocks, sand, and water into the cylinder.  Which ones go first?

I recommend the large ones, which are your referrals and past clients.  The small rocks are your grassroots networking activities and your website.  The sand in the cylinder is your blog.  The water is social media.  It ties all of your legal marketing efforts together, but it is not your primary marketing tool.

It was a great seminar for those who attended, and I hope to participate in more in the future.  Social media has a place in your law firm marketing plan.  Putting that piece in the right place is the key.
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Looking for more Rainmaker Institute Wisdom?
Then sign up for a complimentary Law Firm Marketing Strategy CD.  It contains information that will enable you to Generate More and Better Referrals, Find New Clients Fast, and Fill Your Law Practice.  The CD is free, so sign up now!

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Allow me to introduce Rich Strauch to you.  Rich is the Chief Operating Officer here at The Rainmaker Institute, and he brings a great deal of experience with small and medium-sized companies helping them recognize the systems that they need to implement or improve to help them achieve their business objectives.

Rich has identified several systems that every law firm should have in place to be the type of firm they want to be.  Those same systems can take their legal marketing strategy from a hit-or-miss proposition to a referral and lead-generation machine. But before the systems are put in place, there are steps that need to be taken to ensure that there is a strong potential for success.

Here are four steps that need to be taken from the outset:

1. They must be written down. Systems must be written down in a step-by-step manner. – You can’t just say “track incoming prospect telephone calls.”  You need a specific set of instructions that answers the 5 w’s – Who, What, When, Where, and Why – to design a set of instructions that can be followed regardless of who is in the position.
2. They must be measurable. To the extent possible, systems must be quantifiable. If you have a target number of referral source meetings, use the number to help hold yourself accountable.  If your goal is a percentage increase, use the numbers in your plan.
3. They must be managed. Systems are ongoing and dynamic, not static and must be managed.  Someone has to be responsible to see that they happen.  The best plans are useless if they are not implemented and monitored.
4. They must be automated. Using software helps to automate the process. Technology can lower the number of man-hours you need to accomplish your goals.  Set a goal of automating everything that is possible in your business to you can use your time for high-value work.

Each of these items applies to many facets of your legal practice, including your legal marketing strategy.  Many firms have plans that are incomplete, not written down, poorly managed and still reliant on 1980s and 1990s technology – Rolodex anyone?  To take your law firm marketing to the next level, start with the steps above.  We will have more on this in future blog posts.
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Looking for more proven tactics from The Rainmaker Institute?

Then subscribe to our  FREE monthly e-newsletter. One click of your mouse will take you to our site where you can see the current issue and subscribe to our complimentary monthly e-newsletter that will be delivered to your inbox.  Each issue is chock-full of legal marketing information you can put to use right away. I think you will find the information in every newsletter something you will want to share with your staff to begin 2010 on the right note in your legal marketing plan.

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A recent law firm marketing article shows where the large law firms are planning to deploy their legal marketing resources in 2010.  While you are not directly competing with them for clients, you can learn from the research that their staff’s have conducted on the state of legal marketing today.

I find it interesting that the top two items on their marketing agendas are items that we have been encouraging you to implement for some time now – investing in social media and investing in client loyalty interviews. 

Social media – such as Twitter, LinkedIN, Facebook, blogs, Youtube etc – allows you to have contact with your clients, prospects and referral sources in the mediums that are most comfortable and familiar for them. Social media should be a part of your integrated Web presence to maximize the effectiveness of search engine optimization and deliver the largest presence possible for your marketing dollar.

Client loyalty interviews are another area where more than 9 out of 10 law firms are spending their marketing dollars this year.  Researching what your clients are looking for is standard operating procedure in most companies, and law firms are no exception.  I would encourage you to expand this process to include your referral sources.  Conduct some anecdotal research with your referral sources and ask what their friends and clients are looking for.  That will give you an additional window into the world of your prospective clients.

I encourage you to read the rest of the article to learn all that you can from the larger law firms.  They have research and marketing staffs that have put together a wealth of information that you can glean from.  In this economy, make use of every resource that is available to you.  Especially ones that you don’t have to pay for.
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If you are still unsure about attending a Rainmaker Retreat, sign up for one of our complimentary teleseminars.  These free, one-hour calls will give you a taste for the information that will be presented during a Rainmaker Retreat.  Don’t miss this opportunity to preview something that can revolutionize your law practice.

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Law firm marketing may seem like a dry, tedious exercise.  But it’s not!  Taking ideas of how to grow a business into the entity that you dreamed it would be when you started out is exciting to people. That is why we have Rainmaker Retreats; to help people catch the excitement of making their dreams come true.  We provide the information and actionable steps.  You develop them into a coherent legal marketing strategy that takes your business to the level you want it to attain.

To help you understand a little better what goes on at a Rainmaker Retreat, we have listed here for you the Top Ten things said by presenters and attendees at Rainmaker Retreats.

<drumroll please>

10. “This really isn’t as complicated as I thought it was.”
9. (sound of head slapping) “Why didn’t I think of that?”
8. “Done is better than perfect.”
7. “If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail to you.”
6. “I learned more about legal marketing in 36 hours at a Rainmaker Retreat than I did in all my years of law school.”
5. “I can start implementing this as soon as I get home!”
4. “A good employee can either make the company money or save the company money.  A superstar employee will do both.”
3. “Two days with Stephen Fairley is better than any deposition.”
2. “The information is so powerful that you are tempted to leave the retreat after a few hours to begin implementing what you have learned.”

And the number 1 thing overheard at a Rainmaker Retreat is…..

1. “The Fortune is in the Follow-up!”

I encourage you to sign up for one of our upcoming Rainmaker Retreats.  There are early-bird discounts available, as well as VIP coaching.  It is an investment that will pay dividends for years to come.

If you are unsure about attending a Rainmaker Retreat, join one of our complimentary teleseminars to get a preview of a Rainmaker Retreat.

We have teleseminars scheduled:

Wednesday, March 3
1-2pm Pacific | 2-3pm Mountain | 3-4pm Central | 4-5pm Eastern
 Thursday, March 4
4-5pm Pacific | 5-6pm Mountain | 6-7pm Central | 7-8pm Eastern
 Tuesday, March 9
1-2pm Pacific | 2-3pm Mountain | 3-4pm Central | 4-5pm Eastern

Click here to register for one of these information-packed Rainmaker Retreat previews.
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2010 Rainmaker Retreat Dates are set!

Are you looking for a way to fulfill your New Year’s resolution to become more effective in how you spend your legal marketing budget?  Do you need guidance and motivation to compose a comprehensive law firm marketing plan?  I have a suggestion for you.  Come to one of the upcoming Rainmaker Retreats.

The Rainmaker Retreat is a 2-day marketing boot camp for attorneys. Attendees at previous Rainmaker Retreats have come away with many new ideas and actionable legal marketing strategies that they can take home and implement right away.

This spring, we have a number of Rainmaker Retreats scheduled, and more in the planning stages. The current schedule of Rainmaker Retreats is:

• Scottsdale, AZ   March 19-20
• Roseland, NJ   March 26-27
• Las Vegas, NV  April 9-10
• Los Angeles, CA  April 16-17

Click on one of the locations to register for the Rainmaker Retreat.

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Most small and solo law firm marketers are caught up in the day to day activities of making sure everything remains running smoothly. They are very good at Tactical Behavior.  However, what they don’t realize is that this same flurry of constant activity that they believe has led to their current success is the same thing that hinders them from reaching the next level of success.

To continue to achieve higher levels of success you must invest time thinking strategically about how to grow your business.  Your law firm marketing plan must reflect both the tactical and strategic vision necessary to sustaining business growth.

A typical example is a labor and employment law attorney who attended one of our Rainmaker Retreats.  He took the strategic ideas of building his web presence and went back to his practice and implemented them.  When I saw him six months later, he told me he had achieved a 1600% return on his investment.  You can hear him in his own words here.

This small business was able to achieve this kind of success because the owner moved from just focusing on the day-to-day tactical activities and started thinking strategically about how to grow his business and then executed brilliantly on the growth plan.

You need to do both, it’s not an either or. You need to both think strategically, because it gives you insight into where you are and where you need to go, while executing the plan tactically.  Your law firm marketing plan needs to have both of those elements designed to work in harmony if you want to be as successful as possible.

Insight is not enough because insight without action leads to frustration and failure.
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We would like to send you a DVD of your colleagues (and even your competitors) describing their experiences at the 2 day Rainmaker Retreat. Yes, we know you are skeptical (we wouldn't have it any other way).   So instead of us telling you how these 2 days will transform your business, we will let our clients do the telling.

Click here to order your complimentary DVD right now.
 

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