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

I’m excited to tell you that The Rainmaker Institute has partnered with renowned estate planning attorney Jeffrey Matsen to create a special edition of the Becoming A Rainmaker seminar just for estate planning and business attorneys. The event will be held December 10 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. as part of the Wealth Counsel Education Event in Atlanta.

Jeffrey Matsen is one of the premier estate planning attorneys in the country, who brings a wealth of estate planning experience to the proven techniques of the Rainmaker System. More than 6,500 attorneys from hundreds of law firms throughout the US have discovered how to apply the specific, easy to follow Rainmaker Marketing System™ to generate more referrals and find new clients.

Attendees at the inaugural Becoming A Rainmaker For Estate Planning Lawyers – The Jeff Matsen Edition will learn:

• The 7 Ways to Find More Clients and How to Pick the Best Ones for Your Law Firm
• How to Build a Network of over 30 new Referral Sources in the next 6 months
• Specific Ways to Change Your Website from just an Online Brochure to a Money-making Machine
• Specific Tools for Automating Your Legal Marketing System
• How to Ethically Position Yourself as a Specialist in Your Area
• How to Promote Your Firm to 150,000 people for $140
• Avoid the Most Deadly Marketing Mistakes Attorneys make
• Why Advertising Doesn't Work and What Top Attorneys Do Instead
• The #1 Reason why Attorneys Don't Receive More Referrals and How to Change This

Seating for this event is limited and registration is required.  To register click here or you can RSVP to Diane Osmunden at diane@therainmakerinstitute.com or by phone at 888-588-5891.
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This weekend, take time to count all of the things and people you are thankful for. Thanksgiving is a time to remember all of the blessings you have been given.  Enjoy you holiday.
 

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Two weeks ago I posted some thoughts on how discounting your price can be a path to slow-payment, hassle, repeated requests for reductions in fees and ultimately non-payment.  Today I want to expand on those thoughts.

One of the maxims that still holds true today is “You get what you pay for.”  In many areas of life, it is true.  The cheap toys and tools available in the discount bins at the dollar store often do not have the service life span that higher-quality, and more expensive products enjoy.  That perception is deeply embedded in American consumer culture, so use it to your advantage.

We have all seen the studies of cars where the price and quality are not always directly linked.  Some brands have a reputation for higher quality that is undeserved or based on older thinking, yet they continue to charge prices that seem to be too high for the value received.  We have also seen the studies where high quality items were discounted, and the consumer viewed them as inferior to the higher-priced items.

Legal services are much the same way.  If you discount your rates, prospective clients are more likely to think your service is of a lesser quality than that of attorneys who do not discount.  Regardless of the quality of the service, the perception will rule the day.

A recent study highlights this thought process.  Baba Shiv, a Stanford neurologist, supplied a group of people with Sobe Adrenaline Rush, an energy drink that was supposed to make them more alert and responsive.  Some participants paid full price for the drink, others were offered the drink at a discounted price. The researcher found that those who received the discounted drink consistently solved 30% fewer puzzles than those who paid full price for the drink.  The study was repeated, and the results were essentially the same.

The researchers concluded that consumers have a version of the placebo effect.  Because we expect the less-expensive goods to be inferior, they become less-effective, even if they are identical to the more expensive products.  Once this thought process settles in, it begins to affect our behavior as consumers of goods and services.

This is a cautionary tale for professionals thinking about discounting their fees. Once the perception takes root that your services are cheaper, the thought that they are inferior is very likely to follow.  Do this at your own risk.

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Practice Made Perfect For Lawyers: 10 Principles for Marketing Your Legal Services

This comprehensive training manual is specifically designed for attorneys and other legal professionals who desire to achieve a higher return on investment from all their marketing efforts. Much more than a simple adaptation, each chapter has been carefully rewritten to apply Stephen’s unique High Impact Marketing System to the challenges faced by solo and small law firms.

Written especially for solo practitioners and partners at small law firms (less than 25 attorneys), this practical manual includes dozens of specific marketing and sales recommendations that can be easily and quickly applied to your firm.

It includes a 2 CD set—one audio CD that provides you with an overview of the 10 Principles along with ideas on how to maximize your results from the manual and a data CD that gives you customizable templates and forms to help you create a marketing budget and strategic development plan.

To purchase this valuable resource, visit The Rainmaker Institute website.

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Stop Relying on the Same Strategies that Barely Worked last year
We have all heard insanity defined as continuing to do the same thing over and over while expecting different results.  Most attorneys rely far too much on advertising and casual referrals to bring clients in. Results from advertising are down across the board.  People are just not not referring friends and family members at the same rate as they used to

You cannot rest on your laurels of “providing great services” or “being a great attorney” to get you through this year.  You need to try something different (and I don’t mean boost your advertising budget). The tools you used to get you here are not the same tools you will need to make it through the next 12-24 months.

Ideas are Worthless…Without Implementation
Many business owners tend to be “big picture” kind of people filled with brilliant ideas and fascinating perspectives…which is great…but ultimately worthless without the correct implementation.  In this time of economic distress do not become bogged down with finding the “big idea.”  Instead, concentrate on how you are going to implement your smaller ideas quickly and cost-effectively.

Focus on Cash Flow Not Revenue
Bill Martin, our Director of Development and one of our Master Business Coaches, has owned and operated 16 businesses over the course of his long and successful career.  He is fond of saying, “Cash flow solves a lot of problems and lack of it causes even more.” Do you know your profit margin for each practice area?  For each type of case?  Look for three ways to improve your cash flow in the next 60 days.

Leave Your Office Every Week
Top Rainmakers do not rely on referrals to fall into their lap.  They get out of their office and press the flesh.  Make time in your schedule every week to meet with current and potential referral sources face-to-face.  Meeting them on Facebook or Twitter is great, but take those relationships offline and meet them for coffee or lunch.  Our top clients set aside lunch every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to meet with potential referral sources.

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If you are unsure about attending a Rainmaker Retreat, you have several opportunities to gather more information.  First, you can attend one of our free Rainmaker Retreat Preview Calls.  We have  a call scheduled:

• Wednesday, November 18 12-1 pm PT | 3-4 pm ET

To register for our free, 60-minute preview call, click here.
 
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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The first two posts focused on follow-up and marketing practices.  This post continues those thoughts.

Speed to Market Wins Every Time
If I had to choose, I will bet on the law firm that consistently uses three simple marketing strategies over the firm that takes three months to write a long, detailed annual marketing plan.  Plans do not win the game!

Attorneys are notorious for over planning everything.  This is a fatal mistake when it comes to marketing.  Your plan should only be focused on what actions you are going to take in the next 90 days. Keep it simple and focus on taking action now.

Under Staff for Success
I was recently speaking with an estate planning attorney here in Phoenix.  His business is about the same as last year, but he isn’t willing to do any marketing right now.  Why?  Because he just fired an associate who wasn’t performing well and he doesn’t want to take on any more work because he isn’t sure he can handle it alone.

Even when I pointed out, rather obviously, there are a lot of out-of-work attorneys right now who would love the chance to work and even more who would entertain an Of Counsel relationship, he wasn’t interested.  Seriously?

Now is not the time to staff up hoping for massive success.  Now is the time to keep your team “lean and mean” while putting everything you can into effective marketing.  Marketing takes time.  Many attorneys do not see great results from their efforts for three or four months after they fully implement.  This leaves plenty of time to set up an Of Counsel relationship to handle the overflow or even find an associate if needed.

I remember working with a two-partner firm out of Los Angeles about two years ago who insisted on waiting to fully implement their marketing plan until they hired at least two more associates. 

Finding and hiring the first associate became an arduous process over a three month period.  The second associate took even longer.  Then one of the partners was convinced they needed to upgrade their offices and move to a bigger and better location to attract the higher end clients they wanted.

So after the second associate was hired (they both were paid six figures) they decided to put off marketing for a few more months in order to track down new office space. They went from 2000 square feet in a Class B building to 6000 square feet in a Class A building.  Their overhead tripled, the economy tanked and the firm has never regained their footing.

Here’s the moral of the story: Market now.  Wait until your efforts pay off. Then ramp up your staff to handle the increased work load.

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Want to take the Rainmaker System home with you?
Then order the Rainmaker in a Box 5-DVD set!
Some of the information and strategies you will learn include:
The 5 Immutable Secrets to Building a 7 Figure Law Practice
Secrets of Building a Referral-based Law Practice for Busy Practitioners
The Top 6 Most Powerful Online Marketing Strategies for Attorneys
Action, Accountability and Next Steps
This program also includes a data DVD which includes all 4 PowerPoint slides for all 4 presentations. We recommend you print all these off and take notes on them as you watch the 4 intense DVDs.
To order this information-packed set click here.
 

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The first part of this series focused on the need for prompt follow-up.  Today’s blog moves onto other marketing topics.

Done is Better Than Perfect – Especially with Marketing
When it comes to marketing your law firm 90 percent is good enough!  Don’t wait until you have the perfect brochure to start handing it out.  Get your website to the point where it’s good enough and then launch it!  You can always fix the shading of the photo on the About Us page at a later time. 

I have encountered far too many attorneys who mentally torture themselves going over the copy for their website or brochure five or 10 times because they are so concerned about how it reflects on their law firm.

Niching Your Practice is the Fastest Path to Riches
I know you have heard me say this before, and yes, I know you continue to resist it.  However, the more you can target a specific niche the easier you can dominate your target and the faster you can gain recognition as an expert.

Let me give you an example of a poorly defined niche: small business owners in Chicago who need an estate plan.  Here’s how to locate a better target: physicians in Chicago who own a medical practice, gross at least $500,000 annually, and need asset protection strategies to grow and preserve their wealth.

Including the following items in your niche will keep you on track plus it’s easier to identify who these people or businesses are: a profession or industry, geographical location, annual revenues, and core challenges.

Look at What the Crowd is Doing and Do the Opposite
Many of my best marketing strategies are based on contrarian thinking.  I often tell my clients to look at what their competitors are doing and do the opposite.

Right now, I have heard a growing number of attorneys who are doubling down on their advertising believing that since they can negotiate a good deal they should buy more of it.  That’s good news for you.  Not only is advertising generally ineffective in a growing law firm, but they are wasting their precious cash flow while you are investing it wisely on strategies that actually work.

Just remember, if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes.  Don’t follow the crowd with your marketing.

Emphasize Price at Your Own Peril
This is not the time to reduce your rates just to pull a few more clients in the door.  It’s often the price shoppers who are the most demanding, take up more of your time, complain more frequently, and are slow payers.

I have learned this the hard way in my own business.  This year I took on two six-figure marketing clients who tried to get me to renegotiate my prices on three or four occasions. Reluctantly I gave them some price concessions, but in the end they both came back to haunt me because they both ended up being complaining clients, slow payers, and in the end non-payers.  When will I learn to take my own advice?

One last thought on pricing, in these tough times who is more price sensitive – blue collar workers or affluent white collar executives?  By emphasizing your price and targeting the lower end of the marketplace you will kill your profit margins and destroy your chances at long-term wealth.  Emphasize price at your own peril.

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There is still time to register for the Rainmaker Retreats coming this fall to a city near you. This 2 day marketing boot camp for attorneys is full of information that will boost your referrals and increase your bottom line. Some of the many valuable marketing tools you will learn at a Rainmaker Retreat include how to:
a. Create a written 90-day master marketing plan for your firm
b. Discover your Unique Competitive Advantage
c. Improve your internet presence
d. Outline either an article or produce a professional press release to submit online
e. Create a letter of introduction to potential Strategic Referral Partners

Our Rainmaker Retreat schedule is:
Los Angeles - Friday, November 13 & Saturday, November 14
Las Vegas - Friday, December 4 & Saturday, December 5

The schedule for each retreat is Friday – Registration at 8:00, Retreat begins at 8:30, and breaks for the day at 5:30. Saturday begins with breakfast at 7:30  and the retreat runs from 8:00 – 2:00 p.m.

To register for a Rainmaker Retreat or for more information, please visit our website.
 
If you would like to participate in one of our Rainmaker Retreat Preview calls, you can register here.  A free Rainmaker Retreat Preview DVD is availablehere.  Each of these will whet your appetite for the valuable information you will receive at a Rainmaker Retreat.
 

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Everyone is cash-conscious these days.  If you’re like most attorneys in small and solo law firms, you’re working harder than ever before just to get the same amount of business.  Here are 21 specific strategies to help you bootstrap your way to marketing success.

The Fortune is in the Follow up!

This bears repeating:  The Fortune is in the Follow Up!  I was speaking with an estate planning attorney who had a meeting with a very wealthy individual about two weeks ago.  It went great.  The attorney made a proposal to the prospect for a comprehensive estate plan and quoted him a fee around $5,000.  He believed the prospect would sign-up

However, after thinking about it for a few days, the prospect declined, citing the attorney’s high fee as the reason.  Now, this young man’s estate is worth well north of a million dollars.  His parents are multi-millionaires, so it’s not a matter of being able to afford it.  As an aside, I have found in virtually every case where a prospect quotes fees, it’s not really about the money; it’s because you failed to convince him of the true value of your solution.

When I inquired as to what my client was doing to follow-up and re-sell the prospect, my client stated “nothing” because his partner told him “we don’t chase clients.”  I rather pointedly stated I thought his partner was dead wrong.  Now is the time to increase your follow-up, not eliminate it. 

I coached him to immediately call the prospect and ask for a meeting with him and his parents and in this meeting to emphasize the value of having a comprehensive, bullet proof estate plan versus one cranked out by a mill.  We will see what happens when he follows through.

Fix Your Follow Up ASAP

Every lead, every prospect, every referral source and every client needs to be followed up with in a timely and consistent fashion.  Since you have a very limited amount of time to do so, you must learn how to automate the follow up process.  We recently helped one of our clients set up an autoresponder series to do just this. (An autoresponder is an automated process that sends out a pre-written series of email to your list.)

For example, if you meet with a prospective client who does not make a decision immediately, you can set them up with (with their permission of course) to receive information from your law firm.  This may consist of a series of five to ten emails that is sent every three to five days.

The first email may be: thank you for coming in to see us.  Here’s a link to our website for more information.  The second email may be.  There are 10 questions you must ask any attorney before you hire them to take your case.  Here are the first two questions…

On average, people require at least seven meaningful touches to move from being interested in you to being ready to buy from you.  Most attorneys stop after two or three touches because they falsely believe they are bothering the person.  As long as you are professional and courteous, most people perceive your persistence as caring about them and wanting their business, not bothersome.
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Becoming a Rainmaker: Business Building Strategies for Lawyers
 
Based on Stephen’s highly successful seminar series by the same name, this 3-audio CD program covers dozens of practical recommendations and step-by-step sales and marketing techniques for solo practitioners and small law firms.

Stephen has given this seminar to hundreds of lawyers at state and local bar associations, and is scheduled for many more in the upcoming months.

To order this valuable seminar, visit our website. 
 

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