Good legal marketing needs a strong lead flow system
Previously I addressed how vital your law firm marketing system is to the success of your legal marketing plan. Your lead flow system is the next logical step in the systems you need to be successful. If your law firm marketing system is working well, it should be producing a large number of lead opportunities for you. What you do with those opportunities is nearly as important has generating the opportunities.
First, you should develop strategies for increasing the number of leads and tracking them. Legal marketing can do some of the heavy lifting for you on identifying lead prospects. But going from a possible lead to a genuine lead and prospect requires a well-designed system that includes follow through.
Second, you should develop a system for tracking all incoming leads and where the leads are in the sales pipeline. Once a lead comes in, someone has to be tasked with keeping track of the lead status so leads do not fall through the cracks. Lost leads are lost opportunities, and are akin to leaving money on the table. They also hurt your reputation with your referral sources if they supplied the referral and you didn’t follow through on the lead.
Here are some questions to ask as you think about your lead system:
- Who sorts the leads to rank them by priority?
- How do we prioritize leads?
- Who is responsible for assigning leads to members of the firm for follow up?
- Who maintains the follow-up system and holds the firm members accountable?
Converting possibilities and referrals into leads is one of the key conversion tasks of your firm. Generating referrals from your legal marketing strategy is the first step in building your business.
Converting those leads into clients, and ultimately referral sources, is how you grow your firm into what you envisioned when you began. Without a good lead flow system, the likelihood of you maximizing the possibilities of your marketing program is slim.
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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!
Legal marketing ideas flowed at Las Vegas Rainmaker Retreat
The crowd at last weekend’s Rainmaker Retreat was revved up to turbo charge their law firm marketing plans and take their practice to the next level. Even though each Rainmaker Retreat is slightly different, customized to meet the needs of actual attendees, one thing remains the same—attorneys who attend the Rainmaker Retreat law firm marketing boot camp leave with over 62 proven tools they can immediately use to generate more and better referrals and increase their revenues!
The overwhelming majority of attorneys who attend are partners or owners of small law firms or are in solo practice. Many of whom wisely bring a staff member who can then help them implement their legal marketing plan. They are all highly-motivated individuals passionate about improving their legal marketing strategies.
One of the shifts many attorneys experience is the mindset of moving from having a practice to owning a business. Many attorneys initially have the belief that can be summed up as, “I'm an attorney who just happens to be in a practice. Law is a profession and therefore does not need to be marketed like other businesses.”
By the time they leave, these same attorneys have often experienced a mind shift towards, “I'm a business owner who just happens to practice law and while the application may be slightly different, the ‘rules of marketing’ apply to my business just like they do every other business.”
If you haven’t ever attended a Rainmaker Retreat, I encourage you to add one of our upcoming Rainmaker Retreats into your schedule. I guarantee it will be the best 2 days you have ever spent learning how to grow your law business! In addition to our upcoming retreat this weekend in Las Angeles, our current schedule of Rainmaker Retreats includes:
- Scottsdale, AZ, May 21&22
- San Francisco, June 18 &19
- Las Vegas, July 16 & 17
- Los Angeles, July 30 &31
If you are still unsure about attending, read the words of some of the attorneys who attended the recent Las Vegas Rainmaker Retreat.
“The program was fast paced, loaded with content and, unlike many seminars, commanded constant and undivided attention. I now feel I have specific steps to take besides waiting for the phone to ring.”
- Michael Hickman, Partner
“This course exceeded my expectations, doubly exceeded my cynicism, and made me feel I was wasting big bucks taking a restroom break.”
- William Bachrach, Partner
“Worth every minute and every dollar. A new world for business development.”
- Joseph George, Jr., Partner
Come and find out for yourself how the Rainmaker Retreat can change your legal marketing in ways you could not imagine. The time and money you invest will be recouped far more quickly than you can imagine.
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Complimentary Rainmaker Retreat Preview DVD is Available
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.
Marketing For Lawyers - Mistakes Attorneys Make--and How to Avoid Them, Mistake #6
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MARKETING MISTAKE 6:
Focusing On Services and Features Instead Of Benefits and Results in Law firm marketing
Marketing Mistake #6 is focusing on services and features rather than benefits and results. I came across law firm websites the other day that listed on their home page more than 20 different “packages, programs, and services” along with all the different pricing structures they offer to businesses.
This is ridiculous! People don’t care about the different programs and packages you offer. If the truth was told, they don’t really care that you're licensed, certified, registered, or accredited.
They expect everyone they work with to be competent, just like they expect every product they buy to be a quality one. When it comes to doing business with you, your clients only care about three things:
The Benefits they receive.
The Value they perceive.
The Results they achieve.
Highly-successful attorneys don’t sell their services as part of their law firm marketing plan. Instead, they focus on selling the benefits they offer, the value they provide, and the results they achieve.
Your service is simply the tool or the process you use to solve problems and to achieve the results. Don’t focus on the process of small law firm marketing—focus on the results, the benefits, and the value you bring to the situation.
Let's say you're an attorney who in your marketing your law firm targets high net worth females. Instead of saying you “help people prepare for their retirement,” focus on the value you provide and benefits you offer by stating:
“I work with high net worth females to help them create a comprehensive financial plan, allowing them to feel safe and secure about their retirement years while providing for their children so that they can continue to lead healthy, productive, and confident lives.”
As an attorney who specializes in small business employment law, don’t focus on creating a comprehensive list of all your services. Clearly identify your ideal target market, small business
owners with revenues of $5MM to $50MM, recognize their points of pain, and tell them how you help them resolve their pain.
“Our law firm concentrates in helping small business owners avoid 20 common mistakes when hiring and firing employees and limit their risk of facing costly litigation or negative press.”
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If you weren’t able to attend the recent Rainmaker Retreat we have the 2 Day Marketing Boot Camp for Attorneys Live on CD. Set includes 6 audio CDs and a 70 page PDF Marketing Manual. Over 6,000 attorneys from hundreds of law firms across the country have discovered how to generate more referrals and find new clients by simply applying our Rainmaker Marketing System. Click here to order
Marketing For Lawyers - Mistakes Attorneys Make--and How to Avoid Them, Mistake #4
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MARKETING MISTAKE 4:
NETWORKING TOO MUCH OR IN THE WRONG PLACES
I recently met an attorney who was struggling to find new clients. When I asked her the primary way she was looking for clients, I discovered she belonged to more than 30 networking groups.
Assuming she attended only one meeting from each group each month, she could have easily
visited a new event every day of the week and never hit the same one twice.
Here are the problems with that approach:
She was spending so much of her time networking that she didn’t have time to do any other lawyer marketing activity. Networking is often not the most effective form of marketing for lawyers. She didn’t have enough time to properly follow up with any leads she received during the events; she was always on the way to her next meeting.
She could probably stop attending 80-90 percent of those groups and still had the same results in her small law firm marketing plan.
In my research, I have found that networking works really great for some people, and not at all for most people. The only way to be sure which category you fit in is to track the results you achieve from particular networking groups and actively cut out the ones that don’t produce results then integrate your findings into marketing your law firm.
By asking yourself these three critical questions, you can assess the effectiveness of your networking.
1. Am I networking to my peers or my prospects? I'm continually amazed at how many business owners go to networking events in their own industry looking for new clients.
2. What is my goal in going to this networking event? Is it to:
• Find new clients?
• Build my database with prospects?
• Understand the major points of pain in my target market?
• For professional development and connecting with others in my field?
3. What results have I received from this event in the past? You have to be clear about your objective and measuring your results. Set up a simple Excel spreadsheet that tracks your results from various networking events you attend:
• How long have you consistently attended the meetings?
• How many people did you meet?
• How many were qualified prospects?
• How many face-to-face meetings or presentations did you land from that group?
• What business can you directly attribute to those meetings?
• How much longer are you willing to attend before seeing solid results?
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Marketing for Lawyers - Mistakes Attorneys Make--and How to Avoid Them Mistake #2
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Law Firm Marketing MISTAKE 2:
TARGETING THE WRONG MARKET
This is one of the biggest mistakes I see among attorneys especially in small law firm marketing—targeting the wrong market. Identifying and targeting the right market for your services is the most important thing you can do marketing your law firm to ensure the success of your practice. If you don’t target the right market, nothing else you do will matter.
Let me give you an example.
As a law firm marketing consultant I was talking with a lawyer in Chicago and asking her about her target market. She said that her target market was small business owners who were too small to need in-house counsel or who couldn’t afford the high priced downtown lawyers. They needed someone who understood the legal issues small businesses face and who offered them a flexible payment plan.
I asked her, “Do you know how many small business owners there are here in Chicago?”
“No,” she replied.
I stated, “Recently, Crain’s Chicago business magazine reported there were over 300,000 small business owners here in Chicago.
“Now, I've never been very good at math, but for the sake of illustration, let's say that only 50 percent of those business owners needed or wanted your services, that’s a pretty large task trying to reach 150,000 prospects even once.”
Marketing research has shown that it takes seven “touches” before a prospective client becomes a client. The Law of 7 Touches is based on research that found it takes an average of 7 to 10 meaningful touches EVERY YEAR to move someone through the cycle from not knowing anything about you to being ready to buy from you.
This is just the average, not a guarantee, because in hypercompetitive markets, like legal services, it often takes many more touches than that. In addition, it also takes consistency.
There are also ways you can speed up this process and create multiple touches all at once by being highly-targeted in your marketing materials; using technology like law firm internet marketing, law firm websites and using mail delivered by the post office.
In general, only 3 percent to 5 percent of your target market is ready to buy at any given time. Therefore, it’s how you reach the other 95 percent to 97 percent that will make or break your business. You must consistently be in front of your prospects to be at the top of their minds when they are ready to buy.
Now that you know The Law of 7 Touches, you can better understand why it’s so vital to narrow your target market in your law firm marketing plan. Remember the story I told about the Chicago attorney who targeted small business? Well, according to The Law of 7 Touches, you multiply this lawyer’s 150,000 prospects by a factor of 7, maybe 10. That means she would need to produce 1 to 1.5 million meaningful touches every year. Considering both her time and money, there is no possible way a typical solo practitioner could do that and smart business owners who are also smart marketers won't even try.
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Marketing For Lawyers - Mistakes Attorneys Make--and How to Avoid Them, Mistake #1
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In having coached more than 6,000 attorneys in small and solo law firms over the years, I’ve discovered that in law firm marketing they share many commonalities. One of these is their realization that marketing for lawyers is challenging; it is time-consuming, budget-draining and often lacking in results.
And the reasons why attorneys find marketing their practices so challenging are best summed up in the 10 major marketing mistakes that attorneys make when creating their law firm marketing plan. We will be introducing each mistake in upcoming posts.
Law Firm Marketing MISTAKE 1:
BELIEVING “IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME”
One of the most common mistakes attorneys make in their law firm marketing plan is their believing “If you build it, they will come.” It’s the false belief that all you need to do to grow your practice is to tell friends and family about it, or to place a Yellow Pages ad, and people will be lining up outside your door.
This is simply not true.
To be successful in business, you need to take an active role in that business. Top rainmaker attorneys do not risk their chances of success by depending on someone else to spoon feed clients to them. They actively seek new clients. They seek to control their destiny rather than placing their financial future in another’s hands.
It takes more than courage and money to make a new business succeed; marketing your law firm takes creating and daily implementing a law firm marketing plan of action.
The next several blogs will discuss marketing for attorneys and the actions that will truly bring success.
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