Authentic Law Marketing Blog : Legal Marketing and Law Firm Branding : Collaborative Lawyer Marketing, Family Law Marketing : Elizabeth Ferris : Ferris Consulting

Last week I attended the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals forum in San Francisco and listened to an inspiring and well presented workshop on Collaborative Law. Today, I received a call from two colleagues who were going through divorce and wanted a recommendation for a lawyer, a divorce coach and a business valuation expert. The first names that came to mind were the professionals I heard speaking at the seminar.

Why did I recommend these professionals? There were two reasons:

1. They established credibility by speaking on a topic that conveyed their level of experience and competence.

2. I was reminded about who they were and the kinds of clients they helped by seeing them speak at the conference.

In a similar top of mind awareness situation, one of my clients told me they experience an increase in client calls every time they send the firm newsletter to their professional network. Another client has seen an increase in referrals from two law firms after setting up luncheon meetings. Last week, a lawyer told me his web site referrals have doubled since he has started his blog and updated his web site with client- focused articles.

Even though we are in a difficult economy, the demand for quality legal, financial and mental health professionals has not diminished. You can accelerate the growth of your practice and attract desirable clients by increasing your visibility and credibility with your target referral sources and the public.

The following are ten suggestions for staying top of mind with referral sources and prospective clients:

1. Learn and use LinkedIn to build your network and stay visible. Go to learn.linkedIn for in-depth tutorials on how to use LinkedIn

2. Read and comment on relevant blogs in your industry.

3. Commit to meeting with someone in your professional network at least once a week.

4. Start a firm newsletter and write about topics that are relevant to your target audience.

5. Write consistent press releases.

6. Speak on topics you are passionate about at conferences and events.

7. Start a blog and write about topics that reinforce your brand and are relevant to your ideal client.

8. Write one new article every month and update your web site. Recycle the article for a local magazine advertorial.

9. Join a committee, group or association and make a contribution.

10. Tweet about interesting, relevant and useful information for your target audience.

The above list is not inclusive and should be customized to your unique skills, interests and goals. The critical success factor is to select at least one strategy and implement it consistently.

Let me know what strategies you have found useful to stay top of mind with prospective clients and referral sources.
 

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Last month, I conducted a survey on how to grow your Collaborative Practice. 100 people responded to the survey.

 The number one response to the question, “What is your greatest challenge for growing your Collaborative Practice?” was “Getting Clients.”

The top four challenges included:

1. Getting clients
2. Finding the time
3. Educating the public
4. Educating lawyers

Challenges about "getting clients" included:

• Finding clients who want to engage in collaborative solutions to divorce
• Finding clients with a mind set for collaborative divorce
• Getting clients to choose collaborative divorce
• Convincing clients the up- front costs are worth it.
• Attracting clients who are willing and able to move forward with the collaborative process

How do you attract clients who want Collaborative Law to your practice?

It is far easier to build a collaborative practice by attracting clients who already have a world view consistent with the principles of Collaborative Practice than trying to “convince” someone who may not have an interest in a collaborative approach.

The first step to have a clear understanding of who your target client is and then develop a plan to consistently communicate a relevant and compelling message to your target audience.

The following are four strategies for attracting clients to your collaborative practice:

1. Define your target client. Clearly define the characteristics or your ideal client. What are their hopes, dreams, problems and fears? Think about your actual collaborative law clients. What were their goals? What was an important outcome for them in their divorce? Write down the characteristics of your ideal client.

2. Demonstrate your knowledge on how to solve your target clients problem, Leverage social media, including blogs, LinkedIn, facebook, and twitter to write about the problems and solutions for your target market. For example, if your target client is someone who has been in a long term marriage and wants to protect important relationships, write about the challenges of divorcing after 25 years of marriage and how to address those challenges. 

3. Focus your web site content on the solutions for your target client. Does your web site immediately communicate who you help and how you solve problems for the clients you want to attract to your practice? Or does it convey an all things to all people message? The more focused your message, the more successful you will be in attracting desirable clients to your practice. If you want to attract clients who value a less destructive approach to divorce, communicate this in your web site content and headlines.

4. Educate your professional network on who is your "ideal client." Let your referral sources know the characteristics of your best clients. Inform your referral sources on the client problems you excel at in solving. For example, if you are a skilled negotiator and know how to help clients avoid destruction in divorce, tell your referral sources. Convey stories about the clients you helped and the outcome of those cases.

Once you clarify your target client and create a plan to effectively communicate the solutions you offer, you will begin to attract more clients who value what you do best.

What strategies are working for you to attract clients who value Collaborative Law?

View additional articles and information on building your Collaborative Practice.
 

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In the last post I discussed the three essential principles for creating a thriving practice that brings value to your clients and fulfillment to your work.

The following are five strategies for building your Law or Collaborative Practice.

1. Be remarkable at what you do: Excelling at handling client matters requires continuous personal and professional growth. What skills do you want to develop that will increase your value to the clients you want to serve? What additional knowledge and information do you want to acquire that will position you as the best in your field?

2. Stay connected: The foundation for building your practice is based on relationships. The number one way to build relationships and trust is to spend time making a contribution to your community and showing an interest in others.

Who are the most important people, organizations and groups in your professional life? What is your plan to develop higher quality relationships with them? Be selective about the organizations you chose to be involved in. It is better to spend more time on fewer organizations that are in alignment with your interests and target market verses less time on a larger number of generic organizations.

3. Invest in your professional network: People will do business with those they know, like and trust. Professional outreach requires building a successful network of referral sources and staying “top of mind” with key professionals in your network. It also requires making connections with targeted professionals who are not in your network. The outreach you do today will affect the quality of your referrals tomorrow.

Are there professional relationships that might need a little more investment from you? Can you make a contribution to their business or practice? Are there additional influencers you what to include in your professional network?

4. Create exceptional Client Value: Satisfied clients are your best source of referrals. Higher client satisfaction requires a focus on providing superior service, consistently communicating with clients and delivering exceptional value to clients. How can you create an exceptional client experience- one that inspires your clients to tell others about you?

5. Make it easy for your ideal clients to find you: Once you identify your target client, your next step is to be easily found by clients looking for your services. How can you increase your visibility among clients who need what you do best? How can you demonstrate your understanding of “your ideal clients” problem and your capability to solve their problem?

Give consideration to each of the above strategies. What is the one strategy that will make the biggest difference in your practice? In other words, what one thing can you begin doing today that will help you to change your practice and attract more collaborative law cases?

Tip: The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) web site is an excellent resource for achieving all of the above strategies. Attending Bridging the Globe, the upcoming IACP 12th annual networking and educational forum in San Francisco, is an action step you can take today to “stay connected” and improve your collaborative practice skills.

Have you attended a previous IACP networking forum? If so,  how did it help you to build your Collaborative Practice?

For additional resources on growing your collaborative practice visit Collaborative Law Resources at www.ferrisconsult.com 
 

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This week I gave a Webinar on Growing Your Collaborative Practice. After the webinar, I received the following question from a lawyer:

"Thank you for the webinar on growing a collaborative practice.  Sole practitioners, like myself, find it very difficult to slow down on the work we are doing to focus on something different or one aspect of our practice, we have to pay the bills.

I am very worried about the estimated amount of time it takes for this idea to work, I can’t afford to be in the hole because I switched my focus. 

So the idea can work well for a person in a firm where their expenses are paid and they get a salary regardless of the amount billed, but how does that work for the sole practitioner? 

How long does it take and what are the stats for success if implemented as you said?  For those of us who have expenses and are on the proverbial treadmill to keep the bills paid on our own, how do we balance that with your marketing strategy and what is the average timeline involved?”

I am sharing this question with you because the challenge to grow a Collaborative Law Practice while maintaining a financially viable business is a familiar question among both sole practitioners and lawyers in a law firm. In my experience, there are few, if any, law firms that pay a lawyers salary regardless of the amount billed.

The answer to the above question is based on three principles:

1. You will get more of what you do. The more collaborative law cases you do, the more cases you will get and vice versa. This means if you continue to take cases for clients who do not value what you do best, you will spend more time and energy doing work that is not consistent with your strengths, and capabilities and passion.

2. "This journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"-Lao Tzu. No question, building the practice you want is a significant commitment and can be a long and complicated endeavor. However, by initiating your vision with something short and simple today, you will be moving in the right direction.

3. “Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is”. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Limited beliefs about your practice can limit your success in marketing and successful business development. Is it possible to reframe your belief about marketing? Instead of seeing marketing as time-consuming, distracting and costly, to view marketing as an opportunity to provide you with control for building a practice that is in alignment with your most important goals and values?

In my next blog post, I will provide five strategies for building your Collaborative Law Practice.
Let me know if you agree with these three principles. Do you have any additional suggestions on how to balance growing a collaborative law practice while maintaining a thriving business?
 

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 Legal marketing can seem overwhelming. In the last week, LinkedIn topics for legal marketing ranged from, “using Google to market your practice for free” to “mobile marketing to build your brand.”

A busy and successful lawyer whose primary focus is to provide quality legal services could experience information overload when it comes to legal marketing.

So what is the solution? In today’s competitive market, a successful legal practice requires attorneys to provide exceptional client service AND execute effective marketing strategies.

My recommendation is to keep your plan simple, over deliver to your best clients and maintain relationships with current and targeted referral sources.

In my practice, I work with lawyers whose primary target market are sophisticated clients who value expert legal service.  Their number one referral source for top clients is through other professionals.

Maintaining relationships with current and prospective referrals sources can sound like “old news” in comparison to “mobile marketing” or “using Google to market your practice for Free.” However, in the last few months, I have seen lawyers increase revenue and attract desirable clients by consistently staying top of mind with current and targeted referral sources.

You can implement a simple referral marketing plan by doing three things today:

1.    Develop your list of current and prospective referral sources

2.    Put your list in a visible place on your desk and review the list once a week.

3.    When you see something beneficial to your referral sources make contact with them 

The following are few suggestions:

• Put them in touch with someone who they would benefit meeting
• Invite them to an event
• Invite them to speak at a educational event for mutual referral sources and clients
• Tell them about a valuable webinar
• Refer a client
• Add them to your LinkedIn network- recommend a group they would benefit from joining
• Send a blog post you wrote or tell them about a useful blog
• Ask them to be a guest blogger on your blog
• Co-write an article
• Subscribe to their blog- tweet one of their posts to your network
• Write a LinkedIn recommendation describing their accomplishments 
• Use LinkedIn to stay connected to your network
• Stay current on awards, promotions or activities they are involved in by creating a Google alert for their firm name. Send a short email congratulating their achievement or recognition.

An important component to building a successful legal marketing plan is knowing who your current and desired referral sources are, acknowledging their importance in your practice and staying top of mind by consistently communicating with them in a meaningful way.

Let me know if you have additional suggestions for nurturing and growing important relationships with your referral network.

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Last week I received a question from a mid size law firm with 65 partners that I felt may be a familiar question for executive directors, managing partners and law firm CEO’s. The question was:

“The partners have a common mission, but not much of a unified vision for the future or a clear sense of what we value. Do you have suggestions?”

Upon further investigation I learned about the firm’s situation and source for concern regarding the lack of a shared vision.

The firm was experiencing significant growth and acquiring smaller firms in the same area of law. Although the acquisitions were profitable, the lack of cohesion among the partners was causing internal conflict, delaying important decisions and limiting the firm’s growth opportunities.

Without a common goal for where the firm was headed, it was difficult to bridge the gap between differing opinions on where the firm should devote valuable and limited resources.

Creating a shared vision for law firm’s often falls on the back burner and is not viewed as a top priority, especially when resources and time are in limited supply. However, lack of alignment around a shared vision is at the root of reduced productivity, decreased profitability and diminishes the opportunity for attracting top talent.

The following are strategies for creating a shared vision:

• Schedule a law firm retreat. Require all equity partners to attend.
• Prepare in advance for the retreat. Clarify the retreat purpose and most important goals.
• Assign homework prior to the retreat to identify the firms critical issues and commonalities. 
• Create a safe environment for unfiltered dialogue in the retreat.
• Follow up on the goals and initiatives defined in the retreat.
• Educate all employees on the firms shared vision and their role in achieving success.

My recommendation is to take a step back from the day to day demands of urgent/important activities and ask yourself the following questions:

• When was the last time your partners came together to dialogue about your shared vision for the firm’s future?
• How is your internal structure aligned to support your most important goals? What does success look like?
• How are you leveraging your firm’s vision to attract top talent and to differentiate your law firm in a competitive legal market?

Let me know if spending the time creating a shared vision is considered a valuable use of time. If so, what are the challenges your firm is confronted with to create a shared law firm vision?

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One of the best ways to reinforce your brand is through consistent education programs to your targeted referral sources and professional network. By consistently educating your professional network on relevant topics that solve their client's most important problems, you are positioning yourself as a credible thought leader in your area of expertise.

Many law firms ask, what is the return on investment for educational seminars? Will the seminar result in new clients? Will the right professionals attend the seminar?

The answer to the “return on investment” question is based on the planning and preparation you do in advance of the seminar. What are your goals? What results will define success?

A prominent  family law firm recently gave a high profile educational seminar to their local community on the topic of Domestic Violence in Upscale Communities. The seminar resulted in strengthening existing professional relationship and forming new relationships with community leaders. The key factors contributing to the successful outcome included:

• Passion: The lawyers and judges who were on the panel were passionate on the topic of combating Domestic Violence.
  
  
• Authenticity: The purpose of the seminar was to educate the community on an issue of high importance to the community.
   
• Expertise: The firm has a high level of expertise on the topic. A senior partner in the firm worked with the legal and legislative communities for the past 25 years to shape the Illinois Domestic Violence Act.
   
• Community Interest: Domestic violence in affluent families is a grave and epidemic issue and is one of the underlying factors for murder cases in the community.
   
• Follow up: The firm created an educational press release and included a YouTube video on segments of the seminar.

Most importantly, the quality presentation, relevant topic and reputation of the prestigious panel positioned the firm as a thought leader in Family Law.

What strategies have you found useful for reinforcing your brand and positioning your firm as a thought leader? Do you think face to face education programs are still a valuable marketing strategy for law firms?

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In my last blog post, I wrote about maximizing your law firm marketing ROI, in this post I would like to share an example on how to put these strategies into action.

Yesterday a family law firm called me because they wanted an ad for a LGBT magazine featuring families in the upcoming fall publication. They were on a tight time-line and needed the ad by the end of the week. The original plan was to do a one-time ad in the special feature on Families for the publication.

Before moving forward with the one-time ad, I wanted to learn more about the firm’s bigger picture goals. One of the goals for the firm was to be recognized as a family law firm knowledgeable about the important family law issues facing the LGBT market. Instead of putting an expensive one-time ad in the publication, limiting the firms return on investment, we created an integrated and targeted campaign to position the firm as a thought leader on family law for LGBT families. The campaign included the following strategies:

• Write and submit an informational press release to the  editorial staff. Focus the release on a single topic relevant to the target audience and provide helpful, practical and valuable information. Note: Substantive and current information on gay marriage and divorce is a strong hook for the media given the recent change in gay marriage laws.
   
• Develop a series of 3 advertisements targeted towards the interests of the magazine’s readers. Maintain a consistent ad for 6-12 months.
   
• Include a call to action in each advertisement.
   
• Create a relationship with the publication as an expert in family law issues related to the LGBT community.
   
• Identify social media opportunities to leverage the campaign including re-purposing the press release for a blog post and putting the blog post on Face book, LinkedIn and Twitter.
   
• Leverage LinkedIn groups to spread the word to the local LGBT community. Include a link on LinkedIn to the editorial article in the LGBT publication.
   
• Update web site to include a section on LGBT partnership agreements.
   
• Promote the firms focus on Collaborative Law as a beneficial option for gay marriage and divorce.

In summary, a one-time project with questionable “ROI” value was transformed into a targeted marketing strategy positioning the firm as a thought leader in the LGBT community. Your firm can increase your marketing ROI by executing the following key elements:

• Align all marketing activities with the firm’s most important goals.
   
• Implement an integrated marketing strategy to reinforce your message.
   
• Avoid a generic “all thing to all people” approach and target your message to a specific audience.
   
• Provide relevant content that makes a contribution to your intended audience.
   
• Focus press releases, blog posts and articles on current, substantive, newsworthy topics verses self promotion, announcement-oriented content. 

If you have questions on how to maximize your marketing investment, email me at eferris@ferrisconsult.com  

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Many lawyers are frustrated with law firm marketing activities. Often I hear lawyers complain about the time and cost of marketing and the uncertainty on the return on investment (ROI) for these activities. So where do you start AND what activities will afford you the highest return on the time and money you invest in law firm marketing?

The following are four strategies designed to give you direction when deciding “where to start” and how to maximize your marketing ROI.

1.       Before embarking on any marketing activities, define your goal- what do you want to achieve? Clarify how the activity is in alignment with advancing your firm in the right direction (firm’s vision). This will require time, however, the effort you put into this step will be repaid later.

2.       Whenever possible, never do a marketing activity in isolation, i.e. a onetime advertisement in a publication or magazine. Instead focus on an integrated plan that leverages your effort, i.e. article and repeat advertisements in a publication intended to target your ideal market.

3.       Always maximize the effort you invest in marketing activities. Consistently repurpose your marketing activities, including the article you wrote or the speech you gave. Your article can be repurposed into a blog post or an article for your firm newsletter or local community magazine. Your speech or seminar can be given to multiple markets. Reinforce your brand by writing quality content describing your firm’s unique differentiator on your web site home page. Repeat this message on all your press releases, announcements and social media biographies.

4.       Effectively utilize social media to create a viral buzz about your area of expertise. Listen to the conversation going on in your LinkedIn groups, twitter followers and industry blogs. Make a contribution to the conversation by commenting on a topic and adding a link to your blog post or article. Write about the solutions for the most relevant problems your social media groups talk about.

In summary, to maximize the effort you put towards marketing, always start with a plan that answers the question… what is our goal and how will this activity advance our firm in the direction we want to go?

Marketing with a purpose will help you to focus your marketing activities and maximize your marketing investment.

For more information on how to maximize your marketing efforts, email me at eferris@ferrisconsult.com

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