Hot Topic Archives
Who can I sue
4 Tips for Tracking Your Firm’s Intake
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Too Funny….but sometimes the truth hurts…
Bada BING! | The Next New Thing is….
The Next New Thing is….
Nothing Says Success Like…..
The Yellow Pages are Shrinking….Literally
To fire or not to fire…
Planning for your Marketing in the New Year
So, WhoCanISue?
WhoCanISue.com seems to be generating a lot of headlines. Obviously that’s the idea, and to some extent, the buzz reminds me of the buzz generated by the Chicago Family Law Attorney who had the “Life is Short, get a Divorce” billboard a couple years ago.
Like that family law firm, WCIS.com is generating headlines for their edgy marketing and over-the-top ads. According to a recent news article, they are growing and their reference clients seem to be happy. Predictably, however, many other attorneys who aren’t clients are outraged by the implication of WhoCanISue’s marketing message.
While I don’t know their specific business or revenue model, I don’t inherently dismiss the service due to the name. The primary issue that I have with WhoCanISue.com, as well as with yellow page ads and the multitude of lawyer directories that spring up from time to time is that using these services does nothing to help a law firm build a long-term sustaining legal practice. These services don’t do anything to help build your brand, and this is the problem.
Most law firms will ultimately stop using these directories at some point, just like they have done with Martindale Hubbell and yellow page ads, and once they stop using the service, their phone stop ringing because the firms haven’t done anything to generate cases organically.
So, if you want to use WhoCanISue.com, believe that you will get value, and don’t mind the inherent implication of the message, then do so. But don’t use this service as a replacement for good old fashioned marketing and business development that will help you generate business well into the future. If anything, use the revenue that you generate from these services to help finance your own marketing activities.
4 Tips for Tracking Your Firm’s Intake
The job description of an attorney is no longer limited to just practicing law. Attorneys must also be savvy and skilled in the business of running a law firm. One of the critical elements involved in running a successful legal practice is the process of tracking and understanding your new case / new client intake. Without the process and tools to track intake on an ongoing basis, it is next to impossible to have a strong understanding of the health of your business, identify potential opportunities and gauge relative growth prior to the end of the billing cycle. Essentially, marketing without tracking your intake is marketing in the dark.
Many firms don’t track intake. Some law firms believe that because they are small or a boutique practice, all calls ultimately go to a specific attorney – someone who understands the call volume without formally tracking incoming calls. However, with only an “idea” of call volume and no concrete numbers, attorneys are left to rely on anecdotal information rather than real data. When it comes time to make decisions, such as renewing their yellow pages or marketing a specific practice area, they are left to guess at what works. Conversely, large firms often operate as individual fiefdoms and don’t have the wherewithal or fortitude to implement a process that everyone will follow.
Tracking intake is easier than you may think and will pay strong dividends as it will enable your firm to truly make informed marketing and financial decisions. You can start to project trends and make decisions strategically based on data. Below are four tips for tracking your intake.
1) Intake tracking doesn’t start when a qualified prospect talks to an attorney. Intake tracking must start when a call comes into the office. Regardless of whether the phones are answered by a central receptionist, a case manager, a paralegal or different attorneys, ask some questions and record a minimum set of information. Get the type of issue / case that the person is calling about, the source of the call (for instance, yellow pages, a referring attorney, direct marketing campaign, etc.) and whether the call was routed to another person within the firm for additional information or whether the opportunity was rejected initially.
2) Look at these calls as a way to improve your marketing database. Collect email addresses from your clients, but also collect email addresses from those people whom you don’t ultimately work with. Just because they don’t need your services today does not mean that they won’t need your services in the future, but ask permission to send electronic communications.
3) If the case is referred, get the name of the referrer. Often, there is little centralized or aggregated information and hence little visibility regarding a firm’s referral partners, so it becomes difficult to successfully manage these relationships. Conversely, if you turn down a lot of cases, try to develop a referral list. In many cases, it is better to refer a case than to just turn it down. Make sure that everyone involved with the intake process knows who is on the referral list.
4) Use a standard process and common template, spreadsheet or web form to collect intake information. Make sure that everybody collects the same information and automate where possible. Collecting this information doesn’t have to be difficult, but everybody should collect it in the same manner, and if multiple people collect information, the intake lists must be aggregated.
Now that you have this information, use it. Track your trends. Understand the types of cases that you are commonly turning down. Look for relationships between the trends and your marketing initiatives. Use the information to forecast future revenue. Leverage this intake information to help you run your business. To be successful in running a law practice, you have to be successful in running a business.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
I’ve been meaning to write this blog for a couple months now. I am 100% convinced that in an economic climate such as ours and with the ever-increasing competition that law firms across practice areas are facing, that establishing a brand must be the top priority of law firms that plan on starting to market and advertise their services. Unless your firm happens to be a personal injury firm that can afford to saturate the local air waves with consumer advertising, it must stand for something and differentiate itself from the competition.
BARD Marketing (and most any creative agency) can create a logo, tagline and marketing materials that support your brand. BARD can even do deep analysis; provide competitive insight, experience and quantitative analysis to help your law firm make strategic decisions relating to its brand. However, a successful brand starts with the law firm.
The leaders within the firm must be prepared to objectively self-assess the firm and answer several potentially difficult questions:
- What are the firm’s goals and objectives?
- What types of cases does the firm want to take and what types of cases is the firm most qualified to take?
- What are the firm’s and the individual attorneys’ true differentiators from the competition?
- What is the firm’s value proposition for the prospective clients?
- Is there consensus among the partners / shareholders / decision makers as to the strategy, direction, and operations of the firm?
- Are the decision makers willing to commit to the strategy to enable its objectives??
Honestly answering these questions and getting consensus among the decisions makers is not easy. Truth be told, many law firms cannot easily answer these questions, so it’s no wonder that their marketing lacks impact. If you don’t know or don’t have consensus about what your firm is about, how can you expect your potential clients and referral partners to have this understanding? Having a realistic understanding of what your firm is about today and what it wants to be in the future is crucial for long term success. Without this, any branding or marketing efforts may be a waste of time and money.
Too Funny….but sometimes the truth hurts…
I just read a hysterical “fake news article” in Litination, that states that the New York State Bar is delaying bar exam results for one year due to the saturated legal market in New York. This article was obviously written in jest, and in fact the disclaimer of the site reads:
“…As the author of this site, my goal is to provide an entertaining diversion from the regularly scheduled billable hour or law school seminar. I’ll provide the fake legal news and some links to real headlines…”
Unfortunately, there is real truth in the underlying premise of this article. According to the ABA, there were 1.18 million attorneys in the U.S. at the end of 2008 and JD enrollment continues to grow. In 1988, there was one lawyer for every 400 people. By 2000, that number grew to one lawyer for every 300 people and in 2008 that number grew to 1 lawyer for every 258 people. While it’s true that some of this growth can be attributed to lawyers focusing on new and developing areas of law, it’s also true that competition is much greater in the core practice areas than ever. Add to this the fact that more and more firms have websites and are proactively advertising and marketing themselves, and it’s easy to understand why many firms (even those not directly affected by our current economy) are struggling and their phones aren’t ringing.
Now I’m not advocating that every firm must rush out and start spending a lot of money on needless or ineffective marketing, but I do believe that law firms, now more than ever must have a strategy and a plan if they are to be successful. Gone are the days that just being a good lawyer guaranteed a successful and fulfilling career, or when marketing meant taking a prospect or prospective referral partner out for lunch once a month. For most, success now requires that you look at your law firm, not just as a Practice, but also as a Business.
Bada BING!
OK, it looks like Bing is seeing some early success as a viable search engine. It has been generally getting strong buzz and has seen some early victories. Based on early comScore statistics, it has overtaken Yahoo to become the #2 search engine behind Google, which has also seen a (modest) decline in search traffic since Bing launched. Bing has also generally received strong reviews from tech experts such as cnet.com who says that it “beats Google in important areas” and PC Magazine who touts its slick interface.
So, while we haven’t heard from many law firms yet inquiring about optimizing for Bing, invariably these questions will start to roll in. While I have not done an in-depth analysis on Bing search engine optimization techniques, I do know from research that on Bing, similar to Google, content is king. Rich content seems to be the foundation of strong search performance.
Aside from content, authoritative inbound links are crucial, and a technically sound, well-built site is a must. IE, the rules of search engine optimization for Bing are the same as for Google and the other search engines – a well designed, well written site with strong content has the groundwork to do well. There aren’t short cuts, and while tweaking metadata, anchor text links, and key words densities can help improve a site’s performance, the foundation must be in place first.
The Next New Thing is….
I recently heard one of my favorite songs – “Once in a Lifetime” – by the Talking Heads that has a refrain of “Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.” This refrain is a perfect metaphor for those lawyers looking to leverage new marketing techniques to drive business for their firms.
I’ve gotten several calls recently from law firms who are looking for the “next big thing,” and granted, there are a lot of next big things out there – social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.), Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM), Digital Asset Optimization (DAO), 1to1 Marketing, etc. Make no mistake – new approaches to marketing, advancements in the web and rapid adoption curves are creating a lot of opportunities for intrepid early adopters. For the record, at BARD, we blog, tweet, are on Facebook and are LinkedIn.
This said, when looking at new marketing approaches, realize that none of them is a silver bullet, and just like networking, email marketing, sending out printed newsletters and all the other “old” marketing approaches, successfully leveraging any of the new marketing techniques requires commitment. There’s no sense in tweeting if you only do so once a week, or creating a LinkedIn account where you only have 10 contacts. The same goes for all the other new techniques. While early adopters often receive a short term benefit from being among the first, over the long term, those who get benefit from their marketing efforts – new or old – are those that leverage the tools better.
Same as it ever was.
Nothing Says Success Like…..
Nothing Says Success Like….
This post is not about how you need to spend a lot of money on marketing but rather on some of the things that many attorneys (and other professionals) do that scare off clients, or don’t exactly help your brand.
First things first- your email account. Nothing says success like having an email account such as JDoe@aol.com. Can you not afford an email account for your business?
AOL and other personal email account addresses are fine…for personal email, but not for creating a successful impression of your law firm. Getting a dedicated email account for your law firm is easy, and you don’t have to be an IT wizard to implement it.
Next thing – what about your business cards? Do they look like professional business cards? Do they have a logo? Is your website listed? Or do your cards look like you designed them yourself and printed them on your laser printer?
Whether in the hands of a potential client or business partner, business cards can either make a powerful impression or make no impression at all. Invest in business cards that stand out. Also remember that people often want to research. Make sure you put your web address on the business card.
Is your website old? Just having a website may have been enough 5 years ago. This isn’t the case anymore. Most people are web savvy and daily website usage is common for most of your prospective clients and partners. An old, dated, or sparse site sends the wrong impression.
Spelling & grammatical errors. You can’t have them in any marketing materials. I’ve seen websites where the attorney’s name was misspelled. I’ve seen holiday cards where the holiday itself was misspelled. The reality is that having spelling errors on your website says that you aren’t detailed oriented – a big problem for a lawyer. If you have someone else (a paralegal, an associate, or a marketing firm write your copy) – read it critically.
Satellite offices. An obvious growth strategy is to expand geographically, and an easy and low cost way to do so is to open an “Intelligent Office” or “Executive Office” in the target location. While doing so may help you expand your reach, meeting a prospective client at your satellite office doesn’t necessarily instill confidence.
Obviously, we all do many things that don’t necessarily create a favorable impression on our prospective clients. Try to look at things from the perspective of your target audience. You only have one opportunity to make a first impression.
The Yellow Pages are Shrinking….Literally
OK, I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a huge fan of the yellow pages as a primary means of advertising for law firms. Don’t get me wrong-they have brought value for several decades, and really, the yellow pages were one of the first outlets for “attorney advertising”.
My blog today isn’t about bashing the yellow page directories, but about my shock when the most recent copy of my local yellow pages (Yellow Book for Boca Raton Florida) arrived at my door. It is probably two-thirds the size of the Yellow Book from last year. I made a few calls and heard similar stories from clients and contacts across the state and across the country. While I am happy that the yellow pages are smaller – and they are now more “eco-friendly” – this trend clearly substantiates the fact that phone directory usage is in a sharp decline.
As Jay Leno said in a recent Tonight Show Monologue -“The yellow pages is for the three people who don’t have the Internet.” While Leno’s quote is a gross exaggeration, the fact is that more and more advertisers are leaving the yellow pages because they don’t see the return to substantiate the investment. Reports from independent agencies have placed yellow page decline at 30% over the past four years.
With this said, directory sales people are as aggressive as ever, packaging the yellow pages listing with listings in online directories, pay-per-click campaign management and other services to entice clients into renewing. Many of these additional services are overpriced, are commodities or are of dubious value. When it comes to your yellow page expenditure, the wise choice may be to reduce it substantially, in a similar fashion to how the books themselves are shrinking.
To fire or not to fire…
One disturbing trend that we’ve all seen over the last several months is intake as many established, successful law firms has slowed substantially – the phones just aren’t ringing. Obviously, the current environment is incenting firms to do everything possible to be more efficient and save money. Whether due to the economy, tort reform (for PI firms), more intense competition, reliance on phone books and websites, or other factors, many of these firms end up downsizing.
In a South Florida Daily Business Review Managing Partners Survey taken in October, 25% of firms surveyed stated that revenue per partner was not meeting expectations. This percentage increased substantially when the question focused on revenue per attorney.
There are many ways to interpret these results, but one thing that is obvious to me in speaking with these firms (and many others) is that many firms don’t have a strategy to improve the revenue performance of these “underachievers.” That is, if a partner or associate in the firm is labeled an under performer in regards to achieving their individual revenue goals, there isn’t a plan to help them improve their performance. Worse still, many of these firms don’t have strategies or programs to ensure that partners and associates are productive from the start – either you bring in revenue or you don’t. And right now, the slow economy and other factors are placing additional pressures to ensure that everyone is bringing in revenue.
Now, we all have to ultimately create value to receive a paycheck, but it’s interesting that very few firms help to ensure the success of their partners and associates from the get-go. Many firms don’t have regularly scheduled internal communications. Few have discernable brands, instead relying on their partners’ and associates’ individual books of business. “Sales Training” is non-existent, and firm marketing is sporadic. It’s no wonder that many attorneys fail in developing new business in these environments.
As business leaders, we all have to do what we have to do to keep our firms profitable, however, putting the tools in place to assist your partners and associates in their business development efforts will help your firm thrive in bad times as well as good, and enable you to weather the storm rather than downsize to reduce costs.
The bottom line is that you need to take an active approach in ensuring that all your shareholders, partners, associates and all employees have the skills to successfully bring in new business. The current economy just highlights this fact.
Planning for your Marketing in the New Year
The 2 Golden Rules of Planning:
- The Plan is the plan until the plan changes
- Any Plan beats no plan
As we get closer to the end of 2008, it’s time to start thinking about budgeting for your marketing efforts in 2009. In an ideal world, your 2008 marketing plan worked to perfection and creating the ’09 plan is simply a matter of tweaking the current plan. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, and in fact, many law firms don’t specifically budget for their marketing efforts, but rather carry out ‘hit or miss’ marketing activities sporadically throughout the year, and spend discretionary funds over the course of the year. Obviously, this is not the ideal way to manage your law firm as a business. Imagine if the Chief Financial Officer of General Electric told his CEO that he wasn’t sure how much GE was going to budget on Marketing for 2009, but instead was going to “play it by ear.” He wouldn’t be the CFO for long. So, why is your law firm any different?
There is no question that a focus on marketing is needed to maximize your revenue. Regardless of the state of the economy, your competitors are marketing their firms and you need to as well. As importantly, assuming you are spending money on marketing efforts, if you don’t budget, it’s impossible to identify your true ROI, and you are probably throwing money away.
A good starting point for the budgeting process is to prioritize the activities that you want to focus on in the coming year. A good place to start is by gathering the costs of the individual marketing activities that you undertook in 2007 and 2008. This should include everything from yellow page ads and website costs to LexisNexis and advertising expenses, as well as money spent on entertainment of clients and prospects. Once your list is compiled, objectively identify how those activities performed. This may be difficult unless you are tracking intake, website statistics, and other indicators. However, if you are going to spend the money, you might as well track the investment and doing so isn’t as difficult as it sounds.
A couple words of advice:
- There always seems to be a few sacred cows in the marketing budget (like sports tickets that go unused). If you have sacred cows, that’s fine, but if they don’t contribute to new cases or clients, don’t classify them as marketing expenses.
- Secondly, established activities often still require some funding – websites need updating, ad campaigns need freshening, etc. Typically, you should keep using those activities that are providing value, and if applicable, spend more in those areas. For those activities that are providing minimal value, budget less.
If there are other activities that you want to include in your 2009 plan, identify conservative cost estimates for these new initiatives. Prioritize the activities based on cost / benefit, focusing on those that have the biggest bang for the buck. You may be amazed to learn that some of the lower cost initiatives may have a huge return, while some of your highest expenditures may bring very little value.
Now you are ready to identify how much you plan to spend on for your overall marketing plan in 2009. Again, you can start by indentifying the current and previous years’ budget and then identifying what is changing in your business plan: are you moving into new areas of law? Are you planning to expand into new geographic areas? Has competition increased? Plan your budget accordingly – remember, new initiatives and expansion typically require additional funding.
Once you understand both your budget and the prioritized list of specific activities you want to undertake, you can build your plan. Remember, the better the analysis – the better the plan. The better the plan – the better the return.
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