This is an important public service announcement if you are considering hiring a legal marketing company, agency or service to market your law firm. Please take it seriously. Far too many lawyers think legal marketing will be the answer to their prayers — I get it, I once thought that, too — but what I discovered (and you will, too, if you don’t heed this warning) is that legal marketing is just a teeny piece of the law business puzzle. You’d think it was the whole enchilada if you pay attention to what every online marketer in the legal space … Continue reading »

Dear Lawyers: I know you’re buried. Overwhelmed. I know you’ve probably thought about throwing in the towel at least once already this year. We hear it all the time around here. One email I received this week stood out in particular. (I do personally read all your comments & emails, so keep them coming.) She wrote about how she can’t keep up – hearing over and over “how I should be ‘transforming’ my practice while I am also worrying about making payroll, not screwing up cases, and meeting deadlines. PLEASE STOP TELLING ME HOW HORRIBLE IT IS, and give more … Continue reading »

For most lawyers, your Assistant is someone who helps with the day-to-day tasks and priorities within an office. They take care of the clients and make sure all administrative details are looked after within the practice. As the owner of a small or solo law firm in today’s world, your responsibilities far exceed simply practicing law. Therefore, you need your Assistant to do MUCH more than simply handling administrative details. To be successful you need an Assistant (or three!) to help you implement effective marketing strategies that grow your law practice by connecting you with prospects and generating more revenue … Continue reading »

In the pursuit of their perfect practice and the struggle to generate the desired income, many lawyers fear turning away any kind of case but, focusing your marketing to attract the kinds of cases and clients you really want to serve can reap huge benefits for your practice. A few points: first I am not necessarily suggesting you actually limit the types of cases you take to only one small segmented type. What I am advocating, however, is the idea that you need to take the prospect through your marketing experience by the hand and control the entire process. In … Continue reading »

Last weekend, I attended a fantastic conference last week in San Francisco called The Traffic & Conversion Summit, put on by two marketing entrepreneurs and their attorney partner. Alexis and I met several lawyers taking massive action in their businesses and enjoying the benefits of clear, decisive action amidst everyone else’s paralysis. It’s funny – there are people who are always blaming the economy, and there are people who are always making money, no matter what the economy is doing. I learned years ago during my brief stint as a real estate investor that markets are cycles. When you know … Continue reading »

If you are like most lawyers, you really do not like traditional direct response marketing and you are definitely not using it. Too many emails. Ugly pages with highlights, underlines and crazy formatting. It’s too unprofessional. Lawyers are different. I’ve heard it all from lawyers who are afraid to use traditional direct response marketing to reach their clients because it’s just too ugly. Well, details released today from Obama’s fundraising team confirm: ugly, casual, personal and direct works. Another surprise to the Obama team was that the mild use of profanity was a huge hit. Yep, people do like it … Continue reading »

When I first went out on my own, I thought getting new clients would be pretty easy. I’d go out and speak to some groups, they’d hear my message, and they’d schedule time to meet with me, and hire me. I was a pretty good speaker and it felt like it would be easy. But, it wasn’t quite that easy. I found that the people LOVED my talk and told me they would call me, but then they didn’t.  Understandable. They got busy, lost my number, forgot my name. There’s a million reasons. Right? On occasion, I’d run into one of those … Continue reading »

I see far too many lawyers giving up on themselves and the success of their practices, blaming it on the economy. But I know it’s not true because I see lawyers all over the country, in big towns, small towns and in between towns being successful under the exact same economic conditions. I also know that if you are blaming the economy for your troubles, you aren’t just going to believe me when I say “it’s not the economy, silly.” So, for you, I have a leetle experiment. Please do it. It will change everything for you. We need to … Continue reading »