From Obscurity to Internet Dominance for Lawyers
Great Legal Marketing Seminar Video Highlights
May 3, 2009
Law Firm Newsletters
April 20, 2009
Every business should be sending a montly newsletter to clients, customers and prospects. Its a huge mistake to be spending money on mass advertising before developing and maintaining a relationship with those who already know you.
Here is the April 2009 edition of the BenGlassLaw monthly newsletter.
Atlas Shrugged, Very Relevant Today
April 11, 2009
This is one of those books that every student should be tested on before being allowed to graduate from high school.
Your Perfect Client is Not “Everyone”
April 3, 2009
Many lawyers waste their marketing dollars by trying to be all things to all people. Forget about that!
Its way too expensive to try to be a big fish in a very big pond.
You must decide who your perfect client is (and I’m giving you permission to do that) and develop a marketing message for that client.
Dan Kennedy calls this hitting the right target. Here’s a lesson on why YOU pick who you SHOULD be representing.
What Not to Do: A Lesson from College Football
March 11, 2009
Lane Kiffin, head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers, is taking some heat this week for reportedly telling highly recruited wide reciever Alshon Jeffrey that if he went to South Carolina he would end up pumping gas for the rest of his life. This threat came at the end of a long and heated recruiting battle between South Carolina, Southern California and Tennessee.
Jeffrey had orally committed to Southern Cal, but later backed out to stay close to home (he’s a South Carolina native). Early in the recruiting, Southern Cal had actually threatened to pull the kid’s scholarship offer if he even visited another school… a threat they didn’t make good on after he took official visits to South Carolina and Tennessee.
A couple lessons from this story:
First, your recruiting (or marketing) should focus on what makes you better - not what makes the other guy worse. Kiffin’s pitch should have been based on his own (albeit short-lived) head coaching career in the NFL and the fact that Tennessee has 37 players currently on NFL rosters. Who cares what the other guy? Your potential clients need to know why they should come to you, not why they should avoid someone else. And do you think Coach Kiffin is going to have credibility with players he calls next year to promise an NFL career to?
Same goes for Southern California. If I’m Pete Carroll (USC’s head coach), I want you to go visit other schools. I know the LA Collisseum is a great stadium, our players date movie stars, and Will Ferrell comes to our games… think you’re gonna find that in Tennessee? Carolina? Nope.
The more important lesson is that you’ve got to focus on what the prospect wants and tailor your marketing to that thing. For Jeffrey, it was the desire to stay close to home, something neither Southern Cal nor Tennessee could provide. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how big the TVs in your locker rooms are. If you can’t provide that one thing the client is looking for, he’s going somewhere else.
Will Your Firm Thrive in this Recession
March 9, 2009
Around every Wal-Mart is a successful mom and pop hardware store. That small business does something different from the 80% who would otherwise fail when Wal-Mart comes to town.
The legal industry is no different. There are some small firms (I talk to a different one just about every day) that only knows there is a recession going on by reading the gloom and doom headlines.
What do they do differently? I suggest its not any one thing. Its how they think about the world, their lives and their businesses.
Go here to see Why Some Law Firms Continue to Thrive in this Economy.
Cyber Technology / WebOpts - Are You Getting Calls From Them
March 5, 2009
Seems that times are tough for some search engine optimization companies. There’s a group in California that’s been cold calling a bunch of Foster Web Marketing clients to “warn” them about impending doom with their sites and Google.
Then, they launch into a sales pitch.
They actually sent a pretty interesting email, too.
When pressed to get on a three way call with Foster, they decline.
Anyway, there’s one very detailed message about Cyber Technology here and another about WebOpts here.
As always, do your due diligence.
Who’s Coming for Your Clients?
March 4, 2009
When the first few BigLaw firms started laying people off last fall, the job market was flooded with resumes. Attorneys were moving to in-house, switching firms, doing anything to hold onto their jobs. Well, it seems like there ain’t no more BigLaw jobs left. Firms that used to wine and dine law school students for the summer (while paying them $3K a week) are now not only limiting the number of summer spots they have, but they’re asking this years graduates to defer their start dates for months (or even up to a year). Many of my friends, who are still in school down at William & Mary, are having a hard time finding a job.
With “more resumes” being no longer being a viable option, the National Law Journal is recommending that those highly skilled attorneys who are being laid off start their own firms. Good news for the commercial real estate market… bad news for you.
There’s a finite number of clients out there and in this economy, most of them are choosing to compete on price. What are you doing to demonstrate your value? The above article suggests that the way to lure clients away from BigLaw firms is price - the firm did it at $600/hr., so I’ll do it at $300/hr. Seems no one over at the National Law Journal has figured out that you can also price your services at flat rates and then ask prospective clients to compare that price against what the last deposition a BigLaw firm sent 2 partners, 5 associates, and a paralegal to cost them.
Free Critique of Your Attorney Yellow Pages
March 2, 2009
As a follow up to yesterdays post about starting your own law firm I got some emails asking me to review/critique Yellow Page ads. I’m happy to do this and in fact get ads each week from lawyers across the United States and Canada.
Here are the terms and conditions of my free review of your attorney Yellow Page ad.
- You can’t be a Yellow Page rep asking me to do your work
- Offer limited to firms with 5 attorneys or less (see name of this blog)
- Fax only… 877-576-6752
- Must include your letterhead with fax.
- Allow three weeks for turnaround. I am busy. Please don’t fax and say “rep is coming in three days, please help!”
