Before your parents (or your best friend) explained the birds and the bees, you probably had no idea where babies come from.

Perhaps you thought it was the stork or getting married or sleeping in the same bed that made a baby.

Of course, no matter how many people you married or slept in bed with or storks flew over, you cannot make a baby without something very specific taking place and if you do not know what that specific thing is, you are out of luck. No baby no matter how hard you try.

Well it’s the same with clients.

If you do not know where clients come from or you are slightly off on how to reach them, your marketing simply will not work.

And unfortunately, I see a whole lot of lawyers doing the kind of marketing that would be the equivalent of trying to make a baby by praying for the stork to drop one off.

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to learn the birds and the bees of marketing so you can start bringing in clients more consistently.

Watch this space over the next couple of weeks because I’m going to be sharing with you what our Personal Family Lawyers and Creative Business Lawyers are doing to market and have a steady flow of new business, even with all this craziness in the economy.

That way you can get down to business and finally be the lawyer you have always wanted to be.

Got questions? Hit reply and let me know. I’m here to help you put in place consistent, reliable, predictable systems for attracting, engaging, serving and retaining your client for life.

Alexis

Law Business Revolution

PS: if you have wondered about how you can be a PFL or CBL, our next enrollment call is on June 22. Details to come

After the Law Business Revolution Weekly Briefing Memo around recurring revenue, many of you wrote in and said that your biggest challenge is that you need more clients first and then you can think about recurring revenue.

Good to know because I can help with that.

If you want more clients, you need to have a system in place for following up with and staying in communication with your prospects.

This is where most new clients are lost.

You speak at an event, do some networking or some sort of marketing activity and people are simply not ready to say yes to working with you right away – they need time, information, education.

But, you do not follow up because you are simply too busy and do not have an automated system in place.

It’s understandable. And, it’s costing you money.

So, we need to get you set up with a system that lets you stay in connection with your prospects until they decide to either hire you or that they are not interested.

I had people come in to my office and hire me after 3 years of hearing from me regularly every week by email and monthly by mail.

Are you interested in such a system or do you already have one and you are just not using it?

Let us know how we can support you with getting this MOST IMPORTANT of systems set up in your office so you can never lose another client because you didn’t follow up again.

Best,
Alexis

PS – mark your calendar for 4/27 because we are hosting a brand new, never before heard call on reinvention and why you must reinvent yourself and your practice now. It’s at 11amPT/2pET – mark your calendar now and we’ll send details about a week before the call.

Last week we talked about recurring revenue here in the Law Business Revolution weekly briefing memo.

As a quick reminder, that’s when your clients are paying you monthly or annually instead of hourly or per transaction.

And you want recurring revenue so you don’t have to start every month over at zero, depend on sending out invoices to get paid, and you have consistent, reliable income you can count on.

The key to keeping your clients happy on a recurring revenue model is frequent communication.

As you know, one of the biggest complaints clients have about their lawyers is that they never hear from them after they write their check.

But that won’t be the case for you ever again. Your clients will love that you are regularly communicating with them, keeping them informed and checking in to see what additional support they need.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “that sounds real nice, but I do not have time for that.”

But, here’s what’s really cool. With technology today, you can automate it with software and yet your clients feel as if they are receiving personal attention directly from you.

And that keeps them coming back for more and sending all of their friends, family, clients and colleagues to you.

Next week, we will talk about your software options for making this super easy for you.

Until then…keep loving your clients and they will love you.

Alexis

Law Business Revolution

PS – what is the biggest challenge you need or want to overcome in your law practice right now that if you changed it, everything would be better for you? Hit reply, let me know and I may solve that challenge for you in an upcoming briefing memo.

When I first began in practice, I was not a happy lawyer. People told me it would get better, but I just couldn’t see how that was so.

Others told me to just suck it up – I was making a 6-figure paycheck from one of the most “prestigious” firms in town after all.

Everyday, I thank the Universe that I didn’t listen to those people (or my own mind) that said to give up my dream of making a difference in people’s lives, making a great living and trade it all in for security and prestige.

Instead, I hired a coach who helped me see how I could let go of what other people thought and step through my own fear to become the lawyer I had always wanted to be.

Within three short years, my life was completely different.

I had a steady stream of prospects calling and coming into the office, plenty of money coming in and clients who loved what our firm was doing for them.

I was serving people who cared about their families and their businesses. Deeply.

And I was doing it in a way I never could have imagined at the big law firm.

I was reminded of all this the other day when Martha Hartney, one of our Personal Family Lawyers posted on Facebook the following note:

“I’m so in the right business–a client put flower petals in a note to me!”

Yes, that’s what it’s about when you are practicing law in a way that feels great to you and your clients – you are regularly appreciated for what you do and you appreciate what you are doing in the world.

Why would you want to live life any other way? It’s why you went to law school, right?

Stephen O’Neill was in practice for more than 30 years when he tried out our Client Engagement System and after his first meeting using our model for his initial consultation, his clients spontaneously said “this is the best thing we’ve ever done.”

When I first started out in practice, I used to think
that marketing my law firm meant figuring out the one
thing I could do that would bring me in all the clients
I needed.

I spent at least a year trying to figure out what
that one thing was.

I searched google for law firm marketing, marketing for
lawyers, marketing for attorneys, build my law firm,
how can I get more clients …

I’m sure you know what I mean.  If you are here it’s
because you’ve been searching for all of that too.

You want more clients.

You want the answer on how to get more clients. And
perhaps, like me, you think there is some secret to
getting more clients for your law firm that has eluded
you.

I read all the white papers, websites, forums and blog
posts on marketing for lawyers, law firm marketing,
marketing for attorneys, etc.,etc.

I found that most of what was out there wasn’t from
other small and solo practice law firm owners who had
found success, but from law firm marketing consultants
who were trying to sell me on their services.

Most of them weren’t lawyers at all. They were consultants.
They hadn’t actually done it in their own law practices.

So, long story short, I decided to try some of the law
firm marketing strategies they suggested.

Some of it worked, some of it didn’t.

Ultimately, I was able to get my phone ringing.  Not by
implementing one lawyer marketing strategy, but by
putting in place several strategies to market my law
practice and to get those strategies on an automated
system that would run continuously even when I got
busy or distracted with running my law practice and
serving my clients.

But here’s the most important thing I found out – I
was doing it all backwards.

You see, no one told me that it isn’t law firm
marketing strategies or even marketing at all that
will make the biggest difference …
it’s about what happens once the phone does ring.

You see, I got my phone ringing, but then I found
I was only converting a very small percentage of those
phone calls into appointments and I was only converting
a very small percentage of those appointments into
clients.

I was wasting my time and money on marketing my law firm
when I wasn’t really ready for the phone to ring at all.

What no one told me (and I really do believe it’s because
they didn’t know) is that the first place to focus is
not on marketing your law firm.

The place to start is on getting a system in place for
what happens once your phone rings.

What exactly do you say when someone calls to inquire about
your services?

What exactly do you say when they show up in your office
so they go from interested prospect to paying client?

What exactly should they see when they get to your website?

How do you bring someone from hearing you speak and being
interested in what you offer to coming into your office
and hiring you?

Those are the most important questions. If you invest time,
money and energy in marketing your law firm before you have
a solid process in place for engaging clients, you are
wasting your time and money.

If you want the very best marketing for your law practice,
begin by creating a solid client engagement system and process.

Once you know you can convert every qualified website hit
and phone call into an appointment and then at least 75% of
those appointments into client, then invest your money
in marketing your law practice.

Until then … build the system for engaging clients.

This is how I ended up building a million dollar law firm
and it would have happened much faster if I would have started
with figuring out  how to engage clients first and only marketing
my law firm after that.

If you’d like a huge shortcut to building your law firm, I’ve
got a gift for you – I never want to see another lawyer reinventing
the wheel like I had to.

Download over $22,500 of practice building resources on everything
from law firm marketing, to pricing and packaging your services,
setting your fees, collecting your fees, and having happy clients
who are thrilled to pay your fees at http://www.LawBusinessRevolution.com

I created these resources for my own law firm and I’m sharing them
with you absolutely free because I want to help you reinvent your
law business on a new model that is sustainable for you and your
clients.

If you want to be loved by your clients, command higher fees, and become absolutely indispensable, it all comes down to this…

You have to stop seeing yourself as a litigator or transactional lawyer.  Litigation leaves clients miserable and legal documents on their own are virtually worthless.

When my father-in-law died, after spending a few thousand dollars on a set of estate planning documents with his personal lawyer, I thought that lawyer must have committed malpractice because the documents didn’t work.

Why didn’t they work?

Because the lawyer completed the transaction (legal docs) for my father-in-law and never followed up with my father-in-law to make sure his assets were owned properly or that he’s legal documents stayed up to date with the changes in his life.

Divorce lawyers finalize their client’s divorces and never make sure their estate planning documents are updated.

Business lawyers put in place LLCs and S-Corporations and never make sure share certificates are issued, agreements are put in place with vendors or team members, or that the client has the right insurance in place.

Are we really helping our clients when we see them as a transaction, a case, or a matter?

No, we aren’t offering anything more than our clients would get if they went online.

So my question for you is what will you do when they realize they don’t need you?  Or has it already begun?

Please don’t tell me that you’ll deal with this by decreasing your costs and becoming a virtual law office providing unbundled legal services as seems to be the trend these days – that’s a recipe for failure unless you do it so that you are creating a killer experience for your clients that they cannot simply replicate by going online and doing it themselves.

So many lawyers are trying to compete with online companies providing “buy them as you need them” document preparation services.  But unbundled legal services, deep discounts and doing nothing but turning out reams of paper do nothing to build relationships with your clients.

It’s a one shot deal at best and doesn’t provide an ongoing revenue stream for your business.  That’s a recipe for misery and a Going Out Of Business sign (as many law businesses, even large ones, are learning).

As I learned in building my own practice to more than $1 million in revenue, the best way to keep your clients coming to you (and referring their friends and family) are to follow these 5 tips:

1.    Give away the legal documents for free. Yes, free. You’re not selling the paper – you’re selling the client YOU, your energy, your counsel, your advice.  Clients call lawyers because they need help. They want you to take care of them, to love them, to make it easy for them.  The documents are merely the by-product of the relationship.

2.    Give away free legal documents on your website to generate leads you can then build a relationship with and convert into lifetime counseling clients. As an example, we do this at http://www.KidsProtectionPlan.com where we let people name guardians for their kids for free because we know that many of those people will need a fully counseled estate plan once we develop a relationship with them.

3.    Narrow your niche.  Stop trying to serve everyone who calls or walks in your door.  It devalues your service and who you are.  Decide who you love to serve and who you do your best work for and build your business around deeply serving these most perfect clients.

4.    Create a billing structure that encourages your clients to communicate with you without fear of the cost. Most of the time, clients don’t want to talk to you because they know they’ll get a big fat bill at the end of the month.  This can keep them from telling you about significant changes in their lives or businesses.

5.    Learn to love your clients again.  Stop seeing them as cases, transactions, and matters and return to the reason you went to law school.  Connect at a heart level, whether you do it virtually or in-person.  In this new economy, it’s the only path to your success.

The financial success of your business depends on your profit – the amount you keep at the end of the day after paying all your expenses.

In the beginning of your business, you are pretty much entirely focused on revenue because you are already spending as little as you possibly can.

Once you’ve got revenue going, you’ll start to notice that your expenses slowly start to creep up.

And it might feel like for every dollar of revenue you bring in, you add another two dollars of expenses.

That is not a winning proposition.

So, today I’m going to share with you three sure-fire ways to increase your revenue without adding any more overhead.

Way #1: Engage More Prospects

One of your biggest expenses is very likely to be marketing.  You are either spending a lot of money on it or a lot of time on it or both.  If you are marketing and not engaging at least 75% of the prospects calling your office, you are losing a whole lot of profit because getting your phone to ring is where all the cost is.

You’ll increase your revenue without increasing overhead if you just start hearing yes from more prospects.

Way #2:  Offer More (Expensive) Services to Your Clients

You can add more revenue to your office without adding any additional overhead by offering those clients who do say yes additional complementary services.

I did this with the Kids Protection Plan  – adding a more comprehensive form of planning for parents with minor children at home added $1,000 to my fees.

And then I found other services I could provide that my clients wanted and were happy to pay me for.

Once I figured this out, I was collecting an additional $1,000-$3,000 on each engagement with no additional overhead.

Way #3:  Get More Referrals

Every time one of my clients sent me a client, I was increasing my revenue without adding any overhead.

So, I built systems into my office that resulted in more referrals.

I always made sure my clients knew how valuable referrals were to me because I worked that into my client engagement process.  I developed a system in which I could comfortably ask for the referral without feeling strange.  And I was always publicly thankful for all referrals – whether they turned into clients or not – by acknowledging the referrer with thanks in my monthly newsletter.

Try one or all three of these and let me know how much additional revenue you make without increasing your overhead.

In last week’s Law Business Briefing Memorandum, we discussed strategies you can implement before each live event to boost your effectiveness and generate higher turnouts than ever before.

If you missed that article, I encourage you to read it here, but essentially, you’ll want to start communicating with your prospects before the event via the information collected on the registration form and gather leads during the event by utilizing an opt-in form tied to a free gift or offer.

Yet gathering leads is only half the battle in relationship-based marketing. The second and arguably most important step in making the most of your speaking engagements is to automate the follow-up process to ensure no prospect is left behind and everyone receives consistent communication from you and your firm.

You may have heard the saying, “the money is in the follow-up” and I can vouch from personal experience this is true. So with that said, here are four easy steps you can take after each live speaking event to ensure money is in the follow-up for you as well:

1. After the event, compare the initial registration list to the names of those who were in attendance.

2. From there, break those names down into three categories: those who took your offer at the event, those who attended but didn’t take your offer and those who registered but didn’t attend—then create appropriate follow up sequences. The follow up sequence should include multiple touches in various ways (email, phone, snail mail) for the best effectiveness!

3. If the free gift you offered requires fulfillment, strive to distribute your materials promptly while you are still fresh in the prospect’s mind.

4. Always add all leads to your house list and maintain consistent, friendly ongoing communication with them via both email and direct mail.

As you can see, the hardest part of this maximization effort is automating the follow-up process so you can contact your prospects long after the event has taken place.

Infusion is my personal automation software of choice because it allows for segmented lists and hence very specific follow-up campaigns designed to motivate prospects and get them to say YES to your services if they didn’t already do so at the live event.

But don’t let not having a good email marketing/ contact management system stop you from getting started with this! Either make a quick investment into a good CRM like Infusion (which is money VERY well spent on your part), or use an excel spreadsheet or some good ole’ fashion tickler systems. Either way—just get started.

So next time you have a speaking engagement, I encourage you to give these steps a try and chart your results. And don’t forget to email me at alexis@lawbusinessrevolution.com with your success stories!

PS- If you’re considering a CRM like Infusion, be sure to email support@lawbusinessrevolution.com for further information on special bonuses we’ve negotiated for members of the Law Business Revolution. We’re always happy to help.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve given you practical how-to’s on attracting more clients to your law firm.  What I haven’t talked about is that the heart of client attraction is about becoming clear about the authentic you.

Let’s face it.  You can be the smartest lawyer, the savviest marketer and even an outward success, but if you aren’t happy with what you are doing and who you are being, your leads and prospects will ultimately feel that energy and be repelled.

Referrals will slow down as your clients simply don’t feel comfortable sending people they love to you for help. You won’t have the kind of impact you should be having on people that keeps them coming back for more.  And worst of all, you won’t be giving each client your “all” out of frustration, annoyance or boredom with your work.

All of these traits drive clients away from your business.  The only way to fix the issue is to take a cold, hard look in the mirror and figure out who you are, who you want to be and how you can contribute more value to the world.

No matter how “out there” this sounds, if you can’t attribute meaning and value behind the work you do on a daily basis, you’ll never reach your full potential as a lawyer.  You’ll never reach the income levels that are truly possible for you or the impact your business can have on the world.

A lawyer who is confident and secure in herself, on the other hand, who knows he is changing lives and making an impact on the world will attract more of what is needed to keep moving forward-namely clients and income.

None of that can happen until you identify what you are really passionate about and the area of law which ultimately provides you with the most personal fulfillment.

If you are finding that your client attraction strategies simply aren’t working the way you wish they would, consider that it might be because you are not putting yourself out there as much as you could because you are not happy with the lawyer you’ve become.

If that’s the case, consider a new practice area.  It’s never too late to make a change.

If you are in a practice area you are passionate about and are ready to serve a whole lot more of your ideal clients, be sure you’ve registered for my client attraction coaching call today at

http://lawbusinessrevolution.com/holiday/

One of my personal passions is helping lawyers really love their businesses and clients really love their lawyers.  I’ll be sharing the big picture of my single best strategy for generating a lot more business for your firm in 2010.  So be sure to register here and prepare to bring more satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness back to your law business!

PS. After your register for the call, be sure to review the rest of the e – course by clicking here for video 2 here for video 3 here for video 4.

See you then!

As we all know, the legal industry was hit particularly hard by the economy. Over 12,000 lawyers and legal staff members lost their jobs, entire firms have shut down and small and solo attorneys are working harder than ever to get new business in the door.

You may be wondering, ‘Is my practice next?” “How long will this last?” “Can I afford to ride out the storm?”

Here’s the good news about the economic shakedown:

I don’t want you to believe a word I’m saying here. I want you to test it out in your own business. I know it works because it’s what turned my law firm into a million dollar business within three years and has my Personal Family Lawyers and private coaching clients doubling and even tripling their income right now by making a few fundamental shifts in the way they do business.

And the really good news is that it doesn’t have to take a whole of time, effort or money to make this shift in your business. But, the return on your investment will be phenomenal.

So what does high concept/high touch look like in your law firm?

Essentially it means creating a WOW experience that appeals to all of your prospect’s or client’s senses, not just their minds.

There’s a new business model emerging as a result and if you are prepared to embrace what client’s really want . . . high concept / high touch and interaction, you will completely differentiate yourself in the marketplace and your business will thrive.

Try some of these out in your practice:

Continue reading Alexis’ guest article on Lawyerist.com……