Last week I wrote about how to avoid going out of business. If you missed it, you can read the full thing here.

A few lawyers wrote me back and said that they didn’t know what kind of massive action to take. So, I want to give you a little action plan to see results happen immediately.

If you are a decent speaker, it’s time for you to get on the phone and start telling everyone you know that you are available to come out and speak to their group.

If you are not seeing enough clients and do not have the money to do paid marketing, you must take control of the situation and get yourself out there and speaking. And don’t sit back and wait for the speaking engagements to show up or rely only on someone else to book them for you.

Do not just try one thing, see if it works, and then try another. Do everything. All at once.

When I was building my practice, I was on the phone constantly lining up speaking engagements. Eventually, I had someone else do that for me, but not in the beginning. In the beginning (when I didn’t have any money) I did it myself. After hours, before hours, during hours. I busted my butt to make sure I did what was necessary to get me in front of the people I needed to speak to about my services.

So, if you are struggling, ask yourself … am I doing everything I can to get myself out there speaking to as many people as possible for free? Am I on the phone in every free minute of my day with local groups in my community such as:

* Church groups
* Daycares
* Preschools
* Senior Centers
* Private Schools
* Public Schools
* Moms Groups
* CPA Groups
* Real Estate Agents Offices
* Title Officers
* Mortgage Brokers
* Chambers of Commerce
* Community Centers
* Rotary Clubs
* Business groups

I could go on and on.

There was even one time I went out to speak to a group of women (I think it was some sort of an alumni group), which consisted of 4 little old ladies who would get together for coffee on a monthly basis.

I would show up anywhere they would let me come and speak. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn’t.

But, here’s what I can tell you, the more I did, the more my phone rang and the more clients I got.

One of the Personal Family Lawyers who has been with me since 2007 just came back from taking a few months off to have her baby and she is booked all the way through April with 13 new client appointments in March and 21 speaking engagements between now and June. Why? Massive right action before she went out on leave to have her baby. You can do it too.

So if you are struggling, don’t just sit there and wait until you get pulled under the water hoping someone comes and rescues you; do something and do it now!

Next week I’m going to talk to you about the logistics of getting maximum results from your speaking engagements, but in the meantime, pick up the phone and get yourself booked in front of a group. We’ll pick up here next week.

If you’ve been reading my Law Business Revolution Briefing Memorandum for any amount of time, you’ll know that I’m NOT a fan of hourly billing or you selling yourself short in the name of a “sluggish economy” or for any other reason.

I just had a laser coaching session with a lawyer last week who told me she didn’t want to build the kind of practice I had because she wanted to keep her fees low.  After talking with me though, she was able to see that not valuing the services she provides isn’t going to help her help more people, it’s going to run her into bankruptcy.

It’s heartbreaking to watch so many lawyers go out of business or not bring home enough bacon simply because they get trapped into thinking about their pricing the wrong way.

When you differentiate yourself based on price, you simply cannot provide value.  You end up competing on the wrong basis.

While price competitors have been in operation since beginning of time, it’s important to understand that if YOU want to build a sustainable, scalable and one day SALEable law business, a core foundational piece of that puzzle is that you are charging enough.

Is that possible in this economy?  Absolutely.

Let me shift your thinking outside the legal world and into the business world for a moment.  Stores that offer super low prices like Wal-Mart and Target are thriving in this economy.  So with that logic, you’d expect high-end stores like Nordstrom or Sacks 5th Avenue to be out of business right now…but they’re not.  In fact, Nordstrom’s profits more than doubled in the quarter ending Jan. 30 according to the WSJ.  Luxury cars like Mercedes and BMW also reported profits last year despite the fact that “no one has money to spend.”

And lawyers doing things the PFL Way are thriving, while charging much higher fees than their “competitors”. How can that be?
It’s simple, really.  People DO have money to spend… you’re simply not doing a good enough job showing them that your law firm is the best place to spend it.

You see, it’s all about the value.  And I’d suspect that you are not clear enough on the value you provide to convey it to your prospects.

This isn’t “blind theory” or Alexis Martin Neely’s random thoughts on life either.  I’ve done it, our Personal Family Lawyers® and Creative Business Lawyers™ are DOING it and so are millions of other small business owners/ entrepreneurs in this country right now.

So how are they doing it?  Here are some things you can do right now:

1. Stop Acting Like a Commodity.

Your prospects have no way to know if you are the best lawyer for them.  To regular folks, all lawyers are the same.  So when you compete on price, you’ll get price shoppers galore who see you as just like everyone else.   But, you are not like all the other lawyers, are you?

So, what makes you different?  And how do you show that to the marketplace?  That’s what you need to focus on and show the world.

2. Identify the Value of the Outcome You Provide.

Why can Nordstrom’s charge higher prices for products found elsewhere (i.e. cars, purses, ties, shoes)?  It’s because of the VALUE they’ve attached to their brand (i.e. social prestige, enhanced customer service, increased self-esteem).   They’ve moved themselves out of the commodity market and into the heart, emotion and primal urges of their clients.   You need to do the same thing in your law firm.  Yes, Mr. Customer can get an estate plan for $399 or set up their LLC for $750 or a bankruptcy for $1125 down the street, but what are they NOT getting when they work with that other firm or even worse go online to do it themselves?

3. Move Beyond the Billable Hour

There are only so many hours in a day and you’ll reach an income plateau very quickly when you are billing by the hour. Not to mention that you have to start every month over at zero and there’s absolutely no stability in that.  No matter what practice area you are in (with the exception of contested matters), you can begin billing on a flat-fee/value basis.   If you’re scared to shift, just think of the VALUE your customers will experience having an attorney using flat fee billing.  They won’t be nickel and dimed for every phone call, email and fax that comes through the office.  They can communicate with you as they wish without fear and they can pick their price point of choice if you have membership options.  And believe me, people are willing to pay more for certainty every time.  It’s a win-win for them– and it’s very much a win-win for the health/sustainability of your law firm.

Remember this:  People still have money to spend… even in this economy.  And they NEED your services.  It’s up to you to convey the intrinsic value of working with you (even at a higher price point) to command the income level you want…and rightfully deserve…this year.

PS- If you serve small business owners and want more information after reading this article on how you can participate in our Creative Business Lawyer Program and serve the entrepreneurial/business owner market using flat-fee, membership-based billing and differentiate yourself from all the other business lawyers out there, mark your calendar for March 18th at 12pm PT/3pm ET.  More details coming soon!

The results of our 2009 legal marketing/ law practice survey are in and the responses are sadly indicative of our industry as a whole.

According to the results, you are frustrated and tired of begging for business and struggling to turn a profit in your small and solo firms.  The statistics show 23% of lawyers surveyed made under $50,000 last year, while 40% of lawyers surveyed felt “very dissatisfied” with the amount they made in 2009.

A large majority also expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of time they wasted on tire kickers, price shoppers and clients who refused to pay their full fee…and quite frankly, what you know you are worth.

That’s a hard pill to swallow, especially after spending up to six figures on your law degree.

The most unfortunate part, however, is how many of these lawyers did do the right things in marketing their practices last year.   99% of lawyers surveyed tried at least one form of advanced marketing (if not many forms) and still failed to see consistent results or good ROI from their efforts.  As you can imagine, these attorneys were off the chart when it came to feeling “very dissatisfied” with their marketing efforts and practice as a whole.

But, here’s the important thing for you to know … the lawyers who felt “very satisfied” with their marketing, practices and income last year all had one thing in common:

They were not just relying on one source of business; instead, they had an automated marketing system to consistently market using a diverse set of strategies without fail-even (especially!) when times got tough.

A good client attraction strategy is like having a diversified investment portfolio.  When one sector bombs, your stock in an unrelated sector shields you from huge loss.  The same holds true with your marketing.  You want to have an integrated and coordinated marketing system set up so that if one source temporarily dries up, it doesn’t affect you.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Wow, that’s got to be expensive …I can barely afford to run a nice big ad in the yellow pages, let alone do all this marketing you’re talking about”.  The good news though is that some of the best strategies are low-cost or even no-cost provided you put in the time to set up the system to begin with.

The great news about a system though is that once it’s set up, it’s good to go and will produce consistent, reliable and predictable results for you on an ongoing basis.

So, what does an integrated, coordinated, automated system look like?

I laid it out in detail on this call I hosted.  Listen to it here .

And if you are ready to get your integrated, coordinated, automated system in place for 2010 and beyond, join us for our 2-day virtual event . It will change everything for you. I guarantee it.

If you enjoy speaking and are decent up in front of a crowd, your marketing plan should include regular speaking engagements from which you’ll be able to convert attendees into clients.

Too many lawyers aren’t using speaking at all to build their firms.  And the few of you who are, are often spinning your wheels spending a lot of time without a lot of return on your investment.

That’s because there’s a lot more to putting on a successful speaking engagement than just booking a venue (or finding someone to host you) and writing out talking points.

On the flip side, when you know how to speak strategically, it’s a lot easier than anything you are doing right now to market.

So what steps can you take to ensure you’re truly making the most of your speaking opportunities?  Try the following:

Before the event:

• Have a special phone number or web page where people can register in advance.  This is your first chance to capture contact information and get a rough idea as to how many people will be in attendance.
• If you’re collecting information by phone, be sure your team logs everything into your database or on a spreadsheet so you can readily access the data a few days before, and after the event.
• Be sure to let people registering for the event know you’ll send a reminder before the event and that they’ll begin to receive your weekly email newsletter as well.
• Send a friendly reminder of the event 24-48 hours in advance by email and strongly consider having someone in your office make a phone call as well.
• Strategize the offer you’ll make during the speaking event (this does not have to mean you are selling something. Your offer can be for a very high value something, like an article, a report, or even an appointment with you that you give away.)
• Collect the contact information of anyone who wants your free giveaway (this can be done as simply as having people hand you their cards if it is a business event, or you can use a form you’ve created or even simple index cards).  These people are all leads who have raised their hand to tell you they may need your services down the road.

Of course, your fortune with these fresh leads (or prospects if they’ve made an appointment to meet with you) is in the follow up.  Next week, we’ll cover exactly how to follow up to convert these leads and prospects into money in the bank.

In the meantime, you may want to check out my most recent article on lawyerist.com. You can read it here:http://budurl.com/pc28

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……

The holidays are a great time for lawyers to forge a very special bond with prospects, referrals sources and current clients simply by saying THANK YOU and showing gratitude for their loyalty to your firm.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “GREAT! I’ll just send a quick email to everyone on my list saying Happy Thanksgiving and call it a day”….but I’m going to challenge you to take things up a notch and really get personal this year.

Before you do anything, I want you to really experience the energy of gratitude.  Close your eyes for a moment and bring into your body the immense gratitude you feel for all of the clients who hired you and paid your fees this year.  Let yourself really feel how thankful you are for the food they put on your table, the car payments they made, and everything you were able to enjoy as a result of their choice to work with you over all the other lawyers they could have picked.

From that place of gratitude, come up with a way to uniquely express your thanks.

If you are feeling stuck, here are some of my best suggestions:

* Send a personal email to your clients, referral sources and even your leads and prospects.  From your heart, share how you have been able to make a difference in the world and feel great about what you do thanks to the clients who chose to work with you.  Let people into your life on an emotional level.  If you have an email broadcast service, you can do this automated.  Just make sure it has the capacity to personalize the message with the receiver’s name.  If you don’t have an email broadcast service or a database of client emails, put this on your list of must haves for 2010.

* Send out a voice broadcast.  If you’re not familiar with these, they’re similar to the robocalls you get during election time and I know that sounds weird, but clients really seem to love them! I know quite a few attorneys having great success with this during the holidays and their easy to set up.  I’d set it so it only calls during the day and leaves a message on the voice mail. Also, make sure to listen to it after it’s recorded and that you sound happy and upbeat.

* Drop a card in the mail. Thanksgiving is a great time to send holiday cards so they don’t get lost in the holiday card mess.  For extra impact, write a personal note that speaks specifically to the person you are writing to. At least do this for your best clients and referral sources.

The bottom line is you need to do SOMETHING to express your gratitude this holiday season.  Remember, in this new economy, the little extras go a long way, so take a moment and do something that’s good for your soul and your business.

And to you I say THANK YOU so much for being you and being willing to step outside of the old, outdated way of doing things and into a new vision of what it means to be a lawyer and run a business.

It is my absolute pleasure to serve you and I am so grateful to be able to do it,

The number one complaint I receive about attorneys is clients often feel like “just a number” or “not a priority” after they’ve written their check to engage their lawyer. Often, they’ll call their lawyer, have to leave a voice mail and not receive a return phone call back for days, if at all.

I’ve heard quite frequently that clients feel as if they’ve fallen into a black hole.

What that means for you is that you can make a huge impact on your clients and turn them into raving fans by counteracting this experience.

What happens in your practice right now after your client writes you a check?  When do they hear from you again?  When do they get reminded that the investment they just made was a good one? If this follow up is happening, is it happening the same way, at the same time, for each client? Is it being tracked so you’re sure no one is falling off the radar?   

If you couldn’t answer these questions affirmatively, you are sabotaging the hard work you put into the client engagement process.

Fortunately, automating your follow-up and creating a WOW experience after the client engagement process is easier than you think.

To get started, you’ll need to set up a practice management system (there are many to choose from), or even an excel spreadsheet that lays out what needs to happen (and more importantly WHEN it needs to happen) after a prospect becomes a paying client of your firm.

Next week, I’ll outline a simple process for you to follow that will make a HUGE difference in how your clients talk about you to their friends, family, clients and colleagues, which will result in far more referrals for you. 

Stay tuned and until then think about what you’d want to receive from your lawyer if you’d just made a big investment in his or her services.

Before I share with you my 3 simple steps to kickstart your creativity without making the trek to  Burning Man, let me quickly make the case for why you must infuse your business with your creative juices.

In the new “experience” economy, your prospects are not simply looking for a lawyer, they are looking for an experience.

They want to feel special. They want to feel as if they’ve gotten something unique and different. And you want to provide that to them because it’s what justifies your higher fees and makes you unshoppable.

Who doesn’t want that? (If you don’t want clients lined up eager to pay you higher fees than the rest of the lawyers in your community, don’t worry about creativity – you can continue to provide the same old, same old, no problem.)

Do these three things in the next week and see what happens:

1. Take a walk.

If you are more of an indoor person, take a walk in nature. Focus your attention during your walk  on how everything works together and supports everything else effortlessly.

If you love the outdoors and spend a lot of time outisde already, take a walk inside at your local mall and consider how you would change things around to make the shopping experience more enjoyable.

Journal your observations.

2. Ask some questions.

Pick three people in your community who provide a service and ask them what their biggest business challenge is and then spend 30 minutes or so brainstorming ways they can solve their challenge.

These can be people you don’t speak with regularly or even know very well. Let them know you are working on a project to increase your creativity and are offering your time without asking for anything in return. A natural side benefit of this step could be making a great connection with another professional in your community.

Get outside your comfort zone here and connect with at least one business owner completely outside of your realm of business, such as a plumber or a carpet cleaner.

3. Move your body.

As lawyers, we spend a lot more time in our heads than other people. This can drain creativity more than anything else.

Go dancing, do yoga, play softball or football or hockey. Just get out there and do something that gets the blood flowing. You’ll be amazed at how a little body moving stimulates your creative juices.

You, your clients and your business deserve it!

Someone calls your office and schedules an appointment to meet with you, then what?

If you’re like most lawyers, nothing happens, that’s what.  Your secretary simply blocks the time on your calendar and you sit back and wait.  If that’s the case, you are missing a primo opportunity to pre-sell your prospects before they even ever sit down with you, making it far more likely they’ll write you a check when they do make it into your office.

What you want to do instead of nothing is send out a killer pre-meeting package (PMP) that will wow your prospects before they even step foot in your door.

Now, one thing to note – I personally only send out the PMP to people who have made an appointment to come into the office and meet with me.  There are lawyers who send their PMP out and then set the appointment.  This strategy did not work for me when I tried it.  I found myself sending out a lot of PMPs and not getting the appointments made.

The most difficult part of sending out a well-structured PMP is putting your very first one together.  So to make sure you’re doing things right, you’ll want your package to include the following:

1. A professional Linen Folder- Don’t settle for something cheap and flimsy to package your materials.  Understand that a good, quality folder shows the prospect that you really care about them and their relationship with your firm.  You can even go one step further and order a custom linen folder with your logo on the front for best results.

2. Credibility Boosters- You’ll want to stuff your folder with plenty of information designed to boost your credibility and convince your prospect that you are the absolute best person to work with them before they ever set foot in your firm.  Credibility may include articles that have been written about you, interviews on CD, press releases, a copy of your book or other “press materials” and if your State bar rules allow it, a sheet of testimonials by former happy clients. It’s likely you don’t have these things already, but everything I’ve listed can be easily created within three months from now, so get started.

3. Pre-Meeting Homework – Your package should include some form of interactive paperwork that your prospect must complete and return before their meeting.  Not only will this help you come to the meeting prepared to serve your prospects with the information they need to say yes to you, but by taking action before the meeting, your prospects are more likely to say yes when they make it in.

4. Firm Story- Your folder must include at least one document that conveys your firm story and why you are different from everyone else in town.  This is really the clincher of the PMP and something you should spend time getting right (and if you’re totally lost on how to develop a firm story, stay tuned because we’ll be covering this in the weeks to come).

5. Fee Information – This can be controversial, but you’ll absolutely want to provide some information about your fees and how they are determined.  No one likes surprises and most people don’t trust lawyers to begin with.  The more you can communicate directly and not hide the ball, the more prospects will trust you and make it in to their meeting.

6. Humanized bios of you and your staff- While it’s great to convey how just how smart you are and how many awards you’ve earned as a lawyer, you also want your bio to be personal so the prospect feels like they “know” you and your team on a much deeper level.  People do business with people they know, like and trust.  You have to convey who you are, not simply where you went to law school and the awards you won, for this to happen.

Finally, to finish things off, you’ll want to mail your PMP in a USPS priority mailer so it looks and feels “important” and doesn’t get tossed aside as junk mail. I can’t think of anyone that ignores a priority mailer sent to their house, so it’s in your best interest to spring for this final touch.

No matter what type of law you practice, make a commitment to design a PMP for your firm within the next 30 days.  Then, send this package out to every prospect who requests an appointment with you and continue to record your results. If done right, you should see a nice increase in your bottom line over the weeks and months to come!

The doom and gloom news about the economy has you convinced that the reason you are struggling is because of the downturn.  And perhaps as a result, you’ve resigned yourself to less income, less profit, and less clients.  Don’t do it.  It’s not the economy.

Well, it may sort of be the economy (there ARE less clients who need your services, that’s true).   There are plenty of people who need you, but today in order to attract them and get them to want to do business with you, you need to provide more.

You don’t need to provide more documents, or more time, or more knowledge.  You need to provide more experience.

The people who can afford your services and will be happy to pay your fees are bombarded with marketing messages from lawyers who all look the same.

If you can stand out in the marketplace, you’ve accomplished half the battle.

And when they contact you and you give them a wow experience right away, you’ve accomplished the other half.

The wow experience begins with how your phone is answered.

Today, I want you to call your office (or have a friend do it while you are listening in) and talk to the person answering your phone.

Ask the questions a prospect would ask before making an appointment.

You are likely to be SHOCKED at what you hear.

If you get a sinking feeling in your stomach just reading this or hear that little voice in your head telling you “nah, you don’t need to do that” it’s a good sign that you are avoiding a serious problem because you don’t want to deal with it.

Or, you don’t have anyone answering your phone other than you.

So, here’s what you should do right away.

1.Get someone to answer your phone.  This can be a virtual someone and does not have to be an employee.

2.  Train your new greeter to answer every phone call with a smile and the following script:

“Welcome to the law firm of {insert name}, this is {insert name}, how can I assist you?”

Now, you are creating a wow experience from the very first time a prospect comes into contact with you.

Next week, I’ll be back with another simple way you can create a wow experience for your prospects and clients that will shift the global down economy into your own personal boon economy by making you so different from everyone else that you become unshoppable!