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!

Michael Jackson had a slew of lawyers around him at all times.

Some lawyers handled his business matters, one allegedly drafted a will in 2002, some lawyers worked on his criminal “dream team” during the molestation case, while others took care of his civil matters that surfaced almost daily as he feel deeper into debt.

Yet, as of this writing, it appears no one bothered to step out their traditional “lawyer” box to put all the pieces together and make sure his kids and money were truly protected should something happen to him.

And even if a Will does turn up, what’s important for you to know about all of this is that this happens every single day. Parents die unexpectedly or find themselves unable to care for their kids and there is no documentation to ensure the children end up in the care of people the parents’ would have wanted and that their money gets handled in the way the parents would want.

Every time it happens, it’s an absolutely unnecessary tragedy and this is a great wake up call for all of us as lawyers to understand that we are there to guide our clients holistically, regardless of what they’ve contacted us for.

No matter what type of law you practice  – criminal defense, bankruptcy, divorce, employment, business – if you have clients who have children and assets (which of course you do), you need to take a minute and say, “Hey, this is going to seem kind of off topic, but I ask this of all my clients because it’s so often overlooked, have you named legal guardians for your kids, in writing?  If not, I can help you with that.”

THAT is how a five minute conversation will make you someone’s lawyer for life.  That is how you make sure your client is truly taken care of–and THAT is how you change the world.

I don’t care if you refer them to a local estate planning attorney you have a relationship with, a Personal Family Lawyer or send them to our free site, http://www.kidsprotectionplan.com, but you need to do something instead of letting your clients try to figure out things on their own.

It’s time for us to stop letting families fall through the cracks because our industry has become so specialized.  Take a minute and explain to your clients that whether they have $1 or $10 million dollars, as long as they have a child, they need legal planning to protect their family.

If nothing else, you’ll sleep better at night knowing you tried.

PS. Make sure you check out GASSPO as your surfing the web this holiday weekend. It’s a member-only site that has incredible business growth and personal development strategies, resources, opportunities and support from peers, mentors and experts (which happens to include yours truly!) I have arranged a special $100 discount off the GASPPO membership fee just for my personal contacts. If you choose to become a GASPPO member, you must use this coupon code link with the code affgasspo to get the special discount. The discount is valid for 7 DAYS ONLY and will no longer be available after July 7th. Enjoy!

When I first started my law practice back in 2003, I expected to pay the bills for my new business by bringing in clients.

I didn’t have any money in savings and my husband was a stay at home dad without an income, so it was seriously do or die time for me and my family.

I had been making $165,000 per year as an associate at the big law firm and we were spending all of it, so I needed to at least replace that in profits from my firm.

Everyone told me I needed to plan to not be profitable for at least a couple years. I believed I’d be the exception to this rule.

I did hedge my bets a bit by finding office space I could use without paying rent by trading my time with an attorney who had an empty office space in his suite. This worked out well for me because that office space also came with all of the big equipment I’d need to get started, like phones, a copier and a furnished conference room.

All I needed was a laptop, my own phone line, a website, a desk and some chairs. I was able to pay for all of that out of the little bit I had in savings and on my credit card.

Now, it was time to start bringing in some revenue.

Fortunately, I quickly discovered that as a business owner, I’d be keeping a whole lot more of what I brought in as a business owner than I was as an employee due to the favorable tax treatment for business owners who know how to use the tax code in the right way. (If you need a little brushing up on this, check out the book Lower Your Taxes – Big Time! by Sandy Botkin, CPA, Esq., the best resource I’ve come across on the subject.)

Pretty quickly, I realized I’d need to bring in at least one person to help me because it just wasn’t possible for me to do everything I needed to do to attract clients, engage them, service their matter and build a relationship with them without help.

At the time though, I didn’t feel as if I had enough revenue to bring on an employee I’d have to be responsible for paying each month.

But when I really looked at the numbers and how much more money I could bring in if I could focus my energy on revenue generating activities only, I decided I couldn’t afford NOT to bring someone in. I’d just have to make the commitment to myself to bring in one additional new client per month to pay for my part time employee and determined that with the extra time I’d have, I could do that.

At the time, I didn’t know that as a small business owner I’d actually have access to financing that would help me grow my business.

And a part of me actually felt like I should be able to do it all on my own without any help. You know how a two-year old blindly yells, “I DO IT, I DO IT!” and doesn’t want any help even though any adult looking on can clearly see that the two year old would benefit from a little assistance? Well, that was me. business-wise, I was a two year old, blindly insisting I didn’t need any help.

But then I got to a point where I was stagnating. I wanted to grow bigger. I wanted to move out of that office space I was sharing with those other lawyers and into my own space. I had a very clear idea of how I wanted my office to look and the kind of image I wanted to create, none of which was possible in the high-rise office space I was sharing.

I wanted a team of staff members standing by at the ready to support me and my clients, instead of just the surly receptionist who growled “law offices” when she answered the phones. I didn’t want my clients to have to navigate a confusing parking garage. I wanted beautiful letterhead and envelopes and a better website.

All of that would take money. Money I didn’t have and wasn’t going to save up seeing 1 or 2 clients per month, which was all I was able to bring in on my own without investing in some really good marketing. Which of course I didn’t have the money for.

Right around this time, I happened to meet a local banker in my community who was opening up a new community business bank.

This was a fortuitous meeting because up until then, I thought a bank was merely a place to deposit checks and had no idea that a relationship with a banker could be helpful to me in my business. The banks had always been a necessary evil up until then and certainly not anywhere I would think to turn for help.

But this banker wanted to know about my business. He wanted to know what my vision was for its growth and how he could help me. I excitedly shared with him the amazing vision I had for the law firm I wanted to grow.

He could see the vision and wanted to help me make it a reality, so he let me in on how I could find all the money I’d need to build my business.

Here’s what he told me to do:

1. Figure out exactly how much money you would need to do everything you want to do and write it all down. Think big. You can always scale back later or do it in stages, he said.

2. If you have family, he said, have a frank conversation with them about what they are willing to invest in your business. Let them know your vision, how you’ll use their investment and when they should expect to receive their investment back. Put it in writing.

3. Next, look into a loan or line of credit through the United States Small Business Administration (SBA). He said he would help me complete all the paperwork for this. (This is the benefit of working with a small community bank who takes an interest in you and your business.)

4. He also told me that I could use equipment financing for things like my computer network, my phones and even furniture. He connected me with an equipment financing company that was able to roll everything together into one neat package.

5. Last, he told me to begin applying for credit in the name of my law firm, separately from myself. This is a process that can take some time, but is well worth it and if done right can get you a whole lot of money to grow your business without any of it personally guaranteed. 

a. If you have not already incorporated your business, this would be a great time to start because you are going to want to apply for business credit using your business Tax ID number, not your own social security number. 

b. After you’ve incorporated, make sure you’ve got all the right city licenses in place and begin registering your business with the business credit reporting agencies, such as Dun & Bradstreet.

I’ll be honest with you, all of this was difficult to do. It was difficult from a paperwork perspective, but it was also difficult emotionally.

The entire time I was going through the process of applying for the line of credit through the SBA, I was full of feelings of embarrassment and shame. I can’t tell you why, I can only tell you I felt it and as I’ve talked with other business owners, they’ve expressed that they’ve felt the same during the process. So, don’t be surprised if you do. And, more importantly, don’t let those feelings hold you back from getting the money you need to finance the growth of your business and grow big. It’s totally worth it!

During this process, it can be helpful to have guidelines to consider when making projections about income and expenses. I created a comprehensive business plan for my law firm that
you can have to review. To get access to it, go to http://budurl.com/47mg and join the revolution.

I’ll send you the business plan as well as a whole lot of other free practice-building gifts that I created for my law firm that will give you a much bigger vision of what’s possible for your business.

PS: Lawyers frequently ask about obtaining funding for their practice. After a whole lot of looking, we’ve found one of the leading business finance consultants in the country, Midas Financial to serve our lawyers.

Midas has secured in excess of $250,000,000 on behalf of their clients in the past 3.5 years. They are experts at what they do with an exceptional success rate.

Our representative at Midas is Darrell Hornbacher.You can contact Darrell at 303.513.8664 or via e-mail at: Darrell@midas-financial.com.

He is extremely knowledgeable and has developed several programs that give attorneys preferential treatment in a streamlined loan process. We encourage you to contact Darrell for you lending needs. Please inform him you are part of our Law Business Revolution Program. He is a pleasure to work with!

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been sharing with you some ways to add multiple streams of revenue to your core business.

The first two ways focused around providing enhanced services to your existing law firm clients.

This third way is totally unique and has nothing to do with your existing clients.

The third way to add multiple streams of revenue to your business is to package the knowledge, expertise, systems, tools and other resources you’ve created as you’ve built your law firm into programs for other lawyers who would love to pay you to learn your shortcuts.

This is a model you’ve seen at least from the outside from anyone you are currently learning from about how to run your practice more effectively.

You might wonder why I’d mention this to you because it could put you in direct competition with me.

I just don’t view the world that way.

In fact, I help many of the lawyers I’m coaching cultivate there own unique talents and gifts by leveraging their expertise.

Kevin Roy, the probate genius. Evan Farr with his TrustPlus system. Kirsten Izatt with Special Needs Planning. Nancy Cavey with Social Securty Disability Planning. Rjon Robins in law firm management. And more …

Each of these lawyers is coaching with me to learn how to leverage their specialized knowledge into at least one additional stream of revenue for their law firm.

It’s my pleasure to guide them to their highest potential.

If you love to teach and you have specialized knowledge you’ve gained over the years of running your business, don’t be afraid to share it.

Package it, put a pricetag on it and offer it to the world. It could change your life!

Oh and speaking of guiding lawyers to pursue their passion, one of my Personal Family Lawyers Kimberley Fonner has decided to leave the law to pursue her passion. She wrote the email below to her colleagues at Wealth Counsel and I thought I’d share it here with you because it was just so kind:

Dear WealthCounsel Friends,

This was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make but my heart told me I had to do it and so I am: I’m closing my practice and getting out of the legal field, effective this month.

As much as I’ve enjoyed being a lawyer for the past 12 years, my passion really lies elsewhere and so, I am leaving the law to pursue the career of my dreams: working everyday with and in support of animals.

I’d like to thank Wealth Counsel and all of you wonderful WC members for your generous mentoring, support and advice over the last 2 years. You all have been quite wonderful and have contributed greatly to my ability to serve estate planning clients in very high-quality ways.

I would also like to publicly thank former Wealth Counsel Member, Alexis Martin Neely because I think she has been misunderstood by many other lawyers within our community.

She’s given me so much this past year and I want to pay that forward by expressing my review of her practice offerings.

I myself joined her Personal Family Lawyer Program at one of the worst times of my life – right after the sudden, unexpected death of my father.

Knowing of my personal loss and struggles with it, Alexis truly cared about me. She was always sensitive and supportive in our interactions, and also offered me a living example of how to make the practice of law more human, way more fun and therefore a lot more meaningful.

Alexis taught me to think outside the box and energized and inspired me. She has been a wonderful role model for me, and I can attest to the fact that she really does practice what she preaches.

What I have also appreciated a TON about the PFL program is it’s plug-and-play nature. That was perfect for me who was starting out as a true solo after more than a decade in the big -firm world. IMHO, it’s optimal for people who either want to re energize their existing practice, or for lawyers who are new to the estate planning field and want a blueprint to structure their practice the right way from the beginning.

All of the systems I received as a Personal Family Lawyer, from done-for-you marketing, to client engagement, to client retention to office management, were simply outstanding, I mean REALLY fantastic and value-adding stuff for my office.

Here is the bottom line from my experience as a PFL: Alexis Martin Neely and her PFL program deliver on all of her promises and then some. She is the real deal. And she really does care.

In fact, Alexis has actually encouraged me to follow my heart and live my passion…even though that meant leaving the law and her program in the process.

If your passion is being an estate planning attorney, Alexis’ PFL program will transform your practice (and therefore your life), and I can recommend it enthusiastically. Thank you all again so much, WC community, for all the support you’ve given me over the past years! It’s meant more than I can really say.

My very best wishes to all of you,
Kimberley.

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

The Law Business Secrets e-newsletter is getting out to you a day late because I was traveling yesterday to Scottsdale and I’m at the Phoenician Resort where I’m meeting with my new mentor, Alexandria Brown.

This year I will invest more than 6 figures in business coaching. Yep, you read that right, more than $100,000 this year.

And this is not the first year.

I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaching over the past 8 years.

It all started with my first coach, Mariette.

I almost didn’t hire her because I couldn’t fathom spending the money on myself. Let alone the time I’d need to take each week to work with her.

This was back when I was still at the big law firm and very rarely spent money on myself.

My kids, yes. My husband, yes.

But, not me.

Thank goodness I did though because what Mariette helped me discover is that my unwillingness to invest in myself was keeping me trapped right where I was, unhappily working for someone else.

I might still be there had I not hired a coach to help me see where I was stuck.

I hired my next coach when I was ready to leave the big law firm and open my own office.

I wanted someone who would be there to guide me through the whole process of setting up my office and my systems.

So, I hired a well known coach whose name you would know if I said it, but I won’t because I don’t have great things to say about that experience.

He was a traditionalist in every sense of the word.

When I discussed some of my radical ideas for how I wanted to build and run my law firm, he told me I’d fail, that I should do things the traditional way, the way things were always done.

When I told him I didn’t want to continue coaching with him, he told me I was making a huge mistake, that I didn’t know what I was doing and needed his advice to do things the
right way.

Ick.

Since then, I’ve always had a coach or mentor, often more than one.

Each one has taken me to a new level of business and personal success and happiness.

If you are not working with a mentor or a coach, you should be.

Whether it’s me or someone else, if you want more out of your life and your business than you are experiencing right now, a mentor will help you get there.

If you aren’t sure how to choose in a mentor/coach, here’s what you should look for:

1. Someone who is positive and uplifting and inspires you to stretch outside your comfort zone and go beyond your limits.

2. Someone who has done what you want to do and gone where you want to go and can save you from expensive mistakes.

3. Someone who will encourage your independence by giving fully and not holding back the secrets so you are dependent on him or her forever.

Finding the right mentor will change everything for you. It sure did for me.

If you are nervous about finding the money to invest, consider that you are your very best investment and the investment you make will pay dividends every day for the rest of your life.

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About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a law firm marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and grow productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

Welcome to all of our new subscribers who attended my Kids Protection Planning training session last week.

It was incredibly gratifying to train hundreds of you who want to serve parents!

In today’s Law Business Secrets newsletter, I want to address an issue today that I hear frequently and never more frequently than now when so many people are experiencing financial fear.

Q:  How did you grow your law firm into a million dollar business in such a short time? I don’t have the budget to do more marketing or invest in coaching. How did you do it?

Let me address this first by saying this:

I didn’t have any financial resources other than the income I generated from my law firm. At least not at first. (More on that in a minute).

My husband was a stay at home dad, meaning no income from him.  My family was not wealthy, meaning no investment from them.

No savings to speak of and all the expenses that come with two little children.

It was all me.

The first 12-18 months, I scraped together all the money I needed with no outside help.

But, I was stalled.

All of the revenue coming in was being used to support the current overhead needs and there was none left over to invest in coaching, consulting or most importantly marketing.

I had just become aware of the idea that if I wanted to grow a business that wouldn’t depend on me constantly and that I could sell one day or retire from I had to start thinking of my business differently.

If I continued to think of myself as a sole practitioner, the business would always depend on me.

I had to start thinking of my business as a company. Only then would it have the possibility of being able to exist without my daily input (or my minute by minute input).

So, I began to ask myself what Mark Cuban would do, what Ray Kroc would do, what Michael Gerber would do.  What would the business owner version of myself do?

And, I started making decisions from that place.  From the place I wanted to be, not where I was.

I decided to grow my business so I could take vacations, spend more time with my children, and sell my firm and retire one day.

I began to understand that my business would only grow if I invested in it for growth.  To do that, would mean investing more money than I had coming in every month.

That was scary!  Terrifying in fact.  Financial fear was always my biggest fear.

And yet, as soon as I stepped into this bigger vision and started making decisions from where I wanted to be instead of where I was, the resources showed up.

I wrote a financial business plan that showed if I invested money in my marketing, I’d get more clients.

I took that financial business plan to my banker and he gave me a line of credit.

I was actually embarrassed to apply for the financing.  It felt as if I had failed in some weird way.  And, I only asked for $50,000.

Looking back, I now know that I should have asked for at least $100,000.

But, I was embarrassed.

But, you know what? That was keeping me small.  I now see that as a huge turning point in my business.

Which of your successful clients built a business without investing?

None of them!

It takes investment.  Investment of time, money, and your emotional resources.

But, what is a better investment than you?

Nothing.

Your business is your best investment. Especially now.

So, how did I grow my business so quickly?

I invested in it.  I invested a lot of money.  I invested a lot of time.

I busted my butt.

And it all paid off.  In 2006, my business hit a million dollars of revenue.

In 2007, I did it again.  But, that year, the business only needed me in the office 2 days/week.

Was it scary? Yes.  Was it worth it?  Yes, it was.

Can you do it?  You sure can.

What does it take? You making a decision that you want something bigger.

That’s it.

Everything else will show up.

PS – Join me on January 15 for a teleconference that will give you all the details about my elite Personal Family Lawyer program and how you can be 1 of only 15 lawyers to get my help on growing your business.

Register here

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About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a law firm marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and grow productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

It’s official.  Our economy is in a recession and so is the law industry.  And, there’s no question that it’s hitting law firms where it hurts.  The question will be how the impact is felt in your law firm and on your career.

If you are a solo or small firm lawyer, you have a lot of control over that, but only if you don’t allow the fear to put you into paralysis and instead get out there and take action now.

Here are four things you can do immediately to help ensure that your fortune is increased during this recession and not decimated as many of your competitors will be:

1.  Market Yourself Effectively & Efficiently

Now is the time to pick up your marketing in a big, bad kind of way.  While most of your competitors will be pulling back, you can double your marketing ROI by doing more.

The key though is to make your marketing consistent and diverse.

Consistent means you are doing the same set of things each and every month, without fail.

Diverse means that you are doing more than one thing.  Hopefully a lot more.

It means you’re using direct mail, advertising, and seminars to generate leads.  Plus, you’ve got a referral strategy in place that doesn’t involve you wasting time with pointless networking luncheons.  You aren’t relying on any one thing to bring in a more than 2-3 new clients per month, but instead a handful of things to bring in 2-3 clients each per month.

2.  Engage More Prospects at Higher Fees

If you can increase your engagement rate so that nearly 100% of the people who come into meet with you end up engaging your firm at higher fees, you will see a huge impact on your growth in the direction you want things to go.

I know it seems counter-intuitive to talk about raising your fees during a time when everyone’s worried about money.  But, that’s always been one of the secrets to my success.  Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.

By raising your fees, you will actually become more in demand and you’ll need to see fewer clients and be able to provide more service to your clients.

Now, the key is that you’ve got to be engaging the prospects who call your office.  The key to that is to make sure that your intake staff is using a proven script designed to get the prospects into the office and that you are using a script that ensures you are engaging nearly 100% of the people who come in.

If you aren’t engaging nearly 100% of the people who make it into your office or if you are dealing with a boatload of cancellations each month, there is a solution.  We’ve got a whole system that teaches client engagement, check it out risk-free at www.clientengagementsystem.com.

3.  Focus Your Business On an Underserved Niche

No matter what your practice area is, you should consider focusing on a niche for all of your marketing efforts.  All of the best and brightest marketing gurus out there say that the more you can laser focus your marketing to a small subset of people, the more successful you will be.

In most cases, lawyers make the mistake of doing what all of their colleagues are doing and what happens is you begin to see a lot of activity in certain niche demographics and very little in others.

Here’s an example from the estate planning area, which you can extrapolate out into whichever practice area you are working in.

The vast majority of estate planning lawyers are either marketing to elderly people, the ultra-wealthy, or not niching their marketing at all.  This leads to a very crowded marketplace with most lawyers appearing exactly like the guy next door and not very much for prospects to differentiate one from the other except on price.

That’s how commodities are created.

I took a different track when I built my practice from scratch 5 years ago.

I niched my marketing and focused almost entirely on reaching families with young children, an extremely underserved market who is in need of estate planning services.

Here’s what was so interesting.  Once I committed to focus my marketing efforts on the niche of reaching young families, I began to attract all sorts of other prospects outside of my niche, including elderly folks and the uber-rich.

4.  Add On a Lucrative Practice Area

Some practice areas are suffering right now, while others are thriving.  Bankruptcies are on the rise, I’m sure divorces will be increasing as families crumble under financial pressures.  If you are in a practice area that is not currently thriving, consider branching out into something complementary that may be able to serve your already existing client base.

Estate planning is one of the best practice areas to add on to your practice because it’s easy to learn and everyone you know needs it, no matter what the economy is like.  The one thing you can’t avoid is death and taxes, but through a lifetime relationship with your estate planning lawyer, you can make both of them a lot less scary.

Here’s the key though, if you are going to add on a complementary practice area, make sure that you don’t delude yourself into thinking that this is going to save your business if you are blaming the slow down of your current business on the economy, but you aren’t marketing and haven’t already done all you can to expand your existing business.  Make sure you have a marketing plan in place to get the word out about your new offerings and how they can benefit your clients.

And, be sure that the practice area you are adding on to your business is easy to learn, systematizable, and has a proven system you can follow for maximum success as quickly as possible.

If you want to consider adding estate planning on as a complement to your already successful law practice, contact us by email at support@familywealthmatters.com as we have a proven, turn-key system that will allow you to quickly and easily get up and running to meet the estate planning needs of your existing clients and bring in a whole new base of fresh clients.

The best part about the estate planning practice area is that we teach you how to become your client’s primary, trusted advisor helping them to make a lifetime of smart financial and legal decisions.  It’ll help you get back to the reason you became a lawyer in the first place.

The long and the short of it is that if you are innovative, focused and creative, this recession can be just the opportunity you need to take your business to a whole new level of efficiency, effectiveness and profitability.  Things are changing anyway, why not make this an opportunity to become the lawyer you’ve always wanted to be?

Image courtesy of Flickr

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About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a law firm marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and grow productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

One of the biggest reasons for failure in any business, let alone a law business,  is under capitalization, not enough money in the bank.

Businesses fail when there is not enough money to make it through the rough spots. Businesses that thrive are the ones that can make it through what Seth Godin calls The Dip.

Making it through The Dip means not only having enough money, but also having the emotional commitment to persevere
through the scary times. There are always scary times. Maybe this is one of them for you.

If it is, it may be because you have not invested sufficiently in your business.

I remember when I started my law firm, I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have a line of credit. I didn’t know how to invest in my business. And my business stayed small, scary and uncertain.

Then, I happened to meet a banker. And when I met with him, I was excited and enthusiastic and he caught my energy.

He told me about SBA loans, equipment leases and how I thought about my business changed.

I became aware that I was building a real business.

And every business takes an investment of money.

If I was not willing to invest in the growth of my law firm, no one else would be. Including my clients.

There is NO better time to invest in your business than now.

YOU are your best investment.

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About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .