Need More Business, Quickly?
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.

Every now and then, I like to move away from teaching about the legal marketing/ law practice aspects of running a small or solo law firm and dive into something that’s rarely talked about in the legal field…which is your mindset.
So you’ve made the decision to start a local marketing mastermind collaborative with the goal of increasing leads and slashing marketing costs for your law firm. Great!
The results of our 2009 legal marketing/ law practice survey are in and the responses are sadly indicative of our industry as a whole.
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.
Corporations spend billions each year developing creative advertising and marketing campaigns to attract more clients. They realize creativity is the key to standing out in a saturated marketplace. So, how do they stand out? The key is in creativity. Making their product, marketing materials and physical space “unique” and different on multiple sensory levels.
I’ve talked a lot about systematizing your processes so you can set your client expectations and turn them into raving fans. But it’s possible that I haven’t explained precisely why raving fans are the key to your business freedom. Having raving fans isn’t simply an ego boost (though it does feel good), it makes a huge difference to your bottom line and ultimately the time you have to put into your business.
As we all know, the legal industry was hit particularly hard by the economy. Over