Are you limiting the growth of your practice by your beliefs about what you can achieve or how you can generate leads?

Do you believe that you can only grow to be ‘so big’, or only service ‘so many clients’ or that you might as well give up because ‘deregulation is the end of the road’ for smaller law firms?

I once visited a new consultancy client to help them. One of the first questions I always ask when I meet a new solicitor is ‘What type of work would you like more of?’ I am a firm believer that life is far too short to spend time working on matters that don’t excite or engage you so if I can I always want to start here. On this occasion the first ‘belief’ I was met with was that there was simply not enough of the work my client wanted to do to even try to chase after it.

What was this belief based on? There were no facts to support it, just a hunch that the client believed to be true. I am delighted to say I managed to persuade her to let me try and generate some of this elusive work, and I can tell you two years later on that this is largely all she focuses her time on now. She is really enjoying what she does. It is success stories like this that really give me immense job satisfaction.

My question for you is ‘do you have similar limiting beliefs that are preventing you from winning the legal work you would really like to be doing?’

Do you believe that there is only one way to attract new business and you use only that way and ignore all other opportunities that might be even more successful than your current marketing initiatives?

Have you had your fingers burned by too many of the ‘next exclusive territory guaranteed to bring you new clients but only if you sign up now before your nearest competitor’ schemes that you have stopped trying anything new?

We all know the truth now. We have all been in business long enough to know that ‘if it looks too good to be true it probably is.’ But that does not mean you should give up. It just means that you have to analyse each opportunity a little more carefully, and then test it at a small level to see if it works. If it does, you can then invest more time and money.

There are so many opportunities to win more clients, please don’t let your limiting beliefs prevent you from growing your business.

I share new opportunities in detail with all of my Marketing4Solicitors ToolKit members every single month. Whether you simply need the gentle kick up the proverbial, or are keen to be handed the tools to show you exactly how to grow your business, try the Marketing4Solicitors ToolKit before the price increases on 31st December 2009!

See the Marketing4Solicitors ToolKit.

Author: Nick Jervis

Do you know how and how often you are annoying your clients? Do you know how many procedures and processes are driving your clients to distraction? I am not talking about the huge things here either, but the everyday gripes and grievances that test your clients’ patience. If you do not find out what these are and remove them it can put a serious limit on your earnings capabilities.

In a non legal setting (it’s often nice to step outside of the legal arena from time to time) I have a nice local cafe that I sometimes sit in and write my articles and ponder the universe. If I write something I am very happy with, occasionally I will reward myself with some sort of sticky bun. Now if you have ever eaten a sticky bun, and I am sure you have, you need a nice clean serviette once you are finished to clean yourself up with. Well in this coffee shop they deliver your serviette on the plate underneath the sticky bun, i.e. pre-stickied up for you. Why on earth they do this is beyond me, and when I ask they just say that is the way they do it. Are you doing anything like this that irks your clients even just a little bit?

In the legal setting, one of my clients was keen to win new clients. I explained I could find them a new referrer but that I could tell they needed to improve their internal systems to ensure they could convert the leads that the referrer would send to them. They did not see that any changes were needed and asked me to go ahead anyway. I should have said no but they insisted they would be able to please all of the referrer’s clients and prospects. I secured the introduction and after a few weeks the referrer went away as the changes that were needed were not made.

On this occasion my client knew what the problem was – they failed to return calls quickly enough because their staff had no concept and had had no training on the importance of incredibly fast service. This meant the clients gave up waiting for the call back and instead made some new calls and placed their business elsewhere.

So the question is, what, if anything, are you doing to make your clients lose patience and possibly take their instructions elsewhere? It is often the smallest matters that irritate to such an extent that your clients “give up” on you. It might not even be the quality of your legal work (and most times it is not).

Here are some potentially client relationship threatening common problems:

1. Failing to answer the telephone quickly enough
2. Never returning messages left on voicemail
3. Constantly fobbing off clients to junior support staff
4. Giving legal advice when all the client wants to do is to get the matter off their chest and hear some compassion
5. Your receptionist failing to acknowledge your clients arrival into your offices (even if they are busy on the telephone they should wave to acknowledge that your client’s arrival has been spotted and they will be with them soon)
6. Placing your client on hold and forgetting them
7. Not doing as you say you are going to do
8. Not doing what you say you are going to do when you said you were going to do it (catchy that one but an incredibly frustrating one for clients)
9. Not telling your clients what will happen and when it will happen!
10. Not offering your clients other services when they clearly need them (e.g. Wills if they have a family)

It is sometimes very hard for you to see these problems, but your clients see them all the time, so why not ask them? They will be happy that you have included them and seem genuinely interested in improving your service, and you will probably learn an awful lot!

Sell more services to more clients more frequently with the Cross Selling And Referrals ToolKit.

Author: Nick Jervis

The econonomy has changed, clients expectations have changed, have you changed too?

I meet some amazing people on my travels from one solicitor practice to another many times a month. Some solicitors really understand that the legal market place has changed dramatically and will always continue to do so. They embrace new opportunities to communicate with their clients and to offer more value to them.

Others, however, long for the old days, when clients frequently walked through their door without any advertising, when referral fees did not exist and the world was a much brighter place. Solicitors could charge very healthy fees and there was much less competition so it was much easier to secure new instructions. Solicitors could generate a “client for life” simply by “being there” and doing an adequate job. That really was largely enough.

Those halcyon days are now gone, and gone forever. Clients expect, demand and most importantly deserve a lot more, and if you are not prepared to give it to them they will go elsewhere; fact. And why shouldn’t they? Why should they go to a solicitor who does not make the effort to ‘woo them’?

Every business has seen dramatic changes to their market, the way they present their services and how they look after their clients.

Look at hotels, for example. Some years ago you would be happy to have a bed and a shared toilet many yards along the corridor. However, soon everyone wanted a little bit more. First an en-suite bathroom became the next requirement, then a television was expected as the norm. next people demanded a television with premium sports and movie content. Now people also expect to be able to have wireless internet access as standard. All of these extras were nowhere to be seen in the past, yet now hotel customers expect them as part of the service they receive.

When it comes to providing your legal services, and marketing your legal services to new clients and prospects, what can you do to improve the service for your clients?

How can you make your service more streamlined, more friendly and less stressful? What can you do to make the whole experience of visiting your legal practice more friendly?

The starting point here is to examine what you really provide. If you think it is just legal services it might be worth thinking again. You provide a service that ultimately either makes something happen (ie moving house or providing a will), or takes away a pain (family law, business disputes etc). Therefore, if you start from the position that you provide a stress relieving service, how can you make the whole process much less stressful for your clients?

Home visits could be a standard, or you could make your offices far more relaxing and stress free. One dentist I know of provides food and drinks to relax his patients.

How can you make your communications better? Can you stage payments of your bills to make your service more affordable?

You need to consider the supply of your service from your clients’ eyes. Only then can you start to see how you can improve the service and stand out from the crowd.

Author: Nick Jervis