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Marketing For Solicitors Is Just A Gimmick!

Monday, April 22nd, 2013

Marketing is just a fad. You pay a bit of money, do a bit of advertising, nothing really happens, nothing really changes, but you feel that you have done your bit. After all, in ever more competitive times you know that you need to do some marketing, so doing some random or ad hoc advertising ticks this box doesn’t it?

So when you receive that phone call on a Friday afternoon, offering you an amazing ‘advertising opportunity’ which has a 5pm deadline, and which if you do not seize will be grabbed by your neighbouring law firm, you have to take it don’t you? And when you discover that it costs less than £1,000, the seemingly magical cut off point when serious decision making is required, you would be mad to say no wouldn’t you?

This falls into the “We have to do something” territory that so many law firms find themselves being trapped by at the moment. They all know that they have to do something, that it really is now or never, but they often sadly do completely the wrong thing.

If you go back to my headline, that marketing is a ‘gimmick’ which I know so many solicitors believe to be the case, you can easily buy into these last minute advertising packages. I mean, you can’t treat marketing seriously like you do the law, can you?

Well of course you really must if you want to be running a successful practice for now and many years to come. And I would start doing this right now. You owe it to any staff you employ, your suppliers, your family and above all else to yourself.

You see marketing is much more similar to the law than you might at first glance imagine. It has rules and systems, for example just like a litigation case does. If you took on a dispute for a client with no prior knowledge and immediately tried to apply for a judgment, you would fail. If you just accept any offer to advertise without giving the matter some serious consideration, you are again much more likely to fail.

When you are approached my these advertising charlatans with their last minute offers, take just a few moments to run through the short check list below and you can save yourself many wasted thousands of pounds.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • How did the person selling this amazing opportunity find me (did they cold call or spam email or were they recommended)? If it was really good would they really be cold calling for new clients?
  • Have I ever heard of the publication or website before?
  • Does it target my ideal client (that assumes you know who your ideal client is too)
  • Can I measure the success of this advertisement down to the last penny and pound (if not don’t do it)
  • Can I automate the marketing so that it happens with or without my input and keeps on producing new leads?
  • Will it make me more in fees than it costs several times over

Unless and until you can answer all of these questions, you should say no to any more of those random calls selling gimmicky marketing or advertising. They resort to underhand selling tactics for a very good reason, largely because what they are selling doesn’t work (worse still is that I am sure that in some cases the publication is never actually printed).

I hate the people selling these systems, because I know that most solicitors are easy prey for the reasons that I have mentioned above. You know that you should be doing something, so they take advantage of this knowledge and sell you what anyone in the know would call ‘utter rubbish’.

This is why I have set up a section within Marketing4Solicitors called Saints And Sinners. This is where my members approach me before they spend money to see if I or others within our group have tried the company that has approached them, so that they can save themselves the time and money of investing in an advertising scheme that simply will not work.

Just think about that, you could buy one of these last minute schemes for £1,000 that produces absolutely nothing, or for just over half of that cost you can have access to Marketing4Solicitors for a year and save yourself the stress and pain of investing in these sham schemes (there is no minimum contract – just making the point that it is very reasonably priced).

Not only that, but you will be provided with a wealth of resources explaining exactly how you should be spending your hard earned marketing money to generate a steady flow of new client instructions, and then the system you can use to automate the marketing processes so that they work with or without you, month after month.

Whatever you do, please don’t waste your money on the advertising methods outlined above. Use the simple test of ‘Will I be able to track to the penny how much money I make in costs by advertising in this publication’ and if met with a negative answer, get back to doing what you do best, looking after your clients. Let the snake oil salesman snare a different solicitor that day.

To join Marketing4Solicitors for 30 days risk free, and receive over £400 worth of benefits instantly, sign up for the free guide on the form below and I will send you some more details.

Author: Nick Jervis

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General), Legal Marketing | No Comments »

Deciding What NOT To Do Is as important as deciding what to do – Steve Jobs

Monday, April 8th, 2013

“Deciding What NOT To Do Is as important as deciding what to do”

Steve Jobs

I spent some time over the Easter holidays reading the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. It was a fascinating read.

He was clearly a driven man and was happy to make enemies with staff and suppliers along the way if something was not completed to his exacting standards. You can certainly see how it was that he created some quantum leap products along the way.

One of the quotes that jumped out at me was the one above:

“Deciding What NOT To Do Is as important as deciding what to do.” – Steve Jobs

This is so true, isn’t it?

So often I meet solicitors and other business owners who are brought to a complete standstill because they are simply trying to do too many things at once to have any chance of successfully completing any of them. They become paralysed by the amount on their ‘to do’ list, so they ‘to don’t’ to any of it instead. This is such a shame as the answer is really quite simple.

One of my clients recently has made giant strides forwards because instead of offering many different legal services to many different types of businesses, I asked him to narrow down the services he offered to just two or three areas of law which are inter connected.

Almost as soon as he did this he became ridiculously busy – in the same market place where he had been struggling in for the previous few months.

He stopped trying to do everything, and focused on what he was best at and enjoyed the most. His clients and contacts clearly noticed this and so started sending him more instructions.

The same applies when you try and undertake too many new marketing activities at once. They are all more likely to fail, whereas if you pick one and do it well, you are much more likely to have a success story on your hands and in the process to acquire many more clients who need your help too!

If you are doing too many things, or are not sure which one marketing tactic you should choose to master, why not schedule a free call with me and let me help you narrow your focus. I know from experience that this will be a very worthwhile exercise for you.

Author: Nick Jervis

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Great marketing quote..

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

“The aim of marketing is to make selling superflous”

Peter Drucker

Author: Nick Jervis

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What My Sons Parents Evening This Week Can Teach You About Legal Marketing!

Friday, March 15th, 2013

I am not a big fan of the education system. I don’t know whether it is the fact that my children spend more time with strangers than they do with me, or that some teachers just seem to have been born to be teachers and I could not see them functioning in the real world on the outside of a school (this from a man married to a teacher by the way), but it doesn’t usually excite me or tick any of my boxes.

However, on my youngest son’s parents evening this week, I was very impressed with one aspect of the process.

For each teacher, once we found them dotted around a big school (in my day they all used to sit in the school hall) they would sit us down and give us some general feedback, and then the process became very interesting. They move on to talking about the targets that they had set for Sam when he completes his GCSE’s in four years’ time, where he was now in relation to that target now and how they expected him to get there between now and then.

The school sets targets! The children know about the targets and are coached by the teachers to achieve them. The parents are involved with those targets and encouraged by the school to monitor progress.

The school is acting as any sensible business owner should act in relation to the growth of their business. I am genuinely, amazingly and surprisingly impressed.

One of my sayings is that there is ‘No Treasure Without Measure’. The school know what treasure they want my son to achieve and they are measuring his progress towards that goal, with support all of the way. This is absolutely brilliant.

How about you? Have you set targets for one years’ time, two years’ time and five years’ time? Are you working alongside a coach or a consultant to show you how to reach those targets, to set short term and long term goals on the way to those targets? If you are, you are probably a million times better placed to achieve them than those who write a ‘wishy washy’ five year plan, then put it back in their top drawer and never review it until five years’ later, if they are still in business at that point that is.

All of my consultancy clients have financial and other targets which are at the top of the Marketing Action Plan I review with them each and every month. They can’t hide from the targets that they have set as they know I will be measuring and monitoring progress towards them. They understand that there is a possibility that they might not hit them, but they also know that there is a real possibility that they might exceed them and have to set new, bigger targets.

I have a lot more respect for the education system taking care of my son now, and I hope that it shows you that if an educationary establishment can set and monitor goals, you should be able to do the same for your own practice. Doing so is a very smart thing to do.

Author: Nick Jervis

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Posted in Key Performance Indicators KPIs, Law Firm Marketing (General), Legal Marketing, Legal Marketing Consultant, Marketing Plans, No Treasure Without Measure | No Comments »

More clients more consistently

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

Author: Nick Jervis

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General), Legal Marketing, Videos For Law Firm Marketing | No Comments »

Law Firm Goal Setting

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

Make them big fat hairy ones!

If you are going to do it, you have to go big this year. Maybe this is the year where you really finish exactly where you want to, with your practice as successful as you have always planned.

So the big fat hairy ones I am talking about are your targets for this year!

And if you are going to set them, as every sensible business owner will do, there is absolutely no point in setting small ones. Don’t aim for mediocrity, accepting the media’s view that standing still is good enough. You can make your own rules, just as many of my maverick solicitors are doing at the moment. They ignore the media and decide that they are the only ones who will control their firm’s future, and they do!

So if your firm currently turns over £250,000, set your target for this year at £500,000. If you are turning over £500,000, why not aim for £750,000 or £1 million? If you are already at £1 to £1.5 million, aim to double that figure, or at least increase it by 50%.

You just need to decide how you want to feel at the end of 2013. Do you want to reach the end of the next year feeling frustrated and disappointed, or fulfilled and delighted at having set the bar high and reached or even exceeded it?

If you do, then you know there will be some hard work along the way, but you know that the results will make it very worthwhile.

But how will you get there? What will you do to make your turnover double or treble? Which marketing is the right marketing for your firm right now to help you reach your targets? And if you are the sole decision maker in your practice, how are you going to ensure you stay on track and do not let all of the other challenges and issues side track you from your targets?

Well, I have a suggestion for you. Please let me help you. Let me guide you through the process, ensuring you work on only the marketing challenges that will deliver the fastest results for you and propel you towards your targets, and to keep you firmly on track.

I am opening five new places on my 90 Day Steady Stream Of New Clients Programme, several clients having completed their programme at the end of 2012. This programme will ensure you start 2013 at a sprint rather than a stroll.

To find out more – click here

Author: Nick Jervis

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General), Legal Marketing | No Comments »

The Recent Flooding Makes You Think!

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

The recent flooding shown on television and across all media platforms has been quite horrific. I don’t think you can get used to seeing people’s homes being several feet under water, and whilst the man rowing up the High Street draws a wry smile, you can’t get away from the severity and impact on the lives of those involved. It will take months or years for them to rebuild their lives, and for some of them sadly that is just not an option anymore. This is not in any way a trivial problem.

I don’t know about you, but I notice as I get older that I see more and more “not trivial problems”. Whether they relate to my ageing parent’s health, other family medical issues and challenges or everything that goes on in and around the workplace, these matters all take their toll. We all have to deal with them, and this can distract us from our main daily purpose of maintaining and hopefully growing our businesses.

Now you cannot stop these matters from happening, any more than the environment agency seems able to stop the floods, but you definitely can stop the impact that your time away from the office, or time in the office dealing with these ‘other matters’, has on the success of your business, and indeed you have a duty to do so, as we all do as business owners.

We have a duty to our staff, to our partners, to our spouses (sometimes one and the same), clients and suppliers, our children and most importantly to ourselves.

So if we know that there are always going to be ‘challenges’ and ‘problems’ which can derail us from the task of running a successful business, shouldn’t we do all that we can to ensure that our business can run as smoothly as possible with or without us at the helm? I say ‘we’ because the business I run is no different from your own. I run a business selling my expertise, just as you do. If enough people do not engage me, I will struggle just as much as you will if you do not have enough clients to help with your skills.

So shouldn’t we put in place systems to ensure that whether you or I are physically in our business, it is still being promoted to our target audience, and still bringing a steady stream of leads in? That way, in your case, your team is kept busy even without you there to ensure that that is the case! That would be a good position to be in wouldn’t it?

Therefore, automating your marketing so that it happens with or without you and so that you always have a steady stream of new clients coming to your law firm is a key part of your role.

I would say it is THE pivotal part of your role.

Whilst you originally trained in the law (and I have no doubt that you are now excellent at the provision of your legal services) unless or until you master the art of automated marketing to deliver new clients to you on a regular basis, the problems mentioned above can bring you down at a moment’s notice.

What could become a key to your future success when you automate it (your marketing), could be an extra one of those potential problems at some point in the future? But it absolutely does not have to be, and it really should not be. You can completely automate all aspects of your marketing so that they work with or without you. If you are interested in finding out how, I am happy to spend 20 minutes on the telephone with you discussing this in more detail.

If this sounds interesting, add some details below and let’s talk about automating the marketing of your practice:>>

Author: Nick Jervis

Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General), Legal Marketing | No Comments »

Is A Friend Sabotaging The Marketing Of Your Law Firm?

Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

I worked with a solicitor two years ago who had a fantastic niche legal practice. It is successful and could be even more so but for one problem.

When I worked with him I saw a huge opportunity to dramatically improve his website. It had some good content but the design was just absolutely dreadful. I KNEW beyond any doubt from working with hundreds of other solicitors that just by a simple redesign of his website he would be able to generate many more enquiries for his practice (and in turn increase his profits every month forward from the date of his new website going live). This was a guaranteed method for winning new instructions for a very modest investment.

Now I was not touting for the work, I could have done it for him at the time but I just wanted him to get his new legal website up and running and to follow my advice.

Then he introduced his problem. His ‘friend’ did his law firm website for him and he did not want to upset his friend.

Friend?

Honestly if you saw this website you would think his worst enemy created his website for him; it was hideous and it was only because he was in such a niche area of law that he was attracting any enquiries at all. I explained this to him (as gently as I could) but he was simply not prepared to tell his friend that the website wasn’t up to scratch, and too scared of upsetting him by taking the website away from him.

Fast forward two years and sadly I receive a call from him to say business is not as good as it was and he really wants my help to kick things into action. I quickly look online and see the same website looking back at me (two years on it does not look any worse – it could not). I explain that I am not surprised as he still has the same website and again meet the same problems. He is still to scared of upsetting his ‘friend’. You might think I was making this up, I really wish that I was. But sadly I see the same or a very similar problem time and time again, in many different law firms. In another firm one of their fee earners like to ‘play with websites’ so he was the culprit that ruined their prospects of winning new clients from their website. In yet another firm it was the ‘senior partner’ who liked to ‘play with websites’, so he ruined their prospects of success. In most other firms I meet it is the website designer who ignores the client’s request and creates a website for their law firm which simply will never produce any new business for them!

Whereas the obvious answer is to sack the person who is causing the problems, the business owner is too scared of hurting their feelings. The trouble is that as business owners we sometimes have to make hard decisions for the good of our business. (Some say that you can judge the success of a business by the number of difficult decisions the owner has to make in the course of a day).

What I often find is that, surprisingly, when the difficult conversation does finally take place the ‘friend’ is relieved as they were not happy with the relationship any more either. They have either moved on and the work is not their priority any longer or they simply do not need or value the work they are receiving so are happy to let it go.

Are you letting a friend, staff member, partner or supplier damage your business? If you are, I urge you to make a decision about removing their control of your website (or other marketing) project so that you can finally generate the new instructions you want and need for your law firm!

Author: Nick Jervis

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Is This Your Legal Reception Experience?

Monday, November 19th, 2012

I want to tell you about my favourite law firm. This one is amazing and every time I visit this firm I have the same experience.

I walk into reception and the receptionist instantly stops what she is doing, looks up and welcomes me “Good morning Mr Jervis, you are here to see Mr Jones aren’t you. Please take a seat for a moment and I will let him know that you are here. Would you like a tea or coffee?”

The receptionist knows who I am and who I am here to see because every morning she prepares a list of visitors, who they are going to see and then puts a reminder in her diary for ten minutes before the appointment time so that she can welcome them by their name.

Whilst I wait in reception I am always impressed by the framed posters on the walls. These are always changing and they have a variety of different messages. Some are photographs of clients with amazing feedback about the legal service they have received, whilst others are promoting webinars that they will be holding over the course of the next month and explaining how people can register free of charge. What a great way of educating clients about their legal services. Other posters contain a list of their core legal services, reminding me that a fee initial appointment is just a quick chat away with the receptionist.

Once I have finished looking at the posters my attention turns to the very tidy table in front of me. I pick up a ring binder entitled “Smithers Jones In The News” which contains all of the press cuttings featuring the law firm. This is stacked with press cuttings with the most recent ones situated at the front of the folder.

After this I look at the folder interestingly entitled “What Did You Say?” I pick it up and find lots of letters from very happy clients. Impressive!

I am just about to turn my attention to the promotional items (postcards, brochures, LawKits etc) when my coffee arrives and the receptionist tells me that Mr Jones is ready for me and she takes me through to the interview room.

Mr Jones is waiting for me and we get down to business. I notice that facing me in the meeting room are a range of brochures for their entire range of legal services with the question on the holder “If you need any help, please ask.” I cannot help but notice the wide range of legal services offered by this firm and am confident that they can deal with any of my legal enquiries in the future. The meeting room has more posters with details of services and some interesting case studies of successfully concluded legal matters.

Half way through the meeting the receptionist enters discreetly and asks if I would like another tea or coffee. Once again she had set herself a reminder to check after 45 minutes.

I leave after a good meeting and as I walk back into reception the receptionist says my name as I leave and fires a very quick question at me “Is there anything else we can help you with today Mr Jervis?” I reply that I am fine for today, but thank her for asking.

What a great experience.

Of course the law firm I am talking about is hypothetical, but if I did run a law firm this is very much how I would make it happen. Can you do this?

Author: Nick Jervis

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General), Legal Marketing | No Comments »

Are You Giving Your Legal Clients 100% Of Your Attention?

Friday, November 9th, 2012

I have a huge pet hate which sends my children scuppering for the back of the settee. Someone only has to mention their commitment to give 150% to the task in hand and my eyes roll, I mutter under my breath and then start chanting out loud, only for a few minutes later to look around the room to realise that everyone has frozen awaiting dad’s reaction to this complete ridiculousness (the person on the television of course – not mine)!

My problem (although I am sure that I do not have to explain this to you) is that whilst you can have a mathematical increase of more than 100% or you can grow your practice profits by 200, 300 or 1000% (and I very much hope that you do so) you simply cannot ever give more than your full and complete commitment to anything, which has to stop at 100%.

And it is the subject of giving 100% that I want to discuss, because I think the days of people giving 100% are rapidly disappearing. I am talking about 100% commitment to the task in hand. You see it in cafés and restaurants when couples having some supposedly special time together start texting their friends. You see it with husbands and wives in the same situation, who and what they are texting I am not sure but I know it is not a good thing.

Where it is even more worrying though is in a work environment. I remember the days when I was employed (I have broken into a cold sweat just typing that word) and my appraisal would come around. Now to an employee this is an important time, but one of my employers use to treat them like a game. How many times could his phone ring during my appraisal? How important would that make him look and feel; well it seemed to matter a lot to him as the phone would ring relentlessly.
My career clearly was not important to him (nor me at the time to be fair as I knew I would be leaving at some time to set up Samson Consulting but he did not know about my plans). What made it even worse was that on each call whenever he thought he had made a good point he would look towards me to check that I understood just how clever he was. I quickly learned to look away the whole time so this pleasure was at least taken away from him.

However, I see it even more now that I am in business. I have had meetings with suppliers where they think nothing of answering a telephone call whilst with me because it is a ‘very important’ call. Largely it never actually is although I don’t usually find out much more about the call as quickly after taking the call they find themselves heading down the stairs and onto the High Street on which my office resides.

I employed a professional photographer to take shots for me and he felt the need to take phone calls during the shoot. I felt so special: photographer duly sacked for the next shoot.

The same has occurred in different situations when I have been on consultancy days with solicitor clients who are paying a hefty sum for the pleasure of my company either take calls, leave to deal with an urgent matter (usually not) and have a number of interruptions during the day. Now as a client I accept that it is completely their choice, a daft one, but they are free to do as they please as they are paying the bill. On a personal level though they do not remain clients for long as I really only like to work with people that are genuinely committed to growing their business, not just ‘vaguely interested’ that it might be a nice idea.

So my question to you is this: do you really, all of the time, give your clients 100% of your attention?

You see whilst your competitors are letting their standards slip and deteriorate, you have an ideal opportunity to give each of your clients 100% of your time and focus whenever you are with them or working on their matters. This is especially important in new client meetings or on telephone enquiries. When that phone rings pounce on it and think of nothing else until you have answered all of your prospect’s questions (and other ones they had not even thought of) and followed up immediately in writing both by email and snail mail, of course enclosing some external endorsements of your expertise such as client testimonials and news articles.

Giving 100% (no more nor less) is enough these days to set you apart from your competition, so I recommend that you start doing this immediately and continue to do so. I am not sure the employed legal representatives from Halifax, Co-Op or any of the other new entrants to the market will have your desire or commitment to do so.

Author: Nick Jervis

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Posted in Legal Marketing | No Comments »

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