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Competition For Solicitors In The Legal Services Market

Monday, March 18th, 2013

Crippled By The Success Of Your Competitors?

So many solicitors who I meet seem absolutely crippled by the success of their competitors. They almost seem resigned to the fact that they are so good at what they do, and so good at the marketing of what they do, that it is almost not worth competing with them, so by and large they don’t.

They feel that their website is simply too good, or their advertising is the best, so they must be doing incredibly well which explains why their firm is finding it so hard to be successful. They believe that financially and by number of clients they simply must be doing incredibly well.

The sad part of this is that in most cases they will be absolutely 100% wrong about this assumption. I am fortunate enough to have seen this from many sides of the fence. On a few occasions now when one of my current clients or prospects has talked about one of their competitors who must be doing incredibly well, I know that the same super successful competitor they are talking about has been enquiring about my services only a few weeks before because they are not as busy as they would like to be.

Now obviously I can never share this information because it would be a clear conflict of interest to do so, so I don’t, but it means that I can say quite confidently that you don’t need to be crippled by the success of your competitors. They are probably not doing as well as you might think, and it in any event this is certainly the wrong place to start from.

You need to worry about the things that you can change, not all of those which are completely out of your control.

My dad and I have completely polar opposite views about many things. He gets very angry about all sorts of topical and political issues, whereas I shrug them off. It is not that I am not interested in the state of our country, I have many views. But unless I am going to go into politics (and I would rather stick sharp pins in my eyes), the only way to deal with such issues is with my vote, but after that, I let them all get on with it. I need to focus on the things that I can change, the places where I really can make a difference, not those where I cannot.

So I concentrate on my business. I know 100% that I can help every solicitor in the UK and Ireland to secure more client instructions for their practice, yet every firm of solicitors has not yet asked me to help them, so I am not doing enough to reach out to them. I am letting them down somehow.

I am failing you too, aren’t I? I know that I can help you to win more clients, but you have not yet put your hand up and said “Yes Nick, please help me”, so I am failing in some way to reach out to you or to prove to you beyond any doubt that I can help you.

I will focus on trying to rectify that problem.

It sends me slightly crazy that you might be sitting there worrying about where your next new client instruction is coming from when I have the answer not only to your next client but to the next 100 new client instructions after that one too.

I know who my competition are, but I do not worry about them. I worry about you and how I can help you to win more client instructions.

If you do have that feeling of worry about your competitors, or worry about the fact that your flow of client instructions has dropped recently or steadily for a period of months, I urge you to take some action to rectify that problem.

Remember that now would be a great time to take me up on my offer to join Marketing4Solicitors completely risk free, as if you do this before Wednesday you will qualify for a free one on one telephone consultation session with me when I will help you to plan your way forward.

I will show exactly what you need to do to beat your competition once and for all so you don’t have to worry about them any more. I will show you how you can automate your marketing systems so that they take place month after month with or without your input, so that you can focus on doing your best client work. Working together will ensure that your firm becomes much stronger.

That will please you and it will make me very happy, as it will help me to achieve my aim of helping 1,000 law firms to survive and thrive, and ensure that the public has access to high quality independent solicitors across the UK and Ireland. I think that is a mission with merit because I know just how good independent solicitors are at what they do.

Author: Nick Jervis

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How Much Do You Really Want To Grow Your Law Firm?

Sunday, November 11th, 2012

I worked with a solicitor once who was very keen to obtain partnership. In their own words they “would do anything” to achieve this. However, come 5.05pm they were out of the door and did not think about the firm until they returned the next day at 9.05am. Their actions were totally incongruent with their stated intention.

I have since met solicitors who own their own practice who say that they are keen to win new business and increase their profits substantially, but again do not show any sign or take any action aside from that statement to assist their stated intentions. They make the right noises, but they don’t take the action required to make it happen. They do not ‘commit’ to making all of the changes that are necessary to grow their practice. The first obstacle which is put in their way makes them stop stone dead and revert to type.

I understand that one obstacle for solicitors is that often they are keen on the legal work but not so keen on running the business. Michael Gerber gives an excellent insight into this in The E-Myth (if you have not yet read it you really should). He explains that the solicitor (or other professional) is the technician, often falling into running a practice just by being in the firm long enough and not having any interest in actually running the business.

However, until that person manages to make their role dispensable from the business, they can never really achieve the success that they might crave because they will keep getting sucked back into the day to day legal work. I know so very well how true this is. I have worked with so many solicitors who set aside regular time to market their law firm yet let this time be eaten into or completely diminished by client work, staff issues, or even just checking emails.

If you really want to grow your practice, if you really want more clients coming back and using your services time and time again, you have to put in place watertight marketing systems that work with or without your input. It is only then that you can expect to see steady but consistent growth of your practice.

Until then, saying you want more clients will not make it happen. You have to really want and commit to growing your practice, then I can assure you it is almost guaranteed.

So my question to you is this: ‘How much do you really want it?’

Author: Nick Jervis

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Legal Cv’s And The Legal Recruitment Process

Saturday, October 6th, 2012

As a former solicitor, I know a thing or two about legal cv’s, especially as I am now a legal marketing consultant. So it was interesting talking with one of my clients a couple of days ago about the legal recruitment process.

She is looking for a solicitor for her clinical negligence department. The firm is based near to Bristol and Bath, and we were discussing how to find and attract good candidates to apply for this new clinical negligence job.

Now of course there are two competing interests when it comes to the legal recruitment process. There is the candidate, the potential employee, who is really keen to find a new job.

Then there is the firm of solicitors who want to find a good solicitor but who do not necessarily want to pay a recruitment company a princely sum for simply drafting a professional legal cv and sending it over by email. At around 20 – 30% of the first year’s salary of the candidate, most solicitors find this a cost too steep to bear.

Yet the candidate, because they know no other way, mistakenly believes that the best way to get a new job is to send their legal cv to a recruitment company and sit back and wait.

But if you look back at the last two paragraphs, can you see the gap?

Good firms looking for new solicitors but not prepared to use a legal recruitment agency, and good solicitors looking for new legal jobs but not approaching these firms, simply expecting the recruitment agency to do the work. But the recruitment agency cannot get to the good solicitors, they won’t talk to them.

If you have a legal cv, you are in the process of drafting your professional legal cv, or you are already registered with a legal recruitment company, and you want a new job sooner rather than later, I can help you.

Simply email me and I will tell you how you can get to the legal jobs that many of your competitors are simply not being presented with. You don’t have to wait. You can go out and claim your new legal job right now, you just need to know what to do.

Email me on info@samsonconsulting.co.uk and let the Solicitor (non-practising) who was offered a job every time he went for an interview, and who never used a legal recruitment company to find his next job, can help you too. By the way – that’s me :) .

info@samsonconsulting.co.uk and let me help you.

Author: Nick Jervis

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Solicitors: the new greengrocers? Marketing Law Firms Blog..

Thursday, September 27th, 2012

In the 1980′s and 90′s Bert used to run a greengrocers in Nailsea, a thriving town with a population of around 20,000 people located eight miles outside of Bristol. By all accounts it was a very successful greengrocers and Bert was busy pretty much all of the time.

Bert did so well with his greengrocers that he decided to invest in the property market and bought the freehold to the shop from which he traded. The freehold also included an office above the shop, which Bert let out to business, amongst others including solicitors.

He managed to slope off now and then to take part in his new found favourite past time of golf, often playing with other local business owners from Nailsea. Bert came from humble beginnings in Scotland, so he really appreciated all that he had. It was fair to say that everything was pretty rosy in Bert’s life. He didn’t want it to change and couldn’t see that it ever would.

But it did. First of all a small supermarket by the name of Somerfield came to town, just a few yards from Bert’s front door, as if to rub its very presence under his nose. However, despite a slight dip in sales Bert was still doing well thanks to a loyal customer base that came back week after week. If this was as bad as it got, Bert could cope quite happily.

But it wasn’t. Tesco were the next to announce their arrival into Nailsea. They saw an opportunity to make more profits in a growing town with good schools, and once the usual promise to build a play area for community and put a few baskets around town won them the necessary planning permission, the build started. The new store was open within 12 months and this time Bert noticed a real slump. Tesco was at the other end of town and had its own parking. His old loyal customers now had no need to walk from one end of the town to the other just to buy their fruit and veg, it was easier to buy it all from Tesco.

After a couple of years, Bert, who was now nearing retirement age, decided that time was right to hang up his green apron and let someone else carry on the fight. He sold the shop but the new owner only managed to keep it running for a couple of years after Bert sold it to him. Apparently Bert was the main reason the last few loyal customers kept coming back, so when he was gone there was no need to return.

The shop where Bert traded from is now a cafe, and the office above it is now my office. The rent I pay to Bert continues to support his love of golf, and he has no complaints about his life, he still feels he did very well.
The interesting part of the story is this, though. Whilst Bert and his predecessor gave up the fight, there are still two thriving greengrocers in Nailsea doing excellent business. I know because I often shop in them and have to queue for quite some time to be served. One of them, Burchills, employs more than 10 people. Not bad for a sector that was expected to disappear with the onslaught of the supermarkets; even better when you consider the fact that as well as Tesco, there is also now a Waitrose, a Budgens and a Co-op.

And thereby hangs a tale. As we all know, the Co-Op has been one of the first to enter the ABS fray and provide legal services to all of their customers. On top of this there are also the many legal umbrella brands, the most high profile being Quality Solicitors. Whilst this leaves many solicitors feeling much like Bert did in the late 80′s / early 90′s and thinking about selling up or simply giving up, others seem more prepared to fight it out, like Burchills did.

And that makes me a very happy man. Not only because most of my clients are solicitors, but because whenever an independent solicitor decides to fight it out, I know that they can succeed. For every three firms that throw in the towel, another five will slug it out, work smarter not harder, and attract more clients than they helped each of the previous years.

Are you a Bert or a Burchills? Think carefully, it is an important decision to make when it comes to marketing law firms.

Author: Nick Jervis

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Free Online Legal Marketing Course For You

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

I have one very quick question for you: please tell me what information would help you right now to generate more client instructions from your website.

I want to help you by providing you with a free mini course to provide you with more detail about one area of online legal marketing. To ensure I can help the majority of you, I have set up a simple one question survey. Simply answer which subject you would like to know more about, and I will go away and write a brand new and completely free mini course for you. The course will include a series of emails, some screen shots, and even a video tutorial or two.

As soon as the course is ready, I will send you the link for it.

Click to take the one question survey now:>>

Thank you.

Have any questions about this or any other blogs? Please “Leave A Reply” in the box below and I will reply to you.

Thank you.

Author: Nick Jervis

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Direct Mail Marketing For Solicitors

Friday, November 4th, 2011

Law Firm Marketing Advice For Solicitors From Nick Jervis, Samson Consulting

Are You Using Direct Mail For Your Solicitors Practice?

If you have never tried it, now is an excellent reason to try Direct Mail Marketing for your law firm. There are several key reasons for this, not least the folllowing:

  • Fewer companies are spending money on marketing at all, let alone Direct Mail. They have decided to shut up shop and wait for the world economy to return to normal. That simply is not going to happen. The economy has changed and changed for good, so now is a great time for testing Direct Mail marketing for your law firm.
  • Because fewer businesses are sending direct mail, there is less post on everyone’s doormat and therefore a much higher chance of your mail being opened and read (which is nice).
  • Another reason that people have stopped using direct mail is because they are focusing their efforts on email marketing because of the obvious cost savings. The trouble is that with everyone trying this method, email opening rates are dropping all of the time meaning that fewer and fewer people are opening the emails they receive, particularly when they notice that they are receiving a sales email.

So it is a great time to test a Direct Mail Marketing campaign if you are looking to generate leads for your law firm. So if you agree with this, what steps must you take to ensure that your campaign is as successful as it can be and produces as many leads for your solicitor’s practice as you would like it to? Let’s take a look at your needs.

The Message Of Your Direct Mail Offer?

It is vital that your message is attractive, has a time sensitive offer and is sent to the right list of relevant people. This assumes that you know who the right people are, but this should not mean any more than looking at your existing client list and finding commonalities that you can use to purchase a new database for your direct mail marketing campaign. For example, if you are a commercial lawyer, you might find that your business clients share a turnover bracket and a geographic location. You can use both of those factors to ensure that any mailing list your purchase matches this criteria.

If you offer other services, such as conveyancing, you might want to target families in a certain geographic area in a set property value range. Again, this information is available to purchase.

What Is Your Offer?

The most important part of the entire campaign after a highly targeted list is to make the right offer to your audience, and to ensure that that offer is time sensitive. Members of my Marketing4Solicitors service will know my PASTOR system which I use to create all of my marketing advertisements and offers including direct mail. However, the AIDA system is nearly as good (of course not quite as good).

  • A – Attention
  • I – Interest
  • D – Desire
  • A – Action

You must attract the attention of the recipient with a headline that talks to your target audience. This must under no circumstances be the name of your firm, as this is really of no interest to your potential new client. It should either frighten or excite your recipient, but it must speak to them and answer the conversation that is going on inside their minds already. For example, in conveyancing terms this might be:

"You Can Still Move House In This Dreadful Property Market"

Once you have your headline, you need to expand their interest, before creating a desire for your service (you can see why I have created my own system for law firms as ‘desire’ and legal services hardly fit hand in hand). The only way to create desire for your services is to make an offer. My saying when it comes to making offer is that ‘No Deadline Equals Total Recline‘, meaning you absolutely must put a tight deadline on your offer or there is no urgency for the recipient to take action.

A is for Action, and this is your final call to the recipient to take action and either call you, visit your website, or to do whatever it is that you want them to do once they receive your direct mail piece.

Direct Mail Return On Investment

The final point is that you must first test a small run of your direct mail campaign to ensure that it can provide you with a return on investment. No law firm should undertake any direct mail marketing unless it provides an immediate return on investment for them in terms of instructions received and fees generated. Testing a small number (say 100) first also allows you to see how many returns you receive to show whether your direct mail list is current. If it is not, request another one and a refund from the same supplier and test again.

Need Help?

I am happy to write or edit your direct mail campaign for your law firm to make sure it has the best prospects of success of providing you with a return on investment. Please either complete my enquiry form, call 01275 855525 or obtain my contact details by downloading my free guide below.

Free Guide – 8 Ways To Instantly Attract New Clients

Solicitors Guide, 8 Ways To Instantly Increase Your Profits.

Are you using the methods ALL of my consultancy clients use successfully to generate new client instructions every month on auto-pilot? Download my free guide which will tell you:

  • The fatal mistakes most solicitors make with their advertising along with a formula to use to correct them
  • How to finally find out what is working for you so you can do more of what works and stop doing what is not working
  • The best form of marketing for solicitors (and you will be pleased to hear it does not involve spending thousands of pounds)
  • How to make more of your ‘free advertising space’ which most solicitors completely overlook
  • Website marketing – what are you missing, how can you improve or even what is it?
  • Creating your army of salesmen for your services
  • The one tip that could instantly increase your profits with NO COST whatsoever

You have nothing to lose and much to gain, so download the guide now and start taking the action that will bring you huge rewards.

Simply enter your details below to instantly receive the free guide please remember your email address is safe with me as I will NEVER pass it on):

Author: Nick Jervis

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There Is No Treasure Without Measure

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

The Only Way To Find Out When A New Blog Post Has Been Posted Is To Sign Up For Blog Alerts Using The Form Below:

Author: Nick Jervis

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