Questions To Answer When Thinking About Leaving Quality Solicitors
In this article I will look at the benefits of remaining a Quality Solicitors, the benefits of leaving Quality Solicitors, and the action steps that you should take before you exit your Quality Solicitors membership, should you decide to do so.
1. List The Benefits You Receive From Quality Solicitors Membership
The first thing to do is to list all of the benefits that you receive from your membership.
I know that lead generation, in other words making your telephone ring with new client enquiries, whilst touted as a substantial benefit when Quality Solicitors launched, isn’t often something that is delivered consistently or in large volumes.
The difficulty you will have is knowing which leads are coming solely from the efforts of the Quality Solicitors marketing team, and which just come back to you time and time again as your law firm has been in existence for a very long time.
In my experience, it is often the latter.
I base this on having looked at the visitor numbers to many Quality Solicitors websites and finding them to be below what I would expect another firm of a similar size, which is not a Quality Solicitors firm, to have to their website each month.
I know that other benefits received include access to software providers, search facilitators and many other service providers at potentially discounted rates.
You need to list all of the service providers that you access through your Quality Solicitors membership, then obtain quotes from the same or similar companies as if you were not a Quality Solicitors law firm.
Cost them out and see if the rates are any different, and if they are, does the additional cost still save you money when you take into account your Quality Solicitors membership fee.
2. Your Quality Solicitors Website
This is one that, as a law firm growth specialist, really irks me.
I cannot tell you how many law firms I spoke with many years ago and advised them that if they felt they must join Quality Solicitors, the one thing that they must do is to always keep their own website live as well as the Quality Solicitors one.
They all ignored me, and sadly as most of them subsequently left Quality Solicitors and had to start the website building process from scratch, they lived to regret the choice.
The main reason is that Google rewards the longevity of a domain.
A bad website design on a very old domain name (eg smithersjoneslaw.co.uk) will often beat a new website on a new website domain. Google rewards age.
What this means is that all of those firms that joined and jettisoned their old websites in favour of the Quality Solicitors one lost all of the goodwill in their website domain name, and had to start from fresh all over again. As Google puts all new websites in the ‘sandbox’ (abyss) for six months when they are launched, this is a lot of lost business opportunity.
If your thought of leaving Quality Solicitors at the moment is only a fleeting one, my advice is to buy your domain name and put a website live on it as soon as possible. You will thank me for that in the long term, I can assure you.
It should also help you in your decision making process, in that if you put up a new bespoke website for your law firm on a new or preferably your old domain name which you kept, when you start to receive enquiries from it, it will give you more confidence if you decide to leave Quality Solicitors.
3. Any Other Reasons To Leave Quality Solicitors?
The points above are the main ones, but my advice would be to have an old fashioned piece of paper on your desk with two columns, leave or stay, and over the next few weeks jot down any reasons for or against.
There may be many small benefits of remaining with Quality Solicitors that you have forgotten, or likewise many small irritations or problems cause by your Quality Solicitors membership.
You need to give them all some proper consideration, so that list is the way to ensure that you do not miss anything.
Summary On Leaving Quality Solicitors
For every law firm the decision on whether to leave Quality Solicitors or remain is a personal one.
Use the steps above to ensure you make the best choice for your firm.
If you would like to set up a time with me to discuss this in more detail, I will be happy to help.
Simply download my book below (which will show you the only four methods you need to grow your law firm) and I will show you how to set up a time to talk with me.