But too often when lawyers work on their marketing copy, they address those issues from the lawyer’s perception. The problem is that the lawyer’s perception of what a prospect likely thinks, believes, feels, experiences, needs, and desires is not necessarily what the prospect ’s perception is. That is not to say that you may not be close or even on target. But what you write is still from your perception, unless ….
You can make it even more in keeping with your prospects’ perceptions and what they want to know by asking them the questions you need to address your marketing copy. This will provide you not only with a more precise vision of who your prospects are and what they want but also it will provide you with their word use and phrasing.
How you might express this as a legal professional and service provider may be accurate but your words may not correspond to how prospects commonly think or talk about it. The more you can use their language to express their views the more they will tend to identify with you as someone who really understands. After all, your objective is to grab them and get them to know, like, and trust you. That is more likely if you communicate with them in a way to which they resonate.
Besides, your marketing should be more casual and conversational than legalistically formal. Any hint of the kind of writing you would be likely to do for a law journal article or brief would tend to be a turn off for a prospect. You want to write in plain English, in easily understood sentences. Not using compound-complex sentences, fifty-cent words, or unnecessary legalese.
Moreover, everything should be focused on your answering the questions the prospects have in their minds. It should detail all the benefits they will receive as your client. You have heard it before: Prospects want to know "what’s in it for me." If you want to attract prospects, convert them to clients, and then retain them to build your practice, you have to know their perspective, demonstrate it, and show how you are the ONE who can solve their problem to their emotional and financial satisfaction.
You want to immediately create a rapport that will only strengthen as you work with them - to become a relationship that will continue and foster solid referrals.
]]>1. The smaller your niche, the less competition you have.
2. The smaller your niche, the more you can demonstrate you know know, understand, have expertise and experience with it to make you the ideal one to solve their problem.
3. The smaller your niche, the less money you have to spend to reach your prospects, creating a greater return on your investment.
Your niche should be one you can reach not with a "marketing shotgun," not with a" marketing rifle," but with a "marketing rifle outfitted with a scope."
For example, Tina is a marketing consultant. Initially she offered her services to any small business. But the overall response to her marketing efforts were poor because she was just another of the faceless horde of consultants doing marketing. She had to ask herself if there were any particular segment of small busines with which she had an interest and some experience. Was there anything for which she had an affinity?
After working with paper and pencil mindmapping, she discovered she was interested in things aesthetic, particularly with respect to appearance improvement. She had had some minor cosmetic surgery that she valued and was always on the look out for products that could really make a difference in lines and skin texture.
With a hint of passion, she began researching "aesthetic physicians," such as cosmetic surgeons, cosmetic dermatologists, dermatologists, and medical spas. What she found was that despite the downturn in the economy, the demand for cosmetic improvement was creating a burgeoning industry.
While that sounded good, she wondered should she focus on all four asesthetic groups or drill down a little further into the niche to make it less broad. She asked herself, who of that group would be most likely to search for and value marketing assistance? She knew that many physicians, especially surgeons, were not that well-schooled in how to use marketing in running their business so they might be harder to convince.
She decided that medical spas and cosmetic dermatologists, who often worked together, might be more receptive and interested because both had services and products to sell. Furthermore, they seemed to have a sense of finding ways to make themselves visible above the competition. When she really narrowed her niche, she was able to tailor her marketing more precisely to this specific audience. She could demonstrate her knowledge and intimate understanding of their problems which she could readily solve.
As Tina discovered, carefully narrowing and defining her specific niche allowed her to stand out from the crowd of those who offered marketing consultation to "aesthetic practitioners" in general. Prospects could now see her as their accessible expert and she began attracting her ideal clients.
]]>Once an individual is attracted to you, by whatever external means, they plan to call. The moment they dial your phone number or enter their problem and contact information in your e-mail, your marketing re-focuses to internal techniques. Things you need to consider to have the internal prong as effective as the external prong, for example:
How long does your office let the phone ring before answering it? It should be no longer than three rings, no matter what.
How does your office answer? They need to be professional and respectful but also friendly and welcoming.
What about an approved script for all phone personnel to follow? You need to have uniformity. You also need to have phone people follow the script diligently so everything sounds well-oiled and smooth. You do not want phone people to start talking about this and that, unable to know what to do next, or answering questions that only you should answer in a consultation with the prospect.
What does your office look like? It should look crisp, clean, and comfortable with soothing colors, plants, and art work. There should be adequate seating with legal information about your practice, fees, articles you have written, those about you, as well as testimonials available. While this information should have been sent out the moment the appointment was made, having it in front of prospects as they wait can tell them more about you and reinforce what they have already learned. This can make them even more comfortable with their decision to see you.
Where is your receptionist placed? He/she should be clearly visible so the prospect does not have to walk a distance or around corners. The receptionist should be professionally dressed and welcome the individual by name, check contact information, and get them comfortable.
How long does your office let prospects wait to be seen? The longer they have to wait, the less they feel respected and important to you. You do not want them to feel like a member of a cattle herd waiting and waiting to see a doctor.
Is your stationery (both paper and envelopes) quality? Having office-copier-printed stationery looks cheap and less professional. All printed materials for prospects and clients need to make you look permanent and as if you have not skimped on them because the prospect is valued by you.
Are your business cards professional-looking, unlike every other lawyer’s card, and help differentiate you from your competition?
Do you have a quality and informative domain name for your e-mail? Using any of the free e-mail addresses does not suggest an established and professional practice. You want to convey a sense of solidity, permanence, and trustworthiness.
These are just a few of the many internal factors that can focus on and reinforce the positive feeling your prospect acted on in your external marketing. You want everything to support that you are the user-friendly, expert solver of their problem.
]]>
Confronting has become a bad word. Most people tend to think of it as an aggressive tactic. It is as if you are going to attack someone to effect that change. As a result, most people are reluctant to address irritating and disagreeable situations until they become so angry, they explode all over the offender (creating an even larger mess) or they swallow their anger (giving themselves heart palpitations or an ulcer).
A more positive and useful definition of confronting is "respectfully requesting change of a person’s behavior." It is also a way to address the situation before it gets out of control.
Many people, including lawyers, do not know how to comfortably and civilly assert themselves to get what they want without creating ill-feelings or defensiveness on the part of the other person
Where might a lawyer use confronting?
1. With a prospect who is inattentive, giving inadequate information, aggressively confrontational, trying to take control of the meeting, or being disrespectful.
2. With a person who cancels appointments at the last minute or who simply does not show up when scheduled.
3. With a client who keeps "forgetting" to bring necessary paperwork.
4. With a client who is pushing for what you feel is not in the client’s best interests
5.With staff or a partner who is behaving in ways you deem lax, inappropriate, or unacceptable.
6. With hecklers or know-it-alls at your presentations.
Let me give you an example of a client pressing for what is not in their best interests:
A lawyer had a marketing problem she wanted resolved as soon as possible. Resolving it would require her addressing both her internal marketing (office presentation) and external marketing (public visibility and credibility). Coaching sessions could be once a week or once every two weeks, but she wanted to have sessions twice a week. The following is how I confronted her about what she wanted and what I was willing to provide.
"Lee, I appreciate your eagerness to get going on your marketing assessment and strategies but I do not do more than one session per week with clients. This is because of the tasks on which you will have to work in achieving the next appointment’s goal. I have found that clients need at least one week in order to absorb the materials I give them, act on them, and evaluate the results. If you would be willing to do weekly sessions, we can work together. That would allow you to implement a strategy and start to see its results and value. However, based on my experience, I am not comfortable with anything more often as likely benefitting you."
As you can see, there is no "attacking" in this assertive confronting. It is simply a matter of
1. Saying what the situation is
2. How you see it
3. How you feel about it
4. What you would like done.
You express yourself respectfully and calmly then put the decision into the other person’s court, to change their behavior or not.
]]>
Our "feeling sorry" for them is not particularly helpful for either them or us. When we think or feel "poor thing," we tend to communicate that thought or emotion. This often results in a patronizing tone or action. They have a situation to which they have adjusted or are adjusting as part of their life and do not need to be reminded of how they may be negatively perceived. Like everyone else, they want to be accepted for who they are and not for some difference or inconvenence they live with.
This suggests that the first thing we should do is give ourselves an Attitude Adjustment. People with disabilities are people first, and people with a challenge second. That is, they are people who have lives, families, jobs, hobbies, interests, talents, skills, senses of humor, likes and dislikes, and personal opinions. They aren’t basically different from the rest of us and should not be thought of or treated differently in general. That is, like all of us, they may require assistance now and then. They want to be accepted for the person they are. As such, they want to choose when they will accept help.
One way to help us eliminate our "handicapped" thinking is to remember that the word "handicapped" came from a label for people in the 1930’s Depression who were relegated by circumstance to standing on street corners with a "cap in hand," asking for help in order to survive. People with disabilities or challenges are not "handicapped."
Since we don’t automatically know if people with disabilities require help, any more than those without disabilities, we should not assume they do. That is, we should not just push their wheelchair or take their elbow to guide them. To assume they need or want help is insulting and to act on that assumption is intrusive. Those without these challenges would not want it done to them.
We should ask those with disabilities directly if they want assistance. The degree of help needed and/or desired will depend upon many factors, such as the level of autonomy the person perceives her/himself to have achieved.
General things to remember to make these interactions smoother and more comfortable for everyone:
1. When speaking with people in wheelchairs, lean over or crouch so as not to make the person strain their neck looking at you or look into the sun.
2. When assisting a vision-impaired person, offer your elbow, not your arm, and step slightly forward of the person. This way they can use your elbow as a stabilizer. Also give specific, concrete directions about where to walk to avoid obstacles. "Turn left 90 degrees" is more specific than "Move to you left a little bit."
3. When the person is hearing-impaired, speak as loudly as necessary without shouting. Since the person may understnad you better when seeing your lips, don’t turn away, chew, eat, drink, or smoke when speaking. Speak a bit more slowly and clearly. Make sure the sun is on your face and not behind you so the other person can see you.
4.When the person has a speech-impairment, listen carefully and do not finish the other person’s sentences unless they look to you for help. When you are not sure what was said, repeat it for confirmation or correction. If you do not understand, ask short questions to help the person fill in or clarify what was missed. Do not correct the person’s pronunciation. Patiently allow the person enough time in which to communicate.
5. When helping a person with her/his equipment, do not remove it from the person’s sight or reach unless asked to do so. Having it nearby, within reach, may be important to her/his sense of control and independence.
6. If your offer of assistance is refused, do not feel angry or offended. It is no reflection on you or the value of what you have offered. Instead, it is a reflection of the other person’s sense of independence and the need to exercise same.
7. If you are curious about the cause of the person’s challenge and do not know whether to ask or not, consider how you might feel if you were scrutinized all the time because of it and asked about it repeatedly. While some may share or really want to share with you, others won’t want to. They will likely see it as an invasion of privacy. Let them broach the subject first.
The Golden Rule for interacting with people with disabilities is
* Be sensitive and see the interaction from their perspective
* Follow the lead of the challenged person
* Treat them like a human being first.
]]>
Everything people want to accomplish is based on trust. But trust means their putting themselves emotionally in someone else’s hands. Specifically, it means risking beneficial and harmful consequences by being open and accepting. It means that in exchange for their making themselves dependent, vulnerable, and open to sharing private information, thoughts, and feelings with you, you will provide resources and protect them.
In order for individual lawyers to separate themselves from the negative stereotype of lawyers as "untrustworthy," they need to demonstrate sincerity, openness, and client-orientation in everything they do. This includes both their external marketing (ads, articles, videos, seminars) and internal marketing (office procedures and comunication).
Trustworthiness includes
- Credibility - demonstrating that your word or promise can be relied upon
- Consideration - taking care not to hurt the client
- Understanding - making every effort to understand and be clear
- Confidentiality - not sharing any private information about the client.
To get a sense of how prospects and clients feel about coming to you with their intimate problems, ask a close friend or relative to do this experiment with you. In an open area outside or in an uncluttered room, blindfold yourself and have your partner guide you around for ten minutes, holding your arm and giving you verbal instructions. Next have your partner guide you for 15 minutes by verbal instructions alone. Describe what you feel as you move around and note any changes in your level of fear and awkwardness.
To increase the public, prospects, and clients’ perception of trust in you, you need to
- Show respect
- Deep-six arrogance and a sense of superiority
- Demonstrate sincerity and openness
- Demonstrate expertise and experience only as a benefit to the client
- Be sensitive to clients’ needs and feelings
- Communicate clearly and plainly, using legal terms only when necessary
- Explain everything verbally and in writing
- Be willing to give any information requested
- Give feedback
- Be open to clients’ feedback
- Be realistic
- Be consistent in your standards, behaviors, and values
- Never forget that everything depends on creating that rapport
- Live up to any any promise or legal contract you make
- Maintain confidentiality no matter what
- Avoid the appearance of ulterior motives, slickness, or unprofessionalism.
Being perceived as trustworthy is every bit as important as your being seen as a legal professional and experienced legal expert in your specialty.
]]>
1. Public spirited
2. Addressing a problem about which many people are concerned
3. Free
4. Held in a Main Street location so passersby, the public, prospects, and clients can attend and benefit.
PR expert Marcia Yudkin has described a great example. Her local bank sponsored a "Shred-It" event, wherein it invited the public to bring in old bank statements, bills, credit card offers, etc. to be professionally shredded to protect against identity theft.
What this event had going for it as great marketing were the following:
- There was a visual action component in a festive outdoor atmosphere wherein many hundreds of papers were whizzing through a large number of shredders.
- This unusual type of event was more likely to attract TV crews and newspaper photographers.
- The event was promoting a non-controversial cause.
- It was geared toward helping consumers actively avoid identity theft.
- The public-spiritedness positions the company positively.
- The event shows company awareness of public responsibility.
- When the event is free, it is more likely to be listed in newspapers, on the radio as a public service announcement, and on online community calendars.
- The event allows for handing out flyers at the event (as well as posting online) with practical suggestions for further preventing identity theft.
- Flyers also provide more information for TV coverage and newspaper story of the event and its importance.
- When you are a for-profit business, it is helpful to team up with a not-for-profit to boost your chances of getting media coverage of your event.
The question you as a lawyer need to ask yourself is how you can create a similar event—one that will provide useful information to your community as well as make you a known, public-spirited, adn valued resource.
]]>Are you a leader in your field and especially in your community? You need to be. One way to rid yourself of the stigma of being a "lawyer" and all the biases and misperceptions that go with it is to step out of your lawyer role and step into visible community activities.
But you may be saying, "leaders are born, not made." Au contraire. Research has shown that leaders are mostly those who rise to the demands of the situation and who have two important characteristics. One is good interpersonal skills, with emphasis on speaking and communication skills. The other is emphasis on community and identification with that community.
This suggests that even if you believe you were born "charisma-challenged," you can learn these skills and effectively apply them to be a leader.
To be seen as a leader you have to be seen by your public, prospects, and clients as a valued professional who is "one of us," "most of us," and the "best of us." Specifically,
"One of us" means you demonstrate that you come from or are very similar to that group so they can identify comfortably with you.
"Most of us" means that you not only understand and relate to the group as a whole but also can represent it because you are one of them.
"Best of us" means you have something extra that puts you slightly above the group’s power—spark, skill, talent, experience, expertise— which compels them to look to you to help them achieve their goals.
All leaders tend to be oriented toward one of two types. One type is the "socio-emotional leader." This is someone who primarily creates a good psychological climate within the group, is responsive to and addresses the personal needs, issues, problems, and uniqueness of individuals within the group. The other type is "task leader." This person is focused primarily on getting the job done as efficiently as possible.
The most effective leader is one who embodies both leader focuses and uses each situation and goal to determine where to place e appropriate emphasis. To be seen as an effective leader requires only that you have a situation in which you (1) can act as leader and (2) have the skills and vision necessary to do what is needed to accomplish the task positively.
To prepare yourself to act as a leader, you need to
1. Work on your speaking and interpersonal skills that will put you on your community’s communication and understanding level
2. Know what skills, abilities, talents, values, attitudes, philosophies, experience, and expertise you possess which may be helpful to create the image and do the job
3.Create a vision of yourself as leader, the situation’s goal, and your plan to achieve it
4. Commit yourself to the vision to see that it is implemented positively to benefit the public, your prospects, and clients.
One particularly good way for lawyers to demonstrate leadership is to become involved in both less-visible and more-visible community tasks and activities. You can do this in many ways, such as
1. Acting as a sponsor for charity events
2. Participating in education, sports, business, and social activities
3. Volunteering for community boards.
You can also write informational articles for local papers and magazines as well as create handouts that provide the public, prospects, and clients with time-relevant, practical tips. These can educate your community with both general and specific information they need to begin to solve their pressing law-related problems and create a rapport of trust with you.
Changing the stereotypically negative "lawyer image" for yourself requires only that you be seen as a valued resource, willing to be part of and actively lead projects helpful to the community … just because you are a concerned citizen and leader-like member of it.
]]>
When that happens, you probably run through a progression of emotions from sadness and loss to anger and self-pity. These are part of the universal experience of disappointment. Depending upon your marketing savvy, you may experience this infrequently or over and over again. If this becomes a pattern of habitual unrealistic thinking about how to reach, attract, recruit, convert, and retain your clients, you will find yourself grieving and resentful that somehow life is treating you and your practice "unfairly."
To deal with your disappointment requires that you consider two things: One is the reasons you are not reaching your marketing goals. The other is what you think and feel about this problem. Getting help to step outside yourself to objectively assess your marketing plan and its specific strategies and tactics is the easy part. Exploring what you think and feel about it all is harder.
Expectations which produce disappointment may be the result of faulty judgment, unrealistic wishes, exaggerated hopes, or dependence upon chance. However, the closer your expectations are connected to reality—the more they match your beliefs about the actual probability of the occurrence of marketing effectiveness—the less likely they are to disappoint you … or do so severely. Positive expectations are important to keep you moving forward but only if you keep them grounded in reality.
Expectations give you an imagined sense of control over matters external to yourself, which is comforting. Moreover, the harder you wish and expect a particular outcome, the surer you become that it will happen. It is almost as if your expectations could magically will it into existence. When you create this emotional preparation, you also create a cognitive certainty of its occurrence. And when these expectations do not come to fruition, you will tend to feel cheated.
The best way to address and reduce disappointment is to reduce the its possibility beforehand. You do that by researching and testing your marketing strategies. You also do that by carefully evaluating your positive expectations of your having marketing success with those particular strategies.
To further make your expectations better grounded you need to think of each positive expectation as a continuum of possibilities. It ranges from those things which are realistically possible on the one end to those that are not, no matter what action is taken, on the other.
In the future, you can set up a scale from one to five, with one being attainable to five being unattainable. But to deal with the current pain of past marketing disappointments you need to
1. Dissect the expectation
2. Separate the "wish" from your belief of its actually occurring
3. Determine how much control or influence you really have over the situation
4. Recognize that expectations not grounded in reality represent magical thinking
5. Unrealistic expectations, wishes, and hopes can condemn you to marketing self-sabotage
6. Chronic disappointment is a wakeup call that something external and/or internal is not working.
You can never totally alleviate disappointment because you do not have total control over all the variables that affect your marketing, clients, and practice. But you can become more strategically, emotionally, and cognitively wise about the marketing you do, how you do it, and how you choose to respond to its results.
]]>
All ads can do is say, "Hey, here I am. I’m great and I do this." Big deal! Yes, they may make people who look at the Yellow pages aware of you (if they actually spot you), but what about the many others who do not look at the Yellow Pages? Besides, who is going to accept as the unvarnished truth what you say about yourself?
If you are going to convince your prospect that you are THE solver of their specific problem, you are going to have to more than that. "But," lawyers have told me, "I also have a web site." Great! What do you have on it? "More information about what I do." What does that mean? "The kinds of cases I handle, the number of attorneys in the firm, the awards we’ve won." Likewise, big deal!
Having a web site about your practice is barest bones marketing. In fact, it is more like advertising than marketing unless you demonstate that you understand your prospect’s problem emotionally and behaviorally. Unless you indicate you will solve that problem as quickly as possible with the least pain to them. Unless you show them all the benefits they will accrue in working with you. You have to say and show it loud and clear what is in it for them.
If you have a web site, you need to provide information for prospects. That is, useful articles giving information about approaches to their problems. Or simple things they can do to prepare to meet with an attorney. Or explanations of the legal context in which their problem fits since so few non-lawyers truly understand the legal system and have misperceptions about it. You are claiming to be an authority so share with them your expertise and experience.
What you do to attract your prospects has little to do with your practice directly. It has everything to do with your prospect, their needs, desires, attitudes, perceptions, expectations, and problems. Once you can snag their attention, get them to call to make an appointment, you are only the conduit through which they can reach their goals. Unless you approach your getting visibility and credibility for your practice with this mindset, you are not effectively "marketing" yourself as THE solution to their problem.
You are, instead, only hoping and wishing clients will simply fall into your arms. Perhaps in small communities where there are very few attorneys from whom to choose, you may feel comfortable with only your Yellow Pages ad and/or your feature-oriented web site. But should you have real competition or want to create more profitability, these non-marketing approaches are not likely to work for long.
For law or any other profession, advertising does not make the case that you are THE desirable and appropriate problem solver. But marketing CAN. That is why marketing is not only a priority but also the ultimate priority for making your law practice a success.
]]>