(long read. ~10 min)
“We don’t know d*** about marketing.”
This was one of the most honest, vulnerable things an attorney-client ever said to me.
It’s hard for attorneys (and learned professionals in general) to admit they don’t understand part of their business.
They’re supposed to be trusted advisors, and a lot of the time, they really are the smartest people in the room.
But law school doesn’t produce great marketers (some argue it doesn’t even produce great lawyers).
That’s why it’s so frustrating for great attorneys that hang up their shingles wanting to do good work for people, only to be smacked in the face with the struggle of bringing in enough good clients.
Dedicated to Justice, Yet Client Acquisition Isn’t Just…
Even if you have enough consultations, it can be exhausting to have perfect prospective clients – whom you know you’re the perfect attorney for – just walk out of your office, after you’ve spent all that time listening to their whole story and fully explaining their legal situation.
And it can be a huge punch in the gut when you hear they hired some big firm where they’re going to be billed twice as much to be handed off to a first-year associate, or they went with that jackass who could barely pass the bar on his fourth attempt.
The “best attorneys” often do not get the “best cases.”
Lessons from Law School Lessen Your Law Firm…
Part of that problem is baggage from law school.
They might have taught you how to make your case and ask “good questions.” But arguments to a judge and the kinds of questions you ask in a deposition are completely different from the way you have to present your firm in marketing and the kinds of questions you should be asking in your consultations.
It’s also drilled into you that solicitation is the devil. And while ambulance chasing and cold calling should be off the table, I’ve seen attorneys so paranoid about solicitation that they were afraid to remind folks they could call their office for a consultation at the end of a blog post on their own website.
The problem with most learned professionals is that they did well in school. In school, there’s generally a “right” answer. Even when grading may be subjective, you generally only have one professor to cater to. If you work to improve a score from 30% to 45%, that’s still a failing grade. Really anything less than 80% seems wholly unacceptable.
But take those standards over to promoting a business, and you can get stuck, really quick. Go from 30% conversion to 45% conversion, for example, and that’s not a 15-point improvement, that’s a 50% increase in your business. But for people that went their whole life believing an “A” was hitting 90%, the idea of just getting a 45% success rate seems unfathomable and can make so many efforts seem like they’re not even worth the effort or the expense.
Comparison is the Thief of… Progress
Being graded on a curve in law school didn’t really help, either. It becomes second nature (even beyond our typical human nature) to compare yourself to your peers. You look around and see what everyone else is doing and make adjustments to your own marketing based on what appears to be working for them.
But this can be a trap.
Someone says they get most of their clients from showing up first on a Google search, so you buy into SEO.
Somebody else says it’s all about their Google My Business ratings, so you invest in trying to get your reviews up.
This other firm looks like they’re killing it on social – so you spend hours (that you might have been able to bill) trying to figure out a content strategy.
You look into pay per click – but the same firms that pay for billboards, also drive those rates up to hundreds of dollars per click.
You hear Local Service Ads or a “screened lead” service does wonders for other firms, with the same practice area, but when you try it, your phone just gets clogged up with people looking for free legal advice.
Should you do webinars?
Put on events?
Have intricate “sales funnels” and “nurture sequences” built out?
Yes, all these things can work. They just might not work for you, and where your firm is at.
They might not even be working for your peers…
The problem with not understanding why things are working (or not) is you get trapped doing “all the things,” but then not being able to tell what you can stop for fear that it might be the one thing that is working or holding it all together.
And there’s a good chance that your peers that look like they’re crushing it are spending money every month on marketing channels that they wonder if they could turn off…
But just like attorneys that get in the habit of driving more car than they can really afford to “keep up appearances” of success, no one likes talking about what’s not working.
If you are getting ready to try something because one of your peers said it worked, make sure they can also explain why it worked, and look to see if their firm and current marketing and sales strategy, on the whole, is similar to yours.
You’re Just a Fat Paycheck
So, where do you go to figure out what will work for you?
Being professionals, most lawyers growing small firms turn to “other professionals.” But marketing and sales don’t have a bar or even a code of professional conduct or standards. It’s the wild west.
But that kid that took a $5000 social media marketing course does probably know more about how to set up a Facebook ads campaign than you, and knows how to calculate ROAS and ACoS and what those terms even mean.
But to the man with a hammer, every problem is a nail.
If you talk to a web design and SEO firm, your problem is likely going to be the “backend site architecture and authority” of your site.
If you talk to a Google My Business expert, your issue is going to be your lack of quality reviews.
A social media “expert,” is probably going to identify your lack of compelling, on-brand, content.
Ultimately, the problem with asking vendors for a strategic analysis of your sales and marketing plan is that the vast majority of vendors aren’t strategists; they’re tacticians.
It would be like asking a tire shop how to make your car more fuel efficient. They’re going to focus on selling you better tires and teach you about proper inflation. That may help, but your bigger problem may be an old air filter, a clogged fuel filter, or some other hyper-technical issue inside the mechanics of the engine.
Lately, there has been a rise in so-called “law firm marketing agencies.” And it may be true that they focus or work solely with attorneys, but that doesn’t mean have a natural affinity for legal practices.
It could just mean they’re eating their own dog food. That course that “certified” them as a marketer told them to pick a niche. One that was easy to target, had a need for their services, and could afford to pay for them.
And where does that lead? Attorneys. At least in the eyes of the average marketer. Attorneys make a lot of money, right?
For whatever reason, though, it doesn’t always translate to them that just because your billable hour rate may be $350, that doesn’t mean you’re billing 40 hours a week. Or even 20… (Or 10).
But you do want more, better clients, right?
You have to be doing something, right?
And what they’re selling has worked for other attorneys, right?
Maybe it would just be easier to work through referrals…
The Joy and Anguish of Referrals
I’ve never met an attorney that didn’t like having referrals. They may not have liked all the referrals they were receiving, but when I suggested they stop networking or asking for them, they looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
And when I ask if they would be happy if all their leads were referrals, and they could sustain and grow off just referrals, the answer is almost always yes.
They may have never thought about it, but they know why. Referrals from past clients or trusted referral sources are much easier to convert into retainers, they convert at a higher rate, and are often (though not always) better clients.
Even if they’re paying 20% or 25% “participation fees,” to other attorneys, they see referrals as their most profitable source of business.
The few “no” responses I get around referrals are often because they have already run into the biggest limiting factor of referrals.
Scalability.
There are plenty of services, education programs, and organizations out there that promise to increase the number of qualified referrals your firm receives. And they can deliver.
They’re also often far less expensive than other marketing channels. But then, folks find out that scaling referrals cost a lot more of the resources most small law firm owners lack the most of:
Time and energy.
Coffees and lunches, outreach on LinkedIn, gifting campaigns.
It’s a whole other sales and marketing process just to stay differentiated and top of mind.
And while being an excellent attorney may occasionally result in someone referring you simply out of merit, the reality is the best cases are often NOT referred to the best attorneys, either.
It’s enough to make you question all your life choices, and at the very least cry out to the heavens:
WHY CAN’T IT JUST BE ENOUGH TO BE A GREAT ATTORNEY?
It’s Necessary, Just Not Sufficient
You remember this from the LSAT, right?
To have a sustainably growing small law firm, providing great legal work is absolutely necessary.
Not delivering results and poor client service eventually catch up to everyone.
But it is not sufficient.
And neither are all those marketing tactics that you’re being relentlessly pitched by phone, in your email, and your social DMs.
They may be necessary. Or at least will promote you getting the quantity and quality of clients you need.
But none of them are enough on their own.
You can have “all the things” telling your prospective client why you’re the “best attorney” for them, yet all the branding, marketing, ads, followup sequences, glide paths, and sales training in the world are not going to help you scale in a sustainable way.
At least not affordably.
Why Clients Don’t Hire the “Best Attorney”
There is one little switch I’ve seen clients make that fundamentally changes how they approach client acquisition. It’s this little realization:
Clients don’t hire the “best attorney.” They hire the best attorney for them.
And those are two completely different sets of decision metrics.
The vast majority of sales and marketing advice out there ultimately comes down to one thing: show your prospective client that you’re the best choice.
But therein lies the problem…
How do you define “best?”
Credentials? Pedigree? Track Record? All the things people put on their applications to some rating or award judged by other attorneys?
Take a look at most attorney profiles and websites, and that’s the apparent answer.
Those things are great, and absolutely factor into people’s buying decisions. They just aren’t the first things, and when it comes to persuasion, aren’t even close to the most important.
That’s because before anyone can get to the logical, rational items that establish your credibility, they first make a decision to go there based on trust.
And trust is far more emotional than it is rational.
It’s why people can look at a beautifully laid out legal strategy, weigh all the logical reasoning (including your price point), and agree that it’s in your favor, then go and hire someone else not as qualified to handle their situation.
Because they “ just clicked,” or they “went with their gut,” or they, “felt they were a better fit.”
You may have heard that all decisions begin with an emotion, then are justified with logic and reason.
And it’s true. Neurologically.
When people have a desire (including the desire to relieve some pain) and are met with multiple options to satisfy it, they will go with the one that “feels right.” That feeling is trust in the solution.
The trust that it’s going to work for them, in their situation, and help them achieve the outcome they’re looking for.
Some logical barriers like price or time or availability may prevent them from making the choice, but that doesn’t mean that’s not what they wanted to go with. It just means they settled for what they could attain.
This is why referrals are often so much easier to convert.
They bake trust into the equation. Whoever referred you already had some level of trust with your prospective client, and they lent that trust to you.
How to Establish Trust, and Why So Many Law Firms Suck at It
One word: Empathy
The “best” attorney for your prospective client isn’t the one with the best credentials or track record or pedigree.
It’s the attorney that shows them they understand not only their problem but why it’s unique to them.
The attorney that sees their perceived obstacles and conveys not only why their solution works, but why it will work for them.
The one that tells them not how they’ll achieve an outcome, but the one that shows they understand the outcome the client wants (whether realistic or not) and why they want it.
But look at most law firm messaging, and it does none of this.
It’s all about the firm and its founder.
How great they are.
Why they are the best, most logical choice.
But in the vast majority of cases, people don’t want “an attorney.” They want an advocate.
And if they don’t believe that you actually care about them and helping them get the outcome they want, they couldn’t care less about all the pieces of paper on your office wall.
Rethink Your Branding, Marketing, and Sales (Simple, but Not Easy)
Is this heresy?
Isn’t it unethical to get emotionally involved in your clients’ cases?
No one is saying you need to be emotionally empathetic. You don’t have to feel what they feel and let emotions cloud your professional judgment.
But you do have to be cognitively empathetic. You do have to understand them. And you have to convey that understanding.
What this looks like is understanding not only your different practice areas and services, but the different client profiles that use them, and communicating with them in a way that will resonate with their pains and desires.
That’s tough. For some people more than others. But the hardest part is coming up with messaging for all the different types of problems you’re facing.
That means that instead of talking about “Divorce,” in general, you talk about what it’s like being a wife petitioner (and all the questions and concerns going on in their minds) differently than how you talk to a husband respondent.
You have content for entrepreneurs establishing a business that is different from a seasoned business pro that needs to update their employment contracts or create a buy/sell agreement.
You have to focus on a target audience – one profile for one service – create “branding” content that resonates with them, an offer of service that goes beyond the competition, and an intake and sales process that makes them feel seen. Then tie all that together into one, cohesive campaign.
And that means there’s a lot more to say than just listing off your services, posting some reviews, and displaying all your accolades.
You Don’t Have to Niche Your Practice, Just Your Messaging
I’m not recommending you get hyper-niched and only focus on a specialty service for one unique profile of a client and drop all your other practice areas.
What you’re doing now is working to some degree.
But you need to start building.
Create one focused campaign for the next quarter. Then another. You won’t lose all the work you put into the first one. It can continue to run or can be shelved until it becomes relevant again next year.
Before long, you’ll have focused, strategic content that makes it obvious that you put your client first, and not your ego.
They’ll come to you already believing that you can help them in their situation. Cold leads will become almost as warm (and in some cases warmer) than referrals, and still be scalable.
And, even better, “all the things” you’re currently doing with marketing and sales will magically start to fit together, one thing leading to another.
You’ll have clear ideas of what needs to happen next. KPIs will become obvious. You’ll be able to easily shut down pitchmen by explaining to them how what they’re offering doesn’t fit within the current strategy.
Even your referral partners will have a clearer picture of your unique ability to solve specific problems. So when that specific problem comes up, there’ll be no question of who would be “the best” person to refer it to.
Happy to Help
I know… this can be a big idea to envision. But ultimately, we know this is the way small firms without million-dollar marketing budgets are able to cut through all the noise and connect with their ideal clients.
If you’d like to get a “virtual coffee” and discuss what this might look like in your firm, we’re happy to do it, at no charge. Take a look at my calendar for the next few weeks, and grab a time that works for you.
