Leveraging the 80/20 Rule to Accelerate Law Firm Performance

Leveraging the 80/20 Rule to Accelerate Law Firm Performance

When it comes to law firm marketing, most things matter very little, and a few things matter greatly. The trick is distinguishing between the two. It’s worth the effort, because identifying your firm’s highest impact, highest leverage marketing activities and investments is the key to accelerating performance. Consider the following examples to put things into perspective.
 

Where We Spend Our Time and Attention

These days, most large law firms solicit feedback from clients about their satisfaction with the firm’s services. Smaller firms may not have a systematic feedback program in place, but seek input from clients in a more informal manner. Either way, the point is to distill the data and make performance and client service improvements.

Let’s assume that you put in place a feedback program that asks clients to rank interactions with your firm on a scale of 1 (very negative) to 7 (very positive). Let’s further assume that the results are mixed—there’s a relatively mixed distribution of responses across the spectrum.

10 Things Every Lawyer Should Consider Before Writing a Book

10 Things Every Lawyer Should Consider Before Writing a Book

Polls suggest that over 80 percent of Americans want to write a book, but only a small percentage of them actually do. That being said, book publishing is on the rise. Self publishing is easier than ever, and Amazon offers an amazing marketplace to sell books.

A few days ago I launched a new book called The Essential Associate: Step Up, Stand Out, and Rise to the Top as a Young Lawyer. It’s a book that provides my take on what is required to succeed as a young associate in the practice of law and the business of law in today’s competitive environment, and also includes the insights of dozens of top lawyers, general counsel at Fortune 500 companies, and leading consultants to the legal industry whom I interviewed as part of the research for the book.

How Lawyers can Build “Know, Like, and Trust” Personal Brands

How Lawyers can Build “Know, Like, and Trust” Personal Brands

Clients buy legal services from lawyers, not law firms. Firms invest heavily in their brands, but primarily for the purpose of empowering their attorneys to develop business themselves. Law firms lay the foundation. Individual lawyers need to build.

Selling legal services is relational not transactional. It takes time. It requires consistency. Unless you’re selling a commodity, which means you’re competing on price, you need to invest in relationships to attract and keep clients.

In their book, The Go-Giver, Bob Burg and John David Mann explain that, “All things being equal people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like, and trust.”

How to Build a Powerful, High-Performing Law Firm Website

How to Build a Powerful, High-Performing Law Firm Website

A law firm website should be, or at least it can be, an exciting place for clients to learn new things. It should inspire action toward goals and be the first stop on a prospective client’s buyer’s journey. Done right, a law firm website can be the engine that drives a law firm’s growth.

Unfortunately, few law firms realize these benefits.

A Strategic Approach to Legal Business Development

A Strategic Approach to Legal Business Development

Many of us treat legal business development the same way we do bathing suit season - we work hard at it when we need to. When spring break approaches we hit the gym, and when October rolls around we start raiding our kids’ Halloween candy. When we’re slow at work, we ramp up our business development efforts, and tamp things down when business pick up. Legal business development becomes a rollercoaster; a cycle of ups and downs that creates stress and uncertainty.

There’s a better way to approach legal business development, and it involves consistency of effort over the long-term. If you’re consistent with business development as a lawyer, you’ll have a steady pipeline of new business opportunities. You can be more discerning about the work you take on. You won’t feel pressured to take on clients that don’t fit your practice. You won’t have to ignore your gut instinct that an engagement could lead to trouble because you need the revenue. You’ll have more success at the work you do pitch because you’ll come across as confident and measured, rather than desperate.

Sounds good, right? Here’s how to do it.

How Lawyers can Create Content that Spreads on LinkedIn

How Lawyers can Create Content that Spreads on LinkedIn

Lawyers need to be strategic in their approach on LinkedIn. And one of the most important strategic priorities is to create and share content that reaches the right audience. Indeed, the only way to make a really big impact as a lawyer on LinkedIn is to put your best content front and center. 

Want to create viral content on LinkedIn that spreads beyond your immediate network and positions you as a thought leader in your space? Yes, of course, but the real question is: How?

In this post I dive deep into the issues of: (1) how to create compelling content, (2) how the LinkedIn algorithm works, and (3) in light of the way content spreads on LinkedIn, how lawyers can craft a smart content strategy to make their thought leadership reach a big audience.

LinkedIn for Lawyers: 10 Steps to Business Development Success

LinkedIn for Lawyers: 10 Steps to Business Development Success

According to the 2016 ABA Legal Technology Survey report, more than 93% of lawyers surveyed now use LinkedIn, with large firm attorneys using it the most. There’s a good reason for this—LinkedIn has almost 600 million members and is easily the most “target rich” social media platform for a lawyer with a business-oriented practice. LinkedIn is a professional network, which means that people are spending time there for the purpose of doing business. There is no doubt that LinkedIn is the best place online for lawyers looking to grow their networks and their practices.

 

The problem, however, is that too many lawyers use LinkedIn as a place to connect and scroll through other people’s posts, rather than as a tool to aid in business development. LinkedIn has everything a lawyer might need to establish relationships that lead to new business. It’s just a matter of leveraging the tools to best effect.

How to Create a Stunning, Lead-Generating Law Firm Website in 30 Days or Less

How to Create a Stunning, Lead-Generating Law Firm Website in 30 Days or Less

When we start working on a law firm website project, we ask our clients: “What do you want your website to accomplish?” One of the most common answers we hear, often delivered with an irresolute shrug of the shoulders, is: “We really just need an online brochure.”

We hate hearing this term—“online brochure”—because it sets such a low bar for what should be a law firm’s strongest marketing asset. A law firm website should look great and function flawlessly, sure. That’s table stakes. But done right, it can be the fuel powering a marketing engine that tells a compelling story, attracts ideal clients, generate leads, and turn leads into new business. Best of all, by incorporating the right mix of marketing automation technology, it can work for your while you’re busy working for your clients.

Sounds good, right? But I know what you’re thinking: “We don’t have the time or the money to invest in a new website.”

Provide More Value to Build Your Personal Brand

Provide More Value to Build Your Personal Brand

Ever wonder why some writers get all the attention online? Their posts get shared, their personal brands grow, their email lists swell, and their fortunes rise as their content receives an outsized share of eyeballs.

It’s easy to dismiss their success as luck, by concluding that it resulted from a post going viral (as if hitting “Publish” is the same as pulling the lever on a slot machine), or connections with influencers that others don’t have. Meanwhile, we keep publishing but never gain traction. We preach to the choir of a stagnant email list and collect a few random likes and shares on LinkedIn. As our progress stalls so does our output. Before long, we conclude this “content thing” isn’t worth the time and we go back to billing hours and researching the next marketing trend to chase.

If You’re Good at What You Do, and You Know Who You Serve, it’s Your Duty to Sell

If You’re Good at What You Do, and You Know Who You Serve, it’s Your Duty to Sell

Think about the last time there was a serious problem that needed to be fixed at your home – the furnace went out on a cold day or a pipe burst and water was running down your walls. Now imagine if, during this moment of panic, a highly qualified and dependable repair person contacted you out of the blue and said they could be at your front door within 15 minutes to fix the problem. Would you be offended by this sales pitch, or would you be grateful for the offer? My guess is that you – like me – would immediately give the guy your address, and greet him with a hug and an open checkbook when he arrived.

“Selling” has become a dirty word. It connotes sleaze and pushiness, and there’s no doubt that some salespeople are sleazy and pushy. But in most cases, it’s not that salespeople do anything underhanded or aggressive that turns us off, it’s just that they hit us up with something we don’t need or at a time we don’t need it. This is true whether you’re a used car salesman, an Apple store “Genius” or a corporate litigator.