Legal Practice Pro» bankruptcy marketing

Legal Marketing Tip: Cast A Narrow Net

Jay Fleischman — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:00:26 +0000

We all know that not everyone will become our client – if that were the case then we’d be the only lawyer in court, which would get pretty boring (though wildly profitable). But lawyers forget that when marketing their law practices, opting to create a strategy that will bring in every single person under the sun.

Bad idea. Very, very bad idea.

Here’s why: when you market your practice you are, by necessity, going to need to tell a story that your prospective client finds compelling. We relate to stories, we inject ourselves into them, and they allow us to help our audience understand what we’ve got to offer.

Bankruptcy lawyer? You’re going to want to tell a story about how ending financial problems isn’t the end of the world. To do that effectively you need to tell about how someone filed for bankruptcy and went on to great success. Ideally, that person would need to be just like your prospective client. If the character in the story is completely unlike the prospective client then there will be no opportunity for the person to mentally inject himself or herself into the story.

Divorce lawyer? You’re going to talk about how ending a marriage can help the prospective client be happier and more productive. Your story will possibly feature a parent who has a better relationship with his or her children post-divorce and who didn’t lose everything. Maybe even a child of divorce talking about how much calmer life was without mom and dad throwing plates at one another. Whatever, you get the picture.

Regardless of your field, you need to understand one very simple (and painful) fact of business life:

You Will Not Appeal to Every Possible Client, So You Should Not Waste Your Time Chasing Them All

Over at IdeaLaunch, an article about how your potential client base does not include everyone. The article speaks to the product or service that doesn’t appeal to everyone, but I’d like to take it a step beyond that – you, gentle reader, won’t appeal to everyone. And if you try to, you will not appeal to anyone at all.

Take, for example, me. I’m a cheapo, do-it-yourself guy who runs a law firm from his kitchen table. I don’t like to wear shoes, prefer to keep CNN on in the background, and need to be as close to my coffee pot each day as possible. I enjoy spending time with my family so much that I’ve structured my entire life and practice around them.

Most lawyers would hide behind this, opting to create an online and offline legal marketing campaign that would make liberal use of the royal “we.” Nowhere would it be mentioned that the lawyer works from home, and the language would be completely middle-of-the-road. Consequently, the lawyer probably wouldn’t attract very many of his or her ideal clients – in other words, clients who not only understand the legal system but relate to the lawyer in such a way as to create a bond of influence.

This isn’t to say that the lawyer wouldn’t make a good living or attract a lot of inquiries, but the relationships wouldn’t be so strong right out of the box. There would be a constant uphill battle of explaining how the office works, why there’s a dog barking in the background, and the whole, “I don’t have an office so I don’t want you coming to my house to drop off documents,” thing.

What did I do? I told my story, revealed my personality, and let people know exactly how I work. I tell my audience about my family (within reason), my life (again, without revealing my address and other things that could compromise my family’ safety in the wrong hands) and things like that. I let people know about my world, why I practice the way I do, and the things they need to do in order to work with me.

Result? I attract people with whom I have an affinity. People who see a little of themselves in me and my point of view. People who identify with me and, in so doing, are attracted to the prospect of working with me. By aligning myself with others who share my view of the world, I attract clients who would never think of using another lawyer. They’re willing to pay my fees without a second thought, comply with requests for documents, and evangelize on my behalf. When I tell them something is good, they accept it at face value. And when I say something is bad, they don’t ask questions.

They trust me because they see a little bit of their own world in mine.

Could I honestly and reliably do this with the entire pool of people who might need to file for bankruptcy? No way. Not everyone is going to like the way I do business, and those people aren’t a good fit for me. I can’t jam a square peg into a round hole. They won’t work well with me, won’t be happy with me, and won’t refer other people to me.

What’s your narrow net?

Photo courtesy of Stuart Herbert.

Evangelize Or Fossilize When Marketing Your Law Practice

Jay Fleischman — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:30:03 +0000

I was driving to a conference a few weeks ago and had a chance to listen to the radio for the first time in awhile. The iPhone connection to the radio was working, but I couldn’t be bothered to fiddle with it to get my favorite podcasts. Instead, I decided to see what the local stations had in store for me.

My fingers stopped at an FM station with an evangelical preacher of some denomination. Usually I would flip to something with fast, poppy music but this guy’s voice kept me from going anywhere else on the dial. No clue who he was or where he was from, but he was a pretty smart guy.

He was talking about how it was his role to be a good (whatever he was), and that this role included spreading the word of (whomever’s word he was spreading). He talked about how true believers should not keep their beliefs bottled up, and how a failure to spread the gospel of X would cause the denomination to wilt and, ultimately, disappear.

One thing he said almost made me drive off the road and start writing.

Evangelize Or Fossilize

It made me immediately think about the implications to the legal profession – and to the bankruptcy bar specifically. Bankruptcy is needed by so many people, yet they run from it as a result of years of misinformation and disinformation. Consumers think bankruptcy is the end of the world, and that they’re branded as failures forever.

Bankruptcy lawyers know that isn’t the case, and that bouncing back from a bankruptcy filing can be (relatively) quick. But we sit behind our desks and take the defensive stance rather than evangelizing our position in public.

Why is that the case? Do we not believe in the power of our solution? Do we think of ourselves as snake-oil salespeople? Unlikely.

No matter what the reason, it’s incumbent upon us to go out there and educate the world about the truth of bankruptcy. We need to blog about not only the mechanics of bankruptcy but also the human element – the people who need it, the solutions they get, and help we provide.

We need to use all available social media tools to reach an audience who would otherwise be subject to myths.

We need to speak with reporters to tell them about how people who file for bankruptcy are able to re-enter the stream of commerce and contribute to society more readily than those who are swamped by overdue bills.

We know the truth about bankruptcy. We must spread the word. Not one person at a time, but one block at a time. Not because it’s right for everyone, but because the American consumer has been lied to by every major financial institution and deep-pocket lobbying organization.

We market our bankruptcy practices, but we fail to evangelize. We fail to educate. We fail to change opinions about what we do for people.

If we do not evangelize, we will fossilize.

What do you think?

Photo courtesy of D G Butcher.

Two Reasons Why You Need To Market

Jay Fleischman — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:06:00 +0000

Lawyers always need to market their services, whether they are in storefronts or ensconced in a corner office perched high atop a tall building. Without marketing there can be no new clients, and without new clients the lights get turned off by the power company.

For many consumer bankruptcy lawyers, marketing is even more critical because most clients are, by their nature, not going to cause repeat business (at least, not in the short-term).

In the old days when there was only a small pool of bankruptcy lawyers in town it was like shooting fish in a barrel. But those days are gone forever.

Why? Two reasons.

First, with more bankruptcy filings comes more competition. It seems as if everyone is talking about bankruptcy these days. That’s good because it brings the skeletons out of the closet, but it also creates the perception on the part of other lawyers that this is a fertile field. All those real estate lawyers out there are now sniffing around for some way to pay their bills, and bankruptcy beckons.

Second, the barriers of geography are disappearing faster than Oreos in a child’s mouth. Not too long ago you could set up an office in New York City and be relatively confident that you wouldn’t get many inquiries from people in Buffalo (an 8 hour drive away).

Now people check the Internet for reliable information about bankruptcy lawyers and, once they find someone they trust, chances are good that they’ll send an email or make a phone call.

Assuming the lawyer knows his or her stuff and can help, the prospect won’t hesitate to work over long distances. Email, faxes, phones, overnight mail and the like melt those distances easily.

Don’t believe me? Consider this: a colleague of mine practices in a fairly depressed area of his Northeastern state. He’s a good lawyer, but his local clientele is poor and unable to afford his services. Over the past two years he’s beefed up his online presence and now has people driving 3 hours or more just to hire him.

My friend isn’t just eating his competition’s lunch, he’s pulling in clients from places that only a few years ago would never have considered his services.

Objects in the rear view mirror may be larger than they appear, right? Well, the same is true for your competition. There are more and more bankruptcy lawyers out there every day. And though they may not be eating into your bottom line today, trust me – they will be.

Photo courtesy of Naimi&virg

Blogs As Online Legal Marketing Tools

Jay Fleischman — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:04:33 +0000

Much has been made about this blogging thing as a sure-fire online legal marketing tool. A variety of my colleagues blog as part of their online legal marketing efforts. for my own part, I am a co-founder of the wildly popular Bankruptcy Law Network (as well as a variety of other blogs, including this one). Still, I am often asked why I do it and whether these efforts yield paying clients.

Here’s a clue: aside from my attorney referral network, I do no paid advertising at all for my law firm. My online legal marketing pays the bills and keep the office running.

And for my online legal marketing consulting services, I do ZERO paid advertising. All of my business comes as a result of my blogging.

I didn’t start out with this as an overt strategy, but it grew into one after I learned the benefits of what I was doing. Now I’m not only experimenting with content creation, I’m feeding myself with it. Proof is in the pudding, to continue the eating metaphor.

Over at Branding & Marketing, there was a terrific post about the use of blogs as not only a marketing tool but also as a means of networking (link removed because the blog apparently took down the article, which sucks). And though the article is no longer available, I can tell you that it spoke to the unique ability of content creation to enable people to connect.

This, of course, before the rise of such services as Twitter and Facebook. It shows how even then, using content creation as a means of connecting was a powerful thought in the minds of many.

Over the years I have had the pleasure of meeting a number of wonderful lawyers and technologists I never would have come to know in the absence of their blogs.

These relationships have resulted in a number of great ideas for my practices and business ventures, and the people I’ve come to know have helped me raise my game significantly. I can only hope that I have done the same in return.