You want to market your practice – whether you’re a bankruptcy lawyer, an immigration lawyer, or a lawyer who represents chinchilla farmers (I’m sure there are lawyers who do that sort of thing) – and you listen to all the big legal marketing gurus to learn what you need to know.  And the big, fancy-pants consultants (the good ones and the bad ones) all say the following:

• differentiate
• target your best prospects
• get online
• blog
• blog some more
• use social media to get more clients

… and a host of other really good ideas.  Some tell you what to do, others (like me, in Practice Pro Monthly) show you exactly how to do it with a paint-by-numbers approach to marketing tactics.  All good ideas depending on your frame of mind.

But above and beyond all of it, there’s one thing – and ONLY one thing – you need to know in order to market your practice.

The good news is that there’s only one thing to learn.  The bad news is that it’s really hard for lawyers to do it.

That thing?

Learn how to write like a human being, not like a lawyer.

Why?  Let’s dissect this one for those of you playing along at home:

Blogging: When you create a blog, you need to write blog posts.  In order to entice people to read those posts, you need to be able to write in a way that doesn’t make them fall asleep.  Write stuff they understand and that connects with them so they stick around.

Ebooks And Special Reports:  Again, you’ve got to write this stuff – it doesn’t magically appear.  Write a technical book filled with talk about fraudulent conveyances and exceptions to discharge?  Great Sominex replacement.

Email Autoresponders:  Your prospects get a bazillion emails every single second (well, it feels like it).  They don’t have the time or the inclination to read drivel that sucks.  If you write a good subject line and your email content continues that trend, you won’t suck so much.

Website:  If you feel like talking about yourself in the third person, that’s cool … for Seinfeld characters (anyone remember Jimmy, who liked Elaine?) … but not for you.  And again, discussions couched in legalese and jargon are a really bad idea.

Letters: Tell ‘em what you want them to do (or not do) in clear, concise language that they understand.  If you do, they’re likely to pay more attention.

The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is this – if you can’t string a sentence together in a way the prospect or client understands then you’re sunk.  Period.

Remember, I don’t care if YOU understand what you’re writing about.  The prospect or client matters, not you.  If you like it, that’s nice – but it doesn’t pay the mortgage.

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Over at LawFirmBlogging, a parable of sorts about the guru and the servant.  Of course, it’s a parable about positioning your firm (and yourself) as either to “go to” person or the lawyer who gets the job done with customer service.  I think it’s interesting that the author draws a distinction between one who is perceived as being the one who handle the tough cases and the one who is the professional equivalent of the “nice guy” (I can tell you, no man ever wants to be called a “nice guy,” specifically because it’s usually coming from a girl as she declines a romantic advance).

I think it’s possible to be both the guru and the servant; with a reputation for doing the tough work, the guru is able to place a monetary premium on his or her services.  Combining that with a reputation for excellent customer service, the guru can increase referral and retention rates.  The lawyer who acts solely as the servant, on the other hand, is forced to charge market rates (or less) and makes his or her money up in sheer volume of clients.

So how do you position yourself as the guru in your law firm marketing efforts?

This is the question that plagues many bankruptcy lawyers, especially in the face of massive competition from not only other bankruptcy lawyers, but from non-lawyers who are looking to pick up new business from the ranks of consumers who are overwhelmed by bill problems.  Everyone promises free consultations, payments plans, evening and weekend appointments, and the like.

The answer is in differentiation, but doing so in such a way as to show your expertise.  The best, easiest and cheapest way of doing this is through what is currently called content marketing.  In the old days it was called “education marketing,” “lead generation,” and a host of other things.  For my part, I like to call it showing your stuff (but not in a “dirty old man” way).

When you show your stuff to the public, you establish firmly that you’ve got stuff to show – and that you know how to use that stuff.  For example, I can tell you that I’m the best bankruptcy lawyer to ever walk the streets of Manhattan … but unless I show you that I’ve handled X number of Chapter 13 cases and Y number of Chapter 7 cases (I don’t handle Chapter 11 cases, ripped that part out of the book the day I got it) then you’re not likely to believe me.

Now let’s say I show you a PACER printout of every case I’ve handled.  And a petition filed for a really tough case.  And the Discharge of Debtor in that same case.  And a letter from the client telling me that I saved him from jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge by helping him get out of debt before he lost his mind.  And a series of articles or blog posts written about how to handle bill problems.

Are you impressed with me yet?  Am I likely to gain your trust and confidence to the extent that you will be more likely than not to hire me rather than some other bankruptcy lawyer down the street?

I am great not because I tell you that I’m great, but because I can show you what I know.  That leads YOU to determine on your own that I am great.

A quick task to accomplish?  It can be, but often it isn’t the case.  A satisfying task to accomplish in terms of cementing your market leadership position?  Absolutely.

Now go out there and figure out how YOU can be the guru in your market.

Photo courtesy of Bhutan-360.