I just met with a smart young attorney who is fresh out of law school and hanging his shingle. Like any service-based business, he was very concerned about how he’s going to attract the clients with whom he would love to work. Like I said, he’s smart.
Attracting clients is not just an issue for lawyers, it’s an issue for everyone – especially if you’re a service provider.
He’s doing his homework and asked me to share some ideas about how he should approach his target niche.
1. Consolidate his knowledge of the target niche area of law into a short (say 20 pages) ebook that outlines the core issues his target clients should be thinking about.
2. Distill that ebook into a PPT presentation.
3. Offer to give that presentation to as many groups in his target market as possible. Free. In person and via Webinar when he can.
4. Constantly blog with short value-providing articles for his potential clients and use social media (twitter, facebook, linkedin, youtube) to build friendships and increase the number of people he’s helping with his blog.
5. Break out sections of the ebook into blog posts and submit those post to other blogs/sites read by potential clients.
6. Offer the full ebook as a free gift in exchange for people getting on his mailing list.
7. Use the ebook and blog to qualify potential clients.
8. Build a flat-fee engagement model to build relationships.
9. Have a merchant accounts to take credit card payments.
10. Tell clients that your initial consultation fee is rolled into the engagement if the potential client wants to engage, otherwise, it’s a fee of $XXX due at the end of the meeting. He can always waive that if he wants, but it sets the expectation of value in the initial meeting and lets the tire-kickers move on to someone else for free advice.
These 10 elements work in every services business, not just for lawyers.
The leadership team at The Space Between Center for Creative Spirit in Business has been listening to our members, potential members, and friends. As a result, we’ve made some major changes.
Very quickly, those changes include:
Lowering membership fees.
Adding a program for family law attorneys.
Adding a program for estate planning attorneys.
Welcoming our first three “Fellows” to The Center.
We’re hosting a free informational call next Wednesday, May 19th at 2pm Eastern to explain the full details about what these changes mean for you, so please register to be on the call or receive the recording. You can find out a few more details and register for the call here.
Oh, and if you have never signed up for anything before you also will get a copy of my Fuel The Spark: 5 Guiding Values for Success in Law & Life Action Guide as a complementary gift for joining our community.
No, we’re not talking about creativity that originates from prison.
Nor are we talking about helping a bud roll one.
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We’re talking about when at least two people work together on a creative project.
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Unfortunately, “inadvertent” joint authorship happens all the time.
Here’s the analysis:
1. A work is “jointly authored” automatically upon its creation if:
1) two or more authors contributed material to the work; and
2) each of the authors prepared his or her contribution with the intention that it would be combined with the contributions of the other authors as part of a single unitary work.
2. Intent AT THE TIME THE WORK IS CREATED is the controlling factor.
3. The contributions do NOT have to be equal.
4. IN the ABSENCE of a Collaboration Agreement or agreement otherwise:
Joint authors have undivided interest in the ENTIRE WORK. (that means even-Stephen for all the authors, even if they didn’t contribute equally.)
Each joint author has the right to exploit the copyright, without the other’s consent.
Each joint author has the right to license the joint work, without the other’s consent.
Each joint author has the right to transfer their share of the ownership without the other’s consent.
The ownership interest does NOT revert to the joint author upon one author’s death, it goes with the estate.
Both authors have a duty to account for profits – each joint author has to pay the other the appropriate share of profits.
So, what this means to you is that before entering into any collaborative creative project, you should create a “Collaboration Agreement” that irons out the details of the project and relationship.
A collaboration agreement should include at least:
Description of the project
What each person will contribute
Ownership %
Authorship credit
Control of use – decision making
There are a bunch of other things your lawyer will help you with, but the things listed above are the key relationship issues to keep in mind and bring to the meeting with your attorney.
Please understand that I’m not saying “don’t collaborate” because collaborations can be incredibly powerful. I’m saying get the deal in writing before you begin the work, even if you’re sure everything will be swell.
A Foolproof 5-Step System to Attract Perfect Clients
“It’s Foolproof!”
“I think you’re nuts.”
– Finding Nemo
Are you attracting the type of clients you want?
I’m surprised at how many lawyers and non-lawyers answer “no” because it’s really not that hard to do. It seems that not a week goes by when I’m not asked how I’ve been successful in attracting the clients I love to work with – entrepreneurs.
You can use my system to attract your perfect clients, no matter who they are. You don’t need a massive marketing budget either, because you can do everything on this list without spending a dime.
Here are the steps.
Know the type of problem you will be helping people solve until they put you in a hole.
Create a product or service offering to solve that problem.
Share information of value to people experiencing that problem for free via your blog.
Let people know where they can find what you’ve posted on your blog.
Allow people to hire you to help them solve their problem.
Want to know more?
I thought so.
Here’s how you do it.
Step 1: Know the type of problem you will be helping people solve until they put you in a hole.
That may sound crass, but when you know what you love to do – the thing you can’t NOT do – you’ll have recognized your purpose in life and retirement will be an obsolete concept. The day you commit yourself to aligning your income streams with that thing you love to do will be the day you “retire” no matter if your 65 or 25. For instance, I’ll be helping people share their creativity with the world through entrepreneurism until the day I die. I can’t NOT help those people. What will you do until the day you die, happily, and for free?
Step 2: Create a product or service offering to solve that problem.
You have to “package” your passion into something people can repay you for. Notice I didn’t say “pay you for”, I said “repay” you for. You MUST provide value first. You have to put it out there. You put it out there for free initially (see the next step), but don’t expect people to take a risk on you – you must take the risk on them.
If you have a service offering, package it up in some way that doesn’t equal a blank checkbook – in other words, do you absolute best to avoid pricing your service by the hour. Hourly fees are lose-lose, you only end up trading your life for a few bucks. Sometimes you’re not worth your hourly rate, sometimes you’re worth a thousand times more. It’s a bad, outdated, shortsighted metric of value. If you can build in some continuity, such as a monthly flat fee for your services that lasts for a year, then do it. Trade a long-term relationship for a higher project fee every time you can.
If you have a product offering, price it to move, but at a profit. The key to success is to make a lot of people a little happier, at a profit each time. If you can build in some continuity (and you can), do it.
Step 3: Share information of value to people experiencing that problem for free via your blog.
There is no excuse for not having a blog. None. You can have one set up for free inside of 10 minutes. Just go to http://www.wordpress.com and you’re good to go. If you have 20 minutes, you can get your own domain name and have a wordpress blog set up in your own name or brand, like http://houchinlaw.com , http://www.spacebetweencenter.com or http://kevinhouchin.com . It doesn’t take a technical genius, it only takes a bit of passion for your message, which shouldn’t be a problem if you took step one seriously.
The thing I hear most often is “but I don’t know what to write…” Ugh. Yes, you do know what to write. At least if you took step one seriously you do, because if you took step one seriously you have something to say. It’s more likely that you probably have so much to say that you don’t know where to start and are simply overwhelmed. Or, you’re really just afraid that you can’t write.
So, just have a conversation.
Imagine a perfect client sitting in your plush office. What question do they ask you? That’s a blog post.
What do they fear? Each of those fears is a blog post.
What gets them jazzed? Each spark of enthusiasm is a blog post.
What’s the latest and greatest thing in their life? That’s a blog post.
What just made YOU happy about the progress toward solving the problem from step 1? Blog post.
What just made you angry about a setback? Blog post.
Are you starting to get the picture?
500-1000 words. Just a few paragraphs. FYI, we’re at just under 800 words right now.
I work with a lot of lawyers. There is absolutely no excuse for lawyers not to write because the one thing law school did to benefit each of us was to thrash the fear of writing 500 words in 15 minutes out of us. The place lawyers screw up is that they think they have to write like we did in law school or for the court. They think they have to include footnotes and case citations proving up every factual statement.
When lawyers write a blog post, they should write for clients, not other lawyers. No footnotes. No case citations. Minimal statutory citations (only if they’re REALLY helpful.) You don’t get brownie points for acting smarter than your clients. They expect you to know the source, and they really don’t care where the answer comes from, just that you know how to help them, so don’t slow them down for the sake of your ego. Only your competition cares about the citation. Help them if you want, but I’d rather focus on attracting clients.
If you’re afraid you can’t write, then record yourself and pay someone the $12/hour it takes to have that recording transcribed. If that’s too technical for you, trade services with a copywriter who can interview you for 15 minutes and type up a blog post for you. There’s nothing wrong with “ghost bloggers” helping share your message.
If you don’t write or don’t want to work in the written word, record yourself and post audio files, or even better, do video files (known as a “vlog”). None of these will take much money or any real programming skill. If you can use a computer, you can accomplish these tasks. If you’re not willing to do any of this, get used to looking at the world from the inside of a cubical – if you’re lucky. These activities are becoming more critical to successful businesses of any size every hour.
WordPress blogs also have “Pages” where you actually share how people can REPAY you for the valuable content you’ve shared with them via your blog by hiring you for your services or purchasing your products – maybe even both – but we’ll talk about that in step 5.
Step 4: Let people know where they can find what you’ve posted on your blog.
This is where social media comes in. You know, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and if you’re a video-savvy person, YouTube. These are speed-networking-on-crack and blow the roof off of conventional media outlets. Sure, you’ll want to submit your great articles to major publications, but get the quick stuff out quickly – via your social media networks. Provide value and share the value. Your blog is the hub. Media outlets are the spokes. Almost all of the good ones are free. Again, no excuses.
You can very quickly and easily set up your system to update your twitter.com status every time you post a new entry to your blog, and have that update Facebook and then LinkedIn, AUTOMATICALLY sharing your content with the world even EASIER than copy/paste. Again, no excuses.
If you are comfortable speaking in public, start giving talks to groups of people who personify the ideal of your perfect client. When you show up to speak, you’ll walk away with clients. The key is to create as many avenues for people to engage with the content on your blog as you possibly can.
Integrated Marketing Model for Lawyers
Step 5: Allow people to hire you to help them solve their problem.
If you’ve thoughtfully, sincerely, and regularly completed steps 1-4, your perfect clients will find you. They’ll ask for your products and services. You just have to let them. Too many people say “I’m just doing this for fun” and fail to create an income stream from their passion or hobby that will allow them to escape the day job and “retire” doing what they love.
If you take just these few steps and practice them regularly, the income streams will appear and you’ll be able to focus as much time on them as you want. You’ll “retire” well before you’re 60s because you won’t think of quitting what you do for a living – what you do FOR a living will be aligned with ACTUALLY LIVING, now. What could be better than that?
This is the only life you have (at least right now), why waste another day of it doing something you don’t love?
I just received a resume and cover letter from a young attorney seeking employment in my firm. I honestly don’t notice things like spelling errors because I can’t spell myself, but I’m sure the letter and resume were flawless technically. I didn’t even read it that closely because the cover letter was addressed “Dear Sir or Madam:”
Here’s my response to the job seeker. Yes, I addressed it to him personally, but I’ll keep that private for his sake.
[NAME],
I recently received your resume & cover letter. While I’m not hiring right now, I thought I’d give you some feedback that might help in your approach.
1. Take the three minutes or so that it requires to research each firm to at least get a name to address your letter to someone. I don’t like being called “Dear Sir or Madam.” Especially when it would only take about 30 seconds to find my name online. This shows that you did NO research into my firm to see if you might be a fit for what we do. You are trying to push the match onto me. I don’t need you to make more work for me. I only hire people who make my life easier.
2. Your cover letter was all about you, and frankly, none of your experience has anything to do with my firm’s work. Again, if you had taken just a few minutes to search online, you would have found out what we do. Then you could make a decision. You could either write a cover letter that tells me how you’ll make my life easier, or you could save a stamp.
You have an interesting background – especially the National Outdoor Leadership School training. In Colorado, leading with that might be more effective than leading some of the legal experience you’ve had that really doesn’t translate to the local legal market.
