RJon Robins

How to get started with a law firm marketing plan.

February 3, 2015 by RJon Robins

How to get started with a law firm marketing plan; all right, so first of all you have to identify what stage of growth your law firm is in. The first stage of growth is from revenues of zero to about $250,000. We call that creating a successful law practice. We’re not worrying about a business, we’re not worrying about it being sustainable, we’re not worrying about you being able to step away for a month at a time and have it keep going, we just want it to be successful, get your head above water, get revenues to about $250,000 gross.

Second stage is $250 to about $500,000, that’s where you start to bring in staff, you start to bring in other people to do things to delegate things, you need processes and policies and systems and procedures.

The third stage is $500,000 to about a million, that’s really all about the financial controls using the metrics and the financial controls to make better, quicker, more objective decisions and over a million dollars.

The point I’m making is, you’ve got to know what stage you’re in because the things that are going to be great, if your revenues are between zero and $250,000 are going to act like an anchor if you try to do the same kind of marketing when your revenues are $500,000 and you’re working your ass off and you wonder why can’t I get to a million dollars, well, it’s because you’re doing the same things that you were doing when your revenues were between zero and $250,000.

I like to say that tricycles are great for toddlers and mountain bikes are great for teenagers. The only problem is, when you put the toddler on the mountain bike or the teenager or the tricycle then things go wrong. So step number one of getting your marketing under control for your law firm is understand what stage you’re in.

So let’s just talk about Stage 1 for a minute. Stage 1 marketing is very simple. It’s everything you’re going to do to bring prospective clients to your firm and that’s another thing you’ve got to know is the definition of marketing.

The definition of marketing is everything that you do to bring the right kind of prospective clients to find the right kind of prospective clients to the right place, I don’t mean geographically but where do you want them to go first? Do you want them to just pick up the phone and call you the minute they have a question or do you want to do some pre-education, some prescreening, some preconditioning at the right time. Do you want them calling you right when you’re getting to go to trial? Do you want them scheduling an appointment right before you’re getting ready to go on vacation or do you want to modulate and turn the dial up and down so that you have a steady flow of business and don’t overwhelm your factory.

You want the marketing to also precondition the prospective clients so that they arrive with the right expectations, answer their frequently asked questions, try to help them make an educated decision about whether or not you’re the right law firm for them. At three in the morning while they’re watching a video or reading a checklist or reading a letter or reading an email or whatever they’re doing so they don’t show up the next day or the next week for their appointment and waste their time and waste your time to discover that you’re not the right firm for them and then you also want them to (arise) with the right frame of mind. The idea is you want them to be in a frame of mind where they’re coming to you looking for a solution and not looking for someone to just vent or unload their woes to.

All right, marketing is very simple; it’s everything you do to bring prospective clients to the door then sales takes over to convert the prospective client into paying clients. Marketing can be as simple as old fashioned advertising. It could be as simple as networking, it could be as simple as picking up the phone and calling prospective clients to find out what they’ve got going on that you can help them with.

It can be as simple as writing articles, a website, a blog, a newsletter, an old fashioned paper newsletter is a great solution for marketing. It doesn’t need to be high-tech. If your revenues are between zero and $250,000 stay away from things that are expensive. Stay away from things that are going to take a long time to pay off, stay away from things that are very complicated. Stick to the simple stuff, stick to the stuff that lawyers have been doing for thousands of years, yes, lawyers have been doing this stuff for thousands of years to market their law firm, to bring prospective clients to the door stick to the low tech stuff.

Once your revenues get over $250,000 your marketing has to begin to communicate the value of doing business with your firm and not just the value of doing business with you because if your marketing is all about you and your personality and how great you are and how you’re the most brilliant lawyer in the world and your revenues are over $250,000, $500,000 and you start bringing in paralegals and you start bringing in assistance and you start bringing in associates which is what you should be trying to do to build your business. If your marketing is all about how you’re Superman or you’re Superwoman there’s going to be a disconnect between the clients expectations and how your business is set up to deliver those services so your marketing when your revenues are over $250,000 needs to shift from your personal message and your personal brand and your personal how great you are and has to start communicating the value of your business.

Once your revenues are over $500,000 then you can start to expand your marketing further back in time from the place where the client knows they have a problem, they’re actively looking for a solution. Once your revenues are over $500,000 you can start to communicate earlier in the buying process to the point where the client may not even be actively looking for a solution yet and you start educating them that maybe they have an opportunity to make their lives better and then of course once you get over a million dollars then it starts to get really fun because now you’ve got the time and the money and the resources and the platform to share your message with the world and communicate how you want to make the world a better place; that’s when marketing starts to be really fun and really profitable. That’s probably why you went to law school in the first place.

Build a Million Dollar Law Firm by Spending Your Time with the Right People

January 23, 2015 by RJon Robins

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ― Jim Rohn

Take a few minutes and ponder that statement. I think you’ll find that it’s largely accurate. We’re social beings, and it’s not surprising that our environment in many ways dictates our behavior.

It’s true in small ways, like the mannerisms and gestures we make while we’re talking.

But it’s true in big ways, too. What’s your mindset when you face a challenge…do you look for ways to overcome it? Or do you look for reasons to quit? If your time is spent by people with a defeated, losing mentality…it’s going to be hard for you not to adopt a similar mindset.

Here’s what to DO with this information: start being more selective about who you spend your time with. Intentionally choose to spend your time with people who bring out the best in you. Look for people who inspire you, who help you solve problems, who encourage you to keep going even when things are difficult. Look for people who energize you and help you look at challenges from multiple perspectives. Look for people who know how to take big ideas and turn them into step-by-step plans for success.

On the other hand, protect yourself from negativity. Limit the time you spend with people who are constantly whining and complaining, people who refuse to accept responsibility for anything, and people who throw in the towel when things get tough. In particular avoid people who are cynical and full of reasons why big ideas WON’T work but don’t have any big ideas of their own.

As lawyers, chances are you spend a LOT of time with people in that second category. Law school and the practice of law has taught many lawyers to be negative, to look for problems rather than solutions, and to demand precedent before doing pretty much anything. That’s fine, while you’re actually practicing law. But if you let that type of thinking seep into the rest of your life, like most lawyers do, you’re putting yourself on the fast track towards a miserable career and an unhappy life.

Who are you spending your time with?

Do You Own a Business…or Do You Own a Job?

January 8, 2015 by RJon Robins

You own a law firm. But is that law firm a business…or is it just a job?

A business is comprised of systems that allow it to keep functioning, with or without a given individual – you in this case. On the other hand, a job requires YOU and your time.

Which do you own?

The easiest way to figure it out is to answer this question: What would happen to your law firm if you took a two week vacation?

Would it continue to operate like clockwork, with the legal work getting done, clients remaining happy, and new work continuing to come in? If so, congratulations, you own a business.

Would it grind to a halt altogether because it’s completely dependent on your presence? If this is your reality, what you really own is a JOB…and it’s time to get to work creating a business.

The advantages of owning a business rather than a job are endless. We just discussed vacations. But there’s also the security of knowing that, should you or a family member get sick, you can take time off work without your practice disappearing. There’s the reality that creating systems for your business ensure a much more consistent client experience. And there’s the fact that, when YOU aren’t the one responsible for getting all of the work done, you can spend all of your time looking for ways to improve the business and make it more profitable, rather than just doing tedious legal or clerical work.

If you own a business, congratulations! Keep looking for ways to make it even better. If you own a job and you’d LIKE to turn it into a business, we can help. Keep reading our blog entries and check out our video library. Subscribe to our newsletter. Read more about our community and the services we provide for lawyers like you. You’ll get the information and the tools that you need to build a BUSINESS…rather than keep working a job.

How To Raise Your Legal Fees And Still Win The Business

January 7, 2015 by RJon Robins

A common question law firm owners ask themselves is how do I raise my legal fees and still win the business. Here is how it works. First of all, get over the idea that the value of your services has anything to do with you, it doesn’t! The value of your services has nothing to do with you. The value of my services has nothing to do with me or what a great company I’ve built or the fact that we’re the largest provider of outside managing partner services in the entire country or anything like that. The value of your services has everything to do with the value of your client. Your client values their life, then they value your legal services.

Your legal services are designed to help your client make a profit, in other words, your legal services are designed to help your client go from a place that they don’t want to be in their life or their business to a situation or a place that they prefer. Your services will make such a difference to your client and change their situation that they will truly value your services.

Clients value your legal services in several different aspects. They value it in terms of their time, in terms of their money, in terms of their reputation. If you get a client who doesn’t value their time very much, doesn’t value their reputation very much and doesn’t have a lot financially to gain or lose based on the outcome of the case then it will be difficult to raise the price of your legal services.

On the other hand, if you do smart strategic marketing and learn how to create a systematic process for interviewing prospective clients to find out what they value then you are more likely to have a better outcome. If the client stands to gain $1000 and you offer them a solution for $1000 that doesn’t make any sense, you’re never going to be able to sell that; it’s always going to be hard for you and it’s always going to be hard for them.

On the other hand, if the solution is worth $1000 and because you get your shit together and manage your law firm like a real business so you can efficiently deliver a solution for only $250, well gee, you’re going to sell me something that’s worth $1000 to me and I only have to pay $250, you can do that all day long and then you can scale it to a $10,000 solution for $2500, $100,000 solution for $25,000, a million dollar solution for $250,000. These are numbers I’m just making up by way of illustration.

The point is, get over the idea that the value of your services has anything to do with you. That’s your ego talking. That’s the ego of other lawyers who want to puff out their chest and brag about how great they are and that’s why they get the fees that they get. In reality, these lawyer’s talents do not have much to do with it.

The clients are buying the opportunity to improve their situation and the clients are seeing that as getting money at a discount. They way you raise the value of your legal services, the way you raise your prices and still beat out all of the other lawyers in the market takes time. Take your ego, chuck it out the window, don’t bring it into the meeting with your prospective clients with you, and take the time to talk through, not to tell them, not to dictate to them, not to teach them but to talk through your prospective client’s situation.

I know this sounds simple and I’m repeating it again and again for you but I do this solely because this is exactly how you sell millions of dollars worth of legal services and make yourself as well as your clients feel great about it and your Following these steps is how you raise the price of your legal services and still get all of the business.

Take Control of Your Time by Operating Proactively, Not Reactively

December 18, 2014 by RJon Robins

“You get to decide where your time goes. You can either spend it moving forward, or you can spend it putting out fires. You decide. And if you don’t decide, others will decide for you.” ― Tony Morgan

Review your day so far. If you’re reading this first thing in the morning, think about yesterday.

How have you spent your time? Specifically, break it down into two categories:

Time you’ve spent proactively. Advancing your own agenda. Working towards your own goals and objectives. Examples of proactive time could include planning your next marketing campaign, improving your systems and procedures, setting new financial goals, reading a book about killer sales strategies, and so on. It’s time that you’ve spent working towards your goals for yourself and your business, in the way that you deem most valuable.
Time you’ve spent reactively. Putting out fires. Responding to the events of the day. This is time that you’ve spent doing things in reaction to your surroundings – dealing with an angry client, resolving a dispute between employees, responding to emails and phone calls, calling the plumber to fix a leaking faucet, etc. This is time that you have spent not because you chose to spend it this way… but because you found yourself compelled to respond to events that happened around you.

Simply by reviewing this information – and by asking you a few questions about what you’ve said – I could predict two things with a fairly high degree of certainty:

How profitable your law firm is.

How happy you are.

Simply put, the more proactive you are with your time and energy, the more successful your firm is going to be, and the happier you’re going to be. It’s not rocket science. When you’re able to spend your time growing your firm in the way you see fit… it’s going to grow. And when you are able to spend your time the way you choose to, as opposed to how you’re forced to, you’re going to enjoy it more.

This is a pretty big deal, right? Make it a top priority, as we prepare to kick off the New Year, to spend a higher percentage of your time proactively, and to spend less time reacting to the events of the day. You’ll be happier and you’ll make more money because of it.

Networking That Doesn’t Suck: Four Steps to More Profitable Networking

December 6, 2014 by RJon Robins

Lots of lawyers think that networking is a waste of time. And it IS a waste of time for many of them. But not because networking isn’t a great way to develop business. (It is.) Networking doesn’t work for lots of lawyers because they don’t know what they’re doing. They haven’t thought about it strategically, they don’t have a plan, and they certainly don’t have systems in place to get the most out of the time they spend. So they don’t get results. When it’s done right, networking is a great way for a small law firm to generate business. It’s especially valuable for a firm in the early stages – where the lawyer typically has more time than money available. So how can you make networking WORK for your firm? Here are four tips:

Select the right target audience. Who should you be building relationships with? The answer: people who are in position to give you business, either directly or through referrals. It’s baffling how many lawyers spend their time networking with other lawyers in the same practice area… of course those lawyers aren’t going to send you business! So start by identifying individuals and groups of people that are in position to give you business.
Look to give before you get. Once you’ve figured out who you should be networking with, the next step is to start developing relationships. And you do that by GIVING before you GET. How can you provide value to the people you’re meeting? Maybe by connecting them with others in your network… maybe by providing them with some friendly advice or feedback… maybe by sending them a memorable gift. This approach won’t generally create instant results, but it does lay the groundwork for a highly profitable long-term relationship.
Listen more than you talk. Most people would rather talk than listen. To actually create relationships, you need to do the opposite. People like to be listened to. When you listen, and when you ask intelligent questions to show that you’re listening, your conversation partner walks away feeling good about what just happened. And, listening gives you the opportunity to glean valuable information that you can use later to strengthen the relationship… hobbies, professional dreams, challenges, and so on.
Follow up… follow up… follow up! If you walk away from a networking event thinking that you’ve just had some great conversations and those people are going to remember you forever and send business your way every opportunity that they get… you’re crazy. It doesn’t matter how impressive you are. We’re all busy, we’re all distracted, we all have thousands of thoughts racing around our minds every day. So it’s your job to make sure these strategic connections you’ve just created don’t forget about you. Send them a note. Give them a call. Send them a gift on their birthday. Forward them an article or a blog entry that may be helpful to them. Stay on their radar screen.

Networking CAN be a waste of time… but it doesn’t have to be. Keep these four tips in mind and your networking will be more effective than ever.

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