Law Firm Marketing – Increasing Your Revenue By Grading Clients
Law Firm Marketing – Increasing Your Revenue By Grading Clients
You know those days when you can't be motivated to sell even if the sky is falling? You wake up in the morning, sip your coffee and make a pot of tea while your housemates sleep on. You decide to work in your backyard and collect some pretty flowers. After several hours, you are pleasantly surprised by a client who comes out of nowhere and takes interest in your cool garden plans. Another few hours pass by when suddenly, it's time for lunch and you're starting to wonder what's for dinner. Your love-making with your spouse is a bit routine, so you decide to watch some TV. The evening even slips away fast while chatting with friends over beers. Suddenly, it's midnight again and you're up from your bed after having a short night's sleep. Well, that's the image but the reality is more complicated than what words can describe. The point is that law firm marketing has problems; it has a nature that makes it "difficult" to sell and this article will try to explain why.
(An important note: If you are not familiar with the subject of law firm marketing, please read my previous article on this blog entitled " The Thriving Law Firm And Its Intangible Assets ". Also, note that in this article I make several references to the subjects of marketing and selling, so if you are not familiar with these subjects, I suggest you read my other articles on this blog entitled " Marketing Made Easy " and " Selling Made Easy ".
In spite of the fact that every profession sells its services in some way or another, this fact does not diminish its difficulty. You might think that selling is a piece of cake, but it's not always that simple. It's true that doctors have saved people's lives and nurses have nursed them back to health while teachers have helped students learn new things but they still had to sell their services. The same goes for lawyers. Although lawyers have done extraordinary things and transformed lives, they still have to sell their services.
This article will try to explain why US firms spend more money on marketing than their counterparts in Europe. Why is it that many large firms spend so much time and money on sending out salespeople that it can compete with a full-scale war? I will try to answer this question by exploring several aspects of the law firm business model that make selling a significant challenge for many legal practitioners in their everyday lives.
The Law Firm Business Model As We Know It
Back when the law firm business model was created, there was no such thing as the Internet-based online marketing industry. We relied on law firm marketing tools and techniques that were straight out of the 1960s. This was because the law firm business model at that time only consisted of two basic functions: The legal work done by lawyers and the corporation work done by corporation counsel. This limited marketing opportunities to those who could sell their services, mainly to corporations.
During this period, a lawyer's primary function was to prepare legal documents like wills, estates and trusts, real estate forms , contracts and so on. During this era, selling was all about selling the service of preparing legal documents while the other services were left alone. This is why you still see some lawyers who don't like to market their services aggressively. They feel that marketing their legal services is a one-dimensional activity and it doesn't pay as well as the legal document preparation business does, so they are more comfortable doing that.
The other basic function of the law firm business model was the corporate legal department of the corporation. Basically, this department consisted of corporate counsel and their assistants who drafted contracts on behalf of their clients and performed other related functions.
At this stage, the main job of corporate legal departments was legal drafting and more specifically, contract drafting. This is why most lawyers in corporate legal departments were contract lawyers.
This is the reason why law firm skills consist of those two functions: Legal document preparation (legal skills which are the core of the profession) and contract drafting (corporate legal department skills). In fact, these are not just skills; these are very distinct skill sets that require a different way for each to promote its services.
In order to see how this separation has influenced law firm marketing, imagine for a moment that you're a corporate general counsel in charge of handling your company's general business matters . Right now you are facing a difficult business situation. You have to take action because this situation will have drastic implications on your company if it gets out of control.
The first thing you do is try to do some research on the Internet and find out if there is any law firm in your area that specializes in bitter lemon law (Legal humor!). You'd be surprised by how many firms there are! After looking at the list, you decide to call the top four (4) firms for a preliminary consultation. This is when you discover that not all of these firms are capable of handling your situation, as they lack crucial experience in this particular field.
Here comes the next logical step: you call another law firm which specializes in lemon law and ask for a preliminary consultation. This firm also tells you that it doesn't have satisfactory experience in this field, as few of its clients are involved with bitter lemon and other similar disputes.
More research on the Internet shows you a couple of options, but one is definitely better than the other: If your firm has sweet lemon law specialist then your company will benefit greatly from the help. The less experience they have with bitter lemon and other similar cases, the better it is for your company's interests.