In my last article, I asked what’s holding you back? Often it’s the way we perceive the world around us. If we think that it’s difficult to grow our business, then our brain looks for ways to confirm this belief. We want to do great things but our “yes, but” mechanism kicks in and we’re left feeling defeated and hopeless. So in this article, I want to look at ways to deal with negative thinking. (Read the article)

Psychology, Marketing

Most lawyers I speak with hate the concept of marketing. If they had their way, they’d just sit back and wait for referrals to flood in. They wouldn’t have to spend time prospecting. They wouldn’t have to pitch their services to people who don’t know who they are or why they are the lawyer for them. And they wouldn’t have to risk rejection. But most lawyers don’t get enough referrals to sustain their practice so they have to find other ways of drumming up new business. (Read the article)

Rainmaking, Psychology, Marketing

In law school, you learned a certain way of thinking based on logic, rationale, and a healthy dose of skepticism. That may be fine for how you deal with cases in court, but it’s probably holding you back in your business. In this four part series, I’m going to talk about how you can identify and deal with the negative thinking that’s preventing you from growing your business. (Read the article)

Rainmaking, Psychology, Marketing

The biggest challenge in marketing is to identify those people who you want to work with, who need your services, and who are willing to pay your prices. This involves picking a target market and perhaps even a niche to focus on. Many people are initially scared of narrowing down their prospects and ask “You mean I have to turn away clients?” For your marketing to be cost effective, the answer is yes. There will only be a small portion of the population who will even be interested in your services - why waste your money on marketing to those that don’t need them or are half way across the country and difficult to access? By targeting a small group of people who already have a need for your services, you drastically increase your marketing campaign’s likelihood of success. (Read the article)

Marketing Plan

The Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America aren’t going to just roll over and die after last month’s ethics opinion in New Jersey banned lawyers from advertising their status. Both firms have hired law firms to fight the ruling. (Read the article)

Advertising, Regulations, Marketing

It seems that Bar Associations are on a crusade to regulate lawyer marketing at all cost. Recently, New Jersey stepped up its restrictions by stating that “Super Lawyer” and “Best Lawyer in America” designations are inappropriate for lawyer advertising. (see PDF) (Read the article)

Advertising, Regulations

In recent articles, I’ve talked about how to Define Your Goals, Know Your Clients, and Evaluate Your Competitors. The fourth pillar of a solid marketing foundation is to know the environment in which you do business. (Read the article)

Marketing Plan

I blogged recently about the new ad standards proposed for attorneys practicing in New York. It looks like they got their first high profile supporter in the 500-member Academy of Trial Lawyers (Read the article)

Regulations, Marketing

As online social media mixes with internet marketing, it was only a matter of time before services started targeting the legal profession. Here are two new services you might want to check out. (Read the article)

Online Resources

ALA Media has released a report, An Analysis of Advertising and its Effect on Law Firm Revenue Growth, which is downloadable via its website. It states

Firms That Make A Commitment To Advertising Have Higher Growth Rates. Using the rigorous definition of advertising, the 87 AmLaw 200 firms that spent at least $10,000 in advertising in any three of the last five years have an average Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in their gross revenues that is 2.2 percentage points higher than their non-advertising counterparts (9.3% vs. 7.1%).This pronounced gap in CAGR translates into substantial revenue differentials over the five year period . And, the 42 firms that spent at least $50,000 in advertising in at least three of the last five years had even stronger growth rates than the firms spending at the $10,000 level (9.8% vs. 9.3%) .

(Read the article)

Stats/ Trends