Rainmaking

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. continue

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. continue

In a previous article, I discussed your prospect’s buying process. Here, I’ll take a look at how you can align your marketing with those stages in the buying process.

Step 1 - Prospecting

The first stage of your prospect’s buying process is awareness. So, your first step in marketing to them is to help them realize that they do have a problem and it is important that they take action to get it solved quickly. continue

In a previous article, I discussed Coca Cola’s failures with New Coke to highlight just how important knowing your customers is to you marketing campaign. In this article, I want to talk about what’s involved with a marketing campaign.

I often get prospects that call me up and want to outsource their entire marketing campaign. They don’t want to deal with it. They’ve tried a variety of different marketing tactics - tv, radio, print, web - and none seem to generate the calls they’re expecting. They know that something might be wrong, so they decide to check out marketing firms in hopes that these firms will be able to make their tv/radio/print ads/website better. continue

Let’s face it. There is nothing people hate more than to sit through a sales pitch on something they don’t think they need. You may think they need your legal services, but at least initially, they may think otherwise.

Why Selling Doesn’t Work

When you are focused on selling, you take every opportunity you can to get the prospect to close the deal and go with you. Instead of listening to their concerns, you think of what you might say next or how you can overcome their next objection. This causes prospects to become defensive and unresponsive to what you are trying to tell them. continue

Using a call to action is the foundation of any direct response promotion, but what makes for a good offer that will motivate prospects to take action? Often, people don’t want to call you if they don’t have to. They may fear a sales pitch or just don’t know enough about their problem to feel comfortable moving forward. They may fear you will reject their business or that you charge too much. He may have heard bad things about lawyers who are only after his money or know someone who had a bad experience with an attorney.

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