LAW PRACTICE WORKFLOW PART 3: CAREFULLY CHOOSING YOUR CLIENTS

We’ve all been there – focusing all our time and effort on that one case that builds up to an ever increasing load of unreasonable expectations from an unreasonable client. If we’d taken the time to vet more carefully, the signs would have been noticed, but for many reasons including needing the work, case sounded intriguing initially, and you take the case. Some time later (more often than sooner) you curse the day you took the case….

LAST WEEK

Last week for Workflow part #2 I talked about finding balance in your lawyer life, and even evaluating whether to change up careers through an interview with attorney Camille Walker who herself made this transition. She is today a practicing coach for lawyers in transition, and as her website says, she is One Happy Lawyer.com.

THIS WEEK

As part of this month’s WorkFlow series, # 3 I’ll talk a bit about how attorneys should be more picky about who they take on as clients. I’m going to show you a few ways to efficiently weed out the less than well suited clients for your particular practice, to help get the flow and happy back into your day to day lawyering life. 

One of the best ways to get that flow and harmony back in your practice is to work with the right clients for your practice and your style. Here is the first tool to help you achieve this.

1. Set up a pre-qualifying process. This looks different for different practices, but basically note the ill suited clients from the past and make a list of what created the discord during the initial conversation. This way you’ll more quickly recognize the tell tale signs in your next conversation or consultation. Look for the common signs such as:

• Discomfort gut feeling you can’t quite yet put your finger on
• Client fired last attorney (ask why?)
• History of suing other attorneys
• Evasivness
• Desire to teach you a thing or two about the law (and how half the family are attorneys – hmmm, why aren’t they representing you?)
• Promises of additional work or contracts (in exchange for a lower fee?)
• Client downplays their matter (what are you not telling me?)
• Overly focusing on fees
• Unrealistic expectations (yes, but this intentional infliction of emotional distress really is the actual cause of my hangnail and I can’t type properly now, and I will need at least $2M to make me whole!)
• Rush jobs
• Unreliability (my dog really did eat the retainer fee agreement)

2. Ensure everyone in the office is on the same page as to who qualifies as a good client for your practice. So make sure partners, associates know the type of clients that should be avoided. If you are a solo practitioner you obviously have the final word. If you share the practice with partners, associates agree on the criteria for clients and possibly even an approval process for clients.

3. Finally, the most efficient way to pre-qualify your clients is through your messaging offline and online. I’ll address the online messaging and engagement as this is my nearly decade long area of expertise.

And of course this third point has three subparts, because I can’t quite quit the lawyer in me…

• You must make sure all your marketing messaging conveys your unique value, what sets you apart, and does so in language that is familiar and comfortable to the audience you want to connect with. This messaging will not resonate no matter how well written for your target audience if done sporadically, so engage and post on the online channels most relevant to your ideal client at least weekly.

• Also, make sure you are messaging and creating engagement on those platforms most relevant to your audience – generally at least two online channels. Lawyer blogs f.ex. Are great if you author weekly, but if this is all you do, you’ll have no visibility. It is necessary to have more than one channel so you can cross-promote and drive messaging from one channel to another.

• The quality of your content and messaging is most important. You have to provide great, valuable and meaningful content to your ideal audience. What does this mean? In an ideal world, you would have all the time in that world to do some deep dives into the specific demographics, interests, language, watering holes, etc to truly understand your specific audience in depth. In the real world, you outsource this work to someone you trust and has the ability to interpret your desired clients into a meaningful assessment and audit for actual future clients.

This is always the starting point when I work with law firms – and the most crucial aspect of any successful online campaign. This is the foundation that is also most often overlooked, understandably. It takes time, time most attorneys don’t have and know-how most support staff cannot provide. If you don’t offer valuable content that benefits your ideal client, you will not connect, you will not engage and you will not see them in through your doors.

WEEKLY TIP, TOOL, TRANQUILITY FINDER…

A3: THE ASSESS, ACCELERATE, & AMPLIFY ONE DAY WORKSHOP FOR ATTORNEYS

Speaking of engaging on the channels most relevant to your clients or peers if that is how you gain clients, LinkedIn is the top channel whether you work with businesses or individuals. It is therefore crucial that your own LinkedIn profile therefore look professional. Why would you spend all these years working so hard to build a stellar reputation, relationships to see it diminished by an online profile that shows little care or thought?! Whether or not prospective clients are referred to you by word of mouth or not, they are checking you out online, and usually via LinkedIn.

These last few months, I have received several questions, and requests to work with attorneys on optimizing their LinkedIn profiles, positioning them to speak to their specific ideal client, and how to efficiently manage the nurture, engage and touch points that bring them to your door. This is also what is referred to as “inbound marketing” and in my opinion the most effective way of growing your practice.

Responding to many of the requests and consultations, I have assembled all the essential moving parts that typically go into a 3 month consulting partnership in my Attorney Amplifier one day virtual workshop program.  This is a new delivery style I am very excited about because I think it is the best way to meet any time-strapped attorney’s schedule.

And, is there any other profession that knows how to buckle down, focus, and hustle for a 6 hour stint better than attorneys? Not many. Most attorneys I know are putting quite a few more hours than that on a regular basis.

Because this is a virtual online workshop you can conveniently join in from anywhere (assuming you have a reliable internet connection). We will hit the ground running 9am and go through 4pm. To avoid disruption to your regular weekly billables, the workshop will be offered on a Saturday, April 7.

I want to emphasize, this is NOT a ‘show me how’ or kick the tires’ type of workshop, it is an IMPLEMENTATION workshop where you walk away with your LinknedIn profile and positioning optimized and customized messaging for engagement in place!

Though I am still refining the logistics, here is about how the day will break down, the day will consist of three parts:

1. ASSESS: SET UP & OPTIMIZATION OF YOUR LI PROFILE to set yourself apart, stand out, and create rather than compete with what every other attorney thinks they need to do to generate business

2. ACCELERATE: POSITION YOURSELF AS A LEADING AUTHORITY AND GO TO ATTORNEY through unique, relevant and meaningful branded messaging most relevant to your ideal clients. This will include location of positioning, design, messaging, and a content strategy.

3. AMPLIFY: This is the lead generator system in amplification mode. We’ll talk – and implement – tags, organization, messaging sequence, and automate while offering high quality and unique content.

Here’s the deal, this is BETA run and I am opening this to about 10 focused attorneys who have a strong desire to grow their practice with highly qualified leads. This is for you if you are willing to put in 1-2 hours of “homework” before the one day workshop – to ensure we hit the ground running and truly ready to implement the various strategies.

In exchange for honest, constructive feedback, assurances that you will do the pre workshop day assignments, and return these to me no later than three days before the workshop, I am offering this for the BETA price of $1,000 for the entire day. After I receive feedback, and implement any updates per the feedback, the normal price for this workshop will start at $3,000.

If we feel it’s a good fit for us both, and you choose to join me for the BETA run, you will be grandfathered in to the closed FB Group Attorney Amplifier – where I will personally participate weekly to answer questions and provide you with updates that are essential or mandatory for online legal marketing, and offer additional strategies on a regular basis.

This workshop IS for you if you are a lawyer who is looking to grow and accelerate their own practice or as an associate or partner building business in the context of a larger practice.

If you are interested, I’d love to hear from you. The best way to reach me is by emailing me directly at viveca@hessconnect.com. In the subject heading please type in the words “Attorney Amplifier” so I can quickly identify and respond to your message.

To be efficient and respectful of your time, I’ll then forward a short one page questionnaire to ensure this program is a good fit for you.

I am beyond thrilled to assemble what I believe is an attractive, efficient and meaningful way of delivering and implementing valuable, actionable content that will generate qualified leads to time crunched attorneys who are exhausted from trying to balance current client work and attending various networking functions in attempts to build their practice. Imagine having a backend lead generation system that brings qualified inbound leads to you while you are given back your time to focus on lawyering, and more time doing all those things you love to do outside of your practice?!

Again, I am limiting this to about 10 highly motivated and focused attorneys, and I don’t say this to inject scarcity, but I want to have enough time to review everyone’s profile before the workshop, so I hit the ground running with an evaluation of your particular needs. And, I want to be able to deliver meaningful and relevant feedback throughout the workshop to each person.

IN NEXT POST…

Thanks for taking the time to join me and hope we’ll connect next week when when I discuss streamlining your work process through technology. One of the ways to streamline your law practice is to use technology to reduce redundancies in your law firm’s work processes, as well as targeting your online messaging to the right audience.