Turn Calls/Inquiries into Signed Retainer
Agreements and Cash in the Bank… Remotely
interviewer They haven’t been to law school but they get the feeling that people who have been to law school get taken down to the basement and whipped and were told to be ethical and worry about ethics and to be sincere in their state bar. But pretty much every attorney I speak to, if I even broach the subject of marketing, they say “It has to be ethical, we have to worry about ethics, we don’t want to worry about state bar complaints”. How do you deal with that and how do you feel about the state bar? What do you do to be ethical?
Robert It’s very easy, what I do, because the goal of marketing is to educate people as to what’s going on. What I’m doing is what you ask the bar. What should the goal of marketing be? It’s to inform and educate the consumer. The type of marketing I do is completely ethical and above board.
But I do agree. Law school and legal seminars spend all their time scaring the daylights out of lawyers and telling you what you can’t do. The reality is, when you actually study it and break it down, the limitations are very slight. Basically, don’t tell anything untrue or misleading about yourself. The other thing is, because we’re professional services, people can have opinions, but you can’t prove someone is the best. You can’t say “I’m the best lawyer” even if 10 clients have said that.
The other thing to remember is that those rules only apply to your outbound marketing. By getting people to raise their hand and request the book, they have said, “It is okay to market to me”. At that point, none of the rules apply. If you have 10 clients who have said “Thank you, you are the greatest lawyer of all time”, once someone has said “I would like to hear what other people have to say about your services”, you can provide that information or other information to folks.
The other thing a lot of lawyers totally freak out about is that they’ve heard that there are certain requirements with sending what so many lawyers on the criminal side refer to as “jail mail”. It’s direct mail. They say “Oh, I know there are things you have to do” and it’s very simple. All you need to do if you want to send direct mail is write, on the front of the envelope, in bold font, “advertising material” and on the front page of whatever letter you are sending to people, again, in bold font, same size as the largest font on that letter, “Advertising material”.
The bar requirements they’re constantly telling people to beware of this, beware of that. The only other thing people run into, and I see lawyers regularly violate it, is when they put some sort of testimonial up. Some states don’t allow it, but most states allow that. You just have to put some sort of disclaimer in there saying “All cases are different and results could depend on a variety of factors”. But, again, that’s not very difficult, not very onerous, and certainly it isn’t a reason for people to throw up their hands and hide in their offices and not try to do any sort of marketing. A lot of lawyers do it.
interviewer The mindset that’s coming across to me is “I can’t do that. That won’t work for me. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” What you’re saying is a better mindset to have.
Robert Right. That’s an awful mindset. That’s the first thing in my coaching programs and the book I was fortunate enough to be asked to write a section about DUI marketing called, “Great Legal Marketing” which just came out at the end of last year. The reason the mindset of people is really the biggest obstacle between everybody listening to your call right now, Richard, and a great successful practice, is not the state bar. It’s not President Obama. It’s not the House of Representatives. It’s not the local bar. It’s between their ears. They need to get up, take action and act like a business owner and learn how to market their business.
When I went to Ben Glass’ first seminar back in 2006, it was for personal injury lawyers. I’m not a personal injury lawyer. If I would have taken the mindset that “my business is different. We can’t do that. Geez, he’s talking about sending multiple mailings because someone’s got two years to file a personal injury case whereas my guy needs someone yesterday”, that’s the wrong attitude.
The attitude I took in going into it is “How can I use this in my practice?” Ben Glass, at the time, had written an article, which, in another book he had written, he mentioned specifically saying that I came in with that attitude that I’m going to figure out how this applies to my practice and I’m going to figure out how to use it in my practice.
interviewer One more thing I’d like to ask you about, which also shocked me, is that I hear from, pretty much, everyone, they offer a free initial consultation. You told me you don’t and that you charge for it.
Robert Correct. I do not. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m a solo practitioner. It is just me here in Richmond. I’ve used virtual assistants in the past. I’ve got a receptionist service that will answer my phones. I have them forwarded most of the time, but they’re located on the other coast. They’re in Portland, Oregon.
One of the things that lawyers need to develop down the road is, you need to have everybody in your office, especially the person who answers your phone and the people who meet with clients, everybody, they need to know that their job is a sales position. Sales, again, is not a dirty word. All sales means is that I’m talking about persuasion. Marketing is not a dirty word. You shouldn’t take the attitude that marketing is something you do to people. You should say that marketing you do for people.
I’m assuming that the people look at what I call the “dump truck DUI lawyers” who plead everybody guilty, don’t do any work for them, and say “that’s not me”. All right, if that’s not you, then your marketing attitude should be “I need to attract these people and the people who choose me, I’ve helped them”, as opposed to someone who doesn’t care about them and is going to do a crappy job for them.