This is where many lawyers struggle—they’re unsure about how to strike the right balance and not come across as overtly pitching their services, but also not appear passive. Thinking through how a conversation may play out is important.
Be a Business Development “Activator”
The study identifies five distinct profiles that define how professional services partners approach business development. Four of the five are negatively correlated with performance. Only the Activator shows a positive impact on performance and revenue (and it’s a significant impact). The Activator does the following: commits to business development, connects with clients and colleagues, and creates value in relationships.
The Power of Client-Centric Selling
How Lawyers can Build “Know, Like, and Trust” Personal Brands
Clients buy legal services from lawyers, not law firms. Firms invest heavily in their brands, but primarily for the purpose of empowering their attorneys to develop business themselves. Law firms lay the foundation. Individual lawyers need to build.
Selling legal services is relational not transactional. It takes time. It requires consistency. Unless you’re selling a commodity, which means you’re competing on price, you need to invest in relationships to attract and keep clients.
In their book, The Go-Giver, Bob Burg and John David Mann explain that, “All things being equal people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like, and trust.”
How to Build a Powerful, High-Performing Law Firm Website
A law firm website should be, or at least it can be, an exciting place for clients to learn new things. It should inspire action toward goals and be the first stop on a prospective client’s buyer’s journey. Done right, a law firm website can be the engine that drives a law firm’s growth.
Unfortunately, few law firms realize these benefits.
How Lawyers can Create Content that Spreads on LinkedIn
Lawyers need to be strategic in their approach on LinkedIn. And one of the most important strategic priorities is to create and share content that reaches the right audience. Indeed, the only way to make a really big impact as a lawyer on LinkedIn is to put your best content front and center.
Want to create viral content on LinkedIn that spreads beyond your immediate network and positions you as a thought leader in your space? Yes, of course, but the real question is: How?
In this post I dive deep into the issues of: (1) how to create compelling content, (2) how the LinkedIn algorithm works, and (3) in light of the way content spreads on LinkedIn, how lawyers can craft a smart content strategy to make their thought leadership reach a big audience.
LinkedIn for Lawyers: 10 Steps to Business Development Success
According to the 2016 ABA Legal Technology Survey report, more than 93% of lawyers surveyed now use LinkedIn, with large firm attorneys using it the most. There’s a good reason for this—LinkedIn has almost 600 million members and is easily the most “target rich” social media platform for a lawyer with a business-oriented practice. LinkedIn is a professional network, which means that people are spending time there for the purpose of doing business. There is no doubt that LinkedIn is the best place online for lawyers looking to grow their networks and their practices.
The problem, however, is that too many lawyers use LinkedIn as a place to connect and scroll through other people’s posts, rather than as a tool to aid in business development. LinkedIn has everything a lawyer might need to establish relationships that lead to new business. It’s just a matter of leveraging the tools to best effect.
How to Create a Stunning, Lead-Generating Law Firm Website in 30 Days or Less
When we start working on a law firm website project, we ask our clients: “What do you want your website to accomplish?” One of the most common answers we hear, often delivered with an irresolute shrug of the shoulders, is: “We really just need an online brochure.”
We hate hearing this term—“online brochure”—because it sets such a low bar for what should be a law firm’s strongest marketing asset. A law firm website should look great and function flawlessly, sure. That’s table stakes. But done right, it can be the fuel powering a marketing engine that tells a compelling story, attracts ideal clients, generate leads, and turn leads into new business. Best of all, by incorporating the right mix of marketing automation technology, it can work for your while you’re busy working for your clients.
Sounds good, right? But I know what you’re thinking: “We don’t have the time or the money to invest in a new website.”
Provide More Value to Build Your Personal Brand
Ever wonder why some writers get all the attention online? Their posts get shared, their personal brands grow, their email lists swell, and their fortunes rise as their content receives an outsized share of eyeballs.
It’s easy to dismiss their success as luck, by concluding that it resulted from a post going viral (as if hitting “Publish” is the same as pulling the lever on a slot machine), or connections with influencers that others don’t have. Meanwhile, we keep publishing but never gain traction. We preach to the choir of a stagnant email list and collect a few random likes and shares on LinkedIn. As our progress stalls so does our output. Before long, we conclude this “content thing” isn’t worth the time and we go back to billing hours and researching the next marketing trend to chase.
If You’re Good at What You Do, and You Know Who You Serve, it’s Your Duty to Sell
Think about the last time there was a serious problem that needed to be fixed at your home – the furnace went out on a cold day or a pipe burst and water was running down your walls. Now imagine if, during this moment of panic, a highly qualified and dependable repair person contacted you out of the blue and said they could be at your front door within 15 minutes to fix the problem. Would you be offended by this sales pitch, or would you be grateful for the offer? My guess is that you – like me – would immediately give the guy your address, and greet him with a hug and an open checkbook when he arrived.
“Selling” has become a dirty word. It connotes sleaze and pushiness, and there’s no doubt that some salespeople are sleazy and pushy. But in most cases, it’s not that salespeople do anything underhanded or aggressive that turns us off, it’s just that they hit us up with something we don’t need or at a time we don’t need it. This is true whether you’re a used car salesman, an Apple store “Genius” or a corporate litigator.