There are many stories of successful law firms found on the Internet, and some business owners are willing to share their accomplishments. However, it is unlikely that you will be able to hear from them the secrets of a productive search for clients for a law firm. This material is devoted to how to open a law office and attract the maximum number of potential clients.
Types of work in a law firm
The income of a law firm is formed as a result of the provision of legal assistance and services to the population, private entrepreneurs or organizations. The range of services provided by the office can be universal or narrowly focused. Young companies that have only recently entered the market prefer a limited list of work performed. For example, registration of inheritance or divorces, purchase and sale of real estate or criminal cases, labor law or resolution of financial disputes of corporate clients.
Secondly, it is necessary to determine in advance the format of the legal office's activity: broad or narrow specialization. This step will allow you to identify the target audience, which should be targeted during the implementation of marketing activities.
A law firm, which is planned to be opened in the near future, can take on board the following options for finding clients.
The legal business is rapidly developing in Russia. More and more lawyers and attorneys are faced with the need to professionally attract clients. In this book, you will find many useful ideas on how to develop a strategy and tactics for attracting clients to the legal practice. The book is written in a simple and understandable language, based on the practical experience gained by the author while working with law firms and lawyers in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The author of the book is an expert in marketing of legal services, a member of the American Legal Marketing Association, president of the Russian Legal Marketing Association, and a managing partner of the international consulting firm Legal Marketing Laboratory. The publication will be of interest to private practitioners and lawyers, heads of law firms.
A series: Dmitry Zasukhin Legal Marketing Laboratory
* * *
by the LitRes company.
Chapter 2. Basic Strategies in Marketing Legal Services
Let's move on to the practical part of the book and get acquainted with the main strategies of legal marketing.
2.1. Strategy 1. Materialization of services
What causes fear in people who need legal services?
The main problem in the perception of legal services is their intangibility.
Everyone knows how a person perceives the world: looks, touches, hears... Imagine you buy a new car, go for a test drive - you smell fresh leather in the cabin, squeeze the steering wheel, hear how aggressive the engine sounds, accelerate ... and make a decision about the purchase.
What about legal services? I have a problem. Who will decide for me? Contact a firm? Will they help? Won't help? What happens if they don't help? Ask friends? Ivanov liked the work of a lawyer, but Petrov did not ... Whom to believe? I could test drive the car. And what about the services of a lawyer?
The main thing that gives rise to the intangibility of a legal service is fear. The fear of the consumer is expressed in the thoughts: “What will happen if I don’t like it?”, “Is the lawyer reliable?” and so on.
The most important conclusion to be drawn is that we must fight the fears of our clients.
How to allay customer fears?
I will say right away, if you want customers to queue up for you, direct your marketing to the most important thing - to materialize the service:
Write a book.
Present a seminar.
Record a video course.
Keep a blog.
Speak in public.
Participate in TV programs.
Take part in political activities.
When a client reads you, sees and listens to you live, thereby he materializes you and your service for himself, it is easier for him to make a decision - his fears go away.
Important! The more customers' senses you engage, the more customers you will attract. These are the laws of perception of nature itself. By ignoring them, you are losing customers.
2.2. Strategy 2. We sell not a service, but a result
The classic marketing postulate is: "No one needs drills - everyone needs holes." Simply put, people do not need a product, but a RESULT.
Have you thought about the fact that no one needs legal services? "How?!" you say. What is needed is not legal services - what is needed is the benefit that the client receives when ordering legal services from you.
This benefit must be clearly understood in order to engage in legal marketing.
Example.
When I consult a law firm on marketing issues, we first understand the values of potential clients, find out what the client gets from working with a law firm.
It is useful to make the following table:
When a client makes a decision, he takes into account the needs that can be met with your services. Understanding what the client is actually guided by when making a decision, it will be easier for you to communicate with him, it will be easier to convince him to buy a legal service from you.
2.3. Strategy 3. Focus on low-cost marketing methods
Lawyers and lawyers often ask me: “I have 100,000 rubles for advertising. How to spend them? Order a glossy ad, air a video on regional TV?”
And, believe me, it takes a lot of effort to persuade the client not to spend this money, but to concentrate on low-budget marketing and advertising.
What is guerrilla marketing?
Remember how the partisans fought. With minimal armament, but maximum efficiency. Many partisan snipers got it: one cartridge - one enemy life.
The same thing happens in marketing. The development of a strategy, the search for creative ideas allow us to achieve a greater return on every ruble invested in the business.
Why focus on low-cost advertising strategies?
By limiting the budget, you actively THINK and focus on the main thing. This focus allows you to figure out how best to grab the attention of a potential client. You get to know better who your customer is and why they buy.
Advertising is a black hole for any business. You can spend millions and get no result. Guerrilla marketing won't work 100% either, but as one old ad says, "If there's no difference, why pay more?"
In this book, most of the tools are low-cost, but quite effective, which has been repeatedly tested in the practice of your colleagues.
2.4. Strategy 4. Marketing arsenal. How to kill several birds with one stone in marketing?
I am often asked: “Dmitry, name the most effective legal marketing tool. What should be applied first? Let's figure it out.
What is the most effective advertising method? There is no panacea in marketing. Only an integrated approach gives a guaranteed result. If we talk about general trends, this is a concentration on the Internet and on public speaking.
I have already compared marketing tools and soldier weapons. When going into battle, it is better to have an arsenal and know how to use this arsenal. Pick 4-5 methods and use them constantly, alternating. At one point, you will cross a certain threshold - and customers will start coming to you as if by themselves.
In attracting customers, the same principle applies as with health. To have good health, you must perform a complex: eat well, exercise, rest. You can not quickly and permanently lose weight or build muscle. It’s the same in marketing: if you want a stable result in attracting customers, you need to work on the system.
How to do it? A marketing plan and calendar will help you, which we will explore in the next section.
2.5. Strategy 5. Need a system. Preparing a marketing plan and calendar
How do young athletes start training with a coach? The first thing a coach writes is a program for a beginner and starts a training diary for him. Why is he doing this? The program allows you to achieve a comprehensive result, and the diary allows you to track the results and work in the system.
How to make a marketing plan and calendar? Write down what customer acquisition activities you will be hosting next month. And after six months?
Many marketing mechanisms have a significant effect only after repeated use, such as seminars. To get to know you well, you need to conduct 3-5 seminars.
Very often I come across a situation where the marketing activities in a law firm resemble chaos, the company does not have enough clients - convulsions begin in their search, money is spent chaotically, results are not tracked.
Maintaining a marketing planning and calendar will allow you to:
Organize your customer search.
Predict the growth of the company.
Remember! Meticulously keeping a diary and acting in a system is a lot of work. But! This work will be rewarded - you will have a system to attract customers!
2.6. Strategy 6. Differentiation. How are you different from competitors?
“What makes you different from your competitors? Why should I contact your law firm and not a competitor?” - such questions often confuse lawyers and lawyers. Many answer in unison: "We have fast, high quality, inexpensive."
Does any of your competitors say that they are long, expensive and of poor quality? No? What then is your competitive advantage?
Art. Lebedev Studio demonstrates a striking example of detuning from competitors. She describes her benefits as follows:
Differentiation from competitors is the most important part of a company's marketing strategy.
Remember! Gone are the days when a client wanted to know where to find the services of a lawyer. The modern client is looking for an answer to the question "Why should I contact you?".
2.7. Strategy 7. Specialization
“We want more customers, help!” This is the most common request I receive at work. Counter question "Who is your client?" most often confuses lawyers and lawyers. The answer options do not shine with variety: “People with money”, “People with legal problems”, “Adequate people”.
How will we attract customers if we don't know who they are? One of the ideas that will allow you to stand out in the market and attract customers is specialization. The client is tired of "universal" lawyers who handle cases ranging from consumer protection to the issue of shares.
Tools that will help you choose a specialization, we will consider a little later.
2.8. Strategy 8. PR-activities. Working on popularity
Technology is an effective method of legal marketing PR(Public Relations - public relations). Let's take a look at why PR works in legal services marketing.
A person, choosing the services of a lawyer or a lawyer, takes a very big risk, because he cannot objectively assess the quality of the service provided. Service cannot be touched, cannot be felt. It can only be used. All these nuances give rise to fears in a potential consumer.
How to remove this fear? This is where legal PR can help. Who do we trust more? Of course, to the one we know, about whom we have heard. Therefore, when planning your PR activities, pay attention to the following PR tools:
TV appearances.
Articles in the press.
Public performance.
All this allows you to take your legal marketing to a new level.
Remember! If you want to be successful in the legal business, you will have to become a public figure.
The number of clients and fees directly depends on how well known you and your company are.
2.9. Strategy 9. Demonstration of experience, or brag about the results
Your customers and your experience is everything. Do you want to be successful in legal marketing? You will have to demonstrate the success of your customers, to which they came thanks to you.
How to do it in practice? Collect customer reviews. Make films about working together. Demonstrate your experience in case studies.
Demonstration of experience will help you remove the fear of potential customers - the number of successful transactions will increase.
2.10. Strategy 10. Free Offers
There are topics in legal marketing that I especially love. One of my favorites is selling legal services for free. When I conduct a seminar or training for lawyers, the most heated debates and discussions are born during the discussion of this topic. So, I argue that in your package of services there should be those services that you are ready to provide for free. You should advertise this free of charge - and then it will become some kind of marketing magnet that attracts clients to your practice.
Freebie paradox.
Imagine that you have a toothache and you choose your dentist. The initial reception of one costs 6,000 rubles, the services of another - 3,000 rubles. Both are good specialists working in cool clinics. Who will you choose? Don't rush to answer. And imagine that at one moment both specialists make a discount on their services of 3,000 rubles. That is, the reception of one began to cost 3,000 rubles, and the other - for FREE. How will your choice priorities change?
Why is the freebie selling?
Our critical attitude towards the service is significantly reduced if something is offered to us for free. Marketers have long noticed and use this psychological pattern. Pay attention to the packages of goods in stores - the fifth piece of bread is FREE, buy two packages - and get the third one for FREE. The magic of the free attracts us, turning off elementary logic.
In my seminars, I often hear the objection: "You can't buy me with a freebie." You may not be bought, I do not argue, but a mass buyer - yes!
How to use the magical "free" in your legal practice?
Offer free services. If you work with the corporate market, then many legal entities are pecking on the hook for free legal services. How to provide a free service and not go into the red by implementing it?
The service must be standard. You have developed service delivery algorithms. The service is provided quickly and according to the template. For legal entities, standard audits, basic consulting, document templates are perfect. For example, you have a typical service - a two-hour consulting for managers "How to fire employees without litigation?". You call companies that could potentially be your outsourcing clients and offer sample consulting for free. The effectiveness of such a proposal is quite high (remember the magical power of a freebie).
Calculate the conversion. You must clearly know how many free audits you need to conduct in order to get a contract. Such statistics will allow you to calculate the cost of free audits and payback. When I consult a law firm, every fifth audit results in a contract.
Involve junior partners. The audit should be clearly regulated: how do we conduct it, at what time, what documents do we draw up? Once you have a policy in place, you can outsource free services to junior partners in your firm. Lawyers may engage trainee assistants.
Give information. A great legal marketing method using freebies is to prepare free brochures and document templates. This approach allows you to make a free offer once and use it for years. Select a legal issue that is most common with your clients. Prepare a 5-10 page guide on how to diagnose the problem yourself, how to prepare to solve it. Great options for such guides: “How to prepare for a tax audit yourself?”, “What to do if you were sent a tax demand and you do not agree with it?” and so on.
Very often, at a seminar, lawyers interrupt me and say: “But how can I tell the client? Then they will go and do it themselves. Why do they need me?
Tell me, if the same dentist tells in detail and shows how to put fillings, will you go to put a filling, even if you have the equipment, your relatives? The answer is obvious. The same is true in your practice. And the client who goes to solve legal issues himself, as a rule, is not your client. In addition to the removal of the brain from such self-taught, you will not get anything.
It's important to understand! The attraction of being free is hardwired into our brains. It is beyond any rational explanation.
If you want to be successful in attracting customers, you will need to implement a free strategy:
2.11. Strategy 11. Bait services
I have repeatedly said that the consumer is constantly haunted by fear: “Did I choose the right lawyer? Will they help me?" These fears do not allow the client to easily contact you and pay you money.
Stepping aside a little, I will say that these fears are quite natural and are present in any human relationship. Take, for example, the relationship between a man and a woman. How does a man meet and establish a relationship with a woman? Immediately invites her to spend the night with him? (No, there is, of course, the method of lieutenant Rzhevsky, but, as you know, you can get punched in the face for it). A man begins with insignificant courtship: invitations to a restaurant, cinema, for a walk. Thus, a man shows: I'm not scary, I can be trusted, everything will be fine.
Remember! The main strategy in marketing legal services is not to sell to the client at the first touch.
How to put it into practice?
There is a concept in marketing front-end(bait) - a service or product for which we catch our client.
How to build such a "hook" in the legal business? The general rule is: offer the consumer a low-cost or free service that allows them to interact with your business.
Hook Service Options for Legal Business
Free consultations.
Free document preparation.
Seminars.
Free information products (articles, videos).
Which of these options to choose? The easiest way is to create a series of information products that help the client solve their problem. It can be a series of articles, video consultations, recordings of your seminars.
Remember! Having once spent on recording an information product, you can attract customers for years.
For example, you are engaged in divorce proceedings. Make a series of articles on the topic “How to get a divorce, saving nerves and money”, release a video “10 biggest mistakes when filing a divorce”.
How does this affect the client?
Remember how a man takes care of a woman. The same thing will happen to your client: he will come to the office, get free material, realize that you are a professional in your field, and pay you money for a divorce settlement.
Important note! Such informational materials should contain only useful information! No water!
What if the reception doesn't work?
Let me show you how global brands successfully apply this technique in practice:
Printers: penny devices - then there are expensive cartridges.
Gillette Razors: Cheap Razors, Expensive Blades.
IT services (telephony, hosting): the opportunity to use the service for two weeks for free.
Cars: test drives.
To make bait services work effectively, use them as part of a two-step advertisement:
2.12. Strategy 12: Educate clients
The paradigm of selling legal services has changed. Every year it becomes more and more difficult for lawyers to break into sales through the barriers of secretaries, assistant managers, and ordinary employees. What is the reason? The reason is that business schools and books have taught us that the goal of any business is to satisfy the customer's needs. So hundreds of law firms are trying to satisfy this need. All modern sales negotiation techniques are aimed at asking what the client needs and then offering him a solution.
Lawyers are greatly mistaken in thinking that clients clearly understand what they want, what need they want to satisfy. Practice shows that most customers do not have needs formed. They, most likely, notice their legal problems, but do not attach any importance to this. Formulating a new paradigm for the sale of legal services, we can say: first you need to create a need for the consumer, and only then move on to satisfying it.
How do you start generating needs? There is only one answer here: through training clients, increasing general legal literacy.
What do clients want to learn from lawyers?
Clients are more likely to buy your services if you can teach them the following:
How to run a business more efficiently and profitably using legal knowledge and skills.
How to avoid mistakes when solving legal issues in business.
What to do if an error occurs. How to act smart.
To put it simply, clients want you to teach them how to do business more efficiently, how to get more value, how to cut costs by applying your legal knowledge.
The old legal sales paradigm was that clients know what they need. The new paradigm allows you to outperform your competitors by shaping the needs of your customers through their education.
To some extent, sales are being transformed into the approach that is in medicine: the doctor will first train you, give you a consultation, and then write a prescription.
What are the benefits of customer training?
More attracted clients. First, training is a great bait service. For example, by inviting a client to your seminar, you will remove the initial fear and be able to move on to more substantive negotiations. Secondly, by training the client, you make him more professional, he begins to understand legal issues more easily and buys easier.
A simple household example.
The most striking method of teaching smokers not to smoke is to show them the lungs of a smoker. If you want clients to order, for example, the implementation of the bankruptcy procedure, show them what will happen if the bankruptcy procedure is not launched on time.
More sales to existing customers. When we start training clients, we form their needs. In practice, we get excellent results, repeat sales increase.
Increasing profit. Training can be a stand-alone service for which you will charge money. One of our clients, a criminal lawyer, conducts trainings at enterprises. He trains employees on what to do in the event of a search. For such instruction, he takes very good money.
Conducting seminars, consulting, trainings can be a good additional source of income.
Customer retention. It is important to understand that customer education is not only additional sales. It is also building relationships with customers, which contributes to their retention.
expert status. A person who teaches becomes a priori an expert in the eyes of people.
Important! The introduction of a customer training system is a powerful factor in building a legal marketing system.
You are professionals. You understand legal issues better than the client. You will have to teach the client. Customer training is a very effective competitive tool.
2.13. Strategy 13. Internet Marketing
No one will argue with the fact that the Internet is becoming the main means of obtaining information in our time. An important feature of the Internet is its interactivity. People on the Web not only receive information, but also actively distribute it. There are new mechanisms of word of mouth, which is so loved by lawyers. It can be said without a doubt: which of the lawyers will be better at using the mechanisms of the Internet in the 21st century, that one will be more in demand by clients.
If you want to be successful in attracting customers, you will have to learn and implement internet marketing techniques. I will say right away, as a professional: you will be bored and uninterested in understanding Internet marketing tools. What happens if you don't master them? It's simple: unscrupulous performers will be able to hang noodles on your ears, getting money from you.
Remember! The Internet is a strategic resource for attracting clients to the legal business!
2.14. Strategy 14. We sell services dearly
Do you want to sell your legal services for a high price? I have not met a single professional who would answer this question to me: “No”.
To the second question: “Why don’t you sell then?” - I get the following answers: “Customers will not buy”, “It is cheaper from competitors”, “In our city, no one sells services at a high price”.
Let's see: if high prices are so attractive, how to sell expensive legal services in practice?
Several axioms of pricing.
Prices for legal services are an abstraction. How much does it cost, for example, to conduct a criminal case in court? The lawyers with whom I worked called a range from 30,000 to 1,500,000 rubles for starting work in the first instance. Will a lawyer for 1.5 million rubles protect you 50 times better than a lawyer for 30,000 rubles? You well understand that it is improbable.
The price does not guarantee the quality or quantity of the service provided. Prices depend on many subjective factors.
We do not know how much money the client has. We must admit this. We can guess, but we do not know the exact amount that the client is willing to spend.
The price of the service is a measure of quality. So it happened: if we cannot determine the quality of the service, we choose by price. We stop at the maximum possible amount that we are able to give.
Remember! The worst option in the legal business is to act according to the strategy "Quickly, efficiently, inexpensively." After all, there will always be colleagues who will offer the service even cheaper. They will fall in quality, in professionalism, but they will make it cheaper.
The only reasonable option is to strive to sell legal services at a high price!
Why does one lawyer manage to charge high fees, while another is content with much less? For me, as a legal marketer, high prices are one of the marketing techniques that anyone can use.
Why is it worth learning how to sell legal services at a high price?
Knowing how to sell services expensively, you save your time. Fewer cases at high fees gives you the opportunity to focus on each case, so you improve the quality of your work.
You will increase your expert status. If you learn how to charge high fees, and can justify them to clients, then you will give a great advantage to your practice as a whole - clients will perceive you as a better specialist.
2.15. Strategy 15. Built-in sales system
You will be surprised, but it is not enough just to attract customers. They also need to professionally sell the service. But professional sales suffer greatly in legal practice.
Why does your legal business need professional sales?
To win the competition. The client has long wanted a professional approach to everything. Not only when the service is directly rendered to him, but also when it is sold. When you sell professionally, you feel it. You clearly explain to the client what he is buying, saving him time and effort. Clients appreciate it.
To be able to sell your services expensively. Are you chosen by price? Perhaps you are to blame for starting a price war. A professional approach to sales, when you know how a client buys and how to sell your service to him, allows you to sell your services more expensively.
To have financial stability. More customers - more profit - more stability. You clearly form your budget, which will allow you to achieve the most important thing.
To gain confidence in the future. Chronic search for money, chaotic sales of legal services to clients - all this does not have the best effect on the quality of legal services provided. You simply can't take care of a client's problems when you have nothing to pay your employees' salaries.
What is Professional Selling?
Systematic approach to sales.
Understanding the psychology of sales.
Active interaction with the client.
Professional negotiation with the client in the sales process.
Chapter Summary
The key to successfully working with clients is the complex implementation of the following actions:
Homework.
1. Fill in the table (for the services you provide):
2. Come up with lure services for your customers.
3. Make a brochure for businessmen "7 Entrepreneur Mistakes That End in Court." Promote your brochure.
4. Prepare a guide (5-7 pages) for your clients on the problem they most often come to you with. Tell us about how to prepare for its solution.
* * *
The following excerpt from the book legal marketing. How to attract clients to lawyers and lawyers (Dmitry Zasukhin, 2014) provided by our book partner -
The legal business is rapidly developing in Russia. More and more lawyers and attorneys are faced with the need to professionally attract clients. In this book, you will find many useful ideas on how to develop a strategy and tactics for attracting clients to the legal practice. The book is written in a simple and understandable language, based on the practical experience gained by the author while working with law firms and lawyers in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The author of the book is an expert in marketing of legal services, a member of the American Legal Marketing Association, president of the Russian Legal Marketing Association, and a managing partner of the international consulting firm Legal Marketing Laboratory. The publication will be of interest to private practitioners and lawyers, heads of law firms.
A series: Dmitry Zasukhin Legal Marketing Laboratory
* * *
by the LitRes company.
Dedicated to my parents
Chapter 1 Legal Marketing Basics
To change something in your life, you need to clearly understand what it leads to. Consider what the implementation of legal marketing methods will give you.
1.1. Why Marketing Lawyers?
Guaranteed customer flow. The most important thing to understand: marketing is the science of customer acquisition. By implementing legal marketing techniques, you will be able to line up customers.
Today, the main tool for attracting clients to legal practice is word of mouth.
word of mouth is the transfer of positive information about your services from consumer to consumer. I would like to underline the word positive note: negative information spreads much faster.
Unfortunately, this tool is not without drawbacks:
First, it is difficult to control the process. Even professional marketers have a hard time getting word of mouth under control.
Secondly, the unpredictability of the results. How many clients will come tomorrow? What actions will we take if we are left without customers?
Traditional marketing has hundreds of customer acquisition tools.
Imagine you are at war and marketing is your ammunition depot. You are preparing for battle. You have two options:
1) choose one weapon - word of mouth (it is not clear how it shoots: maybe it will shoot, or maybe not);
2) to arm yourself with an arsenal of means (to assemble a set of tools with clear characteristics and operating instructions).
In which case the chances of winning increase? The answer is obvious.
Marketing knowledge will allow you to:
Stabilize the flow of customers.
Increase sales of legal services.
Working with the best clients. I often ask lawyers, "Why did you become a lawyer?" Very often they answer me: “I like to solve complex problems”, “I like to work on complex criminal cases, I like the taste of victory.”
In the legal business, most professionals tend to handle complex cases, preferring to charge high fees. None of the lawyers see their career development as sitting in an office filled with grandmothers who sue on utility bills. Most refuse this work not even because it is poorly paid, but because it is not interesting. There is professional degradation.
By studying and implementing legal marketing methods, you get practical tools to attract customers. You know how to line up a queue of customers, and you know how to do it. The queue allows you to choose the BEST of them. They will bring you the most interesting cases and big fees.
Increasing income and selling legal services is expensive. Let's be honest with ourselves: you can't develop professionally and give 120% of your attention to solving customer issues if you need money all the time. When lawyers are constantly looking for clients, taking on a huge number of cases at once, they find themselves in a state of stress, which makes it difficult to concentrate on work and effectively resolve client issues.
Legal marketing allows you to not think so much about your daily bread. An excess flow of clients helps ensure the financial stability of the practice, which contributes to the effective development of your business.
In addition, the use of marketing tools makes it possible to sell services EXPENSIVELY. We conducted a study in Moscow, as a result of which it turned out that the cost of the same service for one lawyer can be 60 (sixty!) times more expensive than for another. With an excess of customers, you will be able to choose those to whom you will offer your services at a very high price. In this book, I will devote a separate chapter to how to practically increase the prices for your service.
Why do I need marketing if I provide quality services? Very often I hear this question from professionals. Among lawyers, there is such a myth: “Provide high-quality services - and the client will come himself.” Tell me, does this not remind you of the Russian proverb: “They will find a good bride even on the stove”?
Colleagues, there is a certain problem with assessing the quality of legal services: the consumer is not able to assess the quality of the service provided to him (after this phrase, I usually have a dispute with lawyers and lawyers). For example, two lawyers have drawn up two contracts for a customer. How can a client determine whose work was done better? We need a third lawyer, or another specialist who can analyze both documents and issue an opinion, or a judge who, in the event of a dispute, will conduct the case.
The consumer turns to you, to professionals, because he does not understand jurisprudence and is not able to carry out the work himself. Why should he turn to lawyers if he himself knows how to draw up contracts?
It's important to understand! It is not enough to provide quality services: you need to be able to convey to the client the value of your service so that he can perceive its quality.
And this is a task for modern marketing.
1.2. Why is it hard to sell legal services?
To put it bluntly, attracting clients who need legal services is hard. It is important to understand the problems of marketing legal services in order to successfully implement a client acquisition strategy in practice.
The main reasons why customers do not come to you.
Intangibility of legal services. It is difficult for a consumer to choose the services of lawyers and lawyers. When choosing a lawyer, the client acts emotionally, being surrounded by fears (what if I make a mistake?) And superstitions (for example, a well-known lawyer is an expensive lawyer). There are no objective data for analysis.
The problem of assessing the quality of service(we discussed this point in detail in the previous paragraph).
Variation in quality of service over time. If a customer buys bread, in most cases the quality is the same day after day. With services, the situation is more complicated: today the lawyer prepared and won the case, tomorrow he fell ill and lost sight of some moments, which led to a loss in the process.
Take, for example, a car: we can drive a car, see the results of test drives, compare. And how do we compare the work of lawyers? Rely on the opinion of friends? It’s also inefficient: a friend liked it, it’s not a fact that I will like it ... But how to choose if your friends have not been in a similar situation? Unfortunately, it is the intangibility of services that makes it difficult to sell them successfully.
Features of the Russian mentality:
The huge passion of Russians for freebies . The vast majority of citizens believe that they are capable of defending themselves in court. Having picked up templates for statements of claim on the Internet, they are psychologically not ready to pay for any legal assistance until they spoil the situation so much that nothing can save it. Of course, there are exceptions, but they only confirm the rule.
Legal "self-medication". Small companies and individual entrepreneurs in their minds are not far from the townsfolk and are most often engaged in "self-treatment".
Lack of faith in the law. In Russia, there is no real competitiveness and equality of the parties, as well as an impartial and independent court. This has led most people to consider the litigation itself pointless.
All these aspects make sometimes the promotion of legal services incredibly difficult.
How to solve these problems in practice?
There are two main recipes:
1. Focus on the best customers. We have already discussed that by applying the methods of legal marketing, you can create a queue of customers. The queue will allow you to concentrate on the best.
2. Customer training. The truth is that if you want to be successful, you have to educate your clients. Including - the correct perception of your profession. In this book, I will devote a separate chapter to how to educate clients.
1.3. The main mistakes that professionals make in marketing their services
When starting a business, lawyers make a lot of mistakes when building a strategy to attract clients. Let's take a look at the main ones.
Underestimating the importance of marketing. Most often I meet with an amateurish approach in advertising for legal services: "The layer's services. Tel. 99 999". And there are 150 such ads in an average advertising newspaper. Marketing, as the science of attracting customers, has gone far in its methods and technologies. Schemes, laws, working mechanisms have appeared, by introducing which you can get a stable flow of customers into your business. Unfortunately, most lawyers ignore the study of modern market laws.
Lack of customer acquisition system. Working in business, you have to deal with attracting customers. If there are no clients, there will be no practice. Most often, customer acquisition is carried out haphazardly. Accumulated money. Advertised there, advertised here. Released leaflets. The money has run out. There is no result. We are waiting for the next money.
It is the same in marketing: a strategic approach is important! How to work it out? Quite simply: you study the mechanisms of marketing, choose those that suit you. Implement them. Evaluate results, cut off ineffective ones, and so on. As a result, you are left with a set of measures that work specifically in YOUR business.
Focus on attracting new customers rather than retaining old ones. We need new clients! - This is the phrase I most often hear when they turn to me for advice. To a counter question: “How do you work with old clients, with those who have already ordered your services?” - there is a significant pause and most often the answer follows: “No way ...” It is well known in marketing that attracting a new client costs 4-6 times more than retaining an old one. It is much easier to sell a service to an old client. At my seminars, I tell that legal services are, first of all, relationships, and how effectively you can build these relationships will directly affect the income and stability of your practice. How to build and maintain a relationship with a client, I will tell a little later.
Handling all clients. This is one of the most serious mistakes of business lawyers. There are so many services on the market, so many clients… I can provide all services, to all clients! As a result, the lawyer starts looking for clients for himself and takes on everything: from old grandmothers suing their housing office to arbitration cases.
The modern client is spoiled. He wants an individual attitude to himself - specialization. The legal problems of a dental clinic and a hairdresser are sometimes different, but for a business owner they are UNIQUE. He believes that everything about dentists is unique.
The law of repulsion in business is one of the amazing paradoxical laws in business: the more you repel the non-target audience, the more your target customers are attracted to you.
Sometimes it can be very difficult to say to a client: “I can’t work with you, because my specialty is dental clinics.” But such affection will soon pay off handsomely.
Lack of self-promotion. Visitors come to the lawyer with their problem. Her decision could change their entire lives. And on how much a person trusts you, it will depend on whether he becomes your client or not.
How is a person trusted? Trust is born through fame. Have you ever wondered why advertisers use famous people in their ads? Yes, because subconsciously we trust celebrities.
What do you do for personal PR? Unfortunately, most lawyers and lawyers work according to the principle “A good bride will be found on the stove”, which leads to a lack of clients ...
Similarity to competitors. The modern client is not looking for an answer to the question of where to find a lawyer. The modern client is looking for an answer to the question “Why should I choose you?”. Service consumers are attacked by hundreds of companies. Today in Moscow alone there are about 12,500 lawyers, practicing lawyers - even more (at least 6 times). How can a modern consumer make a choice?
The main thing is to be different! The more distinctions you collect for your practice, the better. Maybe you only serve certain clients? Maybe you have your own specialization in the field of law?
It is necessary to differ even in appearance. Take, for example, Alexander Dobrovinsky. Immediately an image pops up in my head: a butterfly, a cigar, round glasses, a vest. There are many lawyers - Dobrovinsky is one.
Concentration on choosing a way to convey information to the client. Most lawyers are puzzling over what kind of website to make, in which newspapers to advertise, how many banners to hang... We are often approached by the owners of law firms that are in a crisis. They all ask the same question: “Where should I advertise?”
In fact, it is more important to think about what you will say to customers, and not how you will say it.
Remember! The whole point of your marketing should be to formulate an answer to the question "Why should customers buy from us and not from competitors?".
Selling a service instead of a result. Many lawyers cannot fully understand that a client does not buy legal services from you. He buys from you the realization of his needs with the help of legal services.
You will close significantly more deals if you sell to the client his saved time and money. Strive in all your marketing activities to show the client how you will help him in this.
It also happens that at one “perfect moment” a crisis occurs in practice and there are not enough clients. "What to do?" thinks the lawyer-entrepreneur. It's OK! He is used to enduring pain and coping with difficulties. And he makes a decision: we will mobilize all the finances and bang them into advertising! What is the result? I call it advertising fireworks: beautiful, bright, expensive ... but useless. Money wasted, the effect tends to zero.
What to do? Strategy and more strategy! We have a conscious approach to advertising, we have developed mechanisms, a budget, and we follow it. This approach is much more effective than the "advertising convulsions" produced by many.
One advertising method. Life forces a lawyer to advertise his business. And here “advertising agents” come to the rescue: “Here we have such and such a directory, such and such a newspaper, our designer will lay out a block for you - and that’s it: you are advertised.” Sometimes years pass before a lawyer begins to realize that he regularly pays rent to advertisers, but advertising does not bring clients.
Unfortunately, there is no “magic pill” in marketing - one advertising tool that would consistently bring customers. As a rule, the so-called marketing mix works - a set of tools that TOTALLY bring customers to your business. Focusing on a single medium usually creates a black hole in your marketing budget that will surely blow your money away.
There is no sales system.
No collection of contacts.
No focus on the client.
Work with everyone.
No guarantee.
Service imposition.
You don't have any reviews.
There are no restrictions on the offer.
There are no bonuses for those who bring clients to you.
There is no customer retention system.
Don't fall into the trap of trying to make image ads like big brands like Coca-cola or Samsung. They have completely different goals and objectives. And most importantly, they have completely different budgets. Your task is to increase sales, their task is to maintain the market.
Silly creativity. As in football, everyone understands advertising in our country. Don't laugh, but we've seen ads like "too blue" or "my secretary doesn't like it" more than once. Many perceive advertising as creativity, as a means of self-expression. Issues of efficiency and sales fade into the background.
No specific offer. Advertising must sell! It should not entertain, teach, the purpose of advertising is one - to sell your services. Give a specific offer in the advertisement. Limit it in terms and quantity.
Yes, instead of «Legal services for business tel. +7495*********» write: "Registration of an LLC 4900 rubles + until December 31 a set of contracts as a gift."
Concrete proposals are always catchy.
Advertising all at once. Many lawyers argue like this: “Since we are already spending money on advertising, we will cram everything that we offer into it.” Remember: this approach is inefficient. The client simply does not understand. One advertisement - one advertisement. For example, if you want to sell legal outsourcing, sell legal outsourcing.
No advertising restrictions. See how banks are advertised: “Get a loan before March 31 and get a rate of only 14%”. Such offers create an artificial scarcity that encourages customers to move.
Ill-conceived points of contact with the client. The eternal problem: there is advertising, a phone number is indicated, but people hear short beeps. The mailbox on the free service is full or blocks mail as spam. Skype in advertising is not specified in principle. Remember, there is no point in advertising if you are not ready to get in touch with the client in a CUSTOMER-FRIENDLY way. At a minimum, put a multi-channel phone, make a reliable mail, start Skype.
Disgusting text in ads:“Our law office offers highly qualified advice and legal support to the client at all stages of resolving any civil disputes. Your interests will be protected by the best Moscow civil lawyers! Call and you will be able to get competent advice on legal issues, regardless of the stage at which your case is currently located - you can take the help of our lawyer in civil cases at any time during the proceedings. It does not matter in what capacity our client acts, we will be able to provide qualified assistance to representatives of any party: the plaintiff, the defendant or a third party interested in the outcome of the case. You can contact us even when the court order has already been issued - the powers of a civil lawyer and our experience allow us to successfully challenge a decision that is unacceptable to the client in an appeal, cassation or supervisory procedure. The staff of our Law Office will provide you with assistance or comprehensive advice on all civil law issues.”
This is real text from a real site. Do you feel like reading? Averted eyes on the second line? That's right, this is not an advertising text, but just information garbage.
In this book, I will share some tools and techniques to help you learn how to write easy and understandable articles.
Refusal to analyze the results of advertising. Try to create such advertising, after the launch of which you can measure the statistics. How much did you earn when you invested 50,000 rubles in advertising? Performance measurement allows you to invest in advertising in the most profitable way.
1.4. Required skills. What will you have to learn?
Write texts. You already know how to write large statements of claim, claims and letters. But this is not enough. To attract customers, you need to learn how to write articles. But not just articles, but articles that a person without a legal education could perceive. But this is a big difficulty.
When we start working with lawyers in practice, we are faced with the fact that their texts are overloaded, they are incomprehensible to the target audience. Sometimes the texts are so boring that even the authors themselves are not ready to listen to them.
What to do? Learn to write clearly. Train, train and train again.
Speak in public. I never thought that lawyers could have trouble speaking in public, but I was wrong. Unfortunately, not all modern universities teach you public speaking. In modern courts, it is also sometimes difficult for you to show off your eloquence, as did F.N. Plevako, A.F. Koni, A.I. Urusov, P.S. Porohovshchikov.
To effectively attract customers, you must clearly and simply convey your thoughts, work easily with the audience, be able to hold its attention, sometimes make your listeners cry or laugh somewhere.
I recommend taking a public speaking course. This will allow you to get the minimum skills required for public speaking. In addition, there are many books that will help you master the art of eloquence. I advise you to look and read what Radislav Gandapas released on public speaking. It must be admitted that Radislav made a huge contribution to popularizing the process of public speaking.
Work with a video camera. Based on the skill of public speaking, another specific skill is formed - the ability to work with a video camera. Unfortunately, when in practice we manage to organize a speech of a lawyer on television, then without preparation it turns out to be a miserable sight. Not knowing how to work with the camera, you start to sweat, blush, be embarrassed. The image of a professional expert quickly evaporates.
What to do? Record yourself on video! Learn to talk to the camera like a good friend. Joke with her, show emotions, learn to "persuade" her. By forcing yourself to train in this way, you will greatly improve your skills. Journalists will love you. Why? Understand that the “picture” is important for journalists, they are tired of poorly speaking lawyers who blush in the frame. By learning how to work with a camera, you will discover endless possibilities for attracting customers.
Dress stylishly and beautifully. Ironically, many lawyers don't know how to dress. We are convinced of this when we create a website for a lawyer and ask for professional photos in classic suits. From men, photos come in jeans and with the top buttons on shirts unbuttoned, not covering chest hair. Women are not inferior to them either: red tight dresses, light blouses and the look of a tigress.
Colleagues, in order to successfully attract customers, you need to be smartly dressed and look beautiful, stylish, expensive. It so happened that society perceives lawyers as aristocrats and requires an appropriate appearance.
What to do? Take a critical look at your wardrobe, or better yet, entrust it to someone.
1.5. What to do if there is no money for marketing?
I am often asked: "How to attract customers in the absence of funds for this?" It's no secret that lawyers often have to do their marketing for free. This happens especially often at the very start of a legal business.
If you need customers but don't have the money for advertising, focus on low-cost marketing that includes:
Creative.“Necessity is cunning for invention,” says a Russian proverb. If you do not have funds for advertising, you need to compensate somehow. It is best to compensate for the lack of money with your mind and creativity.
your efforts. You can do a lot of marketing yourself and save a lot of money on it. Simply put, marketing loves the hardworking.
Work on yourself. Lawyer marketing is most often person marketing. You will have to work hard on yourself in order to become an expert in the eyes of the client.
Most of the methods described in this book do not require large investments. You need diligence, work on yourself and a great desire to change your life for the better.
1.6. Marketing and code of ethics
Currently, in the professional society of lawyers and lawyers, there is a big debate on the topic “Can a lawyer advertise his services?”. Let's look into this issue in detail, put an end to it and begin to study specific methods of attracting customers.
There are different opinions about advertising the services of a lawyer. Many legal professionals say that the Lawyer's Code of Ethics prohibits flaunting a lawyer's work, others take the opposite position, arguing that in the ever-increasing competition among lawyers, it is becoming more and more difficult to earn a living. Based on this, it is difficult to "sit in your office and wait for the next principal." It is also important to take into account the fact that a lawyer does not have the right to engage in any other activity other than advocacy. That is, if he does not have clients, he cannot earn extra money somewhere on the side.
How can a modern lawyer practice in conditions of great competition and without violating regulatory legal acts?
According to the Federal Law "On Advocacy and Advocacy in the Russian Federation", lawyer is a person who, in accordance with the procedure established by this Federal Law, has received the status of a lawyer and the right to practice law. The lawyer is an independent professional legal adviser. A lawyer is not entitled to enter into labor relations as an employee, with the exception of scientific, teaching and other creative activities, as well as to hold public positions of the Russian Federation, public positions of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, public service positions and municipal positions.
A lawyer has the right to combine advocacy with work as the head of a legal education, as well as work in elective positions in the bar association of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation, the Federal Chamber of Lawyers of the Russian Federation, all-Russian and international public associations of lawyers.
In other words, a lawyer is a status that allows you to engage only in advocacy. The said law states that advocacy is qualified legal assistance provided on a professional basis by persons who have received the status of a lawyer in the manner established by this Federal Law, to individuals and legal entities in order to protect their rights, freedoms and interests, as well as to ensure access to justice.
The law "On Advocacy and Advocacy in the Russian Federation" also states that advocacy is not entrepreneurial.
From the foregoing, it is clear that the lawyer is not an entrepreneur, therefore, his main goal is not to make a profit.
On January 31, 2003, the First All-Russian Congress of Lawyers adopted the Code of Professional Ethics for Lawyers. This document establishes the rules of conduct binding on each lawyer in the exercise of advocacy, based on the moral criteria and traditions of the legal profession, as well as on international standards and rules of the legal profession.
What marketing restrictions does a practicing lawyer have?
In this regard, Article 17 of the Lawyer's Code of Professional Ethics tells us that information about a lawyer and lawyer's education is admissible if it does not contain:
1) evaluation characteristics of a lawyer;
2) reviews of other persons about the work of a lawyer;
3) comparisons with other lawyers and criticism of other lawyers;
4) statements, allusions, ambiguities that may mislead potential principals or give them unreasonable hopes.
If a lawyer (legal education) has become aware of the dissemination without his knowledge of advertising of his activities that do not meet these requirements, he is obliged to inform the Council about this.
It is clear from Article 17 that lawyers are NOT FORBIDDEN to inform the public about their whereabouts, specialization and occupation.
Thus, the legal profession occupies a special and rather peculiar place in the social and state structure. The bar is not an element of the state structure in the traditional sense of the word, it is endowed with the trust of society and at the same time the trust of the state.
The lawyer should contribute to the improvement of the functioning of the justice system and to increase the respect of the society in relation to it.
After reviewing the main documents regulating the practice of law, we can conclude that a lawyer has the right to post public information about his whereabouts and the type of activity.
Remember! Any lawyer can place information about himself in the media without evaluating his activities, without saying that he works better than others and will definitely win the case entrusted to him.
Chapter Summary
The main conclusions can be presented in the form of the following diagram:
Homework.
1. Write down how much you earn now net per month, then indicate how much you want to earn.
2. Analyze your numbers and answer the questions: “What marketing tools are you using now?”, “What tools can you use in the future to achieve the desired financial result?”
* * *
The following excerpt from the book legal marketing. How to attract clients to lawyers and lawyers (Dmitry Zasukhin, 2014) provided by our book partner -
A large percentage of your potential customers spend a lot of time on social media. Why not take advantage of this? There are many options for "promotion" in social networks - from operational consulting in specialized groups to the development of your own community. If you do not have time to create quality content, then you, at first, can publish links to your blog articles on your personal page.
How to properly design a lawyer's personal page on social networks:
- Post a professional photo
Post a professional business portrait. Try not to post bad quality personal photos. - Fill in contacts
Be sure to fill in the contacts so that the person can contact you promptly. Make sure that this information is visible to any user of the social network in the privacy settings. - Specify the type of activity
Take advantage of the opportunities that social networks give you. For example, in the social network "Vkontakte" you can put information about your occupation (criminal lawyer in Moscow), so that the visitor to your page immediately understands where he is. - Separate personal and work
Try not to post personal photos, do not repost from entertainment communities. Your personal page should look like a professional page, so exclude unnecessary information from it.
Following these simple rules, you will make your personal page a tool to attract customers.
Small companies that have just started working, as a rule, do not set ambitious goals like building a brand and taking the company to the federal or international level. Most just want to attract a few customers so that they can live on and finish marketing there.
The situation is clear enough
I need clients quickly and inexpensively :)
I want to disappoint you, dear readers of our blog, there are no magical and inexpensive tools for attracting legal entities to subscriber services!
magical
no tools :(
If you worked with individuals, and your services were a la legal fast food, for example, divorces, accidents and consumer protection, then we could offer a lot of marketing tools, which we have repeatedly written about in our articles and books. Contextual advertising, electronic platforms on the Internet like Avito, a website and its promotion - all this can bring you customers. But there are no miracles with legal entities, and there are no magic tools to attract them either. To understand the process of attracting customers in B2B, let's understand a little theory.
How do business leaders decide on legal outsourcing?
Let's step aside a bit and analyze the psychological side of legal outsourcing. The heads of companies are quite scrupulously studying the issue of legal services for their business. This is understandable, because the legal protection of a business directly correlates with how successfully the company conducts its business in the market. All entrepreneurs have a fear of making a mistake in choosing a contractor for legal services, and there is no getting away from this.
Admittedly, there are many amateurs in the legal services market. Cooperation with them instills fear in entrepreneurs ...
Your task, as a company that really offers professional solutions for business protection and its maintenance, is to show potential clients your professionalism, practice and experience so that the manager can believe, overcome his fear and decide on cooperation in your favor.
Remember: To attract one client, you have to work for years, and the rest will come automatically.
I briefly described how your potential clients choose a company that they can trust to handle the legal issues of their business. You and I understand why it is so difficult to attract clients to legal outsourcing - after all, our clients are, in fact, afraid of us. They are afraid to make a mistake by choosing us.
For a business leader to believe you, we need to implement a whole range of marketing tools, work tirelessly every day, prove your expertise - only in this case success awaits you.
By the way, in practice, it is especially difficult to attract the first 5 clients, then the process goes on automatically.
At the very beginning of communication with clients, it is very important for us to show your potential clients the benefits that they will receive from cooperation with you, for this there are ready-made proven tools. Let's consider them.
6 tools
legal marketing that definitely work :)
It is important to understand: we will consider general tools that do not work for every specific case, the set should be modified depending on the specifics of your target audience.
Now you understand that attracting clients for outsourcing is difficult and time consuming. This path is not suitable for all lawyers and company executives who decide to engage in legal outsourcing. But, if you are still determined to work and build your marketing machine, I bring to your attention a basic set of tools that are necessary to start selling legal outsourcing.
