You need to be creating content right now. Not tomorrow, not the day after. You don’t need to plan. You don’t need to come up with a list to talk about. That content can be all kinds of fun stuff. It can be frequently asked questions. That’s probably the easiest to start. You should also be doing audio and video and written content. You can do them all at once. You can do three out of one. You just turn your camera phone on, hit the record button. Answer a question, answer like you’re talking to somebody else and you put that thing on YouTube, pull out the audio, make a podcast, make a blog post and put both of those things on it and you’re good to go. You get clients from the content that you create. It makes people feel that they know you.

The other content you can crate is social media content. In particular, LinkedIn and Facebook depending on who your clients are. If your clients are businesses, you might want to consider LinkedIn. On a truly social basis, Facebook is a gold mine. There are groups, you can post on your personal page and you can actually get real business form it. The key is to create the right content. The content is not “I just heard a blog post, check it out.” You need to take advantage of these platforms and what they offer. It’s a good place to do video and also a good place to do some sort of medium form content on mistakes clients are doing and the solutions to those mistakes and the mindset that they’re carrying around that’s wrong headed. People will see your stuff, it will resonate with them and they want to work with you. People aren’t gonna know about you unless you create something that’s memorable and that’s good. Just start creating content today. It might not be great at the beginning but you’ll get better. Take a minute, take your time, create a piece of content and share it. Don’t wait until it’s perfect.

Links Mentioned in the Show

Building a Law Firm Website

Free Starting a Law Firm Training

Christopher's Instagram Account

Free Building a Law Firm Facebook Group

Christopher Small knows how to start and build successful law firms. He is the owner of CMS Law Firm, a Seattle estate planning firm, and Building a Law Firm, a site dedicated to teaching lawyers law firm marketing.

When you’re starting and building it’s important to just focus on the essentials and then add that other stuff if you need to and as you can afford it.

Essential number one is you’ve got to have a practice area. Niches get riches. If you aren’t focusing on one space, if you’re not letting everybody know that you’re good in one thing then you’re missing out in an amazing opportunity in the short and long term. When you can tell somebody that you are good in one thing and you are the best, people will come to you for that. If you do multiple things, you’re messages are weaker, vague and cloudy.

Essential number two is delving a little deeper and deciding you’re ideal client within that niche. For example, families with more than 3 million dollars in assets. Will you take other clients? Yes, you help everybody but your marketing, messaging, tone and advertising are geared towards your ideal client. The quicker you do this, the quicker you get clients because you’ll be able to speak specifically to the people that you want.

Essential number three is an email address that ends with your own dot com. You have to have your website. It doesn’t need to be awesome, it just needs to be clean. It just needs to be crisp.

Essential number four, you want to make sure you have your social medial profiles built out. You want to have a Facebook page with your business on it and you want to have a LinkedIn profile. Add Google plus which is really for your Google maps listing, Yelp, AVO, you got to have those. And you have to drive people to leave you reviews. Even if you have a networking partner, ask them to leave a review. Reviewers don’t need to be past clients, they could be networking partners that know how you role.

There are things that you don’t need. You don’t personally need to know accounting. It’s money in and money out at the moment. You don’t need an accountant but a bookkeeper can be nice. You don’t need an LLC yet if you’re starting. Practice insurance is still a maybe for now because you can always get it once you get your first client or you could get it after a while and everything’s gonna be fine. If you mess up without an insurance then you got to have a hit for that. However, if your clients are big money clients then get some insurance right when you sign them up. It’s super easy.

You need a phone number. But the really essential item is a plan to get clients. If you don’t know how to make the phone ring, it doesn’t matter how good you are, you’re not gonna be great at all. You’re gonna be poor.

Focus on the essentials. Don’t get into this, what kind of software to use, what name should you use. Nobody cares about the name of your firm, you can always change it later on. Just make it easy to spell. Fill the other stuff in on an as needed basis. Don’t chase shiny objects. Do what needs to be done to get clients in the door.

Links Mentioned in the Show Building a Law Firm Website Free Starting a Law Firm Training Christopher's Instagram Account Free Building a Law Firm Facebook Group

Christopher Small knows how to start and build successful law firms. He is the owner of CMS Law Firm, a Bellevue estate planning firm, and Building a Law Firm, a site dedicated to teaching lawyers law firm marketing.

In reality this is a check, a reminder, that image does matter. The way that people see you and the way you are perceived matters. It matters with the type of clients that you get, the people that will work with you, the people who will take the next step to learn more about you.

1. You are not using a unique URL for your email

Having an email ending with gmail.com, aol.com and other public domains is unprofessional. Having a unique URL is cheap and very easy. It’s very easy for people to refer you. This makes a big difference. People can make decisions with this small items.

2. You have a fallback which says that you don’t have to do it

Your initial response should be – I wonder if that will work. I should try and experiment or any alternative. You should think how you can make it work. Try to see everything as an experiment and as testing as a hypothesis. If you think that it won’t work, then you’ll not get anywhere. Unitl you can adopt a can do attitude, you won’t be a PRO.

3. You believe that you don’t have enough time

This reason is unbelievable. Do not use this as an excuse or a grudge. You just need to be candid with yourself and say ‘x’ is not a priority for me. If you don’t miss a TV show, all you’re doing is saying that that is your priority. Make your life your priority. Don’t prioritize things that can create a bad situation for you. you make changes every day that reflect what’s important to you.

4. You practice more than one type of law

You have to pick what you are good at, what you want to do and what you want to be known for. If there’s two or three things, there’s no way that people would know you. it would make it easier for you to know what content to create and where to be. However, it is possible to have more than one practice at your firm but you need to make a couple of decisions. Number one is what do you want to be known for personally. who are you? if you have a side practice area, but you’re just gonna be advertising based. You can’t be known for different things.

5. You answer your own phone.

It is a total game changer. It is cheap to have another person to answer your phone and they can set appointments for you. They remind you of appointments and you’re saving time. If you answer your own phone, you are not a PRO.

Links Mentioned in the Show

Building a Law Firm Website

Free Starting a Law Firm Training

Christopher's Instagram Account

Free Building a Law Firm Facebook Group

Christopher Small knows how to start and build successful law firms. He is the owner of CMS Law Firm, a Bellevue estate planning firm, and Building a Law Firm, a site dedicated to teaching lawyers law firm marketing.

Creating a name in the industry helps to build trust. It helps to build expertise. It helps to create rapport with your audience with your potential clients. It also helps get referral from professional connections. When you can be seen as someone who really knows their craft, good things happen.

If I ask you, who is a really good ‘blank’ that you have? For example, if you ask me, who is a really good estate planning attorney, besides yourself? I won’t be able to tell because I don’t know a lot of estate planners. but even if I did it would be difficult to say who is good and who is not. Think of how you’re gonna make that decision if somebody ask you that same question? What you would do is sort of you go to their resume. What accolades do they have at the back of their name? you would think about where they have spoken. You would think about, maybe, the clients that they have. It’s difficult. And because it’s difficult, it’s an opportunity to shape your reputation and the people see you as a thought leader.

Becoming a thought leader is quite easy. It just takes a little bit of intentional action and a little bit of time. the first thing that you need to do to become a thought leader is to actually pick an area of law that you want to focus on. If you focus on different areas of law, it’s like saying to the people that really, you’re not doing anything well. So if you’re jumping back and forth unless you’ve been really, really practicing for a long time. it’s critical to pick one area of law because think about all the experts and thought leaders that you know. They’re typically well known for just one thing and that’s what you need to do as well. If you think that this would hurt your chances of getting a new client, it’s gonna do the opposite. Because soon you will be known to be the person in your industry to go to if there’s a problem. You may want to niched down further in an area of law. A perfect example is, do criminal defense and do DUIs and become the best DUI attorney in the world. You can do personal entry and be really good in car accidents. And then farm other things out. people will come to know you because of that expertise.

Number two is creating your approach to solving your problems in that area. You need to adapt a philosophy in approaching these things. Let’s take the DUI context for example. There are two approaches that you can take. One approach is the non-science approach. You’re gonna attack the officer’s credibility, you’re gonna attack everything you can in motions. The other approach will be all science all the time. people who do this will get their own experts to such deep breath and depth that you’ll blow people’s mind out. in estate planning, there’s a simple philosophical approach. Some estate planners never recommend trust; they just don’t like them. Others, like myself always almost recommend trust. It’s not a money thing, it’s a philosophy thing. the reason that you want to have an approach like this is because you want to spark a little controversy. You want to take a stand. That is what’s gonna attract your clients to you. some people would be into that, some people won’t. You need to develop your approach.

Number three is to start talking about that all the time. You want to stir up controversy. You want to stir up discussion. You want people to take a side. It doesn’t matter if it’s for or against you. it makes no difference because people will be on both sides. The way you do this talking is by creating a video blog, podcast, writing a blog post, by posting on Facebook on your business page and on your personal page. By letting people know what you think. You can do so in dinner parties; you can do during happy hours. Find out what people think about it and then give them your approach. You’d be surprised that even people who don’t agree with you will send you business because they like your spunk and your fire and yo...

The sooner that you understand that law firm marketing is a numbers game, the sooner your business will take off. There are people who carry their chickens before they’re hatched. There are lawyers who have posted online that they had a great meeting or consultation but in the end these people don’t sign up. This ruin the lawyer’s confidence, his day or his week. There are also people who are crying who thinks “What am I doing wrong?”

You should realize that business is a numbers game. Law firm marketing is a numbers game. All of a sudden nay one person that you’re talking to becomes less important and less critical to the success of your business and when that happens a bunch of different things will happen. The potential clients will sense that the supply and demand curve have switched and the demand is higher and the supply is shorter. This will make them want to sign up with you more. You will also relax and have the confidence that confidence that people are looking for when they want to hire somebody to help them do things and pay the prices that you charge. The bottom line is stop worrying for each client. Stop worrying about an individual sign up or failure to sign up and just go to work and keep going.

When you realize that this is the case, all kinds of crazy and fun things will start to happen. As an example, fifty percent of people who find me on the web book an appointment. Fifty percent of those people may raise their hand and say that they want to learn more. Of those 50 that book an appointment, 90% are gonna show up. I have a very, very high show up rate for these meetings. Of the 90%, so 45 people that are showing up on those meetings, 30% of those will sign up on average. That’s about 14 people who will sign up out of 100 people. That’s not too bad. If you get 100 people to visit your website in a month, that’s 14 new clients. That’s tremendous amount of money. That’s very little work. If they get the highest plan offered, then it’s a lot bigger.

This is where people sort of get off tracked. Let’s say you have four phone calls in a row, a lot of people get discouraged by that. They would thing something was wrong. What they don’t realize is that it can be four of that 50. It could take 36 noes and get a string of 14 yeses. Once you understand what your numbers are and understand that this is a game of averages, you can move past noes way easier and way faster. And with very little to know, like lack of confidence or hurt feelings.

Another thing that you have to remember is not every person is the right fit for you. When you give yourself the authority to have a meeting with someone and say “Hey look. I don’t think we’re a fit.” That’s when the game changes for you. That’s when you understand this law of averages and when you actually have internalized it and believed in it. you’re actually looking for good clients too. If you see red flags. You just have to say that it’s not gonna work. You shouldn’t take these noes so badly.

Let’s say it takes you 6 months to get 100 leads, that’s not good enough. The solution is not just to create more leads. There are numerous solutions to making this better. The first thing is to get more of the right people to begin with. Use e-mail, automation, content creation, networking, Facebook, Google Ads. The message that you send out and the ads that you create and the content that you create should be speaking with the people that you want so that way those people will find you. it’s not only about getting those people to the top of the funnel but also maximizing other things. You can increase your number of clients just by improving the way people set appointments and the way that you remind people. You could go further by being better at sales. You got to convince people that you’re the right person and that your proposed solution is the right one and sometimes you’ve got to convince people that th...

Why is Facebook so important? It’s really critically important that you learn how to use it professionally. You can hire people to manage your Facebook page like an intern so it could be cheap or free. There are people right now who are using Facebook and if you don’t get into the game, in years, you’re gonna be playing catch up. If you’re new to the game, then it’s perfect. If you’re not creating great content, a lot of people are in front of you. You need to create content of Facebook because it gives people a way to know who you are.

Why Facebook? There are 234 million monthly users. That’s Canada and United States combined. And it’s growing every month. People are getting in touch with their families so the people who are using it includes the older ones. It’s the same with Instagram.

The second reason why you want to use Facebook is for targeting and retargeting. You have the ability to get in touch with people and enter yourself into their lives in a good way.

The third reason is even though that there are all these users and all these activities, and all these clients that you can identify, there’s very little competition amongst law firm owners on Facebook. The few people that are trying to do it, they’re using it as a modern day bill board and they’re missing out. That means there’s zero competition. It means that your advertising cost is gonna be super low. Your opportunity for organic reach is super high and the sky is the limit. You have the opportunity to stake your claim on Facebook. Some of you will think about this and take action, maybe one of you, the rest is gonna sit back will not.

There are two components to Facebook and Facebook marketing and Facebook advertising. One is paid and one is organic. Organic means that you are just posting and you’re talking because of that. You want to integrate both.

Within the paid, there are sort of two components in this aspect. The first aspect is targeting. It’s about cold traffic. You could present information that is tailored to a group of people. If you want to do retirement planning for example, you can target Boeing employees that are aged 55 and up. You can present them with some information about stock, using stock correctly, choosing retirement options correctly. If you’re an estate planning attorney, you want to create an IRA trust, you want to create a will, take care of your family. All these things are rolled up in there. This allows you to reach your targeted clients very specifically. You can set it and let it run, get shares and engagements. That’s what paid advertising allows you to do. If you do it right, you can pay as low as a dollar a click. One client can pay for almost a whole year.

The second kind is called retargeting and needs to be done right off the bat. What this means is that you’re placing an opportunity in front of someone who’s already visited your website and shows interest in some way. If you go to Amazon and search for running shoes, and you go to another website, you will see ads popping up for the shoes that you clicked on. That is retargeting. You have the opportunity to do that with your potential clients. Anybody who visits your page, the next time they go on Facebook, they’ll be presented with an offer with information about your service. You can also set it up that when they visit the contact page, a pop up would remind them to book a consultation. These clicks are super cheap. Another thing that you can do if you’re in the criminal defense where you have a very short time span from when they need your help, you can set it up so that it only shows for three days. You can also set it up to remind people to go to your event.

The organic kind is definitely the harder of the two. You can’t just go in and smack people eon the head with estate planning advertisement or DUI advertising.

Some of you are not doing so well. Some of you are not achieving the results that you want. You are not seeing the results that you need and you’re not sure why.

This is in no particular order.

First reason: You care what people think.

You’re scared of what people would think. You’re afraid that other attorneys would think that you’re not good. You’re scared that clients would not like you. You’re scared that the prosecutor would not think you’re coo. You’re scared that your peers would not recognize you for being a good attorney. You’re scared that people would think that you’re not a great business owner. The point is you’re just worried of what people are thinking. The sooner that you get that out of your brain and the sooner that you can internalize success and everything you do to the point that the only thing you care about is whether or not you are doing the things you know will get you to where you want to go, then you’re gonna be holding yourself back. This is where self-awareness will come to play.

Second Reason: You’re scared of having to choose

There are many choices that you have to make; as business owners, as lawyers. For example, what kind of practice area do you want to focus on? If you have two, you’re doing too many. If you’re doing three, it’s way too many. Because you’re afraid that by choosing you’re gonna be limiting what you can do. It’s quite the opposite but it’s impossible to believe that. You’re afraid that you’re gonna make the wrong choice so you just sit there and do nothing. It’s not good.

Third Reason: Scared of exposing yourself to criticism

Ask questions to get the job done. It would be a learning experience and you’d be able to help the next person out. Stop being afraid. Fear is holding all us back.

Fourth Reason: You’re scared of failing

What these fears is doing is prevent you from actually taking action and the secret to success is action, 100%. We’re afraid of losing a case. We’re afraid of not making any money. We’re afraid of going after it and it not working. We’re just afraid of all of these things. And what it means to us personally and professionally and it’s scary but you have to get over it.

Fifth Reason: You’re scared of finding out that you don’t actually have what it takes to be successful.

Not everybody is cut out to be a successful law firm business owner. Some of you may just be really good attorneys. You have a great legal mind and you can come up with a good argument or you are great in court and you just need somebody to put the work in front of you and you can do it. That’s okay. It’s not really easy to find, that job is not easy to find. The lawyer work is the easiest part of the job. To find an estate planning attorney and work for me is easy. But to find somebody who can go out and hustle cases and meet people and create content and take action and have networking meetings, that’s hard. You may just not be that person. you may just be okay with pursuing your business form other avenues. Advertising more, for example. You may just be comfortable with plateauing with your earning level.

Sixth Reason: you’re scared of losing the security that you have now.

If you’re doing well, earning enough money but you know you can earn more if you just spend more time on your own clients. But to do that it means that you’ve got to turn down some of those other works and that freaks you out because you’re not sure it’s got to work. And all the other things come in, failure and other things. You have your security blanket with you. Some of you are scared to get out of their comfort zone. But do it!

Links Mentioned in the Show

Building a Law Firm Website

Free Starting a Law Firm Training

Christopher's Instagram Account

Free Building a Law Firm Facebook Group

The 3rd component of law firm marketing machine is ‘Networking’. This gets into the sort of trust part of business. it’s not necessary being friends but just having someone you can trust. You want to see the success of your network as well. They get to know about you, your family, your dreams, your goals and people can’t help but want to be a part of that success. That’s what network can get you.

Keane Ng, who is a very good mortgage broker and also a greatness tracker subscriber, networking has come out in one of his trainings before. If it comes to networking, it’s really easy to get trapped. If you constantly go to coffees and lunches and make calls, reach out and do things then it can become a job in itself. There is a fine line between networking and becoming a slave to the network.

Networking is definitely a component and it can get your business up from the beginning. It can work, you should utilize it. you should just be careful about putting all your eggs into one basket even in the networking basket.

The ‘Greatness Tracker’ is a system that truly makes networking truly simple. it gives you a list of what you should do. If you just do them then you win. Those things though are 15 face to face meetings a week. 5 break bread meetings a week which is like coffee, lunches. 60 great phone calls which can be with potential clients, current clients, referral partners, business associates, anything where you talk about business and further your relationship. Two events and ten thank you cards. It is a lot of work. Takes a lot of time, a lot of commitment and there’s a lot of fury to get over from calling people.

A revised system can be used instead of the very time consuming Greatness Tracker system. The numbers are cut in half. Instead of doing 15, do 8. Instead of doing 5 break breads, do 2 or 3. Instead of 60 phone calls, do 30, instead of doing 10 thank you cards, do 5. Instead of doing 2 events, do 1 event. Your goal is to get 20 new leads per week and do 6 deals per week. That’s how it works.

Networking is important. How do you find people to call? Just cold call some people if you want. Think about people who have a symbiotic relationship between you and your clients and just start calling them. Attorneys are terrible networkers so there’s a great opportunity to create relationship with people. Networking can get your name out there.

You can listen to a podcast called James Altucher show episode 237 Scot Cohen, the title of the show is ‘The Best Networker in the World’ as a reference. It’s about a guy who started working in a stock trading company where he needs to sell stuff. He was known to be ‘the guy’ when it comes to this international fund. All he did was call. That’s what you need to do. Tell everyone. You need to be known as the estate planning attorney. Just keep calling, keep showing up and keep having conversations.

Just know that this is a long term game and you have to stick with it to see the fruits of your labor in big, big ways.

Links Mentioned in the Show

Building a Law Firm Website

Free Starting a Law Firm Training

Christopher's Instagram Account

Free Building a Law Firm Facebook Group

James Altucher Show 237: Scot Cohen - The Best Networker On The Planet. PERIOD.

Keane Ng: Best Mortgage Broker Ever.

Christopher Small knows how to start and build successful law firms. He is the owner of CMS Law Firm, a Bellevue estate planning firm, and Building a Law Firm, a site dedicated to teaching lawyers law firm marketing.

This is very important particularly in the modern age. There are a lot of people who are better than you or as good as you. It’s really important to be intentional in building the brand of you. This episode is born out of a lot of from observation. What is not observed is any sort of differentiation from anyone which is not good.

1. DRESS NICELY

If you can stand out, all the better. Anytime people can remember you. First impressions make a huge difference. You have the ability to control your first impression 100%. Take advantage of it. As an example, every time I go to the office I wear a suite even if I don’t have meetings. To everyone in the building I’m known as the guy who wears a suit. the suits need not to be expensive, but they fit well. You know you look good when people tell you that. take some time to know what looks good on you. I’m not saying that you wear a suit every day but what I’m saying is don’t blend in with everybody. Have clothes that fit right and make you look great.

2. ALWAYS BE YOURSELF

Don’t blend in with everybody else. If you’re bubbly, be bubbly. If you’re grumpy be grumpy, if you’re happy, be happy. Whatever it is be yourself. It will relieve burden from you because you won’t worry what people might thing about you but you will worry about what’s right or wrong. If you’re a nice person, it would take care of itself. If you decide to do this. if it’s different from how you act now, be prepared for people to make comments but deal with it. People will be surprised and be jealous once they realize what’s going on. it’s difficult to do this. people are afraid to be themselves.

3. IF 50% OF PEOPLE LOVE YOUA ND 50% HATE YOU, YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT

It can include potential clients, other attorneys, it can include anybody. At the end of the day, you just want people to listen, react and take a side. This goes back to being yourself. If you have a philosophy when it comes to the way you approach your business, your legal work and the things you do there. if you do have a philosophy, there are people who would disagree with you. Your practices can turn off other estate planning attorneys. If you start to see people who disagrees with you, that is a good thing because it means that people are listening. There’s nothing worse than no one listening. It also means that you’re taking a stand to appeal to certain people. You will then have your target market. To completely shift your mindset and the way that you do because you have haters is letting them win in a way. don’t do it. you want controversy, you want some tension. It may be great for your business. if you find things that are controversial, talk about it.

4. CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT

The only way that people are going to see that you’re nicely dressed, see that you’re put together is if you’re creating content. The only way to let people know who you are is if you’re creating content. The only way that people are going to pick a side is if you create content. Do content at least twice a week or more. The way you create content is answer frequently asked questions, talk about things that are important to you, explain your philosophy, your value system and how it came about. It doesn’t really matter what the reason is.

5. START POSTING ON FACEBOOK EVERY DAY

You can do this on your business page, you can do this on your personal page. One of the things that you need to do on your personal page post it on other platforms like LinkedIn. If you focus on Facebook, you need to be accepting friend requests, you need to be asking people to become your friends, everybody in your network. What you do is post once a day, either the content or ask a question about your practice area, you can share some helpful information. You can also sort of get in the fringes of what you do. For example, in estate planning, you have personal finance, investing,

This episode is focused on the 2nd step of the law firm marketing machine which is content.

Content is extremely valuable - but why? Here are some reasons why you should be creating content on a regular basis.

It will allow you to establish expertise.

It will create trust.

It will differentiate you from everyone else.

Plain ol’ SEO.

What do we talk about?

Answer frequently asked questions.

You can do case studies.

You can talk about myths related to your practice area.

You can do expert interviews.

You can talk about your philosophy, values, and your story.

How do we create content?

Create one piece of content and use it in different ways like using it is a podcast, a video, or a blog.

It is important to remember that in this day and age, if someone is referred to you, they initially Google you. So with content available, it builds your credibility and they will immediately assume that you are an expert in your practice area.

Links Mentioned in the Show

Building a Law Firm Website

buildingalawfirm.com/marketingmachine

Christopher Small knows how to start and build successful law firms. He is the owner of CMS Law Firm, a Bellevue estate planning firm, and Building a Law Firm, a site dedicated to teaching lawyers how to start a law firm.