Marketing Your Law Firm Or Practice Needs To Be A Habit

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing recently said it best -- MARKETING IS A HABIT.  What I can add to this is that most solos and Third Wave wannabes suck at it.  Law schools do not much teach you how to market or why to market  but, if you want to succeed, marketing needs to be inculcated into your every move.

John Jantsch, posting about business in general and not just law firms, says about maketing:  "Oh, I’m guessing at the end of the day you’ve concluded it’s pretty important - the problem is that at the end of the day, you’ve not done a thing that you could call marketing".

I am not trying to mean or discouraging.  Marketing does not have to be that hard when done consistently.  But, I get emails almost every day from attorneys and law students who want to go out on their own.  They have so many questions about office arrangements, whether they can work at home, what type of computer they need, should they charge hourly or by the job, and on and on.  But, what has surprised me is that most do not think about or ask boo about how to get clients in the front door.

Short of trying to determine your law practice area or specialty, this is the most important question.  It is the one thing that has to be solved or figured out.  Right or wrong, this is where the planning has to start and end if you want to be successful.  Forget all of the mechanics of office location, staffing, phone systems and the like.  At least quit fretting over them.  If you will follow the simple rule of keeping your overhead as small as conceivably possible, you cannot make a mistake in this regard that cannot be easily corrected.  You do not like your cell phone provider, go get a new one.  Your off space not working, go find a new headquarters.  However, you are never going to get a chance to rate yourself in these areas if you do not find and maintain clients.

I have written a lot on how your go about getting referrals.  I will not repeat these points in this post.  But, the point Jantsch makes is a correct one.  "Marketing work, either planning or implementing, needs to be a part of your daily routine or else". There is no silver bullet.  There is not one big thing you can do occasionally to make this work.  It is something that needs to be looked at, planned and implemented constantly, every single day.

Comments

[Grant D. Griffiths]

I could not have said it better Chuck. Which is why I am working with Michael on Blawg for Profit.