Are You Not Being Heard?

You can cast the widest net in terms of marketing yourself as a lawyer and still not get enough high paying business in the door. In those cases, it is not that you are not making yourself known, but that you are not being heard.

To me it is similar to my running a ton of TV spots in a prior life. To most of the people seeing and hearing the spots, it was just noise. The reason was that most of the viewers did not need the services I was selling. The goal was to get those few that did require my services to tune in. That is a lot harder than it sounds. No matter what you do with the sound level, graphics, special effects, narration, etc., it is not going to make much difference if those that you reach cannot ascertain exactly what legal services you are offering or how you can help them. I am not saying that you do not have to be presentable.  Even if you are, you have to get the message of how exactly you can help through to the audience that need what you provide.

I do not utilize TV spots any longer as I practice in more defined niche now that does not lend itself to TV. I obtain referrals based on networking and relationship building. But, the process is the same -- it is just that in relationship building it is a hell of a lot cheaper to fail and regroup.

From my distant past, however, I can give you an example of what I am talking about.

When I first got out of law school and past the bar, I produced a series of TV spots entitled "Give A Young Lawyer A Chance". Each spot would open either zooming in on or pulling away from a picture of a famous lawyer, such as Abraham Lincoln, briefly describing their accomplishments as a new lawyer. It would end with the tag line as well as my firm's logo and information.

Those in the Texas Bar and local bar associations praised these spots. It won local advertising awards as to what lawyer advertising should be. Judges and bar-tenders would stop me and thank me for my ingenuity. I even had the named partner in the largest law firm in town invite me over to his office for coffee to tell me how much he appreciated my TV spots.

The only problem was, my award winning TV spots brought in hardly any business. Except for gratitude among my colleagues, it constituted a $30,000 or so financial error on my part. It taught me, however, a valuable, although expensive, lesson that applies in all aspects of of lawyer marketing.

My goal was to attempt to reposition my perceived negative of being a new lawyer as opposed to a more established one. The spots worked in the sense that it reached my colleagues.  The spots failed miserably in reaching the people who really mattered in building a successful law firm.

The problem was that I was yelling as loud as I could, but I was not being heard by those that actually matter.

You can yell that you are a lawyer as loud as you can, day and night, but it does not mean that you will be heard. In fact, I would argue that yelling that you are a lawyer will almost guarantee that you will not be heard.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Among these reasons is that there is a whole lot of ambient noise out there. You are not the only lawyer yelling. It is easier for lawyers to mechanically promote themselves in everything from business cards, to yellow pages to TV, than it is to really get out and meet and greet people. So, lawyers default to what is more comfortable for them.  Hence, they cannot really get their voices heard above the crowd.

More importantly, I know with all of the pride and money spent on obtaining a law degree and passing the bar exam it is hard to accept that people really do not care if you are a lawyers. Lawyers are a dime a dozen. Generally speaking, it does not matter if you are young or old, a newbie or well established, gregarious or unsociable, attractive or not, or golf or play tiddlywinks in your spare time. People are interested less in these pluses or minuses than in someone that can help them solve a particular problem.

If you are not heard, then no matter how much effort you put into your message it is all for naught.

Some of the best ways to guarantee that you are heard are:

1.    Concentrate your practice on a detailed legal niche. The more narrow the niche the better. The fewer niches the better. It allows you the privilege of conveying precisely the problems you may be able to solve. It allows you to reach more easily those that suffer with that problem.

2.    Direct your message to those most likely in need of the services provided. Some potential clients looking for solutions are willing to strain through the noise to find someone who can provide the representation needed. Focus not on the public at large. Intently direct your message to the people, groups, organizations and associations that are likely to yield the referrals you seek.

3.    Talk your marketing off cruise control. Make your marketing and solicitation personal and original. If you narrow you practice area and narrow your marketing, it is easy to become close and personal with those that are likely to provide you the cases and clients you need.

4.    Keep your overhead extremely low. What does this have to do with being heard? Everything. If your overhead is extremely low, then you do not have to generate that many new clients or cases to make a comfortable living. You might not become rich, but that is not likely in any event. If you have to generate a ton of new referrals to maintain viability, you cannot afford to niche your practice, narrow your messaging and be personable. Overhead is a snow ball that gets large and out of control very quickly.

The point is that if your message is heard, you will have money and clients. Even if you yell and your message is not heard, you will not do well. Organize so as to be heard.

Comments

[Christopher G. Hill]

Thanks for the thoughts Chuck. I appreciate the perspective. I find that in person and low budget marketing works best in my construction niche