Client Acquisition

Client Acquisition Articles

• How to Do a DUI Client Intake

  You’ve set up your criminal defense practice -- complete with a sleek new mobile device, a great shared office space, and state-of-the art billing system. Now you are ready for clients. What next?

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• Marketing a Startup Solo Law Practice

  Nearly four years ago, I took the plunge, opening my own office after eight years with a small law firm. Although success as a solo requires much trial and error, some steps that I took to market my business from the beginning really paid off. When making marketing decisions, the first question you must ask is “How […]

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• Turn Technology into a Competitive Marketing Advantage

  The good news is that rainmaking will always require good, old-fashioned human relationships. The better news is that technology offers new tools that make marketing easier, faster, more effective, less expensive, and more.

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• Marketing Your Law Firm to U.S. Hispanic Consumers

  Today, law firms have a unique opportunity to tap into one of the fastest growing consumer segments in the U.S. marketplace - the Hispanic population. Effectively targeting this group can help lawyers expand their client base and increase revenue.

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• Focused Legal Marketing of Multiple Practice Areas

  Effectively marketing each of the practice areas you specialize in can make a tremendous difference in your ability to expand your client base and increase revenue.

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• Networking Tips for Lawyers

  Networking is about an attitude of engagement. It is not just about going to networking events.

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• How to Ask for a Referral to Your Law Firm

  Referrals are a great source of new business. In fact, other than getting more work from existing clients, they are the best source of new business.

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• Making Contact: The Importance Of Networking

  During the past decade law firms have experienced significant change. Things just aren't the way they used to be. During better times, business was easier to acquire and maintain. Client fee sensitivity, competition, specialization, and poor public image have made the practice of law much more difficult. It requires much more effort to manage and sustain a successful law practice.

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• How to Conduct a Personal Injury Client Intake

  Detailed information on how to conduct a personal injury client intake and tips for expanding your practice and profit margins.

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• How to Do a Car Accident Client Intake

  The attorney-client relationship is just that, a relationship. Like all relationships there are a lot of pitfalls when you are getting started.

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• How to Do a Child Custody and Visitation Client Intake

  One question every solo or small firm attorney asks is, “How do I get the phone to ring?” The better question might actually be, “What do I do when the phone rings?”

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• How Financial Statements Inform Marketing Tactics

  In the quest for better answers about how to turn numbers into usable management tactics to foster profitable growth, I interviewed a number of experts. Here, in nutshell format, is their best advice.

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• Research is the Secret of a Winning Sales Call

  Although no one would admit it, more than a few competent attorneys have been known to wince when the idea of doing a sales call has been suggested as part of their marketing planning.

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• Using the Internet for Client Development and Retention

  The Internet is changing the way individuals and businesses research products and services, and expanding the options for lawyers looking to develop and retain clients.

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• Finding Your Motivation for Marketing

  Recently, I was speaking with a client who seemed stuck in his marketing efforts. He had a clearly articulated plan for growing his business that he was enthusiastic about. And yet, week after week, he hadn't taken much action to implement the plan.

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• The Advantages of Having a Niche Law Practice

  When it comes to doctors, most people want to go to a specialist, not a generalist. Nobody trusts brain surgery to a general surgeon. Increasingly, clients feel the same way about their lawyers.

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• Six Steps to Effectively Cross Sell in Law Firms

  One of the greatest myths in law firm marketing is that your partners will be eager to cross-sell you just because they're your "partners." The fact is that they aren't.

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• Law Firm Business Development: Ask Don’t Tell

  When I ask clients what their biggest challenge in business development is, they commonly say, "Asking for business." And yet, when they are trying to land a new client, they forget about the "asking" part and focus on the "pitching" part.

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• Questions to Ask Before Asking for Law Firm Business

  Imagine you're sitting across the table from a potential client you'd like to work with. The right place to start is by uncovering the client's needs. The question is, how do you go about uncovering those needs?

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• Confidence Necessary for Business Development Success

  See how Rosabeth Moss Kanter's book, Confidence, influences this author's view on business development.

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• Law Firm Marketing: What’s New?

  What’s really new in law firm marketing? What will law firms need to do to compete and succeed in the future?

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• Start and Market a Non-Profit Group to Attract Clients

  How can setting up your own non-profit group give you a marketing advantage?

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• Who To Bring To Your Next Marketing Pitch

  When three clients raise the same issue in one week, it goes on my "hot topics" list as one that's likely faced by most of my readers as well. Have you wondered how many people you should bring with you to an upcoming marketing meeting? Recently, three different clients faced this question as they followed up with a potential client. The details varied.

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• Marketing Strategy for Lawyers: Competing for Clients

  Successful rainmaking and retention of clients requires a competitive mindset.

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• Marketing Lessons from High Growth Law Firms

  What works in marketing is what clients dictate. Yes, the ordinary and the not so ordinary consumer preference is the starting point of charting sound marketing strategy.

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• Law Firm Partners as Sales Managers

  While it is clear to most managing partners that the multifunctional skills necessary to run a firm are categorized as "general management" skills, it is often a surprise that the skills to do one piece of the job, business development, should be called "sales management".

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• Lawyers’ Use of Group Coupon Marketing Allowed but May Be “Difficult”

  Learn about the pitfalls involved for law firms that use "deal of the day" promotions.

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• How to Get the Most from Law Firm Client Surveys

  OK. Your firm's finished its client survey. The results are in, the skeptics are mollified and the practice managers are ready to follow up. What's next?

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• Law Firm Leadership and Responsibility

  Although the law business is booming, two issues implicit in successful law firm governance remain unsolved in many firms, and, in fact, have as much to do with the financial future as does the state of the economy.

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• Books to Prepare You for Law Firm Business Success

  I've been on the road a great deal during the past few months and that's provided me with plenty of time to read a lot of books. Here are a few of my favorites that I think you might find useful in your business development efforts.

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• What You Should Do When You Lose A Marketing Pitch

  One of my sons is a very good soccer player. He's competitive (like most lawyers), and hates to lose (like all lawyers). When he does lose, I try to get him out of his post-game malaise by reminding him that, "We learn much more from our failures than we do from our successes."

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• Converting Law Firm Website Clicks to Qualified Clients

  To convert more of your Web "clicks" into qualified clients for your firm, start by addressing the key issues.

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• Don’t Mistake Lawyer Marketing Activity for Effectiveness

  Last week, a lawyer called to inquire about my services. She was frustrated because she'd spent the last year actively marketing herself and those activities had produced little new business. She wondered what she was doing wrong.

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• It May Be Time for a New Law Marketing Strategy

  You don't change your horse mid-race is good advice for jockeys, but perhaps not as good for lawyers looking to take their practices to the next level. As you move through the course of your career, you may "outgrow" marketing activities that served you well in the beginning.

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• Law Firm Marketing: What Are Friends For Anyway?

  Reluctance to ask a friend for business typically boils down to a concern that by mixing business with friendship, it will spoil the friendship. The remedy for this dilemma is two-fold and found half in mindset and half in tactics.

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• Learn To Say No When Investing Marketing Spend

  Psychologists say that women have a tough time saying no. This can be a real problem when it comes to business development.

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• Practicing Law in the 21st Century Requires Affiliation

  The legal profession is undergoing substantial introspection, largely as a result of new political and economic world orders. More and more firms are asking how they can best meet their clients' needs in this new world order. What many have found is that traditional structures need to be supplemented internally and externally to effectively meet clients' expanding needs.

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• Make Support Staff Part of Your Law Marketing Team

  Before you complain about waning client loyalties, think about your own efforts toward clients. What is your firm doing to make clients feel "invested in" -- and, as a result, loyal to -- your firm? And what are your lawyers doing to invest in their client relationships?

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• How to Respond to RFP With All the Information You Need

  The trouble with RFPs is that there are usually many other firms replying. This competition makes it crucial to differentiate yourself and demonstrate clearly that you can meet the client's needs.

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• Matching Services: The Next Wave of Law Marketing

  Legal matching services are an important new marketing tool to consider for law firms that want to actively pursue more leads online and improve their lead-qualification process.

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• Focus Marketing Efforts on High Potential Opportunities

  Learn about 11 questions to ask yourself to determine if a prospective client is a "high potential" opportunity.
  

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• Law Firm Marketing: What’s Your Answer to “What’s New?”

  Did you know that the question, "What's new?" is actually a marketing opportunity in disguise?

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• Making the Most of Networking Events

  How can you make the most of networking events? Here are nine tips for transforming networking events into a business development tool.

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• Business Strategy for Developing Markets

  What were once new markets to only consumer-goods manufacturers like Coca Cola and Ford, are opening to professional services. In this new global economy, law firms are marketing more and more to international companies at home and abroad.

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• Overcoming Obstacles To Effective Law Marketing

  Ten years ago, law firms needed to be convinced of the importance of marketing themselves. Today, most lawyers realize they have to market their services but are still unsure about how to do so most effectively. Many of these lawyers have had limited success with their marketing efforts and are frustrated with or skeptical about the whole process.

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• How To Build Your Reputation with Law Firm Partners

  During a recent conversation with a client, she expressed frustration that no one at her firm seemed to know anything about a recent excellent result she'd produced for one of the firm's major clients.

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