We all know there is an enormous amount of information available on the internet that would be useful for law firm marketing purposes as well as legal practice management purposes.  But who has the time to go to all of these sites and look for new information?  Hopefully, no one on your payroll has that kind of time.  But there are ways to monitor the sites that interest you without investing a great deal of time.

RSS – Really Simple Syndication – is a free internet technology that allows you to monitor your favorite blogs and news sites without actually having to take the time to visit them.  You subscribe to the RSS feed and when new content is posted there, you will be able to see the new content.

There are several ways to do this.  I’m going to highlight 2 of them for you.  First, if you use Internet Explorer, it has a built in RSS feed on it.  Right now if you are using IE 7 or newer, you will see an orange icon that looks like this

Click on the icon, and it will give you the option to subscribe to the RSS feed for this site.  After you have subscribed, click on your favorites and you will see a “Feeds” tab.  When you click on that tab, you will see all of the RSS feeds you have subscribed to.  Those that are in bold have new content.

The second way is to use a news agreggator such as News Gator, Google Reader or Blog lines.  These are free services you can use to collect all of the sites you want to monitor in one place.
The flip side to this is to make sure that your blog and website have the RSS feed enabled, so that others can monitor your content. 

An RSS feed can be a useful part of your legal marketing toolkit if you deploy it well.  It reminds people when you have new content, and brings them to your site.
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Practice Made Perfect For Lawyers: 10 Principles for Marketing Your Legal Services

This comprehensive training manual is specifically designed for attorneys and other legal professionals who desire to achieve a higher return on investment from all their marketing efforts. Much more than a simple adaptation, each chapter has been carefully rewritten to apply Stephen’s unique High Impact Marketing System to the challenges faced by solo and small law firms.
Written especially for solo practitioners and partners at small law firms (less than 25 attorneys), this practical manual includes dozens of specific marketing and sales recommendations that can be easily and quickly applied to your firm.

It includes a 2 CD set—one audio CD that provides you with an overview of the 10 Principles along with ideas on how to maximize your results from the manual and a data CD that gives you customizable templates and forms to help you create a marketing budget and strategic development plan.

To purchase this valuable resource, visit The Rainmaker Institute website.

The next group of Rainmaker Retreats are just around the corner.  These information-packed law firm marketing seminars are designed to give small firm and solo attorneys the information they need to go back and develop legal marketing strategies that will allow them to build the type of practice they have always wanted.  The information presented ranges from legal marketing systems and techniques to internet marketing for attorneys.

The Rainmaker Retreat schedule includes the following dates and locations:
Scottsdale, AZ   March 19-20
Roseland, NJ   March 26-27
Las Vegas, NV  April 9-10
Los Angeles, CA  April 16-17

Past participants in Rainmaker Retreats have gone home with information that they could implement the very next business day. The Rainmaker Retreat is different from other marketing seminars in several ways:

First, it is specifically designed for Attorneys at small law firms and solo practitioners.  While attorneys at larger firms can benefit from the information presented, it is presented with the Small law firm and solo attorney in mind.

Second, it is a working retreat.  You will be creating many of your plans during the retreat.

Third, it is NOT an introductory course.We work very hard to make the material easy to understand and simple to apply, but please understand this is an advanced, in-depth, hard-hitting course.

Fourth, it is designed to maximize the your Return on Investment. Everything about this workshop is focused on one goal—helping you achieve the best results by finding more and better clients in the least amount of time using the least amount of money possible.

Fifth, it offers a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. We are so confident you will benefit from the Rainmaker Retreat that we offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you are not completely satisfied at the end of the first day, just let us know, turn your materials in and we will refund your money.

If you are looking to revolutionize your law firm marketing system register now for one of the Rainmaker Retreats.  Just click on the retreat location that interests you.
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Complimentary Rainmaker Retreat Preview DVD is Available
We would like to send you a DVD of your colleagues (and even your competitors) describing their experiences at the 2 day Rainmaker Retreat. Yes, we know you are skeptical (we wouldn't have it any other way).   So instead of us telling you how these 2 days will transform your business, we will let our clients do the telling.

Click here to order your complimentary DVD right now.

Over the weekend I had the great privilege of being a panelist at the State Bar of Arizona’s Grand Slam or Foul Ball . . . Social Networking for Lawyers - Co-sponsored with The State Bar of California.  It was a glorious day in Arizona filled with good conversation, excellent panelists, magnificent food, and of course, baseball.

During the seminar portion of the day – I won’t tease you with the food and baseball – the participants were treated to some great discussion of social media and how it can benefit, and hurt an organization.  One of the more interesting thoughts came from Peter Woodfork
Vice President & Assistant General Manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. 

He spoke about the issues involved with athletes using social media and some of the guidance that Major League Baseball is providing to its member clubs.  There are legitimate concerns with athletes posting to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN etc. and many clubs discourage athletes from posting during the season. 

This brings up an important business principle – make sure the individuals utilizing social media on behalf of your organization are the appropriate persons to be speaking for the organization.   Once something is posted on Facebook, it can live forever on Google.

I shared with the attendees my analogy on where social media fits into a law firm marketing plan. Imagine you have a cylinder and you have to fit large rocks, small rocks, sand, and water into the cylinder.  Which ones go first?

I recommend the large ones, which are your referrals and past clients.  The small rocks are your grassroots networking activities and your website.  The sand in the cylinder is your blog.  The water is social media.  It ties all of your legal marketing efforts together, but it is not your primary marketing tool.

It was a great seminar for those who attended, and I hope to participate in more in the future.  Social media has a place in your law firm marketing plan.  Putting that piece in the right place is the key.
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Looking for more Rainmaker Institute Wisdom?
Then sign up for a complimentary Law Firm Marketing Strategy CD.  It contains information that will enable you to Generate More and Better Referrals, Find New Clients Fast, and Fill Your Law Practice.  The CD is free, so sign up now!

When you, as a business owner, are looking to maximize the return on your legal marketing dollars, you need to be aware of how your business vision and goals influence your law firm marketing strategy.  To help you with that, here are some questions to help you with the vision and goal setting process.

• How do you define success? – Does success for you equate with growing the firm to a certain number of employees?  A particular dollar figure for your income?  A firm of a certain size that allows you to take more time off? 
• What are your personal and professional goals?  What kind of firm are you trying to build?  A niche firm?  A mid-size to large firm?  Are you looking to retire early?  Are you looking for a firm that affords you ample time off and a high income?  All of these things need to be considered as you set your vision and goals.
• Where do you want to be 1, 5 and 10 years from now?  This goes back to the previous post about making your plans measurable and managed.  You should set benchmarks in a variety of areas at the 1, 5 and 10 year marks to help you measure the progress of your plan.

Your vision and goals are yours as the business owner.  They need to reflect what you hope to achieve.  Don’t base them on others expectations or what you think you should do. Rather, base them on what you want to achieve. Once you have them nailed down, revisit them on a regular basis.

It is only after you have your vision and goals articulated that you can throw your energy into legal marketing strategies that you will be able to design and implement an effective law firm marketing plan. 

More on vision and goals tomorrow.
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Unsure about attending a Rainmaker Retreat?
If you are still unsure about attending a Rainmaker Retreat, sign up for one of our complimentary teleseminars. These free one hour calls give you valuable law firm marketing and business tips that you can implement in your law practice right now. Don’t miss this opportunity to preview something that can revolutionize your law practice.

Allow me to introduce Rich Strauch to you.  Rich is the Chief Operating Officer here at The Rainmaker Institute, and he brings a great deal of experience with small and medium-sized companies helping them recognize the systems that they need to implement or improve to help them achieve their business objectives.

Rich has identified several systems that every law firm should have in place to be the type of firm they want to be.  Those same systems can take their legal marketing strategy from a hit-or-miss proposition to a referral and lead-generation machine. But before the systems are put in place, there are steps that need to be taken to ensure that there is a strong potential for success.

Here are four steps that need to be taken from the outset:

1. They must be written down. Systems must be written down in a step-by-step manner. – You can’t just say “track incoming prospect telephone calls.”  You need a specific set of instructions that answers the 5 w’s – Who, What, When, Where, and Why – to design a set of instructions that can be followed regardless of who is in the position.
2. They must be measurable. To the extent possible, systems must be quantifiable. If you have a target number of referral source meetings, use the number to help hold yourself accountable.  If your goal is a percentage increase, use the numbers in your plan.
3. They must be managed. Systems are ongoing and dynamic, not static and must be managed.  Someone has to be responsible to see that they happen.  The best plans are useless if they are not implemented and monitored.
4. They must be automated. Using software helps to automate the process. Technology can lower the number of man-hours you need to accomplish your goals.  Set a goal of automating everything that is possible in your business to you can use your time for high-value work.

Each of these items applies to many facets of your legal practice, including your legal marketing strategy.  Many firms have plans that are incomplete, not written down, poorly managed and still reliant on 1980s and 1990s technology – Rolodex anyone?  To take your law firm marketing to the next level, start with the steps above.  We will have more on this in future blog posts.
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Looking for more proven tactics from The Rainmaker Institute?

Then subscribe to our  FREE monthly e-newsletter. One click of your mouse will take you to our site where you can see the current issue and subscribe to our complimentary monthly e-newsletter that will be delivered to your inbox.  Each issue is chock-full of legal marketing information you can put to use right away. I think you will find the information in every newsletter something you will want to share with your staff to begin 2010 on the right note in your legal marketing plan.