New Year’s Resolutions are a time-honored way of setting goals for the new year.  They often center on personal issues – weight loss, exercise, relationships etc – but let me suggest that you add creating a  solid, well-crafted law firm marketing plan to your New Year’s Resolution list this year.

Your law firm marketing plan should include all of the following components:
Referral sources – who are the people who refer business to you?  Who are the people you would like to refer business to you?
Internet marketing – what does your internet presence look like?  Your website, online-mentions, your page ranks in key search engines?
Blogs – do you have a blog?  Is it current with relevant content?  Is it written with keywords in mind to bring traffic to your site?
Social media – are you actively managing your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook sites to create the best possible face for your firm?
Public relations – are you creating news releases and stories that point the media to you as an expert?  Cultivating a relationship with the media takes time and expertise.  But it is a worthwhile investment.

Take advantage of the resources you will find here and at The Rainmaker Institute website.  Come to one of our Rainmaker Retreats or invest in some materials from the online store to gather the resources you need for your law firm marketing plan to help make 2010 a  year to remember.
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Looking for more Rainmaker Institute wisdom?

Create Category of One
On a recent call with our Mastermind Members (This is select group of attorneys who meet with John Bisnar and me for coaching and consulting. Look here for more information.), we were discussing how to create a unique competitive advantage and position your law firm against larger competitors.  One of the best ways to do this is by creating a category of one.

For example, yours is the only law firm in Orlando who handles over 1,000 personal injury cases every year and still requires every client to meet face-to-face with an attorney.  At every other large personal injury law firm you only get to meet with a legal secretary or a paralegal.

Here’s another: you are the only criminal defense specialist in San Francisco who is a former Golden Gloves champion.  Find a way to create a Category of One, then tell prospects what that means to them and why they should care.

Hire Only Superstars
Right now there is more top talent on the market than ever before and you can get them for a lot less than you could even two years ago.  I was just speaking with Darrin Mish, a top tax attorney in Florida (www.GetIRSHelp.com).  He mentioned placing an ad on Craigslist recently for an associate and receiving over 100 applicants in a matter of hours. 

Two weeks ago I posted some thoughts on how discounting your price can be a path to slow-payment, hassle, repeated requests for reductions in fees and ultimately non-payment.  Today I want to expand on those thoughts.

One of the maxims that still holds true today is “You get what you pay for.”  In many areas of life, it is true.  The cheap toys and tools available in the discount bins at the dollar store often do not have the service life span that higher-quality, and more expensive products enjoy.  That perception is deeply embedded in American consumer culture, so use it to your advantage.

We have all seen the studies of cars where the price and quality are not always directly linked.  Some brands have a reputation for higher quality that is undeserved or based on older thinking, yet they continue to charge prices that seem to be too high for the value received.  We have also seen the studies where high quality items were discounted, and the consumer viewed them as inferior to the higher-priced items.

Legal services are much the same way.  If you discount your rates, prospective clients are more likely to think your service is of a lesser quality than that of attorneys who do not discount.  Regardless of the quality of the service, the perception will rule the day.

I’m excited to tell you that The Rainmaker Institute has partnered with renowned estate planning attorney Jeffrey Matsen to create a special edition of the Becoming A Rainmaker seminar just for estate planning and business attorneys. The event will be held December 10 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. as part of the Wealth Counsel Education Event in Atlanta.

Jeffrey Matsen is one of the premier estate planning attorneys in the country, who brings a wealth of estate planning experience to the proven techniques of the Rainmaker System. More than 6,500 attorneys from hundreds of law firms throughout the US have discovered how to apply the specific, easy to follow Rainmaker Marketing System™ to generate more referrals and find new clients.

Attendees at the inaugural Becoming A Rainmaker For Estate Planning Lawyers – The Jeff Matsen Edition will learn:

• The 7 Ways to Find More Clients and How to Pick the Best Ones for Your Law Firm
• How to Build a Network of over 30 new Referral Sources in the next 6 months
• Specific Ways to Change Your Website from just an Online Brochure to a Money-making Machine
• Specific Tools for Automating Your Legal Marketing System
• How to Ethically Position Yourself as a Specialist in Your Area
• How to Promote Your Firm to 150,000 people for $140
• Avoid the Most Deadly Marketing Mistakes Attorneys make
• Why Advertising Doesn't Work and What Top Attorneys Do Instead
• The #1 Reason why Attorneys Don't Receive More Referrals and How to Change This

Seating for this event is limited and registration is required.  To register click here or you can RSVP to Diane Osmunden at diane@therainmakerinstitute.com or by phone at 888-588-5891.

Forget Fame
There are a number of people out there who are selling fame – “buy my product or service and I’ll make you famous.”

Here are some sage words of advice:  Forget fame.  Become wealthy and fame will follow.  Fame is fleeting.  Who cares if you are “famous?”  The only thing that does is play to your ego.  I prefer to play to my pocketbook!  Use proven marketing strategies that work.  Transform your law firm from a practice into a real business

Automate, delegate or outsource every part of your business that you can.  Build a core team of people who support you and run your business for you.  Develop a wealth creation system.  The fame will follow.

In the previous post, I offered some reasons why you should consider public relations as part of your marketing mix and some tips on selecting a PR professional. This post concludes the discussion.

So I got the story – What do I do now?

Getting the story is the most difficult part of the process. Because you do not control what goes into the news media, there is a great deal of work that goes into a good pitch, interview and follow-up to an interview or series of interviews. That is where PR counsel is so valuable. They can anticipate what is needed to make the story complete, and can stay in contact with the reporter without being “heavy-handed” in the approach. Once you have successfully landed the story, the critical marketing phase begins.

In the previous post, I offered some reasons why you should consider public relations as part of your marketing mix and some tips on selecting a PR professional. This post expands on those thoughts.

Ways to interact with the media

One of the very first steps in any good media relations campaign is identification of key media with whom you wish to develop a relationship. Target the publications that your prospective clients read. You probably don’t have the budget for a wide-ranging media campaign, so you need to have a good focus at the outset. It is best to have a long-range time horizon and through the assistance of your public relations counsel, to develop a relationship as a “source.” Often this is done over a meal where a reporter has the opportunity to get to know you and ask questions to determine the areas where you may be useful to him/her. This is not about you placing a story, it is about establishing credibility with the reporter as: 1) someone knowledgeable about certain topics; 2) someone who can speak clearly and get to the point e.g. someone who is quotable: and 3) someone who is responsive to the needs and timetables of the media. To this end, your PR counsel and your office staff need to be very responsive to media requests. Do not let your assistant use the “He/she is in a meeting” with the media. Media often call with short deadlines, and unless you absolutely cannot be interrupted. If a reporter’s calls get “parked” and returned after the deadline, they will stop calling and go to someone who is more responsive. These sourcing interviews allow you great latitude in what you can talk about, and sometimes it may not be something that you think is critical, but it is a story he/she is developing. As an example, a former client of mine is in the construction business and did a great deal of healthcare construction. We set up a sourcing interview with a healthcare writer at a major US daily newspaper. During that interview, a story idea was born that culminated a few months later with a story that was on the front page of the business section on a Sunday, which is the largest circulation day for newspapers. The story was adapted by a media organization and ran statewide in approximately 20 newspapers. We were given the first quote in the story, which is very important since news stories are edited from the bottom up. When the story ran on the wire service, our quote was the only one included in the story in the out-state papers. And it all began with a sourcing interview where we were pitching experts and a story idea took shape during the interview.

Despite the turmoil in the economy and the general economic slowdown, now is an excellent time for attorneys to develop a relationship with a public relations counselor who can help grow your business.  During tough economic times, one of the first budget categories to be scaled back is marketing and communications.  With the larger firms pulling back, this provides an excellent opportunity for smaller practices to stand out with well-placed stories and relationships with reporters covering beats important to you and your clients.

To be clear, public relations is a broad term that encompasses many areas of communications. It does not, in this article, include paid media such as print, electronic and digital advertising.  It will include several communications techniques including media relations, direct mail, and website media room management.

Working with the Media

Being on a tight budget doesn’t mean you can’t motivate your employees through a strategic reward system. Here are 10 ways you can reward your employees without breaking the bank. This concludes the series begun on September 28.

6. Book Bonuses: Instead of paying for your employees to attend an expensive seminar or workshop, you can purchase relevant and worthwhile books for your best performing staff members each month.

7. Dress Down: Yes, you run a professional law firm that fights hard to maintain a certain image – but that doesn’t mean your employees can’t have a casual day once every quarter. Doing something different is a great way to get your staff excited.

Being on a tight budget doesn’t mean you can’t motivate your employees through a strategic reward system. Here are 10 ways you can reward your employees without breaking the bank.

1. Say Thanks: Whether you approach your employees personally, send them a note, or praise them in a staff meeting – it’s important to express your gratitude whenever they’ve done a good job. Saying thanks is one of the simplest yet most effective ways to make your employees feel appreciated.
    
2. Lunch Meetings: Nobody will turn down a free meal – and a lunch meeting gives you the opportunity to reward your staff with great food while also bringing everybody together to share their successes, stories and struggles.
    
3. Focus on the Family: Each of your employees have family members they love and care about. By showing that you value their families as well you can cultivate a deeper sense of loyalty with your employees. Some family-based rewards can be as simple as a “free night at the movies” or an all-expenses paid dinner.
    
4. Change Job Titles: Believe it or not, the more inflated the job title the more your employees will work to live up to it. If you hire somebody as a “janitor” he will pick up your trash. But if you hire somebody as a “workplace environmental consultant”, he will keep your office clean and provide insight on how to make things more efficient.
    
5. Staff Newsletter: Newsletters are a great way to highlight individual performances as well as birthdays and other events. It is also a great way to help your employees get to know each other better through surveys, spotlights, and news sections.