FOLLOW THROUGH IS THE HARD SECOND MILE
What are the tools of successful law practice marketing? A sleek website. An informative blog. Cultivating referrals. Lots of networking and community involvement. Outstanding client relations. All of these are important factors.
However, I challenge any marketing guru to identify a more important rule of law marketing than this one:
Follow through with the prospective clients who have already come through the door.
This is an aspect of law marketing that is too little mentioned, perhaps because it is too often neglected. However, obviously, follow through is absolutely make-or-break for the success of any law marketing campaign. What good is an elegant, flash-animated, SEO-primed website, or a provocative blog that is conquering the ecosystem, or dozens of qualified contacts from seminars and social events, if the attorney doesn’t follow through with the prospective clients who come his or her way?
I’m not talking about “follow up” (with contacts), I’m talking about “follow through” (with prospective clients). Marketing efforts generate contacts, and of course it is important to “follow up” with contacts. But when a contact approaches you about his own legal need, your “follow through” with that prospective client is the single most crucial step in your marketing strategy.
A referring attorney has shot you an email and shipped over a box of documents and is awaiting your evaluation. Someone who previously requested “more information” online has now called your office, asking you to take a look at her legal matter and tell her what you think. During a break at a seminar at which you were a panel member, a casual acquaintance approaches you, describes his legal problem and asks if you can help.
But that was three weeks ago. Or maybe three months ago. Between juggling your current caseload and running your business and keeping all of your marketing efforts up to speed, you have not managed to advance your relationship with that prospective client one iota. No follow through.
For an attorney in a small or solo practice, it can be easier and more pleasant to devote time to sprucing up the website, posting to your blog, or making the rounds at a business function, than to walking the hard second mile of follow through with the prospective clients who have already come through the door. In the initial phase of law marketing the goal is exposure, and success is measured by the number of hits, clicks, contact cards, business cards, etc. But when a contact becomes a prospective client, the romance begins to fade and the hard work begins.
After all, what are the odds that that prospect actually has a legitimate case worth pursuing? These considerations have greater application in some practice areas than in others, but especially in civil litigation, experience has taught you that:
• Prospective clients often get it wrong in evaluating the merits of their own cases.
• The more you dig into a matter, the more you are likely to uncover the “fatal flaw” that the prospect “forgot” to tell you about upfront.
• There is a good chance that even if some harm has been done to someone, there may be no legal basis for recovery, or any wrongdoer with sufficient assets to pay a recovery.
• There is a danger of investing real time and effort to work up a case that will end up going nowhere.
Ever had such thoughts? Are such thoughts, perhaps at the subconscious level, impeding your follow through and thus crippling your marketing? The smarter an attorney is, the more experienced he is, the more times he has been around the block, the better he gets at recognizing the flaws and weaknesses in each prospective case that comes his way — until, eventually, every new piece of prospective business looks like a pig in a poke.
Yes, working up prospective cases can be unappealing, disappointing work, but it is vital to a lawyer’s marketing strategy to have mechanisms in place to make sure he does not drop the ball on follow through. Here are some suggestions:
(1) Keep a log of prospective clients. Whether stored in the database of top-of-the-line legal software, a pedestrian contact program or an even simpler Microsoft Word chart, the log should include each prospective client’s name, date and nature of the first contact, brief summary of the matter, last step taken, and next action required.
(2) Make sure you are capturing the information about your prospective clients. When a prospect calls your office, will the person fielding the call obtain and record the necessary information? If the prospect sends an email, will it get buried in your inbox and forgotten? How are you making sure that information about prospective clients is being captured and logged?
(3) Review your prospects log periodically. Once a month is not enough. In a month’s time, your prospective client may have moved on to another attorney who actually seems to care. Once a week is better. This is an appointment with yourself that you must keep, regardless of how busy it gets. Let’s face it, if being busy is an excuse to let your prospective clients slide, you will never get around to them.
(4) Keep your prospective clients appraised of your progress. Make phone calls and send letters. Don’t leave them hanging. They understand that working up the case may take some time, but they also understand that you are busy, and they don’t want to be forgotten. Besides, a commitment to make progress reports is a good way to keep you on target to actually make some progress.
(5) If the case just isn’t any good – make a decision, advise the prospect accordingly, and move on. Once again, don’t leave the prospect hanging unnecessarily.
(6) Cultivate a culture in your office in which it is understood that prospective clients get red-carpet treatment. From your associates down to your receptionist, make sure everybody understands that in your office, prospective clients are not nuisances or nuts, they are the ones who are going to pay next month’s and next year’s rent.