Posts in category: Legal Marketing

Storytelling is an art that can be learned, and if you’re a person of influence, storytelling is a way to instantly connect with your audience. There are 2 key components that create influence: credibility and vulnerability. Creating your personal story is an integral part, but knowing how to incorporate your purpose story into your practice will make a difference in your conversions.

National Marketing Expert, George Ira Carroll, will be leading Day 1 of The LWP Practice Enhancement Retreat and will ensure you walk away with your purpose incorporated into every conversation you have. Whether you're teaching clients, referral sources or walking into brand new facilities in your region. Learn how your personal story is ultimately your brand in the marketplace and that which people in your community seek you out.

On Day 1 we guarantee you'll end the day knowing exactly how to take the LWP stories to a whole new level… giving you an arsenal of workshops for presentations anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours … all while maintaining the purpose of the stories and having the ability to give them your content with ease.

“Your purpose story is your unique story of why you decided to go into your profession. It's the catalyst that inspires people to work with you.” George Ira Carroll.

Click here to see just one piece of what you will take away from Day 1. Register today for $2,747 and save on tuition. Plus, back by popular request is the option for payment installments! Pricing will increase to $2,997 after tomorrow!

Don't forget! We have our Marketing Roundtable call the first Monday of each month. Join our call today at 3:00 EDT. The topic is "Quantify Your Marketing Efforts." Just call into 646-716-5037 at 3:00 EDT.

We also have our Live ListServ every Monday at 4:00 EDT. Click here to register https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/306045670

I had the pleasure of being in New York this past weekend. While there I saw the six Tony Award Winning Broadway production, Kinky Boots. The play itself was very entertaining, which I expected. But, I also came away with many business tips, listing here the top five.

Before embarking on the five lessons, a backdrop of the story is helpful. The premise is that Mr. Price expects his son, Charlie, to take over the family shoe business. Charlie has different ideals in mind, but when his father dies unexpectedly, Charlie inherits and takes over the failing business. To keep from closing down the factory and laying off friends and workers of over 30 years, Charlie has to do something dramatically different.

Without spoiling the show for you, yet still be able to share the lessons…

1. Find a niche market. Price & Sons had always sold quality men’s shoes that were pricey. The market was demanding less expensive shoes with newer styles. The business suffered because it continued to do the same as it had always done until Mr. Price died and his son took over. To survive, Charlie discovered an underserved market – -men wearing women’s shoes that were not only harmful to their feet, but uncomfortable.

Thus, Charlie made women style shoes to bear the weight of men and catered to an entirely new market – drag queens. When I started my elder law firm in 2002, the definition of elder law was “Medicaid Planning.” Of course I did that, but I also discovered a market not being served – Wartime Veterans who could benefit from receiving the pension with aid and attendance benefits. There were other law firms quietly helping veterans in their communities, but no one was truly serving the market until lawyers realized the need, which was in 2008 when I began national conferences to train the lawyers. Other niche markets within elder law now include special needs planning and fiduciary litigation, among others. What niche can you create in your community?

2. It takes the entire team. Whether you are a sole practitioner who performs every role in your office, or if you have many other lawyers, paralegals, legal administrators, etc., everyone must buy in to what you are doing and selling. Everyone must respect and accept the vulnerabilities and strengths we each have. When Charlie was at the end of his rope and desperate, he began to yell at his employees and make very poor decisions which led to him alienating himself from everyone. Had the employees not looked beyond the temporary stress, they all would have lost everything, to include their jobs. The team pulled through together, for the good of all, and they were then successful.

3. The New Kid on the Block Can Stand Out. Cyndi Lauper is extremely talented and has won awards for her musical abilities before; however, she had never even composed or written music for a theatre production. Kinky Boots was her debut and she knocked it out of the park winning Best Score and becoming the first woman to win the composing category solo. I began my practice in 2002. By 2006 I was being recognized as someone who knew something about Veterans Benefits. By 2008 I was the national expert on VA pension with aid and attendance. Since then, I am the recipient of the highest award the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys provides, called Fellow of the Academy, and I have been appointed by my state Governor to sit on an advisory board that reports to his office.

You do not have to have decades of experience to be the best at your trade or to be recognized. You do; however, have to put yourself out there and have confidence in yourself.

4. Be yourself. Charlie, and the other lead role, Lola the drag queen, were always trying to please everyone else, especially their individual fathers. Working hard to please others only drains your energy. You can serve and assist others, but work to please yourself by being authentic. Clients and professional referral sources only want to work with people they feel they can trust. Being true to yourself is the best way to show authenticity.

5. Find and have a mentor to help you achieve greater success. Harvey Fierstein wrote the book for the play Kinky Boots. Mr. Fierstein has a long list of accolades for his work, to include other Tony Awards. Cyndi Lauper was brilliant to team up with Mr. Fierstein for her debut musical.

This is a picture of me and my mentor, William Hammond, who I invited to see Kinky Boots with. A great mentor supports your efforts to succeed and often becomes a dear friend as well.

Lawyers With Purpose, LLC as a community has served as mentor to new and experienced members of estate planning and elder law firms. If you are looking for a community or mentor, Lawyers With Purpose may be the organization for you. Come see what we are all about. Join us September 12-13 in Phoenix AZ, for our Asset Protection, Medicaid and VA Summit. Register early and take advantage of our early bird pricing.

Victoria L. Collier, Certified Elder Law Attorney, Fellow of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, Veteran of the U.S.A.F. and author of 47 Secret Veterans’ Benefits for Seniors…Benefits You Have Earned but Don’t Know About.

Just how important is it, really, for you to post regularly to your law firm blog? It’s a hassle, right? Coming up with something pithy to write, logging into your account, posting, sharing, etc.? And after all, how many people really read your blog? You seldom get insightful commentary from visitors. Isn’t this just one more marketing gimmick you can skip?

Hang on! Before you pull the plug on your blog, better get your facts straight! Daily blogging and social media support are important aspects of The Essential Solution® marketing program, and most Integrity Marketing Essential Attorneys are faithful about posting to their blogs and sharing on social media. So, we reviewed marketing performance statistics to see whether blogging is really a high-return activity.

Here is what we found:

Bloggers Get More Website Traffic

• Referrals from your blog account for, on average, about 25 percent of all website traffic. Simply put, about one-fourth of all the people who visit your website are coming from your blog!
• Perhaps even more importantly, when you share your blog posts on Facebook, we find that, on average, another one-third of your website visitors come from Facebook.
• For those of you who are keeping track, this means that your blog posts are generating nearly 60 percent (25 + 33 = 58) of your website traffic!

Bloggers Get Higher Google Rank

• Your blog also adds to your website’s index on Google. In fact, Kyle Krull now has 1,770 website pages indexed on Google — and 1,710 of those are from his blog! Google loves well-indexed websites with lots of content, and rewards Kyle with page one rank for 17 of his Essential key search terms in organic search!
• Your blog posts also are indexed by Google and will show up for key local searches. In fact, a recent search for “Family Business Succession” in Overland Park, KS delivered more than 251,000 results — and Kyle Krull held the top three spots on page one. Two of those three were blog posts.

But don’t just trust our research. HubSpot recently released their own blogging impact research statistics from 7,000 of their customers.

Highlights:

• Companies that blog 15 or more times per month get five times more traffic to their websites than companies that don’t.
• Smaller businesses (1 to 10 employees) actually tend to see the biggest traffic gains from blogging.
• Companies that increase blogging from 3 to 5 times per month to 6 to 8 times per month almost double their leads.
• An average company will see a 45% growth in TRAFFIC when increasing total blog articles from 11-20 to 21-50.
• Companies with more than 200 blog articles have MORE THAN FIVE TIMES AS MANY LEADS than those with 10 or fewer.

To learn more about how blogging impacts your marketing, listen to Integrity Marketing’s webinar, “Blogging To Boost Law Firm Marketing Performance” – view online or download here: http://www.imslegalmarketing.com/blog/

Do relationships really help improve your business? The answer is a loud YES! Each day we come to work with the goal of increasing business and keeping the doors open for another day. After putting in 40+ hours a week, it’s hard to find the energy to build business relationships. So why not work the task of nurturing and cultivating relationships into your weekly schedule? There are so many different ways to accomplish this.

(1) Look into leadership organizations that will put you in contact with other business professionals in your area who are looking to accomplish the same goal as you: making your contacts count.

(2) Join LinkedIn, a professional networking site with over 200 million members. According to its CEO, Jeff Weiner, members of the site are “the most affluent, most influential and best educated consumers on the web.” In other words, LinkedIn members are smart, have money to spend and have lots of connections just like them.

(3) Create a list of 10 business professionals with whom you want to create a relationship that will benefit them along with you and your business.

(4) Consistently participate in weekly synergy meetings to make sure you are interacting with one of your "My 10" each week.

(5) If you support non-profits, don’t just write the check but create a partnership. It is not taboo to ask what you are getting out of your donation. Form a partnership that allows the supporting organization to endorse you and/or your company.

(6) While networking, you will meet a variety of individuals. Network and partner with the individuals who have values, goals and work ethic similar to your own.

(7) Remember, it’s not always “business” with these individuals. Create personal relationships with them. A round of golf, an invitation to an event you sponsored with your team or just a casual lunch meeting to brainstorm is always healthy for business relationships.

Estate planning law firms, along with their teams, across the country are doing this very well, week in and week out without being dependent on the attorney’s excuse of "when I can get to it."

At this year’s Lawyers with Purpose Annual Member Practice Enhancement Retreat, our members will learn firsthand how improving your legal technical, and your teams’ ability to consistently deliver it, supports every single one of your relationships. Learn the success stories and the strategies for improving your relationships via automation.

If you are currently a member of LWP click here to register now and reserve your seat. If you are not an LWP Member and interested in learning more about what Lawyers With Purpose has to offer your estate planning practice, join us in Phoenix, AZ, for our Asset Protection, Medicaid and VA Summit, September 12-13th. Click here to register for our two day event.

Roslyn Drotar, Implementation Coach, Lawyers With Purpose.

The internet has transformed the buying process.

I was on a call this week with an SEO guy and we were having a conversation about online marketing strategy. We both said, almost at the same time, how we at times just hate to look at what others post on their social and blogs. We both saw the same problem: Most, if not all, of their content is all about THEM!

Your prospective customers are actively looking online for a solution to their problems. 85% of consumers are looking for businesses online. There are over 100 billion searches on Google per month. They are looking for someone who can take away their pain. 91% of the people say they find what they are looking for, and 3 out of 5 are doing the research from mobile devices or tablets.

So, what that means to you is that consumers are more educated about your services than ever before. If you look at this the right way, the meaning is clear: More marketing opportunities exist for you and your firm if you play your cards right!

What do I mean by playing your cards right? Well, give them what they want! Give them what they need from you – THE expert in the area. Make yourself the “Go-To Guy/Gal.” The way to do that is CONTENT. Content is King!

So, you have to look at your marketing content as if you were a publisher or author. That means you need to start writing about what you know, and how it is important to them. Ask yourself “What questions do my prospects always ask me time and time again,” and start writing about it. Give them the answer on your website, on your firm flyers and anything you hand out as promotional material. You need to give them valuable content, when they need it and where they need it.

What you can't do is make your marketing about YOU. Don't give them fact after fact about you. And don't give them fact after fact about the services you provide. Think of it in terms of a dinner party – Don’t be that guy going on and on about how wonderful he is.

If, instead, you can deliver your content by speaking to them and, more importantly, socializing with them through blogs and social media, people will look to you as the authority in your industry. And that is golden. If you want your marketing results to do something different, you have to do something different in your marketing. The web is dramatically influencing customer behavior and changing how your business connects with perspective clients and advisors online. The information available online today gives prospects the power they haven't had in the past. And it's predicted that this power will continue to grow. Because of this your web presence has to allow people to get to know you, connect with you and offer support and value. Making this difference is the new way of online marketing.

Roslyn Drotar, Implementation Coach at Lawyers With Purpose