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Getting Smart With Your Law Firm Marketing Budget – Part 2

March 26, 2015

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Estate Planning Drafting Software Legal Marketing

In our previous post Getting Smart With Your Law Firm Marketing Budget – Part 1 we discussed how to cut your marketing budget, and also how not to. Now let’s think about some cost-effective marketing strategies that we all should be doing!

Some marketing techniques to consider:

1) Step Up Your Social Media Activities If You Haven’t Already

If your customers are active on social media, then you should be too. When marketing dollars are low, bump up the time and resources you allocate to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Claim your business listing on sites like Google Places, Yelp and Yahoo Local. Make sure you monitor those sites and respond to any review. Start a blog, or reinvigorate your existing one. This costs you only your time. I know time is important, but it is a resource, and if you aren’t spending money on marketing, you’ve got to be spending time.

2) Use the Power of Referrals and Don’t Be Afraid To ASK!

Referrals are free and a great tool for spreading the word about your business. Make certain you are asking your clients for them at your synergy meetings and strategy meetings. Run a promotion for “friends of our family” – start a marketing campaign to get existing clients you like and enjoy working with to refer to you. Reach out to them and tell them that, because you like them, you are willing to give “X” to anyone they refer, either a family member or a friend who contacts you within 48 hours, and then decide what that offering is. Maybe it’s a complementary year on your maintenance plan or DocuBank. Be creative and show value to get that phone to ring.

I say to offer this to clients you enjoy because people hang with people like them. Just make sure you have a clear offering and a timeline attached to it. That will get action.

3) Sometimes You Need To Refine Your Marketing Before You Cut – Sometimes Simple Is Better

I often see logos with fancy taglines that say something like “helping families pass on their legacy.” What do you think that means to people exposed to your brand or logo? What if they had no clue what you do and just saw your firm name (say for example it’s Law Offices of Joe Smith) with that tagline? Do you think they would know exactly what you do, and all that you do? Instead, say something like “helping your family with their estate planning goals” or just “the estate planning professional for your family.” Sometimes too fancy doesn’t connect or resonate.

So ask yourself, how can you refine your tagline – or any other strategy you have – to strengthen your marketing message and grow revenue?

4) Get Out in Your Community

Another low-cost but high-profile approach that works well for small businesses is getting involved with community events and programs. We have a listing on our members site of national events by month. Look at it, and find some events where you can reach out to your community and support them. A business that is active in the community often wins the hearts and minds of consumers. Plus, it’s often easier on your pocketbook than other marketing programs.

5) Be Strategic About What You Cut

If any tactics aren’t working for you, don’t be afraid or hesitant to cut them. I know we push hard for a six-month commitment before you cut so you can verify that it’s not working. I had a member tell me his ad wasn’t doing anything. He only got a “few calls” for his workshop from it, so he was pulling the ad. However, he also wasn’t doing any reporting, so those two calls were probably more like four. I encouraged him not to cut it, because if you get two calls and you aren’t tracking, then you can probably truly allocate more than that number off the top of your head. He cut the ad at four months, and in month five, he had people calling for his workshop from his ad. Pulling that ad hurt him, and he lost traction.

I also had a member who, at the fourth month of his newspaper ad, had not one call. Zero calls, and he WAS tracking. We had to stop the bleeding and decided that the demographic may not be ideal where he was. We put that money toward marketing online and got some leads. And we started focusing more on RMS and filling his pipeline.

So you have got to evaluate often, and if you are seeing any movement whatsoever, stick with the program AND REVIEW YOUR REPORTING before making your final decision.

If you want to know more about what Lawyers With Purpose has to offer, please join us Monday at 8 EST for our free Having The Time To Have It All webinar.

In this one hour webinar, you will learn how all entrepreneurs have the same amount of time in the day and how they use it differently.

Here's just some of what you'll discover in this practice-transforming event…

How to effectively utilize your time to enroll your team to help as many people as you choose and profit from it too
To work effectively with your team
How to balance your work life and your personal life to ensure you are able to create the maximum amount of value in both
How to have sufficient time to market consistently which will ensure consistent cash flow and free up the time you're currently spending chasing dollars

It will give you the confidence and path to create a law practice that provides estate planning, elder law, asset protection, Medicaid, veterans benefits, special needs, and tax planning in a way that helps your clients and your community!

Most importantly, you will be able to ensure your clients are able to maintain their dignity as they age and protect the assets they have worked their whole life for.

If you're passionate about helping people, reserve your space for this one hour webinar essential to help you break through your time restrictions to help more people and create more value!

Just register here to reserve your seat… it's 100% FREE!

Roslyn Drotar – Internet Marketing Strategist, Lawyers With Purpose

Getting Smart With Your Law Firm Marketing Budget – Part 1

March 25, 2015

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Legal Marketing

When cash flow is tight and times are tough, one of the first things people do is look for ways to cut the marketing budget. People typically cut marketing budgets for one simple reason – they don't have the money to spend.

But it’s always important to cut for the right reasons. “I’m short of funds" is not a marketing reason. From a marketer’s perspective, the welfare of the company depends on the marketing budget. You have got to be spending time, if not money, to market your practice. If you are cutting that budget only to reduce costs, then you need to decide what to do with your wholesale to fill your pipeline.

So how do you measure the worth of your existing marketing activities and know what you should cut? Or how do you defend how you are spending your marketing dollars?

Here are some things to consider about your marketing budget.

First, only spend what you can. You don’t need to do any more than that. Decide what that amount is going to be and commit to it for six months. I did a marketing roundtable call in December about how to determine your spend. How do you arrive at that number? If it is zero, that’s OK, but then you need to be spending 80% of your time on your marketing. You should be doing workshops, professional presentations, synergy meetings, strategy meetings, lunch and learns, etc. Make certain you are doing the follow-up that’s necessary to meet the expectations you’re creating and the promises you’re making in the industry. Or make sure you are rubbing elbows at networking events and getting in front of prospects and power partners. That should be where the majority of your time is being spent. Some of that time should also go toward building your brand by participating in community events. You can’t bring in business just by hanging your shingle and sitting in your office practicing law. You have to market.

Second, tracking and reporting is crucial. This isn’t negotiable. Your reporting tracks your efforts, and it shows you whether you are reaching goal and what you are risking. It is a necessary part of your commitment to executing and understanding your marketing; it is required information to know the implications of your reporting at a deep level. It helps you build on what’s working and cut what’s not. A very strong discovery process will uncover gaps and weaknesses, it will bring you new ideas, and it will pull you and your team together in the common set of goals required for your marketing.

If you aren’t tracking and reporting and have questions, we do have tools to support you. If you're a Lawyers With Purpose member, just log in to the members website and look under the February retreat; I did a breakout session on the RMS and the reporting. Start there and reach out to me if you have any questions.

So let’s talk about some criteria for what you can cut. These are things that may not be working, and any marketer should look for ways to fix them. It’s just good business sense. You can base your cuts on wanting to cut costs, but if funding isn’t the issue, you should still look at some of the ideas below and consider trimming.

Cut Anything Not Generating Profit

Do you have any marketing spend that simply isn’t generating a profit, despite concerted efforts and a consistent six-month commitment to it? And I specify six months because that’s the length of time it takes to tell if something is working – results typically show up by the six-month mark in your reporting. If you do something different, like stop promoting your workshops or cut down on your RMS, you will see it around six months after you stop. So if you see any piece that is not generating profit for you by then, we can 100% say you should retire that effort.

However, you need to be sure to look at your reporting as a whole: monthly, quarterly and annually. For example, if you got an AP2 from a $100-a-month ad in the local church bulletin, that was worth the monthly fee and axing it doesn’t make sense. But when you’re looking at that item week in and week out without considering the whole picture, it might initially look like something to cut. So make sure you have the whole picture before you cut it.

Walk Away from the Wrong Prospects or Leads

If generating fees outside of estate planning / elder law – assuming this is what you want to focus your practice on – it might be time to step back from such leads, see where they’re coming from and refine your marketing strategy. It’s important to understand your sweet spot or niche and focus on it. Think about referring the work you don’t want to someone else. Build a relationship with that person – a referral relationship. So if you have family law still showing up in your practice, don’t just grab onto it. Find an attorney you feel confident referring to – but have a synergy meeting with them and make sure to build a referral relationship. You refer to them; they refer estate planning and elder law to you!

This isn’t easy, I know. I worked in a small boutique firm that did family law and estate planning. The family law came by default, but we decided we didn’t want to do it anymore. Still, every once in a while that retainer was right in front of us and we would cave to reach goal. But one day we decided no more, so we built structure and standards around referring it out. We built referral relationships with another family law firm and asked for estate planning referrals. We found that we were better able to focus our marketing and leverage our efforts. And when you are THE estate or elder law practice, it’s amazing what happens in the industry. You become the go-to, and you can feel confident saying you are the best at what you do. We were able to focus our marketing and not just talk about the things in general that we did, like “living trusts” and “dissolution of marriage” to include the business planning and asset protection, which compensated for that family law that we dropped. And we ended up getting consistent referrals from that family law attorney.

Also, if you find that your marketing is bringing in endless requests for negotiating your fees, then it’s time to think again about whether these are the prospects you really want and where they are coming from. You are probably targeting the wrong demographic. Refine the marketing message, move it, or axe it altogether.

Why Not to Cut Marketing Budget?

Many times, the firms that don’t cut the marketing budget – they just refine, move, tweak, and throw the dollars someplace else – really reap the success. If you analyze successful companies, the one common theme among many of them is the effectiveness of their marketing and advertising. And sometimes, moving backward helps you eventually move forward. It’s not fun, and it’s not painless.

Marketing is like casting a net, then letting it sit to see if you catch any fish. If you do, you recast the net, maybe even a bigger net next time! But if you don’t, pick up the net and throw it someplace else. If you know something is working, do not cut it – power through it and invest in the spend. Work your wholesale and community outreach to drive some revenue to compensate for the retail that may not initially be delivering an ROI.

After more than 20 years in the industry, I have learned one certainty: Marketing budgets at most law firms are the most unloved of all budgets. When not reaching goal, we huddle around them, trying to determine which expenses are likely to have the biggest impact on growing the top and bottom lines. But it’s always important to make cuts for the right reasons, and the right reasons usually aren’t commercial reasons, they’re marketing reasons.

Our next post will address which marketing strategies are the most cost-effective.

If you aren't a Lawyers With Purpose member and want to learn more about joining our community, join us for a FREE Having The Time To Have It All Webinar Monday at 8:00 EST

Roslyn Drotar, Internet Marketing Strategist, Lawyers With Purpose

Time Equals Money In Networking

March 18, 2015

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Legal Marketing Systems & Processes

Do you sometimes feel like you're in a rut when it comes to networking and working your Relationship Management System? If so, I hope you joined me along with special guest Dr. Ivan Misner on our past Marketing Roundtable and got a shot in the arm to pump up your RMS.

Welcome Dr. Misner for a follow up Special Guest Blog on "Time Equals Money In Networking" which is based on the study he talked about on the Roundtable on how effective your time is spent on networking.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Ivan Misner:

The secret to getting more business through networking is . . . spend more time doing it! OK, well, it’s a little more complicated than that because you have to spend time doing the right things. However, based on the Referral Institute study on business networking, we finally have a definitive answer about how the amount of time spent networking impacts the amount of business that is generated.

The most dramatic statistic I have found shows that people who said “networking played a role” in their success spent an average of 6.5 hours a week participating in networking activities. On the other hand, the majority of people who claimed that “networking did NOT play a role” in their success spent only 2 hours or less per week developing their network.

What does this mean? It means there is a direct correlation between the amount of time you devote to the networking process and the degree of success that you realize from it. To illustrate this further, the graph to the left demonstrates the “average” percentage of business generated from someone’s networking efforts in comparison with the amount of time spent on networking activities. Here you can clearly see that people who are spending between five to nine hours a week networking are generating (on average) 50 percent of their total business from this activity.

People who spend, on average, more than 20 hours a week networking are getting almost 70 percent of their business through referrals.

Based on this study, it is clear that people who devote six hours a week or more to networking are generating a large percentage of their business through their efforts. So, it’s time to ask yourself . . . how much time are you spending developing your personal network and what kind of results are you starting to see?

Ivan Misner, Ph.D., Founder & Chief Visionary Officer www.bni.com

I would like to personally thank Dr. Misner for taking the time to join us and sharing with us his insights on networking like a professional to grow your practice.

Roslyn Drotar – Lawyers With Purpose, Internet Marketing Specialist

Rules For Networking Like A Pro – Special Guest Dr. Ivan Misner, Founder of BNI Joins Our Marketing Roundtable!

March 6, 2015

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Legal Marketing

Join our Marketing Roundtable Friday, March 13^th. at 12 EST with SPECIAL GUEST Dr. Ivan Misner, Founder & Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization. Dr. Misner is a New York Times Bestselling author who has written 20 books including his latest release: Who’s In Your Room?. He is also a columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Fox Business News.

Dr. Misner will talk about how to “Network Like A Pro!” and turn your contacts into connections. We will also have a live Q&A session at the end of our call so you can get your questions answered about networking and how to deepen the relationship with your own power partners.

You don't want to miss this presentation and the ability to get your questions answered by what CNN calls the “Father of Modern Networking” and one of the “Top Networking Experts to Watch” by Forbes. Dr. Misner is considered one of the world’s leading experts on business networking!

For registration information please contact me directly at rdrotar@lawyerswithpurpose.com.

We can't wait to see you then!

Roslyn Drotar – Coaching, Consulting & Implementation / Marketing & Social Strategist for Lawyers With Purpose

Listening Twice

December 31, 2014

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Coaching & Implementation Legal Marketing

Reruns, Anyone?

I’m not much for watching a movie or TV show twice. After all, you already know the end, right? And I don’t think I’ve ever paid to watch a movie twice.

But this week I found myself in the position of listening to Jeff Bellomo and Lou Leyes pretty much having the same conversation that they had in Phoenix way back in October, and I’ve got to tell you … I enjoyed it even more the second time, picking up more gems after hearing it twice.

Jeff and Lou give the inside scoop on the financial advisor’s world. As a financial advisor, Lou shared how to get into that world, and gives tips on how to find financial advisors who would be good fits for working with LWP member firms.

The title is “Busting Financial Advisor Myths,” and if you're a member and missed it in Phoenix, then you’re in luck. It’s posted on the LWP member website and available to members.

One-by-one, Lou and Jeff give responses to the typical financial advisor roadblocks that our members commonly encounter:

It’s always a bad idea to cash out an IRA.
Clients should never use trusts because trust rates are too high.
Clients should never make a separate share trust the beneficiary of an IRA or 401(k)
Annuities are the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The best way to avoid probate is to use beneficiary designations.
Asset protection planning isn’t necessary when clients have the right insurance policies in place.
Medicaid planning is bad and unnecessary for my clients.

Just to let you know, I’m not alone in my appreciation of this presentation. I think it received some of the highest member ratings ever when it was presented.

Folks, this is a “must see” for anyone who is using the Relationship Management Process (“RMS”) or planning to implement the process. I’d like to personally express a huge “Thank You” to both Jeff and Lou for sharing their insights.

If you want to learn more about what Lawyers With Purpose has to offer your Estate Planning or Elder Law Practice, join us in Charlotte, NC, February 3rd – 5th for our Practice With Purpose Program. Hotel cut off is January 12th so register today. For registration information contact Kyle Russ at kruss@lawyerswithpurpose.com.

Nedra Catale – Coaching, Consulting & Implementation, Lawyers With Purpose.

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Sometimes It Takes A Clear Vision Of Your Future To Prompt Change

October 28, 2014

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Coaching & Implementation Legal Marketing

I’ve been living in a construction zone for weeks, but tomorrow it will start to get better. Three weeks ago we ripped out our carpet and started moving furniture and painting. Tomorrow the flooring guys arrive with beautiful new carpet and we can finally move our furniture back in from the garage, the bathroom, the kitchen, the patio … wherever we’ve found a few inches to stash stuff. My office is the last to go.

Having my house upside down and walking on gritty concrete floors has made me just a little nuts. I’m one of those “my home is my castle” people.

Why would anyone choose to go through this?

Through Strengthfinders I’ve discovered that while I’m not overly fond of change, it’s uncertainty and not having a clear vision or plan that keeps me awake at night. Give me a clear vision of the desired outcome and I will make all kinds of sacrifices to get to that outcome.

Lately, I find myself working with an increasing number of teams interested in implementing an RMS process. I know what the future holds for them – I have such a clear vision of it – and am so excited about the direction in which they’ve chosen to go. What impresses me is that they trust the system enough to go through a transition period, a time of uncertainty, with faith that putting in hard work and carving out dedicated time will give them a breakthrough with their business.

A Relationship Management System is a systematized, dedicated, deliberate and painstaking approach to building professional relationships. Doing it “right” means being fully committed and unwilling to give up or become distracted and neglectful. It takes a clear vision of the desired outcome and an unfaltering commitment to reaching that goal.

Does your team have a clear vision of what the goal line looks like? If you’re the team leader, how clear is your own vision? How often do you, as a team, focus on your long-term goals? Or are you totally consumed with putting out the day-to-day fires in your office?

If you are an LWP Member and you and your team are ready to take the next step – to set long-term goals and form an action plan focused on developing an RMS process and would like some help, let your CCI coach know!

If you're not a member, reach out to Molly Hall at mhall@lawyerswithpurpose.com or 877-299-0326 x 102 and she can walk you through what we have to offer to get your phone ringing and filling your pipeline.

Nedra Catale, Coaching, Consulting & Implementation – Lawyers With Purpose

Marketing Lessons From Mom

July 24, 2014

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Coaching & Implementation Legal Marketing

You know how you become a parent and one day you hear those same words come out of your own mouth that you heard from your own parents when you were growing up? There’s that moment of total shock when you realize that YOU’VE BECOME YOUR MOM!

One of my mom’s favorite sayings is “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

Only now, as an adult, do I totally understand what she meant.

As an Implementation Coach, I am constantly coaching firms who, with the best of intentions, began a Relationship Management System, scheduling Synergy Meetings right and left. Perhaps they made a great first impression. They made a lot of promises, handed over a folder of materials, and … didn’t follow up.

Now, six months, a year, three years later the law firm must deal with a wounded relationship. They must decide whether to attempt relationship CPR or chalk the relationship up as a DOA and move on.

When the law firm is located in a smaller community, this situation is even more painful. There are fewer potential synergy partners in a smaller pond to pick from and, in a smaller pond, word can spread quickly that your firm doesn’t live up to its promises.

What can a firm do to revitalize a failed relationship?

Step 1. Determine the potential value of the relationship. Long ago you met with this professional. Were you impressed with their resources, business approach and openness to work with you? On a scale of 1-10 how did that first meeting – the Synergy meeting – end? Was the failure to move the relationship forward the result of lack of follow-through by you and/or your team, or was the failure to thrive a result of lack of follow-through on the part of the other party? If your take on the meeting scored fairly high and if the failure was a result of lack of attention on the part of you and/or your team, proceed to Step 2.

Step 2. Apologize. It’s amazing to me what a heartfelt apology can accomplish! If you see the potential in the relationship, and regret your lack of follow-through, then say so, ask for a second chance, and promise to do it right this time. Be ready to follow through – most people won’t give you a third chance.

Step 3. Keep your promises. Integrity is a matter of keeping your word, even to the point of never being late for an appointment and meeting deadlines. Honor your word, and you and your firm will become known in your community as a firm with total integrity.

These are all things my mother taught me, but life has continued to teach me. And yes, I hope that I will pass them on down to my own children…even if I do find myself sounding just like my mom!

If you want to learn more about marketing for your estate planning / elder law practice, please join us for our Asset Protection, Medicaid & VA Practice With Purpose Program in Phoenix. Click the link and register today! This WILL sell out!

Nedrea Catale – Implementation Coach, Lawyers With Purpose

The Difference Between Marketing & Branding

July 14, 2014

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Legal Marketing

Marketing is actively promoting a product or service. It’s a push tactic. It’s pushing out a message to get sales results: “Buy our service because you have a problem and we can fix it.” Although it might be oversimplifying, that’s it in a nutshell.

That is not branding.

Branding should come before AND is the first layer of any marketing effort. Branding is not push, it's pull. Branding is the expression of the value of an organization or service. It should communicate your values, and clarify what your particular service IS and what it IS NOT.

A brand will help encourage someone to buy a service, and it directly supports whatever sales or marketing activities are in play, but your brand does not say “buy me.” Instead, it says “This is what I am. This is why I exist. If you agree, if you like me, you can buy me and recommend me to your friends.” It’s your reputation.

Branding is strategic. Marketing is tactic!

I want to use the example of social media to speak into what is the best way to build your brand. And I’ll tell you why social media is about being present with your brand for the people with whom you do business, your clients and your prospects. It's about your relationships. Your brand is your reputation.

So, just using that as an example, your brand presence represents who you are. It is meant to support your company, reinforcing your reputation, the service you provide and your commitment to your clients. Build relationships in and around your social channels, showcasing your desire to serve them. These relationships are the foundation of your brand’s reputation, success and bottom-line. You are building trust and then seeing the return.

Nurture and cultivate your audience with real conversations and engagement, offering value and rich content. Don’t just ALSWYAS push your URLs and self-promote; get involved. Share. Ask questions.

People buy from people, and they want to get to know you. They already respect and admire you for your accomplishments, because you’re an attorney and have a license to practice law; with your brand you want to humanize your practice and be personable. The relationships that you build in social channels will lead to increased brand advocacy. Make the time!

Creating an online “experience” for your clients and referral sources though your brand is an opportunity to engage and interact on a more personal level than you can with more traditional forms of media. You are speaking WITH instead of AT them. These relationships can evolve into strong brand advocates to share your message, service and products. This word-of-mouth advertising and shouting from rooftops (social channels) is the greatest form of marketing your brand can hope for. Each consumer is connected and has a voice – they will share their testimonials and experiences with the world, so it is your job to make sure those are positive. Pay attention to them, understand their pain points and give them viable solutions.

So, do you have a brand?

You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars or hundreds of hours to create your brand. You can outsource it to a marketing firm – or even create your own online, for free. Several members use their firm name with standout fonts that pop. Do not sit and do nothing because you don’t know what to do. It can take a year to really build your brand, so it’s not something you should wait to make perfect. It doesn’t matter what shade of blue you use, whether it’s teal or navy blue, light blue or periwinkle. But a separate logo, as a distinct way of writing your company or product name, is not an essential requirement for a brand. Many well-known firms exist without logos. Often they rely on their name, rather than a graphic, to create the necessary impact. However, if that's your approach, give some care and attention to the look of your name, but don’t let it stall you.

If you do have a brand, what are you doing with it?

When you have a brand, there are two things you need to do to build it. (1) Make sure it appears everywhere. Period. Social, stationary, pens, shirts for community outreach, workshop ads, flyers, anything with your firm or your name on it must have your brand! (2) Deliver on your promise. Make sure that your systems and process are working, because one weak link or broken promise can weaken your brand.

Roslyn Drotar – Coaching, Consulting & Implementation, Lawyers With Purpose

What Does That Mean?

July 10, 2014

by Roslyn Drotar with 2 Comments Coaching & Implementation Legal Marketing

A few years ago my younger daughter and I splurged and spent 12 days in Italy, a country I had long longed to visit. The trip was utterly amazing and we managed fairly well despite the language barrier. I guess I must look somewhat native because on two separate occasions Italians approached me for directions and I could only laugh helplessly and indicate that I didn’t speak Italian.

Recently, I’ve noticed advertising for some pretty spectacular audio travel translators and find myself wondering how having one of those high tech gizmos would have impacted our trip.

What would be even better is if we had been able to take and master a crash course in Italian!

I was reminded of language differences some time back when preparing to launch an RMS process targeting nursing homes. An attorney at another law firm was coaching me in how to set up our campaign.

We were role playing conversations and approaches and she ran a couple of phrases in nursing home lingo past me but it was as if she were speaking Italian.

I stopped her and said, “Wait! What does that mean?”

“Have you reviewed the nursing home RMS material on the website?” she asked me.

“No, I meant to, but haven’t had time,” I replied.

Hmmmm …… What’s wrong with this picture?

A representative from a law firm positioning itself as expert in the area of Medicaid and VA is going to walk into a nursing home and introduce herself, but will be unable to understand or communicate in their language nor understand their priorities.

Well, worse things have happened. But the point is, the LWP website has hours of materials that can have you speaking “Italian” in no time. You’ll get valuable insight from other professionals who have had incredible success in establishing relationships with nursing homes. Spending the time to work through these materials will give you a true competitive edge from the moment you walk in the door.

What you say and how you present yourself in those first few minutes can mean the difference between being easily forgotten or positioning your practice for consideration as their “go-to” firm for VA and Medicaid apps.

So if your firm is considering a nursing home RMS process, I really hope you’ll brush up on your language skills first! And practice, practice, practice before you knock on the door.

Nedra Catale – Implementation Coach, Lawyers With Purpose

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Nursing Home Marketing: The Big Meeting

July 3, 2014

by Roslyn Drotar with No Comment Legal Marketing

Thanks for checking back for the next installment in our series on how to approach and attract nursing homes to your practice! If you missed the previous installments, you can find them in prior blogs. Or email me and I'm happy to send them to your email! Now that our previous pieces have helped you get in the door at the nursing home, we can address what happens next. Once you're in front of the business office manager, what do you say? Where do you go from there? Do you do the synergy meeting? We find that it's good to get the office manager to set up a meeting with other key personnel in the room.

The goal of this meeting is to get a Synergy Meeting on the books. You will need to have each of the department heads there (the administrator, the admissions director, the finance director – or whatever they call their chief financial officer – the rehab director, and the social work manager). If you get those key people to attend, they can then share your information with their departments and it leverages your time with questions each department has. In that meeting, you should present what you know about Medicaid qualification (the ins and outs of the Medicaid system) and how this is useful for them. Here's where you can educate them on the great opportunities for residents that could also benefit nursing homes.

For example, one such benefit is the rehab stay at a nursing home, and how that’s a critical opportunity for residents to start that ball rolling in terms of the penalty period. A patient who needs to be readmitted to the nursing home later may be qualified on day one for Medicaid to pick up the tab. That helps the nursing home avoid the black hole where somebody is occupying a bed and the nursing home is not getting paid because the patient ran out of money. Those are important things for nursing homes to know about, and more importantly, that YOU can help them with this.

Another example: In some states, for instance, you can educate them on how a person could get in-home care and also get help in paying for that care through Community Medicaid. Community Medicaid is totally different from Medicaid that would pay for a nursing home stay. The veteran’s benefit can also be used to help pay for care in your home. You need to make sure the nursing homes know to share that with residents and the residents’ families. You could also talk about pooled trust for example, and how those can be used to help somebody pay for care in their home. And then tie this in with the six legal must-knows for any nursing home (located on the members section of the website).

Try to make the meeting a "Lunch & Learn" or a "Lunch & Law" setting. It’s a very easy, relaxed atmosphere, which is a great setting for just going through the points of what YOU can do for them and answer their questions. You just need to make a connection at the meeting. From there, you're sure to get a Nursing Home Synergy Meeting on the books with the right person.

We hope this information will help you build your nursing home business. Check back soon for our next post, which will deal with how to follow up after you've established the business relationship. And, if you have any questions at all in the meantime, please don't hesitate to email me at rdrotar@lawyerswithpurpose.com.

Roslyn Drotar, Coaching, Consulting & Implementation, Lawyers With Purpose