How seriously does your law firm take social media?

ALM Legal Intelligence recently conducted an online survey with 179 lawyers and law firm administrators, querying them about their social media habits. The survey results seem to indicate that the legal industry is starting to catch on to the power of social media.

But there were two responses I found particularly interesting.

• Over half of the law firms questioned reported that blogging and other social media brought them leads on new matters. Forty-one percent said social media generated between $5,000 and $200,000 in new business.

• Almost half of the law firms surveyed said that the biggest obstacle to expanding their use of social media was “lack of time.”

What?! There seems to be some sort of disconnect here.

Social media is coming into its own as a reliable source of new business for law firms…yet almost half of firms just can’t seem to find the time to have their attorneys blog a little more, keep their Facebook pages up-to-date, or otherwise gain the online visibility they need to attract the new business that’s waiting out there?

It seems to me the firms that “don’t have the time” for social media, haven’t fully grasped its power – or the ways in which their clients are living their lives.

Consider this excerpt from a recent GigaOm article:

Today the Internet is how we do (almost) everything. Our phone calls are made using Skype. We video chat over Google Hangouts, and we communicate via Facebook, Twitter and iMessage.  

Twitter is the new Associated Press. Vimeo is our PBS, and YouTube and Hulu are the new broadcast networks. Amazon is the mall and iTunes is our Virgin Megastore. Pandora is our radio and Spotify is our jukebox.

Before long, attorneys who fail to use social media as just another way to communicate with clients and prospects are going to find themselves with limited reach and limited influence.

What do you think? Is social media a high enough priority that you make time for it? Or is it one of those things that waits until you get around to it?

Remember the old saying about three types of people: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those that say, “What happened?”

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

If you have big goals – particularly for your law firm – there are a number of approaches you can take to reach those goals. Some are more effective than others.

The most effective approach involves two keys: keeping score and accountability.

Keeping Score
To produce change and move toward your goals, you need to keep score of multiple things on a daily basis. Keeping score keeps you focused so that you know how you’re doing. After all, having goals without measuring them doesn’t do you any good.

When your focus is maximizing your law firm’s revenues, these are the types of things you need to keep score of every day:

• How many items on your to do list did you get done today?

• How much money did you deposit in the bank today?

• How many new prospects did you see today, and what percentage became clients?

• What marketing activities did you accomplish today?

• How many items did you delegate today?

Accountability
Reality can be pretty harsh, and we have found that attorneys tend to resist keeping score. However, those who are very serious about making immediate and long-lasting changes to their businesses find a way to bite the bullet and face the truth.

They are also willing to take the additional step that is almost always required when it comes to attaining your goals: They’re willing to be accountable to someone other than themselves.

Most people are really afraid of being held accountable. There’s a gap between our intentions and our actual actions and behaviors. Accountability to a third party is the bridge, but it’s also pretty revealing. It’s the ultimate reality check, and it forces you either to take action or to admit that you’re stagnating.

If you want to reach your goals, take the plunge and find someone you trust who will hold you accountable on a daily basis for the promises you’ve made to yourself.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

But Mom, all my friends are doing it! Generation after generation, it’s the argument that’s guaranteed to fail. And the ironclad response? “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you follow them?”

From the time we enter school, our parents try to teach us not to follow the crowd. As lawyers, we’re trained to think logically and systematically. We are also armed with the knowledge that law schools do not provide business education. Hence, neither we nor our peers have any formal training on how to effectively run or market a law firm.

Yet we hang out our shingle and what’s the first thing most of us do? Look around at how all the other lawyers in our area do things and follow along in lockstep. The problem is, without training, most lawyers are mediocre at best at effectively running a law firm.

If you want to dominate your market, you have to take your mom’s advice. You must be willing to do what the competition is not willing to do. Looking to your peers will only have you fighting for the scraps…not a great strategy, unless you want to get stuck.

So, where do you look for inspiration? There’s a whole world of innovation outside the legal profession. And you don’t have to look too far:

• Medicine: Many doctors have been delegating tasks to nurses and physician’s assistants for years – you never lay eyes on your doctor until a nurse has first asked you a litany of questions, taken your blood pressure, and possibly performed a number of other procedures.
• Accounting: Accountants long ago saw the value of adding ancillary businesses, such as financial services, to increase their value to clients.
• Insurance: Life insurance is a multibillion dollar industry that has decades of lead generation and marketing strategies we can learn from.

Of course, the legal industry has its own ethical constraints and business needs. But that doesn’t mean we’re stuck following the crowd. There are limitless other sources of ideas and strategies that we can draw from, modify, and tailor to fit our needs and the needs of our clients.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Too often, attorneys work on the wrong tasks day in and day out. Particularly law firm owners. With so many important issues competing for our attention, the tendency is to be in the trenches, working on the low value items while neglecting the high value opportunities.

If you suspect you might be falling into this trap, here’s a simple exercise you can try:

For the next ten business days, keep an accurate time log. From the time you step into your office each morning, write down everything you do all workday long. After ten days, go through your log and categorize each activity according to this system:

• U:        Unique Ability
• C:        Competent
• I:          Not Competent, But Doing

Unique ability is something you’re great at and enjoy doing. It’s one of those things you get engrossed in, and time seems to fly by without you realizing it. The other categories are self-explanatory.

If your time log is filled with activities in the “C” and “I” categories, you are not alone. However, it’s probably time to take a fresh look at how you’re doing things.

Why not structure your law firm so that you can focus on your unique abilities, and hire people whose unique abilities complement yours? Chances are, some of your employees have valuable strengths and talents you are not even aware of.

This approach sets you up so that you can delegate your “C” and “I” tasks to people in your firm who are much better suited to performing those functions. Ultimately, you and everyone on your staff will have the potential for much greater job satisfaction, and your firm will get the chance to thrive in a whole new way.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

In his last blog, Robert Armstrong talked a little bit about the haphazard way most legal practices approach their marketing activities. This is a shame, since marketing truly is the lifeblood of any business, and law firms are no exception.

What if your marketing system needs an overhaul? The following five-step system can make an immediate difference in your firm’s marketing efforts:

1. Write down specific, measurable, time-bound goals. These are the only kinds of goals that are truly valuable because they are the only kinds of goals that are actionable.
2. Start with the end in mind.
• Find out where your firm’s revenues are now.
• Identify your revenue goal for 2012.
• Break down the categories of work you did this year, identify how much revenue you generated for each category, and determine the number of clients each category represented for your firm.
• List your 2012 revenue goal for each category.
• Divide that number by 12 to get a monthly revenue goal.
• Identify how many clients you’ll need per month to meet the revenue goal for each specific category. 
3. Play the body count game – how many people do you have to be in front of to reach the numbers you wrote down for Rule 2? The more people who attend one of your seminars, read your marketing materials, or otherwise come into contact with you as part of your marketing strategy, the more clients you’ll ultimately have by the end of the year. It all boils down to numbers.
4. Maximize your marketing channels. You need multiple channels – forget buying a Yellow Pages ad and waiting for the clients to pour through your door. The key is to come up with a system that implements multiple marketing activities that suit your personality, your staff, and your marketing budget. A few ideas:
• Arrange seminars for prospective clients.
• Appear as a CLE speaker.
• Endorse private seminars for a local insurance agent or financial planner.
• Publish radio or television ads.
• Send out monthly e-Alerts to your centers of influence.
• Send a three-year amendment letter to your existing estate planning clients.
• Have a family seminar to educate the children of your existing clients about estate planning.
5. Schedule next year’s marketing activities now. The schedule should be on a huge plastic wall calendar where everyone in the firm can see the plan and be part of it. Then, set deadlines, delegate responsibilities to your staff, and hold everyone accountable by having weekly marketing meetings.

It sounds like a lot of work, and if you have not implemented a focused marketing strategy before now, it will take some getting used to. However, before long, you’ll begin to reap the rewards of planning your marketing and taking steps to stay on track. Trust me, the rewards are extraordinary!

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

More and more clients believe legal services in general, and estate planning services in particular, are just commodities.

They’re being told that it doesn’t matter where they get their bundle of paper. That whether the documents are from the Smith Firm or the Jones Firm or LegalZoom, the outcome will be the same.

And you really can’t blame them. They have no way of judging who’s good and who’s not so good any more than you or I can judge whether our heart surgeon is any better than his colleague in the next suite over.

But here’s what you and I do know. We know that you’re different from the Smith Firm and the Jones Firm. And we know that you’re vastly different from LegalZoom. If you want to avoid the commodity trap, you need to differentiate yourself and your services.

Here’s how:

Develop a process unique to your firm that takes care of clients from the moment they first retain you through the end of your relationship; ideally, the relationship will last a lifetime.

Communicate this multiple-step process in a client-friendly way. For example:

The Six Step Client Legacy Wealth Planning System

1. Family Legacy Consultation and Roadmap
2. Family Legacy Plan Design
3. Family Legacy Plan Development
4. Family Legacy Plan Execution and Delivery
5. Family Legacy Plan Asset Transfer and Funding
6. Family Legacy Lifetime Communication and Updates

This communicates clearly to the client: Wow! That’s a lot of work, and it means that you’re there with them from beginning to end. A prospective client has no way of comparing a generic, bare bones living trust to this six-step process you have to offer them – and quite honestly, that’s because there is no comparison.

This process also launches your relationship with a new client, which puts your firm head and shoulders above those competing on the basis of commodities. There’s no relationship you can establish with a transaction where you hand someone a paper with some ink on it and show them where to sign. Having a process is the way out of the commodity trap – for you and your clients.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

How do you build lasting relationships with your clients and make sure they don’t see you as just the provider of an ink-on-paper commodity?

One way to do this is to keep in regular communication, with routine “touches” throughout the year. At the Academy, we find that it’s ideal to make contact with clients twelve times per year. It would be a little odd for your estate planning attorney to call you every month or to send you an email, like clockwork, every few weeks. However, there are a variety of ways to provide value to your clients and remain in regular contact with them. Things like:

• Newsletters, both paper and electronic

• Seminar Invitations

• eAlerts

• Estate Plan Review Invitations

• Client Appreciation Events

A number of our Member firms also have a Client Advisory Board. They invite 6 to 10 loyal clients into the office every quarter to get feedback and to find out what additional services those clients would like the firm to provide.

Using strategies like these to stay in touch with your clients sets the stage for you to have lifetime and even multigenerational clients. Eventually, you’ll meet the children of your existing clients and have the opportunity to win their trust and loyalty. Before long, they will be clients as well.

You want to be viewed as the trusted advisor for the entire family. By remaining in contact through valuable information that is of interest to them, you continue to nurture the relationship as well as be visible and relevant. Make sure you do everything possible to be the sounding board and problem solver most are looking to rely upon.

In your experience, what are the most effective ways to keep in touch with your clients?

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Did you know that there are only three ways to expand your business? Here they are, in a nutshell:

• Acquire new clients

• Have your existing clients buy new services

• Increase the fees your clients pay

If you want your firm to grow, you need to be doing all three. And you should have a system in place for each of them, rather than engaging in a few random marketing activities here and there.

What kinds of systems am I talking about? Systems for:

• Acquiring referrals from centers of influence

• Acquiring referrals  from existing clients

• Going directly to the marketplace to seek new clients

• Making efficient, intelligent use of the internet to find new clients

• Attracting new clients through image building public awareness and PR efforts

• Positioning clients for additional services they may need

• Positioning the value of your services for increased fees

The tool that will enable you to organize and implement these systems is what we call a Marketing Calendar. This is your law firm marketing blueprint for the year.

Consistent growth is not automatic, and marketing is not an innate skill for most attorneys. It’s something we need to learn about and keep learning about. As the heads of our firms, we need to be the ones leading the charge when it comes to marketing. A good place to start is by deciding which of the three areas you want to focus on, which systems you want to use, and getting started on that detailed Marketing Calendar.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Here’s a practical and powerful exercise you can do that will help you accomplish your goals for your law firm and know exactly who is responsible for every task! It involves making a unique organizational chart that is created by looking at what needs to get done before you determine who in your law firm will do it. Function takes precedence over personalities.

This is how to do it:

You’re the leader of your organization, so your name goes on top. Underneath that, you list each broad category of functions that needs to be handled within your law firm – much like a large business is divided into departments. Each category is further divided into smaller programs, with a box under that for each distinct task involved in running every program.

For instance, you might have categories for Lead Generation, Lead Conversion, Fulfillment (doing the actual work), Finance, and Management. Under each category, you’ll list the programs needed to implement that category, with each program further subdivided into distinct tasks. There will be a box for each category and for each program and for each task. Everything that needs to get accomplished has a box.

As you go through this process, you’ll add a name to each box, giving someone in your organization responsibility for that category, program, or task. At first, you’ll notice that your name will be plugged into a lot of boxes. As your firm grows and expands, and as you train more employees, their names will fill in the boxes and replace yours.

There’s a certain magic that happens when you go through this process and actually put the organizational chart on paper. Doing this allows you to see the pieces of your firm almost like they’re on a chess board – you can literally move the pieces around strategically to figure out how to best implement each idea and task within your firm.

This exercise will give you a feeling of control you may never have experienced before. Try it – you’ll see what I mean.

For those of you who have already done this for your own firms, how has it helped you achieve your initial vision for your practice?

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com