RJon Robins

Matt Homann has it right!  Here’s an excerpt from a post “What Start up’s Want In A Lawyer” that appeared recently on his popular blog “The Non Billable Hour”:

“Make it your number-one priority to contribute to the growth of your clients’ businesses, not to extract the maximum amount of money from their coffers.  Build client-centered teams — and make sure your client meets everyone on the team BEFORE their time shows up on a bill.  Finally, start your representation by focusing on the goals of the client and the results they desire.  Then agree upon a budget (or, gasp, a fixed price) to meet those goals and achieve those results.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself!  There are so many ways to contribute value to your clients to enhance their perception of you as a trusted advisor, and not merely a technician…no matter what your practice area!  I challenge ANYONE to suggest a practice area where you can’t find a way to add value to your client relationships above & beyond the bare legal services you deliver.  I PROMISE you, it will payoff for you in the long run & even in the not-so-long-run!

Anyone who wants to learn how you can add value to your clients and begin to enjoy all the benefits that go along with being a trusted advisor & not merely a lawyer should definitely check out the How To Market A Small Law Firm audio program.  And for any lawyer who can stump me with a practice area you are actually in (at least 10% of your practice) where I can’t show you how to implement the skills from that audio program to dramatically enhance the value your clients percieve they get from doing business with you, I’ll give you $100.00 cash.  I’m THAT confident in what’s in store for you!

Recently I got into a conversation (argument) with a lawyer who was complaining that 1.) He isn’t making enough money; and 2.) He feels lawyers marketing our practices is an unprofessional thing to do.

My points to him were as follows. . .

As attorneys, we have an ethical obligation to actively market our services and engage in Rainmaking activities.  Now, I am not going to try and convince you to take out an expensive ad in the telephone directory or advertise on late night television.  Those are examples of “advertising” not Professional, Ethical or even especially profitable Rainmaking.  Sure, advertising has its time and place in a proper marketing plan, but it is generally the most expensive and least effective tool available to us as attorneys, in our ethical quest to market our services to the public.

Why do we have an ethical obligation to engage in rainmaking activities you ask?  Well, take a look at your local telephone directory.  Two-to-one, what’s the largest section?  Unless things have changed a lot since I am writing this article, your answer is probably “attorneys.”  The telephone directory is chock full of attorney ads & this is a very poor reflection on us as a profession, but probably not for the reason you think.

Know, Like & Trust

In every business, in every city all over the world, people prefer to do business with people they know, like and trust.  What does it tell you that there are so many attorneys who find it beneficial to advertise in the telephone directory?  It tells me that there are an awful lot of people out there who don’t know a single attorney, or even know someone who knows a lawyer they can turn to when they have a legal problem. 

Have Some Empathy For Clients

You know, it’s not exactly fun for a potential client to sit down in front of a perfect stranger and explain to them the details of possibly the most embarrassing situation of their life.  Wouldn’t you think that client would be more comfortable and communicate more freely with a lawyer whom he or she already knows, likes and trusts?  Maybe it’s just me but I was never happy when my new clients were less than candid.  Most of the time, this was the case when they were not yet comfortable enough with me as a person.  In other words even after they signed the retainer agreement, it was nearly impossible to provide the highest quality legal services to my clients unless & until they felt like they knew me, liked me and trusted me.  So, doesn’t it just make common sense to address this point as early as possible?

I’ll save the historical argument for marketing a law firm for a more in-depth discussion in another post.  It will suffice to say here that I firmly believe that as members of the learned profession of law, we have an ethical obligation to make sure that as many people as possible already know, like and trust a lawyer when they have a need for someone to help them protect their rights.  That’s one of the reasons why I encourage you to make a commitment today to reach-out & give a prospective client the opportunity to know, like & trust a lawyer.

One of the most common excuses I hear from attorneys about why they don’t do more to market their services is that they think it’s somehow “unprofessional”.  I’m so tired of hearing that weak & worn-out excuse.  And it’s just that, an excuse!  The fact of the matter is that when done right, effective Rainmaking is the highest example of professionalism, and meets or even exceeds all Bar Rules I know of or could even imagine (even in New York!).

The philosophy of marketing a law firm that the most successful Rainmakers have, and that you can have too, is that selling legal services is really nothing more than identifying people’s problems and helping them to find solutions.  The very best Rainmakers don’t even miss a beat when the problem they’ve helped a prospective client to identify happens to not involve the services of their own law firm.  After all, it never hurts to cultivate a Referral Source by including their services in your solution for a problem.

Be A Problem Solver
One of the best Rainmakers I know, a man who has sold literally hundreds of millions of dollars worth of legal services in his career calls this philosophy for selling legal services “Problem Solving Selling”.  He even carries around a baseball glove to remind himself that “. . . when I’m sitting with a prospective client, my job is to focus on what they are saying so that I can catch the problems that person is struggling with, and help them find relief.”  What could possibly be more professional and ethical than helping people with important problems, to find solutions to those problems?

Successful advertising, networking events, authoring articles, and conducting seminars are all tools that have a time & place.  And when used the right way, these tools can be used to get you the chance to be in front of a prospective client.  But you can only Make It Rain when you connect with a person who has a problem, and demonstrate how you can help them to make it better.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t find great leads for a half-dozen different practice areas in my local newspaper.  In fact, before I cut-back on my private consulting work to focus on expanding the membership portion of the  How To Make It Rain.com website so we can open it to new members soon, I used to earn quite a bit of money feeding leads I’d find in the papers to my Rainmaking clients.

If you’re not getting new business for your law firm from yoru local paper, what’s stopping you?  Post your comment & we’ll see if we can help you out.

REWARD RAINMAKING ACTIVITIES, NOT BUSY WORK

I’ve only met a few lawyers whose law schools offered even a single course on Rainmaking or the business of managing a law firm. So I don’t blame either the would-be rainmakers, or firm management who cannot distinguish between nonsensical busy-work that looks like Rainmaking, and the truly effective and productive activities that put hundreds of thousands of extra dollars in Rainmakers’ pockets each year.

Much of the distinction has to do with how a given activity fits into the overall system. But without a plan (and the right set of skills) most of what passes for rainmaking ends up just being a waste of time & a poor excuse to get out of the office

Four of the biggest & most frequent time wasters are:

• Writing articles.  Unless you can say exactly what you’re going to do with the article once it’s been written & published, it’s probably going to be a waste of your time.  Go play with your kids instead!;

• Networking events – especially bar functions.  Most would-be rainmakers use these events as an excuse to get out of the office to socialize.  And they compound the problem by wasting time talking to people they already know.  My Rainmaking clients & I attend networking events to work.  That’s not to say networking and meeting prospective new clients and referral sources can’t be fun.  When you learn how to network effectively, it can be profitable and fun.  But not nearly as much fun as being out on the boat with my friends so I attend networking events to work; and

• Schmoozing with ad reps looking to pick your pockets.  This is not only a waste of time, but also a big waste of money if you don’t know what kinds of ads to run and if you don’t know ahead of time how the ad is going to fit into your overall marketing plans – some ads are educational, some are for positioning, while still others are strictly a call to action.  Don’t waste your time or money until you understand the difference and how to use each one in your marketing plans; and finally…

• The BIGGEST waste of time is taking prospective clients and referral sources out to lunch.  If you want to know why, post a comment with your question or better-yet download the FREE e-book entitled “Ten Rainmaking Mistakes Made By Solo Practitioners.”  Even if you’re not a solo, I suspect you’ll still find it a valuable use of the 15 minutes it will take to read the whole thing.