—–Original Message—–
From: Rxxxxxxxxlaw@aol.com [mailto:Rxxxxxxlaw@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 8:51 PM
To:

rjon@howtomakeitrain.com

Subject: Question

Dear RJon

I’ve been subscribing to your e-list for a while now. It’s great — and congratulations on a great website.

I’m now working full-time at an insurance company in Xxxxxxxxxxxx, but would like to start a solo practice concentrating on legal research and writing and especially appellate practice. I currently do this work for two practitioners, an immigration practitioner who specializes in political asylum cases and a personal injury lawyer, for whom I perform pretty extensive brief-writing and research services.

I’m trying to market to develop more clients (who of course are other solo and small-firm lawyers) but I’m finding it a tough process. I know it’s possible to develop a practice like this, because I know people who are doing it, but I don’t know how to market myself to achieve this goal. I just did a direct mail campaign with a reply card addressed to 200 lawyers, and I have not received a single response. I’m thinking maybe my letter needed work, but I don’t know how to craft a more effective letter.

I’ve also sent ads around on Solosez and on emplawyernet’s network mail and run ads in the Law Journal, but without any success.

Can you think of any things I should be doing? I would appreciate any ideas you might have.

Thanks.

Mxxx Rxxxxxxx

—————————————My Response Below——————————————————

Hello Mxxx,

Thanks for the compliment. I have a question for you though. . . have you listened to any of my programs? Read the e-book?

I agree that it’s very possible and very profitable to develop a B-2-B law firm like the one you’re describing, because I’ve helped several lawyers build them from just an idea into extremely profitable businesses that lend themselves amazingly well to leveraging the efforts of others to generate income for the owners of those businesses.

It seems to me though, from your marketing efforts so far, that your focus has been on trying to make a homerun when instead the way to build your practice is by concentrating on base hits. Sending out an e-mail blast or a direct mail piece doesn’t generally make good economic sense for a business unless you are already in a position to leverage yourself. That’s because, as you have already had a taste of for yourself, there is a tremendous amount of preparation, testing, revising, more preparation, testing, revising etc. required to develop an effective advertising piece. And if all you’re trying to do is keep yourself busy, there are other faster, easier, less expensive ways to do that.

When you’re ready to handle a flood of business, THEN you do the direct mail/e-mail routine. If you’re just trying to get enough work to keep yourself busy, I think you’d be much better off with old-fashioned networking & sales calls. Sorry to disappoint you, but these tried & true methods for building a professional services business are called “tried & true” for a reason. Concentrate on these reliable basics, get enough business to keep yourself busy & THEN experiment with other approaches when your mortgage payment isn’t dependent upon results. That way, you can actually have FUN with your experiments.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I should point out that all of this information and a lot more, including instructions for how to actually execute the tried & true approaches I’ve described here, are all in the programs I sell & you’ll get as much or more by joining the Bronze Attorney Coaching Program, which only cost $39/month. The Silver & Gold groups will be open again in a few months.

Hope this helps,

RJON

www.HowToMakeItRain.com

Helping Lawyers In Small Firms Make Alot More Money