You may be making some mistakes running your law firm that you are not even aware of. Today I’m going to go through some common mistakes I see firms making. This is just a brief rundown of some of the issues firms should address:
1.) Not Treating Their Law Firm Like A Business
I have seen this too often with small law firms and solo practitioners. I get how this can happen as well. You get busy and clients are coming in, and you don’t make time to assess your business. I know this all to well as I ran two small businesses myself. I recommend firms take some time every week to assess what the firm’s goals are each week, month, and year. Asking questions such as: how can I improve what I’m doing today for my business? What revenue goals do I want to reach this year? What kind of clients do I want more of? What type of cases I don’t want? I feel firms get so caught up with clients and the day to day, that they forget they are running a business first. So take time to assess your business and make it better.
2.) Missing calls and not Answering The Phone
This is one of the biggest mistakes’ solo practitioners and small law firms make. A potential client should never go to voicemail! You have spent a lot of money, time, and building a strong reputation to miss leads. Clients want a lot more today. Put yourself in your client’s shoes. I’m sure we all have had to sit through a call and keep saying I want to talk to a representative or a real person. Your client’s want the same. Often when someone decides to call an attorney, they are going through one of the hardest times in their lives. You should have someone answering the phones 24 hours a day. For after hours calls, hire a call answering service. You would hate to lose a potential client because you didn’t answer their call. Firms too often don’t address it and they lose thousands if not millions.
3.) Not Going Niche With Marketing
I know this can be hard for solo practitioners or small firms but overall it will be better for a firm’s success. It will make your firm stand out from other competitors who just have a general practice. You can charge more since your firm is an expert in that practice area! When marketing, you can get more specific to your target audience. It’s a common to see firms that want to target every practice area, but that is not a good idea. You end up spending more in your marketing efforts.
4.) Not Asking For Reviews Or Managing Reputation
A firm’s reputation is a large part of their success. If you don’t have tons of reviews and another law firm does, well you guessed it; you probably won’t get that call from their client. Even if they were referred to you by a family member or friend. That happens to even great attorneys if they don’t have any reviews. You will never know that you are losing clients because they aren’t calling you. So, make sure you are asking happy clients for reviews and follow-up.
5.) Not Using Social Media In Your Marketing Strategy
Many attorneys use billboards, tv commercials, as well benches, and don’t use social media. This is a huge mistake for many law firms. With almost 2.5 billion monthly active users as of the fourth quarter of 2019, Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide.
What this means is people are using Facebook every day, and your firm should be advertising or posting on Facebook.
Firms spend thousands to tens of thousands per month on billboards or commercials. People can skip commercials, don’t pay attention to billboards, and have their faces planted inside their cellphones. Using social media, you can capture the legal consumers and help drive your brand. It is essential today to use social media in your strategy. Download white paper to see how paid social media can be very powerful for your firm: https://www.lawyermarketing.com/white-papers/from-guesswork-to-precision/
6.) Not Marketing Your Firm Or Brand
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard an attorney tell me they don’t market, and they don’t need to because they get all their business from referrals. There are a few things that stand out to me here; they most likely are paying a referral fee or they are missing out on a lot of the referrals they could be getting. Like I mentioned above, the legal consumer wants more today. They will do their research because majority of times hiring an attorney is a big decision. If they cannot find you quickly online or identify your expertise, they will hire someone else.
The sad thing is you could be a great attorney, but you are missing out on a lot of potential clients or revenue for your firm. With marketing, you will not only protect your referrals but create new ones. Someone finds you online, you get great results for them, and they will refer others.
In addition, if you are not marketing, the legal consumers suffer as well. Why you might ask?! Because they are going to an attorney that may not be as good as you, but they do a great job marketing.
If one of those mistakes sound familiar to you, then you have some homework to do! Don’t waste any time.