Law Firms - Attracting High-Quality Clients
Updated: Mar 1, 2021
When you manage a law firm, you must create an image for your firm that will position it as a thought leader in your niche. Whether your firm specializes in criminal defense, administrative law, divorce, etc., it is always important that your firm appears sharp and professional, as is your mind and the minds of your lawyers.
There are three main pillars every law firm should focus on and invest in, to position themselves well enough to attract high-quality clients.
The three main pillars are:
The Lawyers
The Online Presence
The Office
Why it's important to have a solid foundation
Many firms today are investing a lot in social media ads and online directories like Yelp, HG, Justia, Google my Business, and many more. While this is great, you must establish a solid foundation for your firm, before you start implementing these marketing and advertising strategies. It doesn't matter if you have all the money in the world, if you don't have these three foundational pillars (lawyer, online presence, office), you won't attract the clients you want. Before you say "I have all these things" know that there is a right way and a wrong way to implement these foundational pillars into your firm. This article will show you what you need to know to implement them correctly.
Now without further adieu, let's get into the steps you must take to attract these high-quality clients, and the three important pillars you must focus on.
Step 1 - Know your client
Attracting the right client starts with knowing who they are. I'm not talking about knowing their name or how they look, but you need to know their problems, frustrations, and the basic characteristics of the kind of client you expect to be serving in your law firm. Many businesses skip this step, but it is essential and indispensable to effective client attraction.
your Ideal client
Try to answer these questions to establish an ideal client in your mind, so make sure to be as descriptive as you can. Some of these questions will carry more weight of importance than others, and some characteristics may vary from time to time but it is still important to know the kind of person you expect to be attracting and serving.
What is the age range of my client?
What is the problem my client faces?
What relationship have I already established with my client?
What does my client care about?
What is the budget of my client?
Notice how in question 3 you must ask "what relationship have I already established with my client". Before you start setting the three foundational pillars, you must know the path the client has taken to find you, write that down. Before you even speak to your new high-quality client you have to build that relationship with them. We will talk more about this in the online presence foundational pillar.
This step is first and foremost in client attraction. Everything you do from this point on will flow from who you establish as your ideal client.
Step 2 - Know their pains
There is a very important saying in marketing and that is "The customer doesn't want to hear more about you they want to hear about them." This step is meant to help you be able to speak to the potential client in their language and to show them that you know their pain, understand it and can help them with it. Everyone wants to talk about how they're so great, how they're compassionate, skilled, and how many cases they've solved. Although this is very important when done correctly, it is substantially more important that you speak in the client's language instead of showing off what you can do and have done in the past.
After you have established who you are going to serve, it's important to dive deeper. We need to know the true reason why they are looking for a lawyer. Most people don't just want to win a case in court, they want peace of mind, they want to know that they and their family is going to be okay, they want assurance that they are following all protocols in their business, they want someone who has their backs in the legal problem they found themselves in. These deep examples of problems are meant to give you ideas of different problems people face in a wide array of law niches. The deeper you can dig into the mind and emotions of your potential clients, the better you can show them you are the right solution to solve their legal problems.
The way you accomplish this step is by research. If you've been serving clients for a while, then you probably have an idea of the problems your clients faced. If you haven't thought about the problems they face below the surface of "just wanting to solve a court case", take some time and think about it.
Here are some other ways you can do this research. I recommend trying all of them:
Ask associates in your field of law.
Join a Facebook group and communicate with lawyers and office managers in your area of law.
Ask your current and past clients to tell you more about the problems they face(d).
Google search.
Create a survey and send it out to your email list.
Step 3 - Position your firm as the best solution (foundational pillars)
After you have established who you are going to serve, and found out their pains, you can now start building your foundation based on the information you acquired in the previous steps.
The Lawyers
This is seemingly the most obvious out of all three pillars. But don't skip this part, because although people know you need lawyers to have a law firm, what they don't know is how to find the good ones. Every business should have something called core values. Core values are the set of values and beliefs that everyone in your business should share. Core values are one of the most important factors in differentiating your law firm from all the others. Although firms can have certain values that are similar, for example, you and your competitor both might have the same core value of having fun. Although this can happen, make sure you create your own or at least word it differently.
What core values will do for your firm is it will create an environment where everyone shares the same beliefs and values. By nature, we are social creatures and we gravitate towards those who are most like we are. That is why there are factions such as democrat and republican and that is why there are different groups in a place like a highschool cafeteria.
Although the idea of factions may not always be good, it can be very good for business. Don't get me wrong, the idea of core values is not to exclude different opinions, ideas, or preferences, or to create an environment where you just have one kind of person. On the contrary, having core values will allow the employees (in this case lawyers) to work close to, or together with like-minded individuals with who they can get along because they share the same "core" values although they may differ on color or ice cream flavor preferences.
What should you do with this information?
Create a list of all the core values that you personally have. Make sure it's something you actually value or believe. If you just make something up and build on a false foundation it will become very apparent that you did not really believe that core value, and that pillar will fall.
Use your core values in the hiring process. Analyze every application, or interview through the lens of your core values. If they are not a match don't go for it. They will not like working there because they do not share the same values as everyone else.
Let the world know what your core values are. Put them on the walls, advertise using these values, do everything in accordance with your core values and you will also attract clients who share your same core values.
The Online Presence
Your online presence is the second foundational pillar you must have to attract high-quality clients into your business. Notice how we are not talking about how to advertise in this article. We are talking about the foundations you must have to set the stage to be able and ready to attract these high-quality clients through advertising.
In the ideal client section of this article, we started talking a bit about the path the client has to go through before they even become a client. You must establish the path your client must take to get to you before you implement the path.
Start by creating writing our or drawing a flow chart which will be the path the potential client will take to become a client. First, create a simple flow chart, and then modify it and be as descriptive as you can.
Here is a simple example of a path the client can take to reach you:
Facebook ad -> Website visit -> Fill out form -> Lawyer contacts them -> Set an appointment