I am absolutely amazed how many lawyers spend their valuable time socializing during the day with their peers, dropping by offices to chat (non-case related), or staying in the lawyer’s lounge of a courtroom, when these same people are not going to be the ones who support your firm by creating income from a case. Admittedly there are some firms, and we handle one, who deal with lawyer referred complex litigation cases only. That is a whole other marketing strategy. I am talking about the lawyer who depends on the common man or woman or business person to come to the firm and bring business. You don’t find them in the lawyer’s lounge.
The days of the client coming to the lawyer are over with. You must go to the client and in the client’s surroundings to generate an interest in your firm. This can be done through some savvy technology marketing and a great client relationship program but there are also simple things you can do. One of the easiest is to take 2 hours every week and become visible. If you know someone who owns a business, find a reason to stop by and chat. Make sure the employees know you as well. Eat lunch at a place people know you and make yourself visible. And get involved in projects that expose you to every day people that are your demographics.
The only thing it takes is your time. Become time management smart. Put your efforts where you will get the greatest return on your time.
Does it work? The only thing we can tell you is this is part of our marketing with our clients and we have not had one single client who has not seen an increase in cases directly as a result of personal time investment. One client tells us they can count on one to two cases per month from these efforts. When your marketing investment is zero, your return is one case per month with an average fee of $2000.0 that is $24,000.00 increase in income. Even if you have a burden rate of 50% (and you better not) that is still $12000.00 into your pocket. Not bad, huh?
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