Practice Management

Not long after I started practicing law I discovered the magic, I thought, of TV advertising.  Yes, it was incredibly expensive, but it produced large results -- fast.  But, there was a problem with the potential clients it brought in.  Although they were intrigued enough to venture into the office, they came with a great deal of skepticism and with many misconceptions.  After all, it is difficult to transmit any kind of real information in the 28 to 29 actual seconds you are on the air.  The potential client was there because of the unmitigated repetition (the shear number of spots) broadcast into their homes by my law firm. The other problem was that in order to properly inform them and advise them, you have to conduct a massive number of individual initial interviews, one on one, often without success.  By this I mean you as a lawyer have to give away probably half of your available time visiting with people, for lengthy periods, and a good percentage of them are never going to employ you.  The result is you bring in other expensive (in terms of overhead) lawyers and non-lawyer financial advisers to conduct all of the give-away work to try and educate the base and motivate them to retain your law firm as opposed to someone else.

The reason for this is that TV commercials, as most mediums, constitute push advertising.  This is, essentially, advertising (or marketing) that comes to find us.  It is what bombards us daily.  It is prevalent.  It is what makes duck and run for cover.  It is why we all sing the praises of TiVO.

Now certainly every form of marketing enjoys a little bit of push.  After all, a market has to be made for the services provided by your practice.  The question is how much push works and at what costs.  As I explained, above, push advertising or marketing is expensive both because it forces the spots in the face of your potential clients, it has to do so with enough frequency that they let their guard down, and then the cost of the individual attention to detail is very expensive.

The opposite of this is pull marketing.  Pull marketing or advertising is the opposite of mass marketing.  This is where the consumer wants to come to you for information and understanding and help.  Certainly you have to make yourself available and visible to those that want to find you and seek the understanding your provide, but they are their of their own volition.  They have not been motivated by what is the mass media equivalent of a cattle prod.

The Internet is the now the common tool of pull advertising and marketing.  It sort operates as the initial door or flashing sign that encourages potential clients to look at you further.  The other forms of pull marketing are seminars, speeches, papers, articles, courses, books, meetups, education and the like.  Things that people go looking for as opposed to being pushed on them.  Not so much a form of selling, but a coalescing and a flattening of the costs or overhead associated with advising, informing and educating the prospective client (or non-client for that matter) in the nuances of your practice area.

Where push advertising lures the doubtful, agnostic, cynical and uneducated or uninitiated disbelievers that are attracted by the hype; push marketing almost ignores the visitor while they are invited to come up to snuff through communal instruction and available cheap information as to how you can help or assist them if they so wish.

Another way of looking at it is that push advertising forces its way in front of the prospective client (and many others who have no interest).  It is almost a shoulder to the front door of the person's home, much like the pushy yard guy who is "not soliciting", but rather he just wants to sell you some mulch he has left over from another job.

The pull prospects have an interest, are interested in knowledge and an understanding, and it is like they are inviting you over for a glass of vino to pick your mind about a subject they want to know.  More importantly, from a cost of business standpoint, much like a Tupperware party of old, they are willing to invite you to visit with a crowd of people, all of which can hear the same information at once.

In short, with pull methods you are marketing with permission.  Push advertising is a product of overcoming non-inclusion.  In the long run, the best way, the most cost effective way, the most productive way, and the quickest way is to market with permission.  It produces less skeptical, more enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and hence more profitable and enjoyable client relationships.

How do you do this?

Certainly, one of the best ways is with a blog.  Not an effortless website, but something that is categorized and contains a lot of free and worthwhile content.  A thoughtful site for potential clients to visit and learn as much as they wish with very little personalized or individualized attention by you (at least at the outset).

Increasingly with the inclusion of pictures, audio and video, blogs are becoming less impersonal because they are getting better at inviting people into your environment, letting them see you and learn from you.  But, blogging is not always enough and there are more personal ways to market with permission.

CLE is a good way, as are participating or conducting seminars, workshops, courses, lectures, speeches, papers and the like.  You are not only invited to market, but it introduces you as the expert in the field or niche in which you practice.  It also allows you to educate in mass.  Imagine, if you will, holding one giant initial consult or interview where you walk your prospective clients and referral sources through the intricacies of your practice area.  Not only what they need to know, but what you need to know in order to help them quickly.  When you are though, the personal touch now takes minutes as opposed to hours.

In the final analysis, as I found out, marketing with permission beats intruding on the masses with sloganeering in the hope of attracting the one in a thousand skeptics that might consider your services if you can overcome their doubts or fears.

Try marketing with permission.  You might not have hundreds and thousand of clients, but then you do not need them to make a perfectly good living.