The technology age offers many efficient and effective ways to market your law firm, but nothing ever will beat face-to-face networking.
I know everybody thinks that personal face-to-face marketing is old school but it is the most memorable and thorough way to make an impression on your prospect. As a lawyer who specialises in a certain field you should be looking for any opportunity to speak at functions in your area of expertise or to network at business networking functions, these opportunities are gold when marketing your firm. Find business networking groups in your suburb or town and become an active member.
There is no real reason for you to feel uncomfortable about networking with prospects. You enjoy helping other people, why not introduce yourself to other people and offer your help through the services you provide.
When networking with the prospect make sure you listen extremely well and ask as many questions as you can about the person you meet, you are there to find a need that your services can offer a solution, the only way to discover that need is to allow the person to tell you as much as possible about themselves and the business. The thing to remember about networking is that the person who speaks the most is normally the person who believes they benefited the most from the conversation.
Compile and practice your elevator speech, the elevator speech is used to tell other people what it is that your law firm does for the public, why it is unique and all in less than 30 seconds.
Some things to remember when creating your elevator speech:
1. The name of your law firm and location
2. Your specialised field
3. Why your law firm is unique or best in the field
4. What services can you offer
5. Make sure it is memorable.
Here is an example:
“My name is Joe Soap and I’m a business lawyer at Soap & Lather Attorneys in Bubbly Park and we specialise in keeping people out of court. We offer a broad range of business services, so let me give you an example to better illustrate what it is we do. We were working with a guy who called us to handle a trademark matter which we took care of. As we got to know his business better, we discovered that his real issue was that his employees were stealing his ideas and he didn’t have any contracts in place to prevent it. We worked with him to create non-compete and non-disclosure agreements to help protect his intellectual property. I am confident that our services can help you avoid unpleasant situations in your business.”
Always make sure you have enough business cards with you and gather as many from prospects as you can. A simple email the following day to touch base and thank them for the business card and summarise on any issue that you remember from the conversation will further help cement the new business relationship.
Face time (not the app) is important, with prospects and especially with your existing clients, make sure you get in front of your customers on a regular basis – pop into their office (that in itself will make an impression), network in their circles, take them to lunch, have a round of golf together – the more you are in front of them and the more you talk to them, the better you will know their business and the better you will be able to see opportunities to offer your solutions.
