The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Everytime  you complete a business-facing page -- your website, a social media profile, a review platform page -- you're always asked to provide an opening and closing time for your office.   Don't.   I mean, think about it: Does that jibe with the way modern consumers access businesses, or the way that modern business owners work ?   Do you work 9-5?  Of course not.  You do things after hours, and you're frustrated when consumer service options don't exist after hours, too.  So are your clients.  And, guess what: If you indicate that your office close s  at 5 pm, you're just giving your potential clients an excuse not to call you, and to call someone else  instead .   Of course, this course of action necessitates the need for providing contact options for potential clients who contact you on off hours.  That c ontact option c ould be you.  Or ,  it could be a contact form.  Or, it could be a virtual engagement service or to...

Law firms have a particularly hard time with lead intake.  It costs time and money to acquire leads in the first place, to the point where it’s devastating to whiff on those leads, once you have a chance to convert them.  Even when  law firms effectively engage  leads  and are responsive in contacting them back, oftentimes they don’t say the right thing, and therefore fail in transitioning the lead to a client.   One of the chief reasons for that is that lawyers are unwilling to respond to what clients most want to know.   Because clients choose lawyers based not only on their general expertise, but also based on their specific expertise in particular niche practice areas, they want to  know more about the legal process that effects their claim.   Only, lawyers  are reticent to talk with leads about the legal process for a couple of reasons: (1) they’re worried about overstepping ethical bounds; and, (2) they’ve ...

Remember  that scene from the ‘Wizard of Oz’, where the guard at the gates of  the  Emerald City is very reticent to let Dorothy and her friends in, until he realizes who they are, and changes his tune ?  Well, consider yourself the green- moustachioed  guard, and your law firm clients  Dorothy Gale .  The only problem is, by the time you figure out who’s at your gates, and when you’re ready to help them, they’re already long gone.   The point is that most law firms unconsciously set up barriers between themselves and their clients.  Lawyers don’t like to pick up the phone, and talk to existing clients, let alone potential clients, thereby driving a wedge between them and their business.  Clunky contact forms at law firm websites   don’t always work.  Well, that’s another barrier.  Believe it or not, voicemail is a barrier.  Anything that stands between you and engagement with a potential client is a barrier.  And, more than anything else...

Nobody has ever liked waiting.  But, there has never been a point in recorded history where people have liked waiting less.  Cave people, I suppose, never had the benefit of the internet and smartphones.  But, I’m not even talking about the Neanderthals; heck, people are far less patient than they were even ten years ago, since things like Netflix have pumped urgency addition up on steroids.  No one wants to wait for anything anymore, because no one has to wait for anything anymore.  Except for hiring law firms. Despite the fact that consumers are simultaneously less patient and have more choices than ever before, attorneys still make those consumers wait.  They call; you wait to call them back.  They want engagement; you give them online forms.  They text; you ignore their texts.  Converting leads starts at first contact; and, if you’re not the first contact back, you’ve already lost the game.  Everything you do in marketi...