Building Trust to Earn Clients

From the Grow My Law Firm blog:

In order to do business with anyone - trust must first exist on some level.

The more someone trusts you, the less resistance they have to purchase from you. Think of it like a scale– when you keep adding to trust in one pan, the beam is going to tip the pan representing buyer resistance.

So, how do you develop this trust thing?

The best way to gain trust is to first listen.

But it isn’t quite that straight forward. Let me explain.

How can anyone begin to trust you if they haven’t heard you? You need to speak to be heard. But, what will you say? You can only begin to have an interested audience when you can speak about meaningful solutions. But wait! What solutions? You cannot have a solution until you fully understand your audiences’ problems.

The answer, therefore, is that to fully understand your client’s problems you must first listen to them.

Simple, right?

Ask your best clients questions about what their pains are. What keeps them up at night? What can your practice possibly do to alleviate any or all of those problems? What have you done in the past that solved or prevented enormous problems or consequences to your clients? Write them down. Start a list and create numerous Problem/Solution scenarios.

By the way, I mentioned your “best clients” for a reason. You do want more clients just like them, right?

After you have created a sizable list, take a few of your best cases and turn them into a story. It’s okay to embellish them to make it more interesting. The purpose here is to develop a story that illustrates a Problem/Solution situation.

The story sets up the problem, and the solution is what the characters should have done or what you did to create a solution for the story’s characters to live their lives “happily ever after.” Make your stories interesting. Illustrate the pain so the listener feels it too. Make it human and add a little humor where you can. Then practice telling your stories.

Whatever you do, don’t try to memorize them. Just remember them like you would any story. Sure, they’ll change a little each time, but that’s OK.

By being able to tell your stories, you’ll be much more comfortable in front of every group. The more you tell them, the better the stories will get and the more comfortable you’ll become telling them.

String three or four of these stories together and you’ll have an entertaining “talk” that you can give to every group in town, which includes your potential best clients.

Write articles and incorporate your stories. Compile more and more until you have a book’s worth.

Here are a few benefits to using speaking engagements as part of your marketing efforts.

* You will stand out from the crowd and all of the marketplace noise by having interesting stories with solutions that you can personally provide

* It’s a much better way to leverage your time, so you can stop wasting your valuable cash on unproductive activities like cold-calls, meaningless brochures, or ads no one will ever see

* Speaking before groups is easy to do, inexpensive, and you develop rapport directly with prospective clients, all while providing an entertaining and educational talk

* When you connect with various audience members, there is always a possibility they may refer you to someone they know who can use your services

* You’ll feel proud to market this way because it’s all about giving of yourself and being available to help with your services rather than try to sell them

Please click here to view the piece.


Please be sure to visit www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.

Leasing Technology

Is Leasing a Viable Option?

Back in the last recession after the “dot com” bust, leasing enjoyed some popularity for a while. Until recently, it has been fairly dormant. In the last several weeks, however, I have been getting calls from leasing companies that want to push their services.

The concept behind leasing is familiar from automobiles, but works a little differently for law firms. A leasing company typically “leases” the entire cost of hardware, software AND CONSULTING SERVICES for a period ranging from 24 to 48 months. At the end of that time, you have a buyout that ranges from 1% to Fair Market Value (although what the “fair market value” is of 3 year old consulting services is something of a mystery to me). Depending on the terms, you may or may not get a tax writeoff (check with your accountant – generally a 1% buyout may not count).

In return for what amounts to a 10-20% premium compared with the cost of purchasing up front, you get a fixed low monthly payment over the period of the lease, and of course the premium is also spread over the length of the lease. This can provide firms with a way of continuing to move forward even during a recession.

Click here to see the original article by John Heckman on his Does It Compute? blog.


Please be sure to visit www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.

It's All About the Client!

In his article entitled An Increased Focus on Improving Client Satisfaction Is Your Formula for Success, Jim Calloway writes:

So, who is the most important person in your office?

In a large firm, this question may invoke thoughts of the founding partner or managing partner. The staff in the solo practitioner’s office may believe the most important person to be the lawyer, while the lawyer may think of the office manager or the employee who makes sure that the bills go out each month. The new lawyer, brimming with confidence and excitement about law practice, may think (but, hopefully, would not say) “it’s me.”

But no matter what size of law firm is involved, the most important people are the clients. For without the clients, there really is no private law practice. (Yes, I know that many of you reading this column immediately answered this question correctly.)

During the recent New Lawyer Experience program, I discussed with those setting up new law practices how important it is for clients to be satisfied with how they are treated by the lawyer and the lawyer’s office, even if they may not be satisfied with the result in their legal matter. After all, in litigation, for example, there are winners and losers. Hopefully all law firm personnel understand that a commitment to excellent client service and communication is an integral part of operations of the successful 21st century law firm.

But there’s a bit more involved than just doing great work and having great client communications. Generally speaking, we are satisfied when our expectations are met and dissatisfied when our expectations are violated.

So with every new engagement, some time should be devoted to ascertaining both the client’s expectations with the substantive legal work at hand and making sure that the client has reasonable expectations about the process and the law firm’s methods of operations. It is certainly no secret that some legal matters take some time to complete. The client should understand after the initial engagement what a reasonable time frame is and what types of contingencies might cause that time frame to be even longer.

There are more gold nuggets in the remainder of the article. Please click here for the entire read.

Please be sure to visit www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.

Pick An E-Mail Program: The Google/Thunderbird/Outlook Throwdown

Lifehacker.com has a nice review of the Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft e-mail programs. Click here to take a peek.

Please be sure to visit www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.

Marketing Needs to Continue After Landing a Client

As odd as it may seem, the chase and the capture of a new client ends marketing for some professionals. They get so caught up with gaining a new client that they forget that marketing does not end with obtaining a new matter, it is only the beginning.

Since marketing is everything you do as a lawyer, how you handle the relationship after you land the new matter will really determine your long term success. Client relationships are what marketing and business development it is all about. Focusing on building those relationships is extremely important. And that should happen from Day One.

Click here for all of the article by Tom Kane on his Legal Marketing Blog.com

Please be sure to visit www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.

Getting Clients To Pay Their Bills

Most would hope that their law practices are for-profit businesses. The tool by which we get paid is the bill that we send to our clients. Here is how Ed Poll sees it in an article that he has written for the ABA's Law Practice Management Section. Ed observes:

You've sent your bill to the client. It's been several weeks and they haven't paid yet but there's no reason to be concerned. After all, if there were a problem, wouldn't they tell you so by now?

The answer, regrettably and often inevitably, is "no." If you defined your payment terms up front in your letter of engagement with the client, and the client has not lived up to those terms, it's symptomatic of a deeper communications problem. My book, Collecting Your Fee: Getting Paid from Intake to Invoice, notes that there are five reasons why clients fail to pay their bills:

• They didn't get your bill/statement
• They didn't understand your billing and/or what you did for them and/or the value to them of what you did for them
• They didn't ask you to do what you billed them for
• Their cash flow is temporarily interrupted, despite the best of their intentions to pay you quickly
• Their business has gone "south" and they can't afford to pay you.

Always Communicate

In times of recession, the last two of these reasons are to some extent beyond a lawyer's control. Even so, if there is a problem with a client's ability to pay, good communication can uncover it by learning about and being more sensitive to the needs and conditions of clients. None of this requires constant calls or elaborate questionnaires. Simply meet clients over coffee and ask, "How are you doing? Did you understand my bill? Is there an issue that concerns you? Is there something I can help you with?" Given this opportunity clients will provide you with honest answers. And if there's a problem, it's better to know sooner and come up with a solution than to keep haggling over an unpaid bill.

The first three reasons for unpaid bills also involve communication issues, but of a different kind. They reflect the fact that, although the main purpose of a bill is to secure the client's payment, there is a secondary purpose that lawyers often miss: to leave the client with a favorable impression of the services he or she received. In other words, the bill is another tool for client communication. An effective bill is one that speaks clearly and directly to clients about how you as a lawyer have improved their lives.

This is a vital article for an issue that is vital to the success of our practices. Click here to take a look at everything Ed has to say.

Please be sure to visit www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.

Lexis Nexis Software Upgrades Getting Bad Grades

With thanks to John Heckman and his Does It Compute? blog we getting the following heads-up about problems with software updates from Lexis Nexis:

When Time Matters SR3 was released, a major problem was immediately discovered: SR3 broke TM Connect. A “fixed” dll was immediately posted, but anybody who updated via the “approved” method didn’t know that.

Other problems were also noticed: clicking on a hyperlink in the Messenger crashed the Messenger (but not the program). Problems with html display of email that existed in SR2 were not fixed. Various other problems in SR2 were also not fixed. This is to the point where the semi-official CIC listserv is recommending to wait on installation for SR3a (which will no doubt be out shortly). And in fact, as of yesterday afternoon, SR3 seems to have been pulled from the Time Matters download site which, under the circumstances, seems like a smart move.

Nor is this limited to Time Matters. Most people never even noticed that there was a PCLaw release 9.20e, because it was pulled so quickly and rapidly gave way to 9.20f. And the soon-to-be-released PCLaw 9.30a reportedly has massive bugs with credit card processing and links to other products. Normally, during the beta phase, testers are notified of bugs or things that are not ready (that is part of the beta process). In this case, however, LexisNexis apparently was aware of the bugs but didn’t warn anybody.

The major issue here is not which bugs did or didn’t get fixed, but the fact that versions are released without proper Quality Control. This is obviously a function of having to “rush out” a release before it is ready. Given that the new product manager for Time Matters comes from a quality control background the conclusion can only be that development and QC are no longer in charge of developing and releasing the product.

This trend by LexisNexis underscores the old adage that you should never install a new release immediately. But now you have to extend this to “never install a new service pack immediately.” The only other product where this is accepted wisdom is with Microsoft service packs, which are notorious for breaking things.

Click here to see John's original article.


Please be sure to visit www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.