The Dreams of a Solo

Friday Night Bowling League!!!

This post is not a normal post in that it covers something that one would assume has nothing to to with a solo law practice or the practice of law in general.  While that would be a very popular assumption, it would also be very wrong.  Okay, that is me being overly dramatic, but the point is that we have our Friday night bowling league tonight and it occurred to me that in addition to the opportunity to post my wife's great action shot of me, I could also share my positive Marketing experiences from bowling. 

As you have seen from my posts over the summer I am involved in a variety of sports or other activities during the year including two golf leagues, a youth soccer league, and now this fall, a bowling league.   In addition to the enjoyment and exercise (debatable, I know) that I derive from these activities, I have also developed valuable friendships and yes, clients along the way.  When I leave the office today I am bringing with a number of business cards and some of my estate planning informational material because fellow bowlers have requested said information.  People like to work with attorneys they know, like and associate with on a personal basis.  If I just looked at people in terms of gross estate values or if all these people see me as is a suit and tie then there is a very good chance we would not have the opportunity to work together.  The moral from my perspective is that we should all strive to be active and visible in our communities.  Clients cannot hire you if do not know who you are and/or if they do not know what you do.  So be proud and promote yourself to anyone and everyone that will listen.  Have a great weekend.

It Sounds Like You Have Lunch Meetings and Play Golf a lot

About two month ago I was catching up with family while enjoying my vacation when my brother-in-law turned to me said, "It sounds like you have lunch meetings and play a lot of golf."  Of course his comment came during our discussion which ensued after he asked about the progress of my law firm.  As I have mentioned previously on this blog, those activities make up a large part of my marketing plan.  Now I haven't taken a marketing class since my junior year at North Dakota State University, but I am confident in my marketing plan for a variety of reasons.  I'm not going to get into the four P's of marketing or anything like that, at least not intentionally, but I did want to mention why I decided to go in this direction.  First, I had to determine exactly what legal services I wanted to provide.  Second, I had to determine who my target market or ideal client was.  Third, I had to determine how I could best reach that target market.  Taking that a step further I didn't just want to reach them, I wanted them to be clients.

I determined that I wanted to concentrate in that areas of estate planning and tax law.  My target market or ideal client is someone who is would like to minimize estate taxes and pass their estate in their family or direct it to charity or other philanthropic ends, someone who is in need of protecting and providing for minor children if something should happen to them, as parents, someone who is faced why a tax controversy with the IRS or state department of revenue, etc.  As most estate planners will tell you the target market is quite broad, since the need for our services does not revolve around a lifetime event such as an arrest, divorce, accident, or the like.  It is not a stretch to say that nearly everyone is in need of some form of estate planning.  This need increases in situations such as second marriages, higher net worth, divergent family relationships, imminent or likely future need for long-term care, etc.

With a working idea of my ideal client in mind I thought about the best way to introduce myself as the solution to the problem that many times people do not know they have.  My goal is to establish a relationship and referral based law practice.  People do not often select the attorney to draw up their Will out of the phone book.  They are referred by someone else.  So in a way my target market became the professionals with existing clients that need to create an estate plan or to revise an existing plan.  Those professionals include CPAs, CFPs, financial advisors, insurance agents, attorneys practicing in other areas of law, trust officers, etc.

So in essence I do spend a good amount of time meeting with other professionals for lunch and I will certainly spend an afternoon on the golf course from time to time.  The flip side is that I do not spend much money on more traditional advertising including yellow pages, newspaper ads, billboards, etc.  You have to find what will work for your particular practice area.  Spend some time being creative in this area.  My advise would be not to do what everyone else is doing just because that is the way it has always been done.  Buck the trend and carve out your niche.

Are you going to do any other marketing?

The title of this post is borrowed from a recent conversation I had with by far my best referral source.  We were having lunch together, as we do at least twice a month, when he asked that question.  This question was not unusual and I welcomed the opportunity to expand upon my marketing plan.  As I soon found out what he initially had done was substituted marketing in place of advertising, since he was really asking if I was going to do any advertising for my new firm.  My answer to the advertising part of his question was no.  I do not plan on spending money on newspaper ads, billboards, the yellow pages, etc.  But that is not to say that I do not have a marketing plan in place that I have already begun to implement.  In fact, we were engaged in one of my marketing activities at the time he asked the question.  I have been meeting as many people as possible for breakfast, lunch, coffee, or whatever else you could possibly imagine to introduce myself and my new firm.

Another part of my marketing plan includes my practice related blog that has been operational and moving up the search engines for a month.  I continue to add new content two or three times a week.  That is not as often as I would like, but I have to find time to do the legal work for clients that it has already brought in.

The third element of my marketing plan is providing educational seminars in the area.  These seminars will kick off starting in September or October of this year.  I have made arrangements with different organizations and churches to provide a series of seminars for their members and their congregation.

This may not be the best marketing strategy out there, but I firmly believe that it is the best strategy for me and my firm.  I do not see the benefit of advertising, at least not in the traditional sense, for an estate planning or elder law practice.  I was already in the process of printing some t-shirts and polos with my firm and logo on them before I read this great post by Susan Cartier Leibel, Be a Billboard for Your Services, so now I have to follow through with that.  I think it is a great idea to advertise what you do and your company to all the world.  It is the ultimate sign of pride in my opinion.  I look forward to wearing my t-shirts to the gym, to the farmer's markets, to coffee shops, actually I will wear them everywhere.  When I need to put on a collared shirt for golf I will wear my personalized polos.  Forgive my apparent overabundance of excitement for this idea.  I am just amazed that part of my marketing plan can also eliminate the need for me to go shopping for clothes at the mall.  Now that is efficiency.

As always I have done my research and I have decided upon a plan of attack in regards to marketing.  My approach will effectively communicate who I am and what I am all about.  That is just easier than doing what someone else recommends even though it does not fit with your personality.  If you do what someone else does just because, then the marketing aspect of your practice will be way more work than it should be and you will be miserable doing it.  Obviously this is just one man's opinion and I am willing to hear comments on either side, so please let me know what you think.  Enjoy the weekend.

Announcing the Opening of Your New Law Firm

This post is one of those that I previously referenced when I thought of comparing and contrasting how things actually went with how I thought they would go.  In the months leading up to the launch of my law firm I laid out what amounted to 20 or so action items that I hoped to accomplish to get the firm started on solid ground.  One such action item was the development and transmission of professional announcements to share the great news with contacts, colleagues and the general public that my law firm was open for business.  I had seen numerous examples of this approach over the years.  These examples included a wedding type approach with a small 5x7 postcard, an announcement on letterhead, or a press release.  Throughout this process I have been very conscious of my overhead and above all else I wanted to keep "extra" expenses in check.  But I was not willing to forgo a professional look and feel to save a few bucks.

This mindset and plan lead me to develop an approach using my firm letterhead.  This meant that I would need to include worthwhile information and what I call a "call to action" in the letter.  The last thing that I wanted was for the recipients to receive the letter, give it a once over, and then discard it.  I have to admit that I had done that very thing with a number of announcements over the years.  To combat that I limited my introduction and self-promotion, but I provided meaningful links to my website and practice blog.  I intentionally tried to pique the recipients interest in additional information and I provided the means for them to satisfy this need through the website and blog.  At the end of the announcement was my second and more pronounced call to action.  I invited them to coffee, lunch, breakfast or to an office visit, on me.  I understand that this was an expensive proposition considering my announcement went out to 60 people, but the potential return easily offset this.  Within a week of sending off the announcements I received a response from 20 recipients.  After two weeks I had heard from another 10.  That is a fifty person response rate.  Now I am not a marketing guru, but I have to believe that this is a very solid percentage.  All told the announcement strategy cost me $25 in postage, roughly $15 in paper and envelopes, $100 in lunches (so far), and 4 total hours of time, which is only mentioned for opportunity cost reasons since I did not have any billable matters pending when I implemented the plan so I did not directly lose revenue.  Let's just say it cost me $150 to $200.  When all of the lunches are done I will have spent round $250, since not everyone takes me up on the offer, we meet for coffee, or they actually offer to buy lunch.  I do not know of any other approach that could have provided more immediate and meaningful results for less money.  To support that I must disclose that I can attribute three clients already to the announcement.  Thus, the strategy already paid for itself and then some within two weeks from beginning to end.

My experience in this area and in many areas of starting my own law firm has lead me to the conclusion that a new solo can find his or her own way of doing things.  What works for me might not work for you.  Likewise, what works for others may not fit my approach or personality.  For example, I love meeting people and getting to know them and their business.  I also love to develop ideas and approaches that differentiate me from other attorneys.  I was not always this way though and I can trace that back to my experiences in law school where I let the old law firm and law school establishment take my individuality from me.  My advice would be strive to be you, a person first, and then an attorney second.  This will allow you to put your own mark on your practice and in the legal arena in which you practice.  They say people want to work with someone that they like.  Let them get to know you.  If they don't like you, so what.  Just go out and find someone who does.

Networking and Announcing the New Law Firm

In the midst of the winding down or ramping up period, depending on how you look at it, there are a few activities that I have participated in and others that I hope to complete soon in order to announce to the world (okay I'd settle for my area of the state) that my new law firm will official open on July 2nd.  Some of these activities have been somewhat interesting since I have been in situations where soon to be former co-workers where also in attendence.  This was neither altogether unexpected nor has it been extremely uncomfortable, but the experience is worth noting.  The first such activity was a business networking event through the local chamber of commerce.  Between 250 and 300 people were in attendence for the event so it was very worth the time.  Some of the folks in attendence that know me did not know that I was planning to set up my own law practice.  The good news is those folks and all of the folks I talked with seemed pleasantly surprised and in some cases relieved that I was getting back in the practice of law.

As I left that event I thought about ways in which I could reach a larger audience to effectively communicate the announcement of my new law firm.  While I do not mind seeing the surprise in person, I have a hunch that others would appreciate more of a heads up.  To accomplish that task I have prepared a standard announcement package to send out to around 100 colleagues and contacts in the area.  Many of the receipients will be practicing attorneys, financial planners, accountants and trust officers since my practice areas directly relate to them.  My thought is to provide a call to action of some kind in the announcement to at least get the communication line open.  I am debating whether this call to action will be related to a lunch meeting, a scheduled seminar, or an email response to indicate whether they would be interested in receiving my newsletter or other valuable educational material.  I will let you know which way I decide to go with that.

The other event I attended this week was also very worthwhile.  The young lawyers in our county bar association have joined with an adjacent young lawyers group to form a bona fide young lawyers divisions.  So we had a kick off type event last night for everyone to meet each other.  I view this as being a valuable and worthwhile group since networking with colleagues is important to me, especially when I am a solo practitioner.  For the most part I met and talked with a number of attorneys under 35 who were all working for area firms.  They all thought the idea of going solo was interesting and I gathered that a part of them wished they could do it themselves.  But the security of having a full-time job was just too appealing at this stage for them.  In any event, I am looking forward to developing those relationships with the hope that they will look to me when estate planning or tax law issues come up.  Even if the referral angle does not come together immediately, it is still worthwhile to build that comradery with fellow attorneys.

With two days of full-time employment remaining I am counting the hours as I edge towards the door.  I talked with my boss yesterday and we agreed to transition our relationship from full-time employee to hourly consultant starting July 1st.  The hourly rate we negotiated is very fair to both sides.  The new arrangement will allow things to continue going forward and I will be allowed to run my law practice while assisting on an as needed basis with the firm.  I am glad we could work that out.

My focus from now until next Monday is on announcements, marketing, and office setup.  On Monday I will spend some time reviewing the setup and then starting on some of the work that is there ready to be done.  I cannot emphasis enough the need for planning and action prior to the launch of a new law firm.  If I had not effectively completed tasks along the way I would not know where to start right now.