6 Actionable Steps to Build Your Legal Practice
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There are many different ways to build your practice. But here’s the common denominator: all require action. Let’s discuss 6 actionable steps you can start implementing immediately.
1. Focus on Less, Not More
Focus on your strengths. You need to differentiate your own unique service offering. Set aside all the tangential practice areas you’ve dabbled in over the years, and, when it comes to business development and marketing, go all-in on what you do best. Remember, focusing on your strengths doesn’t mean never taking on work outside of your main area of focus. You just want to focus your finite business development and marketing resources—your time, in particular—in a way that generates the best ROI.
When talking with clients and prospects, don’t offer them a grab-bag of services to choose from—that reeks of desperation. Instead, explore what challenges they’re facing and seek to determine whether there’s alignment between your expertise and their pain points. Regardless of the immediate outcome, the client will walk away from the conversation with a positive feeling engendered by a sense they were being advised by a discerning professional.
Action Step: Complete the following sentence: I help [clients] with [services]. Try to narrow “clients” down to those within a specific industry (or a small number of industries). If you have a consumer practice, such as estate planning, create a demographic profile of your ideal client (net worth, profession, geography, etc.). For “services,” focus on one or two of your core services—the things you do best. Organize your marketing and business development around your narrowly defined positioning.
2. Make Three Calls Per Week
Having genuine, meaningful conversations in which you come across as a helpful expert (a trusted advisor) requires taking the initiative to schedule interactions with your clients and prospects. Many lawyers are hesitant to reach out to clients to schedule business development conversation. You shouldn’t be, as long as you’re not framing or conducting the conversation as a pitch.
If you’re setting out to help, not pitch, your clients will be receptive to talking with you. In some cases, these conversations will lead to new business opportunities, either now or later.
Action Step: Schedule three off-the-clock calls every week with existing, former and prospective clients and referral sources. Have a series of questions ready, ranging from personal inquiries (What is new with you and your family?) to business matters (What are some of the biggest challenges your business is facing these days?). Don’t push or nudge. Add value where you can. Listen carefully. Aim to help, which will trigger the client to ask for your help when the time is right.
3. Create Thought Leadership Content
One of the best ways to maximize your reach and get in front of prospects at scale is by creating valuable thought leadership content. You can’t be everywhere, but your ideas can be. When someone reads something you’ve written that addresses a problem they’re facing and offers a helpful solution, they’ll be naturally inclined to think of you as the right expert to execute the solution.
Action Step: If you’re just getting started with content creation, try to write and publish at least one article in the next 30 days. If you can (and it’s not as hard as you think), identify an outside publishing opportunity (such as a website geared toward your target market) and pitch your article to the editor.
4. Be Visible on LinkedIn
Creating thought leadership content and scheduling phone calls are two great ways to stay visible to your contacts. Still, you must supplement those actions with other activities, such as engaging on social media. Commit a bit of time every day to engage with your network. Curate and share content relevant to your audience. Like and comment on other people’s posts. Find ways to appear in others’ news feeds by staying at the forefront of the social conversations happening in your area of focus.
Action Step: Spend 15 minutes every day on LinkedIn with the objective of making one new connection, sharing one piece of content, and liking or commenting on one person’s post
5. Double-Down on Client Experience
If you provide a service to a client then you’ll earn a fee. But if, in the process of delivering your legal services, you provide a positive, memorable experience, you’ll also earn a loyal ally and enthusiastic advocate for your firm. Clients will come back for more—and bring others with them. It’s often overlooked, but “client experience” is one of the most important factors in retaining and expanding client relationships.
It’s not just about the results you produce for clients. It’s as much, if not more, about the way you make them feel along the way.
Action Step: Identify one area of client experience you can immediately improve. That may be how you onboard a new client, the way(s) you communicate with clients, or how you prepare a client invoice. Every small improvement you make increases the likelihood of a positive experience and world-of-mouth referral.
6. Stay Optimistic
Business development isn’t easy. It inevitably results in disappointment and failure (more often than not). However, it’s critical to stay optimistic. Why? For one, a University of Pennsylvania study found that optimistic sales professionals outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%.
Thinking optimistically can be a challenge for those of us who were trained to "think like a lawyer," which means being skeptical and looking for downside risks.
Action Step:
Fortunately, optimism is more of a learned skill than a heritable trait, so bring more a more hopeful approach to your professional and business development efforts by:
- Sharing credit with colleagues.
- Celebrating other people's wins.
- Seeking progress not perfection.
- Believing that opportunity is abundant.
- Bringing positive energy to interactions.
- Being open to new ideas and approaches.
The bottom-line: Take action. It’s all about moving forward with small steps. You may be hesitating because you feel like you have more to learn. But that’s just another form of procrastination. You always will have more to learn! Heed the advice of James Clear, “We often avoid taking action because we think ‘I need to learn more,’ but the best way to learn is often by taking action.”
Check out this related content:
Instead of Coming Up with the Perfect Plan, Just Start Taking Action
Create Structure and Routine to be Effective Amid the Chaos
7 Statistics That Prove How Valuable Thought-Leadership Marketing Is
Jay Harrington is president of our agency, a published author, and nationally-recognized expert in thought-leadership marketing.
From strategic planning to writing, podcasting, video marketing, and design, Jay and his team help lawyers and law firms turn expertise into thought leadership, and thought leadership into new business. Get in touch to learn more about the consulting and coaching services we provide. You can reach Jay at jay@hcommunications.biz.