• By Laura Lee

Being held hostage by a contractor or service provider?

It never fails that when we start working with a new client, we discover some area where an old contractor or outside firm is holding their intellectual property hostage.

It may be a social media account or website hosting.  It could be access to a CRM or your email marketing platform.

The point is that you can NEVER be too careful when it comes to ensuring that you have long-term access and control of your various accounts.

Not long ago, we started working with a client who asked us to take over the management of his Facebook Fan page. It hadn’t been used in a while and they were ready to start posting more updates on behalf of the firm.

When we asked this attorney to make us an authorized “admin” of the page, it turned out he couldn’t. Lo and behold, a former employee had set up the page under THEIR personal name. That meant the attorney could no longer access the page and we were forced to start from scratch setting up new accounts and building up their fan base.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I can’t TELL you how many times we started working with clients only to discover that they did not own the hard coding or hosting of their website! Rather, the contractor or web company who set it up retained this control and if the attorney wanted to make any changes or use a different provider, they would lose their entire site!

In fact, this recently happened to a very good friend of ours (and a very brilliant attorney) who had to redesign her site from scratch after paying $10,000 for a beautiful site that she did not own and no longer had access to once she terminated her relationship with the designing company.

I shared the following tips with her in order to avoid this nightmare in the future, and I encourage you to use them as well to protect your intellectual property or online real estate.

1. Any accounts set up in YOUR name and on your behalf must be done using a central email address that YOU OWN. When we start working with clients, we set up a basic gmail account that the attorney has access to at any time. We use this gmail address when we make purchases, submit press releases, submit event listings, open new accounts, etc.  That way, the client has access to everything in one central location should we decide to part ways in the future.

2. Do not sign a contract for a website or hosting services unless you retain total control! I don’t care how pretty it looks or how fancy it seems; unless you own that html code, do NOT sign on the dotted line! Same goes for sites you “rent” too. It’s not the brightest idea to pay $2500-$5000 a month for a website that you CERTAINLY won’t have access too if you want to break up with the service provider down the road. For what you pay in one month’s “rent”, you could OWN a site with all the bells and whistles they are offering you.

3. Ensure social media accounts are set up using either your PERSONAL login or a central account like I mentioned in step 1.  This goes for Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, YouTube and even a hootsuite account—which is used to manage these profiles all in one place.

4. Retain ownership of your phone number! This may sound like a “duh” tip, but we recently had a client who learned this the hard way. When she decided to stop renting her office space, she learned that her phone number (which goes to the main switchboard of the building) would not be coming with her, nor would the receptionist be forwarding the calls.  I’m sure you could imagine what a nightmare this turned out to be.

A few proactive steps like these can save you from a TON of headaches and hassles when working with outside companies and independent contractors.

If you’ve ever found yourself held hostage, I’d love to hear your experience and what you did about it. Please feel free to leave a comment below.

Would you like to talk about how we can help you save time on your marketing and help you turn ideas into action? Simply schedule a time on my calendar for a no-strings virtual cup of coffee.

• By Laura Lee

Expecting magic vs. momentum in your legal practice

In most professional fields, people seem to equate the word “marketing” with “magic”. Maybe you’ve unknowingly done it in your practice, too. You create a marketing plan, hire the appropriate staff members, run some campaigns and nothing happens.

Sound familiar?

I know the frustration of this from personal experience. Typically around the second or third month of working with a new client, this becomes the topic of our private coaching calls. They express concern that their phone is not ringing off the hook, no one seems to notice what they are doing and it feels like their money is getting wasted in the process.

They are striving for magic, not momentum.

After effectively talking them off the ledge, I’m able to teach them how REAL, relationship-based marketing works. Typically it’s front-end loaded, requiring a small investment of time to lay a foundation in which you are REGULARLY reaching out to prospects and potential referral sources in the community.

It’s a further understanding that you can’t just swipe a cold mailing list of financial advisors or CPA’s from the Internet, mail to them one time and expect business like crazy. Instead, it’s recognizing the Rule of 7 at play and making a plan to constantly stay in touch.

And, especially when it comes to internet marketing, it’s understanding that the website you spent ZERO time marketing in the past will not show up on page one of Google just because you posted a blog or two.

You have to do these things consistently, usually over a period of a few months before you can accurately gage results!

So back to my coaching calls. Once I’m able to help the client see that business relationships and momentum are not built overnight (much like relationships in real life!), it never fails that within the next 30-60 days I’m getting emails from the SAME EXACT CLIENTS like this:

“I don’t know what happened but the largest nursing home in my
community just called. Said they’ve seen my name all over the
place and I was also mentioned by someone on staff. They’ve
invited me to speak to their residents. I had two similar calls this week for smaller speaking engagements. I’ve had zero invites prior to this”.

“I’m finally starting to get calls from my website and ranking all over the place. And not just waste of time calls before, but these are actually quality cases. Amazing how this works”

“We engaged a very lucrative client today. She inquired about our services a year ago but put it on the backburner. I started sending my newsletter and after reading it for the past two months, she knew she had to come in and get everything taken care of. She thanked us for the push…but I should probably be thanking you for the same”.

I encourage you to take a cold, honest look at your marketing expectations today. Are you expecting magic or are you realistically focused on building momentum and long-term relationships?

It’s wise to expect some form of ROI (return on investments) but make sure you are allowing the proper timeframe for that to happen. Just like you probably wouldn’t agree to marry someone after the first date, you also need to allow for proper “courtship” and “wooing” before a client is willing to fork over $5,000-$10,000 on your services.

Would you like to talk about how we can help you save time on your marketing and help you turn ideas into action? Simply schedule a time on my calendar for a no-strings virtual cup of coffee.

• By Laura Lee

Overcoming Your Fears of “Indecent” Exposure

Do you feel ‘dirty’ promoting your business? Do you feel uncomfortable picking up the phone to ask for speaking engagements or letting potential referral sources know more about what you do? 

Whether you like it or not, growing your law firm and reaching new clients depends on exposure in your community. If you are not constantly showcasing your services and expertise to new clients, referral partners and local organizations every single day, you will not see the results you desire. 

Let me make something very clear: although you are an attorney running a law practice, the primary business you are in is sales. If you are not SELLING the value of your services and sharing your expertise to as many people as possible, you are losing out on the numbers game necessary to make your practice grow! 

For many attorneys, this is the most painful part of hanging out your own shingle. You may have envisioned helping clients with their legal problems and doing those things you went to law school for…NOT cold calling, promoting, networking, advertising and pouring your heart and soul into lead generation. 

We had a client who felt absolutely icky doing all of those things above. Maybe you can relate. She had a hard time closing business in the office and would let potential opportunities for speaking engagements or partnerships pass her by because she felt uncomfortable picking up the phone and exposing her services to others in town. 

I asked her a simple question to shift her mindset and make her feel less uncomfortable asking for a “sale”. You see, she receives calls just about every day from potential referral sources and local businesses seeking to partner with her–and great things have come of those opportunities. I asked if she felt uncomfortable, or even irritated, when those people have reached out to her. Of course she said no. Some offers she had to pass on, but never did she look at the person or organization reaching out to her as “slimy” for attempting to build a relationship. 

You don’t have to feel slimy or icky reaching out and letting other people know what YOU do either. In fact, when you do it the right way, you’ll leave the other person feeling as though THEY have benefited enormously from talking with YOU! We’ll cover some of these strategies on how to turn the tables and “sell without selling” in future newsletters. 

For now, keep in mind, when you truly believe in the value of what you are doing and know your services are making a difference in people’s lives (…and no matter what practice area you are in, you are helping people), you should not feel embarrassed telling others about what you do! In fact, it would be a disservice to NOT open your mouth and let people know! 

Back to our client: During one of our accountability calls, I set a deadline for her to call two people, whom she had met in passing, from two different organizations in town. After weeks of putting it off, she finally picked up the phone to touch base, let them know what she was doing and offer to be of service to them in the future. From these two simple phone calls, she was invited to speak for BOTH organizations…which are filled with her ideal clients …and she increased the chance of bringing in a ton of new business during the slow summer months. 

What have you put off doing because you were afraid to “sell” your services? Who have you neglected to call because you didn’t want to seem like a “pest” or a “slimeball”? 

I encourage you to shift your mindset about this today so you don’t miss out on great opportunities for new clients and referrals. Your business success depends on constant exposure, so don’t be afraid to speak up to those around you! If you are truly an introvert, you may also want to pick up the following books: 

Self-Promotion for Introverts: The Quiet Guide to Getting Ahead 
by Nancy Ancowitz, 

Networking for People Who Hate Networking: A Field Guide for Introverts, the Overwhelmed, and the Underconnected 
by Devora Zack 

Both are great resources if you struggle to close sales and market your practice in a strong, confident manner.

Would you like to talk about how we can help you save time on your marketing and help you turn ideas into action? Simply schedule a time on my calendar for a no-strings virtual cup of coffee.