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.