Your Law Firm - Lee Rosen Of Rosen Institute

The temptation is to do all the marketing. There are so many options that we risk doing things pushed sales reps and skipping the essentials. Cover the essentials first. Today lets talk about the bare minimum. These are the things every firm should do. Use these to stand out from the crowd. Differentiate yourself. Be unique. Be a little weird. Tell your story and, more importantly, demonstrate understanding and empathy for your prospective client with the words you use with each of these tactics. Getting known requires standing out from the crowd. Being liked requires being human with normal flaws, struggles, and shortcomings. Being trusted requires listening like it matters. Your marketing gives you a chance to connect with the right people, offer the right kind of help, and build the law firm you've always wanted to build. Make sure you've got these essentials covered. Convertkit is one of the tools I've used to make millions of dollars. I used it in the law firm, and I've used it to build Rosen Institute.

I meet so many lawyers looking for the new, new thing. Sometimes it's a practice area change or turning their practice into a membership site or a workshop or going virtual. Sometimes it's a technology change. Systematically managing your practice, aggressively pursuing new clients, using great technology, and implementing modern financial approaches is sensible. Changing these things with frequency is not sensible. Don't stop being curious, don't stop reading, don't stop talking to people about significant innovations - but, stick to your vision. Make it real. Go faster if you need to get on to the next thing, but make this thing happen first. There's plenty of time for your big idea to be part of the next vision you create.

It's not the big things that turn the vision into reality. It's the little things. It's the daily, weekly, monthly things we do that matter. Joining the gym feels like big progress. But, real progress is going for a vigorous walk each morning for fifty years. Buying practice management software feels like big progress. But, real progress comes from a weekly management meeting with your team. We're pretty good at ignoring the things we already know in order to try something different.

Lawyer marketing is a self-love fest. We're all beyond amazing when we look at our websites, advertisements, and business cards. We emphasize what we perceive as a positive and we don't even mention anything we think might be seen as a negative. Marketing is about putting our best foot forward so we want to demonstrate our credibility and trustworthiness. We believe that we need to puff ourselves up, appear strong, invulnerable, and demonstrate our mastery of the universe. But think of a time when someone came to you with an admission of a problem. You listen harder, you lean in, you quickly move into helper mode. That's true whether it's a client or a friend. We pay attention, we're open to hearing what's being said, and we're automatically more interested.

I plead guilty to being a delegation fanatic. Some say I'm lazy. I claim that I'm leveraging myself into greater efficiency. I hand things off to employees, delegate to anyone I can find, and outsource work to countries most of us can't find on a map. But as much as I love letting go of tasks, projects, and responsibilities so that I can skinny-dip in a lake in Guatemala, there is one thing I'd never let go. All of my delegating and outsourcing would come to an end if I let go of this one thing because it's the key driver or all of our success.

When you need advice, you should, of course, ask the person most qualified to give you advice. But instead, we ask someone with barely any experience. We ask the associate in the next office or the friend from law school who's always willing to share an uninformed opinion, or the courier who doesn't really have a clue. Why?

I hate renting cars. The rates aren't always what I've been told, they pressure me to buy insurance, they add-on fees for tolls, they want me to rent a GPS, and I have to sign their lengthy contract in eleven places. After all that they run a huge deposit on my credit card and then I get to worry about what will happen if I scrape the car up on dumpster while trying to park behind a restaurant. I can't help but think it's much like the way clients feel when they decide to hire a lawyer. They jump through hoops to get an appointment which sometimes doesn't happen for a week or more. They tell their story only to be confronted by a long-winded explanation of the process, the work that needs to be done, the stages and phases of the case, and then they get hit with a multi-page, legalese-filled, fee agreement which they don't really understand.

We get stressed about money so we buy ads, SEO, and leads when we have no data-driven basis to do so. We have no evidence that what we’re buying will work, nor are we even certain that we need more business. We hire staff members or associates when we feel busy, even if we lack numbers demonstrating that we’re doing profitable work or that we’re really as busy as we think we are. We fire staff because we’re convinced they’re unproductive and lazy when we spot them killing time on Instagram, but we lack simple records to see how they’re performing financially, so we react when they push our buttons. Over and over we’re hit by emotions and we believe they mean something. Unfortunately, an emotional response is nearly always half-baked, short-sighted, and inconsistent with the vision we’ve created of the business we’re building.

She’s sharp. She’s motivated. She’s excited. She’s exactly the kind of employee you’d been hoping to find. But she needs to know what kind of advancement she can expect at your practice. You may not have the 'bigger and better' to offer -- that’s the state of affairs in most small law firms. In large part, small firms stay small. That’s a feature, not a bug for many of us. If you don't offer the candidate a chance for advancement then don't expect your offer to be accepted. You need a solid answer to this tough question.

When the economy turns against you, it's very difficult to fight the larger forces at work. We're swimming against the tide. We're fighting nature. A rising tide lifts all boats. A falling tide sinks many ships. Of course, you don't need my permission. But, I wanted to give it to you. Sometimes having someone, anyone really, tell you that it's okay makes it easier. In times like this, we get a free pass to quit. Everyone understands. No one thinks less of you.

You’re taking nothing other than a laptop, a cell phone, and a legal education and turning it into money. It’s incredibly difficult to turn nothing into something. You’ve got to see it in your mind, believe it’s real, and then convince others to see it as well. It’s great until you think about it, and then it’s overwhelming.

The theory behind a partnership seems sound - that bringing in a partner shares the risk, creates synergy, and doubles the odds of success. The reality is that many law firm partners spend all their energy fighting for a bigger share of a pathetic little pie. Instead of synergy, they get misery when the relationship unravels and the partnership fails. The business relationship has failed, and more often than not, the personal relationship has soured as well.

The law firm’s equivalent of a hair on the appetizer or a fly in the soup is a slow response to the initial contact. The potential client calls, emails, texts, or uses your chatbot only to get no answer for what feels like too long. Maybe it’s not too long in your mind (perhaps they thought the butter was warm enough?). But, it’s too long for the prospective client.

Getting your team, no matter how small, into alignment to achieve goals is essential. The law firm you've created in your mind's eye will only come to fruition is you bring your team into alignment. Everyone needs to know what you're trying to buld and why it matters. Communication is how you make that happen. Without effective communication, everyone heads in a different direction. Things get done, but they’re often not the things that need doing.

Some of us leave a good job because we’re tired of being told what to do. Some of us start our own practice straight out of law school after three years of being bossed around by our professors. We each come to the point of starting our law firms from different places and for different reasons, but freedom is always a component.

Law firm associates have a nasty tendency to pack up their toys and go start their own law firms. Keeping them in our employ, doing the work which needs doing, is difficult. The grass is often greener elsewhere. They’re tempted by other offers or, quite often, the option of opening their own practices. The reality of today’s marketplace and economic environment is that your associate, practicing on his own, in a low overhead situation, has a decent chance of making more money than you in your larger firm. The resourceful, aggressive, nimble solo practitioner is often the most profitable lawyer in the marketplace.

Lawyers need to change people’s minds - jurors, judges, other lawyers, our staff, and especially our clients. We need tools to make that happen. We’re constantly searching for tips, tricks, and techniques. Our quest for insight into persuasion is never satisfied. Tips, tricks, and techniques are helpful but insufficient. We need something more. No matter how many books we read, seminars we attend, or videos we watch we're disappointed with the results.

When I practiced law, I often let my competitors steer me in the wrong direction. I’d see another firm buying ads, or publishing articles, or throwing a party and decide we should do that too. I’d get desperate for better ads, more articles, and a bigger party. I’d neglect what we were already doing in order to catch up with what they had decided to do. Shifting my focus led me to abandon partially finished projects in order to work on half-baked ideas prompted by others.

Most of us fear that we're being too aggressive, or worry that if we're too pushy, we'll end up shooting ourselves in the foot. Chances are that you're not even close to being too pushy.

Productivity hacks don’t stick. Sure, they work for a minute or a day or even a week if you’re lucky. You’ll briefly be more productive when you decide to take action. But, your productivity won’t improve because of the hack. Your productivity improves because you made a decision to focus, commit time, and decide to do the work. It’s not the hack. The hack just briefly encouraged you. Diet books work too - for a few days.