In the legal industry, lawyers often struggle to grow their law firm. This is mainly because the competition is becoming fiercer with new entrants emerging in rapid succession. So, you need to step up your game to help safeguard your business for the future. In this post, we provide strategies on how to grow your law firm to help you stand out from the competition.
The legal sector is evolving at a fast pace. Regulatory changes, new firms, and the varied client needs mean that if your law firm is only standing still, then you’re probably already going backwards. You need to do something innovative and new to move forward at the pace required to keep up with and excel past the competition.
The forces driving the change in the legal industry are indeed varied and wide. The ability of individual lawyers and law firms to respond innovatively and positively to these challenges and changes will determine who prospers.
The good news is that the lawyers who’ll act quickly to respond to the challenges will be able to survive and prosper while those who hesitate and dither will, unfortunately, fall to the wayside. With that in mind, let’s share some strategies on how to grow a law firm.
How To Grow Your Law Practice: The Secrets
How to Grow a Law Firm “Phase 1”: Getting more income from existing clients and leads without raising fees. Is it possible to get more income from existing clients without raising fees? It sure is. Now, how can you make it happen?
Make Services More Affordable and Allow Clients to Finance Services.
People now rely on financing for furniture, holidays, weddings, medical treatment, cars, and many other things that they can’t pay for out of pocket. Lawyers don’t offer a financing option to clients because they can’t force them to pay the fees. Many people simply don’t hire lawyers as they can’t pay for their services and there’s no easy financing option to rely upon. But, there’s a solution to this problem. Instead of offering clients a financing option, a lawyer could offer them a way to acquire a normal loan. Then, the client can pay for the legal services upfront. The loan won’t be associated with the lawyer and the client could spend it anywhere. A lawyer won’t have to go after the client for payment; they’ll be paid in full upfront. The client will be able to pay the loan in monthly instalments while the lawyer will get their payments upfront. As you can imagine, it is a win-win situation.
Another benefit of financing legal services is that the client may not hesitate to hire a lawyer if there’s a loan option available. For example, if a client asks for your legal services worth £10,000 and they can’t pay for it out of pocket, you could tell them that there’s a financing option available. You could ask them to fill out a form to see if they qualify for the loan. The client will then see a repayment option of, say, £250 per month. It’ll be much easier to acquire a client by asking for £250 monthly payments than having them pay all £10,000 in one go. Offering finance services is something that many lawyers are still reluctant to do. But, when the answer to how to grow your law practice is to simply gain more customers, you can't afford to miss out on the extra custom that a finance option will bring your way!
Follow Up With Clients Using Automation
Some clients may be on the fence about using your legal services. You can use technology to nudge them in the right direction. All you have to do is use a CRM system that’ll tag prospects. If the system sees that certain prospects are on the fence, it can send them pre-determined emails. Emails could include reviews of previous satisfied clients or successful cases. Just these simple emails could push the client into hiring you. This is fairly simple to set up and, once it's done, you only need to update it once in a while with relevant information! This is a simple and quick way to help you get more clients on board that will also help you stand out from the competition,
How to Grow a Law Firm “Phase 2”: Getting fresh clients every week. The secret of how to grow your law practice is to keep your existing customers and gain new ones. But how do you get people to call you for legal services every week?
Increase Your Law Firm’s Visibility Online
Generally, law firms are slow to adopt an aggressive approach to online business generation. The legal paradigm we are in right now has led to the development of modern firms that are backed up by online specialists from various sectors. So, in order to compete with them, you need to start focusing on increasing your law firm’s online visibility.
Start with blogging to generate more leads. Use lead generation tools on your blog to capture warm leads for your business. Once a visitor is on your site, you’ll have to convince them that you’re an authority in the niche and that you’re unequivocally, absolutely and undoubtedly the firm they need to work with. A large quantity of unique, relevant and SEO optimised content that is regularly updated will help your online website to stay competitive in the search results. It’ll help transform your website from an online brochure to a simple and easily accessible portal filled with sound advice and will convince the site visitor that they don’t need to search further. But, you must ensure that every blog you post has genuinely useful and relevant information, to help you keep on top of your reputation as an authoritative voice in the industry.
Use the Problem For Advertising
Law firms are different from normal businesses. Therefore, normal advertising won’t work for them. Normal businesses attract people by promoting the things they desire like holidays, cars, new clothes, laptops, smartphones, etc. But, no one has ever desired to hire a lawyer. People only hire them when there’s a problem that warrants a lawyer’s help. So, how to grow your law practice? As a lawyer, you exist to solve people’s problems and that’s exactly what you need to advertise. So, you need to focus on your client’s problems and their solutions when you are advertising.
Boomerang
Boomerang is a great tool for Gmail that allows you to schedule messages to send later and set follow up reminders. You can use it to automate your messages and follow up with clients as we discussed in Phase 1. Craft some messages for clients who’re on the fence about using your legal services and schedule them to be sent at certain times to help win them round.
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is the perfect tool for email marketing. With this tool, you can personalise and segment subscribers to send relevant emails. Moreover, performance can be tracked via the analytics suite. Use campaign monitor to see how your clients are interacting with your emails and if there are any improvements required in your follow-up messages.
To find out more about the importance of email marketing and how it offers one of the best return on investments of all digital marketing channels. Click on the following link to learn more growth hacking email marketing.
Final Thoughts on how to grow your law practice
We’ve shared the insights on how to grow your law firm. Now, it’s up to you to implement the strategies we have discussed to really show that growth! Start by offering a financing option to clients and make sure to follow up with clients who are on the fence using tools like Boomerang. Additionally, focus on getting new leads by increasing the online visibility of your law firm and use the problem first advertising to promote your practice. Without a doubt, one of the best ways to grow your law firm is to pad out your blog with useful and relevant content, in order to make your law firm become an authority within its niche. Use the best marketing tools on your website to turn it into a lead generating machine. Follow all of these steps and you are sure to see growth in the face of your competition!
Tim Hatari
Tim Hatari helps businesses improve performance, creating strategic development plans and establishing structure via the 5PX Executive Business Coaching System. As CEO and Founder at TMD Coaching, he oversees the vision setting process with clients, leading on sales acquisition, the drive for operational excellence and market leading innovation. For Tim, helping others is the most rewarding part of the role. Follow or connect with Tim on Linkedin - www.linkedin.com/in/timhatari
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