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Shouting a Different Kind of Message, Part 4

Learn to Shout Louder by Shouting a Different Message

(Back to part 3)

Create Urgency

People want what they can’t have. If a potential client believes that you are sitting in your office twiddling your thumbs because no one else has been dumb enough to hire you, then they certainly do not want to be the guinea pigs. Would you rather be seen as the attorney who needs to chase cases or the one in town who is booked solid for a month?

There is no line forming to meet the average attorney at the bottom of the mountain. There is always a line waiting to see the wise man at the top of the mountain.

I think that the answer is obvious to you and to your potential client. One of the keys to attraction is build the image that you are highly selective about your cases and that you have a limit to the number of new cases you are willing to accept. Even the newest attorney can honestly state that there are a limited number of cases that they will accept and that those cases must meet a certain criteria.

I recognize that this can be a very hard thing to do, particularly if you are not that busy and do not have that many clients. I can only tell you from experience and from talking to attorneys all over the country that the desire for your services will increase as the perception that demand outstrips supply (for your services) increases. The longer you have been in practice the more actual data you will have and can use to justify your scarcity. Until then you must either create scarcity or create the appearance of scarcity in order to create urgency to get people to call you now.

Create A Filter That Weeds Out Those Cases You Really Have No Interest In Doing

All of us have cases that we really like doing. We thrive on these cases and we do well with them. On the other hand, we all have cases that we do not like doing, either because we have never made any money doing that particular type of case or we do not really feel secure and experienced enough to do them or we found that the type of clients that these cases bring in turn out to be more pain then pleasure.

The last thing you want to be doing is to spend real face-to-face “free-consultation” time with someone whose case you know you are not going to accept. How many times have you sat in your office after having invited someone in without qualifying them or their case at all only to learn in the first five minutes that it is a real stinker? Then, you cannot figure out a graceful way to get out of listening to the rest of the sob story (and everything else going wrong at that moment in their lives) until at the end of the hour or 90 minutes you are able to conclude this complete waste of your time.
You can vastly eliminate these unproductive free initial consultations by being very blunt and forthright in your written materials and telling people exactly what cases you will and will not accept. It is no sin to desire to decline those cases which you find most difficult in your practice. Nor is it a sin to weed out “D” clients before they become clients.

Restoring Dignity to Legal Marketing

Like it or not, one of the reasons that trial lawyers are made the butt of jokes is because of the advertising that many engage in. It can be frustrating to want be able to differentiate yourself in a very crowded market and yet not know how. Legal marketing does not need to be “loud” to be effective. By feeding a consumer’s thirst for information, we not only differentiate ourselves from the crowd, but we have an amazing opportunity to restore dignity to lawyer marketing. How would you like to walk into a courtroom and have jurors who have seen your advertising say, “There he is, the ethical lawyer.”

About Benjamin Glass
Ben Glass (www.BenGlassLaw.com) is a practicing plaintiff’s personal injury and medical malpractice attorney in Fairfax, Virginia. He is the author of The Ultimate Personal Injury and Practice Building Toolkit