You know you should expect it, but every time it happens, you’re just as surprised.
When you get a tremendous settlement or verdict in a big case, your client wants to adopt you as a new member of their family. It’s not just a handshake and smiles—it’s hugs and kisses with your client when their case ends. You’ve built a strong and lasting relationship with your client over the course of the lawsuit and love is in the air. After all of the details of the case are finalized, you part ways with your client certain of one thing: you will be their hero for life.
Not so fast, my friend. Fast forward a couple of months when your client is asked about the outcome of their lawsuit at a party. Your client is effusive with praise for your work and the outcome, “My lawyer was amazing”, but then a funny thing happens. When asked for your name, your client looks up in the air, pauses, thinks hard for 15 seconds, shakes his head and then throws up his hands and just mumbles, “I’ll think of his name—give me some time.” That’s right, your client can’t even remember your name!
Now, I know what you’re thinking. This would never happen to you. You are a god to your clients—they love you to death and you will have a place permanently etched in their hearts and minds. And, of course they would, you changed their life with an amazing settlement or verdict. You think, “How could they ever forget me?”
A Harsh Reality that you must face
But you’re kidding yourself! Once their case is over, your clients will forget you and most will not even remember your name. Your client is no longer a source for referring new clients to you—hell, they can’t even remember your name.
So, you feel a little betrayed and think that maybe you just weren’t as important to your clients as you thought. But that’s not true. It’s just your clients have lives too and once their case is over, they move on to the business of getting on with their life and they quickly put their lawsuit behind them somewhere deep in the vault of their memory.
But here’s the problem: if your clients can’t even remember your name, they will never refer new clients to you. This is a MAJOR PROBLEM. One of your top referral sources can’t even remember your name and you will get no future clients from a client you thought was a raving fan.
First, the problem: YOU
Lawyers want the quick buck, the easy kill and in the world of personal injury, this means the injury victim who just got run over by a tractor trailer and is in the intensive care unit of the local hospital. You see dollar signs the moment you get the call to go visit the client in the hospital. You think, “If only I could get more cases like this.”
You want to make a quick buck whenever you spend a penny on advertising. How do you get the phone to ring so you get the next multi-million dollar case? All lawyers make the same mistake by thinking about the immediate and overlooking the future.
“Nothing is about today. Everything is about tomorrow.”
–John Morgan, Esq., You Can’t Teach Hungry
Instead of planting, cultivating and harvesting, you want to plant and harvest right away. You spend $10 and want $100 back NOW. You have no patience—like all the suckers playing the lottery and pinning their future on a fantasy, you want the quick hit, the big buck with an easy and fast payday. But building the perfect law firm takes time and although it’s hard to admit, there are no quick fixes.
How to cultivate your garden
But what can you do to cultivate your garden and think long-term by nurturing your fan base and top referral partners? First, you must have a single goal: to stay TOP OF MIND with your present and former clients, referral partners (a/k/a lawyers who refer new clients to you), members of the media and friends and prominent business owners who can send new work to you.
Easy said than done, right? Let’s face one hard, cold fact: it will be impossible for you to stay “top of mind” with your referral sources with your busy work day. You’ve got depositions, trials, conferences and paperwork to get done. So, do you just give up and hope the phone rings with your next big case?
There’s a solution—it’s simple, pretty easy to do and can be automated with little effort on your part. A marketing automation plan (“MAP”) will automate the process of keeping you in virtual constant contact with your raving fan base. It’s simple, you schedule a sequence of follow-up events that might consist of birthday and anniversary cards, informative and educational emails, voice broadcast, direct mail and email newsletters and text messages and voila! You’re staying top of mind with your top referral sources weekly, monthly or as often as you want.
You sit back and watch the cases come through your front door. But even better, your clients call you to thank you for the anniversary card and your thoughtful reminders and safety tips. You’ve just automated the growth of your law firm and your automated follow up system doesn’t rely on you to do a damn thing. You could be sitting on a beach in Cancun while you’re automated marketing machine is doing its thing. How beautiful is that?
With a marketing automation plan in place, you’re no longer just planting the seeds and harvesting right away. Now, you’re planting, CULTIVATING and slowly but surely harvesting the fruits of your dynamic growth engine. You’re planning for the future instead of doing what all other lawyers do, looking for the quick and easy buck.
The best marketing growth engine on the planet
But there’s one little problem—no one does it! No other lawyer you know is doing this so it must be a stupid idea, right? But take a look around you—the majority of lawyers are desperate for new cases and just fighting for any scraps they can get. If you do what every other lawyer in your town is doing, you’ll be faced with a career of crappy cases that will just barely pay your bills.
Here’s the answer for you: Infusionsoft. Yes, there are other companies that automate email response, like A-Weber or Constant Contact, but don’t waste your time. Infusionsoft is an amazing software company (Goldman Sacs recently invested $54 million in this small, mom and pop business in Arizona) that will do everything for you—not just email, but faxes, text messages, voice broadcast and direct mail and postcards. You get everything under one roof.
And here’s the beauty of it for you: once you schedule your automated follow up sequences in Infusionsoft with a program called the Campaign Builder, your work is done. You can sit back, let the marketing automation plan do its work and now, you’re staying top of mind with your raving fan base. Your life just got a whole lot easier, right?
But don’t kid yourself into thinking you can set up a complex marketing automation plan. Let the experts at Infusionsoft, or their outside consultants, set up the systems for automating your follow up with your fan base and let the magic of automation do its thing.
Why you won’t do a damn thing
I know what you’re thinking, “Why would I go to all of that trouble when this client doesn’t have a case with me anymore.” But this is exactly where you’re selling yourself short by focusing on the quick and easy dollar and not thinking about tomorrow.
“Most of the world vehemently refuses to spend time on actions that won’t immediately pay off.”
–Grant Cardone, If you’re not First, you’re Last
Every person you know has a sphere of influence consisting of roughly 50 family and friends—these are people who your clients speak to just above every week to make recommendations about clothing, restaurants and yes, lawyers. Even if your client doesn’t have a new case for you today, there’s a good chance he’ll have a case to refer to you six months from now. And even if your client never has a new case of his own, there’s a decent change he’ll refer his ex-girlfriend or an old buddy from high school—the possibilities that someone from within your client’s sphere of influence will have a new case for you are way too strong to ignore.
But unless you stay top of mind with your former clients and top referral sources, you will never tap into the power of your raving fan base. You’ll remain the one trick pony looking for the quick cash like every other lawyer in your town.
It’s time to put the growth of your law practice on auto-pilot
Over the course of six months, I worked with an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant to create a marketing automation plan for former and existing clients. Once in place, I no longer have to do a thing—the system works by itself. If you’d like a pdf of the automated follow up sequence, just send an email to my paralegal, Corina Skidmore, cskidmore@fishermalpracticelaw.com, and the follow up sequence will be sent to you via email.
But don’t take my word for you. Discover for yourself why Goldman Sacs invested $54 million in Infusionsoft and you will be on your way to unlocking the secret to planting, cultivating and harvesting the power of your raving fan base for the long-term growth of your law practice.
How can we help you become more awesome?
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