4 Secrets Top Rainmakers Use to Fill Their Practice   

Marketing Your Law Firm Takes Time, Money and Advanced Planning

I worked with Ralph over the next few months and with a lot of hard work he was able to build relationships with several referral sources who sent him dozens of new cases. He doubled his revenues in less than twelve months.

Fast forward two years. I had just finished up another bar association presentation when Ralph walked up to me. "I'm sorry I've been out of touch, Stephen," he said. "My business has grown so fast I couldn't keep up with it at first. I've had to hire three new people just to serve my clients. I drove in from out of town just to see you again and say thank you."

As Ralph discovered, the field of law firm marketing is highly competitive with more and more attorneys competing for the same clients. In my work with small law firms and solo practitioners, I have found there are at least four common strategies used by top attorneys to generate more referrals and fill their law practice.

Strategy 1.  

Build Relationships With Strategic Referral Partners

Strategic Referral Partners (SRPs) are people who already have a relationship with the people you want as clients. For example, if your niche is business law for small business owners, possible referral partners would be accountants, financial planners, local bankers, commercial real estate agents, and insurance agents.

Here's the step-by-step referral building system we created that's used by hundreds of attorneys in a variety of practice areas:

• Identify several professions or industries that already have trusted relationships with your target market.
• Build or buy a database of potential referral sources (www. infoUSA.com and www.superpages.com are two great resources).
• Focus on refining your Unique Competitive Advantage by answering this question: "Why should someone hire me versus any of my competitors?"
• Create a form letter that includes who you work with, how you are different, and a personal invitation to get together to determine if/how you could work together.
• Send out 10-20 letters per week.
• Have your assistant call the people you sent letters to and determine their level of interest in connecting with you.
• Have your assistant set up appointments for you over lunch or coffee.
• When you meet with prospective SRPs, find out more about their businesses and how you can help their clients.
• Ask compelling questions to let them know you are interested in building a mutually beneficial referral relationship, and don't forget the best question:"How would I know if the person I'm talking to would be a great referral for you?"
• Ask them if they would be willing to send you referrals.
• If possible, try to send them a referral in the next 30 days.
• Follow up every 4-6 weeks to stay connected with them (send them a letter, article of interest, or one of your press releases).  

Sounds simple, right? Not really, but it does work. Every week we help attorneys use this exact strategy to meet with two to three new potential referral sources. Just remember, referrals are a contact sport! You must leave your office and connect with local professionals in order to build your referral network.

Strategy 2.  

Build A Powerful Online Presence

The Internet changes everything when it comes to law firm marketing and how consumers and business owners select law firms. Many attorneys do not realize that most prospects will research them online before they ever hire them (likewise with potential referral sources).

Having a great website is essential to your law practice. The only thing worse than not having a website is having one that looks like every other law firm's. Hire a website development company that specializes in legal websites, but make sure you end up with a custombuilt website, not a template that can also be used by dozens or hundreds of other law firms. However, internet marketing goes way beyond having a great website.

Here are some other ways to boost your online presence:

• Get a Blog!  Blogs, also known as weblogs or blawgs, are a great, inexpensive way to get online fast. There are a growing number of journalists who look to "bloggers" as experts. The search engines love blogs because they provide fresh content and are usually very search engine friendly. However, if you are going to have a blog be sure you are ready for the commitment: to work effectively, you must update your blog a minimum of three to five times per week. If you don't have time to do that, find someone who can help, but make sure it's unique content otherwise it will not help you with ranking well on the search engines.

• Online Article Marketing. Did you know there are hundreds of websites that will publish your articles for free? All you have to do is submit them and within a matter of weeks you will begin to see your online presence grow. These short, education-based articles are written specifically for your niche. If you can write 500 words on a topic, you can use this simple strategy. When you search for my name on Google (be sure to spell it correctly), I generally come up on over 350,000 websites. I don't tell you this to impress you, but to impress upon you that this was not a mistake! It was a marketing strategy and online article marketing is one of the ways I achieved this.  

UPCOMING EVENTS

Register For The Rainmaker Retreat

Now is the time to create your Lifestyle Law Firm!

The Rainmaker Retreat is our 2-day Marketing Boot Camp where we teach lawyers how they can have it all; increase the number of clients they have, double their income, and yet work less.  Build and create a 'lifestyle' law firm that is professionally satisfying, but allows you the time to do what is important to you.

  Friday, May 13th and Saturday, May 14th - Scottsdale, AZ

Co-sponsored by CLE West. This may qualify for 9 Hours of MCLE credits

(including 1 hour of Ethics Credit)

Friday, August 19th and Saturday, August 20th - Las Vegas, Nevada

If you take advantage of the Early Bird Special (only available when you register at least 2 weeks in advance of the event) you receive $300 worth of extra benefits!

Discount Pricing available for multiple attendees from the same firm.

For more information please call: 888-588-5891 or visit www.RainmakerRetreat.com 

Many people have asked us what it is like to attend our Rainmaker Retreat.  This is a "snapshot" of what you will learn.  Listen to your colleagues (and even your competitors) describe their experiences at the 2 day Rainmaker Retreat.  Watch now or order a free DVD recording.

____________ More Tools For Law Firm Marketing ___________

Take Back Control of Your Life and Law Firm by implementing this proven system. Join us for this 60 minute complimentary call and we will also preview 65 different marketing techniques and strategies taught at our 2-day legal marketing boot camp the "Rainmaker Retreat".  Capacity is Limited Reserve your spot now.  UPCOMING DATES:

Thursday, April 28th, 2011 - 11am PT | 12pm MT | 1pm CT | 2pm ET

Wednesday, May 4, 2011 - 1pm PT | 2pm MT | 3pm CT | 4pm ET  

Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 12pm PT | 1pm MT | 2pm CT | 3pm ET

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011 - Phoenix Legal Networking Group. Come join us  for a powerful evening of networking with your local peers and discover:  How to Generate More Referrals from Attorneys, CPAs, Financial Advisors & Other Professionals Stephen will walk you through the steps of building a network of strategic referral partners. We look forward to seeing you at this month's event!    

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011 - Webinar: 8 Steps to Generating More Referrals from Attorneys, CPAs, Financial Advisors & Other Professionals.  The holy grail of law firm marketing is referrals! Every lawyer wants to say they have a "referral based" practice. For many attorneys a large percentage of their practice comes from referrals from current and former clients, but how do you generate more and better referrals from other professionals, especially if you can't offer them a referral fee? Listen in as nationally recognized legal marketing expert Stephen Fairley walks you through the 8 steps of building a network of strategic referral partners.

Wednesday May 18th, 2011 - Presentation at the NJBSA Small and Solo Conference.  Stephen will be presenting at the New Jersey State Bar Small and Solo Conference on the topic: "Seven Strategies to Recession-Proof Your Practice".     

Thursday, June 16th, 2011 - Presentation at the 2011 Arizona State Bar Convention, Phoenix, AZ. "Leveraging the Power of Social Media to Market Your Law Firm" Stephen Fairley will provide specific tools that attorneys can use to benefit immediately from the power of social media.

Newly Released!   

Can All The Strategies To Create A Seven Figure Law Practice Get Stuffed Into One Box?

They CAN, if it's The Rainmaker Institute's

'Rainmaker In A Box' - Volume 2!

If you know anything about online marketing and the internet, you know that nothing stays the same for very long. Things that were effective last year now don't work at all. Tricks that got your website on the first page of Google search results 6 months ago are old hat and ineffective.

Fortunately Stephen Fairley and The Rainmaker Institute are on top of the trends and cutting edge strategies for you. We have one aim in mind - to teach you how to use these little known strategies so you can get more and more qualified leads and dominate your marketplace; to help you create the law firm of your dreams.

For only $397 Rainmaker In A Box, Volume 2 includes:

• 8 Proven Steps for More & Better Referrals
• 7 Strategies to Recession Proof Your Law Firm
• 6 Keys to Unlocking the Secrets of Social Media
• 5 Core Components for Highly Successful Websites & Blogs
• Data DVD