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Turn Mistakes Into Marketing Opportunities

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Attorney Marketing, Business Development, Client Retention, Marketing for Law Firms.

One of the most important lessons to be learned in professional services business is that when there’s a problem, it needs to be fixed right away. The process involves identifying a mistake, fixing it quickly, and making sure that your clients know what you’ve done to take action.

While no one wants to make mistakes, when one occurs, you have the opportunity to:

1. Identify how you responded to the situation:
2. Look at the relationships that you do have with clients and see how those relationships are
progressing;
3. Determine whether or not you are providing them the support and resources they need;
4. Examine what can be done to assist as their businesses continue to grow.

Having a prompt response to a mistake — and having a rapid fix — allows you to demonstrate how important client retention is to you.

Read more at www.ownthezonebook.com.

There's No Such Thing as a Cold Call

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Asking for Business, Attorney Marketing, Marketing for Law Firms.

There’s no such thing as a cold call. I suggest simple tactics to identify previously unknown prospects so that a much “warmer” approach can be taken.

A Closers Group client with 15 years of experience was having difficulty identifying new prospects when he attended one of our business development workshops. After I suggested he review his law school alumni news letter, he noted that an earlier graduate had recently been promoted to a senior position for an international manufacturer. When he made contact with this gentleman he did not know, he linked the communication to the law school they had in common and pointed out a related European Union decision. Through that contact, he has been introduced to the world of international business and will be growing that practice.

PRACTICE GROUP LEADERS – "Know Thy Client" II.

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Asking for Business, Attorney Marketing, Law Firm Leadership, Marketing for Law Firms, Practice Group Leaders.

In addition to the 6 questions from our last column, we urge practice group leaders to ask their group members these additional 5 .

7. Have they asked ahead of time who else will be at the meeting?

8. Do you and your colleagues offer clients periodic review meetings re: budgets, billing, timeliness of engagement process, format for sending reports in non-legalese to management?

9. Do they know “clients’ pain? what keeps them up at night?

10. Have they asked how the retention decision will be made?

11. How many prospects do they have in their pipeline.

For more clues to make your practice group successful, go to www.ownthezonebook.com

Practice Group Leaders – "Know Thy Client"

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Asking for Business, Attorney Marketing, Business Development, Law Firms, Marketing for Law Firms, Practice Group Leaders.

When working with Practice Group Leaders, we have a group of questions they need to ask their colleagues. From the answers, we help them build a more successful business growth program.

1. Do they know who the final decision maker is?
2. Do they know what other competitive firms/companies their clients and prospects are using?
3. What is the last time the client/prospect hired a new firm?
4. Do you know how they prefer to communicate, by phone, email or report?
5. What has been done recently to build the relationship?

More questions in the next column or go to page 90 in OWN THE ZONE for the complete list.

PRATICE GROUP LEADERS – Is Your Group Asking For Business?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Asking for Business, Attorney Marketing, Law Firm Leadership, Managing Partners, Marketing for Law Firms, Practice Group Leaders.

Your competitors are asking for new business. Is your team?

Is your group bringing in new business from clients and prospects?

Are they selling but not seeing results?

Where are their opportunities?

Can they be expanded?

Do they really know how to communicate effectively with their prospects?

Go to our new website’s Services page for tips and tactics – and download a free chapter of

OWN THE ZONE.

PRACTICE GROUP LEADERS — The 4 Most Important Questions to Ask

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Asking for Business, Attorney Marketing, Law Firm Leadership, Managing Partners, Marketing for Law Firms, Practice Group Leaders.

If you are or about to be named head of a practice group in your firm, and are tasked with making Business Development a top priority, here are 4 questions that must be asked, answered and acted upon.

1. Do you have underperforming assets?
2. Where are the overlooked opportunities?
3. Can you find hidden assets?
4. Is your group undervaluing relationships?

Law firm managing partners, practice group leaders and partners-in-charge of offices will find that bringing rigor to answering these questions will chart a direct path to growing your business. Our STRATEGIC ACTION PROGRAMS are designed to help answer these questions and bring rapid success and will new business.

CLIENT RETENTION – 2 More Clues to Success

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Client Retention, Law Firm Leadership, Marketing for Law Firms.

After discussing, in the previous 2 columns, the first 3 tactics we recommend to clients to insure their clients stay with them we’ll get to the last 2.

* Turn clients into advocates
* Know what’s working and what could be better
* Focus on more than just what you’re doing now.

With this as a refresher, the last two in our list really resonate with your clients:

* KEEP ADDING BENEFITS TO YOUR SERVICES. While performing a service or conducting a client interview, keep notes on issues that you are spotting. Give your clients something extra by arranging a lunch to go over these issues, without charging a fee, of course.

* PARTICIPATE RATHER THAN JUST ATTEND . Selling success requires you and others to attend and actively participate rather than just buying tables at dinners or offering tickets to sporting events.

Keeping clients may be just as tough as getting them. Keep at it!

CLIENT RETENTION – WHAT COULD BE BETTER?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Asking for Business, Attorney Marketing, Client Retention, Marketing for Law Firms.

In our last column, we identified steps that contribute to keeping your clients. It is a key to business development success. In addition to turning clients into your advocates, we recommend to our own clients that they:

* KNOW WHAT’S WORKING AND WHAT COULD BE BETTER — Find out by conducting regular client satisfaction visits or discussions to enhance client retention opportunities.

* FOCUS ON MORE THAN JUST WHAT YOU’RE DOING NOW — Cross-selling other practice group services is a solid approach to marketing.

Two more clues that we suggest will be in our next column.

The 50% Value of Client Retention

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Asking for Business, Attorney Marketing, Client Retention, Marketing for Law Firms.

According to a Harvard Business Review blog, at least 50% of new business every year, for professional service firms, should come from clients and referrals—that’s right 50%!

* Turn your clients into important advocates and spokespeople for your firm.
* Know what’s working and what could be better.
* Focus on more than what you are doing now.
* Keep adding benefits to your services.
* Participate rather than just attend.

We’ll discuss each of these in more details in the following posts. You can also obtain lots of additional ideas from www.allancolman.com/services.

Client Retention – 3 Reasons Why Clients Leave

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Business Development, Law Firms.

Understanding why clients leave is critical to knowing how to retain clients. According to Jay Abraham in his book “Getting Everything You Can from Everything You’ve Got”, there are 3 primary reasons even long term clients leave:

1. Lack of contact leads to their forgetting you;
2. Their situation changes;
3. They become dissatisfied.

As discussed in an earlier column on why clients leave, COMMUNICATION is the key.