Before you go any further, before you sign that lease for office space, before you sign up that first client – you must do two things… First, watch the video that follows. Second, you must answer a simple question for yourself. What do you want to gain out of having/owning your own law practice?
I’ve been thinking a lot about who can benefit most from the information I’m going to provide in this blog, and here are some people that definitely will NOT benefit from this information:
- Lawyers who are starting a law firm because they can’t get a job at a firm. If you are reading this blog because you are trying to find clients on the side while you look for a firm job, you are wasting your time.
- Lawyers who are content to throw money at the legal marketing problem. If you think that spending money on the latest and greatest legal marketing gimmick is the surefire way to build a sustainable, client serving law practice, then you are wasting your time here.
- Lawyers who are lazy and are looking for the “magic bullet” of legal marketing. If you think that this site is going to give you the magic bullet to building the law practice of your dreams – then you are wasting your time.
That being said, here are the types of lawyers that will most benefit from this website and the information I will be providing.
- Lawyers that always dreamed of owning their own firm. Confession here – I went to law school not because I wanted to be a lawyer (some may say that was a mistake), but rather because I wanted to start a law firm that was bigger than me. I wanted a business, not a practice. If that sounds like you, you are probably in the right place.
- Lawyers that get jazzed about marketing. When I first walked into Borders back in late 2005 or early 2006 and walked into the “Business/Marketing” section, I felt like a kid in a candy store. My heart jumped a beat. I started reading marketing books and haven’t stopped. One of the resources I’ll be posting on this site is my list of recommended readings. But buckle up, the list is long and it’s quite a ride. If you also get a sense of excitement thinking about marketing – then you are probably in the right place.
- Lawyers that love to learn. Honestly, if you don’t have some intellectual curiosity in you and you don’t enjoy learning a little bit, then you probably made a mistake going to law school. But I’ve found that the lawyers who are the best marketers really love to learn. More on that later, but if that sounds like you, then you are in the right place.
- Lawyers that don’t mind getting their hands dirty. I’m going to be honest with you. You may have to get down in the trenches and get your hands dirty if you want to be successful. That’s how it is if you own your own firm. If there is a problem with the computers, I don’t have an IT department – it’s me. If my assistant/paralegal calls off, guess who is going to be answering my phones? If this doesn’t sound like the life for you, you may want to rethink whether building a law practice is the right move for you. But if you will do what it takes to make sure the job gets done, you are in the right place.
If you fall into one of the four categories of lawyers that will most benefit from this site, then I want to hear from you and I want to help you. There are lots of “legal marketing gurus” out there that claim to have the magic recipe to building a successful law practice. Some of these folks are lawyers, some are not. Some have useful information, some do not. I’ve worked with, (and paid lots of money too), at least a couple of these folks. A lot of them charge consulting and coaching fees that you may not be in a place to afford right now. That’s where I come in.
Most of the information on this site is free. I believe in providing valuable, relevant content that is going to help you build a better law practice. Over time, I may offer products and services that can help you further. What those products look like is to be determined and will be largely up to you, my readers. I firmly believe in building a community of lawyers that share the same goal – building a better law practice for themselves and their families.
The title of this blog is “Legal Marketing Made Easy”. That may have been a bit of a misnomer. Legal marketing is not easy. It’s hard, really hard. You are going to have to work at it. The reason I titled this blog “Legal Marketing Made Easy” is because I’m going to do everything I can in this site to dumb down the process so you know exactly what you need to do to build a law practice that serves you. So from that standpoint, my goal is to make legal marketing easy for you to understand and implement. But the task itself is a monumental one.
If you can’t already tell, I’m pretty pumped about this blog. I love legal marketing. I love getting up on Monday mornings and heading to my office to work on my law practice. (Working on vs. working in your law practice is a recurring theme – more on that later). I love serving my clients. And I love to teach others. I get requests from other lawyers to go to lunch and talk to them about marketing, and I love that to.
Do you love going to work on Mondays? Or do you dread the thought of dealing with clients that you can’t stand and who are behind on their bills. We’re going to fix that with the information on this site. If you are able to build a better, more successful law practice that serves you, you are going to be a better attorney and will enjoy your work that much more.
So let’s get started, shall we? Tomorrow I’m going to post a bit more about my goals for the blog and the format of the content I’ll be posting.
If you have questions, comments, or would like to share some thoughts on information you want to learn more about, please feel free to comment below.
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