Email Security - Sending Secure Legal Documents

I just read about secure email and the
Independent Financial Advertiser market.

Research from Origo, (The IFA equivalent to the SRA) showed that the majority of firms (87%) did not currently have secure email systems, with over half of respondents (58%) highlighting that they were waiting for an industry standard to be put in place.

While this is the case, an alarming majority of respondents (94%)

said they did use email to send personal, sensitive or confidential data.

Now you won't get a lesson on IT Security from me.

I'm just here to question things and maybe offer an answer sometimes.

And my question is this;

"If you send an email and someone intercepts it and then changes it and then it gets delivered, then who's to know?"

I've got an article from a Canadian law firm about this - if you want it email me.

PS Having secure email is a pretty good USP too.
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When your mail is addressed to the bank, investment company, business partners, it can attract attention of IT staff that perform mail server monitoring. And there is nothing that can prevent unscrupulous IT staff with access to the mail server to open and read that message. Other problem is that unauthorized personnel or hackers can have access to the mail server where physical access security and network security are weak.

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Do People Open Your Emails?

If you are sending a newsletter by email or an invite to a seminar then maybe some people won't open your emails...first time round.

If you get unopened emails try a different subject headline...it won't upset those
that don't open the email by sending it twice because they never opened the first one.

Fact: Only 20-30% of your list will EVER open any
email you send them EVER....the first time.

Take the list of people who didn't open your first
email and send them the SAME mail again the
next day with a different headline.

Just a different headline. Takes about two minutes.

It's simple but powerful.

Re-mailing un-opens really works. And legal marketing is about what works.

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Do You Use Your Qualifications To Get People To Buy?

If a plumber from Reading can use his qualifications in such a fantastic way why can't you?

http://www.itsleaking.co.uk/qual.htm

A certifcate is no good in the cupboard at home. Get it out, display it and stick it on your website. Your qualifications are relevant. Most people don't have your qualifications and so they will be impressed by yours. It's an independent testimonial to your quality and something that helps deliver the preponderance of proof that you are the right choice for someone.

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Estate Agents Giving You Work

With the MD of an Estate Agents in Hampshire yesterday I looked at his Goals and Objectives lists on the wall. One of the goals was "Solicitors must communicate". His problem was that whereas he had to let clients know how sales were progressing, he was not told as frequently how the legal paperwork was progressing. All he wanted was a speedy and efficient way of being kept up to date.

How much work do you get referred to your legal practice by Estate Agents?

What are they looking for from you? Don't know? ASK!

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Midsummer - Make The Most Of The Next 6 Months

This weekend it's the longest day of the year. It's when the Druids do their Stonehenge stuff and some people start thinking about the nights closing in...but rather than the negative, focus on the positive. Where will you be in 6 month's time?

The only thing that will make a difference is the people you know, (or get to know) and what you learn.

Make the most of the time you have. Try 7 consecutive days without getting angry, shouting, or criticising. See if you can do it. And if you can't, start over again at day 1.

I'll send a small gift to anyone that can tell me honestly that they achieved 7 days in a row of being 100% positive.

PS to give yourself half a chance print the words 100% Positive on a piece of paper and put it on your fridge door. (It's the cupboard we visit the most).

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Action Is The Mark Of Genius

It's my grandfather's birthday today. 89 years old. I remember asking him when I was celebrating my 21 birthday what he did for his. He said D-Day. Omaha Beach. American Tank radio operator (normally he was a gunner but they didn't have enough radio operators so he swapped for the day). Lucky that. His tank got blown up and he survived. The other two didn't. Still Grandad recovered, went back to liberate Amsterdam and took part in the 1948 Olympics.......you couldn't accuse him of wasting his time.......

What's this got to do with legal marketing? I'll sum it up in one word. ACTION.
People that take action are winners. Because it doesn't matter how much you know or how many great ideas to market your Practice you have. Unless you take action you won't achieve anything.

Take action to make yourself a celebrity in your local area. Write for the paper. Go on the local radio station. Speak at the Chamber of Commerce. Just once a week if you take action and become a brand you will be more fulfilled, you'll make lots of friends and you'll attract more business. Remember...

A Goal Is A Dream With A Deadline. Just Do It.

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What's Wrong With Lawyers?

Ok could someone please tell me why a law firm won't do a deal to get new customers?

Is it because I am asking for a 50/50 split on the profit of each new customer I bring?

I'm willing to pay for all advertising costs. I wlll write the advert. I will pay for the advert to be designed. I will track all enquiries. I will test and refine the response system that the prospect goes into.

The only objection I have been given is that "advertising is not the sort of thing that we do at this firm." It's an objection - but not a good one.

If YOU ARE THE TYPE OF FIRM THAT WANTS TO DO A DEAL and you are in Reading, Berkshire and you have a pretty good private practice department get in touch.

And if you are in any other town and like the idea of this then let me know where you are because I might be able to do this in other towns.

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Perfect Preparation - Have You Got It?

I got a phone call today from BT.

(BT) Would you like to save £75 off my line rental?

(Me)Yes Please.

(BT) All you have to do is get a BT credit card and spend money and then you get money off your line rental.

(Me) How much do I have to spend to get £75 off?

(BT) I don't know, I'm just here to ask you some questions.

(Me) Same here. And if you don't know the answers to my questions then you are not going to get my business.

This is the shortened version. I quizzed the guy about his preparation. He had no information that was relevant. He was given no leeway. He had to stick to the script.

What has this got to do with legal marketing?

Let me ask you. Do you have a systematic way of answering questions and objections you get on the phone or face to face? Do you know how to raise objections and answer them to control the conversation when you are selling?

Do you have a piece of paper that you fill in when you make a call or receive a call so that you can analyse each time where you went wrong and what you did right?

Or do you just leave it to random and hope that you say the right things in the right tone of voice in the right sequence?

One of the main reasons for doing things systematically, recording results either negative or positive is so that you can share best practice. If you don't share results, ideas and experiences throughout your firm you are operating at less than 50% of your operational capability. Do whatever it takes to ensure you share.

You can start easily. Get a notice board up in a prominent place. Put your idea of the week up - something that has worked for you. And put your idea of the week up next week too. Keep on going. Pretty soon you will find other ideas going up on the board. When it's full, photocopy them and put them together as a manual of ideas that have worked for your firm.

Presto. Your marketing manual has begun to take shape.

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What To Do When People Request A Price Reduction?

When people are going through hard times they might ask you to lower your prices. If you do it, they'll be shopping for lower prices after the recession so don't do it without one helluva fight. Because price shoppers aren't loyal and they don't know the value of your services, (have you demonstrated them?)

Make the the person asking for a price reduction is the decision maker. Go to see them face to face. Ask them if their customers are asking them for a reduction?

If you absolutely have to and want to reduce a price then make it a temporary reduction that helps them out while they are going through a rough patch. But make sure it's only for a few months and then you'll increase your price to them so that you can catch up with the lost income. That way it's temporary.

And remember abandoning those clients that are a pain, constantly ask for low fees and take up your time is the right thing to do anyway.

PS you have to spend £7,500 to get £75 off line rental :-(

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Have You Analysed Your Website?

Sometimes we don't challenge experts because we don't know enough.
Sometimes not knowing is great - because it means that you can ask things
someone who is in the thick of it wouldn't ask. Take websites. You have one.
Who runs it? Maybe it's your IT guy. Maybe an agency. Maybe a partner.

Have you ever wondered if it could do any better at bringing in leads?

There's a tool that I have used recently http://www.freewebsubmission.com which looks at your website and tells you how "good looking" it is to search engines.

It seems like a good tool to give you the chance to challenge the person who runs your website. Becase if you analyse your site and you see it's not good looking enough ( I mean functional for the Google Robots rather than cosmetic) then you can now ask "What are you going to do about it."

Because a lot of Partners never really challenge the website guy. But they should.
It's a major marketing channel. And it has to work its butt off for you. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Mainly for the status quo in legal marketing. Enjoy taking a few risks.

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How Much Do You Know About Your Performance?

Is there any firm out there that knows its conversion rate for enquiries turning into a client? For every member of staff? And systematically measures this? And then uses the findings to improve everyone's performance by sharing best practise?

Because anyone can do that. If they want to.

And another thought just popped into my mind.

Why don't non-competing firms set up a mastermind group for best practise in marketing? Because the bigger the crowd the more likely you are to come up with the right solution. And I don't just mean non-competing law firms. Because you want people outside law to give you ideas. That's where you'll get some real value.

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What Is Marketing?

Everything that a legal firm does that is not operations is marketing.
It's not about one department or another. Or job title.
Anything that any internal or external clients sees, hears, thinks, feels, smells (yep some offices smell) touches and leaves an impression is marketing.

Some law firms don't want to do marketing.
Some don't know how.
Some know how but don't.
Some know how and do.

I know which I'd rather work for.

After all, if your firm does not do marketing very well, who is going to suffer?

That's right. You.

So, if you aren't dedicating at least 30 minutes a day to your own development of marketing/selling skills then you won't be a winner. You'll probably be a whiner.

And if you say your boss doesn't give you 30 minutes a day, hello whiner.

I'd just teach all lawyers to be good at marketing and selling if I owned a firm. And then I'd expect them to perform. If you can give McDonald's kids a handbook on what to do why not a lawyer handbook on how to sell and market a law firm........ah that gives me an idea......

PS thanks to those who signed up to my newsletter. Spam email accounts won't be receiving it - sorry.

PPS tip for the day - read Seth Godin's Purple Cow. Yes I know it's a few years old now but it's still moos for me and many others. Read any good books lately?

PPS Typos are my gift to you.

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Lawyers Doing So Well They Can Waste Money

If you go to Google.com and you type in "accident lawyer" you'll find a few firms that are using Google adwords. These are the classified adverts that you pay only when someone clicks. So far, so good. But if you are one of these firms you really want to know the conversion rate of the advert and not just how many clicks you get. I called one law firm today, (I'll tell you who if you mail me) to tell them that they can use something called dynamic numbers on their website which will enable them to tell not just who clicked on their Google ad, but also who and how many called.

The gentleman I talked to would not invest 30 seconds of his time on listening to the information. If he is paying £20 per click he could be getting a bill from Google for £100 a week without receiving any calls.

So why didn't he even want to know there could be a better way?

The answer is that many law firms lack diversity. And I am talking about diversity of being exposed to many different type of people, methods, cultures and systems. The more exposed to diversity you are the more willing you are to see things in a different light, and the more likely you are to come up with the right solution.

Embrace diversity. And if you are the chap from R********* all you had to do was say that you were fascinated by new ideas and you'd love to hear about something that could make massive efficiency gains, please put it in writing.

PS don't click on accident lawyer adverts on Google, it'll cost them an arm and a leg!!

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Can You Sell A Subscription?

If you do regular work for a client one way that you can create a model for payment is by creating a subscription to your services.

Imagine you have a property client. For example, a University, that needs planning, landlord tenant contracts, eviction debt collecting etc. A whole gamut of wants that you can bundle into a service.

Now you do a contract for 12 months at £100,000. You estimate the work will be worth £200,000 in time, so the Uni saves £100,000. That's great for them.

You agree to look at the deal after 12 months to make sure you are not massively
undercharging.

And you agree both sides to look at negotiating up or down
based on value to both sides. You will get more efficient over time. And you get continuity revenue.

The Uni can budget. It also only means one bill a month rather than lots of small and irritating bills.

Gas companies do it. Magazines do it. People like subscriptions. And the bonus is you develop a system that is efficient.

Otherwise you lose money. That's a great incentive to you becoming hyper efficient. And that is how supermarkets compete. So take a leaf out of Tesco's book. Become hyper-efficient and sort out your own Clubcard locking your clients in.

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So What If People Say They Don't Legal Services From Supermarkets?

Here are some of my thoughts and replies to questions about Supermarkets taking business from solicitors and law firms. The whole conversation

is on law gazette pages.

"So what if some people say solicitors are better at servicing than a supermarket?

Does this actually mean anything?

Supermarkets will market their legal services to people and they will get clients that law firms won't.

That's because they are better at marketing. So it doesn't matter if your product is better. As long as it is good enough. Colgate sells lots of toothpaste. It's not the best - it's good enough. Tesco products are not the best. They are good enough.

I can tell you I'm in the market for a Will. But I have never been targeted to buy one, not even by my solicitors who did my conveyancing.

Supermarkets will be after my money, over a period of years, with an offer, a clear call to action and with a product that is neatly packaged to make it easy for me to sign up.

If you have lots of people you have done conveyancing for, for heaven's sake write to them and make them a special offer on a Will.

And don't do it just once. Put them in a marketing sequence of months and years. They will buy when they are ready, not when you want them to remember. And stop listening to surveys which say solicitors are better than supermarkets. Just get out there and prove it by taking some action."

"For law firms branding should be as a consequence of direct marketing and other pull marketing. In other words it should be a spin off.

Nike do branding because they have a commodity product, same as Coca Cola. The only difference between soft drinks or trainers is the brand perception. But that's not what you are about.

If you have 12% brand recognition? What does that mean? Does it mean you get 12% of all the business in your area?

What I'd really like to see your marketing do is get you into the top three results on Google, Yahoo and MSN (now Bing) so that you get quality "hands up I want to spend some money on you" business that the Co-op doesn't.

Have you checked your website ranking for all the major search terms in your area? For example "Solicitor in Reading" "Lawyer in Reading" etc? And what do people do when they get to your website? Do you provide them with truly valuable information that proves you do what you say you do? With video?

Likewise do you measure your current marketing systematically so you know exactly how much it costs you to get a lead and which marketing is the most cost effective? If you don't measure it I would say stop it all. Because if you don't know something is working why keep doing it?

Have the definite of purpose to try things and take action. As long as you are on the right path that is a good start. One this is for sure. "Defending yesterday is far more risky than making tomorrow." (Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Drucker 1985)

The figure that astounds me is 69% of people don't have a Will.

That's a fantastic market to aim at because a Will leads to Estate Planning, Trusts etc etc.

That's why it's a massive disservice for anyone to ignore their conveyancing list - you must market to them on a regular basis to get themselves a Will.

A company I worked with had written just one letter asking for money in a decade. With a list of 7000 clients I expect that 200 new Wills a month can be sold if it is done in the right way.

There's money in peoples' pockets that they want to spend. You just have to make them WANT to spend it on you and JUSTIFY spending it.

People don't buy things they need. They buy things they want. Even if it's dispute resolution. They are buying it because they WANT the right result. (ever make a special one off trip to the supermarket just to buy a tube of toothpaste you really want? If you did it's not because you needed the toothpaste. It's because you wanted clean teeth and fresh breath.

Let's look at an answer Why Joe Public will choose you first.

What is your answer as to why he should choose your firm over anyone else's?

Because that is the question you have rightly identified is going on in your prospects "Theatre of the Mind".

Do you have a USP (unique selling point) for your business? Because without one it is difficult for someone to make a choice.

After all what sales person can sell something as nebulous as "good service".

People have too many choices to make and not enough time. So making people confident in choosing you because of your USP and the way that you prove and communicate it is the way to go. And make it easy.

Examples of USP is Dominos - "Piping Hot Pizza Delivered To Your Door In 30 Minutes Or Less - Or Your Money Back." (Nothing about quality in it it at all - you see it's good enough and they make it easy.)

One you have your USP nailed you should find it easy to build your business and your communication around it. And I don't mean just out bound communication.

Marketing is everything that anyone from outside your firm sees, hears, touches or smells. So if your receptionist puts someone through to someone at your firm, make sure they say,

"I'm just putting you through to the Family Law Expert, Michelle Mann" rather than "I'm just putting your through."

Now let's take something you have said and examine it.

Personal recommendation and internet are two things that will work for Mr Joe who is looking for legal experts.

How do you systemise personal recommendations through a referral programme?

Have you done this? If you haven't then that's a good place to start. But you have to make it easy for the referrer.

And on the internet are you offering valuable information in a non-archaic legal way. By Audio/Video?

I hope so. Because if people are visiting your site you better make them raise their hand and say they want you.

Attract Joe and keep in front of him so when he is ready to buy he comes to a trusted source. Let's take an example of something you can do.

Are you the celebrity for your town or city? A

re you the one that newspapers and radio stations come to for quotes and to appear on programmes? That's free. And you aren't going to be able to compete with Direct Line or Tesco for marketing budgets so you have to use Guerilla tactics.

As soon as a hungry prospect comes in to your firm for bait (valuable information) keep him hooked forever with a marketing sequence.

That is the key. Because it takes sometimes years for someone to be ready to buy. But that's when you want to be in front of the prospect. And in that respect you can be even better than Tesco et al. (As long as you know your customer lifetime value of course, which tells you how much you can spend on this).

But it's all there for grabs. Just Do It. As Stephen Covey said, rule number one is Proactivity.

Do you have a formalised system that generates your firm's ideas to solve these problems? If you haven't get one going.

(You might have to make it anonymous because I have found the Partners to be the ones who may pooh pooh ideas which is terrible for those who put things forward. Remember how you felt at school to be singled out).

PS On the internet, I bet you aren't looking at who calls you once they look at your website? Because you will be getting calls and not just email forms filled in. And I wonder if you have unique phone numbers for all your marketing channels because I haven't seen a law firm that has all their marketing channels measured this way. Maybe you do. Maybe you don't."

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Why not get your CSR credentials boosted by doing something like this?

One of my clients started a referral scheme and I just wanted to share it with you.

The fact is that referrals have to be systematic and ideally reward both the referrer and the referred. Sometimes people don't want cash - sometimes they do. But what is very good is when the cash gets handed over to a charity.

It means that everybody wins. You get a new customer for almost nothing,
you hand the money to the referrer, who gives it to charity, making everybody feel
good about the deal. And it encourages more deals like it. The publicity factor is quite good too.

www.greatlegalmarketing.co.uk for all your legal marketing services, law firm development, business development for solicitors and great legal marketing information that's free. If there is a better website about legal marketing services tell me!

And 3.5 Take the legal marketing survey if you dare by clicking!

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