Today, I list what in my view are five of the biggest legal marketing mistakes that lawyers make. Over the past few days I have covered the biggest mistakes according to Jim Calloway, Gerry Riskin and Larry Bodine as covered in an article by Nora Tooher in Lawyers Weekly USA (subscription required). In case you missed those posts, you can catch them here, here, and here, respectively.
My list includes:
1.Failure to visit your client (at their work space, off the clock to learn more about their business, industry, or just to meet their colleagues or whatever. The reason it qualifies as my biggest marketing mistake is because, as I have discussed in an earlier post, it is the surest way to come away with immediate work, which has been borne out by many a rainmaker over the years.),
2.Not being responsive to clients (not meeting deadlines or returning phone calls promptly, or otherwise not meeting client expectations – all of which contribute to a general unhappiness that discourages clients from sending additional work),
3.Failing to obtain client feedback regularly (as to how the firm is doing and what it could do better),
4.Not understanding the client’s business (a common complaint about lawyers is that they do not understand the client’s business and/or their industry. Have had many clients say they would give a particular lawyer more work if they understand more about their company.),
5.Surprising the client – about anything (as their counselor, they expect legal services that come without surprises. Otherwise, the marketing impact can be serious.).
So, I hope you find numerous mistakes from this series that you will avoid, and thereby not defeat any of your lawyer marketing efforts.
Good luck.