Episode 131 – The Top 7 Ways To Raise Your Perceived Status With Potential Clients

This episode will cover the top 7 ways to raise your status with potentials. Again, we have tried & tested these and each one of the 7 ways work tremendously well. Many of our busiest attorney clients use most of these 7 ways to increase their perceived status. Listen to the audio below or download it to find out the top 7 ways to increase your perceived status.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Hello, this is Richard Jacobs from Speakeasy Marketing. Today, I‘ve got a pretty juicy podcast for you. I’m going to talk about the two sides of your status as an attorney in life. One side is your status in the eyes of other attorneys, and this is determined by things like what law school you attended, what big name clients you have in the books, the building you’re in etc. The other status that’s very important is a few potential clients, how do they perceive you, how do they see you. Very, very important obviously because if they perceive you as having low status and no status, they’re not going to hire you; they’re going to go to your competitors even if they charge more than you, which is very, very demeaning. You’ll have a lot of no-shows and you’ll have a lot of problems. So how do you raise your status in the eyes of potential clients? Now, there are many, many ways but I am going to go into 7 on this podcast, all very, very useful. And not a lot of law firms get this and certainly very few take all the boxes.

Here they are. First, obviously have a good modern, mobile-friendly website. Why? Because people search the web for everything nowadays. Look around. Your probably members are probably on the phone, they are facing the screens all the time. My kids are iPads, iPhones, Androids, my phone, my wife’s phone, I mean constantly. I Google stuff all the time. I use voice search and my wife Googles stuff, we use it for directions, I mean we’re on it constantly. I recently got a traffic ticket actually, so I had to call lawyers and the ones I had on our websites or crap websites, I just went to the next one. It was easy as just touching another part of the screen. So you got to have a good websites, got to be modern, mobile-friendly. Mobile-friendly why? Because nearly 70% of all search now is done through the phone, so very, very important.

Another thing you have to have is five or more reviews on Google+, which is called Google Maps. Why? Because now in most metros, the top three that are listed in that maps box have 5 or more reviews. And if you do, you get gold stars next to your name. This is perceived as someone that is a good attorney because they get those gold stars. So you got to have them on Google+ especially if the other guys on there have 15 or 20 reviews. Even if they have none, still you stand out. Yelp is also very important to have reviews. Again, same thing; how many do you have versus the top guys? AVVO, is your rating a 9.0 or better? 10.0 is the best. It’s not that hard to get and you should have it. Your website, do you have reviews from past clients on your website? Very, very important. All these places, people look for third-party endorsements of you to show that you have prestige and status, very, very important. How are your phones answered? Are they answered professionally, or you say, “Hello”, or, “Law Office”? Is your staff friendly, are you friendly, or do you interrogate people as soon as they call, “What’s your name, what’s this, what’s that”? You’ll be very surprised at how most firms answer the phone. And you think you’re standing tough but you’re not. You’re scaring people away who are already scared. So, again, how are your phones answered? Are they answered 24×7? Do you let calls go to voicemail? That’s a terrible, terrible idea today. Just like when I searched for a traffic ticket lawyer, I just clicked back on the browser and within half a second, I just clicked on another lawyer. I just want bang, bang, bang for the lawyers and then I just said forget it. Your potential clients would do exact same to you, so it makes you look terrible if you don’t answer the phone. Have it answered 24×7, answering service whatever it takes.

Have you written a book in your practice area or practice areas? Why? Because small people that have been in their craft or their trade for many years write books. It raises your status to have a book on DUI or divorce or bankruptcy or whatever it is. These are books for consumers. Fifty pages is fine; it could be done in an hour-and-a-half interview process, which I won’t go into now but they can be done rather quickly, they do not take years to write. You want to have when people call you or go on your website, you want to have your free book on facing X, whatever that X practice area is to be offered to the potential client. Even if they don’t take it, even if they do, even if they don’t read it, whatever, they’ll raise your status. It’s very, very important.

Do you offer a free consultation? Are you available 24×7, or do you have a strategy session, or a discovery call, or a 20 minute strategy call to talk about the aspects of a case? Do you have some antics? I mean they’re all the same thing. But how do you present in your initial consultation can dramatically affect how people perceive you. Again, I’m available 24×7, call my cell, free consultation, sounds like everybody else and it sounds a bit desperate. If you want to raise your status and look better, call now to get on the schedule for a 20 minute strategy session where we’ll discuss X, Y and Z and you’ll get A, B and C from the call. Much more powerful, much more specific targeted, and again, you look a lot better than just the same as everyone else.

Number 6, do you spend 20+ minutes on the phone when you get a potential client talk about their case, potential defenses, what the legal issues are and everything or do you get them off the phone and you say, “You got to come in. Every case is different. Just come into the office on Tuesday”? Well, that strategy doesn’t work well because you don’t have any time to communicate to this person your expertise and your status. My guys that do the best, and we don’t record their calls but we track the calls so we know how long they’re on. On average, they’re on 20 minutes or more with most or potential clients, and these are the guys that convert 1 in 3, 1 in 2, the top guys. The ones that are terrible that complain about leads, all the calls are one minute or two minutes. So I know they’re going to voicemail where they’re just ushering the people off the phone. So, it’s very, very important. Spend the time, it’s worth it.

Last one for now. Do you have a fully developed attorney bio on your website? Fully developed means it’s not just a resume of the school you went to. There is a picture of you, multiple pictures of you and staff, a video, welcome video of you talking as they could see you and hear you and experience you. Do you really dimensionalize the type of work that you do, do you do DUI, or do you do under 20 DUI, out of state DUI, high BAC, low BAC, first, second, third, fourth DUI, DUI drugs, DUI involving bodily injury, see how you can dimensionalize what you do. Bankruptcy, chapter 7, chapter 13, high income, no asset bankruptcy, contested bankruptcy, bankruptcy for self-employed people, bankruptcy for those that are going through a divorce, bankruptcy for those people on foreclosure, see how you can develop that and make it sound a lot better than just bankruptcy. And we’ll go through the last one. Let’s say auto accidents, so auto accidents, where you’re at fault, where the person is at fault, where you don’t have a driver’s license, where they don’t have a driver’s license, where you no insurance, where they have no insurance, out of country driver, high speed auto accidents, accidents involving substantial bodily injury or less bodily injury. You can dimensionalize what you do on your bio page and on your homepage, and this should be done because someone will say, “Ah, that’s exactly what happened to me. This person handles that, I am going to call him instead of just accident and injury lawyer who are divorce lawyer or a DUI lawyer”. There’s a lot more you can say.

So, there are more ways to increase your status in the eyes of potential clients. I can’t go into them all here. I have a report that goes into all of them in more detail. If you like to request that, you can email me Richard.Jacobs@speakeasymarketinginc.com, you can call us 888-225-8594 but the more these you can check off in your list as doing the more clients you’ll get, the more you’ll retain, the higher the volume you’ll get and the better you’ll do. This is what the top firms are doing, the bar has been raised, no pun intended. 2016 is not easy to get business, you know that. Business is down for most folks. You got to step up the game and these seven items are vital to do that. Hope this helps; talk to you soon.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download