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Article Title: Legal Marketing � How To Get Top Dollar For Your
Services
Author: Henry Harlow
Word Count: 1647
Article URL: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=75589&ca=Marketing
Format: 64cpl
Author's Email Address: henryharlow[at]cfl.rr.com (replace [at]
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What are people thinking (psychographics) when they are
�shopping� for a lawyer? What if you are viewed as cheap? What
if you are viewed as expensive? How can you address both of
these ways of thinking and still get top dollar? What do you
say when �the money� objection comes up? These questions and
more are addressed in this article.
Legal marketing success for you can reside in your knowing the
psychographics of your market. One key area of law marketing
psychographics is knowing how your prospective client is
thinking about fees. In one of my other articles I write about
law practice management pricing strategies. If you have not
read that article I do recommend you read it since it is
related to getting top dollar for your services. That said lets
move forward in getting you comfortable in getting the fees you
deserve from your legal marketing.
In legal marketing you need to know is very few people have the
time, energy and perseverance to �shop� very much for a lawyer.
These prospects will use price as a quick way to decide if
someone is competent. In law marketing you need to know people
are already pre-conditioned to think about price in certain
ways. If your fee is $150 per hour, a second lawyer�s fee is
$200 per hour and a third lawyer�s fee is $250 per hour what is
the pre-programmed way clients will be thinking? It is highly
likely in legal marketing they are thinking the �cheap� lawyer
must not be as good as the other two. Why? Because in the USA
culture people are taught �you get what you pay for� and thus
the cheapest lawyer �must have something wrong with them� or
they will be �cutting corners� in some way to be so �cheap�.
You don�t want to be in that law marketing club for sure. They
are also thinking �the most expensive lawyer must be the most
experienced, most skilled, the most specialized and at least
among the best.� You do want to be in that legal marketing club
or at least close to that club. So you see in law practice
management being in at lest the beginning of the top 30% of
fees in your community is where you want to be if you possibly
can. In legal marketing terms you are �positioning� yourself as
among the best by having a higher price.
Additionally in legal marketing terms it is also much better to
spend you law marketing dollars getting fewer high quality
prospective clients to speak with and do that well than it is
to have to shift through a legion of �frogs� who are shopping,
shopping, shopping for �cheap�. Also the �cheap� client is not
loyal to you but to �cheap� and if they find �cheaper� they are
gone. I will give you a bit more on this aspect of legal
marketing later in the article.
We have the legal marketing positioning we need in place now so
what is next? What do you actually say to have someone ready to
pay top dollar? First you need to tell them up front, close to
the beginning of the conversation, something close to the
following: �I do want you to know that I can�t work with
everyone. Sometimes I don�t have the exact expertise you may
need. Also I do want you to know that I am not the most
inexpensive attorney in the city. If I am a good match for your
situation I will be talking with you about fees. If my fees are
too expensive for you don�t be afraid or embarrassed to tell
me. I will have some good referrals for you that might be a
better fit for your budget.�
In legal marketing terms what have you done here? You have made
yourself a scarce service. We all are pre-programmed to think
something or someone that is scarce is valuable (Cialdini
Ph.D., Influence, Science and Practice; 2001). You have told
them you don�t work with just anyone. Now they are hoping that
their case is a good fit so they can have you. They are
wondering if you can fit them in since you are in such demand
that you can decline cases. Nice law marketing positioning for
sure. Suddenly they are auditioning for you, not you
auditioning for them. They also are thinking this fellow must
be really, really good or he would not be saying such things to
me. They are thinking that they better act quickly and say yes
to hiring you or you may be full and can�t take them later.
They also may be imagining a really, really high fee in their
minds and when you quote something less than their imagination
(which you can often) or contrast it with something higher or a
benefit (more here later) they are relieved. Besides if they
have been shopping then they know the really, really high fee
and you are maybe 20% to 30% below that.
OK so lets say this legal marketing scenario did not go that
well. What if the person says something like: �But your fee is
$300 per hour and another lawyer I talked to charges $225 per
hour.� What do you say? How about something like this: �I don�t
know exactly why this lawyer is charging so much less than I do,
however, I can tell you exactly what you will be getting working
with me, what my qualifications/experience/expertise are with
respect to your particular matter and I just can�t help but
wonder what he might be missing or leaving out by charging the
fee he charges.� In law marketing here you want to bring
forward in their minds the unconscious thought that someone who
charges less must be doing less of a job for you or is not as
competent. The old �you get what you pay for� scenario most of
us were raised on works well in legal marketing. Another way to
say it is �penny wise, pound foolish� since if a lawyer who
charges less does the job one could just wind up paying more
later because of that �cheaper� work. Another good job of law
marketing positioning I�d say. In a specialty practice area
this old adage is even more applicable than say a commodity
practice area like residential real estate closings. I think
you get the idea here in this law practice management effort.
In what you are saying be sure they are wondering just what
might be missing since doubt is what you need to create in the
mind of the prospect about your competitors. You might even
want to go so far as to list out in detail what you will be
doing and providing for the client before you say the magic
words I just gave you so they see all that is coming their way
by selecting you. Again with this legal marketing approach what
we are doing is bringing forward �doubt� and �suspicion� while
making sure they know how solid you are for them. It never
hurts to have testimonials or letters of recommendation as well
to show prospective clients before you give the magic words.
In legal marketing a bit of preemption or prevention could work
well in telling prospective clients about your fees as well. If
you contrast your fee against a higher fee then your fee does
not sound so large even if it is larger than a competing
lawyers fee. An example would be a family lawyer might say
something like: �Some attorneys would charge as much as $20,000
for handling this type of a divorce, however, with my experience
and expertise I know I can do the divorce for you for $15,000�.
Here you are saying your competitors� fees first with your fee
second making your fee sound good compared to the others.
Another law marketing example would be in estate planning you
could say something like: �I can prepare a document (for
document insert the correct technical term) that will save you
$400,000 in federal estate taxes for only $20,000.� Here you
are contrasting your fee to the savings and saying the savings
first and your fee last. A PI lawyer might say, �Some attorneys
would charge you 40% of the recovery, however, I will be able to
take your case for 30% of recovery.� I think you get the idea
here when it comes to this law practice management strategy.
Legal marketing is not always a �slam dunk so now, you have
done everything I suggested above and the client is still
having price objections. My advice is to let that client go. If
money is their only remaining objection and nothing you have
said or done to this point has made a difference then I suspect
they are going to be a problem in other areas later on. What
type of a law practice management problem? Well, like not
paying their fees or objecting to some of your billing
demanding still a lower fee. Also, they are telling you
extremely clearly they are a price only buyer not a value
purchaser who is not loyal to you as a long-term client but
loyal to the lowest price. In legal marketing you need
long-term clients who are not price sensitive and not
problematic. Finally, if you begin to negotiate the price now
you are showing weakness and they will use that weakness with
you down the line. I say legal marketing is tough enough
without this type of client. Make a good referral to one of
your competitors who is not reading my material so they have
the headaches that keeps them bogged down and not able to do
any legal marketing since they are bogged down with these types
of clients!
About The Author: Henry has individually coached well over 500
attorneys. You can get more free, in depth and objective
information on increasing your revenue while reducing your work
hours available now at http://www.law-firm-marketing-coach.com
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