PRIVATE CLIENT LAWYERS can t Market? It s said too often that, because of the nature of the purchase, private client lawyers can t market the way commercial lawyers can. Doug McPherson of Size 105 Boots believes that statement is almost correct but in the interest of accuracy should read: private client lawyers can market but not the way commercial lawyers do. Until recently our clientbase was more or less made up of commercial practice groups. However this trend has turned sharply over the last 6 months with more and more firms asking us to look at the business development activities designed to promote their private client (PC) practices. 8
The truth is, seams of best practice are evolving in practices all over the UK Typically when we meet for the first time, despite the fact the managing partner and/or HoD are enthusiastic, the candidates tend not to be! They say theirs is a distress purchase, an unplanned purchase, a pressure purchase, an instinctive purchase, any sort of purchase other than a marketable purchase! OK so I m exaggerating a little for effect but really it isn t too far removed from some conversations. The truth is, seams of best practice are evolving in practices all over the UK. Solicitors who really understand the potential of PC law (and I m talking about both ends of the fee scale, irrespective of Clementi) are making small changes that, thanks to a little innovative and creative thought, are making huge differences to their bottom line. However, as with all good marketing, success is really dependent on knowing who you are marketing to and what you re offering. Question 1 has to be who do you want to attract as a client? What do they look like? What s their social standing? What roughly is their annual (combined household) income? How old are they? What do they do? Where do they go? How do you meet them? Without having access to this picture profile it s very difficult to work out how you grab their attention. At Tenandahalf one of the methods we use to work out client profiles is to employ brand cameos ; small portable pictures of what the clients we want actually look like. These aren t based on the clients we want, they re based on the clients we have. This means our planning starts from existing knowledge not from theory or possibility. For example, we work with law firms both regional and national. We work with managing partners predominantly but also with marketing and business development directors. We work all over the country. We work on the PC side and on the commercial side as well as with niche firms and patent and trademark attorneys. If you were to enter all of that data into the profiling computer I d imagine the results would be more Picasso than cameo. Picture who you want to work with and it becomes much easier to work out how you get in front of them So what we do is look at who we currently enjoy working with and those firms become our cameos. We want to work with more Firm As, more Firm Bs and more Firm Cs. Then we work out, knowing what we know about that type of firm, how we get in front of them and from there we devise the right marketing mix to realise those ambitions. One other small point to remember. The whole client profiling process doesn t just let you work out who you do want to work with, it also lets you work out who you don t want to work with. Using our business as an example, there are 11,000 law firms we could work with but, due to size and focus, of those we can really only work with 500. But as we ve gone through the profiling process we won t waste time, money and hassle marketing to the other 10,500 which 9
makes our own business development much more effective and much more cost effective. Marketing PC law is very much the same. Picture who you want to work with (and who you don t) and it becomes much easier to work out how you get in front of them through events, networking, direct mail, the internet or through good old fashioned referrals. Your marketing now has focus and as a result will (without wishing to repeat myself) be more productive and more cost-effective. Practical Tip #1: Target the right events. If one of your cameos is a farmer, you need to get in front of other farmers. Lincolnshire accountants Duncan and Toplis aren t a big4 firm by any means but they are the go to firm in the agricultural sector and put much of their success down to steak sandwiches. Each year they attend the CEREALS show in Lincoln and give away free steak sandwiches. At first it was a gimmick, it s now their calling card and their tent s full all day! Go where the clients you want go and give them a good reason to come and meet you. Likewise if your profiling opens up a specific sector, go with it. If you have a wealth of clients involved in a specific club, organisation or sport or if several are managing directors within certain industries or geographies or school governors or charity trustees, there s a strong likelihood many of your prospective clients will be too. Marketing to a niche is much easier than what s become known as the spray and pray approach. The whole marketing process: 1. List building 2. Highlighting the right benefits and experience and using those to craft the right marketing message 3. Choosing the right medium/approach/event/ introducer to make first contact is now focussed which in turn means it ll be more productive and more cost-effective. Practical Tip #2: Go niche. Waldrons Solicitors in the Black Country recognised there was a direct correlation between personal injury and cycling and that the type of people who cycle met their chosen PC demographic. They now sponsor a cycling league to promote their personal injury services. Meanwhile Sussex firm Mayo Wynne Baxter has set up a very successful practice in helping clients buy property in France. Their partners regularly contribute to LinkedIn groups and write for relevant websites. They re also currently putting a specialist (and free) newsletter together in association with a range of professional service partners involved in similar work. Get known in the right circles as being the specialist for them. Cross-sell as added value not as an afterthought First and foremost many firms need to place a higher emphasis on cross-selling. Fee earners experience will tell you if a client requires advice in one area, they ll probably need advice in other related areas. An easy way to visualise these opportunities is to draw a series of 10
concentric circles; write the area the client initially contacted you about in the middle and the related subjects in the surrounding circles with the most relevant in the second circle, the next most relevant in the third circle and so on. Taking divorce as an example, the traditional model is to complete the divorce matter then follow the Decree Absolute (at a respectable distance) with a letter explaining additional work on wills, estate and tax may be required. Too many clients this feels like ambulance chasing so why not work out which services are linked to divorce and follow the first meeting or enquiry with a fact sheet outlining all of the interlinked services that may be required? By having everything explained from the outset clients are much more likely to instruct your firm to carry out all of the work. However, cross-selling cannot now be limited to just the individuals you advise or to the owner or senior directors of a chosen commercial client (you are doing that aren t you?!). This is limited in the extreme. Imagine a typical business organogram. By only honing in on the top two tiers you re missing the broadest part of the opportunity the workforce. Some firms already offer their commercial clients staff personal legal services at discounted rates, choosing to accept units over hourly rates. Practical Tip #3: Strategic alliances. If you were to go through your commercial clientbase, how many volume employers would you have with a staff crying out for wills, divorces, tax advice or help with a family dispute or a house purchase? Even better, because you act for the firm, you already have a warm introduction just waiting for you to use! Generate more business and make your commercial clients look good in the process. Direct mail is a medium that gets a bad press (especially from us in a commercial context!) but used correctly it can be effective tool for the PC lawyer. Firstly there s the cold side. You ve profiled your ideal client and have the cameos to hand. Where do they live? A strategic mailshot (with a call to action, don t forget the call to action!) to the right postcodes can work wonders - especially if the first contact offers free advice and a clear deadline for reply. Secondly, there are renewable opportunities (what we in sales call up-selling ). If you were to write to someone who hasn t updated their will for 10 or 15 years, why not write to them and offer an update at the same rate as they paid last time ( price freeze is a mechanism leading retailers have used successfully for years). While almost every PC solicitor uses this method, it s the inclusion of this type of offer that actually increases the response by increasing the perception of value through discount. In addition to the offer if you were to link the rewriting of the will to a free health-check on their finances and personal situation, who knows what additional requirements may come to light! As a final thought, although I ve concentrated on what can loosely be termed high/medium net worth individuals, it ll become increasingly important that firms don t discount just to pander to the other end of the market. While it s crucial 11
the brand you create to manage clients can t be diluted by no win no fee type work (and don t get me wrong, I am not being a snob, this is a high grossing and growing area) my advice would be, don t be afraid to downbrand and take the bargain end of the market on head first. What I mean by downbrand is to create a second name or a name based upon well used search terms and offer a bog-standard, no frills versions of your personal injury, conveyancy, debt recovery or will writing services. Many PC lawyers already decry the impact bucket shops have had and wait pensively to see what actually happens on the back of ABS, why not take the competition on and downbrand now? Passing the work down to trainees will also make it more profitable and provide a fantastic practical training opportunity at the same time. A good example of this is Bristol firm Veale Wasbrough Vizard who have launched Augstines Injury Law, a dedicated Personal Injury and union services division based in a separate building (albeit opposite the parent) and operating under a completely different name. Because of word/space limitations I ve only covered a small part of this subject (I hope you ve noticed private and personal referrals, bedside manner, pay-per-click ads, free clinics, standing presence at shopping centres and many other activities haven t been covered!) but I trust it s provided an overview of the different ways your PC practice could be marketing itself. The important thing to remember is PC law can be marketed. Granted, not in the same way as the commercial services, but it can be marketed. As well as working with a number of PC solicitors across a variety of firms, Doug is also planning to publish an e-book dedicated solely to marketing PC law. Doug can be contacted at douglas@tenandahalf.co.uk or through www.tenandahalf.co.uk 12