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RAINMAKER ALERTHOW THE REVOLUTION BEGAN
I started working for a big corporate law firm after graduating from law school. Great job, greatbenefits, and very impressive attorneys. I was living the good life. Then the recession hit. There was nowork for me or the other new associate. Then one day by total accident I discovered a way for theassociates to bring in their own business. “Does anybody know a good contracts attorney?” Was thequestion posed to me on Twitter. I responded, and within 24 hours our firm had our first Twitter basedclient. I wasn’t even looking, but this business just fell right in my lap. Soon I had set up searches on mycomputer to generate leads on a regular basis. I was so excited that I took it straight to the director of marketing.“What do you think?” I asked.“The partners would never go for it.”“Why not?”“We really need to control the message at this firm, and it’s hard with everyone doing their own thingon Facebook and Twitter.”Within a few weeks dozens of staff and a handful of attorneys were laid off, and I was one of them. I was disappointed, not because I had lost my job, but because I had unlocked valuable tools thatwould have helped the firm and they weren’t willing to give them a try. I want to help new attorneysand other law firms avoid a similar fate.
WHY WE NEED A REVOLUTION
 
(1)
 
Overhead is killer.
Law offices are extremely expensive to maintain. In the current economicclimate, lay-offs are abundant and law offices are having a hard time dealing with the sporadiceconomy. In addition to the normal office overhead, firms have secretaries, paralegals, and newassociates to pay. This is an expensive model, but it is also a model that puts a huge amount of stress on the partners to bring in enough work to make the firm profitable.(2)
Advertising
≠ Paying Clients
.
Traditional advertising is very expensive, and other than billboardads for personal injury attorneys, it is highly ineffective. Most firms with good reputations foregoany traditional marketing and instead choose to engage in the community to build their personalreputations. Offline and after hours networking is how most of these firms bring in their clients.(3)
Time is Money.
Time of the partners is at a premium. They can only make money while they bill,and marketing and administration take away from that. In the meantime, the young associatesrarely have the guts or skills needed to bring in business- so the business marketing is often leftundone.
 
(4)
The Disappearing Rainmakers
It seems the Rainmakers have joined the witness protectionprogram. Seriously, firms survive and thrive based on the efforts of just a handful of talentedrainmakers. There aren’t enough, and the firm’s efforts to encourage ALL attorneys to bring inbusiness have seemingly gone unheeded. A firm can’t grow unless it solves this problem.
Why Most Firms are Failing Online:
The vast majority of firms have a website (that was not createdin house) that serves as a glorified business card. It has the bio’s of the practitioners, and maybe analert every once in a while as laws change. These websites are outdated, and expensive to maintain.A smaller percentage of younger law firms are already taking full advantage of modern social mediatools that are far less expensive and more useful.
WHY LARGE FIRMS NEED TO ACT NOW:
1.
 
Losing market share:
The more forward thinking firms are already using social media tools togrow their firms. Social media is a disruptive innovation, and the firms that wait too long tobegin implementation of these tools will be left behind.2.
 
Lose business to competitors outside your geographical region who are active with socialmedia.
The first corporate client I found using social media was in Texas, I was located in NewYork. It was a contract dispute, and didn’t need to be litigated so I was able to help out. I was inBuffalo, NY but here I was sniping legal work from Texas. Since then I have found clientsthrough social media in Oregon, Texas, California, and Washington.
3.
 
Pay more per lead than your competitors.
The last large firm I worked for had 3 full timemarketing employees. This combined was over $100,000 each year spent in advertising salariesalone- and what did the firm get out of it? Good looking advertising materials, and welldecorated events. But how many actual leads? It’s hard to quantify just like all traditionalmarketing. Traditional marketing employees at law firms rarely do any actual businessdevelopment- this creates a per lead expense that is extremely high. With social media, the costper lead is minimal, and the technical aspects are increasingly simple so that secretaries andparalegals can handle them.
 4.
 
Miss out on national trends
: The old adage of IBM is: don’t sell what you have, sell what theyneed. Social media is the way for attorneys to stay on the cutting edge of the legal world. Inreal time, attorneys can pick up on trends and react immediately. Best practices for law firms,marketing techniques, and new legal trends are all discussed openly on social media outlets likeTwitter and Facebook. This is the modern day peer review, and the modern lawyer needs to bepart of the conversation.
 5.
 
Miss Out on Exchanging Referrals
: With proper searches set up using social media, you willreceive valuable referrals on a daily basis. Many of these will fall outside your jurisdiction, butwith Twitter you have at your fingertips an amazing catalog of attorneys that are active on socialmedia, and are likely to return the favor for leads sent their way. Twitter, for example, is a verycongenial community and those you send leads to, in my experience, are very generous toreturn the favor later.
 
 FIVE SECRETS TO RAINMAKING SUCCESS REVEALED(1)
 
Create A Real Online Presence:
Firms can use social media- blogs, Facebook, Twitter, andLinkedin to build relationships that turn into real business. This can be done by any attorney, nomatter how inexperienced. Keep reading to find out how.
(2)
 
Free leads:
Social media provides an easy method for you to search for hot leads, and for themto easily find you. They are already looking, so the easier you make it for them the better. Theycan see your website, your network, and your connections. Due diligence has never been soeasy. This is a far cry from internet dating; you can check these people out professionally beforedoing business. My profile is substantial enough at this point that I get potential leads everyday. I have turned off some of my searches because I just don’t have time for all of them.
(3)
 
Turn your entire staff into rainmakers:
suddenly your IT department, your secretaries, and yourparalegals can all work to help bring leads to the attorneys. They can manage the social mediaaccounts, and alert the attorneys by email or text message when potential leads are identified.With the invention of so many great technologies, secretaries are becoming less relevant andharder to justify. Turn them into part-time marketers and they become revenue generators forthe firm. How much would it be worth to you if every new associate brought in just one newclient a month? I guarantee it will happen with this system.
(4)
 
Increase your zone of Influence:
at almost zero cost, law firms can publish at a rapid rate usingblogs and the various other online tools. If an attorney becomes an expert in the social mediaworld for a certain area of law, that will translate into business because all virtual leads will besent to the expert. Through blogging every attorney can build a following. You don’t need a bigfollowing to garner a reputation in a certain area.
(5)
 
Reach more clients with Alerts
: While your current mailing list may be large- it is mostly filledwith current and past clients. Social media will spread your messages to new prospects. Thinkof this as the opposite of spam. Instead of sending your message to a bunch of people that mayor may not see the value in it- you are going to put it out in an enticing way so that those whomost need the information will have it freshly available to them.
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