Notes from Practice Development Seminar with Adrian Miller

In light of the current credit crisis and general nervousness about the status of the US economy, many lawyers are concerned about the status of their practice. Of course, there are bankruptcy attorneys and litigators who do well in down markets, but most lawyers I speak with have their eyes fixed on the latest economic indicator reports.

And while corporate or real estate deals may slow, companies may spend less on their IP programs or may hold off on filing that breach of contract claim, a down economy creates a number of business opportunities for entrepreneurial lawyers. For example, down economies create price sensitivity. Some prospective clients who have been loyal to the firms they have been working with may reconsider working with a small firm that has better rates.

It was exactly this type of economy that propelled me into my own law practice six years ago and, like in the last down market, I have recently seen opportunities open up to me that weren’t available a year ago.

Given the status of the economy, I thought this was a great time for LawFirmIncubator to sponsor a practice development seminar with sales expert, Adrian Miller.

It’s no secret that most lawyers obtain the majority of their business referrals from their existing network of contacts. Accordingly, Adrian focused much of her presentation on different ways to keep your name at the top of your new and existing contacts’ minds. According to Miller, “marketing for professionals, especially lawyers, is all about staying on the grid.”

According to Adrian, most professionals (not just lawyers) are guilty of making a new contact, either through a networking event, golf or lunch, and then have no follow up system in place to stay in touch. And while it’s great that you are “out there” having meetings, without a follow up strategy in place, your return on the time, effort and possibly expense you invested in taking that meeting is limited. The people you meet with may not know of (or need themselves) the services you provide at the time that you meet them. You want to make sure that you stay at the top of their mind so when the need arises, you’re the person who wins the referral.

For her own business, Miller says that for her to keep a pipeline of prospective clients large enough to generate the revenues she aspires to achieve, she needs to make a minimum of 50 touches a day, which includes people she meets networking, at speaking events, and communications with clients and prospects.

But according to Adrian, your point of contact should never be a “hey, just touching base” email or call. Miller says that these types of correspondence are self serving, add no value to your clients and you become the annoying guy whose email and calls get ignored. Says Miller, “you win business because you equate to an improvement to a situation the prospective client is dealing with.” “To do this your communications must offer value to your prospect or referral source.”

Adrian had 8 easy tips to stay in front of your prospects with value-add communications:

1. Be a Connector. You can be valuable to your contacts and business prospects by connecting them to people who can help solve their problems or increase their business. These can be introductions between clients, prospects, vendors and referral sources. Adrian suggests making a commitment to connecting five people a day. Miller uses her subway commutation time to make these connections via her PDA. If you are known for making connections that lead to new business or other opportunities, then you can be sure your emails will get opened.

2. Send an Article. A touch point can be as simple as cutting out or photocopying an article that may be of interest to one or more of your contacts. Adrian says she walks around with a stack of her business envelopes and if she’s in a waiting room, she’ll take an article out of a magazine and send it to a client or prospect that’s of interest. My firm frequently sends articles to our clients that we photocopy and send with handwritten notes written on a “Compliments of” card. Pretty consistently, every mailing leads to at least one new project or referral.

3. Send a Link. If you’ve just spoken to a client and found out he or she is going on a vacation to a special destination, or that they have a particular interest, Miller suggests using Google to find an article or something of interest to your contact and sending the link to the article in your follow up message. It’s easy and takes very little time. I just Googled “lawyers marketing” and found this quick read:

The Top 11 Reasons Most Attorneys Don't Do Marketing - http://www.smartmarketingnow.com/articles/top_11_reasons.php.

4. Newsletters. Not much to say here, most everyone knows the drill. The key is to make the commitment to getting the newsletter out consistently, which can be tricky for lawyers who are on deals or trials. Miller suggests hiring a freelance writer to write the copy for your newsletter. You can have a sit-down with a freelance writer, give them five bullet points about an article idea, which they will then turn into a 1,500 word article in less than a week. Do this for three topics once per quarter and you have your newsletter copy for a year. I have lawyer friends who have successfully used Elance (www.elance.com) to find affordable copy writers.

5. Take Them to Lunch. Don’t just plan a lunch with one person, schedule a lunch for two or three people (plus you) who have synergies. Same concept as being a connector, except you are sharing a meal together. Miller sets her lunches up a few weeks in advance, and if you’re lucky enough to be invited, you don’t miss it. This is something the busy lawyer can have their assistant do for them. All they need to do is provide the assistant with names, and she can schedule dates at few weeks in advance. A good timesaving tip is to have a steady venue picked out in advance in different strategic locales.

6. Invite Them to an Event. Like the lunches, invite two or three people who will have synergies. Miller suggests that this is a good opportunity to be creative and connect with your clients on a personal level. Adrian is a member of MoMA and gets invites to exhibit openings. She regularly invites her clients and referrers. Recently, one of my clients invited me and a colleague to go to the pre-opening event at the New York International Car Show. It was an awesome experience we are still talking about. Also, Miller suggests not being afraid to take your prospects and clients to places where your competition is. According to Miller, your clients will meet your competition anyway; many clients will actually be impressed that you’re not afraid of your competition.

7. Get Digital. Yes, websites are important and unless you’ve been practicing from a cave, you know this. But web marketing has gone to a new level, and Miller suggests building your online profile through professional social networking sites like Linked-In or Corporate Facebook. I know many professionals (other than lawyers) who are using these sites to effectively find staff, investors and clients. Why not lawyers too? I like to use Linked-In as a follow up to networking meetings. I have two timed messages that go out to new contacts after I meet with them; one is an invitation to join my Linked-In network.

8. Keep Clients Happy. Miller suggests that your clients are your biggest (and least expensive) sales force and, in fact, promoted her elder law attorney and IP attorney at our seminar without us even realizing it. Do whatever you can to keep your clients in your fan club.

Adrian fielded a few questions from the audience as well, and she gave us her opinions on:

Blogs: She likes them. It’s free, easy to post to and raises your online presence in the search engines.

Newspapar ads. Cold on them. Ads have zero shelf life according to Miller, and are expensive. Unless you’ve got the budget for “image advertising” (think Tiffany’s ad on page two of the Times every day), or a direct response call to action like a free report, it’s not the best use of a lawyer’s marketing budget.

Radio Ads. She’s lukewarm. Radio requires consistency and frequency. Plus you need to have a system in place to qualify inquiries. Miller suggests carefully tracking results and return-on-investment.

Speaking of tracking results, that was one of the common themes (metrics) in Adrian’s presentation, in addition to consistency and accountability.

Consistency. According to Miller, marketing is not an event (a workshop, a one time article, a networking lunch), but a consistent effort that’s part of a program or system that needs to be part of each workday. As a practicing lawyer, I know how tricky it can be to commit to marketing programs over the long haul. Miller suggests scheduling an appointment with yourself, and sticking to it like it’s an appointment with a client. In his book, “Ultimate Sales Machine”, Chet Holmes gives a straightforward approach to time management. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in marketing. I carry it around with me everywhere.

Metrics. In terms of metrics, any marketing or sales professional will tell you that only what you measure will improve. Without tracking every last detail of your marketing efforts, you have no idea what’s producing a return on your investment in time. This doesn’t have to be super technical, a simple excel spreadsheet will work. I’ve loaded to our website a PDF of the report we use to track the results of our newsletters each month. See www.FurnariLevine.com/metrics.pdf.

Accountability. Finally, if you are a one man army or “the boss”, accountability is critical. For most lawyers, marketing and practice development are necessary evils. It’s something that requires lawyers to get out of their comfort zone, and they’ll find any excuse to avoid doing it. If you don’t have someone at your firm to keep you accountable to the marketing program you develop, hire a coach or a consultant to hold your feet to the fire. More than any other service she provides, I believe Adrian’s clients get the most out of the accountability she provides for them.

To learn more about how Adrian can help get your marketing program on the right track, visit her website at: http://www.adrianmiller.com/.

Lawyers Aren't Entrepreneurs: NY Times

I don't know if you had a chance to read the article "The Falling-Down Professions" in the Times on Sunday. For the most part, it was your standard I'm-a-miserable-big-firm-lawyer piece and how the legal and medical professions have lost some prestige in recent years, which doesn't affect my day-to-day life much.

What I found horribly disturbing was the premise that entrepreneurialism and autonomy can't be found in the practice of law or medicine, which I find patently untrue and a total misrepresentation of our profession.

My reaction to the article was angry enough to write a letter to Alex Williams, the journalist who wrote the article. I also copied the editor and plan to circulate it among my other journalist contacts and lawyer friends.

If you are a lawyer or doctor, please write a comment to this post describing how you are entrepreneurial and autonomous. I started the first comment to provide an example. If enough of us respond, I'll make sure the Times and Mr. Williams gets notified.


January 8, 2008

Via Federal Express

Alex Williams
The New York Times Company
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

Re: Response to “The Falling Down Professions”

Dear Mr. Williams:

I am writing in response to your article "The Falling Down Professions" published in the New York Times on Sunday, January 6, 2008, in particular, the comment that, to some lawyers, "the daily trudge serves as a constant reminder that the entrepreneur's autonomy simply can't be found in law or medicine."

I'd like to offer you an opportunity to explore a world of some of the most entrepreneurial, autonomous and competent business people I know, who also happen to be practicing lawyers.

I am a practicing corporate attorney who represents the kinds of entrepreneurs you mention in the article. I am also a former associate from a "big" New York firm, that merged into a "big" national firm, that merged into a "big" multi-national firm (I started my practice at the time of the first merger).

I am also an entrepreneur and run a business called Law Firm Incubator that provides office space and support for solo and small firm lawyers who, like me, believe it is possible to be entrepreneurial, and be autonomous, and make good money, and have quality of life, and do all this while practicing law.

In the article you mention the allure of the big reward for cashing out of the latest, greatest website. In 2007, I represented several companies who claimed they could build a social networking website that serviced college kids much better than Facebook. Before the end of the year, the management of all but one of these companies quit and got regular, unglamorous, normal-waged jobs.

Meanwhile, of all the entrepreneurial lawyers I know who started practices recently, none are out of business. The vast majority of these attorneys have thriving practices and wouldn't change anything about their chosen profession. Here are just a few of my friends:

There's Todd Duffy who is a former Greenberg Traurig associate who now runs his own boutique bankruptcy practice and gets home to see his young daughter every night before she goes to bed.

There's Paul Wilson, a former Fried Frank Lawyer who runs his own M&A practice and still makes time to sail in the regattas held every Tuesday evening in New York Harbor.

There's Yetta Kurland, one the most dynamic litigators I know with one of the biggest LGBT practices in New York, who sponsors political fundraisers and runs a successful language school, HelloWorld, in her spare time.

There's Nance Schick, an employee benefits defense lawyer who works from her home because it wastes time and money for a self-described “road warrior” to have an office. She also owns a company that makes stylish clothing and holds Day of Beauty events for people with physical limitations.

There's my law partner, Gregory Levine, who works from his home in Jackson, New Jersey most days so he can make breakfast for his three children and see them on and off the school bus. In addition to being a practicing corporate lawyer, he runs a broker dealer compliance consulting company that employs seven people and represents 60+ broker dealers.

There's my mentor and first employer, Gregory Sichenzia, who, with his small 30 lawyer firm that he founded with two friends in 1998, does more PIPE securities transactions per year than any other law firm in the country and who, in my opinion likely makes more money than most of the bankers that you mention in your article.

And then there’s the 11 lawyers who maintain offices in my Law Firm Incubator suite who love what they do, and wouldn't change a thing.

This list only scratches the surface of the amazing entrepreneurial attorneys I know, but I think you get the point.

I’m not sure whether the legal profession has any more or less prestige than it did in previous years, nor do I find this analysis relevant to my day-to-day life. For me, and I believe for most of the lawyers I mention above, prestige is not the reason we became a lawyers in the first place.

If your primary motivation for getting into a profession--whether it be law, medicine, Web, banking or consulting-- is prestige rather than doing what you are passionate about in life, no matter what the working conditions, eventually you are going to be unhappy with your choice.

What’s disconcerting about your article is that my profession has been portrayed as one where there’s no room for autonomy, entrepreneurialism or the possibility to achieve meaningful financial rewards for taking risks. That’s just not true.

For those lawyers grinding through the "daily trudge," instead of ordering luxury goods from NeimanMarcus.com on their lunch hour, if they still think they have a glimmer of passion about the law, I encourage them to visit www.RainmakerIncubator.com, a website I created to rescue these poor souls and introduce them into my world.

Sincerely,

/s/

Stephen T. Furnari

Estimated Referrals this Week: $30,000
Estimated Total Referrals Since October 1: $198,950

Happy New Year!

At the beginning of each year, you can't help but look back at what you accomplished the previous year. What went right and what went wrong.

For me, at least professionally, it was a big transitional year in terms of getting my law practice and Law Firm Incubator project ready for the future. I spent a lot of time working "on the business" as opposed to "in the business" as Michael Gerber, author of the E-Myth series so eloquently puts it.

I added staff, implemented systems, and began to make the right moves to grow the firm and the company to new heights in 2008. It's what I will be working on with the Incubator clients this year as well as they grow their practices.

I truly believe that 2008 is going to be an amazing, break-through year for me and my firm--and it certainly started out the right way with a referral to a landlord-tenant dispute (Est. $5k+ in potential fees), and a referral to a friend of Law Firm Incubator to be underwriter's counsel in a muni-bond offering (Est. $25k+ in potential fees).

I hope your year is looking as promising as everyone's here.