Law firm owners who double as legal marketing leaders have enviable practices. They are forward-looking, keep their team focused and in a positive mind-set, and are skilled at anticipating issues before a crisis point. Legal marketing leaders also understand that these skills help their firm, their clients and often the community around them. Best part: even if you are not a born leader, these are skills that can be learned.
How does law firm marketing tie into leadership? If you are an attorney who has embraced the idea of thinking of your estate and Elder Law practice as a business that requires strategic planning, you are ahead of many of your peers. If you’ve implemented a full-on digital marketing program, from website with responsive design to an automated intake process, that’s leadership.
If you are not a born leader, not to worry. Leadership skills can be learned. Here are some other indicators of leadership in law firm marketing.
Embrace the new. The legal profession has never been a bastion of change, but that’s what success in today’s landscape requires.
Think in terms of transforming your firm. Go past the concept of your firm as one that prepares wills and estate plans. You are solving problems for families, untangling estate disasters, preventing families from fracturing.
Anticipating needs. To be a leader, you need to be able to see what your clients need, even before your clients do. You already know they need a will and an estate plan, but what else do they need?
Don’t be afraid to be wrong. Nothing dooms growth faster than a refusal to make mistakes. You don’t know what will work if you don’t try it.
Know your market. Dig into the data. Learn how to aggregate data to spot trends. For example, take a broad view of the last five years. How old were most of your clients five years ago? How old are they today? What were they asking for five years ago, versus today? Understanding your target market’s history will help you understand what is happening right now.
Here’s why you want to do this: a successful estate planning and Elder Law firm gets to decide which clients they want to work with. You can decide how to shape the future of your firm. And, best of all, when you’ve got more clients, you’ve got more profits and more choices.