Integrity Marketing

Does Your Estate Planning Law Firm Have a Plan?

Ironic if the same law firm that is all about planning for the future does not have a plan of its own! At IMS, we work with estate planning and Elder Law firms across the country to help develop business plans that foster continued growth or enhance the current success of practices. In a competitive marketplace, the lack of a business plan is tantamount to asking for failure.

One of the goals that we discuss during Strategic Planning Retreats centers on what our clients love about the work they do. What type of matters and clients do they find most rewarding? Which ones get them jazzed about going to the office, every day? And, just as important, which ones do they wish they never had to address again?

The goal of the business plan is to help you build a practice where you enjoy coming to work every day, you can leave at a normal hour and have a work-life balance. It’s entirely possible. But it doesn’t happen by magic.

Specific goals, as micro and macro as possible. How many new clients do you want to walk in the door every week? How many do you need to walk in the door to maintain cash flow and keep associates busy? If you don’t know this information like the back of your hand, how will you get there?

Ideal client profile. If you don’t know, start by taking a look at your appointment calendar. What appointments are you excited to see, and which ones would you like to avoid or hand off to a colleague? Can you define your ideal client by gender, age or stage of life, assets or family situation? Do divorced mid-life women make up most of your practice, or do you generally see married couples? Start taking notes, then compare your notes to what’s in your E2 CRM. Is there a difference?

Ideal client profile, part 2. Knowing the data for your ideal client is a start, but as estate planning is a very personal kind of practice, you need to go another step and define the values, attitudes, lifestyle and other personality or psychological elements of your perfect client. Remember that they don’t have to be the same as your values—unless that is a choice you want to make.

How much is enough? This is the question that some people steer clear of, but we think it’s too important to dance around. How much do you want/need to earn? If you are a solo practitioner, are you willing to open your practice to a partner or associates to grow the practice and increase your profitability? Knowing what kind of a lifestyle you want and how much income is needed to support that lifestyle is part of any business plan.

Success in SEO Requires Local Market Knowledge

So your estate planning law firm wants to make the most of your SEO opportunities? That’s the sound of music to a legal marketer’s ears! Before you launch into a search engine optimization program, remember that your success requires what we call “boots on the ground”—local knowledge. Here are a few pointers to help you as you learn how to maximize your firm’s SEO.

First, let’s talk geo: geography. Do you know how far clients are willing to drive to your office? In some areas, where people are accustomed to travelling a good 40 minutes to get anywhere, they may be more willing to travel further. In other places, if you aren’t within a 20 minute drive, they’re looking for another estate planning practice. Know where your clients are coming from, and include that information in your website content. Also, when they search, are they looking for you by your city, by your village or by your county?

What are the concerns of clients in your target market? This is something that you know if you have been practicing in the same community for many years. Are most of your clients concerned about Medicaid eligibility? Or are they focused on transferring wealth across generations and minimizing tax liability? Or are they just interested in having wills and Power of Attorneys created to ensure that the value of their biggest asset—the family home—will be protected? Your website should reflect the concerns of your market. It’s good for your web traffic, which is good for your SEO.

Do you have links to organizations in your area that share your focus on seniors and estate planning? Inbound and outbound links may not be as critical as they once were in SEO, but if you are involved with a senior center and they are willing to include an article from you every now and then, make sure to include a link to your website in your biography. High quality links that bolster your user’s experience still have value.

When was the last time you refreshed your content? Google wants to see that you really are what you say you are, and that takes relevant content. For an estate planning law practice, your website should be chock full of great IMS content. But wait, there’s more: how often are you posting to your blog, and what content are you including there? If your website is all about estate planning and Elder Law, but your blog is only about community events that are not tied to estate planning or seniors, Google’s bots are going to read a disconnect and your quality scores will suffer. Incorporate content from the IMS blogs that arrive weekly in your email—problem solved!

To conquer Google and boost your rankings, check out "Ramp Up Your Rankings in 20 Days with These Local SEO Fixes [Infographic]" for more tips on optimization! If you have questions about improving your local SEO, submit a support ticket to your Account Manager.

The Estate Planning Law Firm’s Achilles’ Heel: SWOT

SWOT is not new to the corporate world, but for a lot of law firms, SWOT is the difference between keeping their practice alive and well and becoming yet another merger candidate, gobbled up by a multi-practice law firm that wants to have an estate planning department (even if they don’t understand what an estate planning practice really is).

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. SWOT is part of what IMS does when clients come to see us for a Strategic Planning Retreat. SWOT is a valuable tool to figure out not just what you should be doing to grow your estate planning practice, but what threats and weaknesses are lurking that could trip you up along the way.

In other words, a SWOT review forces you to take a long hard look at factors that are definitely out of your comfort zone. Yes, it’s way easier to focus on the positive, and in most cases we’re all about that. But when it comes to SWOT, you need to dig deeper and look at the potential for disaster.

What’s weak about your firm? Maybe nothing—right now. But what we do at a strategic planning retreat is go way past what’s working now. Do you have a paralegal who’s heading to law school in the fall who is beloved by a large number of your clients? What will happen when she graduates if she goes to work for someone else?

Here’s another one that’s often overlooked: how old are your computer systems? If you own, rather than lease, are you ready to take a big hit when your systems begin to degrade and the small fixes that you’ve been able to get by with no longer work? Cash flow is the first thing people think about but cash reserves are just as important.

Have you done a staff audit in the past two years? Do you know if your team is really with you, or if they are ready to jump ship? We know of a firm where the office manager of more than ten years was lured away by a competitor, bringing years of training and management with her. Are you protected in case such a lead player on your team should suddenly jump ship?

Do you know exactly what it costs to run your firm on a weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual basis? What often happens is that cash flow is good so the firm’s management takes a laissez faire approach to expenses. It’s all fine, until it’s not.

These are just a few of the weaknesses that are examined during a SWOT analysis. If you’re ready to take a look at your practice from all angles, call James at 877-352-2021 ext. 80, and let’s talk about how a Strategic Planning Retreat could future-proof your estate planning law firm.

Is the End Near for Human Lawyers?

A recent article in The Washington Post discusses how one of the largest law firms in the country has announced the use of a robot, actually an AI machine with IBM’s Watson technology that is now part of the firm’s bankruptcy practice. Dubbed “Ross,” the AI machine will be used to conduct legal research, reviewing cases to support matters being handled by the attorneys.

So if you thought online legal services or the estate planning law firm on the other side of town were threatening your practice, here’s something else to keep you up at night.

Are the machines coming for your job? Well, yes, they are. What are you going to do about it?

One of many important things that distinguishes you from “Ross” is that you are a human, but human estate planning attorneys now must prospect for, convert and serve their clients at an unprecedented level in order to maintain their practices.

How can you distinguish yourself from a robot?

If you don’t have a lawyer video on your website already, the existence of “Ross” should be enough incentive to get started. No matter how well Ross or any other AI program can conduct legal research, it cannot match the concern and warmth of a caring professional. One of the best ways to convert prospects from visitors to your website to warm leads is to let them meet you via video.

Even wonderfully brilliant programs like Watson cannot draw on their own personal experiences to relate to human clients. If you came to estate planning or Elder Law because your parents or grandparents had a good experience with a caring attorney—or a bad experience with senior or health services—only another human with a similar narrative can provide the understanding of their situation.

For now, very few mid-sized or boutique law firms have the resources to access such powerful computing systems. It’s going to be a while before Watson or Ross are available on a smaller scale. This means that you have time to maximize your own use of technology so that your humanness is an asset, and not a liability.

IMS offers E2 CRM and CLIP^SM that automate a large part of your client intake and client relationship data. They will not replace you but they will give you more time to spend with clients and in practicing law.

What human clients don’t want are inefficient systems that waste their time, feel like they are being forced to do repetitive tasks or spin their wheels. In this particular Human vs. Machine story, the attorneys who thrive will be the ones who incorporate the useful parts of technology, while giving their human clients an emotionally satisfying experience.

Bridging the Gap Between Ideal Prospects and Current Prospects for Estate Planning Lawyers

IMS clients tend to be more realistic about defining their ideal target prospects. They don’t automatically jump to the “elderly high net worth individual who revises their will every three months” that a less sophisticated attorney might describe. We believe this is because of a combination of factors: they are pro-active and marketing savvy lawyers committed to successfully growing their estate planning law practice, and they’ve also had some good marketing training.

But there’s always room for improvement. If you haven’t considered who your ideal target prospect is within the last year, it may be time for a refresher.

Communities change over time, and keeping pace with those changes is critical for a practice to remain in the forefront. Are surrounding communities turning over, that is, are millennials with young children buying single family houses from aging seniors? If so, you may want to add estate planning for families with young children to your marketing messages.

Are the economics of your community different today than they were five years ago? Have household income levels or real estate values changed? We know of at least one office that is hanging on like a small island in an ocean of apartment buildings. While the building is lovely, clients coming to the office for the first time are surprised to see it surrounded by aging properties. This may not matter or it may become problematic over time.

Do you know who your average client is, right now? Factors to measure include age, marital status, income, assets, offspring, occupation, among others. If you don’t know this off the top of your head, you may be out of touch with your client base. The more in touch you are, the better decisions you’ll make. Think of it as getting a baseline report on your practice.

Is your ideal client the same as your average client? If they are one and the same, you’ve got a home run. If not, you’ve got homework to do.

Here’s our favorite scenario: you love your clients, and they love you. You have defined who you want your clients to be, your marketing is targeted to them, and every day you walk into the office happy about the work you do. If that sounds idealistic, blame our Midwestern values, but we know this can happen because we see it on a regular basis.

If your ideal client is not your average client, we suggest calling James at 877-352-2021 ext. 80 to find out how to make these two clients one and the same!

Law Firm Marketing Data is Powerful, Unless it’s Ignored

Running a law firm without using the marketing data that is gathered by various systems is akin to driving a car with the windows completely covered. You can’t tell where you are, where you’ve been or where you are doing. From our perspective, leaning on the data has become more important for estate planning law firms than ever before.

If your law firm is still operating in the darkness, we have a few suggestions:

Get on board with E2 CRM and CLIP^SM. Part of the reason that people give for not using their data is that they don’t have time to review it. But when you have seen the results at law firms that have automated as many processes as possible, you’ll understand how other attorneys have time to review their data and augment digital marketing with in person appearances, publishing articles and speaking.

Ask us! Submit a support ticket to IMS and your account executive will review any reports or data that you have, whether it’s generated by an IMS system or if you are using something else that we are familiar with. Of course we like our own systems best: we know that they were designed to suit estate planning and Elder Law firms like yours, so they will have the most relevant and useful data possible.

Schedule a strategic planning meeting with IMS. It’s not easy to build an estate planning law firm while seeing both the forest and the trees. That’s why clients travel to our offices to dedicate a few days working on their practice, rather than working in their practice. We have a process that has been honed over the course of many years that will yield surprising insights and give you action items, along with reasons why they matter.

Be open to making changes. You won’t get different results without doing different things. Some of those things—like posting on social media or making changes to your website—might make you a little uncomfortable. You won’t break the internet, we promise.

You might not like what you see. Here’s the thing: if no one is reading your Facebook page or looking at your LinkedIn page, wouldn’t you want to know so that you could make changes? The same is true for your law firm marketing data. If the numbers aren’t good, you need to know so that you can make changes.

Keep an Open Mind About Related Practice Areas

You know that Elder Lawyers don’t always handle trusts and estates for their clients, and vice versa. But unless they have had personal experience in this area, the general public doesn’t know the difference between an estate planning attorney and an Elder Law attorney. What does your practice do when a client needs representation in an area that’s not part of your firm?

Some attorneys are comfortable switching gears between practice areas, while some firms have trusted relationship with colleagues who they refer clients to. At some point, though, you may find that you are turning away work that you might want to keep in house.

One way to increase the number of queries, prospects and ideally, new clients, is to add these practice areas to your marketing mix. If your site needs a few more pages of practice area content, send us a support ticket and let’s discuss making your practice more robust.

Is it realistic to add a new practice area? Only if it is organically related to what your clients need. We know that there are estate planning attorneys who have relationships with real estate attorneys because often their clients ask about selling the family home, and it’s an easy segue. A similar case can be made for tax law, which is extremely important to estate planning. There are estate planning attorneys who have extremely in-depth knowledge of tax law and this makes them valuable assets to high net-worth clients.

Elder Law is the practice area that most estate planning attorneys think of when they consider adding a new practice area. Some firms will bring in a paralegal who is experienced with Medicaid applications and develop a relationship with an elder care coordinator who can assist clients or their parents as they move through this process. However, these services need to be offered on a consistent basis to make sense for your practice as well as for your clients.

It is not always easy to add a practice area, but it can be done, if it aligns with your overall law firm mission. Equally important, make sure that this new practice area is something that you can be very good at. Otherwise, you would be better off developing a relationship with an attorney who you trust and hopefully referrals will be a two-way street.

What Makes You So Special?

Estate planning and Elder Law attorneys should be able to quickly explain in a few sentences what sets them apart from other estate planning and Elder Law firms. Those are key messages that should be used generously, on websites, social media and other marketing platforms. If you don’t know the difference between your practice and the one down the street, how can you expect prospects to know the difference?

This is a topic we dig into in our Strategic Planning Retreats. It’s a critical part of your marketing message. How do you determine what makes you special? A blog post is not going to reveal as much information as several days of strategic planning, but here are some things to consider when determining what makes you different –also known as your “Unique Selling Proposition” or USP:

What was your path to this practice area? Your story may be similar to others, but chances are good it is a unique story. Maybe your family included a special needs member, or your grandparents were a very big part of your upbringing. Can you articulate this story in a way that others will be able to relate to it?

How did your legal education take place? Maybe you worked three jobs while going to law school at night. Or maybe you won a highly competitive scholarship. Did you attend a law school or do something as an undergraduate that was unique and different?

Is there something that you focus on that no one else does, or that few other attorneys in this area do? This is a fine line in some states, as some state bar associations are very opposed to any kind of mention of a special focus in any particular area. But if you have developed a keen skill set in tax planning, for instance, that makes you different than the attorney who simply does trusts and estates and leaves the tax planning for others.

What kind of credentials do you have above and beyond law school? We expect that you went to law school, and we expect that you have an undergraduate degree. But what are you doing that makes you stand above your peers? Have you attained special advanced credentials that set you apart from that general trusts and estates attorney? Do you have the icons to reflect these advanced credentials on your website, email signature block and your attorney profile page?

What kind of community involvement does your practice have? We have seen practices who do everything from holding an open house and serving lunch for seniors, making community service mandatory for associates and supporting countless senior-focused organizations to those who barely manage to send one person to Senior Law Day at their local bar association. Which one are you?

Knowledge is Power, Especially for Law Firm Client Intake Processes

See if this has ever happened in your estate planning law firm: A couple walks into your office. They seem a little uneasy. They don’t have any paperwork with them. You walk into the conference room with no idea of who they are, or even who made the appointment. After a brief introduction and some small talk, you learn that while they appreciate your time, they can’t afford your services.

It’s awkward for all concerned, and while all of you have wasted time, you have lost more than time. There’s now a couple in your community who, no matter how gracious you were, has been put in an awkward situation. How many people will they tell this story to?

Today, there’s no reason for this to happen, and it’s not just that law office staff are better trained.

Through the use of the IMS E2 CRM and now the automated intake system, CLIP^SM, every person who walks into your office will be very well known to you. You’ll know more than just the basics. You’ll know the size of their estate, whether they need a complex estate plan to pass wealth across generations or a simple plan to make sure that their assets are distributed according to their wishes. They will feel comfortable because they have already engaged with you and invested time with your processes–they are already full-fledged clients.

Clients engage with law firms on several different levels, so now that you have this information in advance of your meeting, you are prepared for any bumps in the road to their becoming raving fans.

You’ll have the information that will tell you what their assets are and what challenges they face. If they have a world of problems, you’ll know. And if they haven’t included it in the intake data, you’ll be able to balance the information they’ve given you through the automated intake process with what they tell you in the face to face meeting.

Often, you’ll need to bring a full court press of compassion alongside your legal skills. When you have worked with many families facing similar problems, it’s easy to disengage the emotions and proceed from a practical level. But when the clients are in your office, remember that they are watching your face for clues to your response to their situation. Consider what’s going on in their minds: “Does he think we’re idiots to have family members like this? Can she figure out a solution to the problem? Are we being judged?”

Don’t maintain a poker face when they are sharing their sorrows. This is as much an emotional relationship as it is a professional one. And don’t stint on the kindness while you deal with the legal solutions to their pain points.

Because you’ll have more information about them when they come to you, and because they have already been moved further along the funnel of becoming a client, you’ll be able to meet their needs better.

IMS is constantly innovating and improving how we serve our estate planning and Elder Law clients. We offer our clients the ability to take their practice to the next level through the use of new technology that allows you to better serve your clients. Want to know more about automating your intake process? Submit a support ticket and we’ll be happy to explain how your firm can benefit.

Marketing Mistakes That Happen After Law Firm Prospects Become Clients

Just because someone has signed a retainer to do an estate plan with you doesn’t mean you have a lock on their emotions permanently. Remember that prospects retain your services for emotional reasons as much – and often more than – logistical reasons. They may like your location, but what gets them to go through your intake process and appear at your doorstep is because they have been emotionally engaged with you. That’s what your professionally produced law firm video does.

Once you have made it through the intake process and are starting to work on their estate plan, both they and you are at a somewhat vulnerable point in the relationship. It’s like you’ve had a first date, then a second, and then they start talking to their friends about what this might lead to.

Consider this: they have told six people that they are relieved to have found a caring attorney who they feel they can trust with their lives, and the lives of their children. They have given you every document you asked for, which is not to be taken lightly. They are emotionally vested in you and your firm. When they describe their experience so far with friends, family and colleagues, they are all positive.

We hope that you don’t consider this the end of your client marketing. Because really, you are just in the first inning at this point.

Transforming people from prospects to clients is just step one. The next step is to transform them into raving fans. You want them to be able to justify the emotional and rational reason that they are letting you handle their estate plan. They may be one file out of hundreds for you and your estate planning firm. But to them, you hold their legal and financial lives in your hands.

How can you strategically manage estate planning client relationships?

Don’t let too much time go by without contact. Even if they are getting a phone call or an email with a status update on their file, don’t leave them in a vacuum. While they are waiting, they are being bombarded with messages from other estate planning law firms, including everything from invitations to educational dinners to emails and national advertisements from online legal services that seek to undermine the local estate planning attorney. Keep that communication ongoing.

If they call your office, return the call promptly. If you can’t return the call in less than 24 hours, have a colleague who knows their file or a member of your support team return the call. If you know that you won’t be able to return the call personally, have a team member call back and find out what their concerns are. Have the caller apologize on your behalf for not being able to call them. Notice the theme here: don’t leave them hanging.

Address the emotional side of the estate plan. It’s true, they are hiring you for your estate planning skills and knowledge of the law. But they are hiring a person first. Remember to focus as much on the feelings as on the facts.

Don’t be an alarmist. We have heard of attorneys who tend towards the dramatic. They might not even mean to do this, but when they start with a scary scenario that is meant to show the client how much they need the attorney, they create two problems instead. One, the client is unsettled and feels as if they are seriously at risk. That’s not an emotion you want to be associated with. The other, by setting yourself as the only solution to the problem, you risk alienating the client, who may resent positioning yourself this way.

At IMS, we work with estate planning and Elder Law attorneys to develop their strategic client relationships. As experienced advisors, we understand the dynamics that occur when a client walks in the door. Not sure your clients are having the best possible experience with your firm? Call James at 877-352-2021 ext. 80 to talk about your client relationships.