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What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team and systems, mastering money issues, and more; then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth-generating law firm? That’s what we do each week on the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. Hosted by Davina Frederick, founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer –– every episode is an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve (and will pay you on time), and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. The goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund, and still have time to enjoy, the lifestyle of your dreams.
Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers? Ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or 2 to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Davina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love.
Intro:Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's Devina.
Davina:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick. Recently, I was having a conversation with another woman lawyer about marketing options for small law firms, and she shared with me that she did not like seeing herself on video. So it was hard to imagine that she would create reels on Instagram or videos for TikTok. And I totally get that.
Davina:I totally understand. I do not love either seeing myself on video or hearing my recorded voice, and I know that we're not alone. It comes up frequently in conversations with other women law firm owners, especially those of us of a certain age. In this culture where women appear to be valued for youth and beauty, it can take confidence and strong self esteem to put yourself out there if you think you've passed some sort of imaginary expiration date. So comparisonitis, on social media is not reserved just for people in their teens and their twenties.
Davina:Even those of us with lots of emotional management tools in our toolboxes can get caught up in comparing ourselves with others and our lives with what we see in our social media feed. And I could tell you all day every day that other people are not judging you nearly as hard as you are judging yourself. But if you hate being on video, you likely are not going to care that I said that. So I wanted to reassure you that there are other options for marketing your law firm besides becoming an Instagram or TikTok influencer. Now if Instagram works for you and TikTok works for you, that's great.
Davina:If you're finding other ways to do it besides creating video, that's great. This is not meant to put down those options as a way to market your firm because I know a lot of people do it with success. But you don't have to dance for your supper if the mere thought of that makes you sick. So don't worry about it if you can't do it. And, instead, I want you to consider some of the other things I'm gonna share today.
Davina:The key when developing or improving your marketing strategy is to consider these kinds of elements. Alright. So this is not comprehensive, but it is a list to get you started. The first thing you wanna consider is who your ideal client is. And we're not talking about just your current clients or any old client that comes in door.
Davina:We're talking about those clients that when they call and they hire you, you are doing your happy dance and jumping for joy because that's exactly who you wish you had 20 more of. Okay? So you wanna get clear not just on the demographics of your ideal client, like their age or their gender, the professions that they work in and that kind of thing. But you also wanna get clear on the psychographics. So things like their values.
Davina:What do they value? What are their personalities? What do they value in legal services? Who influences them? Who refers them to you?
Davina:Right? Who who is an influential person over them? So who refers them to you? Is it a professional service provider, like, you know, who works in a a profession that runs alongside of yours? It has the same audience?
Davina:Is it an adult child who refers them to you? So we need to think clearly about who influences your ideal client. And and you may wanna think about who your ideal influences are influencers are too. Those people that are making those referrals to you if they're not your prospective client. You also wanna think about where your prospective clients hang out.
Davina:And by that, I mean, where do they hang out online? Where do they hang out in person? What social media apps do they use? What do they read? Where did they get their information from?
Davina:What kinds of, things that they do for social and community activities? You want to know this is very important to know where they hang out because you wanna be where they hang out with your content or your person if you're meeting with people in person. You also wanna know how they make their buying decisions. Are they impulsive? Are they researchers?
Davina:Are they influenced by others? Are they quick, to make decisions on their own? How do they go about making decisions for services like the ones you provide? Also, you wanna know the practice areas that you promote. Right?
Davina:Because there may be some that you're promoting now that you're and others that you're not promoting. And particularly if you have a limited budget or you want you find certain type of work is, an area of practice you wanna grow because it's more lucrative or you enjoy doing the work more. You wanna get clear on the geographic locations that you plan to target, specific, cities, counties, location. If you're targeting the whole state or multiple states, you wanna get really clear on what you want to target. You also wanna think about your own personality and preferences like we talked about.
Davina:If you're somebody who doesn't like being on video, you need to take that into account when you're selecting your marketing platform or vehicle. So other examples, if you hate public speaking, platform or vehicle. So other examples, if you hate public speaking, then you're never gonna be successful deploying a public speaking campaign because every time an opportunity comes up, you're gonna make an excuse not to do it. If you don't have time to write, even if you think you're a good writer and you love writing, if you don't have the time, or if you're unwilling to outsource your content writing, which would be the smarter thing to do, that tactic will not work for you either. So you get the idea.
Davina:And then there are many other factors that you might wanna consider, when you're trying to select your marketing strategy. So once you've done this homework, you've sat down and you've gone through some of the things that I've shared, it's gonna really help you narrow down your messaging. Like, who am I talking to? What is gonna resonate with them? And to determine where to place your messaging so that it reaches your target audience.
Davina:Next, you wanna ask yourself the question, do I have more time than money right now for marketing, or do I have more money than time? If you are so busy that work is coming out of your ears, and but you need a marketing strategy for a long term success, then you may decide to invest a little bit more to have done for you marketing done. If you're just starting out, you may have more time than money. Therefore, you might choose marketing tactics that take up more of your time at the beginning, but are more cost effective. Low cost organic marketing may be your best option.
Davina:If you've been in business for a while and you get a lot of business from referrals, you may be so busy you can't even think straight, until you hit a slow season. And then suddenly you're like, crap. We don't have any work. We need to go out and get work. And you may wanna consider paid marketing options to help you create a consistent referral flow and really even out that feast or famine cash flow.
Davina:My recommendations to clients is always to master one marketing tactic before layering on other marketing tactics. So, ultimately, engaging in at least 3 different marketing tactics is a great strategy that I recommend, but kind of master one before you add in the other. Personally, I might I like a mix of organic and paid options because I think they both, kind of attract different audiences and together, they're very, very powerful. So if you're camera shy, here are some options that you might want to use in your marketing mix. I think Google is a wonderful paid option for attorneys.
Davina:Most people these days use Google, like people used to use the yellow pages. So whether they're referred or not, they likely are looking you up on Google before making an appointment. Google is the number one search engine and ranking engine by far followed by YouTube, which is owned by Google. And even though it can be incredibly competitive for lawyers and law firms, it is still worth you exploring and ultimately, as you grow, probably making an investment in it. And there are two kinds of Google Ads.
Davina:Of course, now that Google owns YouTube, you also, can access YouTube ads as well. But I wanna talk about Google local service ads, which are specifically for service area based businesses aiming to connect with local customers. So these ads show up at the very top of Google search results, and they are designed in a way that Google presents them wants to present them, and they're tied to your Google My Business profile, so not your website. When you get leads from them, you're gonna it's gonna shoot people to your Google My Business profile, so you're gonna really wanna make sure that profile is maxed out. And this can be a great option for law firms as they are this is a pay per lead service, not a pay per click service.
Davina:And the but the downside is you have to go through Google's verification process, which can be cumbersome and time consuming. And if you have a virtual office, you may not be able to get through their verification process. Leads are competitive and they may be expensive. This local service ads is really designed kind of for trades, tradesmen like contractors and roofers and that kind of thing, but it also does include professional white collar services. But that is, the the list is short as to what different practice areas they will allow.
Davina:They may not allow all practice area types yet. Leads are competitive and they may be expensive depending on the popularity of your practice area in a particular geographic location. And some legal categories, as I mentioned, may not yet be available. Also, you need to know, and this is very important, that all calls from your local service ads are recorded by Google. So you can listen to them on your local service ads dashboard, but so can Google and anybody's working for Google, right, who has access to this.
Davina:This may be an issue for attorneys because of our requirement of client confidentiality. So it's something that you may wanna explore, get some questions answered, if you're considering local service ads. The other option, one that I like is Google AdWords, and this may you may have heard this as pay per click. Okay? And this may you may have heard this as pay per click.
Davina:Okay? Pay per click ads operate on a pay per click model, meaning when somebody clicks on your ad, then you pay. Google AdWords or or pay per click have a couple of advantages over local service ads in that you can dial into your target market more effectively and you can get more traffic faster than with LSAs. With pay per click ads, you have more control. You have more freedom to design your ads, choose your own keywords, set up negative keywords, and really play around with different elements of the campaign to hone it in and make it much more targeted.
Davina:Unlike LSAs, which depend on Google verification and allows Google to record your incoming calls, there's no such barrier with Google AdWords. So either of these advertising options or a combination of both of them can help you generate leads. You need to have a budget for advertising, but you can start with as little as $500 and grow from there depending on how competitive your market is. I will tell you, I do not recommend, running your own pay per click Google Ad campaigns because, we discovered this the hard way. Once we became Google certified, it opened up a whole world to us and we realized all the information Google does not share with you if you're there just trying to DIY your Google Ads.
Davina:So our company is Google Ad certified. We do. This is one of the services that we still provide for our clients, law firm owners. We set up and run Google Ad campaigns. If that's something that you wanna talk with us with us about somebody on my team, then you wanna click the link in the show notes to schedule an appointment to discuss whether that's a good option for your law firm at this time.
Davina:Alright. In addition to Google Ads, another good option for marketing if you do not like to see yourself on camera is guest podcasting. Some podcasts do record videos as well as audio, but there are still plenty of them out there that only record the audio. And it may make sense for your target marketing to appear as a guest on other people's podcast to expand your audience and your reach, and that can be a really wonderful option. The drawback backs are that you need to find the right podcast with an audience that matches the audience you are trying to reach.
Davina:You'll need to pitch the podcaster and you'll need to be prepared to not only speak on the podcast, but also to share the episode widely after it's been recorded and frequently. You can also start your own podcast, but this can be a time consuming and cost prohibitive, operation for some people. So if you're not sure you will like podcasting, my recommendation to you is to start out with making some guest podcast appearances on other people's podcast before you invest in starting your own. Alright. The third idea I have for you is in person speaking.
Davina:That's been a strategy for lawyers since the beginning of lawyers. Right? To attract referrers and ideal clients. We get out. We we educate the public through our talks and our seminars and our trainings.
Davina:It's a strategy that still works if you enjoy public speaking. The key is not only to present interesting topics to the right audience at the right time, but and this is something I think lawyers often forget, is that you wanna have next steps prepared so that you can tell the audience how they can get on your mailing list so you can continue to stay in contact with them over time. So when you're giving a speech, you wanna have something that you can give away to them. If you can collect their emails, you will send it to them. And then that way, they will be on your list and you can provide ongoing valuable information on a consistent basis that helps build that relationship and keep you top of mind.
Davina:So when they're ready for a service like yours or they know somebody who is, you will be the first person they think of. Alright. You also can use webinars. This is my 4th idea. You also can use webinars to attract clients and best referrers.
Davina:You don't need to appear on camera. If you have some well designed slides as a well written content and you have a good speaking voice, consider topics that you already are an expert in and just polish off that presentation. Set up an online funnel to drive traffic to a landing page that allows the viewers and listeners of your webinar to immediately schedule appointments with someone on your team to discuss their legal concerns. So webinars like in person speaking serve as a great way to educate an audience of refers and prospects about how you serve your clients. And also, the key key thing is you want to not just put it out there one time, walk away from it.
Davina:You wanna have some way, a landing page or something set up where they can, sign up for your mailing list and you can continue to develop that relationship with them. They now that they have identified that they're interested in this topic, in these types of services. Right? Alright. Number 5.
Davina:Facebook groups are still a wonderful source for attorneys looking for referrals from other attorneys or other moms, other parents, other businesses in your community, or just other people with whom you share a common interest. The key to success in Facebook groups is to be an active daily participant, sharing your views, commenting on things that other people are talking about, posting, sharing your opinions and resources on things that are related to the services you provide or sometimes just unrelated to. Right? If you're trying to develop relationships with people. The downside to Facebook groups, of course, is that you may reveal things about yourself that turn some people off, and you may have to have a bit of a tough skin if people disagree with you.
Davina:Don't get sucked into arguments. Don't get off track with your mission, which is to develop relationships with the people that you wanna develop relationships. Don't worry so much about the people that you don't. It's a great way to meet, quote, unquote, meet new people and network in places that otherwise you might not have access to in person and really cultivate some long lasting relationships. I have a client who got started in Facebook back in 2007, and it is a huge referral engine for her business, even though she no longer sort of goes in groups and talks about the type of services she provides.
Davina:She continues to post on Facebook and has made a lot of friends that way and gotten a lot of referrals that way. And built a multimillion dollar business, kind of on the backs of that strategy. Alright. So these are just a few ideas to consider if you want to market your business without using video. So for more ideas, you might wanna check out I wrote a whole book on this topic.
Davina:Okay? So you might wanna check out my book. It's called the wealthy woman lawyer's guide to marketing in the virtual age, and you can get your copy by clicking on the link below. I've recently received a shipment from our distributor. They had some leftover books in the warehouse from the our last order, and they sent me about a 100 books, both my systems book and my marketing books.
Davina:And I need to give them away because I don't have long term storage in my office. So if you want a free copy, click on the link below. You have to pay the shipping and the handling, and I will send you the book for free. You if you don't wanna do it that way, you also can purchase my books on Amazon. They're $19 for a hard copy, more or less, and about $10 for the Kindle version.
Davina:So if you don't wanna wait, you wanna go get that Kindle version right away, you could do that as well on Amazon. And I think maybe Barnes and Noble as well. Alright. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I will be back next week with more content created specifically for women law firm owners like you.
Davina:So chat soon.
Intro:If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthy woman lawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.