Encore – Marketing Is More Than Billboards And Blogs

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, where the trial lawyers of the Simon Law Firm break down what it takes to win in the courtroom and in life.

Erich Vieth:

Welcome to another episode of The Jury Is Out. I’m Erich Viieth.

John Simon:

I’m John Simon.

Erich Vieth:

John, today our topic is marketing and I want to start with an image. A lawyer who is one of the best attorneys in town who is sitting at the desk waiting for the phone to ring, drumming fingers on the table. No one’s calling, but they’re one of the best attorneys around. And that’s an image I want to start you out with.

John Simon:

What a great way to start, Erich. Marketing is so important. I mean, without cases, without clients, you can’t practice. You need both. You need to do a good job at what you’re doing, do the best job you can to represent your client. But that is so true. There are so many really, really good lawyers out there that nobody knows who they are. They really don’t get the best cases a lot of times. And the flip side is true also. The attorneys who are out there, and I’ll say there’s a difference, advertising, marketing, whatever you want to call it, but some of us are way better at promoting what we do than others. And I’ve worked with lawyers, very, very good lawyers who side by side office right next to them. And I did a little better job probably of promoting myself and they didn’t. And it was like night and day.

If you are really good and you’re getting good results and very few people know about it, it’s not going to help you generate business or get clients. Marketing is one of the most important things that you do. Without marketing, without clients, nothing else happens.

Erich Vieth:

Can you imagine asking 100 law students what’s the most important parts about being a lawyer? And I just suspect that marketing won’t come up. They’ll talk about their favorite things, giving closing arguments, writing an appellate brief. Marketing doesn’t seem like practicing law. As you mentioned, if you don’t have cases, then you can’t strut your stuff. You can’t do the things you really want to do.

John Simon:

It’s so important to think about business development and marketing wherever you’re at. I don’t care if you’re at one of the big silk stocking defense firms or if you’re at a two-person shop or if you’re by yourself, you need to think about business development or marketing. And in my experience, lawyers … I mean, not only do they put it second or third, I mean, most lawyers don’t even think about it. I would bet if you were honest with yourself and you asked yourself, how much of my time, overall time, have I spent on marketing versus working on cases or handling cases, representing clients? And if that’s 5%, if you actually spent 5% of your time … And I mean, thinking about marketing, developing a marketing plan, carrying it out, if you spend 5% of your time, I can almost guarantee you will have more business than you can handle or know what to do with.

Just doing good work isn’t enough. I mean, you need to do good work and you need to let people know that you’re doing good work. You need to let them know what kind of cases you handle and make them confident that if they send you a case or refer you a case, you’re going to do a good job on it.

Erich Vieth:

Remember earlier episode when I had my rant about the word losing, I thought it was the wrong word to use for an attorney who does a good job and doesn’t prevail. And I’ve got a problem with marketing. It sounds cheesy. It sounds manipulative. It reminds me of people selling Rolex watches and other things we don’t need on TV, hawking things. That word has connotations that maybe that’s one reason a lot of lawyers just get … And I’m one of them. Get a little uneasy talking about marketing. It sounds like honking horn and doing things where I’m spinning what I do. And I know you have a very different attitude about what this is all about.

John Simon:

Erik, I think it’s how you do it. You can market or try to do business development in a way that’s unethical or cheesy, as you said, or you can do it in a way that it’s something that you’re proud of. And so really, a big part of it is just not doing business development, but how you do it. Another way to think about this is I get cases … I handle cases in a very, very narrow, specific area of practice, personal injury, med mal, product liability, those types of cases. I mean, we get calls all the time on cases that we just don’t handle. It’s not something that we do. And these are from family members or friends or former clients. And you know how nice it is to be able to send those cases to somebody that we trust, that we have confidence in, we know they’re going to treat our family members or our former clients well, they’re going to do a good job on the case.

And so to me, by letting other lawyers know that you’re out there, letting them know what you’re doing, the type of cases you’re handling, and also demonstrating that you’re going to do a great job on the case, you’re helping yourself, you’re helping the client, and you’re also helping other lawyers who don’t handle those types of cases.

Erich Vieth:

It seems to me that this word marketing, which I still struggle with a bit, can encompass a whole bunch of stuff that’s not the stuff that you would learn in a business course called marketing.

John Simon:

Let me state what we’re not talking about. We’re not talking about buying TV commercials. We’re not talking about billboards and things like that. It’s purchasing advertising services. What we’re talking about and what we’re going to talk about today is what you can do on your own to develop your practice. It comes down to the one thing you and I talk about all the time, Erich, and that is it’s about building relationships. The way I do approach marketing, business development is I want other lawyers and clients, current clients, former clients to number one, know what I do. I want them to know what my practice area is, what kind of cases I specialize in. And the other thing I want them to know is that I want them to appreciate referrals. If they have a case we can help them with or handle, we would love to do that.

And so I think that’s really how you need to approach it.

Erich Vieth:

We’ve sometimes talked about compounding. It’s a term often used in the financial realm. You’re making money on your money. It’s a financial idea, but I think it applies all the time to much of what we do. You develop skills, you meet people. And over time, and this is incremental as you were saying, it’s a long-term project. And it seems like marketing is a good example of this that it seems to encompass … It’s hard to actually tamp this topic down into something specific because it seems like a good marketer is somebody who is using a life skill, not just a business skill, a life skill. The kinds of things that you don’t think about marketing for new friends, but if you’re out there meeting people, they’re getting to know you. And if they like you, they’ll call you. They’ll go out for coffee with you or take a walk with you, something like that.

It seems like it is an extension of a very basic human set of skills.

John Simon:

Get involved in things you enjoy getting involved in. If you’re trying to do things marketing wise that is just really not a good fit for you, if you don’t really like writing articles or you don’t like giving presentations, if you’re trying to get yourself to do things you don’t enjoy doing, you’re really not going to do them. You need to market in a way that you’re doing things that you’re comfortable doing. One exercise that I have done many, many times. What I’ll do a lot of times is I’ll ask myself, okay, how did I get that case? And 90 plus percent of all of our cases are on referral from other lawyers, 90%. And most of the other 10% are referrals from existing or former clients. So we have a referral-based firm primarily, and it’s always been that way. So when we get a case in, what I’ll do is I’ll say, “Okay, where did I get that case?” And it will come from a former client or most of them will come from another lawyer who referred it in.

And then the next question I ask is, “Okay, how did I meet that lawyer? How did that relationship start?” And it will go back and it’ll be at a bar function or we got a result in a case and a lawyer called us because they have a similar case, things like that. None of those things happened by me sitting in my office doing really good work on my client’s case. It happened because I was out involved in a legal organization, I was involved in some community organization or effort, or we got a result in a case that was publicized or in the paper. So I think that’s a good way to do it. One of the things that really worked for me is early on I would always publish the results of my cases, whether it was a settlement or whether it was a verdict, a verdict’s a little easier because it gets publicized.

And what that did is it introduced me to the legal community. I mean, the legal community didn’t know who I was. They didn’t know what kind of cases I was handling. And I was very lucky. I was at a firm where there were a lot of big, significant cases coming into the firm and I was able to work on them and handle them and get good results. When people hear about those results, whether it’s in the Lawyer’s Weekly or however you’re going to publish it, it kind of gets your name out there a little bit and your reputation and a couple things. People know that number one, they know what kind of cases you’re handling. And secondly, more importantly, they get to know who you are. I mean, I read the lawyers weekly or I’ll look on the listserv and I’ll see somebody who got a verdict in a case.

I’ll take note of that. And then a year or two later or six months or whatever, I might see that same attorney getting another result in the case. And all of a sudden, I know who that person is. And a lot of times I’ve never met them. I don’t know who they are, but I have formed an opinion that they know what they’re doing, they’re doing good work, they’re getting good results in their cases. So I think it’s really important to get your results out there. And I think the most important thing you can do, the most effective thing you can do from the plaintiff’s side is to try cases. Try cases and get results. There’s nothing better for business development, for marketing than taking a good case and trying that case. It’s not only do you get results, but when you get a verdict, those results are broadcast to everybody.

I mean, whether you win or lose, everybody knows about it. So what I want to do, we’ve been talking about this generally, and I want to add a little structure to it. We have a lot of marketing meetings here at our firm and with the lawyers and we look at marketing goals and plans and things like that. And I would like to handle this sort of as a marketing meeting at the Simon Law Firm, what we do with the lawyers here. The first thing I want to talk about is the importance of developing an area of expertise and why that’s important. And again, it’s not a knock on … I know there are attorneys out there with general practices, which is, I mean, that is incredibly difficult, but I think it’s much better to develop a reputation in a particular area if you’re able to do that.

If you’re not, there are other ways to market, no question. Now, if you’re my age and you’re listening to this, you’ve already kind of … Whether you picked it or not, you already have an area pretty much that is what you’re known for or your area of expertise. But for the younger lawyers listening, there’s an opportunity. Think about the type of cases that you want to handle and then do what you can to get involved in handling those cases, whether it’s at a firm and you have a choice of who you work for or whether you want to market. If you haven’t even established that area, if you know it’s an area that you want to work in, whether it’s workers’ comp or product liability or auto, truck, whatever, it is important before you start thinking about marketing to figure out what it is you want to market for.

Erich Vieth:

That process can be a long one too. I think that that’s also a project that might take a while for a young attorney to figure out any advice for how to … When you’re just starting out, you’re trying to figure out who you are and you’re also trying to market. So it seems like these are two things that don’t necessarily go well together.

John Simon:

Yeah. I think in the beginning, you’re going to handle what comes in the door and you’re going to appreciate certain types of cases over others. Some of the cases are going to interest you more. You’re going to like them more for whatever reason. What I’m saying is, you don’t sit at your desk and say, “Okay, I’m only going to handle these types of cases. Anything else comes in the door, I’m going to turn them down.” That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that you should at least be known for one or more areas of practice. And if that’s what you’re known for and you develop an expertise in those areas, it’s going to be a whole lot better for you to develop referral sources. I mean, you did a lot of consumer law stuff. You did a lot of predatory lending cases. And when one of those cases comes my way, I think of you.

It kind of makes sense from this point of view. You got to ask yourself, “Okay, I’m going to go out and market myself.” And you could say, “Well, I’m a really good person and I’m honest and hardworking and I get good results from my clients, but the people, attorneys included, who are going to send you cases, want to know what do you do? What kind of cases are you handling?” And I think that’s why it’s important to figure out what kind of cases you’re marketing for before you start setting goals or having a plan. So with that said, I think the next step, number one, figure out the cases you’re going after. And I think the second thing is set some goals. And I mean, write them down, not just something in your head, “Well, I’m going to try to do this or try to do that.

” I think almost every lawyer thinks about marketing and thinks about business development and probably 95% don’t do anything. And that’s really the disconnect. When marketing doesn’t work nine times out of 10, it’s because the attorney thinking about doing the marketing just thought about it and didn’t follow through. So I think setting goals is a must. Now, what those goals are, that can vary from A to Z. I mean, is it a certain number of cases? Is it a better quality cases? Is your goal to expand geographically? Or your goal could be something, I want to develop five new relationships a month or two new relationships a month, meet two new lawyers each month and something like that. But I do think you need to set some goals that are measurable. They’re attainable so that you can see some of your work paying off.

Erich Vieth:

Maybe we can spend just a minute and talk about the young attorney. You don’t yet have a long string of successes, but you have … So say you have one good result. Any thoughts about how to-

John Simon:

Yeah. Erich, I think it doesn’t even … When I say develop relationships, it’s something you should be doing even if you’re not looking for referrals or cases. It’s not like you go out with somebody and you say, “I’m going to take you to lunch. Hey, I’m handling these kind of cases. Send them to me. ” That’s not what I’m talking about. Go out to lunch and get to know somebody, find out something about them, about their family, how they got to the firm that they’re at, what kind of stuff they’re working on. Just get to know them. And that’s pretty much it. And you find out from them what kind of cases that they’re handling. What are you working on? What kind of cases do you handle? 90% of the cases that come our way, we don’t take and almost all of those get sent to somebody else.

And for me, it’s really important to know who you are, what kind of cases you’re working on, what kind of cases you’re taking. It goes the other way too. I mean, it’s sort of cross-marketing. I mean, I send cases all the time. I mean, there’s a very good friend of mine who does bankruptcy law and law school classmate. And for 30 plus years, if I got a bankruptcy issue, it’s going his way. And the same thing happens. Not only him, but attorneys at his firm, if they have a product case or a personal injury case, it kind of goes the other way. So it really is a service to everybody, to both attorneys and the client. As I said, because we all get cases we don’t handle criminal cases, we don’t do criminal stuff. I’ve never done criminal work. And there are attorneys here in town that through the years, if a criminal matter comes up, that’s who it’s going to.

Erich Vieth:

I’ve had many occasions where I wanted to get to know someone better and it’s somebody interesting and I’ll write them a note. “Hey, why don’t we get together and have either beer or coffee? “What I do nowadays is take a walk. It works almost every time.

John Simon:

I got news for you. Most of the lawyers you meet that are going to send you cases, you’re already meeting them and talking to them whether you go out of your way to do that or not. And here’s what I mean by that. For a couple years, I wasn’t up at court as often as I usually was. If it were motion, unless it was a real significant motion, we got a lot of younger, very qualified, competent lawyers here handling them, and I just didn’t find myself going to court that often. And I had a case that was referred in by another lawyer. We were co-counsel on the case. And with that case, it required me of being in court a lot more. And I noticed that every time I’d walk into a courtroom, whether it was in the city or the county or wherever it was, I’d run into two or three or four or five or 10 attorneys that I knew.

And that’s just having done this for as long as I have. And without question, I would strike up a conversation, I would talk to them, get caught up. No sooner than that would happen, then a week would pass and I’d get a call from them about a case or I’d have a case and kind of send it their way. So when we’re talking about developing a relationship, it’s not calling somebody on the phone and just coldly saying,” Hey, I haven’t seen you. I don’t know who you are. Let’s go have a cup of coffee. “But what we’re talking about is getting to know and developing relationships with the lawyers you already see every day. So the motion docket, talk to the lawyers, get to know them. How about at a deposition? Everybody arrives a little bit early at the deposition. You can sit there in silence and furiously scribble your notes and look at your outline and highlight it, or you might want to get there a little early.

And as a human being, get to know some people. I mean, what I’m suggesting doesn’t just get you business, but it’s what you should be doing anyway, even if you didn’t want any business. Develop a relationship with the people you work with. It’ll make your life more enriching. It’ll make you a better person. You’ll feel better at the end of the day. If you’re the kind of person that takes a genuine interest in other people, you’re going to be wildly successful in marketing and business development. Every time I go to a deposition and I meet an attorney that I haven’t met before, I want to find out something about them. Why? They might send me a case, but that’s not really why. I want to know who they are, where they’re from. Are they from here? Are they from somewhere else? How long have they been at that firm?

What kind of cases they’re working on? People are people. It works the same with attorneys. It works the same with judges, witnesses. I mean, when you talk to, you have expert witnesses or a witness you’re using in a case, it’s just really literally having a genuine interest in who other people are.

Erich Vieth:

I enjoy reaching out to people through the lectures I’ve given on appellate law or writing articles. And it’s a great excuse to just reach out to people and say,” Hey, can I pick your brain about an issue I’m working on or an article I’m writing? “And all of a sudden you’re engaged. And I like meeting the people, exchanging ideas. It makes your whole life colorful.You wake up in the morning and you think, ” Wow, I’ve got this interesting group of people I hang out with that are filled with good ideas, who challenge me when I need to be challenged. “But boy, does that change the conception of the word marketing? And if we’re talking about marketing, my gut feeling, at least on TV, radio, we’re talking about something very different. We’re talking about you taking the time to get to know people, form real relationships, valuable for both sides and actually embedding yourselves in your community.

John Simon:

Yeah. And I think the opportunities are all around us and it’s something that you should be doing, as I said, even if you’re not doing it to generate business, you should become more involved in the legal community, more involved in your bar Association. It helps the Bar Association. It helps the legal community and it helps you. I think some of the things that you can do is, as you were saying, Erich, write an article, co-author an article with somebody else. Give a seminar, participate in a seminar.YourBar Association in St. Louis, it’s Bamsel, Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis. We have so many subsections. We’ve got one from A to Z, criminal law, bankruptcy, intellectual property law, different areas of practice where you can get involved. And what a great way to get started and meet people. But you really need to get out of your office and start meeting people and letting them know who you are and what kind of stuff you’re working on.

It’s really as simple as that. So Erich, what we talked about is, number one, there’s no silver bullet. It’s a long-term process. It’s about developing relationships. I think it’s important to, if you can, develop an area of expertise, I think it’s also important to set goals, set some very attainable, concrete goals that you want to work towards. And the next thing is you don’t have a plan. And by that, I mean, what specific things are you going to do to help you reach those goals? Is it going to be reporting the results in your next settlement? Is it going to be trying to get a verdict, picking a case and trying a case to get a verdict, writing an article for the bar journal, joining a section, a practice section at your local bar. And if nothing else, going out of your way to at least start talking a little bit to the attorneys.

Half of the cases that we get in this office probably are from attorneys who are on the other side or have been on the other side of cases. And this is something you really need to think about. The lawyer who’s on the other side of your case, whether you’re a defense lawyer, bankruptcy, whatever it is, that lawyer is a potential source of business for you. And it goes the other way too. Let them know what you’re doing, let them find out what they’re doing and send them things when you can.

Erich Vieth:

It’s nonstop entertainment for me to hear people say, well, you must hate those people on the other side that the opposing counsel. There’s a lot of people to just assume we don’t like each other as human beings just because we’re on opposite sides of the case. And as you suggested, it goes far beyond that. You can not only have a relationship, you can have an ongoing referral business based upon the fact that you have mutual respect for each other.

John Simon:

At least from my practice area, most of my cases come from existing clients or past clients, and the other 90% probably come from attorneys, attorneys or judges or people in the legal profession who refer us cases. So let’s talk about the client referrals, first of all. And I think this is something that’s a big deal for defense firms. I mean, here, we rarely have the same client for two cases. Our clients are kind of one time and that’s it. Fortunate for them, I mean, based on the kind of cases that we handle. So I would think, and again, I did defense work for the first four and a half, five years. Your client relationship has to be just absolutely critical doing defense if you’re doing defense stuff. And the reason is you’re doing defense stuff, you’re going to continue to get hopefully cases from that same client for a long period of time, for 10 years, 20 years.

You want to keep them forever. So when we’re talking about the client experience is really what I want to talk about, make it a really good experience. If you’re doing cases like I am where you have one client and you probably won’t get another case for that client, what you’re doing is you’re sending out ambassadors for yourself and your firm to tell other people, “Hey, they did that. ” And I get tons of cases like that. They did a really good job, call the Simon Law Firm. And so I think you need to think through the whole client experience at your office, whether it’s a defense firm, whether it’s a plaintiff’s firm, ask yourself, “Okay, what are we doing? How often do we interact with our client and how can we make those interactions more positive or better?” And we talk about that all the time here.

I want to really optimize and make that client experience as good as it can be. Pick up the phone. Pick up the phone and call your client and show them how happy you are and enthusiastic and how hard you’re working on their case and give them good news. Call them with the good news. Let them see how hard you’re working on the case. Let them know how concerned you are about how they’re going to do. I think all of these things are opportunities, as you said, we’re always auditioning. It’s opportunities for you to really shine. And what’s going to happen is by doing all of these things, you’re going to have a happy client. That client is going to go away from you singing your praises versus the opposite, saying, “Well, whatever, I didn’t return my calls or whatever.” You’re sending people out into the community who are just singing your praises, are very happy with what you did.

Erich Vieth:

I find that the deposition prep is especially powerful. Yeah, your client will want to see that you’re a good tactician. You know what you’re doing and you know the law, but a lot of times people are emotionally fraught as these things approach. They are afraid of their deposition and your preparation of them is taking them from a scary place to hopefully, and I know you’ve heard this often I have, wow, the deposition wasn’t nearly as bad as your preparation. Your preparation got me ready for it. They didn’t even ask me one third of the things that you talked about and they appreciate that you led them emotionally from that place of danger to a place of celebration.

John Simon:

Yeah. And what I like doing too is the day after the deposition, not immediately after the deposition when they’re leaving, but let a day or two pass and then pick up the phone. And if it’s appropriate, tell your client, “Hey, I just wanted to tell you you did a really good job at your deposition.” I mean, just that call or call them and say, “Just checking in with you to see how you’re doing.” I mean, everybody listening, if you want to get referrals from existing and former clients, one sure way of doing that is making sure your client has a great experience during the time you’re representing them. Show them that you are genuinely concerned about their welfare and their wellbeing, show them that you’re competent and diligent and you’re working hard on their case. And that’s more than anything else that you could do.

And even if you don’t get the particular result, you could do all of that and not lose the case. And I think if they understand what you did and the decisions that you made and they were part of it, they’re going to understand. If you’re doing that, what you’re doing is you’re marketing by making it a wonderful experience for your client or as good of it, not wonderful maybe, but as good of an experience as you can make it. Personal connection, genuine concern, that is the key.

Erich Vieth:

I like your term ambassador. You treat your clients well and they do go out for you. And I’ve heard this so often, people will be talking to each other about their lawyer. How was your lawyer? And they don’t usually talk about the outcome, although that’s important to them. How is your lawyer usually means, is this a good person? What’s that expression? A good reputation is hard to earn, easy to lose.

John Simon:

Right. It takes you years to earn it and you can lose it in two minutes. And the other thing too, we all have websites and we’re going to talk about that in a little bit, but think about this. I mean, if you handle a client the right way and take care of them and do a good job and you ask them for a testimonial or make a comment for you on Google review, whatever it is, think how important that is. And having 15, 20, 30 good reviews. Moving to the next part of this is we’ve been talking about getting referrals and business from existing and former clients. The other thing in our practice, it’s referrals from attorneys. And here’s some of the things that we’ve done successfully over the years. One is cross referrals. Find out. Other lawyers who don’t do the same thing that you do, whether it’s criminal or bankruptcy or landlord tenant or civil rights, whatever it is, make a list of those attorneys.

And when somebody calls you, it’s real easy, you’re busy to just hang up the phone, no, reject it. We don’t handle that. But to take a little bit of time, get some information and steer that person to the other attorney, you’re developing a great relationship there. As I said earlier, when somebody sends me something, they’re on my list. Something comes up, I’m going to try to get it to them. So I think you need to really work hard on cross referrals. Secondly, meaningful involvement in legal organizations or just community organizations. A leadership position. Indirectly, it’s going to result in business for you. Don’t just sign up and, okay, I’m a member. I’m going to the Christmas party, having a couple drinks and getting out of there. Give something to the organization. Start a new section. Be the leader of a section. It will come back tenfold.

Articles, publishing opportunities. That’s a big deal. Writing an article, as we all know, takes a ton of time. Co-author it. Get somebody outside your firm, somebody else who’s in the same practice area or different, whatever, and do it together. Presentations. And when you’re a younger lawyer, you’re probably not going to be doing that many presentations. But I think the sooner you start, the better. But as we all get older, I know Erik, you do a ton of CLEs and presentations, and I do a bunch of them too. That’s another great opportunity is to do a presentation. And not just doing the presentation, but when you do a presentation for one of the bar organizations, they publicize the event. People are going to know that not only that you’re speaking and who you are, but they’re going to associate you with that particular topic, which is really important.

Blogs, things that you can write on your website about your area of practice. I think from the plaintiff’s standpoint, the single most effective thing that you can do is to report your settlements and your verdicts, period. That is just a really, really incredible way to let people know what you’re working on and showing them the results that you’re getting. So what I’m getting at here is this relationship building and all of these opportunities, they work certainly by meeting new people. But I think you can double or triple the amount of business you get from people you already know. Think about ways to continue to keep them updated and interact. Opposing counsel. I have attorneys on the other side of cases. I just tried a case and lost it. I just tried a case and lost it. And it was a two and a half week trial.

We resolved it with six of the seven parties and ended up trying against the last one. And the attorney that I tried it against, I had never tried a case against him. And we hit it off very, very well. Excellent lawyer, very professional. And we were talking about our mutual interest at breaks during the trial. And this was a few weeks ago. And I opened up my mail at the office. He sent me a book. We share an interest in philosophy and he actually sent me a book. This is the attorney who beat me at trial. And if I ever have anything in his area, it’s going to him. Okay? He’s on my list and it probably goes the other way too. So that’s a situation where we battled it out. I mean, fiercely at trial and I didn’t know him that well. I know him very well now.

And I hope they have a longstanding relationship with him and the attorneys at his office going forward. For those of us who’ve been around for a while and been doing things and we’ve got cases, and what I do is sit back a little bit and do you talk about marketing? Do you sit around? I mean, there are firms where it’s not even discussed that you actually should spend some time, set aside some time and talk about what are we doing? How can we do it better? What should we be doing? Whether some small things that … The things I’m talking about take time, but not money. There’s some things that you can do that cost money, but not a whole lot of time. But I think the important thing is it’s something that needs to be on your radar screen at all times. You need to keep talking about it.

You need to keep discussing it. I think it’s a good idea to schedule business development or marketing meetings on a regular basis. Whether they’re two lawyers or 10 lawyers, we have 14, and we do it. Every couple weeks, we sit around and a lot of times nothing’s really new or discussed. And the other thing too is be thinking about … It’s not, you don’t think about it at the meetings, you think about it all the time. Jot things down. We talked about figuring out where your cases are coming from. If they’re coming from clients, focus on the client’s experience. If they’re coming from other lawyers, focus on your relationship or the experience that referring lawyer has with you and try to make it better, enhance it and talk to people.

Erich Vieth:

You make a really good case for doing the things that you are suggesting. I still don’t like the word marketing.

John Simon:

There’s something

Erich Vieth:

About that

John Simon:

Word. And maybe it’s … You know what it is? I think I shouldn’t even say this is a marketing podcast. Okay. We should say this is a relationship podcast and there are many benefits that come out of it. And one of them is you’ll get more business. How about that? Okay. This is a relationship podcast because I will tell you, if I didn’t want any more cases, I’d still be doing the same things that I’ve recommended to people in this podcast. All of the things, trying to make your clients experience a good experience, well, you should be doing that anyway. When somebody sends you a case, being thankful about it and working hard on it and keeping them updated, I mean, what’s wrong with that? We should be doing that anyway. The lesson here is that these are things we should be doing anyway. And so it’s really not going out.

Erich, here it is. Here’s the title of the segment. Marketing without going out of your way. How about that? Because these are all things you should be doing anyway. And they all help you personally. They help you in your relationships with people, and they do bring in business. And the things I’m telling everybody, these are things I have done over the years that have resulted in cases and business being referred to me, period. And I did it not just for that reason, but I would say these things work, but you can’t make a list and go through all of these things. And the list that Erich and I are giving you, it’s 1%. There’s all kinds of things you can do. And it’s going to depend on what your practice is, what kind of cases you handle. But the idea here is you can’t just think about it.

You got to think about it, talk about it, and then act.

Erich Vieth:

Well, that’s a great introduction to, I won’t use the M word, doing things you ought to do in order to let people know what you do and that you do it well. I shouldn’t belabor that, but this is a great introduction to marketing. A lot of concepts that a lot of people don’t normally associate with marketing in a traditional business environment. So with that, we’re going to be back next time with another episode. But signing off today, this is Erich Vieth.

John Simon:

This is John Simon. Thanks for listening.

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