Know yourself and you will win all battles.
– Sun Tzu
Yep, this is my first “weekly” note in two weeks. Last week was a bit of a curveball, as we got a call to travel to Ohio for a last-minute trip. My wife’s father is suffering from brain cancer…and is deteriorating fast.
So we packed up the kids and headed out to see him. Wouldn’t you know those kids were just a ray of sunshine, in the midst of a tough time. Life’s like that, right? Real blessings, alongside pain. A total of about 20 hours in the car…and nary one complaint from the kids–not even a whine. Just giggles, smiles and joy from the back seats. And they sure were great with their Papa.
Alright…so why do I tell you about these details?
Simple: relationship.
You see, you get the “real me”…not some fancy pants guru, or slick marketing firm tripe, or stuffy and boring gobbledy-gook. You get me…and with it, of course, the experience of running the marketing for a multi-million dollar firm, coaching hundreds of service and financial professionals to greater success and staying on the cutting edge of what *really* works in “service professional” marketing. But still–you get to know my story.
Frankly, I’ve been often told it’s one of the key reasons that clients start with us, or stay with us for years–they really do get to know (and trust) me and my team.
And the same dynamic is in play for you in your law practice –if you take it up.
It’s the subject of this week’s Strategy Note.
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Nate Hagerty’s
“Profit For Life”
Law Business Marketing Strategy
Lifetime Clients From A Story
Everyone has a story. I don’t care who you are where you come from, there is a story behind you and your business.
Why would I want to tell my story when I’m advertising, you ask? Of course, the reason is going to be INCREASED RESPONSE! Stories sell and you very rarely see them “promoted” in the legal industry.
What do I mean by “your story” and how long are we talking about? Depending on how much space you have to work with, the story you tell can be as much as a few pages in a sales letter or email to one sentence in a yellow pages ad.
Your story could be about you and how you got started in the law. It could be, “I started working out of my home helping my neighbors with their wills, and now it’s 20 years later and I’ve got the largest estate-planning firm in the downtown area servicing our town and the surrounding five counties.”
You know YOUR story, so include it as you have the space in your ad copy.
People love stories. Growing up, we have been conditioned to listen (or pay attention) to stories. (You probably remember being read to sometime in your childhood. I think we all had or still have our favorite stories we remember.) Heck, even Jesus held people’s attention by telling stories (or parables) in the Bible.
If a strong, direct headline can get your prospect’s attention, then adding an interesting story to the rest of your piece will “keep” your reader IN your sales message better.
Adding your story to your marketing message is going to “kill many birds with one stone.” You will make your sales copy more interesting (not committing the ultimate marketing sin of being boring.) You can increase your “believability factor” and reduce your prospect’s natural skeptical nature with a story. And, finally, you can actually develop an additional Unique Selling Point if your story is good.
(You’ll totally distance yourself from your competition because they will just keep saying the same ol’ stuff and you’ll be telling a story that sets you apart from everyone else.)
If adding stories to your marketing message didn’t matter, I wouldn’t tell you about it. But I’m here to say, telling your story EVERY time (adding one line if that’s all the space you have), EVEN if you’re talking to your existing clients year after year, makes a difference.
A real simple way to do it, by the way, is with a regular monthly print newsletter, or weekly email. Just not one of those boring “off the shelf” newsletters–but one that actually gives your clients and prospects a taste of your unique personality!
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OK, you get the idea. That’s enough for now. See you next week!
Until then, God bless you–and your firm!
Nate Hagerty