Your law firm website is the core of your marketing efforts. Yet it's easy to take it for granted. We know how it goes — you spend time and trouble getting it to work like you want, and then you move on to more urgent things. But, really, constant attention is needed to keep your website working for you. Sayre Happich has good ideas for doing just that, from the experts at the 2013 Legal Marketing Technology/West. ... READ MORE

There are oh-so-many things to be grumpy about. We could start with politics. Or the traffic. Or even the coming holidays. But let's not, eh? Being grumpy is just too easy. Instead, let's shoot for the flip side of grumpy and go for grateful this pre-Thanksgiving day. Take something as simple as the size of your law firm. How many times have you thought, "If only I was with a [fill in the blank] firm, it would be different!" The truth is ... there's something to be thankful about in any size law firm. To wit, consider these things.

In his post last week, Joshua Lenon homed in on the "First Question to Ask a Client." So, at the other end of the process, when you've wrapped up the matter, what should your final question be? For many lawyers, it might just be, “Cash or charge?” Today, Joshua says that's a mistake. Just as there is much to learn from clients in the beginning of a matter, you can let closing a matter be a learning moment for you as well. This is your opportunity to learn from your clients how satisfied (or unsatisfied!) they are with your services. But how many lawyers and firms take advantage of the chance? ... READ MORE

Lawyers typically dread attending events like annual bar association fundraisers, CLE conferences — or any gathering where there will be a large number of attendees. In short, they dread the type of event where their "working the room" skills are put to the test. To make connections that bring in new clients, though, you have to spend plenty of time outside of your office — and, sometimes, your comfort zone. So let’s debunk a couple of erroneous assumptions about these events. ... READ MORE

Paying for website traffic is a great way to get into the world of online marketing because it can instantly bring prospective clients to your website. That can help get the phone ringing now, while you take time to develop other online marketing strategies, like search engine optimization, that will keep the phone ringing for […]

In this edition of "Ask the Experts," Holli McVean, office manager at Carscallen LLP, and a member of the Association of Legal Administrators, has great advice for getting all the information you need — efficiently and politely — from cold and warm calls. Question: What’s a good way to handle calls from salespeople? There are too many asking me to listen to their pitch, and not enough time to see them all. Yet some may have products or services we need. ... READ THE ANSWER

I'm frequently asked how much a law firm — especially a small law firm — should spend on advertising. The cost of advertising will differ for every law firm, of course. Advertising costs will be based on the firm's location and size, and even practice areas. Competition and target audience also come into play. Given all the variable factors, costs can be difficult to estimate. There is, however, an action every firm can take to gauge the effectiveness of its advertising. Just ask one simple question at every initial client meeting ... READ MORE

I have long believed that one of the most effective ways to build business is to build communities. And, with the popularity of social media, this view has only been reinforced. Seth Godin, the popular author and speaker, uses the term “tribes.” He says human beings have always been part of tribes, which he defines as follows: “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

Nothing trite. Nothing cliche. Just lots of specific ideas for those hard-to-please attorneys!

Collegiality is often viewed as a defining hallmark of a felicitous legal career. With the advent of virtual offices and the tethering of humanity to Internet devices, though, much of what made for traditional law firm interaction has vanished from the scene like a meteor-struck Yucatan dinosaur. What if there was a way to bring it back (even expand it), by using the very same technologies that served to rot out the personality of professionalism in the first place? Well, Mootus, a question-and-answer service for lawyers, is making the attempt. ... READ MORE