Lawyer Up Your Marketing: Breaking Free From Scarcity and Commanding Your Worth

Have you ever wondered why your law practice isn't growing as expected, despite your best efforts? It might be time to scrutinize your client acquisition strategy and mindset. I'm your host, Jennifer Goddard, and in this eye-opening episode, we dare to explore the common yet perilous practice of over-relying on a single mode of client acquisition. Whether you're all about referral marketing, live workshops, or paid advertising, the danger is the same: putting all your eggs in one basket can limit your firm’s growth and create power dynamics that don't serve your best interests.

The journey doesn't stop at just identifying the problem. Together, we'll navigate towards solutions that can redefine your marketing game. We'll discuss the dire need to diversify your acquisition methods and the transformative power of an abundance mindset. Learn how to rightfully value your services, avoid the trap of constantly lowering your fees, and make strategic decisions for long-term growth. We'll also delve into the importance of investing in marketing - not as a mere expense but a worthwhile growth mechanism. By the end of this episode, you'll be armed with actionable tips and a fresh perspective to attract high-quality clients, command your worth, and guide your law practice towards long-term success. So tune in - it's time to shift from scarcity to abundance!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, welcome to the marketing law cast. I'm your host, jennifer Goddard. Today we're going to talk about how to lawyer up your marketing, break free from scarcity and command your worth.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Before we dive into today's episode, a special shout out to our sponsor, QuidproQuo. Are you a law firm looking to scale or sell your practice? Qpq's expert team can help you unlock your firm's full potential. Stay tuned for valuable insights brought to you by QPQ.

Speaker 1: 0:27

So today we're talking about how to lawyer up your marketing, break free from scarcity and command your worth. I really want to focus on two of the biggest mistakes that I've seen lawyers make over this past year particularly in 2023, that really stopped their law firm growth cold, and they're common mistakes, not just by lawyers, but by anyone that's in business. The first one is relying too heavily on a single client acquisition strategy, and what I mean by that is you kind of have like all your eggs in one basket, and if anything happens to that basket, then the eggs are all going to fall out. In this world that we live in right now, things are moving rapidly, and so it's very risky to rely on one method of getting new clients into your law firm. Now let's talk about some of the risks, as well as some of the upside potential of the things that I see lawyers focusing on to bring new clients into their law firm. The first one is referral marketing. So it's great. It's a great way to grow your practice by utilizing referral relationships and working on nurturing those referral relationships. But a risk comes when you rely too heavily on referral marketing, and the risks are that your referral sources can start to have entirely too much power in your law firm and some people that maybe were good referral sources can start to be more demanding, asking for discounts or special treatment, trying to tell you that you shouldn't be raising your fees or you shouldn't be charging this much. So there's a loss of control that comes or can come when you rely on referral marketing. Another aspect of referral marketing that can be a risk is your referral sources can dry up. You don't have any control over that. They can start to focus their practice on something other than estate planning and just quit referring clients for estate planning. Another aspect that is a downside of referral marketing is you don't really have control over the ebb and flow of those referrals. So you can't really scale your practice because you don't have predictability and reliability with referrals. Also, referral sources can be fickle. They can send their referrals elsewhere. So it's not something that you can really rely on, predict and scale. So while we want to have referrals in the law firm, we don't want to be dependent or totally reliant on those referrals.

Speaker 1: 3:22

The second one is conducting live workshops. Now I think everybody went through sort of the shock during the pandemic when those who were really strong live workshops got completely shut down. Now we're hopeful that that's never going to happen again, that you will always be able to meet with people in person and in small and large groups, but you don't want to be ruled by them, and here are some of the downsides of live workshops. The first one is just the wear and tear on you, just the fact that you have to keep doing them and they're taking up your time. The second one is the costs. Costs can really escalate and you don't really have any control over some of those. Marketing costs, printing costs, publishing costs, venue costs Everything with inflation is going up, so there can be like a dip in your ROI. The other thing is about live workshops is they tend not to attract the very best client. They can really limit you in terms of getting those high net worth clients. Another downside of live workshops is they tend to give you it's a feast or famine situation. They will give you a lot of leads all at once and then those leads dry up.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Some people also will put all their eggs into one basket of paid advertising. They may choose to advertise on Google paper click or Google local service ads or Facebook ads, and if one of those platforms starts to work really well, typically you'll see that people will concentrate their budget onto one platform. Again, this is highly risky and the reason is these platforms change all the time and their goal is to get you to spend more money. So sometimes what we see is that, over time, a platform that has been performing really well, the client acquisition costs, will start to creep up. So you want to have a more balanced approach across your paid advertising and not put all of your eggs in one basket.

Speaker 1: 5:39

The fourth area where I see sometimes hyper concentration is in search engine optimization. Again, google changes the algorithm all the time, sometimes several times a day. They this year have Google released several core updates to their algorithm that completely changed the game. So it's a moving target to try to stay in that local map pack, to try to stay on page one. You definitely want to put effort into search engine optimization, but you never want to find yourself in this situation where all of your eggs are in that basket. Google changes the algorithm. Your website just drops out of search, perhaps for a day, perhaps for a month. So you really want to have a much more balanced approach With our clients.

Speaker 1: 6:37

We work with what we call a growth acceleration roadmap that takes into account your budget and your market position, and we look at all of these things. We look at your referral networking how well your referral marketing is performing. We look at whether or not you even want to do live workshops. Then we also look at your search engine optimization and then we also look at email marketing. We work at building your trust and credibility. We look at branding. So there are a lot of things that go into accelerating your growth, but the key takeaway is to not focus on one avenue of client acquisition but to make sure that you have a balanced approach.

Speaker 1: 7:24

The second mistake that I've seen, particularly in this past year, is succumbing to what I call a scarcity mentality, and when I talk a little bit about what that is, a scarcity mindset in your business or your law firm is this cognitive framework where you perceive resources, opportunities and successes as very finite and limited. This mindset leads to a focus on competition instead of collaboration, fear of taking a risk and kind of a focus or preoccupation with loss rather than potential gain. It's often manifested in extremely conservative business strategies, reluctance to invest in new ventures or in marketing efforts and a tendency to view the market as a zero-sum game where you know if you spend a dollar here, that means you've lost a dollar somewhere else. This mindset can really put the brakes on innovation. It can stifle or stop your revenue growth and it really creates a work environment for you and for your staff that's driven by fear and short-term thinking rather than that long-term vision and that concept of abundance, that there's an abundance of opportunity. There's an abundance of potential out there. Are you ready to unlock your firm's full potential? Our partner, quidproquo, can help you do exactly that with a comprehensive valuation of your business. What will you gain from a QuidProQuo valuation? A snapshot of your firm's value landscape, a detailed analysis of your firm's financial, health and growth avenues, a comprehensive assessment of six key value factors, tailored recommendations for growth and workbook-style questions for strategic thinking. Sounds like there's everything to gain and nothing to lose. Contact QPQ today at info at quidproquolawcom or visit them online at quidproquolawcom and set up a clarity call.

Speaker 1: 9:58

To get started today, let me talk about six ways that scarcity mindset stops you in your tracks. First, when you have a scarcity mindset, you can start undervaluing your own services. You get afraid to raise your prices because you're afraid that if you charge premium fees, you're going to drive clients and referral sources away. It really signals to clients that the services could be of lower quality. When you come in with a very low price, there's a cognitive dissonance between what you're talking about in terms of how important it is to solve this problem, how much is at stake and how much is at risk, and then the price that you quote. When you come in with that low price, you tell the client two things Firstly, there apparently is no real sense of urgency this is a commodity price and secondly, there's no real value here. So when you have this scarcity mindset it really becomes difficult to articulate your own value. You have to believe that your prospects have abundance, that they will value and they can afford quality services. And when you have the scarcity mindset you kind of struggle to articulate that value. And if you can't articulate your own value then you can't command premium fees.

Speaker 1: 11:45

The second way that scarcity mindset can stop you cold is, with an over emphasis on competition, going back to undervaluing your services. A scarcity mindset will drive you to lower your fees. You don't want to lose this prospect who is now in front of you. So you will unnecessarily lower the price because you're so afraid that this prospect is going to get away and you won't get anything. So mentally you're coming from a place of fear and you lower the price because you're thinking from a position of scarcity. And you assume then, or you project then, that everyone that comes to you has that same feeling, that same scarcity mentality. And if you're experiencing that it could be because you are fostering it. You have that scarcity mentality. So when people come in, they pick that up from you and they begin to have a scarcity mentality as well. They may not have even come in with that, but you can create it. So when you create that scarcity mentality in yourself and in your prospects, then it's just a race to the bottom in terms of fees and you can never command premium fees. You also will find you can never be the lowest price, no matter how low you place your fee structure, no matter how low that price is that you quote. If you have planted the seed of this scarcity, your prospect will find a cheaper price. You can go all the way down to buying documents off the internet for $9.99. So that's how that scarcity mentality that begins in you can then manifest itself in your prospects and drive your prices down and actually prevent you from engaging clients because you can never be the lowest price option.

Speaker 1: 13:58

The third way that scarcity mentality really stops your revenue growth is this fear of taking any sort of risk, a reluctance to number one, innovate, to invest in your practice. I see it all the time. If you're in some of these Facebook groups online of estate planning professionals, you'll see it becomes almost like group think. It's like we're not looking for the best solutions, we're looking for the cheapest. Those kinds of thoughts are very contagious and instead of saying I wanna provide the very best experience for my staff, myself and my clients, who has the best document drafting software? Who has the best CRM? Where can I find the best copier? You see the difference when the conversation starts to go around the cheapest and I have seen people suggest that you change document drafting systems to save $100 a month and I know when I see that conversation that scarcity mentality has taken over in the person that's writing that. And then it becomes contagious and it really comes also to play on limiting the marketing.

Speaker 1: 15:32

The scarcity mindset leads to making the absolute smallest possible investment in marketing. The assumption is that I'm better to save that money than to spend it on marketing and that's necessarily going to limit your visibility and your reach and your lead flow. That scarcity mindset can really undermine any effort that you might have to to attract high value clients. Because I will tell you that if you are sitting in your conference room across from somebody who has built a business to 10 or 15 million dollars in value or more, I promise you they didn't get to that revenue level with a scarcity mentality. They got to that revenue level with an abundance mentality. And you know the stronger frame in any conversation will take over and what I mean by that is their abundance mentality that they walk in the door with can be overcome by your scarcity mentality. So if you are more afraid than they are confident, you will infect them with your scarcity mentality. You can bring them into a mindset of fear and of scarcity because your mindset is the stronger frame in that conversation and it begins with how you market yourself. If your website, if you are marketing, smacks of DIY and amateurism, you are setting that frame from the very beginning that we are all afraid to spend any money here and you are going to attract more clients or more prospects who share that fear.

Speaker 1: 17:36

The fourth area is these client relationship dynamics that come right from your mindset. So you are attracting price sensitive clients and even when you get clients in or prospects in who aren't starting out as necessarily price sensitive, that they have an abundance mentality, like I said before, your scarcity mentality can infect them. The fifth way shows up is with having a very short term focus. I've talked to prospects who will not commit for a year for their marketing. So you say, well, okay, what would you commit to? And when you kind of get them down to what they're really looking for, they want something immediate. I would commit to a month, maybe three months, and I know that that is not going to be a good client for us for integrity marketing solutions, because that person does not have a long term strategy or a long term focus. They have got a scarcity mentality and they're going to try to limit everything. They want to invest the least amount and expect the sun, the moon, the stars to be delivered for that small amount of investment and if things don't happen immediately, they're going to go off to the next thing. That will stifle any law firm growth. So when I talk to someone who says, well, I'm there, is no way that I would make a 12 month commitment. I know that they've fallen into this scarcity mentality and unless I can coach them out of that and help them see the opportunities and have a mentality of abundance, then they're going to have a very hard time having any kind of success.

Speaker 1: 19:38

The sixth way that this scarcity mentality can stop your law firm in its tracks is it has an impact on your performance and your staff performance. Because when you're living in this concept of contraction and of scarcity, you are stressed, you are frustrated and you're filled with anxiety, and none of us performs at our best as a business leader, as a manager, as an advisor and counselor to our clients. None of us performs at our best when we are fearful, when we are stressed and frustrated and when we're filled with anxiety. So we find that this scarcity mentality which, as over this past year, has been so easy to fall into, it's kind of like a circular reference or a self fulfilling prophecy. You have a scarcity mentality. What do you experience? Scarcity. But the opposite is also true. If you can maintain a mentality or a framework of growth and of abundance, then you can experience growth and abundance. But it's not going to happen if you stay stuck in this mindset that everything is scarce, in this feeling of contraction, I want to give you some strategies. If this is something that is hitting home with you, if you think, well, I might have fallen into this over the past year, or I'm at risk of falling into it. Occasionally I can feel it coming up in myself.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Here are some strategies to help you break out of that scarcity mindset and get back into positivity and abundance and growth. The first one is to practice gratitude. Last week, during Thanksgiving week, I did a podcast on how we can transform our law firms with gratitude. I would encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. Practicing gratitude shifts our focus away from what we don't have and from what is wrong to being grateful for what we do have and what's going well. The second way to shift this mindset is to set yourself very clear, very positive goals and then reflect and reassess your progress towards those goals on a regular basis.

Speaker 1: 22:21

The third way that you can start shifting your mindset is to make an intentional investment in your personal development and your personal fitness. If we feel good, we're going to be more positive and we're going to perform better. Making an intentional investment in your personal development. It's like saying I value me, I have worth and I'm going to invest in myself, whether that's a fitness goal, a learning goal or a community relationship goal from being more social. That leads me to the fourth one, which is those community relationships. We don't function very well in isolation. We all need to nurture our social connections. I don't mean, by getting involved in social media, more about setting the phone down, walking away from the computer and actually interacting with people, developing a community.

Speaker 1: 23:28

The fifth strategy is to celebrate successes, even when things are going poorly. Find the things that are going well and celebrate them. It kind of is hand in glove with that practice of gratitude to be grateful for those things but also to recognize them in yourself, in your staff, in your family members, in your business. Wherever you find a success, take some time to highlight it, to recognize it and to celebrate it. That will give you resilience against that scarcity mindset. It will help develop that mindset of growth and abundance. You'll see it pay off when you find that your prospects are less price sensitive because you haven't infected them with a scarcity mindset. It will pay off when you attract prospects who have a growth mindset and they're not risk averse and they are willing to recognize your value and pay for it. It'll pay off for you.

Speaker 1: 24:44

When you find that you have more confidence about investing in your marketing, you say, yes, I understand, I need to have a balanced approach and so we're going to need to throw a few more dollars at this to invest in ourselves. You really have a hard time doing that when you're coming from a scarcity mentality. You make better choices when you come from a mindset of abundance and growth and you save yourself. I see how that could help me grow Instead of oh, that's going to cost some dollars that I could have held on to. Finding that balance away from that contraction and that scarcity and into a mindset of abundance and confidence will really be a key to growing your practice. Be aware and be on guard against the scarcity mentality. It is very contagious and it's very easy to drop into that and it will make you unhappy, filled with anxiety, stressed out, frustrated, burned out, and it will stop your growth in its tracks.

Speaker 2: 26:02

That's a wrap for today's episode and a big thank you to our sponsor, Quid Pro Quo. Quid Pro Quo is your partner in law firm success, offering expert guidance on scaling, selling and optimizing your practice. With a team of experienced professionals, they bring real world insights to the table. Are you ready to take your law practice to new heights? Visit their website at wwwquidproquolawcom to learn more and start your journey toward a thriving and sellable law firm.