How To Make It Rain

Applying Solo Rainmaking Secrets To A BIG Law Firm

Kxxxxx,

How exciting!  I hope you don't think me presumptuous by sharing an observation of what may be very obvious to you (it's not very obvious to the majority of attorneys in mid & big firms).  OK here it goes. . . when you peel back the veneer of a big law firm what you find is a collection of smaller law firms and solo practitioners.  The more you can think of yourself as a solo practitioner and treat the attorneys around you as clients and referral sources just as you would if you were actually a solo, the more success I predict for you.  Just like an individual store in a shopping mall.  The mall operators and the larger law firms provide a variety of services for you which relieve you of a lot of responsibilities and you might even pick up some business just from the foot traffic of the stores/lawyers around you - but at the end of the day the economics of a large firm and a solo are pretty much the same.  First you have to bring in enough business to pay your share of the overhead.  Then you have to bring in enough to pay the operators their profits and what's left over is what you can claim as your own. I would very much encourage you to sit down & write out a business/Rainmaking plan so you can make the most of the extra free time the firm will provide for you by them taking care of so many of the mundane things solos have to deal with and use that time wisely to make it rain, not just bill more hours.  I don't mention it often on the How To Make It Rain site but in the past I have done a fair amount of consulting with mid-size firms and have helped a ton of lawyers who have come out of big firms.  So don't hesitate to send me an e-mail with any questions.  .  .and check out the free e-book "Ten Rainmaking Mistakes Made By Solo Practitioners"  I promise, most of them are being made by lawyers struggling to find success in big firms too!

Again congratulations!

RJON

An Important Cautionary Tale About Defending Your Boundaries

Hello Everyone,

I've decided to share the following exchange with a formerly-satisfied Rainmaking Client of mine.  My reasoning for sharing this is twofold:

1st - So you know.  I try to keep a policy of complete transparency and don't hide the bad so that you can rely on all of the good.  (Lesson # 1: Anyone who tells you s/he is perfect is LYING to you); and

2nd - Because so many of you have written, called and shared with me in person during coaching & consulting sessions stories about feeling you are being held hostage by a client.  Hopefully it never gets as extreme as you will read below.  But I wanted to let you know you're not alone and how important it is to set & defend your boundaries, lest your clients, your staff, your adversaries take your prisoner and walk all over you.

Remember though, always be as nice as you can without going so far as to allow yourself to be abused.  Never lose your empathy for others.  And don't ever let the poor behavior of other people become an excuse to act differently towards them than you would hope they could find it in themselves to act towards you because years from now the only feeling you'll have left is regret for your own conduct.  .  .



"Earlier in the week we sent you a revised version of the Ten Rainmaking Mistakes E-book.  The revision was the removal of (NAME DELETED)'s testimonial.  (NAME) is becoming aggressive about seeing the change made. Please escalate this to the top of your list and attend to it as soon as possible.  Send me an e-mail to confirm when the change is made.  Also, please do another sweep of the site to be sure all references to NAME have been removed so that when someone does a Google search we have done all we can to distance ourselves from NAME DELETED."

NAME DELETED,

This is the e-mail I sent to my webmaster a few days ago - before your call to me yesterday.  I use an outside service and unfortunately we don't always get "instant" attention to all of our requests.  More than a month ago when you first requested it, I asked them to remove your testimonial from the site, which contrary to your statement below, you gave me written permission to use (see attached).  I am sorry their first sweep of the site missed the testimonial in the e-book but all reference to you was removed elsewhere on the site. 

I will forward confirmation to you as soon as I get it from the webmaster service, that the change has finally been made to the e-book. 

With regard to your not-so-subtle threats to me, I would say that your disability is not my fault and I would advise you, now that you are in your self-described "right mind", to take whatever steps you or your caretakers deem necessary to prevent you from making me "uncomfortable".  Perhaps write a letter to yourself to remind yourself of the reality of the situation.  Perhaps a video message to yourself. Perhaps have yourself committed for your own safety and security.  Do not delude yourself to believe that you bear no responsibility for the consequences of your words and actions.  If you permit this to escalate by your failure to take adequate precautions you alone will bear the responsibility. . . and the consequences.

Please know that I say this with no malice towards you whatsoever.  I have the utmost empathy for you and wish you only the best.  However I also know that people with your condition sometimes tend to try & shift the burden of their disease to others.  I hereby refuse to accept any such burden as it is entirely not my problem and I have done all that I can to accommodate you.  Unfortunately though, the whole world does not bend to my will by the press of a button or else I would relieve you of your suffering too.

With only the best of hopes for your well-being,

RJON ROBINS

On 8/18/07, NAME@bellsouth.net <NAME@bellsouth.net> wrote:Dear Rjon,

I have emailed you and called you and talked to you on Friday, August 17.

I have wanted you to take my name off of your website, along with any of the language which you are attributing to me.

You have agreed and claimed you have told your webmaser to remove my name.

I do not want any hits to come up for your website if my name, (NAME DELETED), is put into a search engine.

I hope that is clear enough for you.  You do not strike me as dumb.

As I have told you, I have a mental illness, bipolar mood disorder. I was on the upswing of a manic phase when I wrote that email to you which you have, without my consent, turned into a reference.  Thoses are the words of a disabled person and do not reflect how I speak, think, or talk when I am rational. Within a month of writing those words I was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward.

Please remove my name and any language that you attribute to me from your website. As I have told you, I wish to file a Motion to Seal with the Florida Supreme Court so it's action with regard to my bar membership also does not appear as a hit when my name is put into a search engine.

Then I intend to resign from the Florida Bar.

I am not going to go away, and the situation could conceivably get uncomfortable for you if I have a relapse of my mental illness. I hope this doesn't happen, but my illness is serious enough that I am on disability. People with a diagnosis of Bipolar 1-manic aggressively bother people who become the focus of their attention, with negative consequences for the mentally ill person and embarrassment ,  and extremem inconvenience for the person they are bothering. You don't want this to happen, and certainly I don't.

Please honor your promise to remove all traces of me from your website.

NAME DELETED

I would love to start my own practice. . . Is this possible?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Luke Lxxxxxxxxx" <xxxxxxxx@charter.net>
To: rjon@howtomakeitrain.com
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 8:37:59 PM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
Subject: Question from Law Student

Hi RJon,

I am a law student in Minnesota and would love to start my own practice right out of school.  Is this possible?  I still have 2 years of school left, but I know this is my dream….can you provide any advice? 

 

Thanks!

Angie Lxxxxxxx

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Angie & thanks for the great question!

The answer is absolutely, positively YES.  And I'm especially happy to see that you are thinking ahead which distinguishes you from so many other law students I have met over the years both back when I was in law school and ever since who seem to think that the only "acceptable" choice out of law school is to get an impressive job with a big firm.

Reality check: Across the United States, more than 50% of the lawyers are actually solos!  Click HERE to check out this & some other interesting statistics in the Press Room section of How To Make It Rain.com 

The fact of the matter is that when the big firms come to campus they're typically only going to be interested in Top 10 Graduates who are willing to kill themselves "for the good of the firm" in hopes of someday climbing to the top of the pyramid and being able to leverage off of other top 10 graduates who will kill themselves to support those at the top of the law firm structure.  This is just the basic economic structure of a large law firm and is shocks me that so few law schools feel obligated to equip their students with a fundamental understanding of how a law firm business actually works.

OK, but back to your question. . . yes, it is absolutely possible and realistic to expect to graduate from law school two years from now and open a successful law firm of your own.  But you have to recognize that your J.D. isn't going to necessarily equip you to run a successful law firm BUSINESS.  It's only going to prepare you to go to work for one, and the traditional J.D. curriculum doesn't even address some of the more important skills you'll need to thrive in a law firm environment either!  So the upshot of all this is that if you want to open your own law firm in two years you are going to have to develop your own "shadow curriculum" to equip yourself with the book skills and get some practical experience too.  Here's what I suggest:

1. Read David Maister's Managing The Professional Service Firm to get a basic understanding of the various strategies available to you and not inconsequentially to recognize the strategies being employed consciously or unconsciously by your soon-to-be competition so you can find your niche and compete effectively right away even amongst the largest firms with the most experienced attorneys

2. Read Foonberg's How To Start & Build A Successful Law Practice to get a practical overview of all the skills you're going to have to learn in order to run your firm effectively - remember you're going to spend half your time running the firm so you better know how to do it well.  And this classic gives a great overview with lots of practical tips.

3. Read Michael Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited.  I actually prefer this one on audio which is read by the author to get instruction on how to develop systems & procedures for your law firm so that it doesn't end up eating you alive and making your miserable.  Sorry to be blunt but that's the reality. . . a huge percentage of lawyers are simply stumbling along hardly able to get out of their own way with a completely screwed-up relationship with their business and consequently with their families and themselves.  Systems = Freedom.

4. Listen to my own How To Market A Small Law Firm - You can get it for FREE when you subscribe to my Bronze Coaching program and even though you're not even graduated from law school yet, I highly recommend you begin marketing NOW.  How do you market legal services when you're not even a lawyer you ask?  Go ahead & listen to my program and then send me a follow-up e-mail once you have the basic foundation and I'll be happy to elaborate (That's why I took the time to record everything, so I wouldn't have to keep repeating myself)

5. If you can find it, read Mark McCormick's "The Terrible Truth About Lawyers"  It's been out of print for about 20 years but Amazon can sometimes help you find a used copy.  Read it.  Re-read it.  Remember forever that clients hire you for THEIR reasons, not yours.

OK, that should get you started on your book skills.  Now here's what I suggest you do about getting some practical skills. . .

A. Begin offering paralegal services to friends & family.  Help them fill out forms, help them by doing research on issues they need to understand.  Check with your local State Bar to understand how far you can go as a "Paralegal" without violating Bar Rules and offer all the services that are allowed but for a fee.  That's right, I don't want you to do any of these services for free not even for your family.  I want you to get them to sign an engagement letter acknowledging that you have disclosed that you are not an attorney, that they will not not rely on you for legal advice but only for providing the types of services your State Bar says you can offer, and agreeing to your hourly rate or negotiated flat fee.  I want you to keep track of the time you spend helping your friends & family.  I want you to ask them to give you a deposit for anticipated fees & costs and review my free course entitled "A Simple System For Managing Your Trust Account That Won't Make You Feel Like A Schmuck".  Set up a filing cabinet in your home or dorm room or wherever to keep your billing files, your engagement files and your substantive work files and devise & test a filing system that works for you.  It's ok by the way if you want to give your Mom a bill showing the amount of time and the steps involved in solving her problem and then to give her a "courtesy discount" to zero-out her bill.  But you MUST get used to doing all of these things or else you will suffer when you get out of law school, pass the bar exam and have to do all of these things for real or else miss a meal.

B. Get a job with a big firm as a clerk.  It's important to know what you're missing.  And as I've said above, it's also important to have good systems & procedures.  I don't often have alot of great things about big firms but they do tend to have great systems & procedures that you can learn from and copy.  Spend alot of time in their mail room and file room to see how they do it.  Study the architecture of their computer system.  Get comfortable with their file management software, billing software and appreciate the dollars & cents value of their documents and forms library so they don't have to keep reinventing the wheel.  Absorb the essence of the place so you can project the same level of professionalism when you open your own law firm.  Figure out who the Rainmakers are and make friends with them - those relationships can be valuable to you in the future - but don't get sucked into the cult of personality you find in many large firms. And don't stick around if you find yourself in a big firm that's poorly organized.  You're there to LEARN.

C.  Go to the courthouse and  learn where everything is.  Since you're a law student you can ask a million "dumb" questions of the clerks, judicial assistants, and passing lawyers without feeling embarrassed. Where do you go to file pleadings?  Is there an after-hours drop box & how does it work?  How do you get an emergency hearing with a judge?  How do you know which judge to call if you need a TRO on the weekend?  Can you get a tour of the clerk's office?  Howabout sitting in on motion calendar in a Judge's chambers?  Walk around, introduce yourself and ask. .  .the worst thing anyone's going to say is "no" but I suspect you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that alot of judges and even the Clerk of Court him/herself will be impressed with your initiative and go out of their way to familiarize you with the way things work so it won't be such a scary mystery to you.  Then go to another courthouse and notice that they are all organized pretty much the same way.

OK, that's it for today.  Keep me posted on your progress!

RJON

Calling All Starving Real Estate Lawyers

If you are a real estate lawyer and you're starving, then I want to speak with you.  Because of the recent and dramatic slowdown in the real estate market I'm encountering more & more real estate lawyers who are beginning to suffer.

• If you're having to tap into your savings or worse, into your line of credit to maintain your office.
• If you're struggling to find a way to keep your staff busy each week.
• If you've already called-in every favor and gone back to the well enough times to know that it's now dry.

If any of the above are at all familiar to you, then I want to speak with you. . . because I have some advice learned from the LAST TIME this happened in the late 1980's that could literally make the difference between feast or famine for you and your family.  I may also have an opportunity that can generate some much-needed cash flow for you. . . and help your former clients too.

Interested?  Send me an e-mail to: RJON@HowToMakeItRain.com and tell me:

-What State you practice in.
-Approximately what percentage of your practice is Real Estate closings vs. the rest.
-How long you've been in your current practice.
-Approximately how many closings have you performed in the past 5 years.
-What is the approximate value of the average property you've handled legal work for.

Of course all information will be confidential & I'll reply to let you know I've received the information and when we can schedule a no-charge telephone appointment.

How much is YOUR time worth?

I struggled to choose the right subject line for this post.  In the end I decided to focus on asking readers to consider how much your time is really worth to you.  Not how much you may charge for your time, but how much your time is really worth to you because we only get one ride through this life and we have to learn to cherish every moment.  Part of cherishing every moment for me and my Rainmakers is figuring out what's worth learning the hard way vs. what skills are better to learn from someone else's mistakes.

Mr. Dxxxxx,

Thanks for the compliment!  The answer to your question is that my Mom built her $1M/year web-based business by NOT wasting money on hucksters who claimed to be able to do it all FOR her.  Instead, she invested in herself and learned how to promote herself online.  She did eventually hire a web company to manage her website though not until after she already had a basic working knowledge of how to do it all herself.  This approach not only saved her a ton of cash but more importantly, it prevented anyone from being able to hold her hostage. 

I'm not saying you can necessarily build a multi-million dollar law practice all by yourself with only the skills you'll learn in my $39/month coaching program.  But you can definitely build a solid firm that doesn't have you pinching every penny like you said in your previous message that you have to do now.  The fundamentals still work pretty well and that's what I stick to, no "magic formula" or any other kind of b.s. "secrets".  In fact I'll make you this promise. . . not only will I NOT "reveal" any kind of big "secrets" to you, I'm pretty sure once I lay everything out for you in step-by-step fashion each week in the Bronze program, you'll probably look back at it and see that if you had thought enough about it and been organized enough and disciplined enough and invested enough time making all the mistakes I've made over the years you could have figured it all out by yourself. 

THAT was the point of the testimonial I shared with you.  That lawyer had already made enough mistakes on his own to have figured out what I had to say so he didn't need me to lay it all out for him.  My materials are designed to short-cut the learning process for lawyers who would rather spend their time doing the RIGHT things instead of spending ten years figuring out all the wrong things not to do.

RJON

3 hour call backs & how the pizza guy cost one lawyer alot of business

Hi Joe,

Have you received your How To Market A Small Law Firm audio program yet?  AFTER you've had a chance to listen to it, please send me an e-mail if you still have those IP-specific questions.  Not sure I agree with your 3 hour call back rule though. 

Have you seen an ezine article I've written about the so-called "sundown rule" most lawyers try to live by?  That is, they try & call their clients back before the end of the day.  In my experience that's a mistake.  Puts alot of pressure on the lawyer and fails to give the client what they want most which is to bring some measure of predictability to what is for most a very scary and foreign experience that's way outside their comfort zone.  Instead I'd suggest you try to get in the habit of scheduling telephone appointments with your clients rather than bust your butt to try & call them back within 3 hours if 3 hours isn't convenient for you, not enough time to find the answer so you can resolve their question in one call instead of two and 3 hours may not even be convenient for them either.  Better in my experience to just schedule a call back appointment so everyone can relax and maximize the efficiency of the phone time together. 

The point of the pizza story is that our staff has as much to do with our success as the quality of our substantive work.  In that real life example, the lawyer's assistant lost her a good client who has alot of business to give because the assistant was doing what was most convenient for herself not what was most convenient (and most respectful) to the paying client who was standing there like a jerk now running late because the freakin' pizza guy was more important to her than me. 

Let's just balance out the priorities and look at this objectively. . . I'm paying you $3,000.  I hire lawyers for this exact same kind of work on a pretty consistent basis.  Between me and all the people I refer to real estate attorneys I probably represent well over $50,000 of work per year.  My own time is easily worth a few thousand a day and after having been jerked around a few times while the staff of this attorney demonstrated to me that they really don't give a crap about my time they added a final straw onto the proverbial camel's back and made me stand there in my $1,000 suit with paying clients waiting for me to call them back and myself waiting to pick up a settlement check for over $70,000 so that they wouldn't inconvenience the pizza guy for 5 more minutes because he has to make a living too!?!  It's not like the guy stumbled in off the street and was bleeding or dying of a heart attack.  He was waiting for someone to make change for the cost of a pizza he was being paid to deliver.

Rhetorical Question: How would you like it if it was YOUR phone call that was being delayed and when I got on the phone I explained that the reason I'm 20 minutes late to call you back is because I had to give your time to make change for the pizza guy?

The purpose of writing the article was to make my clients aware of the need to look at their practice from the client's perspective because at the end of the day, they get to cast the final vote on your success.

Thanks for your participation in my coaching program.  I look forward to continuing to learn of your success,

Compare & Contrast Your Services

Below is a reply I wrote to an e-mail we get on a fairly regular basis: prospective new clients who want us to "try out" for their business by comparing & contrasting ourselves to the competition.  In the past I used to spend alot of time on these type of "beauty contests".  And what I discovered is that while a few of the prospects were sincerly interested in understanding the differences between my law firm and the others they were considering to hire, most of the time it was just a foreshadowing of what was to come if I were to go forward with the engagement. . . lots of second-guessing, lots of calls for me to justify my services, and lots of complaints about the bill.

I'm not saying that "Joe" is one of those types.  He could very well be sincerely interested in comparing his options before deciding how to spend his money and even more importantly, deciding whose advice to follow with his valuable time.  But the lesson you can take away from the reply below (besides that you should focus on the basics & not waste time on all the hype out there) is not to get sucked into an audition and worse, not to get sucked into trashing your competition in the process - remember that when it comes to Rainmaking, there are no secrets!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Joe,

Not familiar with William Hammond or the services he offers. I've known Alexis for years though and I think she's great, though I'm not familiar with her $99/month program or what's included with it. So I'm not sure I can answer your question directly as to compare/contrast what I offer vs. what they offer.

What I CAN tell you is that the Bronze program is a pretty simple program that takes you back to the basics. If you're looking for some kind of secret "button" you can push to magically generate new business that no-one's ever thought of before you may be disappointed with my programs. Instead I focus on introducing new Rainmakers, reminding experienced Rainmakers, and helping everyone in-between to brush-up on a variety of "old fashioned" Rainmaking skills, techniques & habits that have been working for tens of thousands of Rainmakers for many generations and which I don't see losing their effectiveness anytime soon.

Reason I focus on the basics is because I have seen in my career of helping thousands of lawyers, so many who waste time, energy & money trying something new when all they have to do is brush up on the fundamentals and implement them with some consistency in order to boost revenues, avoid troublesome clients and reduce hours in the office. So that's my focus: Make the most of what you've got before you start looking for something new. Know what I mean?

Hope that addresses your concerns and that you get a lot of value out of the $39/month fee for my Bronze program. If you have any questions along the way, be sure to identify yourself as a Bronze Member in the subject line of your e-mail so I can get to it ahead of the rest.

RJON

# 1 Reason Lawyers Should NOT Use E-mail Or Have A Website

Believe it or not I used to hear this alot as recently as just 6 years ago when I was a Practice Management Advisor with The Florida Bar's Law Office Management Assistance Service.  Part of my job when I was not out in the field doing onsite marketing & management consultations or doing seminars, was to field  some of the 9,000 calls we received each year to the small firm management & marketing help desk. So I spoke to ALOT of lawyers.  And as recently as late 1999 and early 2000 it was still fairly common to still get some questions we'd all probably laugh at today concerning whether or not (as opposed to "how to" or "which is best") to get an e-mail account, or a website.  And these types of questions weren't all from old foggies either.  In fact, I found the older attorneys who had been around long enough to have seen the dramatic changes in the legal industry/business were very often more receptive than the middle-aged attorneys who had been around long enough to feel comfortable, but not long enough to recognize that feeling was just in their imagination and the world in fact was passing them by.

Anyway the following new technology demonstration brought this all back to mind when a friend of mine sent it with the subject line: "Imagine 10 Years From Now"

RJON

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=933742930

When do two lawyers become a law firm?

-----Original Message-----
From: ********@********.com
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:07 AM
To:rjon@howtomakeitrain.com

We are in the process of putting together a small firm, so do I state I'm a solo until that office is totally up and running? Right now, the marketing I'm doing is for that firm...meaning that I'm the main rainmaker, and my partner is the one who will focus on back end. How to proceed here?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Response:

Technically, you can be a firm just by deciding you are a firm. From a liability standpoint it would be a straight partnership with no formal operating agreement which could be a mess if you & your partner were to split up before taking care of that bit of housekeeping. But I don't think you'd be misleading anyone if you made reference to your "law firm" or even your "partner".

And you could parlay that into a pretty compelling marketing story when you're helping clients form their own business entities, and draft operating/shareholder agreements and all the things they never want to bother with until it's too late. You could tell them you empathize with the feelings of just wanting to get on with the business already, and that you & your partner even made that mistake yourselves when you first opened your firm together. But that you can tell them from personal experience how much better you both felt and were able to focus more energy on building the business once you got that housekeeping out of the way. Sort of gives you a way to push your clients into doing the right thing without making it seem like you are judging them or making them wrong, if you know what I mean.

 My partners & I operated How To Make It Rain on a handshake for months in the beginning. And it was really a relief to finally get everything down on paper, find out where we had been operating with some different assumptions, understandings, etc. and get them cleared-up. In my experience with my own clients back when I had an active business practice, many of them delayed taking the step of formalizing everything out of fear that they may discover their partner is really on a completely different page. But once everything is clarified, the business can really make progress because everyone can start rowing in the same direction with confidence.

 Anyway, I know this reply went beyond the scope of your question but I hope it helps.

 
RJON

 

www.HowToMakeItRain.com

Helping Lawyers In Small Firms Make Alot More Money

 

 

What to say when asked "what do you do?"

----Original Message-----
From: produ******@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 9:28 AM
To: How To Make It Rain
Subject: benefit statement

I had sent this email from another account, and I thought I'd send from the account that was registered for your coaching program. :)

 RJon-

My partner and I have crafted a benefit statement attached below. Could you please have a quick look and give me your feedback?

Note, the additional answers are to questions we are anticipating as follow-ups. Also, we're trying to avoid the "stigma" of being a new firm and of being solos, so even though we're not fully joined as an LLC yet, we're trying to anticipate how to answer those. Again, any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks again.

-A****

 _________________________________________________

What area of law does practice focus on?

 I solve legal and business problems for small to mid-size business owners and real estate professionals.

How do you do that? What do you mean?

 

* Business entity creation

* Lease / purchase review for business assets and locations

* Employment law issues and processes

* Collections accounts receivables

* Business dissolution

* Partnership dispute resolution

* Vendor disputes

* Creditor negotiations

* Debtor and Creditor bankruptcy representation

* Protection of family business assets through and outside probate

* Strategic Planning Consultation

* Negotiate with IRS to resolve tax disputes

 Who are you working with?

 I'm with a boutique firm specializing in small to mid-size businesses.

 What's the name of the firm?

 We're in the process of establishing M******* & H******, LLC

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REPLY:

Mr. H******,

In my experience, no-one ever lays-up the question quite that easily/formally. Most of the time they just ask "What do you do?" or if you're speaking with another lawyer, they might ask "What type/area of law do you do?" In other words, the question is usually a lot more sloppy, which requires a more general answer that captures the questioner's attention by painting a vivid imagine in their mind while at the same time trying demonstrate your confidence/focus and screen-out people you really don't want to be working with in the first place.

So, based on what you share with me below, if someone were to ask "what do you do?" like at your kid's soccer game or in a networking setting, perhaps you could offer something like this:

 "My law firm protects mid-sized business owners so they can focus on making money"

 This response covers all of the services you listed below and is provocative enough, I think, so that if the person you are speaking with has even the slightest idea that they might ever need your services, they're likely to ask some follow-up questions. If you'll then try to avoid the temptation to bask in the spotlight and instead try to focus it back on them, I think you'll find yourself in a good position to begin ferreting-out information about their business that helps you figure out which of your services might be most appropriate for them and then you can ask questions that head in that direction.

Notice that I left-out small businesses and also real estate professionals. It's important to understand that you can have alternative answers for different audiences. If you know the person you're speaking with is a real estate professional simply use real estate professionals in place of mid-size business owners. Just adapt the answer to the audience. It's not like anyone is going to say "hey, you just told that other guy your law firm protects real estate professionals!" Afterall, aren't real estate professionals owners of "businesses" too? And small vs. mid-sized is largely a matter of opinion but most small business owners, I think will feel comfortable hiring a law firm that focuses on mid-sized, but not necessarily the other way around.

Many people make the mistake of thinking they have to give a laundry list of all the services they offer. That's a mistake because unless someone needs all of those services, the list will be boring to them. And it's a mistake because - and this is a little counter-intuitive - because it doesn't really give the other person an easy way to keep the conversation going. So you end up with a kind of awkward silence, they ask for your business card because they don't know what else to say and immediately forget the list of services that didn't seem relevant to them anyway.

On the other hand, even if there's no time for follow-up, they're going to remember that you have a law firm and that it protects business owners so they can focus on making money.

I suggest you practice it aloud a few times and understand how powerful an answer like that will be for the intended audience. Don't be discouraged if it falls flat with the wrong audience because what they think doesn't really matter all that much anyway, does it?

And a word about being a solo or in a small firm. . . don't waste time or energy trying to hide from it. You'll end up wasting a bunch of your time getting people excited who aren't going to be happy when they find out you're "only" a solo. And you'll scare people off who are looking for a small firm where they will be able to enjoy easy access to their lawyer instead of having to get passed-off to a bunch of assistants and associates.

Hope this helps & thanks for your participation in the Bronze Attorney Coaching Program!

RJON

www.HowToMakeItRain.com

Helping Lawyers In Small Firms Make Alot More Money