Staying in competition with everyone else is a constant rat race that has to be run. When you work as a lawyer, this is no different. As times change, your strategy to stay competitive has to change as well. In this article we’ll cover nine tips that are going to help your practice maintain that competitive edge.
Response Time
One of the best things that you can do when staying competitive is reducing the amount of time it takes to respond to a client. While it isn’t possible to be available 24/7, it’s important to remember that a law practice should respond to clients in less than a business day if possible.
Attracting Talent
To stay competitive you also have to have a competitive and competent team. One way to do this is to recruit team members that have demonstrated talent in their field. Whether or not they work in the same area as your personal practice, finding that talent will broaden horizons and potentially build partnerships.
Advertising and Branding
If you are from Texas and haven’t heard of call 444-4444, then you have been living underneath a rock. A great advertisement strategy used by Davis Law Firm is concise commercials, an easy to remember number, and powerful testimonies that attract audiences.
Another way to help yourself in the branding and advertising area is to work with your team on creating a social media presence. This will help more and more people find your firm and connect with the people working there. The more connections you have, then you have a higher competitive rating.
Meet or Exceed Service Expectations
This one is rather self-explanatory, but here’s the deal: most people are going to expect some sort of service that is so entirely professional that the personal is long lost in communicating with clients.
Because of this you have to exceed that expectation by being both professional and personable. This is what helps build relationships.
Another way to exceed expectations is to respond quickly to customer requests, send emails swiftly, and do your best to handle client complaints as quickly as possible. This is going to take the negative perception of law practices and flip it on its head.
Lead with Humanity
As I’ve said multiple times throughout this article, there is something about personalizing the work that you do so that your clients feel as though they are safe and taken care of.
In a lawsuit, people are going to be uncomfortable, afraid, insecure, and a multitude of other emotions that aren’t exactly positive. From one human to another, how would you like to be treated in that moment?
This is why you have to lead with your humanity first and then the analytical mind of a lawyer when first interacting with someone. Lawyers who present themselves as more human to their clients are going to build stronger relationships, long standing client lists, and a sharp competitive edge.
Optimize Operations
One of the best ways to stay competitive with other practices is to work with a virtual receptionist for lawyers. You can search for them or find them at Global Messaging where they are trained to work directly with you in order to handle customer questions and concerns as efficiently as possible.
You can place ads all over the internet from LinkedIn to Upwork. There are thousands upon thousands of people who can work remotely and handle the day to day work that needs to be completed for a firm. When those smaller details are taken care of, this lets you focus on your cases.
Include Additional Partners
A team of one can hardly help anyone. This is why you see many practices that list themselves as partnerships or partnering firms.
With more experience comes more competitive edges on different legal fronts. If you want to build your firm, then heavily consider including additional partners.
Mitigate Costs
Out of all of the strategies here, this one is perhaps the hardest. There’s rent to pay, people to pay, services and fees, not to mention any automated services or other helpful programs that lawyers need. It all costs a pretty penny!
Something that helps keep law practices competitive is mitigating the costs that are incurred to the client. When you can decrease that cost that hardly a person can truly afford, you end up gaining more clients because of affordable services.
Of course, this is going to depend on how your business model works and what your firm can afford. Do what works for you!
Conclusion
There are many ways that you can help keep a competitive edge. Perhaps the strongest ways are mitigating costs and increasing your advertising.
People are more than likely going to trust someone that they see more often rather than a firm that they know nothing about. If you have enough advertising out and lower costs, just think of the list of clientele you will build! Good luck!
