Navigating Business and Marketing Challenges in Law
When you work in or own a law firm, one thing that you will soon realise is that there are lots of different tasks that you are going to need to undertake. Some of these are things that are going to come easy, however, others may be somewhat trickier to manage.
Some of these may relate to marketing, some may just be general business challenges. Whilst they may not be something that you can avoid, if you know that they are likely to happen, then you can do whatever you can to avoid them and to try and reduce the impact that they have on your overall firm and how you work.
To learn more about the main challenges in law and how you can navigate them, I have put together some of the most common.
Not being able to manage time effectively
Not being able to manage time is not only impactful for law firms but also for businesses as a whole. The trouble with time is that you simply cannot find any more of it. This means that you need to find out what you can do to manage the time that you have better.
There are lots of ways that you can work on your time management. The first is to try and plan out your time in advance. Think about not only what you need to do, but also how you are going to tackle them. You need to consider your productivity and what times of day are best for you. You may be someone who is best in the morning, which means that you get the trickier things done then, you may need to warm up first, which means that you focus on the smaller jobs first and then build up to the bigger tasks later on.
It is also a good idea to try and limit your distractions. Distractions can easily creep up on you and whilst they may not seem like they are particularly impactful at that moment, they can take more time up than you realise.
Not being able to appeal to the best-quality clients
When you run a law firm you are going to want to make sure that your clients are as high quality as possible. They might not be the highest earner for you, but if they are engaged with what you put out there and are happy to share your message with a similar audience, then this is hugely valuable to you as a firm.
Not having a strong online presence
Having an online presence is something that law firms need to ensure that they do. If you take the time and make yourself as visible as possible online then you are going to generate new clients naturally.
Being visible online is not only useful for marketing yourself to clients but also helps to set you up as an expert in law. This helps you to connect with others in the industry and also to think about other aspects of your career such as career development.
If you are not visible online, then you are going to make it much harder for you to be successful in what you do.
Having a poor marketing strategy for your law firm
Coming up with a sound marketing strategy may not seem like something important for you to do, but without it, you are going to find marketing yourself as a firm that much harder.
Marketing, for the most part, is not something that you can simply muddle through, you need to make sure that you know what your plans are and how you are going to achieve them.
The best way to do this is to create a sound marketing strategy. You want to have an active social media presence, you want to be high-ranking in search engines and you want to provide value to your audience. Without plans set out in front of you, you are going to find doing all of these things much harder to achieve.
Not leaving your clients feeling satisfied
Your main focus, as a law firm, should always be your clients. You want to keep them happy and ensure that they are a key part of the success of your firm on the whole.
Happy clients talk about what they have received in the way of service from your law firm. They then encourage others to try you out. It is not only an effective way to market yourself, but it is also free.
You want to make sure that you leave every client as satisfied as possible. This is not the job just for you as the law firm owner, but it also needs to be the focus of your entire team. They need to all put as much effort as possible into your client journey.
This means that you need to make sure that they understand the importance of focusing on your clients. They need to be able to treat every client with respect and they need to know that the part they play in your law firm, no matter how small they may think that it is, is vitally important to its success.
Whilst they need to take charge of their actions, you need to take charge of the situation and lead the way.
Being a poor manager
Being a lawyer in a law firm is something that should come relatively easily to you, seeing as this is something that you spend many years learning how to do. However, being a good lawyer may not mean that you are great at other aspects of business management.
As well as being a good lawyer, you need to also be a good manager. You need to be able to lead your team, no matter how big or small it is, to your shared goal. There are many duties that a manager needs to carry out. This includes hiring new staff, managing the day-to-day tasks of those staff members, finance, payroll and of course marketing too.
Finding it tricky to hire and keep the right people
You are only as good as the people around you. This means that you need to take the time to find the right people to be a part of your legal and business team.
The employees that you have within your law firm are going to be what makes or breaks your success. This means that you need to find those who are going to be able to offer what it is that you need.
Not only can it be tricky to hire the right people, but it is also worth noting that you are going to need to be able to keep hold of those key staff members too. Otherwise, you are going to need to refocus on recruitment and finding the right people all over again.
Not focusing on business growth as well as case management
It is quite hard to balance helping your law firm to grow and making sure that the clients that you already have are happy and well-managed. However, it is vitally important that you achieve this balance as best as you can.
Growth and business development is something that is going to help you to achieve great things in the future. Secure new clients and ensure that the service that you provide them with is the highest standard possible.
Case management is going to help you focus on the clients that you currently have. Make sure that you deliver them with the legal help and assistance that is what they are looking for.
If you don’t think about the future, then you are never going to get anywhere in the future, however, if you don’t think about the present, then you may not have the groundwork to get anywhere either.
Lacking focus on important areas in your law firm
Whilst it is great to have a law firm that is focused on a variety of aspects of law, if you want to help yourself to target clients, you are going to need to find a way to focus closer on important areas.
This may take some time to get right, but if you do manage to find your niche, then you are going to make it much easier to appeal to certain clients. Sure, not everyone may need what it is that you specialise in, but it does help you to find a client who is going to value what it is that you can do for them.
Once they know that you are an expert in that particular area of law, they can then find out more about the other things that you are going to be helpful in.
There are a few mistakes that can be made by law firms and their workers. However, the good news is that no matter how big these challenges are, over time they are going to soon be a thing of the past. Another hurdle that you can get over.
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If you would like help with your marketing then bringing on a marketing consultant with a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. I work with B2B businesses and professional service firms in London, Kent, UK and Europe as well as specialising as a Legal Marketing Consultant. Please get in touch or book a free 30-minute consultation.
