“If for example, someone spends $4,500 on a marketing campaign over three months, then [they should] make AT LEAST $4,500 in gross profit within that time frame,” he told Lawyers Weekly.

There are two primary reasons why campaigns should be financially profitable in such a short period of time, he explained.

“First and foremost, for many law firms, especially small firms, every dollar counts, and they’re not well situated to take extended financial risks over a long-term period without major sacrifices. A large firm might be incredibly comfortable spending $100,000 per month over 12 months in broad reaching brand awareness campaigns, such as billboards, TV, or radio, because they know that statistically they’re likely to make all that money back and then some over the next 2-5 years,” he outlined.

“However, if a small firm were to attempt a similar feat, they’d either run out of cash and die before they see the payoff, or they would have put so much money into marketing that they’d have had to made sacrifices in other departments, such as operations, such that they were not able to reap the maximum ROI out of their marketing investment.”

His business has found, he said, that three months is the perfect amount of financial risk that most lawyers can withstand – whether they’re spending the bare minimum of $4,500 over three months, or on the higher end of $15,000 over three months, without requiring sacrifices in their business.

“Secondly, on a pure emotional level, most lawyers (and most people) are only comfortable investing in something for about three months without seeing an ROI before they start getting antsy and second guessing their decision,” Mr Deaver continued.

“By guaranteeing profitability within a three-month time period, it becomes much more emotionally safe to invest in marketing because even if the worse were to happen, it’s only three months of investment and not an overwhelming loss.

VIEW ALL

“Further, if like in most circumstances we do achieve 100 per cent ROI within that three-month period, we very quickly calm any anxieties the client might have had at the start of the campaign and make it much more emotionally enjoyable to keep investing in ongoing marketing campaigns.”

In the current climate, Mr Deaver espoused – like in any market downturn – the name of the game is survival and sustainability.

“By pushing your marketing campaigns to be profitable in three months or less, you create a situation where your marketing becomes self-sustaining in a short period of time – which is to say that the money you invested in marketing makes you enough money to keep paying for more marketing, which creates a positive feedback cycle that not only makes you a lot of money, but also helps you survive longer and make it to the other side of a bear market or recession,” he said.

The biggest problem lawyers face with having profitable marketing campaigns, Mr Deaver argued, “is they’re TERRIBLE at converting non-referral leads into paying clients, and they’re so predisposed to blame the ‘quality’ of the leads without reflecting on their own lacking skills as a salesman/saleswoman”.

“Cold leads are VERY different from referral leads – they don’t know you, they don’t have an emotional connection to you, and they have no idea what you can do for them or whether they can trust. That’s very different from a referral lead who already trusts you, already knows what you can do (because you helped the person who referred them) and is already 90 per cent certain they’re going to hire you.”

Moreover, Mr Deaver went on, determining profitability “all comes down to having superior data and insight into your lead/case flow”.

“You must be able to track where every single individual lead came from and whether they turned into a revenue generating case or not,” he said.

When asked how to overcome the myriad challenges that boutique law firms face in ensuring profitability from their marketing campaigns, Mr Deaver said that firm owners must realise that they are likely not very good at sales.

“Acknowledge that if people are calling you about a legitimate problem that’s related to your practice area, then you most likely don’t have a quality issue, you have a sales skill issue,” he said.

And, he added, they should stop making excuses about why it is always the potential client’s fault that they didn’t sign the deal.

Mr Deaver offered a three-step sales framework to help convert 30 per cent or more of PNCs to signed deals: “Sales is much easier than most people think, and it can be broken into three fundamental stages,” he said.

Firstly, he said, “discuss hell”: “This is the part where the PNC discuss all their life problems. Most lawyers spend too much time letting the PNC rant about their personal hell,” he outlined.

Secondly, “envision heaven”: “This is the part most lawyers skip. You MUST help the client envision what their future MIGHT look like after they work with you. No, you can’t offer guarantees that you’ll win anything in court … but you can absolutely promise to work hard towards the vision of the happy future they’re trying to create.”

Finally, he said that business owners must “sell the bridge”.

“The bridge is your legal services … and let’s be clear NO ONE gives a damn about your service. They don’t care about your processes or your degree. They care about one thing and one thing only. They want to pay money for someone to help them get from HELL to HEAVEN … your service is the BRIDGE to help them cross that gap,” he detailed.

“If you follow these three steps, and keep working to get better at sales, I promise you’ll close up to 30 per cent or more of your PNCs into paying clients.”