If you’re a lawyer, clients are the lifeblood of your business. However, if you think of your business as one client equals one paid case, your math is way too shallow. When one new client walks in the door of your firm, you shouldn’t just see one client: You should see a dozen clients, a hundred, three hundred. In other words, you should already be looking ahead to the future clients that this new client can eventually send your way.
I refer to this concept as the perfect client lifecycle. In a nutshell, the cycle works like this:
- You generate a new lead through various marketing strategies.
- You convince that lead to make an appointment.
- You follow up with that lead to get them to keep the appointment.
- During the appointment, you convert the lead to a client.
- You get paid for your services.
- You provide such excellent service to your client that the client recommends you to others.
- Those others become new leads.
- And so on, and so on….
Do you see what I mean by shallow math? If you don’t recognize that behind every client is a conduit to other new clients—and each of them bringing you even more clients—you're effectively squandering the chance to bring boatloads of cash into your company. Your clients represent far more revenue than what they directly bring on their own.
Maximizing the Lifecycle
How, then, do you tap into this potential? Begin by refining your marketing and sales strategies to increase your lead generation, as well as improving the process of converting leads into paying clients. From there, make sure your firm is providing the very best care, service and attention to your clients as possible. If you’re doing your job correctly, the next time one of their friends asks if they know a good lawyer, your name will be the answer.
I mentioned in the previous post that the assets you’re looking for are already sitting in your company—they are your clients themselves. By seeing the clients behind the clients and acting accordingly, you’ll soon see that each client is worth far more in cash to your business than you realized.
