In order for your practice to make a lasting positive impact you need to see things through the eyes of the customer.  Create a positive experience and the customer will come back again and again.

Consider our friend the iPhone.  Millions purchased the original unit last year for $399 or more.  This past Friday, many lined up to spend another $299 for an updated 16GB version.

This is not an “I love iPhone,” post.  In fact, you can skip to 3:00 on the video to see exactly what I mean when I say that Apple does customer experience right.

Imagine how YOU would have felt to be one of the people descending those steps at 8:00am this past Friday.  Now imagine how to get your clients to feel the same way.

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Sometimes I think consumer bankruptcy attorneys are seen as easy marks for self-styled gurus.  People pop in and out of our orbits on a near-daily basis, shilling their magical “systems” that will make us millions . . . only to drop out of sight 20 seconds later.

For example, a lawyer recently appeared on a listserv in which I participate.  It’s a high volume group, with information and news flying fast and furious.  About 2 months ago the group was introduced to a gentleman who was not only a bankruptcy lawyer but also claimed to have hit on a cure-all for lackluster profits and client volume.  He offered a free teleseminar via his email signature and invited everyone to sign up immediately.

Listen, I’m all for new voices in the marketing and practice management field.  I don’t pretend to know everything (in fact, everything I learned I adopted from other marketing and management people - I take what works and discard the rest), so I gladly signed up.  If someone wants to share a nugget or two with me, then so be it - count me in!

So I go to the website for the teleseminar and sign up, handing over my email address and name to this guru’s autoresponder system; now I’m in his clutches, but it’s alright.  After all, I’m on so many mailing lists that one more can’t hurt too much.

On registration I get an email confirmation with instructions to tape it to my forehead (or some such marketing guru nonsense) so I won’t forget this earth-shattering phone call.  A little hubris, but I can handle it.

Then in the days leading up to the call, one or two more dribble in.

Remember, I know NOTHING about this guy save that he’s obviously a bankruptcy lawyer with big claims to make.

Day of the call, I dial in and am treated to two hours of him telling me what to do.  Some good tips and tricks, but I know where they all come from and can even point to the relevant paragraphs in each book.  So he steals ideas - big deal.  As I’ve said, I never met a good idea that I didn’t make my own in some fashion.

The call goes fairly well and, though I gain nothing from it, I am sure others did come away with a gem or two.  He hits us over the head with his $1,000 “system” and tries to convert some of us into paying customers.

As I sit here on July 2, 2008, this lawyer has stopped posting altogether on the listserv where he appeared.  He’s disappeared.  No follow-up after the teleseminar, no offer to replay the call, no streaming audio on his website . . . nothing.  It’s as if he never existed at all.

And this isn’t the first time this has happened.  In 2006 my colleagues and I were subjected to another guru who popped onto the scene with a teleseminar.  This guy is well known in some circles (not bankruptcy) and came out with guns blazing.  Did his teleseminar and then faded away.

What’s the lesson here?  Longevity.  If you want to sell something to a group - or to a consumer - you must be prepared to invest time and energy into converting that prospect to a customer.  It may take weeks, months or even years but when it happens it will be worth it.

During that time, you’re establishing trust and creating a bond.  You’re engaging in a grand conversation, letting the prospect know that you have what it takes to solve the problem.

Jumping in and jumping out like these two disappearing acts . . . just not smart business.

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Do you use Blogger for your law practice blog? It’s easy, free and gets you online in moments. And trust me, it shows.

Susan Cartier Liebel explains in a recent post on Build A Solo Practice, LLC exactly why you should not use Blogger for your professional blog.  The upshot of the post is that it makes you look less-than-professional, a mere newbie in a sea of experts.  After all, you’re using the blog as a practice management tool for your law office - is it somehow not worth the measly hosting cost of under $100 per year to do a passable job of it?

TypePad carries a minor cost, WordPress is free (I’m talking about the downloadable version at wordpress.org, not the hosted version at wordpress.com).  And with many hosting companies offering a one-click installation of WordPress to help you along, it doesn’t get much easier.

Wait, you ask.  Doesn’t Google index Blogger more quickly than other sites because Google owns Blogger? The simple answer is a resounding NO.  Look, all Google wants is for people to get the best search results; if that search result is best met by a WordPress blog, that’s how it’s going to go.  Because when people get good search results from Google, they’re more likely to come back to Google.  And the more often people use Google to search, the more advertisers are going to pay to Google for the right to be on the search results page.  Round and round it goes.

But my blog is really good, you say.  You can’t tell me that having it on Blogger is going to cut against me.  If I”m really good then the readers will come! True enough, but let’s face facts - you’re not famous.  In fact, to prospects the likelihood is that you’re just another lawyer with a blog.  You may be good, but you’ve got no brand.  And the blog is your brand (at least, part of it).  So why go with a Blogger brand when for $100 per year you could actually have you own?

Finally, remember - Google can at any time and for any reason at all simply delete your Blogger blog.  Poof, and it’s gone.  Years of work, thousands of words, tons of goodwill . . . all up in smoke.  Want to read more about this phenomenon?  Just check out Search Engine Journal’s article, Reasons To Not Blog Using Blogger or Blogspot.

Is this all worth saving a measly $100 a year?

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Consumer bankruptcy lawyers all know Morgan King and his Bankruptcy Academy.  For years, Morgan has honed his knowledge of discharging taxes in bankruptcy - and his studies have paid off.  Morgan’s not only one of the smartest tax/bankruptcy guys out there, but he’s an incredible teacher.  If you’ve heard him speak at the NACBA conferences you already know what I’m talking about.

I hate taxes - but in Morgan’s hands, even this subject becomes compelling.

Morgan is holding his newest program, Discharging Taxes Under the Reform Act of 2005, on September 19-20, 2008 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Livermore, California. Even if you can’t make it, Morgan’s making the seminar available via a live webcast.

As a pesonal favor to the readers of this blog, Morgan has agreed to allow my guests to attend - in-person or online - at a special discounted rate of 15% off the advertised rate.  But this offer is good only for readers of this blog, and won’t be honored if you come from any other source.

So sit at the feet of a true master and learn all about Discharging Taxes Under The Report Act of 2005.

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Sure, your consumer bankruptcy practice is probably chugging along nicely these days - foreclosures are up, the economy is in the tank, jobless numbers are piling up. So break out the bubbly, things are looking up for bankruptcy lawyers!

But wait a minute . . . are you growing your practice relative to your competition? Has your market share grown over the past few months, or are you still getting your piece of the pie?

Business marketing blog After the Launch pointed me to a recent story by Michael Port that serves to highlight what you need to do.

A blind man is sitting on the steps of a building. By sit feet sits a hat and a sign that reads, “I am blind, please help.” The hat is empty save for a few stray nickels and dimes.

A marketer happens across the scene and stops to watch for a few minutes. Noticing the constant stream of people rushing past without stopping in front of the blind man, he silently (and without permission) picks up the sign and rewrites it. Then, still silent, he walks off.

That afternoon the marketer returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins.

The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had rewritten his sign and wanted to know what he had written on it.

The marketer responded, “Nothing that was not true. I just wrote the message a little differently.” He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read: Today is Spring and I cannot see it.

The message is clear - you need to do something new, something different, in order to shake up your practice. Often we don’t do that for fear of losing what market share we have, but that’s a mistake - it denies us the ability to continue to evolve as consumer bankruptcy lawyers, to grow beyond the confines of our current limits.

You need to change your strategy if you want to get more from your practice. If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.

Don’t be paralyzed with fear, take the opportunity. You’ll be glad you did.

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