Larry Bodine Marketing - Law Firm Marketing, legal marketing, marketing law firms, marketing consultant, legal consultant, million dollar coaching, marketing plan, individual lawyer marketing, legal marketing, business development, client team, practice development, business development, law firm coach, attorney marketing, partner retreat, retreat speaker







Million Dollar Training

Chuhak & Tecson, one of the largest full-service law firms in Chicago, began an intensive program of business development coaching for 20 of its income partners in 2005. A year later, the group had brought in $1 million in new revenue, with one partner DOUBLING his fees billed.

Steps included:
  • Hiring Larry Bodine Marketing to advise on business development. My marketing experience stretches back 16 years, starting when I was marketing director at Sidley & Austin in Chicago, and then started our consulting practice in 2000. We've coached lawyers at many law firms, including a different Chicago law firm where we coached all the partners. As a result, that firm had its best year, financially, in its history.
  • Presenting a kickoff program "Business Development for Partners."
  • Sending each lawyer a time-tested form to complete for a personal business development plan.
  • Meeting with each lawyer personally for a coaching session to finalize thier personal plan.
  • Helping them pick targets based on the industries in which the firm had clients.
  • Following up with each lawyer and measuring their results.
The firm spent only $24,000, showed an ROI of 2000% and met its revenue goal.

Click here to read the recommendation letter of Lily Joy, the firm's Marketing Director.

Working closely with the partners and marketing director, we:

  1. Increased revenue with a premeditated business development strategy. Rather than "dress up the lawyers as hunters and send them into the woods to shoot at anything that moves," we identified specific targets, the names of decision-makers to contact, directions on how to reach the decision-maker, and what words to use at a meeting with their target.
  2. Created a marketing culture at a risk-averse law firm. Lawyers are skeptical, risk-averse and precedent-driven by nature. By insightfully making the most of their personality traits -- such as intelligence, competitiveness and diligence -- we trained them to deepen relationships by calling on people they already knew. No one had to make a cold call.
  3. Engaged lawyers in business development, by overcoming their objections (no time, too much work, not interested) and building plans around their strengths and activities they already enjoyed.
  4. Educated lawyers in how to sell without being a "salesman." We taught them to sell by listening, to leave behind marketing materials on a new-business call, to research the target and his/her company, and arrive with a set of questions designed to get the other person talking.
  5. Put the attorneys' targets into priority: #1 current clients (the low-hanging fruit), #2 referral sources (the lawyers' allies) #3 carefully-chosen targets that fit the firm's strategy.
Call me at 630.942.0977 if you'd like me to generate a million dollars of new revenue for your law firm.


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"I wanted to let you know our new Web site will go live this week. We made the test site link available internally and are getting positive feedback. We owe you a huge thank-you for your help and guidance. As always, your comments will be appreciated, but my principal intention was to let you know how grateful we are to have had the benefit of your expertise."
-- Betsy Beorn Spellman , Director of Business Development,
Steptoe & Johnson PLLC, Clarksburg, WV
(304) 624-8377 and spellmbb@steptoe-johnson.com

Hale & Dorr Get Industrial Strength Web Site

This 500-lawyer firm, headquartered in Boston, knew that its Web site, www.HaleDorr.com , needed an overhaul.  The old site loaded slowly, used a variety of fonts, colors, graphics and designs.  It also displayed too much information, overloading visitors with choices.  As a result it didn’t deliver a clear marketing message.  The site was too firm-centric and emphasized the firm’s internal organizational structure.

Larry conducted a Web site audit, analyzing:

•        What information was most-sought after on the site

•        Whether visitors could find this information quickly

•        Whether the text was written to attract business

•        If the organization of the site conformed to Web norms

•         If the firm’s services were described in a way that clients look for them


Before

Following his recommendations, the firm launched a facelift of the site that displays what business visitors seek on a law firm web site.  The home page now has an “Industries and Practices” link, organizing information around client interests.  The layout is also streamlined, and the site conforms to directional norms on the Web.   The firm description was shortened and a snappier tagline was installed.

The recommendation that produced the most dramatic results was placing an option to sign up for e-newsletters on the home page.  “With the new design, requests for our e-mail newsletters have increased significantly. The audit was right on target and really helped me a lot. We definitely plan to implement more of your suggestions," said Nancy Kostakos, Marketing Publications Manager of Hale and Dorr.


 After

Comments from other Web audit clients:  

"You hit it out of the park! The website audit was one of the best marketing initiatives this firm has ever undertaken. The head of our firm was amazed at how valuable the process was, and was thrilled that you didn't say we needed to spend $20,000 on our site to improve it. Everyone agreed that you exceeded our expectations."  -- Deborah Tatro, Director of Marketing, Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green, Manchester, NH.

"I finally had a chance to sit down with our boss and go over your report in detail. We were all very pleased with the level of detail you provided, the examples of other sites that highlight your points and the obvious time and effort you put into creating a very detailed report."-- Katharine A. Voldal, CRM, Director, Special Projects, Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, Washington, D.C.

"Your audit appears to be exactly what I had hoped for! I am very happy with your work and analysis. Thank you very much for your effort on our behalf. Again, thanks for your great work. It has been a pleasure working with you."-- Nancy Mangan, former Director of Client Relations, Cox & Smith, San Antonio, TX.

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Class Action Law Firm Showcases Client Successes

The 20-lawyer class action law firm of Miller, Faucher & Cafferty in Chicago already knew that they needed a better Web site.  They retained Larry to write a development plan that would increase referrals from other attorneys, attract more cases in key service areas, and make the site a valuable destination for prospective clients.


Before

Larry drafted a detailed plan, analyzing the current site and making recommendations for specific changes, including a proposed new layout, site plan and an implementation schedule.  Larry created an RFP for the project and conducted a bidding competition among Web site developers.  The successful developer agreed to create a completely database-driven site at a reasonable fee.

The new site, www.MillerFaucher.com ,  went live within 60 days after work started.  All the firm’s information is now organized in interlinked databases.  The site carries numerous client success summaries, sorted by industry, product, defendant, client type and service area.  Each client success is linked to the lawyers who worked on it, and lawyer bios have links back to industries and case summaries.  Visitors now see a list of10 industries where the firm has experience and have a search function that sorts results by case, attorney, specific page and news item.  To top it off, the site features testimonials from judges’ court rulings.  


After

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New Jersey Firm Discreetly Bids Out Branding Project for Name-Change

The law firm of Cooper Perskie April Niedelman Wagenheim & Levenson in New Jersey had a very important and confidential project.  The firm was changing its name to reflect new internal leadership.   However the 60-lawyer firm wanted to shop for a branding agency without disclosing its name.

The project was important because the firm was shortening its name to its “street name” and wanted to announce the change to its clients, potential clients, referral sources and the media.  The new name would appear on its Web site, announcements, business cards, letterhead, brochures, envelopes, newsletters, trade show booth and advertising.

The solution was to retain Larry Bodine to draft an RFP to redesign its logo and branding graphics. Using the utmost discretion, Larry distributed the RFP to 20 design, advertising and branding agencies, asking them to create a new logo only.  Larry carefully vetted each agency to see whether they had experience and recommendations from other law firms.

The agencies were given two weeks to respond.  Larry analyzed the bids, which ranged from $2,500 to $75,000 and gave the marketing director his recommendations.  The firm met with three agencies and selected a mid-priced branding company in Philadelphia.  “Having Larry run the RFP process was one of the best things we could have done to start this important phase of the firm’s marketing efforts,” said Jamie Mulholland, Marketing Director for the firm now known as Cooper Levenson.  See http://www.cooperlevenson.com .

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