Take a moment and think about your best clients?
You're probably smiling, right? Did you just take a deep, glorious breath?
I know how you feel because when I think about one of my best clients, I smile and breathe deeply too!
In fact, I stop whatever I'm doing and take their calls. I answer their texts as quickly as I can and we always hug when see each other (which is only a few times a year).
It hasn't always been that way. When I first started my company a few years ago, like you, I had to take every crappy client that came through the door. I strongly desired to work exclusively with lawyers but, I needed the money.
We produced videos for anyone that would pay and finally I just drew a line in the sand and started saying 'no' more than I was saying 'yes.'
At one point we were down to 5 clients and my 1 full-time in-house employee got so nervous that she quit. My full-time videographer and I went to every shoot, produced dozens of videos and I went back to the office and did all of the work.
He was still new at editing so I was teaching him how to edit and doing all the work. I was physically and mentally exhausted.
I wanted to work exclusively with lawyers and I believed we could help them build thriving law firms. I just knew it.
Most attorneys are working with con artist pay per click companies that don't know jack crap about how to run build marketing campaigns and have never made a dime on the Internet other than conning business owners out of their hard owned marketing dollars.
Now, our 2014 videos aren't nearly as polished as our videos now, but we stuck to one of our core values - produce exceptional quality. We did our very best plus, we stuck around to manage their marketing campaigns.
Our clients' were getting results and I knew it was because we took over their marketing -all of it. Every other company was producing good looking videos and handing them over to attorneys to market. We knew better.
After studying our clients, we knew they didn't want to market, they didn't want to be involved and they didn't want generic content and wanted to stop casting a wide net and get to the right client.
Do you have a top client? Want more of them?
Talk to them. Invite them to lunch and ask them these 3 key questions to get into their mindset and replicate them.
1. What are we doing that's working? You're not like every other lawyer. Find out what they like best about you and what attracted them to you in the first place.
2. What's wrong with this industry? They will probably have a mouthful! Listen and take notes.
3. What other service professionals do you depend on? Accountants, Counselors, etc. You get it. These could be amazing referral sources for you.
Listen to your best client and learn how they can help you attract more of them.
I know who my best clients are and, fortunately, I only choose to work with them. I don't send proposals out arbitrarily without vetting each attorney interested in our services. You might still be taking the 'crappy' clients and that's okay. But, with the right content marketing plan, you can be that lawyer that attracts the right clients and builds a thriving law firm.