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Google Ad Sense

I'll write a longer post soon, but I thought I would share with you the relative futility (thus far) of doing a Google Ad Word Campaign. On June 8th, 2006 I signed up to have my ad and a link to my web site displayed on Google when certain key phrases or words are entered (these are the ads that you see on the right side). I set a budget of $30 and selected about 15 different key words and/or phrases. Well, I haven't been back to the account manager until now (I was having some password issues) and I can now report the results. Over the last 5+ months, my ad displayed 2,123 times which generated 7 clicks to my web site (0.32% click through rate) and no clients. The total cost was $0.67. I think the main message here is that Google is ad-words is not going to generate much business for you, I am going to try and play around with my ad and key words and also run a second campaign for my corporate practice and see what the results are but don't expect big results. Here is a link to the Google Ad page to get started.

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Estate Planning Web Site

For all the solo estate planners out there that are early in the learning curve, I found this random site which looks like a good summary of stuff out there on the World Wide Web.

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To Do List

Not sure if this will work for me, but I am going to give a free service called tasktoy a try.

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Free virus software and other computer stuff

My lap-top had sort of a semi-crash recently. It wouldn't boot up which reminded me of just how dependent we are on our computers. I lost a full day and it could have been worse. I started researching lap top repair solutions on the web and ultimately got the name of a person that does tech support for another attorney to come to my office the same day I was having problems. Of course, when he did come the lap top started up fine but he did some work to it and made some recommendations. He also told me I needed a new lap top hard drive and reminded me of the importance of defraging the hard drive from time to time. His cost was $100 for the hour house call. Here are a few tips/lessons learned:

1. When you network with other solos, ask them who they use for computer support (even if you are pretty adept at computers you really need someone to fall back on when it gets complicated).

2. Keep your work backed up regularly (I still do not have a perfect solution for this, but I am getting close and will blog about it when I get a chance). I know this is pretty obvious but I still do not have a good automated "every-day" back up solutoin in place.

3. My tech guy recommended using this free (at least for home use) anti-virus program from Avast I had a copy of Norton running but that really really slows down your computer. I had not heard of Avast before based on my tech guy's recommendation and these reviews I am going to give it a try. It works on the honor system so when you feel like you have the cash pay for the office edition.

4. Defrag your hard drive from time to time.

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Dispatches from a solo practice

I feel like blogging, so here are a few updates:

Practice update: business is coming in but still at a slow pace, almost exclusively corporate work for small companies. Some of it through referrals and some of it through my web site. Still small stuff but enough to be encouraging; it really is a nice boost when someone calls you.

First estate planning client: I have my first arms-length estate planning client meeting (I really have not been able to devote enough time to this part of my practice) that is not a friends and family type of client next week. It is a referral from a financial planner I met with. Unfortunately, they want to have the meeting at their office. That is good and bad, I am not really pleased with my office (see below) and would be a little embarrassed to have the people come here. That said, I am slightly terrified to do this for the first time in front of financial planners who have probably sat through many of these types of meetings. I am going to spend the next week and weekend preparing for that meeting.

Blogging strategy: I continue to refine my blog strategy. My corporate blog is now getting about 50 to 60 unique visitors a day. That, however, was not translating into clicks to my practice/static web site. So I boosted the presence of my name and web site on the site and that yielded a few more clicks. I also shifted the focus from a nationally oriented site to one that was more exclusively focused on developments in my specific state. I have started another blog for the estate planning web site but that is really still a work in progress. Exchanging and adding links to/from other sites seems to be the biggest driver of traffic from the search engines (more links to you from other sites = higher search engine ranking). I think one question you need to ask yourself is whether you are trying to create a site that people will return to because they get a lot of useful information from the web site or enjoy reading it or is it more of a “key word catcher” that snags traffic from the search engines that ultimately turn into clients. I started out thinking about the former was the goal but now I think the latter should be the focus. I also find that it does take some time to build up traffic, so if you are thinking of going solo get the blog out there sooner rather than later, don’t worry about the formatting that can come later just start pumping the content (hopefully good content and content) out there and figure it out as you go along.

Insurance: I finally signed up for liability insurance; one lesson learned is to be cautious about the practice areas that you list on your web site that can impact the cost/coverage (I had listed trademark application which caused about a 30% to 40% jump in the premium even though I don’t expect to do that kind of work); I removed that word and re-applied with no problems. I’ll make this point again, don’t feel you need to sign up for insurance (unless required to by your state) right out of the starting gate you can put in place the coverage quickly when you feel like you are doing enough work to expose you to liability. As additional protection, I have been told to get an umbrella insurance policy on my house, car etc. that apparently can cover being sued for malpractice (I will need to investigate further).

Letterhead: I also finally purchased letter head, I bought it from Cleveland (www.celveland.com); they were very responsive in terms of producing proofs etc. (I also worked with Stuart F. Cooper but did not find them responsive). I went with engraved letterhead and envelopes (I tried printing my own envelopes on the laser printer but it looked bad). I am a big proponent of investing in things like a good web site, letter head, business cards etc. because I think presentation is important. Also, when you do buy the letterhead find out exactly what font they use and then purchase it from some place like (www.myfonts.com) so you can use the same font in marketing materials etc.

Office space: When I launched this solo practice I was committed to getting my own office space. I felt like I really needed a brake from my home and have always liked to keep home and work separate. So I looked at space and eventually found an office that I have sublet for a year from another attorney, it was a 14 minute drive from my home and in a good location relative to other business. It was also on the lower side of the price scale of the options I looked at (I pay $625/month plus utilities). That said, I think when the lease is up on April 1, I will be moving out. A few things I wish I had thought of: (a) the space is not wheelchair accessible; (b) the bathroom (common to other offices in the building) that clients use is not something I am happy with; not terrible but a little on the down market old world side; (c) in general the office is not something I am “proud of”; that is the best way I can think to explain this one, it is something I notice the moment I walked through the door for the first time but on the whole I ignored it given the other benefits of the space; I really noticed this when I had clients come to see me; (d) the utilities are higher than I expected; and (e) I am near too many attorneys that are big players in the estate planning and elder law field which becomes important when you start networking with people. I could go on but I’ll stop there, I am not sure what my next move will be in terms of office space but I’ll have to figure it out soon.

Time management: one of the major struggles I have is time management. I would bucket the major categories of work as follows: 1. Admin (computers, billing, filing, bank accounts; office machines; office supplies; liability insurance; printing letters; envelopes; postage etc.); 2. Marketing (networking; web sites; bogging; preparing client information sheets); 3. Learning substantive law (researching; library work; talking with other attorneys; building a set of standard forms; attending classes); 4. delivering legal services. The problem is, it is only the last one that brings in money but the other can each be close to a full time job. Mastering allocating time among these categories is very hard particularly at the start. I’ll give an example, I had a client come in to discuss forming a new business, I didn’t have a standard outline or way to guide the discussion (so there went multiple hours spend putting that together); they then asked for a letter summarizing what we had discussed (a reasonable request, it took me almost 2 days to put this letter together and send it out; you know one of these things I planned to get out on Monday but didn’t get it done until late Friday afternoon . . . remember I work at another part time job Tuesdays and Thursdays). The good thing is that I now have those things done for the next time but there went many hours/days that were not spent marketing and building the practice. I think I have two personal challenges, one I am a little bit of perfectionist when it comes to those things and I am reminded by this post that I think I probably suffer from ADD.

That's all for now.

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PDF to Word

If you have PDF forms that you want to convert to word, try PDF Converter from Nuance, I tried it and it works great (and I also tried some other programs that did not work as well). You can get a free 15 day trial of the prior version (v3.0; they are now selling v4.0) of the professional edition of the program here (I found this link via Google, I expect Nuance may not realize it is still active). The basic PDF conversion program (not the professional edition) goes for $50 (but with a quick Google search you should be able to find a $10 Nuance coupon).

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Advanced Google

Here is a little feature on Google that I have been using lately: the advanced searching feature that allows you to search by file type. Here is how it works: (1) go to Google; (2) click on the “advanced search” text to the right of the search box (takes you here); (3) look down the left column and you will see “file format” and then over to the right there is a drop down box and you can specify PDF; PowerPoint; Word etc. For my law practice this has been useful to find forms, presentations and marketing materials and also summaries of how the law works. In the case of marketing materials, while I don’t steel other peoples work, I do find it helpful to see how others have organized and/or described their particular area of law.

Check out there examples:

PowerPoints on new bankruptcy law

PDF on estate planning for married couples

Word document non-disclosure agreement

Estate Planning Questionnair in PDF

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Yellow Pages Strategy

I’ll try and stop blog free-loading. By that I mean, looking to other’s blogs as a source of motivation, inspiration and ideas but at the same time not doing anything on my own web site. I am going to try and spend the next few entries on barebones advice, the technical stuff.

Yellow pages strategy. When is your yellow pages deadline for submitting an ad? If you don’t know that you must go and find out even if you are not going to be doing yellow pages advertising I think you should be aware of the deadline as (at least in my area) you only get one chance to get your listing in the book per year. I didn’t know this when I started out, for some reason I though that they had rolling submission dates. If you haven’t taken a look through they yellow pages ads, I suggest you do. I found it interesting to see how people presented themselves, what combination of practice areas they listed etc. If you call up the yellow pages, a sales rep will probably come to your home or office and give you all the details, rates etc. So there is an easy “to-do”, give a call and set up a meeting with a yellow pages rep., it will take no more than an hour and you will know what your options are.

In my area, Verizon publishes several regional yellow-pages books. Because my office was located right on the line of two regions I initially decided to advertise in both books. I then had to decide whether to go with the general attorney section or a part of the book where they have a specialization directory. I went with the specialization directory under Elder Law attorneys, this is what other people had done that practice in this area and it seemed like the general directory was too big, this is also what the sales rep pushed me towards and it seemed like the right thing to do.

I ultimately went with a 2inch x 2inch advertisement, that listed my web site. Rather than list practice areas, I phrased the add to read something like “We offer help in answering these questions . . .” and then listed the kinds of questions I thought readers would have if they were looking to hire an attorney. I did not advertise free consolation (I was advised by a few attorneys that this can be a waste of time as, apparently, there are lots of people out there that use this as a free way to get legal advice that have not intention of paying or hiring an attorney); I did include a link to my web site (which I think is critical) and will advertise a free consultation on the web site at least for now. The cost for the one add in the one book was about $1500/year. As I mentioned, I was going to advertise in two books for a total cost of about $3000/year but, in a moment of financial panic, I cancelled the second 2x2 ad but was then talked into just an attorney name listing with web site in the specialization directory at a cost of about $500/year (total yellow pages spend of $2000). I recently called to try and cancel that attorney listing but was told it was too late.

I know yellow-pages adds do not have the best reputation, but given that I will only need one or two paying clients to make my money back it seemed like a reasonable investment. I did not find any interest in negotiating down the rates from the yellow-pages rep despite trying and canceling my initial ad placement. Also if you do have success with the yellow pages ad, next year don’t tell your ad rep that or she will use that as a way to get other attorney’s to advertise (that is what my rep did, saying how successful another attorney in the book had with the listing in the same practice area).

One more interesting thing, I didn’t realize this but you do not need to list your address in the yellow pages directory so if you are thinking of moving or do not want to limit yourself, leave it out and in its place put something like “serving the X, Y, & Z communities”

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Word of Mouth

I don’t want to let this blog languish, so I’ll try a short post.

First, the state of my practice is not where I would like it to be. I am finding getting corporate clients to be more challenging that I thought and, frankly, I am a little depressed over the lack of progress I have made (at least as measured by dollars of income earned and paid) so far. On the estate planning practice, I really have yet to kick the doors off that part of my strategy (not really sure if that is the right phrase but I like the way it sounds), in that I have been keeping that part of my practice in the garage but have not yet aggressively gone after it. That I plan to change soon. I’ll admit to being a little apprehensive about saying “I practice this area of law” or “I offer these services” when I haven’t actually done it! This is what I call a chicken-and-egg-issue. The great thing about being a solo, however, is that you can always start the next day with a fresh start. You have got to take the attitude of a marathon runner, keep at it, step by step, make forward progress each day, eye on the prize (and what a prize it is!)

Second, focus on word of mouth referrals. If you have a solo law business plan (perhaps it is all in your head which is fine), and there is a section of that business plan that covers how clients are going to find you I would focus exclusively on word of mouth referrals and do not expect to get much from advertising (Internet or otherwise). The cake is going to come from other lawyers, professionals that work with the same client base, and getting out and giving presentations in the area anything from the Internet will be icing. I met with a former classmate that started his own financial advisory services firm a few years ago and he said if he had it to do over again he would not have “wasted” so much time on the web site and putting together fancy marketing materials. . “its all a word of mouth game”.

Third, should you offer a free initial consultation? I am hearing more people say that this is not the way to go, it can be a waste of time etc. This includes one solo (now 2 years into her practice) and a more established small firm. The guy that had my office before me also warned against putting “free consultation” in your yellow pages ad because you can not turn it off (at least if you want to honor your advertising). I am going to continue to offer free consultation on my web site for now.

Fourth, I still have not purchased engraved stationary but am getting close. So far, I have ordered packages from All State Legal; Cleveland and Stuart F. Cooper. Cleveland is the new entry in this field, I liked the materials they sent and their approach and the fact that they give pricing on their web site and in their materials. We’ll see.

Other news, I cancelled HBO (just wasn’t worth it anymore with the quality of shows, although the Wire is still for my money one of the best shows on TV); I started watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (so far so good); I also started renting the British series MI5 for use on the treadmill.

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