What Is a Marketing Opportunity?
It’s a situation that presents itself with an opportunity to bring in new business. To find the opportunity, ask yourself: “
What are my prospect’s needs?” and “What is his/her current situation?”
Let’s assume you have built a reputation and a relationship with your prospects. They know you and they already know the area of law that you practice. You have a good relationship with them and they respect, like, and trust you. But they already have a lawyer(s) they work with.
So how do you get their business?
Begin by evaluating situations and you’ll see opportunities for engagement. Here are some situations that might exist. Evaluate which one applies to your prospect.
Situation:
Your prospect has a high level of satisfaction with existing lawyer.
Opportunity:
Look for conflicts with the existing firm or for a new legal need that their current firm can’t handle but you can.
Situation: Prospect has a moderate level of satisfaction with existing lawyer. They’ve told you of service dissatisfactions or service failures with their current firm.
Opportunity: Here’s an opportunity to communicate your service standards.
Situation: They’ve asked for a referral because their current firm can’t do the work.
Opportunity: If you can do it, tell them. Offer case examples.
Situation: There’s a major change in their current law firm such as: a key lawyer leaves the firm or retires; there’s a merger or a major breakup within the firm; their firm is restructuring its service or rates.
Opportunity: You have the existing relationship and service experience that meets their needs. Communicate this.
Situation: There’s a major change in your prospect’s company (merger, management change, new location, expansion, etc.)
Opportunity: You know the legal needs for these situations, and you know their company.
Tell them what you know and how you can help.
Situation: You uncover unknown needs.
Opportunity: BEST OPPORTUNITY OF ALL. You suggest solutions and tell them you have the experience that could help. (Learn all you can about your prospect’s business and industry needs in advance.)
Situation: Your prospect is dissatisfied with existing lawyers and firm.
Opportunity: This creates a direct and immediate opportunity for you. SEIZE IT.
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Lawyers don’t like to “sell,” but you don’t need to. What you are (besides a lawyer) is a problem solver. Look for problems and then identify the solutions. An opportunity is always in the solution.
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While you’re spending time building your reputation, don’t forget to spend time building your relationships. Reputations alone rarely bring in new business – relationships do. If you build a strong relationship, you will see the business opportunities as they come along
People buy solutions to problems that are too big, too complicated, too delicate, or too hard to fix themselves. Look for the opportunities.