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Law offices, professional image and marketing
Accept it. Financial bottom lines are affected by the fact that we live in a world that judges a book by its cover. Pretty singers sell more records, court cases rank higher in the news if the person is attractive, and politicians are elected on the basis his image as any other factor.
As for his own industry, you have to fight public perceptions? We see on television and in movies every day. Often, young lawyers, paralegals, and others are only beginning in the profession are portrayed as cheap, small, low rent, and usually called "hunters of ambulances."
It is not right, but this number is the image you have to live and learn to work with.
Let's cut to the bottom line is this: In today's business climate, everyone must realize that a professional image is crucial for the reputation and worldwide could stand to improve theirs to one degree or another. It's what you need to do to keep alive their individual companies. Therefore, we will cover some opportunities for improvement using the acronym ALIVE:
Appearance - The physical character and how to present yourself.
Header - The level of professionalism demonstrated in their materials printed marketing.
Information - Accuracy and honesty, the keys to the presentation of the data collected during a case.
Voice - How you communicate to all who are associated.
Education - The continuous improvement of professional knowledge base.
Appearance: People base a large percentage your first impression on your appearance. When a client first meets are sizing their credibility, their ability as a professional lawyer, and decide what well you can be your behavior in public. As the saying goes, you only have one chance to make a good first impression, so let's look at some indicators.
- Always dress in a professional manner. For men and women both, the clothing should be "professional," which means to dress men and tie whenever possible, and for ladies, business suits, skirt and nice blouse or dress. If you look sloppy or "second" the client is asked how you will represent them while working your case.
- A close cousin to dress is for personal hygiene. In short, make sure your hair, facial hair, hands, nails and teeth are clean and well maintained. By the way, how's your breath? Always keep some mints.
- Keep jewelry to a minimum. Jewelry should follow the rule of colonies. It is better to smell of nothing that to dominate things wrong. A general guideline is jewelry no more than 2 rings in each hand, no more than two necklaces fine, and after a ring or small earrings. And ... you guessed it, visible piercings exotic or tattoos are if you will be taken seriously by the legal community. The "professional image dress" website target = "_blank" http://www.professionalimagedress.com> has some good articles and checklists. Also, you will find some good books and business magazines and professional image at your local library.
Headline: In some cases, the first contact that someone may have that could be one of your cards. For our purposes, however, "letterhead" refers to any printed material (paper or electronic) to anyone outside your office can see.
- Business cards are a necessity. Make them distinctive, but a minimum. Let your website or in the manual carrying heavy content.
- On business cards, stationery, and website to stay away from trite, commonplace, or negative icons, like someone running behind an ambulance. In your web address, phone numbers or email addresses, stay away from negative phrases such as "makethempay@mylaw.com." These may seem cute, but for many potential customers, which is a diversion.
- For stationery, select the quality of paper and have your letterhead and envelopes, and their contracts, professionally produced by the same people who do their cards. Make sure your colors match issues. Your local print shop or office supply store should have everything you need. If there is any place want to spend a little money, this is near the top of the list.
- If your desktop has a particular logo or color scheme, which should be reflected on its website, or vice versa. As with business cards, your website must be an exercise in minimalism after doing their job of transmitting all the information need about your business. Avoid animation, sound files, heavy graphics, flash, or anything else that makes your site slow to load. Low load or "busy looking for "sites are more a nuisance than an attraction. In this connection, although they may offer some small change per year, try to stay away from ads Banner and other external links on your homepage. If you have links out, put them all in your links page. You do not want his client was clicking cyberspace before they have read what a good job you can do for them.
- Stay away from books in black and manila folders. They both are too dirty too soon and not only makes you look unprofessional and disorganized notes, but blank books that you see in the rough, and lost or disorganized will report inaccurate invoices. Invest a little time and / or money in the purchase or development of a comprehensive set of forms or a host system for use during the assembly of your case.
Information: In the legal business, the glass is half empty or half full nor. Is 50%. And unless you know what is in it, not to speculate. "Only the facts ma'am. "One of the greatest opportunities for a good impression, and, of course, the most important is the timely delivery of honest, accurate information. Nothing will kill your image, reputation and livelihood, as incomplete, inaccurate, or work part-end case. Similarly, an incorrect invoice can cost as being too low or too high.
- Rule one is, always has been and always will be, "Using a case management system well." Make all world working for you to use the same system, and its level of accuracy start at the beginning, and continues throughout the case and through any follow-up ever may have with that customer. Then, treat all of its other customers the same way.
- Use presentation folders enjoyable for all reporting process, including the dollar, "small." Every customer is important to you from the marketing point of view and therefore deserves to be treated with respect. Putting to work on better paper products in a well-organized format, and an attractive presentation folder provide a higher perceived value to your customer. These people probably have paid a large sum for their service and a more professional report will help assure that it was money well spent.
- With any type information transfer, the key word in today's climate is legal "privacy!" Reassure your clients in their contract, and in its final report that their relationship with them as private as the law allows, and everything to do in connection with their case, before, during or after the fact will remain confidential. Loose lips not only sink ships, destroy good customer relations.
Voice: Voice is a general term used to describe not only effective oral communication it has with its customers and others, but the "tone" of your company is dealing with.
- When answering the phone, do it with joy and a smile reality. You can tell when someone is not happy to be on the phone and so can others. This phone call could be your first contact with the following major customer, so make it count.
- If you can not personally respond to every call, the next best thing is to have a receptionist or answering service. A person is always better than voice mail. Go with what you can afford, but since the phone call is one of their chances for a first impression, anyone answers the phone should be trained to be polite, cheerful, informative, and professional as possible.
- If the voice mail is your only option, make the best of it. First, be smiling and happy to record a message. Secondly, the message is transmitted by the bar high. Say something like: "As we are getting dedicated to all our customers, we are working on a probable case in his name at this time. However, they are so important to us please leave your name and number and we will contact you within the hour. "So if you say it back to them within the hour, actually do. The personal attention is a great advantage in any business.
- Education and intelligence are as necessary as a cheerful greeting. You want people to know they are as capable as qualified and you might expect. Therefore, when talking to people, speak clearly, and choose your words carefully. They do not have to be big words, but they have to make sense and grammar is important.
- The written word must follow the same rule. Make sure your business cards, letterheads, brochures, reports, invoices, and all other written documents using correct spelling and grammar. Although your client may be in love enough with his skills as a legal practitioner to overlook a minor grammatical error, you never know what else of importance might view the report or correspondence.
Education: Here we in their writing skills and will focus on rule real knowledge or skill base which is based on legal advice. Experience is the best teacher, but classroom education can certainly help you stay informed and updated. Moreover, the fact that it is continually updating their expertise is most impressive of potential customers.
- Many states require continuing education. If your state does, it must publish this fact in the literature of his company. If your state does not require CEU, you still must take upon itself to maintain its own training, updating and making this fact an important component of marketing materials.
- Join professional organizations when possible. Many of them offer different classes and training programs and the benefits of networking are substantial.
- Many online communication forums is a professional and provide educational information and opportunities through any site courses or online, or through hints, tips and suggestions offered by members. A good online forum for communication is through "Yahoo Groups "in title =" http://www.yahoogroups.com "target =" _blank "> http://www.yahoogroups.com. The free registration is easy complete, and all you have to do is search through the groups using the phrase "private investigator" or other keywords associated with their specialty.
- Keep your library stocked. Many people learn both from books and videos, they do in a classroom.
By attending some of these educational functions, take the opportunity to look around and either continue their education on this issue by studying the appearance of his colleagues, or help improve the way you represent, helping to educate them as to the benefits of a more professional image.
About the Author
Paul Purcell is an Atlanta-based investigative trainer and case management specialist. In addition, he's the creator of "The Case File" (found at
http://www.thecasefile.com
).
Shanadoo - Ninja Tattoo