I’m a real estate agent and I’m doing really well. I want to proceed to the next level by forming a team. Has anyone ever done this or worked as part of a team that did 80 or more transactions per year? How is it structured? How are team members paid? What’s expected of them. I need a rough outline of how this would work. I am with an independent company so there are no examples in our office to follow the lead of as there may be at the larger firms. Any info at all would be helpful.
-Ed

Cleaning companies have a variety of marketing methods open to
them for gaining new clients.

· Telesales · Yellow pages advertising · Thompson’s Local
Directory · Mailing lists · Leaflet drops · Newspaper
advertising · Journal advertising · Direct selling · Internet
advertising

In my own experience cold calling on companies has not met with
any success. Most companies who want cleaning carried out
already have cleaners in place and they will only change them if
they think they can get it done cheaper or if they are
dissatisfied with the cleaning. Managing to locate a company who
are in the process of making a decision about their cleaning and
telephoning them at that moment in time is a very long shot. You
must make the decision as to whether it is cost effective to tie
somebody up on the telephone for long hours for possibly little
return. If for example your cleaning covers a very wide area
such as a whole region of the UK then it may be worth it, but if
you are restricted to a small area then probably not. What you
may end up with are a lot of calls to give quotes simply because
the company wants to see if they get their cleaning done cheaper
than at present. Even in these circumstances and you submit a
quote which is cheaper they still may not have the impetus to
change if they are happy with their present regime. However you
do end up on their files for that day when they do finally
decide to change. So you could get a call one two or even three
years down the line.

Advertising in the yellow pages is probably a must, as despite
the advent of the Internet people do still use yellow pages to
find services they require. At least this way the company are
calling you for a quote so are more likely to actually require
cleaners. From the point of view of closing a sale it is better
if the client has chosen you rather than the other way round.
The only problem with advertising in the yellow pages is one of
cost. There are probably a large number of firms advertising
their services that you are in direct competition with.
Consequently you have to make your advertisement stand out from
the others. To do this is a very costly exercise but ultimately
should be worth it for the amount of new business it brings in.

Advertising in Thompson’s directories I find difficult to
comment on. Whilst being cheaper than Yellow Pages in my own
experience it has brought in very little new business.

Using a Mailing list and contacting companies with a sales
letter, like telesales is a matter of chance. Again you have the
time factor to pay for plus the postage plus the cost of buying
in a mailing list if you do not put one together yourself.
Putting a mailing list together is a very time consuming
business. I know because I have done it, and again in our
experience it brings in very little new business. If you have a
high advertising budget then it may be something that you
consider worthwhile.

As far as advertising in local newspapers is concerned this can
become very costly for little or no return so I would not
recommend this to any new cleaning business. Possibly with
carpet cleaning and window cleaning you will have more success.
However the take up from your advertisement will mainly be
domestic customers not commercial concerns. Likewise advertising
in specialist journals is a costly exercise but possibly
worthwhile if your budget is large enough. However you have to
research the journals carefully to make sure that the companies
you are trying to target actually subscribe to these and more
importantly read them.

Leaflet drops, direct marketing and Internet advertising will be
covered in part two of the article

What are these new attorney-client matching services? Who are the players? What do they cost? What is the risk to me? What is the return for me? What is the buzz on them? Are they ethical as marketing for law firms? Will they save me money and are they for me? Will they get me clients I would not have otherwise?

In part one of this article we will look in depth at a relatively new wrinkle in marketing for law firms known as “attorney-client matching services”. Part one focuses on the facts about these firms. Part two gives you my conclusions and recommendations as a result of my research. First a little background is in order. The legal services market segment is expected to reach $82.5 billion in 2008 according to Euromonitor International a market intelligence firm. In recent history consumers have been finding attorneys through word-of mouth or through the yellow pages. Often the word-of mouth advice does not deliver people to the best possible solution for their particular needs and the yellow pages is certainly not a great place to select a lawyer I am sure you would agree. Additionally, according to the Pew Internet & American Life over four million consumers and small businesses currently search for legal services via the Internet every month with these numbers expected to rise to over seven million by 2007. I think you can see this is a huge market getting larger. It is imperative that attorneys understand this marketplace if for no other reason your potential clients and clients are moving to the Internet and yellow page advertising is a dying marketing for law firms vehicle. Understanding attorney-client matching services is one new way to tap into this Internet marketplace.

What I will not be talking about here is attorney-listing services. Please don’t get confused between attorney-listing services and attorney-client matching services. The two majors in the attorney-listing services arena are Lawyers dot com or FindLaw dot com that are used by many in marketing for law firms. With attorney marketing one might want to get a minimal listing on one or both of these two major sites. Both do drive a large amount of traffic to their sites for sure (in the millions of visitors per year). If you do get a listing then track your results carefully and see if being in the middle of a pack of listed attorneys actually does produce clients for you. Please don’t spend more on them than the basic listing that will run about $150 or so per month, at least until you can document results with the basic listing. Also, don’t buy your website through either of them, even if after testing you find good results, for many reasons that can be found under the Internet marketing tab on my website. One last note here, you probably don’t want to test most of the lesser attorney-listing competitors like LawInfo dot com, LawCore dot com or AttorneyFind dot com is my take, however if you do be sure to track your results. The rest of this article is about attorney-client matching services.

Attorney Marketing Via Five Attorney-Client Matching Players

In the attorney-client matching field there are five competitors for the attorney marketing dollar offering online attorney-client matching services. The first and originator is LegalMatch dot com and its newer competitor being CasePost dot com as well as a third competitor LegalFish dot com. The two big players that offer almost everything in attorney marketing, Lawyers dot com and FindLaw dot com; have also recently begun to offer a version of attorney-client matching services. Lets begin with LegalMatch that was established in 1999 and is based in San Francisco. LegalMatch uses a double blind matching system. By double blind they mean the consumer does not see identifying information about who the lawyers are and the lawyer does not see identifying information about who the consumers are although all the cards are put on the table for both to see before any contact is made between them. Through an allocation model LegalMatch makes the decision about which lawyers get the consumer’s information. Consumers can opt into “priority service” for a fee to talk with a LegalMatch staff attorney about their case and work with that attorney in selecting the attorney for their case. LegalMatch does have partnerships with the Utah State Bar Association, ATLA and NACDL. Membership fees for this marketing for law firms vehicle run from $2,500 to $25,000 per year (they will finance the membership fee if desired) depending on practice area and geographic location of the attorney. For example, a PI attorney in Los Angeles would likely be charged more than a family law attorney in Los Angeles, while the family lawyer in Peoria is likely to pay less than the family law attorney in Los Angeles. Their guarantee consists of extending your membership at no fee until your revenues have exceeded the fee you paid them. The details of the guarantee are available on their website.

Are There Legal Marketing Ethics Issues with Attorney-Client Matching?

A relevant digression here, since this model is not a lawyer referral program, a pre-paid legal service plan, a joint or cooperative advertising or a directory listing service it is not subject to ethics rules around much of marketing for law firms it has been asserted. Recently the Professional Ethics Committee of the Texas State Bar was looking into these practices and that committee received a seven-page letter (May 26, 2006) from the FTC that was agreed to by a unanimous vote of the FTC commission members that this attorney marketing practice is indeed ethical.

Already the states of North Carolina and South Carolina found the practice ethical. The Rhode Island Supreme Court specifically named in an ethics opinion that online matching services are ethical. Finally, the Utah State Bar (a mandatory bar) has retained LegalMatch as their lawyer referral service clearly indicating their thinking about LegalMatch’s ethical nature it seems to me. Naturally you do need to check with your state bar to be sure this is an ethical practice in your state. Now back to the options in the marketplace.

CasePost, based in Southern California, was established in 2002 is a second player in this area of marketing for law firms. They operate in a similar fashion as LegalMatch in matching clients with lawyers; however, the directory of attorneys is shown to the consumer immediately. The consumer can decide whether they want to remain anonymous or give their contact information to the attorneys. The consumer is limited to four attorney responses. Thus the consumer determines what attorneys will get their information. In May of 2006 CasePost has made a major expansion as a result of their partnership with HandelOnTheLaw dot com that is powered by a successful nationally syndicated radio show on over 120 stations with attorney Bill Handel. This show has been running since 1985. They also have a strategic relationship with LegalZoom dot com that began in 2006 that has increased their reach. Like LegalMatch the membership fees for this attorney marketing vehicle are from $2,500 to $25,000 per year (financing is available if desired) depending on practice area and location. Their guarantee to a member is based on a minimum amount of referrals over the year.

LegalFish is a third player in this arena. It entered the marketplace in 2003 and is based in Chicago. It is a bit different than the other two in a few ways. Like the other players the consumer can input their information and post their cases to the site as well give their identifying information or not. In a number of cases LegalFish will contact the posting consumer themselves by telephone or email to delve deeper into the needs of the consumer so they are not totally automated. There is an allocation model used by LegalFish in referring the cases to their members. Another difference is LegalFish charges a monthly fee for this marketing for law firms vehicle ranging from $180 to $750 to members that are non-contingency based practices. For contingency based practices the fee ranges from $1600 to $5000+ monthly only if the client retains the attorney. If LegalFish does not deliver a referral to a member that retains that attorney they don’t charge a fee to that attorney for the month (a form of a guarantee). Creating something of a “shared risk” system. Naturally, with this type of shared risk system, long-term success for both parties is based on LegalFish’s ability to generate new client opportunities and create demand for legal services, and their member attorneys’ ability to convert those referrals to paying clients. Both parties have to “pull their weight”. Finally, LegalFish reports they are particularly committed to serving the solo and small firm market with ten employees or less.

The next player in this marketing for law firms arena is Lawyers dot com (mentioned earlier in this article about their directory listing or attorney-listing service) with their new Attorney Match Service. If you go to their homepage what stands out on that homepage is their “Find A Lawyer Quick Search”. This is their free to the consumer attorney-listing service (this is why you might want to test a listing with them and track results). To get to the Attorney Match Service you have to know to click on “Contact Lawyers” navigation tab or notice it up there at the very top of the home page. Clicking on that takes you to a page where you input your zip code and the practice area you are seeking, however, it also tells you how many lawyers there are listed that “are interested in receiving your request”. You are required to fill in the identifying information with other case information. Once you do that you see the attorneys listed and pick the ones you want to send your request to and wait for their replies. The fee for the attorney member is $495 per year, however, you must have a biographical level listing on the site to be on the Attorney Match Service and that is $150 and up per month depending on the size of your firm. There is no guarantee for this service.

The final player in this marketing for law firms arena is Thompson’s Findlaw (mentioned earlier as an attorney-listing service) with their new attorney-matching website http://www.LegalConnection.com. The FindLaw system is similar to the Lawyers dot com system with three steps of #1 Select your legal need; #2 Tell us about your case; and #3 Choose the attorney that’s right for you. It is different from Lawyers dot com’s system since they have broken it out of their attorney-listing services completely with its own dedicated website. Their fees generally run from $500 to $1000 per month depending on your practice area and geographic location. They do not have a guarantee. They do report that they do set targets for each geographic area as well as practice combination and then will manage their marketing to get positive results for attorneys.

Well, now we have all the players in this particular niche of marketing for law firms with a lot of information. I think it would be imperative for me to mention one more item. Both Legal Match and CasePost have negative information on the Internet and it needs to be considered. If you go to Google and search just the term LegalMatch and then do the same with CasePost you will be able to find details about the negative information. One location that covers the negative information on LegalMatch with relevant links is at Wikipedia dot org (go to the site and look up LegalMatch) although that is disputed as not being sufficiently neutral in tone, which is one of Wikipedia’s requirements. If you want to see a string of negative information on CasePost go to: http://counsel.net/chatboards/marketing/topic111/6.23.04.11.34.29.html . I am not sure one needs to be overly concerned about this information since it is mostly in the past and you need to consider it.

See Part II of this article for my conclusions and recommendations as a result of my research. I can tell you now that this approach does have some merit but there are definite cautions as well so do read Part II.