If you’ve found that the way you are marketing doesn’t work, it’s possible you’ve been told something that is actually false, or that you just don’t know better.

There can be so much misinformation available to us that we don’t know exactly how to discern between actual information and an idiot rambling on with what he thinks he knows about. Marketing as an attorney is no different. There are hundreds of people out there who will lead you astray and tell you that they can market your firm, make you hundreds of thousands of dollars and make it sound like it’s a dream.

These people are marketing vultures and the first biggest mistake is trusting them.

The marketing vultures are people who will trick you into thinking that they can do it for you. They trick you into using things like pay-per-click, recycled lawyer commercials, and their basic ads and websites that are no different from the rest of their clients.

If you’re not doing anything different, it won’t make a difference how many people are clicking on your website, you’re not memorable. If you’re not memorable, they won’t think of you when they need an attorney; end of story.

The next biggest mistake you can make is failure to accept that it is okay to run a law firm as a profitable business. In fact, that should be your highest goal. If you’re thinking, “I became an attorney to help people, not be rich.” I want you to think of it this way, if you’re not a successful attorney, you won’t be able to stick around. How are you going to help people if you can’t afford to stay afloat?

There is no shame in success. By making more money, you can market yourself more. By marketing yourself more, you reach more people. When you reach more people, you’re able to help them.

Another of the biggest mistakes is failure to define what your perfect practice really is. Picture it in your head, the dream practice you’ve wanted since your first day of law school or even before. Is it very different from how your practice looks right now? Why is that? You became an attorney to achieve this dream practice, so you shouldn’t be settling for anything less. When you have your dream practice mapped out, you can start to work towards the goal of finally having it. You may be thinking, “Well what does that have to do with marketing?”

Because when you have your dream practice, you also have your ideal clients.

The final biggest mistake is a failure to define who your ideal client is. Who are the people you want to work with? The cases you actually want to take? When you have this figured out, you can format your advertising to market to those people. Tell them that they are who you went to law school to help and that you want them as your clients.

When you have all of these key marketing mistakes resolved, you’ll be surprised how much your firm changes and improves overall.

You can thank me later.