November 8, 2021
How To Obtain Clients Through LinkedIn
By Liza Vasquez ICF CMC and Jeffrey F. Silber MBA CMC
Certified Master Business and Life Coaches
If your Website is the entrance to your office, LinkedIn is where you will make your pitch to the world.
Eighty-one percent of the buyers of legal services use LinkedIn as a way to find possible new lawyers. You can see why LinkedIn, despite having a much smaller membership than Facebook, is hugely important for you.
However, LinkedIn must be worked. What does “working it” mean? Just like joining a chamber of commerce is an entirely useless effort unless you become active by joining committees, attending meetings, making speeches, socializing with other members and so on. If you tell us that you have joined LinkedIn and you have 400 or 4,000 connections, we are not impressed unless you are “working” it.
LinkedIn – Step One – Your Profile - To start with, your profile needs to onclude:
• Your Expertise
• Your Culture of Service - An Implied Promise of Dedication To The Clients’ Satisfaction and the Fulfillment of Their Needs
• Your Relevant Experience
• Education and Professional Credentials
• Rankings
• Your Unique Insights and Opinions
• The Quality of Your Clients
• Your Language Ability
• Commitment to Being Great
• Plus, any specific Message and Image That You Want the World To Know About You
Your profile will become outdated pretty quickly if you do not engage with the platform. As with any Social Media platform, consistent activity raises your ability to be found by search engines. Not to mention, an engaged presence on your Social Media platforms builds your image as an authority and allows for engagement through comments, connections, and shares, and keeps you aware of new developments in your industry and practice area as well as career moves your colleagues are making.
LinkedIn – Step Two – Articles - Let us introduce the idea of becoming a Thought Leader or Visible Expert. As far as we are concerned, the terms are basically synonymous although some purists might disagree. The idea is to show the world that you are really an expert in your practice area. You do this by writing and posting frequent articles on LinkedIn.
We have some important guidelines for your articles.
1) Inasmuch as the purpose is to attract the attention of potential clients, do not write in a scholarly or academic tone. Write as if you are speaking directly to a potential client.
2) It is best to explain your point in anecdotal form by saying how a client of yours benefited from implementing X. Do not go into the details of the legislation because that will lose your readers.
3) Internet users are no longer used to reading long paragraphs, Your paragraphs should not be only two or three sentences.
4) Each paragraph, or group of short paragraphs comprising an idea, should have a bold headline because the readers will often only skim your articles and their eyes will capture only these headlines.
5) Similarly, do not wait until the 14th paragraph to make your point. Make your point upfront because that may be all the reader will see.
6) Give away lots of free advice. The reader is not going to learn how to do your job, but this will show them that you are an expert.
7) Your articles should not be theoretical legal dissertations. Give the readers actionable advice. Tell them what they can do. This will make them want to read your future articles because they will have some real-world take-aways. You will develop a loyal following if they feel your articles actually help them. Again, they will not steal your job, you will still be hired.
8) Do not overexpose yourself. Post meaningful articles not more frequently than once every three weeks. LinkedIn is not Facebook. A former client of ours posts totally meaningless things on LinkedIn several times a week. No one cares what he thinks about the President, politics, social trends, the worldwide health crisis, or the country’s foreign policy. Those are things you should posted on Facebook – if at all. This sort of thing will actually detract from demonstrating you are a Thought Leader, and your posts will become Spam! You will lose your followers.
LinkedIn – Step Three – Special Interest Groups – If you want people to read your articles, you must read there’s. There are an enormous number of special interest groups on LinkedIn. Find the industry or practice area groups that are meaningful to you. Join them. Read what other people are posting. Add your comments to what they have said in their articles. Start a dialogue with the authors of those articles. Refer them to your articles if they are related. You will find you have a new group of contacts around the world of people who know about and know of your expertise. Your Personal Brand will be spreading.
LinkedIn – Step Four – Take Your Conversations Out of LinkedIn – Once you see that you are developing a nice rapport with someone in your special interest group, ask them if you can contact them outside LinkedIn. This is a huge step toward developing the kind of personal relationships we used to make when we met people in person.
LinkedIn – Step Five – Ask To Be Connected – Search out industry leaders and ask them to allow you to connect with them. You will find that not all will accept your offer to connect, but it is much easier than you may think. Then follow the instructions above toward developing them into personal relationships.
Back To Your Website - When you pique the interest of your LinkedIn audience, they will go to your website to find out more about you. Who is this interesting person? And that is why we said, your website is the hub of your internet presence.
CONCLUSIONS
Your Success As a Rainmaker In LinkedIn- It is entirely up to you how successful you will be as a Rainmaker in 2022 and beyond. What will determine your success will not be the competition you face. As Pogo, the cartoon character said, We have seen the enemy and he is us. Social Media, the Internet and specifically LinkedIn are delivering to you a world of new and potential clients. The extent to which you are determined to master the modern tools available to you on internet and in the Social Media will determine your future success as a Rainmaker.
Returning to Normal Life – A Hybrid World - The way things are going, it appears that by early 2022, the worst of the pandemic will be behind us. To a very real extent, we will return to in-person contact such as giving speeches to live audiences, meeting people in professional and social events, and enjoying lunches with our current and potential clients.
It is important that you master LinkedIn because the world of social networking will never go back to the way they were before March 2020.
Hiring a Social Media Professional - There was a time when a law firm could exist without its own IT professional on staff. On the other hand, the position of librarian has just about disappeared from most law firms, but almost no law firm can exist today without its own IT person to keep all the systems running well. Everything that we have described above takes a great deal of time, energy, and coordination to keep the LinkedIn accounts of all the member sof your law firm up-to-date. It is our strong recommendation that you hire your own Social Media Manager. If you are going to do all this on your own, separate from your law firm’s activities, then please hire a consultant to help and guide you.
General Conclusion – Here, we have tried to present you with a quick guide and overview as to how to use LinkedIn for obtaining new clients. Entire books have been written as to how to maximize the benefits of LinkedIn. We encourage you to dig deeper and make yourself an expert.
The truth is that only by trial and error, by jumping in and seeing what works for you and what does not, and by making continuous adjustments will you arrive at a Social Media campaign that will yield the number and quality of new relationships and resulting new clients you are hoping for.
Coaching and Support in 2022 and Beyond - The post-pandemic world is going to be a great place to be a lawyer. Get ready for tomorrow now. Make yourself and your law firm the law firm for the post-pandemic world. For specific questions, please email us at:
© Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved. Any unauthorized distribution or reproduction of this material in print or in any electronic form is strictly prohibited.Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the prior written consent of Silber, Vasquez & Associates.
