0:00:00.7 Kathleen: Hello, my name is Kathleen Temple, and I'm a marketing consultant here at ARAG. Welcome to the wow factor trifecta brand marketing and driving referrals presented by Sonia Lakhany. Sonia is the founder of Lakhany Law PC, and focuses or practice on counseling business owners on how to protect their catchy business names, logos and tag lines through trademark registrations. In addition to her law practice, Sonia also teaches courses to other attorneys on practicing trademark law, marketing and working smarter not harder. Over the course of her career, Sonia has helped numerous startups and small and medium-sized businesses secure trademark protection for their brands, she is considered a national expert in her field, as her work has been recognized and featured by numerous media outlets such as Bloomberg Entrepreneur Magazine, clamor magazine, business news daily and CBS, you can reach so veer website, Lakhanylaw.com or on Instagram at trademark lawyer lady. And with that, I'll pass off to you Sonia.
0:01:03.6 Sonia: Thank you so much for having me. Welcome to the Wow factor trifecta brand marketing and driving referrals. My name is Sonia Lakhany, thank you so much for the amazing introduction, I'm super excited to be here today because the wow factor is something near and dear to my heart that I may not have invented, but I definitely have started a movement, and hopefully by the end of our webinar, you will feel the same. So by way of a little more introduction, I'm Sonia, as Kathleen says, I'm the founder of an award-winning trademark law firm that has now surpassed over seven figures in yearly revenue thanks to lots of hard work and grit, but as you'll find out today, some not so secret strategies and referral building ideas. I'm also the creator of two weeks to trademarks, which is the first and only online course program for attorneys, paralegals and law students, that actually teaches you the practice of law in the trademark practice area and teaches you how to market it and get clients.
0:02:03.3 Sonia: I also have lots of other courses online pertaining to trademark law and practicing law in general, and running the business side of a firm. By way of education, I went to Emory Law from my law degree, and being from Southern California, I went to USC for undergrad. I also did some time at GW Law for my IP LLM, but after that I went on to win several awards for my work in this area. I've been practicing since 2010, but a law firm owner since January 2015. And it's important to note here that I did start after the 2008 crash and went on to experience quite a few other economic events after that, and mainly a pandemic and lots of other political issues, and I say that because it's so important to note that you don't have to be a practitioner that's been added for 20 or 30 years to gain the kind of notoriety that I have, or to have the kind of success that I've had.
0:02:57.0 Sonia: Also important to note here that I was not in the top 10% of my class. Not on law review, I didn't make it even though I tried and not [0:03:04.6] ____ court didn't make it even though I tried. I never worked at a big law firm and I never had rich parents to give me a small loan of a million dollars or anything like that, and despite that, I still have managed to accrue quite a level of success and I'm pleased to be able to have package those strategies and ideas and tips in this webinar for you today. So what if I told you that this seven figures in yearly revenue came from almost no revenue spent on ads, Legion, SEO or anything of the like, right. 'cause you hear that figure and you think she had to have paid some service to start sending her clients... Right, not the case. Before I continue, let's stay in touch, as Kathleen mentioned, you can reach me via my website, which is Lakhanylaw.com. If you're Instagram or Twitter, those are my handles. LinkedIn is easy for everybody, and if you are a practicing trademark attorney currently or you're interested in the practice area, please come join my Facebook group, we have thousands of attorneys in there, and we support each other, share resources, referrals and all things community.
0:04:10.4 Sonia: So here's just a few ways to reach me, if you're interested... So what if I told you that you don't have to be the cheapest attorney out there, you don't have to be the most experienced or work the hardest hours, work on longest hours, and win all these awful awards for most over-worked, but you could still reach that multi six, seven or eight figure or whatever revenue goal it is that you have, introducing the wow factor almost, or as close to free as you're going to get when it comes to marketing and budgeting for creating... Creating client avenues. Like I said, there is no SEO care, this is not teaching you Google AdWords or how to appear on the first page of Google through search results or anything like that. It can be done any time, which is nice if you are looking to have your own schedule and not be chained anywhere... Nice news that you can do it in the comfort of your home, so if you are a new parent, if you are just not like a networker, if you're a little bit introverted, this is perfect for you, and best of all, maybe this works even if...
0:05:19.8 Sonia: Especially if you don't really like putting yourself out there in the sense of doing videos or a webinar like this, you could be looking at me and saying, that's great for her. But that's not my speed at all. And that's perfectly fine, because this wow factor concept is perfect if any of these appeal to you, so in my view and in my experience and having teach a topist material for so long, the wow factor really is the most bang for your buck when it comes to spending money on marketing. And we all have to, if you're a solo or a small law firm owner, you have most likely thought about marketing and how you're gonna get clients or keep clients coming in... Or get referrals from existing clients. So the wow factor really does provide the most bang for your buck when it comes to spending your marketing dollars, you have so much control over the type of quality that is gonna come through the door, and you can see a direct correlation from your effort and your time and your expense into the types of clients and quality and quantity that you're getting in, so in my experience, and in my time in doing this, I have seen in also teaching it that it results truly in the highest likelihood of quality leads because you have so much control over what you're doing.
0:06:38.6 Sonia: So let's start right off the bat with one of my favorite life hacks that I call Bop the Birdie, I am not a badminton player or a tennis player or anything of those of that type, and for someone who has little to no knowledge of sports, I do make a lot of sports references, and I'm not sure why that is. Bop the Birdie is my visualization of a situation where the ball or the birdie is right on the net and you just wanna bop it over in the sense of you've got a client that really likes you but hasn't signed a retainer yet, or you had a really good consultation, and you wanna just make sure you nail it it, we wanna just bop right over the net. And so this is this one of my favorite life hacks. It has such a high success rate every time I've taught it, and I love hearing stories of people who come back to me and report on how something so simple could help them in such a big way, so... You might have asked yourself, what can I do after a consultation, for example, to increase my chances of getting retained?
0:07:41.7 Sonia: Right, I gave a great consultation crickets, or I've given 10 consultations this week, I've wasted so much time, whether it's on the phone, whether it's in person, and only two people retain me, and I wanna make sure that if I was spending the time... We should be dealing all of them, right, so Bop the Birdie is something super simple that you can do... You can go to Starbucks.com, for example. And by the way, a lot of what I teach is open for adaptation, so if you hear what I'm saying and think, "Well, I'm not really a coffee drinker and I don't really like Starbucks as a brand, and I think I hate them, you can sub it out for Amazon or some other local business that you wanna support or feel free to tailor and adapt as needed.
0:08:22.5 Sonia: So the framework for this strategy is, for example, you're gonna go to Starbucks.com, you're going to create an account, and tie your business credit card to it, and then you're going to generate a 5 or 10 e-gift card, right? 'cause we wanna be able to deliver it through email, we want instantaneous, if we've put things in the mail, which we'll talk about, obviously there's a delay in that, and we need to make sure that we at least have time of the essence for the initial touch of the consultation afterward, after you're retained, there's lots of time to use mail as an additional form of that personal touch and relationship, so you're gonna go to Starbucks.com $5 or $10, and you're gonna write in there, "Dear so and so, thank you so much for taking the time to consider my firm today, I look forward to working with you."
0:09:09.4 Sonia: 'Cause you wanna put that out there, right? Let's just go ahead and assume what's gonna happen all the best, Sonia, and then you're gonna go back to your email and hopefully you have a follow-up process for after the consultation, but if not, this is a good time to start thinking about that. But at minimum, a template email that goes out with instructions on how to retain you... Right. What are the next steps? So thank you so much for your time today. I enjoyed speaking with you as we discussed recap the process cost or whatever it is that you discuss, next para, you're gonna say something along the lines of, "I'm looking forward to working with you as a token of my gratitude for taking the time to consider my firm for your blank legal matter, please check your inbox for a little something from me to enjoy a treat at Starbucks," it doesn't have to be a literal typing of what I just said, but something along those lines, send. And then of course, in that time frame to Starbucks e-card is making its way via email as well, and the reason we wanna have that touch is because we don't want them to ignore it, or I think it's spam, or let it go to spam by accident, they don't see it, they may go to SPAN deficient out or the junk folder, but you do that and you tell me that you don't see a 90-something percent rate in your consultations going up.
0:10:24.5 Sonia: First of all, in the years I've been teaching this, it's still a minority of lawyers that are going to do this, a lot of people know about it. It's common sense. It's nothing ground breaking. But who really takes the time to do it? Now, you can put yourself in the shoes of someone who just had a consultation with someone else, let's say you had a consultation with a doctor or an accountant, and right after you left the office, you've got an email like that... Right, if you were on the fence, you would say, No, this person definitely knows what they're doing, and while they're making me feel special, like the wow factor... 'cause no one's gonna do that. No one is doing it.
0:11:00.1 Sonia: Even if you left thinking, "Yeah, this attorney seems competent, I wanna hire them," it's just gonna solidify that connection and completely bop it over, and again, it can't hurt to shine a little wow factor on things, because even if they were gonna retain you anyway, this just starts the process and relationship off on such a great note, and that wow factor of that just impressed state that you're gonna leave somebody and is going to result in new and a continuous stream of referrals for periods of time to come because you've really left an impression. So for the wow factor, I like to work smarter, not harder, and so I want to not only teach you here in this webinar, the concept behind what I'm doing and ideas, but also practical strategies on how you can just click close on this webinar and get right started. So the first thing you wanna do is decide maybe like a recurring day in time of your week and have a standing calendar appointment even once or twice a month as you get started would be great. I do one hour a week actually because of how much correspondence I personally have and how much I believe in this, and also it is the linchpin underneath a huge empire that I've now built, so I credit...
0:12:17.2 Sonia: A lot of people ask, you've created the multi-six, seven-figure firm, what's your secret? I like to stay away from hyperbole, but I would definitely say the concepts I'm teaching under the wow factor framework, I would attribute quite a lot of my success, so there's no one thing I think mindset plays into it. I think investing in your education plays into it, masterminding and talking with mentors and the pie chart of all the different factors, but I would definitely rate this one really high, so I personally spend a lot of time and hopefully, when you test it out and see some of the success in your own work, you'll up the amount of time as well, but start with one to two hours a week or a month, preferably a recurring day in time. So life with a lot of things in my business, I like to have an office hours with myself and say, this is financial Friday, so an hour for the calls you have to make to that company that double charged you and get your credit back from the cable company and call malpractice insurance to re-up this, all those like financially type of things, have a Financial Hour, for example, right? So with this, you wanna have a wow factor hour, and the reason is because that way you don't wanna spend your week already just running around, you're busy and thinking, "Oh, I've gotta write a thank you card," I need to stand and Oh, I haven't thank that person for a referral.
0:13:32.9 Sonia: I just had a consultation, let me do this," so this is just a way to really batch and streamline how you're doing not only wow factor stuff, but other stuff in your business too, so just try to think about recurring things that You can batch your time and schedule accordingly, so that way you just go a little bit more organized with your work, so you're gonna wanna create your kit. We don't have to over-complicate this. It can be for now, an old clean shoe box, it can be one of those plastic tubs you get at Michaels or the Container Store, let's not over-think it, but you wanna fill it with the following, so high-end stationary, preferably branded or monogram, if you wanna put your firm logo or your initials or something kind of classy and nice, if you wanna get stuff made, that can take a little while, you can go to a store like papyrus or even to be honest with you, Target has some really nice stationary these days, they have partnered with some really great stationary companies in their gift sort of ill gift office supplies area, and you'll see some really nice stuff that might match your firm colors or might just be a nice generic card that you can use, so you wanna have a stationary and just note cards if you can get to it, but definitely thank you cards plus all occasions / general, there's no specific message in there, so there's a lot of cute ones right now that say like "Hello" or just because...
0:15:00.3 Sonia: So you can get a little creative with this. You can definitely put your firm logo, if that helps to solve all the problems, and it does, because then you can write whatever you want on the inside, we wanna have a pack of your favorite pens. We are lawyers we'd be lying if you didn't have a favorite brand and color of a pen... I certainly do, I don't remember the name of it, but I know exactly what it looks like, and I've got one right here. If you're curious, it's the Uniball vision elite, not sponsored, not anything, but I just love these pens, and so I buy them by the pack, so throw a pack of your favorite pens in. Buy a book of stamps. I know it might have been a while since you've bought one, but go ahead and buy a book of stamps or two. Return labels that are also branded or even a firm stamp or just something to make it a little bit easier. Again, you can hand-write these as you're getting started, we wanna try to eliminate excuses and limitations to executing some of the stuff I'm talking about, and so the reason we're having a kit is because we wanna make it easy for you to take it out once a week on your hour, do the stuff and then put it away, right.
0:16:02.8 Sonia: Once a week, and we don't want you running around looking for a stamp, looking for a pen... "Oh, it's dry it out." And the theory behind this is that around the holidays, if you celebrate, you're likely not buying a gift coming home with it, wrapping it and then doing something else, most of us for efficiency reasons, have one or two or three gift wrapping sessions through the holiday season, you sit down, you have all your supplies and tape and the gift tags and everything, and you wrap, wrap, wrap, wrap for an hour, and if you don't finish maybe you tackle it again tomorrow, but you're doing it all at once, and you've got your whole supplies now, and so I like to think of everything in my work week and personal life as that concept of batching, making sure I have all my supplies right, putting everything away and then taking things back out when it's time.
0:16:50.2 Sonia: So after you create your little go-to kit, you wanna also have on your desk a packet of Post-it notes, which you may have already, but there's a specific reason why we're doing them, so maybe get a different color or designate a certain style of them, just for this... And then lastly, honorable mentioned for any kind of email marketing software or CRM, if you don't have one, it's okay, but definitely start thinking about that as sort of the next phase of your marketing campaign and efforts, some examples are MailChimp and convert hit a lot of the software companies out there, do offer a free version up to probably 1000 or two subscribers, so that's plenty of room for you to get started without a huge financial obligation.
0:17:36.7 Sonia: And so the reason that we are having a creators kit, and especially the Post-it notes, is because as you go through your week... Right. This is not related to the consultation life hack, where I am wanting you to do the Starbucks thing right after a consultation or maybe the end of the day, like the two or three that you had, or five or six... Definitely do all those at once, but that's gonna be more of a daily thing, but again, I would recommend that you have certain consultation days, even like Tuesdays and Thursdays where you only do consultations, so you know that those evenings, you're gonna have a round-up of sending out Starbucks, the bop the birdie to those people. But for this, we want you to keep a running list. Again, it could be Post-it notes, if you're more of an app person, you could do a note in your phone, you could have an email draft or a Word document or however it is you wanna keep track, but through your work week, keep a list handy. Kinda like grocery list, you don't go to the grocery store every time you need something, you make a list, so you wanna think, for example...
0:18:36.0 Sonia: If Wednesdays at noon are your wow factor hour, your recurring appointment with yourself, you wanna think to yourself, "Who from last Wednesday to now, today being Wednesday in my work week, my hypothetical work week, who has sent me a referral for a new client? Who has introduced me to someone that would be a great connection for me? Who has nominated me for an award, maybe? Who share something I did of mine on LinkedIn? Who told me about a speaking opportunity and got me a spot on a panel?" Just maybe think broad here, but you wanna think like, "Who do I wanna think? Who do I wanna touch base with?" Like I said at minimum, I mean, really minimum, it's gotta be anybody who's introduced you to a client or sent you any kind of lead. And I'll talk about this a little bit more later, but at this stage, it does not matter what came of that introduction or that lead or that email or that sticking your neck out that they did for you. So it doesn't matter whether or not the client that somebody introduced you to retains you. It should not matter right? And it definitely shouldn't matter how much money you made from... If they did end up retaining, right? We need to make sure that we are thinking people left and right, and then some for just going out of their way for us.
0:19:52.4 Sonia: People don't have to introduce you to... They don't have to tag you in a Facebook group and say, "Oh yes, so-and-so does that in that city. Talk to them." Right? We've all been in Facebook groups where we get tagged in things and someone's continuously sticking their neck out for you. It's not their business or problem or fault, if the person isn't retaining you, if you're doing your consultations well, and if you're doing other stuff well, which is a separate topic, then you should be getting retained, but if you're not, that's not this person's fault. You've got people all over your community in an online space going to bat for you, and essentially being our sales force. And if someone is continuously sending you stuff and going out of their way for you and you haven't so much, I mean, even emailed them to say thank you, let alone a card or something else, I mean, that person is just gonna feel like icky about it. It's like the person didn't acknowledge me right? And people aren't doing it to get gifts or cards, but it's always nice to be appreciated.
0:20:51.3 Sonia: And again, if you introduced somebody to a new client or a lead and you got a handwritten note in the mail, maybe a week later or three days later, you'll like, "Wow!" You just wanna go out of your way some more right? It's the wow factor. So the reason I say Post-It note, you can also use a note in your app or the notes app on your phone, any kind of mechanism that works for you to just keep a running list throughout the week of "So-and-so did this, this email came in from that person," just people to touch base with, that went out of your way, so that way when you do sit down for your weekly recurring time, it's easy for you to say, "Okay, I'm gonna write a thank you note to this person, I'm gonna write a handwritten note to these three new clients and just say 'Thank you for entrusting me to handle your blank. I look forward to working with you.'" Right? So that's... You've been retained. Maybe you did the [0:21:43.9] ____ and that was electronic, hypothetically, then they retained you, and so now when you sit down on your Wednesday or whatever hour, you're gonna write a little note and say, "I'm looking forward to working with you, thank you so much."
0:21:55.1 Sonia: Now it's okay to drop that in the mail because they've already retained you, and so now it actually creates a little cushion of time for them to see that in the mail and, wow, is that a wow factor, right? Attorneys don't do that because it's time... There's some time involved here. It's not a rocket science by any means, but my goal here is to take what may make sense as you've gone through life and collecting different ideas into a systemized framework. So this is how you're gonna do that. Now, I always get asked, "what do I do for current clients? What do I do for past clients? What about referral sources? Any ideas? I need a system, I need framework." So I'm here to deliver. So current clients, you wanna get your Nordstrom on. So what I mean by that is if you ever talk at Nordstrom or Saks Fifth Avenue or any one of those high-end stores, you know that they have gone above and beyond to make sure that you get a really amazing client experience. From the moment you walk through the door, someone greets you, they ask you if you need help with anything, they make calls for you to locate your size in a certain sweater, and they really wanna go above and beyond. They've gone out of their way to make sure the decor and the lighting is something that makes you wanna be there and is pleasant to shop. So design your client experience with yourself and your law firm.
0:23:16.5 Sonia: Right? Again, we're living in a virtual world of these days for a lot of us, so it may not be walking into your physical office and that's okay, right? You actually have an advantage there where you can design your materials and process in a way that does create a great client experience. So again, have your process list out, but visually walk yourself through each stage of your client's experience with you and find those little moments to sparkle and shine, right? So so far, I've walked you through a hypothetical first two steps of the process; potential client contacts you, you schedule a consultation, you have the consultation, you do the Bop the Birdie, Starbucks e-gift card hack, 90% of the time they end up retaining you, and then you have your weekly hour with yourself and you sit down, you write them a thank you note and saying "Thank you so much for choosing me," maybe you throw in a little book, or you don't have to, you can customize based on your time, effort, budget.
0:24:11.9 Sonia: But these are some of the minimum things you should be doing and figuring out where you fit in this framework, okay. So then you write a card, thanking them for choosing your firm, that you're looking forward to working with them. Now, again, this is dependent on your practice area and the process for your individual legal matter that the services that you're providing, but think about what milestones and benchmarks could be along the way in your legal service, and have a process in place for those little touches along the way.
0:24:44.7 Sonia: So you could also be in the business world, and trademarks are a subset of business transactional law, but if you're truly in the business world where the deal closed or the contract was signed, or the agreement was executed, or there's some, again, some ending point to the job being done or some celebratory occasion, maybe a trial verdict, for example, that's another occasion to put a note in and say "It was such a great... It was such a pleasure working with you. Thank you for choosing my firm." 'Cause again, it is a choice. There's so many attorneys out there and so many law firms. So it is a choice and we wanna make sure we express that gratitude for each choice along the way. Always throw in a business card, always, whenever you're writing a note. It may get tossed, but that's okay, but you just always wanna have your information ready to go because someone may take a picture of it and send it to somebody where they just talked about it or they have it laying around and they find it later. You just never know. Self-explanatory. Another example of a way to cap off a current client matter is the divorce is finalized, right?
0:25:45.8 Sonia: Or maybe their bankruptcy petition was approved, or the immigration was granted, right? There are... In every world, there is a way and a time to close things off, even if the result was unfavorable, you still wrapped up working with them. And again, depending on how things went, and if you feel like it was a good experience, you can still say something applicable. Again, the goal is not to over-think this or decide that it's not for you, or that it won't work. It's just a matter of styling out and tailoring how it may look for you. So past clients, think of the last time you got in touch with someone whose divorce you did two years ago, or an immigration that was completed five years ago. You must hate money if you don't reach back out. We think, "Okay, onto the next, onto the next." And a common question I get all the time is, "Well look at your success. How do you get new clients?" And my answer to that is, well, wow factor stuff, but it might not always need to be a new client. We're interested in generating revenue, and it's actually a very established business principle, not even in the legal world, but an established legal business principle that retaining a new customer is often more expensive than a current or past customer and keeping them happy, right?
0:27:12.6 Sonia: And so we wanna put effort in time and money and our marketing dollars toward repeat business or even past business, sending us new business. So again, we're short-cutting the outreach to brand new cold audiences by doing some of the stuff that is just so easy. You've already got these people's information, they've already worked with you, they've already paid you money, they clearly for the most probably like you, unless something went horribly awry and you can just skip the off the list. We've all been there, right? But think about what do you do to keep in touch with past clients? Do you have additional reasons to check in? Can you create one? At minimum, I would recommend maybe having a yearly thing that you do. So obviously around the holiday season, and you might wanna get started now, depending on where the holiday season is for you in this calendar and the time that you're viewing this, but it's never too early to start accumulating your list and ideas and things like that. But at minimum, you can do an annual audit if you're in the business world, "Hey, I'm just checking in. I wanted just to see, you know how things were going. Are you guys opening any new locations? Are you developing any new products or services?"
0:28:20.0 Sonia: In the trademark world, we're interested in protecting catchy names, slogans, taglines and things like that, brand protection. So it's very important for us to check in and say, "Are you starting anything new that we might need to work on naming the protection of that?" But even if... Again, if you're in the more sort of individual world where it's a divorce or a bankruptcy, or immigration or any kind of family law, things like that, or criminal law, an annual audit may not make sense. So maybe you have a system around capturing clients' birthdays, or again, if you don't have... You're like, "Well, I already got thousands of clients and we're not going back now," you can always start asking for stuff in the intake process. So some of the attorneys I've worked with that have really taken my material and run with it will do something like... In their intake process will ask, "What's your favorite candy? What's your favorite coffee shop? What's your favorite online retailer?" They ask in the intake. Imagine that, right? And then getting a gift card to Target, 'cause that's what you said, or you love Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or Starbucks, or whatever the case may be. It's personally tailored to you. And now so many retailers, majority of them living in a virtual and online and tech world, there are very few places that you cannot get an electronic printable PDF gift card.
0:29:41.9 Sonia: It's really easy. You don't have to go to the store, you don't have to create extra effort. But like I said, if you're too far along, if you're newer to practice, especially solo small firm, definitely think about adding in these sparkles in your intake process so that you can easily pull the data later, but if you've been practicing for a while and you're like, "You know what? That's not gonna happen. So where can we go from here?" you know what, you could just create your yearly holiday. It could be the holiday season, like I said, it could be New Year. I like New Year personally rather than the traditional holiday season of November, December, just because it's a little different and it's a little delayed, so I get to enjoy my holiday season with my family and my team and my friends, and then kinda come fresh to it in January. You could do 4th of July. I know two attorneys that do that. I know one attorney that does Thanksgiving. I know one attorney that does Chinese New Year because he's Chinese, and a lot of his clients are. So there are lots of occasions to do that.
0:30:38.6 Sonia: And again, if you can tie it into something that your practice area relates to, even better. And as with anything that I talk about in this webinar, the reason I so freely share my contact information on every slide, it's in the beginning of my presentation, it will be at the end in terms of how to keep in touch, I welcome your questions, I welcome your scenarios, if you would like individual guidance on creating something for yourself, I am more than happy to do that. I love this stuff, if it's not apparent. So if all else fails, everybody can identify when you were retained. So maybe it's the anniversary of working with you and just say "Hi, it's been a year since we started working together," or "It's been a year since your divorce, happy anniversary," or "Happy single anniversary." Again, feel free to adapt to your own practice area and your own style. Now, we've talked about current clients, we've talked about past clients, now we're talking about referral sources that could be past clients, that could be current clients, but oftentimes it could be other attorneys, it could be accountants, it could be doctors, therapists, depending on your practice area.
0:31:45.5 Sonia: Again, in the trademark world, we rely a lot on marketing folks to send us our business, right? So people who have naming agencies, website agencies, logo, designers, they're seeing cool names and concepts and business names all the time that may need protection. And so those are the non-attorney sources for us. But we'll keep referral sources broad because in your world, it could be somebody different. So think about how you can keep the gas tank always full right? The last thing anyone wants to do is be driving around on an empty tank and the light goes on and there's not a gas station for miles. Right? That's my metaphor for what we often as solo and small firm practitioners call the ebb and flow, it's feast or famine. It either rains or it pours, right? So it's like, we don't wanna go through these unpredictable cycles where I made $5,000 one month, $50,000 another month, $2 the next month, and you just feel like you're on a roller coaster with no control and you're just like, "Well, I guess we'll see what the month brings in." This is a way for you to take that control. Again, you're gonna have to spend marketing dollars in some way if you're really serious about building and scaling your law practice. So why not spend it in a way that you can create control, have predictability and keep your gas tank full and keep a steady line of client matters coming through the door?
0:33:10.4 Sonia: Note that I didn't say new clients, because again, it could come from past clients and they may have repeat business for you. Again, depending on your practice area. I've talked to some family law attorneys who have repeat divorces, it happens. [chuckle] So it just depends on what you're up to. Now, you wanna think about having the data ready. So if you haven't been already, track your ROI starting today. Keep a record, even an Excel spreadsheet or a Google document of where does each client come from. And again, you have to tweak some of your processes here. Make it part of your intake or consultation process to ask. Every time I do a consultation, without fail, I ask, "Just... It's nice to meet you. How did you hear about us? I'm just curious."
0:33:51.9 Sonia: And I always say this, I say, "I'm asking because even after all these years, it's still so humbling when someone suggests me or recommends me, and so I just wanna make sure that I'm able to properly thank the person that sent you my way." I tell the person that, 'cause then they're like, "Oh wow, okay. Well, it was so-and-so. Let me try to find their name. I'll email it to you later." We always follow up. If it was Ashley, so-and-so, "What's her last name? I wanna make sure I got the right Ashley in my network to thank." And this allows you to then jot it down on your, we'll go back a couple of slides, on your kit notes, your recurring for the... Your weekly appointment. Now you know. "Okay, I've gotta thank Ashley for sending this client over. I've gotta email her or write her a card or... " I'm gonna address that in my weekly kit time. And this will... We'll address this in a moment, but you wanna develop your own tier of gift ideas and corresponding dollar amounts that match a referral source's effort, effort, not money that came to you at the end, or if at all, whether you were retained, the value of the case or the matter.
0:35:00.5 Sonia: Remember, those are not relevant. I spoke about that a moment ago. That is not relevant. We want to appropriately thank people that are sticking their neck out for you and being your salesforce around town and in the online space. So match a referral source's effort. So if you haven't been keeping track up till now, I'm sure that if you took a piece of paper, you could put down at least the 10 people or places where your last, however many clients came from, or the ones that stick out the most, or just the most recent ones, or common ones, the recurring people. So give it your best shot, but if not, start tracking your ROI by keeping records of where people come from, make it part of your process to ask. Always, always ask so that when you sit down for your weekly hour and then your annual thing, the data is there ready for you. By the way, this... And a lot of this wow factor stuff is the perfect set of tasks for a VA or an assistant or any kind of team member, and so if you don't have anyone helping you with this stuff, now is a great time.
0:36:05.4 Sonia: And again, I know what you might be thinking. "Well, that's gonna cost me money." Again, you're gonna have to spend marketing dollars somewhere, right? So why not make it the most targeted and purposeful and intentional marketing dollars on paying somebody hourly once a week to help you go through this, bringing in someone for five hours every holiday season to help you do, accumulate all this and figure out addresses and stuff like that? That is so much better and more effective than, I would say, pouring money into SEO or AdWords or some lead gen. Again, nothing against those ideas either, but again, this is tried and tested and evidenced by not only my own success, but how many times and how many years I've been teaching this material to other attorneys who report back constantly. So this stuff does work.
0:36:55.6 Sonia: So referral source matrix. This is something I designed. I encourage you to take a picture of it or screenshot this because it will really help capture this concept of matching effort and really trying to make sure that we have something for everyone. So across the top, you just see levels one, two and three, and then across the left down, you see frequency, quality and revenue. And so the idea here is that, let's say you're in column one and you've got someone who all year long is introducing you to people, tagging you in Facebook groups, sending you new clients, but you know what, none of them ever retain you, some may not even ever contact you, they never even replied from the introduction. And so revenue-wise, you haven't made a lot of money. We're in column one here. Okay, that's one category.
0:37:43.0 Sonia: This person still very much deserves something from you, some acknowledgement, often acknowledgement, at least every time something's happening, but it may not be thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars because it's not really panning out, but you've gotta really make sure that you consider that this person's trying and that's all someone can do, 'cause after the introduction, it's on you and your process is your fit with a client, and so on and so forth. On the other end of the spectrum, we've got column three, which is maybe you only hear from this person once or twice a year, but it's always a hit, right? You almost always get a great case matter client, whatever it may be, and it is hard to get high dollar. Right, awesome, awesome. My PI attorneys are probably fitting into this category where once in a blue moon you get something and it's just like, Oh my gosh, a really high value case. So yes, you're making a lot of money, and so you wanna make sure that the dollar amount or the value of your gift does take that into account, right. If someone sent you a case or they know what it is, probably right, they may not, but if you made a lot of money off of something off of some introduction, that's another category to consider.
0:38:56.9 Sonia: And then in the middle, you've got kind of a mixed bag. This is where a lot of things fall into, some retain you, some don't, you hear from them every now and again, and it's just kind of a grey area, and so the revenue is somewhere in the middle, it's hit or miss it. You may have a different value or tier of gift and effort for this person, so it just depends on again, it's hard during a webinar to give individual advice since you're not able to ask me questions, but that's why I share my contact information. So hopefully, this matrix hammers down the concept that if you haven't been taking all these different types of people along the spectrum into consideration, now is the time that you really ought to start.
0:39:38.7 Sonia: So the next logical chapter in this book is, well, okay, this all sounds great, and I can definitely name people, Sonia, that have sent me business and I can put them into the different tiers, but I need gift ideas. I'm here to help. Obviously, Starbucks gift cards. But this list is a sort of a snapshot of my version of a Zoom meeting that's just audio only at 8:00 AM, you're like, "Oh, this is amazing." No video. You don't want to get ready, it's just the perfect scenario. Right? So here are some of my favorites. At the end of this webinar, I'm actually gonna be sharing a resource for you to opt into receiving a huge list that really takes this and builds on it for lots of gift ideas, lots and tried and tested. So if you're interested, stay tuned. So right off the bat, here are some of my favorites. Charles Cookies are amazing, they not only taste good, but they are available for Nationwide shipping, and for the most part, they have a cookie card that is just a singular cookie with a pre-printed message. Unfortunately, you can't customize it, but it's like, Thank you, or You've got this, or hugs or something like that, and they're like $5 to $8 delivered, that's the cookie, the shipping, the whole bit for $5 to $8, so definitely worth.
0:40:56.5 Sonia: For your weekly list, you can send a cookie out to 10, 15 people, just acknowledging different things for a really good budget cost, and it's just such a nice little something in the mail. Obviously, I said Starbucks e-gift cards, I use those so frequently and so often, something common that I do get asked or commented is that, What if the person doesn't drink coffee? Or what if... And I would really encourage you, lawyers, were such a picky bunch sometimes that we over-think stuff, I would not overthink it unless you're sure that this person has a gluten allergy, so then maybe don't send them cake or cookies, right. But the content remains true, as our moms and dads always said, it is the thought that counts, and so I can't tell you how many times I've gotten gifts with pork in them, for example, like a basket of wine, cheese and like a charcuterie type of thing, or whatever, it may be something I don't eat, but I can't remember who those people were, all I remember is that they sent me that basket, right. So if they don't drink coffee and unless they have a hatred for Starbucks, for example, I wouldn't overthink it.
0:42:04.3 Sonia: Sugarfina is another resource that I really like. It is beautiful, different flavored candies that just come so beautifully wrapped and fun, granted there's like three gummies to a package, so it's not really like a volume base thing, but it's the package, the presentation. So for example, they have rose flavored gummies or Bourbon flavored chocolate truffles, really fun different kinds of things. Now, back to the question about intake and really getting to know your referral sources, for example, and people you have relationships with, and I'll back up here for a second, if someone is sending you stuff all year long or really trying for you, I hope that you're getting to know them by going to lunch, going to dinner, having coffee, really having conversations to get to know this person, not only so that your referral relationship can get better, hopefully a mutual referral relationship, if applicable, you're sending stuff back to them too. But so that you can get to know them.
0:43:00.2 Sonia: And the reason is because when you know someone's favorite thing or just their point of excitement, you can really shine and spark that wow factor. So for example, one of my two weeks of trademarks students, two weeks of trademarks is an online program I teach for current and interested trademark attorneys to add trademarks as a practice career, and one of my two weeks to trademark students during one of our lectures asked me, she said, What's your favorite candy? You talk about this stuff all the time, and I teach this material within the program, and I said, Oh I love Snickers, I just love them. I could eat them all day long for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She sent me... One of my students sent me a three-pound bag Snickers minis and I ate it for months. It just showed up in an Amazon box. She just ordered them on Amazon and it just showed up, and I don't care that it wasn't gift wrapped or that wasn't a cardboard box, I'm like, She knew the thing that I love.
0:43:58.6 Sonia: So you really can go out of your way and really put your time, put your effort to learning the people and you should 'cause if they're sending you business, what else are you doing with your time than doing this stuff, this has a direct correlation to creating and maintaining business in your firm, and so I mentioned Amazon and the way that she sent it... Because anything that you can buy on Amazon for yourself and have it delivered the next day, you can do for other people. Right? Prime is prime. And so if there's a book on a certain subject, if there is a certain cookie flavor or candy or good or anything really, they may have a favorite lip gloss or... I don't know. You could really get creative. Anything that Amazon sells, you can prime to somebody else and market as a gift, and so there's no price, there's no nothing, and it's that easy. It'll arrive in one to two days.
0:44:55.4 Sonia: They also have a really amazing gift section, which a lot of people don't realize, but you can send biscotti, cookies, brownies, candy, all kinds of fun wrapped things through Amazon Gift section. So search away and tailor as much as you can, 'cause that's really gonna be your wow factor, and we got a little out of order here, but something else that I've done that's had a lot of success is a spur gift certificate when someone's just going through it and having a really tough day. So I've had people say, I'm so sorry that I'm late or that I haven't replied in a week or two, I have a family member that's sick or someone just passed away, send flowers. Send a gift certificate and say... And it's really this easy, you look at their address, Google a decent looking salon, go to their website, do an e-gift card for either just a flat amount or look at their service menu, figure out how much a massage cost, add gratuity and do it that way. And again, you can print it out and do a card, that's my favorite way of doing it, but if time is of the essence, you attach as the PDF and say, No worries, get back in touch with me when you can. In the meantime, I'm sending you warm wishes and you may be able to use the attached to relax a little bit.
0:46:07.2 Sonia: Are you serious? What if someone did that for you. So the overall kind of theme here is treat people not only how you wanna be treated, but how you treat your friends and family, because again, people who fall into this level of matrix, why shouldn't they be treated well? They're going out of their way for you, other end of the spectrum. Just in case you're wondering, or maybe you're at the point in this webinar where you can use some entertainment. This is the equivalent, if these are the equivalent of like an audio-only Zoom meeting, I don't have to get ready, I don't have to turn my video on, just amazing. This is the other end where it's like, "Oh my god, I just spilt coffee all over my keyboard", that's the feeling of these types of gift ideas, so one great example is that I hired a local bakery years ago to ship cookies in the shape and style, like my firm business card brought to life on cookies.
0:46:58.5 Sonia: I still maintain that this is a great idea. Etsy, if you wanna find someone local that can do this for you, Etsy's a great resource, E-T-S-Y. There's lots of crafters and different people to have small businesses on there. So you're supporting a small business while you're at it, but I hired a local bakery near my house, my house, and we picked up the shipments of these big bulk of tons of cookies, and I had... I had hired a few assistants to come and wrap them and put them in bubble wrap and bow them and everything, this is not something that you should be doing or taking on yourself. Why? Because they all arrived cracked. Cookie companies and people who do this have a way of packing things and they do this all the time so let them do it. But doing it myself was a mess, and luckily, I had a few colleagues that are also friends just ping me and say, Your Cookie was actually yummy, it was a great sugar cookie, but it arrived crumbled and I just thought you'd wanna know that. So just careful. Another idea I tried once years ago was shipping bottles of Dom Perignon, myself. At the time, my brother owned a lounge near our hometown. He bought a bar, and so he had that nice liquor rep discount, he said, If you need anything for your business, I'm happy to introduce you, my rep.
0:48:17.5 Sonia: And so I bought bottles of Dom Perignon champagne for a pretty good rate, and I was like, I'll take several cases. Okay. First of all, it's illegal to ship alcohol, did not know of that, second of all, then in lied the problem of how am I gonna package this? Could you imagine Dom Perignon just being wasted like that and shattering in route, someone to open up broken glass and a soaked package. Terrible idea. Luckily, we clock that one, so I did, and if you're wondering how that turned out, I did bubble wrap them and do everything, and then I got to UPS and they ask you, What's in it? And I said bottles of Dom Perignon. I was so excited. And they're like, It's illegal to ship alcohol. You can't do it, so just don't. If you're gonna send alcohol to somebody, you can use a website like Wine Country Gifts or Drizly is an app that actually, you can send kinda like DoorDash, you can send a bottle from their local liquor store to be delivered. So there's other ways around it, if you know someone's a big wine or Bourbon or something drinker, just stay away from anything diet or fitness-related, please, just self-explanatory.
0:49:25.4 Sonia: And on that note, anything that requires you to choose or like theorize on their body shape size, let's just not. I've never done that, but I wanted to add it to the list because it's been done to me and it's just... Let's just not, right? Alright, we are nearing the home stretch of this webinar, so if you've made it this far, thank you for hanging in there. As I mentioned, there is an awesome free resource waiting for you just around the corner, so hang in there just a little bit longer, but best practices for the wow factor framework at minimum, seriously, an email every single time someone does something, refers you a client, introduces you, shares you, tags you, anything, it's not that hard. And again, I would ask you, what are you doing with your time if not this stuff? Because if you say you want new clients, if you say your revenue is not where you want it to be, but you're not willing to do this stuff and carve out time for it, I'm like, What are you so busy with if it's client work then you have plenty of clients, if you don't have enough client work or enough clients, then you have the time to do this.
0:50:28.9 Sonia: And if all else fails, make the investment, ballpark, $1000 for the quarter and say, Okay, I'm gonna spend this much on hiring somebody hourly, like a VA, or you could use Task Rabbit to get somebody in person and help you out, I'm gonna ball park this much for gifts and books and cookies and stuff like that, and then this much in Starbucks gift cards, right? Something like that. Again, have your kit, you can actually life-hack this a little bit more and have a stack of general written notes already ready, ready to mail, and so you can just literally take your cards and say, "Dear, leave a space and a comma, Thank you so much for referring me a new client this month, this week, I really appreciate you always keeping me in mind. All the best, Sonia." And then when things come in for your Wednesday hour, your weekly hour, you're just filling in the name, dropping a business card and bam. So there's ways to shortcut some of this if you wanna vouch it even more.
0:51:28.1 Sonia: You wanna have a tickler list if you can, again, the same spreadsheet or same document that you're using or system to... Again, if you have a CRM, it's even better, but have it alert you, especially for some of these people that you really need to make sure you keep in touch with, you know time flies, especially pandemic and post-pandemic. It's a wonder how many years passed so quickly when we've last spoken or seen someone, especially with the on and off limitations and in-person events and things like that. Systemic it, have a time that reminds you when it's been three months, six months, a year since you've last seen someone, so that you can say, "Hey, it's been a while. How have you been?" And on that note, you're gonna have to get comfortable with just because.
0:52:11.1 Sonia: And it's actually better. You don't want to be the type of person that only reaches out when there's something to be gained for you, right, so you reach out and say, "Hey, I was just thinking of you, I wanted to see how your blank business was going", 'cause the person sending you business, probably, is in business of some sort themselves. "How's that going for you? Is there anything I can do to support you or what can I help you with?" So that's free to do or to offer, and it just makes it not so self-serving. Enough chit chat, next actionable steps, I am famous in my trainings and courses and teaching for actionable steps, we're gonna give you a theory where then we're gonna get right into strategies, we give you lots of tips, lots of stuff that you can actually do. So this is your to-do list, screenshot it, you're gonna buy the stationary and your pens and your stands to create your kit. Okay?
0:53:02.1 Sonia: You're going to decide on just one thing you're gonna do when you onboard a new client or when you wrap up a client matter and start implementing it, even if it's just a hand-written note and nothing more but try to do as much as you can. Next, contact just three past clients each week for the next 90 days, so work backwards and say, "Okay, let me start from a year ago," pick three clients and then another three and another until you catch up to present day... And just do that once a week for 90 days. And tell me if you don't see a difference in your business. Tell me. It may not be the next day, but you'll see it, and then decide on your yearly thing, if the holidays are right around the corner, then you wanna put an exclamation point on that, but if not, think about your annual thing, it could be like I said in that slide that you can go back toward, it can be the anniversary of working with you, it can be their birthday, it can just be Valentines day, it could be 4th of July. It could be anything. And start working with somebody that you're investing hourly or contract, even if you don't have team members to compile a list of recipients and look at the matrix and figure out what that framework... How that framework can be applicable for you.
0:54:17.5 Sonia: People ask me often, What are my favorite books on this topic, if you wanna dive in a little bit more, as I've mentioned, none of this is frankly original material, but it is original in the way that I've systemized it, and the way that I teach it, particularly for attorneys, but if you'd like to really deep dive, here are four of my favorite books on this topic. And as promised, if you want more gift ideas like a free list of 30-plus tried and tested gift ideas of mine that I have used for clients referral sources, and anyone else, visit wowfactorideas.com, enter your name and email, and you will get an auto-email replied back with that PDF ready to download. And that way, it allows us to keep in touch, you can reply back to that email if you have any questions for me, if you want to hop on a call or get any kind of guidance, I'd be more than happy to help you because I really do just love this stuff.
0:55:08.0 Sonia: So with that, I thank you so much for viewing this webinar today, thank you to ARAG for having me and let's stay in touch using the following ways, and I look forward to hearing your Wow Factor success stories.
0:55:21.1 Kathleen: Sonia, thank you so much for joining us today for your time and all of this wonderful information and...
0:55:26.5 Sonia: My pleasure.
0:55:27.9 Kathleen: To everyone watching, thanks for tuning in and have a great day. Bye.