14 feet tall and the phone has started to ring.
Not long now before I have steady divorce work.
The billboard follow certain rules I’ve come up with. 1- Simple information. 2- Face to the far outside – Text on the side of the road. 3- Phone number that can be remembered in one sighting.
I have been snooping around for an easy to remember phone number. I know what many of you are thinking. ”That’s easy, just get 1-800-DIVORCE.”
It isn’t so simple. First, that number is taken already, by an entrepreneur who simply leases it to local areas. If you dial it in San Antonio (from a 210 area code number), you get the San Antonio office who paid for it. Dial it in Houston (713 and 281 area codes), and you’ll get a different firm in Houston that has leased it. Second, I don’t want a toll-free number. While they are useful when researching vanity phone numbers (AT&T will only search toll-free phone numbers), there’s no getting away from the fact that the owner of the number is going to be paying for the phone calls sent to it. Plus, all the good ones are taken.
What about 210-DIVORCE? No good. This number, if dialed, yields a message from the operator yelling you that the number is not in service. Perfect… or so I thought. Research revealed that AT&T owned it, so couldn’t I simply request it? Not quite. That number, while not in public use, is a business line used for internal communication. When I suggested to AT&T that they provide me with the name of the owner so that I might buy it directly from them, the lady nearly hung up on me.
So XXX-DIVORCE is not viable. But what about 1DIVORCE, or 2DIVORCE (all the way to 9DIVORCE), where the caller merely dials an extra digit, an E in this case. That didn’t pan out either. Most of the numbers are simply not in service and strictly unavailable. I called them all and someone answered 7DIVORCE, but he simply could not comprehend why I would wish to purchase his number. ”Get your own phone number!” he told me. So I did.
There is only one national reputable source for premium local numbers that I have found. Ephonenumbers.net. If you go there, you may look for your own area code by state and purchase a good phone number. In San Antonio, they have many options. I chose the best. 210-595-9999. Easy to remember. Difficult to mis-dial. Local.
I have been kicking around various slogans in my head lately, and I think there are a couple of rules we need to follow. It needs to be simple, memorable, and searchable. Some well known examples might help.
Ford – Built Ford Tough
Andrews and Kurth LLP – Straight talk is good business.
Apple – There’s an App for that.
All simple and to the point. They all also follow the Glengarry Glen Ross rule of ABC (Always Be Closing) by selling the service or product in the slogan itself. They also follow the theme of the company they advertise. You’ll notice that the Ford slogan is bold, strong, and short. The Andrews and Kurth slogan is headier, by business people for a business clients.
Apple is something more like what I am considering. There’s an App for that. The key here is flexibility. There’s not just an App for that, there’s an Anything Apple Makes for that. I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘App’ turns to ‘Apple’ or ‘iCapitalLetterSomething’ in the future. ”Want a computer that’s as modern as you? There’s an Apple for that.” ”Need a touch screen coffee maker? There’s an iCoffee for that.” Flexible.
A slogan I have been kicking around is: Divorce with Dignity. This is flexible in that ‘Diginity’ can be replaced with other relevant words. Divorce with Ease.
But there is a rather large collaboration of attorneys in California that have a hold on this slogan. There are also many other Family Attorneys who use this slogan, and I would like to be unique. This way, when people do an internet search my slogan, they see my website they quickly find me instead of the 100 other attorneys using the same slogan. Something that, if queried in Google, doesn’t seem to yield cohesive results is “Making the Hard, Easier”.
This slogan is also very flexible within a common theme. Making the [expected bad], [unexpected good]. ”Making the Expensive, Cheaper” ”Making the Long, Brief” ”Making the Complicated, Simpler”
The Law Office of Michael McLees
Making the Hard, Easier
This slogan, of course, comes within shouting distance of violating the ABA Model Rules on professional conduct (7.1 – “likely to create an unjustified expectation about results the lawyer can achieve”), which is why it won’t be used. I do believe that I would be able to defend myself if the ABA decided to prosecute me for this slogan, but I would prefer to simply not deal with it, especially as I’ll already be dealing with the large task of getting the practice up and running.
Attorneys, if using a form of advertising, are burdened with rules other businesses do not encounter. I do believe a slogan can be helpful for advertising, but it is not necessary. If I can find a good slogan that doesn’t put my practice at risk, I’ll use it. Until then, the brainstorming continues.
In the lease agreement I am looking at, there is a provision allowing for signage that is approved by the landlord. Specifically, there are 4 large windows which face traffic in the suite I am expecting to lease in which I wish to place signs. The provision in the lease is there, obviously, to prevent me from inserting something unprofessional into the window. But what if I sign the lease and the landlord does not approve even the most tasteful signs?
So what I am going to do is propose that the initial signage in the windows and center stack be incorporated into the lease agreement itself, which means that I can get a sign company to begin manufacturing the signs.
It may help to have pictures that illustrate what I am talking about.
Here is the front of the building. As you can see, there is a Starbucks in the center, which means that traffic is perceived by them to be high and at least medium income. I trust Starbucks’ judgement in this area and I look forward to spending a few bucks a week getting coffee there.
My office would be on the second floor, all the way to the right. The proposal is to put signs in not only the center stack, but to also put signs in the windows. There is ample room, as you can tell, and they all face traffic, which is part of the reason I chose this office.
The signs would be in addition to the center stack, which is backlit.
Clever thing about the center sign. Farmers insurance is currently occupying 2 offices, but has only the top sign. I will seek the bottom two signs, relinquishing the upper one only when a new tenant requests it. I’m surprised Farmer’s didn’t do the same thing. Maybe they’re just not concerned with signage.
Now all I need to do is draft some artwork for the sign company to send to the landlord, who, God willing, will approve it.
Just thinking of billboard ideas. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I think that a lottery type system for uncontested divorce attorney fee rebates would attract clients. The billboard alludes to that.
*** This is not a real advertisement ***
I just set a reasonable goal. Have the primary site for my new firm, either michaelmclees.com or fasttxdivorce.com ready by October 1st. Of course, there are many things that need to be ready first if the website will be of any use. I’ll need all the documents and necessary software available and perfected, so if new clients happen to call, I’ll be able to help them. I’ll need a local phone number and a meeting place. I’ll need a way to charge them. I need… alot.
But, I’ve got until October 1st to get it done because I just found 3 different promotional codes on my GoDaddy account manager (Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter, and Facebook Ads). I have created ads for all of them and they will begin to run October 1. Here is a rundown of how it works…
First, this site is hosted on GoDaddy’s servers. This is handy because I purchased the domain name from GoDaddy.com. I guess they have decided that they should give all customers who purchase this kind of package, a basic starter package, some free advertising. After your account is up and running, you’ll be prompted to activate 3 different promotions in your account manager. Click activate, and a promotional code will appear next to a link that sends you to the advertiser’s home page. Create an account with the advertising company and when prompted, enter cut and paste the code. It’s simple. All 3 of my advertisers function in basically the same way, but there are subtle differences between them.
1 – Google AdWords – This is the grand-daddy of online advertisers, and it shows. When creating an ad, you can either enter keywords yourself, or have Google scan your site to look for keywords for you. When choosing keywords, other relevant keywords will appear, allowing you to choose them as well. Additionally, all keywords run on an auction style system and through a small graph, you can see whether or not the keyword you’ve chosen is seldom of often searched. Google will estimate for you how many visitors you can expect per day, although this is suspect because I’ve never once clicked on a Google ad. But Google’s steady rise on Wall Street is attributable to their success in these kinds of ads, so someone is clicking them. GoDaddy provided me a $25 gift code for Google AdWords. Activation cost? $5.
2 – Microsoft adCenter – My guess is that Microsoft will never be as big in search as Google. Although the new commercials for Microsoft Bing are kind of clever, they aren’t honest. The commercials assume that when searching with competitor search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc…), visitors are upset and frustrated with the results they find. Microsoft calls this “Search Overload.” But independent tests show that Bing, Google, and Yahoo all produce comparable search results (none is dramatically better than another), so if Microsoft is alleging that people are overloaded with Google, they’re also alleging they’re overloaded by their own product Bing. And while I’ll probably never click on a Bing ad (they look nearly identical to Google’s), people do click ads. Microsoft’s ad design function seems to be a little clunkier than Google’s. First, they encourage the use of more keywords. While Google recommends between 10 and 20, Microsoft encourages up to 100. Unfortunately, you must enter each keyword, or keyword string, yourself. There is no helpful pull down window with databases of commonly searched keywords. Worst of all, this service is not Google Chrome supported. I don’t mean that things look funny on Chome; I mean they refuse to work at all. This means I will have to shuffle between Chrome, my daily browser, and Firefox, my browser that only get’s used when I run into this problem. But GoDaddy gave me $50 to try it. And try it I will. This service also costs $5 to activate.
3 – Facebook Ads - This is the most interesting service to me. First, like Google and Microsoft, you can limit your ad’s exposure to only people living in your geographic area. Second, like Google and Microsoft, you bid on clicks and set daily spend limits so you don’t get in over your head. But Facebook’s ads can be so focused on particular kinds of people, not particular search keywords. I have chosen to omit people below the age of 25 because they are probably either not married, not ready for a divorce, or unable to pay for one if they are. You can also pick out keywords, but they aren’t search keywords; they’re common words used inside the Facebook interface. Best of all, you can create a small image and upload it to your campaign, meaning you can make your ad look dramatically different than everyone else’s. Mine is text for now, but by October 1st, I will have uploaded an image for people to click. GoDaddy gave me $50 to spend on Facebook, and the cost to activate was only $1.
All three services have graphs and charts which help determine which keywords are driving traffic to your site. They are also far easier to use than one would imagine. Time will tell which is best for me. I intend to spend a fair part of my budget on advertising. Online advertising may prove to be the cheapest, and most effective.
I’ve spent the last few days looking all over town for office space. I’ve discovered 3 things.
1- I want to be in retail space. Retail space is different than office space in that it is designed to pick customers off the street. Retail space generates business; office space handles it. Retail space caters to customers; office space caters to employees. I spent my evenings a couple years ago working downtown at the Attorney General’s office, doing low level paperwork and general clerkship type things. What I remember best was looking down out of my 8′ by 8′ fishbowl style office onto the city below. I could see the river, people, and a thriving metropolis. From my 160 foot perch, I could watch hundreds of black umbrellas open up like flowers in the morning the moment rain started to fall.
I also remember driving there, parking my Mitsubishi next to Porsches and Jaguars, walking through a well appointed bank and courtyard specked with birds, flowers, and fountains on my way to work. However, I also remember driving there on my first day. Parking was an absolute nightmare as there was an apparent shortage of meters close to the building. Even finding the building was difficult, and unless you walk through the lobby of the building a dozen times a year, you’d never know this particular branch of the Office of the Attorney General is housed within. This is not ideal for my practice. I need something easier.
What I need is retail space, something next to an HEB grocery store or gas station. I need traffic. I need people to see me the first time on their way to work Monday and the tenth time on their way home Friday. This is how I intend to generate business. A specialized family law practice that focuses on uncontested divorces won’t have the benefit (really a long term detriment) of accepting all possible kinds of cases. What it will have is the benefit of looking different than the general practice and generic looking competitors. It will have easy access and parking. It will have high traffic counts and good visibility. It will be humble and won’t intimidate potential clients. It will be friendly.
2- Nice retail space is expensive and unfinished. The problem with retail space is that when it is empty, it is designed to handle nearly any kind of tenant. The space needs to be able to accommodate a McDonald’s as easily as a pet store. While the landlord has the ultimate say in what kind of tenant will be occupying his precious storefront, even if he wants a law office to fill his space, it is unlikely he’s already built for that purpose. It’s also unlikely he’ll build it for you if you show interest in the space.
Look around for commercial retail space for lease and then actually go up to the window and look inside. You’ll probably see concrete floors, scraps of metal hanging from the ceiling, and a small bathroom in the back. In general, they would make excellent artist lofts, but poor law offices. Moreover, they cost, including triple nets (NNN = taxes, insurance, common area maintenance) between $15 and $25/sq. ft./year. This means that if I want to occupy 1,000 sqft space at $20/year, my monthly rent would be roughly $1,700 a month. This is not unsurmountable, but it’s not pocket change either. I really don’t even know if I’ll be able to find a good retail space that was built for an executive office before my arrival. Spaces that have been built already tend to be old dentist offices, dance studios, or barber shops, none of which helps me. Indeed, looking through dozens of windows, I’ve never seen a floorplan that would be compatible with a small law office.
3- A plan B would not be awful. I may not be able to afford/find a retail space suitable for a solo family law practice. But there are several homes converted into offices nearby. These have advantages and disadvantages. First, the good. They look like law offices. Skyscrapers always just look like buildings from the outside. An old house with a wooden sign in the front yard declaring, “Law Office” is instantly recognizable and credible, so long as the area in which it was built is well kept and historic.
But, I see solo after solo make what appears to be a huge mistake when I drive down some of the streets where these law offices live. First, the area is not historic. Historic areas are preserved, safe, and well traveled. Some of these offices seem to be in areas that never were/never will be desirable. I looked at one today where the attorney spray painted a light green block over his dark green sign. On the fresh light green paint, he stenciled out “DWI” and painted it in white. The overall look was unprofessional and shoddy, but why have a professional appearance when your neighbor next door, a State Farm insurance agent, has dozens of old gas cans in his back yard?
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. But if I’m going to be attracting people off the street, paying clients, I need to find an office in an area that would provide retail-like visibility and upscale exterior appointments. Whether or not this actually exists is not an issue. It does. Whether or not it is leasable, now, for a good rate… remains to be seen.
At some point, I’m going to have all the tools I need to run a law firm, save for one, clients. I come from a large law firm that advertises heavily on TV, phone books, and billboards. I see the results daily that large advertising budgets can bring. And I’m not one of these attorneys who sees advertising as pure ambulance chasery. Indeed, I’ve never understood the mindset (or rules of ethics regarding ads) of those who believe that while it is good for Ford to advertise on TV, it is bad for lawyers.
It’s as if lawyers operate on a different plane from other business people. They don’t. They have bills to pay just like everyone else, and I have a hunch that some of the rules of ethics were written by established practices purely in an effort to hamper small startups. But we’re all supposed to work within the rules, even if the rules for you are different than the rules for nearly everyone else.
I really don’t know what kind of advertising will work for me. While TV ads sound like fun, the are also prohibitively expensive. And I’ve never been convinced of radio’s ability to generate business. Apparently, billboards work if you’re giving away something for free. Why can’t I give something away for free?
I can afford a couple billboards around town. I’m not opposed to having my face 5 feet tall for the whole world to see. But unless I can cut through the clutter of all the other billboards, I really won’t generate much business. My business model is going to revolve around handling uncontested divorces. An attorney is not strictly needed to do an uncontested divorce, but then again, attorneys aren’t needed for much of what happens in a courthouse. Attorneys in those situations are there to initiate, maintain, and finalize whatever it is the clients want done. For divorces, few people are willing to sit down and learn the process , so they stay separated, but married, sometimes for years because they cannot or will not devote the money to a divorce.
Meanwhile, things are getting more and more complicated. Property and debt is building that will sooner or later need to be characterized as community or separate. Taxes go unpaid, because the parties are unsure of who owes the IRS and the children grow accustomed to their parents being both married, but dating. This is not the ideal situation. But because an attorney is seen as one of those hard to justify luxuries, one is never hired. Instead, people wait, sometimes a year at a time, for an attorney to handle their case pro-bono at a community justice center, law school, or Legal Aid. This pro-bono attorney will get around to handling the case, but because paying clients will naturally come first, the process may be dragged out even longer than it already has.
If I can make uncontested divorces almost all that I do, not only will I make my practice very lean, but I will also be able to focus on each client equally. This is a selling point.
But I can only do this if I can generate 15, maybe 20 clients a month, each paying a flat fee the day I file the papers. How do I guarantee 15 clients a month? There are no guarantees. I know that going in. But how about creating something that no other law office offers? The possibility of a free lawyer, who has done all the work exactly as though he’d been paid. I ask, why not make this deal to the client?
For every 10 clients who sign and pay, I will draw one name from a hat. That client will receive a rebate for the full amount of legal fees. If a regular model yields 5 clients a month, and this model yields 15, giving away 10% of my work would be highly profitable. And do you think the local newspaper would be interested in a story on a small law firm that is offering the possibility of free legal services, merely by becoming a client? I do. Retailers do it all the time; why can’t I?
Please share your thoughts below.
