Predictable Estate Planner - Heath Rost

Empowering Lawyers To Independently Scale

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Maintaining Your Cool: What To Expect When You Start Generating Leads

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With any attorney taking on an added volume of estate planning inquires or “leads” it can take time to gain momentum with closing, responding to leads, and adjusting and evaluating your process.  That’s just a simple fact.  The added volume of leads is a byproduct of what occurs after an attorney or law firm begins work with a lead generation company.  For a complete and thorough understanding of what this is read: What Is A Lead Generation Company And How To Work With Them

For the purpose of this blog, let’s say your attorney lead generation company has set up (1) the landing webpage, (2) the ads, (3) delivery of leads and (4) a lead tracking sheet.

The four structured bullet points I share today will set your law firm up for success, and help you to produce the outcome you want with your lead generation company.  Treat these like your bible.  For without grasping the complete understanding of the importance of each you could end up jumping from one attorney marketing company to the next, and the one after that.

1) Maintain a lead tracking sheet

It may be helpful to you and your lead generation company to fill out your lead tracking sheet with detailed feedback on every lead that comes through, how it went, what they needed, etc.  Understanding the types of leads that are converting currently is helpful feedback on any campaign.  If your lead generation company is any good, your answers here will be helpful in the event your need to pivot your campaign.  Maintaining the lead tracking sheet is helpful because you will know who you need to follow up with.

 

2) Devise a plan for answering and responding to leads

Devise a plan for making certain you increase the percentage of calls you are able to answer. Set a goal and hold yourself accountable. Notate in your lead tracking sheet whether you answered the lead when they first contacted you, how long it took you to respond and begin to identify trends you see.  Maybe you won’t see any trends at first, but over time it may become black and white what you need to do or how you need to adjust to what you’re doing to close more sales and positively influence your bottom line.

Remember, first impressions matter!  Make sure you answer the phone when your prospect calls.  You might get a different person on the phone when you pick up right away than the person who answers the phone when you call them back a day later. Worse, they may have even contacted another attorney who answered their phone right away and hired them instead.  But I digress, as I said before be on the safe side and answer your phone when a lead calls.

 

3) Know what your business model requires of you

In 2021 many attorneys are shifting their business to be a fully remote business.  If you start working with a lead generation company and you have little to no experience with running a fully remote business then you should approach that relationship from a humble place.  Your lead generation company’s role is not to help you develop your business plan or refine your sales process.  Don’t get frustrated with your lead generation company because you aren’t closing the leads they’re bringing you.  If you are taking detailed notes on every lead in a lead tracking sheet and communicating how it’s going your lead generation company should respond by doing whatever it takes to refine your campaign and make it successful for you.

 

4) Be patient with yourself

You’re going to learn a lot especially in the first couple months working with your lead generation company.  You will soon learn what it’s like managing an influx of day to day business in combination with your leads you’re already working to follow up with.  This adjustment will take some getting used to, so be patient.

 

Finding the right lead generation company for your estate planning practice

As you can gather from the blog today knowing the line of responsibility you carry when working with a lead generation company is of utmost importance in order to form a long lasting relationship.  That is of course our goal with every attorney we work with.  I hope this blog was helpful and will pay you dividends for years to come. If this information was useful, forward it along to a friend then book a call with me using the ‘Schedule Now’ button below. I look forward to connecting.

Onward and Upward,

Heath Rost
Founder, Predictable Estate Planner

What Is Lead Generation?

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Increasing your volume of leads is a byproduct of what occurs after a new attorney begins working with a company for lead generation.  For the purpose of this blog I will cover what lead generation is, and how to set yourself up for success when working with one.  Taken from our homepage:

Simply put, lead generation is the product of attracting, converting and delivering live calls and appointments with people seeking your services where you live. Online advertising through search engines and social media, and setting up the proper retargeting channels are all parts of this process.

But what does a lead generation company do?

Successful lead generation for an estate planner not only includes online advertising, but also encompasses advance nurturing directives including procured landing webpages, calendar integration, lead delivery, tasteful lead followup, and other technical intelligence to make your law firm known and easily approachable.

That is how Estate Planning Lead Pros defines lead generation for attorneys.  If this is your first time working with a lead generation company, or you are just doing research before you do, there are a few things you should understand right now.  The long term goal with any lead generation company your law firm works with is to form a bond, a win win relationship that extends far beyond the terms of your initial agreement. Unless you get off on the right foot with your lead generation company you’ll never build that long term relationship and thus, you won’t have time to adjust to your “new normal.”

How to work with a lead generation company

You should have a general idea for how to work with your lead generation company, which is the subject of this blog.  I promise if you adhere to the next three structured bullet points it will save you a lot of time, money and headache. 🙂

1) Don’t jump to conclusions about lead quality

If you’re working with a new lead generation company, I encourage you to be patient with the leads and with yourself, especially regarding lead quality.  The market will fluctuate and change every day the types of people who are seeking your services and your lead generation company doesn’t have control over that.

2) Adjust your sales process to your leads

Your lead generation company that set up your landing page and your ads will determine the entire flow of this process.  It is your responsibility as the attorney to recognize this process, and adjust to the way your lead generation company is able to produce leads for you.

Do not expect your leads to:

  • Have their wallets open with thumbs on their credit cards the instant you connect
  • Know what you want them to do
  • Sell themselves
  • Answer the phone for you
  • Call at a time most convenient for you — yes you might be on the toilet ?, answer the call anyway!

❗️Website-Only Offer ❗️

For any estate planning attorney that books a call right now, I will provide a personalized hour long training session to you and your team covering how to book more appointments and close more sales. Free of charge when you book!

Your lead generation company should share how the leads will get to you, and help you understand the process your leads went through in order to find you.  That should put you in the right headspace when you do your initial followup with the lead, and whenever you answer a live phone call.

Lastly, have a plan devised and outlined ahead of time for how you will move new prospects (leads) from your starting position–the moment they become a lead–until their new estate plan is signed, sealed and delivered.  If you aren’t accustomed to the volume of leads you start receiving, be patient with yourself.  You aren’t going to close every prospect–every interaction you get when you first get started.  Practice makes perfect, and the more experience you get with prospects the more fluid you will become with your conversations, and ultimately the more estate plans you will get paid to write.

3) Don’t request significant changes to your campaign

Especially if you’re interested in working with a boutique or specialized lead generation company.

This is a big one, perhaps the biggest one!

From experience I can tell you that changing a single design feature or a single line of copywriting can produce drastically different results in a campaign. If you want a true assessment of any lead generation company do not make too many asks outside of what the company has already set up. They know what works best. Further, it’s also why you’ve hired them.  Be kind to your business by reaping the rewards of working with your lead generation company in the manner they produce the best results for their clients.  The better you can be to them the better results you earn from your campaign.

At Estate Planning Lead Pros we are a boutique lead generation company for estate planning attorneys. For 10 years we’ve studied the psychology of converting prospects on your website into leads, how to convert the right prospects into leads, and how to nurture the interaction before and after they become a lead and a client.  We know the language to use and the process that works best for helping estate planners increase their leads, close more sales and grow their practice.

So to wrap this point up, if you’re thinking of working with a specialized lead generation company please do not approach the relationship the wrong way.  Trust their process, and make certain you are hold up your end to make your campaign a success.

Finding the best lead generation company for an estate planning attorney

Not every attorney we talk to is going to be the right fit, just like not everyone is going to get along with each other.  Before we can determine if we would be a good fit we need to have a chance to get to know one another.  We need to meet, and ask each other questions that will help us decide if we can make this work.  So with that I invite you to set up a call with me by clicking the ‘Schedule Now’ button below.  I look forward to connecting.

? Onward and ? Upward,

Heath Rost
Founder, Estate Planning Lead Pros

Fulfilling Potential For Your Estate Planning Law Firm

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“Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results, if you’re willing to stick with them for years. We all deal with setbacks, in the long run, the quality of our lives depend on the quality of our habits. With the same habits you’ll end up with the same results, but with better habits anything is possible.” James Clear, author of Atomic Habits

I attended a conference recently where the keynote speaker was talking about marketing for the industry he specialized in: law firms. Everything the speaker had shared up to this point in his talk I was really on board with. They were all strategies I’d implemented myself and found success doing: Google my business, phone tracking numbers, mobile websites. But then he started talking about his experience publishing content on his website, and the websites of people who worked with him. It was at this point in his talk though I felt despair.

Blogging Consistently = “Welcome to the matrix”

“Google says if you publish great content people are just going to magically link back to you. That doesn’t work because we don’t live in the matrix” said the speaker, and the crowd responded by laughing.

Myself and other A-listers in content marketing will tell you if you publish great content people will link back to you. I know this because I’ve edited blog posts that have received hundreds of thousands of views in the first month it was published. I’m able to do this because I help people organize and condense their message and story into an easy to read, and easy to consume format. Almost more importantly though, I help them get clicks to it.

The truth is that the only way to publish great content is to be consistent with it. Without having written a good ten blogs already and received feedback on them it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is actually working and what you can improve upon. Your best writing and publishing comes from experience with actually doing it and being consistent about it.  When you become consistent you enter a new matrix, a new reality.

 

Would you rather grind for a day to produce couple Good links, or consistently produce Great links?

The speaker then went on to say “Focus on a couple good links, those are so much more valuable.”

This might be true for the law industry in general, but this conference was specific to estate planning attorneys. Because of this I couldn’t disagree more with that statement. As you’ll hear me talk about on my Facebook Live on Tuesday people are more uneducated about estate planning than any other area of law. And not only that they want to learn.

If you’ve ever watched the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carry in the movie Jim’s character Carl has to say “Yes” to everything and hilarity ensues. As a loan officer of a bank he has to approve or deny loans every day. When word gets around that Carl is approving everyone’s loans no matter how small they are a long line forms at his desk. Weeks later someone from the corporate office shows up to congratulate Carl for his work. Why? Because people were so appreciative to have their needs met, they were actually paying back on their loans, and the bank was making a lot of money.

I understand this was a movie, but the principle applies really well here. The more people are able have their questions answered the more appreciative they are to have their needs met. When people with estate planning needs have their needs met, and your law firm does that they’re more likely to choose you as their attorney to work with.

A couple good links will help people near you to find your website, but a couple great links not only do a better job of helping people find you, they help convert them into estate planning leads as well.

 

Creating better habits

“If you want better results, forget about setting goals, focus on your systems instead. You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” James Clear

Are you ready to develop the right habits and systems to grow your estate planning law firm? Set up a call with me today.