our services
Marketing Strategy
If you want to grow your practice with the clients you want, then you will need a solid marketing strategy and plan. You will be guided through our proven 12-step process to develop the right marketing strategy and plan for you.
Marketing Implementation
We will work with your current suppliers and/ or our professional specialist marketing partners to implement your strategy and plan. We are experienced at co-ordinating delivery from specialist marketing companies.
Marketing Training
We offer a number of marketing workshops. The SMART marketing workshop is the right place to start and we take business owners, partners and fee earners through our process so that they leave with a one-page easy to share marketing startegy and an action plan.
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Copywriting
You have many competitors but you can position yourself to win more work. Copywriting is the art and science of getting your ideal clients to take the action you want. It tells your target market what you offer, how it benefits them and why you are their best option. It makes them want to engage you.
Content
Most individuals and businesses don’t realise that they need your services. Content educates your target market in what you do and how it can benefit them. It is particularly good for highlighting problems or opportunities that they are unaware of. Content shows them your skills, expertise, knowledge and builds trust.

Things we can do for you

MARKETING STRATEGY

In today’s competitive marketplace, it is vital that you stand out from the pack. There is increased competition from competitors which piles the pressure on you to cut costs and slash prices in a never ending race to the bottom.

Now, for the first time, there is a proven process that you can use to fight back. Our innovative 12-step process will produce the perfect marketing strategy and plan for your firm.

There are only 3 marketing strategies that any company can adopt.  These are:

  1. Low cost- this strategy is difficult to maintain as someone will always under-cut you.  We recommend that you avoid this stragegy.
  2. High End- this is a very effective strategy but it can only be used by those at the very top- e.g. in accounting this would be the Big 4 and in the legal sector it is magic-circle law firms.
  3. Niche- this is the best marketing strategy for most companies where you offer a tailored service to a carefully defined target market.  This means that you are no longer competing with low cost suppliers and you can focus your time and money on attracting these your target market.

The best way to attract your niche is to follow our 12-step process which focuses on 4 main things:

✓ Your ideal client– in-depth profiling allows you to tailor everything to them

✓ What they want from you- you can appeal strongly to the things they want including benefits and emotional benefits- like feeling safe and secure

✓ How you can best engage with them– there are many ways to contact and engage with people.  We can help you to determine the best for your business

✓ How you can rapidly build trust with them.  This is the biggest hurdle for most companies and we can help you to clear it with ease

The affluent customers and successful businesses that you want will happily pay your rate if they can clearly see how you can give them exactly what they want and they trust you to deliver the results.

We will help you develop your strategy using our proven process.  You can either choose to:

  1. Do-it-yourself using our straightforward guide
  2. Attend one of our one-day workshops where we will take you and 5 other business owners through the process
  3. You can also ask us to do it for you.

A well-designed and targetted SMART marketing strategy and plan helps you to:

  • Realise your stretching turnover target
  • Increase your profits
  • Attract more of the clients you want
  • Increase your prices with no resistance
  • Out-manoeuvre your competition
  • Define your core values
  • Build trust with your prospects
  • Educate them in how you can help them
  • Get them to take the action you want

COPYWRITING

Copywriting is the art and science of getting your target market to take the action you want- whether this is downloading your useful template, watching one of your videos, making an appointment, calling you for more information, buying your latest book etc.

Let me ask you:

  • Do you need to hit stretching targets?
  • Do you hand out brochures with no results?
  • Do people visit your web site but click off before doing anything else?
  • Do people listen to your talks and seminars but don’t act?

If this is happening to you, then you are far from alone. While these can be caused by other issues (such as approaching the wrong clients and poor pricing) the problem usually is that your copy (short for copywriting) is either not getting their attention or is failing to turn it into interest and then action.

You see copywriting in all the below places:

  • Web site
  • Brochure
  • Advertising
  • E-mail
  • Direct Mail
  • Radio Commercials
  • Case Studies
  • Short speeches for networking (1-2 minutes)
  • Elevator pitches (15 seconds)
  • Sales presentations to clients
  • Scripts for promotional talks
  • Scripts for sales videos
  • LinkedIn profile etc.

In fact, anywhere that you are influencing someone you will find copywriting.

There is a definite skill to copywriting. Amongst other things you must:

  • Grab their attention
  • Make a connection with them
  • Make them want to do something about their situation (whether this is avoiding a pain or achieving a gain)
  • Show how you can help them
  • Build trust
  • Get them to act

These things are neither easy or straightforward.

Let me be honest.  Most copywriting is “bang your head against the wall” bad.  It is truly awful.  In many cases, and especially with professional service providers, it is often incomprehensible to someone outside the profession and it is firmly fixated on the company doing the selling rather than the client who is doing the buying.

Copywriting must compel attention, generate interest, create desire and lead to action.  This is the oldest copywriting formula that I know.  There are many more.

However, none of these formulas work without an understanding of your target market, knowledge of their needs and wants, an appreciation of their values and experience in copywriting.

Experience tells you which formula to use, how much time you need to spend on each step of it, which words work best for which target markets, how to position your offering in the marketplace and where to put key information as well as a host of other things.  All these factors play a vital part.

Unfortunately, many business owners or the marketing person for the company decide to write their own copy with no experience and little understanding of how to do it.  These same people would not choose to do their own graphic design or try and build their own web site but they will have a go at writing copy.

Like graphic design and web site building, copywriting is a technical skill.  The difference is that people while many people cannot do graphic design or build web sites, they can write.  The question is “are their words effective or not?”

Several factors determine the effectiveness of your copy.  Key ones include:

  • Having an excellent understanding of your target market including their frustrations and goals
  • Understanding your target markets’ motivations and values
  • Knowing all the features, benefits and emotional benefits associated with your service
  • Knowing how to establish rapport and generate trust with them
  • Being able to take them through from attention to action

We can help you with your copywriting either through attending one of our copywriting workshops or asking us to create the compelling copy that you need.

You are invited to contact us today.

P.S. A P.S. like this increases your response rate dramatically.  I’ve used it in e-mail campaigns and have doubled the response.  If you would like more helpful hints like this, then contact us.

CONTENT

Content is where you share useful information with your target market.  Copywriting is about 90% overt persuasion and 10% education.  Content is 90%, education and 10 overt persuasion.  Note the word, overt.  Content can be highly persuasive as it alerts people to pains and/or gains they usually unaware of.

People are motivated to action by either:

  1. Avoiding a pain- such as losing their Court case, being investigated by HMRC, business strategy failing etc. OR
  2. Realising a gain- such as putting clients in long term, iron-clad contracts, growing their business or increasing their profits etc.

In many cases though, clients are blissfully unaware of the pains and the gains.  Content helps education them about these and how you can help.

Three quick examples:

  1. Many companies when they first set up download free Terms and Conditions, Shareholder Agreements, Articles of Association etc. from the internet. This is sensible as when they start out they have no money to hire a solicitor and no business to protect. However, over the new few years they grow and become successful. They now must put in place proper legal documentation before something goes wrong.  However, how many businesses think of this?
  2. Few companies understand R&D tax credits and are missing out. R&D tax credits cover a far wider range of activities than most business owners think. They usually think they are limited to work done in a lab or by an academic partner.  A large number of businesses are missing out.
  3. Few businesses understand the value of an external business advisor or coach. They think they could not do much better than they are now and don’t appreciate the insight and support an independent and knowledgeable business coach brings.

What is needed in the above cases is education rather than selling.  People need to understand what they are missing out on before you can make the case for them using you.  Many businesses make the mistake of trying to sell to uninformed clients which is very difficult.  It is far easier to educate them first and establish yourself through content rather than go straight into sales mode.

We can help you to produce a range of content including:

  • e-books and e-guides
  • Articles
  • Templates and checklists
  • Ghost write business books
  • Whitepapers
  • Newsletters
  • Press Releases
  • Scripts for talks, videos and webinars
  • Scripts for humerous and educational “radio plays”

TRAINING

We can help you and your fee earners through our marketing training and workshops.  This divides into two categories:

  1. Open workshops for business owners, partners and fee earners. The key one of these is the one-day SMART marketing workshop which takes you through our 12-step process. There are other workshops on the key marketing skills listed below.
  2. Closed, in-house workshops. These workshops are custom-tailored for you and your staff. We deliver internal half-day and full-day workshops at your office at a time that suits you.  These cover key marketing subjects including those below.  Note: all our in-house workshops are tailored to the needs of your company and the group.  For example, for a group that already does copywriting or has good presentation skills we will cover more advanced techniques to add an extra sheen and make them more effective.

Contact us for more information on our workshops.

  • SMART Marketing
  • Copywriting
  • Content
  • Thought leadership
  • Advanced presentation
  • Advanced persuasion
  • Personal branding
  • LinkedIn
  • Communication skills
Photo of Oliver Buckle from Else Solicitors
Oliver Buckle
Else Solicitors
Marketing Manager

Richard is our first point for all our new content requirements.  Richard writes compelling content that people actually want to read which has helped us generate more traffic through our blog posts, case studies and digital brochures. He has a unique writing style that encourages people to read on, increasing dwell time which results in more prospects getting in touch with the firm and ultimately increased our client conversion rate.

 

Marie Walls
Marie Walls
Nelson's Solicitors
Business Development Solicitor

Richard has worked with Nelsons’ Fusion Legal network for the last 2 years providing business development training and strategic consultancy for our member law firms.

Richard is like a breath of fresh air! Not only is he an engaging and entertaining speaker,he also understands the challenges which our member firms face in an increasingly competitive market.

James Knight
James Knight
FBC Manby Bowdler LLP
Partner

Richard has worked with the Hub.Legal network for a couple of years, providing training on Business Development strategy, directly to member firms and presenting at our annual Practice Management Days. Richard conveys, in an engaging way, essential information on Business Development that lawyers need to grasp, now, as part of their own commercial strategy.

Julia Leask
Julia Leask
Leask Accounting Services
Director

Richard presented ay the Annual CIMA Members In Practice Conference at Heythrop Park, Oxfordshire this weekend. As a speaker on the main stage not only was he engaging and interesting but his content was very relevant for the audience who are mainly sole practitioners.

These professionals have left the world of employment and are wanting to understand how best to market themselves and make themselves different to their competitors. This he explained begins with understanding the SMART marketing process of understand what and when you want to achieve it. Thanks again Richard you were a great hit with the crowd.

Eileen Schofield
Eileen Schofield
Schofield and Associates
Principal

I have known Richard for some years and from my first meeting with him I realised that he had a great deal more to offer than just the run of the mill marketing experts.

His strategic and intelligent approach to marketing has been a guide that I have kept in view whilst growing my business. He really gets to the heart of the business and specifically the legal sector with gusto and enthusiasm. Don’t be taken off guard with his hearty laugh he is a consummate professional and an asset to your business irrespective of size or sector.