Successful Expert Witness Selection
There is much more to becoming a successful Legal Nurse Consultant (LNC) than simply creating an "attention-grabbing" brochure or "professional looking" web site. (What, specifically, does "professional looking" mean anyway?) Once you have someone's attention, you must quickly offer something that captures their interest, or else you will lose them!
The key to starting and maintaining a profitable legal nurse consulting practice, with minimum investment, can be summed up in one word - differentiation. What is differentiation? Simply put, differentiation is the art of making your services appear to be superior (different) from those of competing alternatives, in such a way that prospective clients are given an incentive to contact you.
There are many LNC marketing-oriented books and consulting firms for writing newsletters, doing direct mailings, and creating Web sites. But very few really describe the GOAL these marketing materials must achieve or HOW their content should be structured. That is where differentiation starts, and that is what is examined in this article below.
The GOAL
In all my years as a legal nurse consultant, I have never seen a situation where a consulting engagement was negotiated by an "attention-grabbing" piece of literature or web site graphics. In every case, the consulting engagement was finalized only after I had a face-to-face or telephone meeting with the prospective client. I sell my LNC services, not my tri-fold brochure. So just what is the goal of a business plan, or a newsletter, or any other marketing instrument, in the legal nurse consulting industry?
The end goal of a brochure, newsletter, or web-site is to generate inquiries from qualified potential clients. The end goal is not to be appealing or professional looking, or present a graphical user interface. These qualities are just part of what you must do to achieve the end goal of generating an inquiry from a qualified prospective client.
To generate an inquiry, i.e., to motivate the reader to the point of placing a call or sending an email, your marketing materials must clearly present the reasons why only your firm can provide certain benefits important to the client, and do it in a way that compels prospective clients to contact you for more information. Information such as how many years experience you have, your C.V., and the services you offer are only the beginning. Much more is needed before your marketing materials will be effective in generating inquiries, and this is where the art of differentiation comes into the picture. How this is done is explained in the next section.
The HOW
At this point you might be thinking to yourself "there is not much more that can be put into my brochure or web site since it lists my expert experience, it explains my services, and clearly states my pricing". You might also be thinking that attorneys will easily see why your unique experience can help them in their very next case. Well, I used to feel the same way years ago and found out I was wrong on all counts.
There are many other things that must be in your marketing materials to make them effective in generating sales inquiries. Your marketing materials must:
- Target the needs of your marketing area.
- Identify the unique services you offer in relation to those needs
- Explain why only your firm can offer those services
- List the advantages the attorney will enjoy because of your unique services.
There are several straightforward research steps you can take to find the above information.
First, review the business plan you created when starting your business. It should have a section on the local needs of your region. Take it out, and reread that section. Are workers compensation cases more prevalent than medical malpractice or personal injury? Are cases in one group of related industries more prevalent than others? Are most of the law firms in your area small, large, or is there a good mix? The purpose of this step is to make sure your marketing material content is in "synch" with the needs of your local market. (Note: If you are just starting out, a business plan requires this!)
Second, identify which of your skills are most pertinent to the most frequently encountered needs of attorneys in your area. For example, personal injury is big in your area, and you have 10 years of Emergency Room (ER) experience.
Third, identify the expertise or capabilities possessed by just your firm makes your skills unique? For example, in your 10 years of ER experience, did you focus on anything special, or do anything else more than most? How can that be of value in a personal injury case, which represents a large area of attorney need in our example?
Fourth, list the benefits and/or advantages the attorney will receive because of your firm's unique capabilities, as discussed in the preceding step. This is very important, since the attorney always has other options!
Fifth, you must identify why the unique skills you offer are of more value than those of the competing alternatives available to the attorney. Remember, the attorney might have a paralegal assistant, or might be talking to another LNC who does not possess your unique skills.
Last, the attorney could elect not to do anything. This extra value must be communicated in your marketing materials.
In summary, your marketing material must communicate not only the basics, but also why the attorney is better off using your services instead of those provided by another, or not doing anything. Focus on the benefits the attorney will receive, not just on what services you provide. If anybody has LNC marketing oriented questions, just email me at kslnc@lnc-legal-nurse-consultants.com . In my years as an LNC I have run across many useful resources on the Web and elsewhere.
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