Planning a Successful Consulting Business
There is much more to becoming a successful Legal Nurse Consultant (LNC) than simply creating a "professional looking" web site, or writing an "attention-grabbing" brochure. Once your your "eye-catching" literature has captured someone's attention then it must quickly offer useful, sales-building information to keep that reader's interest, or else you will lose them and any chance of making a sale!
- Identifying just what this sales building information should be, and planning your legal nurse consulting business around it to maximize sales, is what this article is all about.
A quick search on the Web reveals there are many books about LNC marketing, and even more consultants providing LNC newsletters, direct mailings, and legal nurse consultant Web sites. But very few really describe the GOAL these marketing materials must achieve or HOW their content should be structured. This goal is key, and is examined below.
The GOAL
The most important goal to strive for when planning a legal nurse consulting business, especially if you do not have a lot of money to spend, can be summed up in one word - differentiation. What is differentiation? It is the process of making your LNC services (products) appear to be superior (different) than those of competing alternatives, in such a way that prospective clients are given an incentive to contact you.
To motivate the reader to the point of contacting your firm by phone or email, your marketing materials must clearly present the reasons why only your firm is best suited to provide those 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.
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 call or email greglohr@infotivity.com for a free marketing help session.
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