Niche Clarity: How to Become the Go-To Lawyer in Your Community
In a world rattled by constant upheaval, be it wars, economic shifts, or political turbulence
Lawyers have an incredible opportunity to provide steadfast and reliable leadership in their communities. This episode zeroes in on the power of service and the importance of honing in on a specific niche to make a lasting impact with your business.
What You'll Discover:
- The Essence of Niche Marketing: Explore why broad, generalized marketing efforts fall short and how adopting a laser-focused approach on a well-defined niche is pivotal for effective leadership and service.
- Psychographics in Legal Practice: Delve into the importance of psychographics – understanding the values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyle of your target demographic. Learn how this knowledge is key in refining your messaging and choosing the right channels to reach your audience.
- Educational Outreach Strategies: Grasp the significance of educating your community on critical legal matters and how this positions you as the go-to expert.
- Avoid Common Niche Pitfalls: Gain insights from Ali’s live coaching with lawyers, offering a mirror to your own practice’s clarity or lack thereof. Understand common pitfalls in identifying a niche, and how being too vague or too specific can hinder your outreach efforts.
This episode is a must-listen for any legal professional striving to carve out their space in the community as the trusted, go-to lawyer.
Join Ali as she guides one of her Personal Family Lawyer firm leaders through the process of identifying, understanding, and effectively reaching out to your ideal niche, ultimately transforming your practice into a beacon of reliability and service.
Time Stamps
01:24 The education clients need on incapacity and death, and deciding when to plan with or without a lawyer.
04:57 The type of clients the lawyers are meant to serve and what makes planning with a lawyer different
13:29 Audience targeting and how to narrow down client demographics, alongside specific examples from participants.
20:01 Single professional women managing careers and family responsibilities.
22:40 Middle-aged individuals concerned about caring for parents.
24:36 Turn away non-ideal clients.
Transcript
Ali Katz:
Hello, and welcome to the NewLaw podcast, where we guide entrepreneurial lawyers to build law practices into businesses they love.
Ali Katz:
I'm Ali Katz.
Ali Katz:
In today's episode, you are going to see exactly how to get so super specific about who you serve that the people that you serve will be hungry for your service. We're talking about niche clarity and how you can make the biggest positive impact by focusing on being of service to the smallest, most specific group of people. If you're not clear on who you serve or how you want to serve them, this episode will help you understand your audience and how to reach them.
Ali Katz:
Let's get into it.
Ali Katz:
What I want you to remember is that every single person that you speak with needs something from you. If they're listening to you as a lawyer, whether they're listening to you in a presentation, or they're listening to you in a family wealth planning session or life and legacy planning session, they're listening to you because they need something from you. The very first thing that they need from you is education.
Ali Katz:
What is the education that they need?
Ali Katz:
They need education that will help them to look at what does happen if they become incapacitated and when they die.
Ali Katz:
What will happen?
Ali Katz:
What will happen if they become incapacitated. Or when they die?
Ali Katz:
Because that way they can make decisions about what they want to happen. And they can either do their planning themselves, which is a legitimate option.
Ali Katz:
They can either do planning themselves, which is a legitimate option, or they can do planning with you.
Ali Katz:
And I want your education to help people filter out. When should they do it themselves and when should they do it with you?
Ali Katz:
Here's the fact of the matter. Somebody who has a very simple situation and who has the time, energy and attention to do it themselves, and isn't that concerned with their family having an advisor to turn to and the support in the event that they become incapacitated or in the event of their death to turn to, they can do it themselves. Don't be afraid to tell people what they can do themselves, because there is plenty of enough people in your community who don't fall into that category. Either they have a complex reality, like a blended family, like young kids and senior parents, that they have to figure out how to take care of in the right way, like complexity of assets, assets in multiple states, or just the reality of they're busy and disorganized, or they understand that gosh, if they don't even have the time to focus on this right now, what would happen if they became incapacitated or when they died.
Ali Katz:
How would their family have the time?
Ali Katz:
How would their family even know what they have or where it is?
Ali Katz:
They don't want to go it alone.
Ali Katz:
Those are your clients. Those are your clients. The people who want support, the people who want to leave their family members, their loved ones with support. These are the people that you are here to serve. The people that have simple situations that they really can just put in place a set of documents by going to five wishes for their medical directive and the state power of attorney forum for their power of attorney and freewill.com for their free will. Or maybe just do it all on trustandwill.com because their situation is actually simple. Or they have plenty of time on their hands. Just tell them how they can do it on their own.
Ali Katz:
But make sure that they understand that if what they really want is for their loved ones to have someone to turn to when something does occur. If they really want their loved ones to know what they have, where it is, how to find it.
Ali Katz:
If they really want to make sure that their kids will be taken care of by the people that they want in the way that they want, no matter what. If they really want to make sure that everybody that they've named in their plan is prepared to step in when something happens, that that's what your planning does.
Ali Katz:
That's what your planning does. That's what having your support does. That's what makes your support different than what folks can do for themselves online. That's what makes your support different than the other lawyers out there who maybe, by the way, using very similar sales and marketing strategies that you are. So it's more important than ever tha you have a real understanding yourself of what makes your planning different and what you are putting in place to ensure that their plan stays up to date throughout their lifetime. It creates an inventory of their assets so that none of their assets are lost. That part of their plan is ensuring that everybody that they've named knows what to do if and when something happens.
Ali Katz:
That ensuring that their plan takes care of their kids in the right way if they have minor children. That ensuring that their plan takes into consideration what happens to their senior parents. And how. And why is this so important and even more important now with what's happening in the world, with what's happening in the economy. Because helping people to look at what they have and looking at what we have and making a wise allocation of our resources based on looking at what we have, rather than just defaulting into patterns associated with fear helps us to make better decisions about the use of our resources. And the thing that you need to help your clients to know and remember, which means that you need to know it and remember it, is that as we go through an economic shift, as we go through an economic crisis, some people get wealthier and some people get poorer.
Ali Katz:
Some families come out the other side stronger, some families come out the other side weaker.
Ali Katz:
What makes the difference?
Ali Katz:
What makes the difference is guidance.
Ali Katz:
What makes the difference is wise investments.
Ali Katz:
What makes the difference is looking at what we have and investing for the future that we want to create. You can help your clients to do that. You can help your clients to do that. Now. What that means for you is that you need to be doing that.
Ali Katz:
You need to be doing that yourself. And if you are making your choices from a place of fear, then that is what you will see being reflected back to you.
Ali Katz:
And so it is critically incumbent upon you as the leader in your community to stay focused on your goals, to stay focused on service, to stay focused on how you can educate as many people as possible from a place of service, helping those that don't need you to do what they can without you and helping those that do need you in the very best way you can at the highest level of service that you can. So before I get into our celebrations, if you haven't yet served, put here in the chat who you serve. Please do that now.
Ali Katz:
Please do that now. That's where it starts. Who do you serve?
Ali Katz:
Focusing on them. And I'm going to read out some of what you all shared.
Ali Katz:
And if you at all feel in any way unclear about anything that I am saying right now about how to serve in the best way possible by educating broadly within the context of who you serve so that people know what they can do themselves and people know when they need you, please raise your hand so I can work on that with you today.
Ali Katz:
Okay, let me take a look at some of who you all said that you serve.
Ali Katz:
Would you love direct support? To help you grow your law practice into a business you love, go to newlawbusinessmodel.com/show and sign up for a call with one of our trusted law business advisors. Each of our advisors has been trained directly by me over the past five years plus to help you chart your path from wherever you are now to where you want to go as efficiently and effectively as possible. You're ready to love your law practice and your life as a lawyer. We're here to help.
Ali Katz:
Savannah, you're not sure yet, but you're leaning towards serving families and the elderly. So, Savannah, I want you to get more narrow. More narrow than that. Families and the elderly.
Ali Katz:
That's very broad.
Ali Katz:
You can't reach all of them.
Ali Katz:
So when you say families and the elderly, tell me more. Anthony, you serve members of your East Valley, Arizona, community who are in the position of caring for minor children and probably also caring for aging parents, the sandwich generation, as they're called. Yes, Anthony, the sandwich generation. So here's what I want you to do, Anthony, for that.
Ali Katz:
East Valley, Arizona.
Ali Katz:
Give me an age range there. How old are these people?
Ali Katz:
How old are these people that are caring for minor children and their aging parents? Bijan, you serve Iranians, immigrants, the LGBTQ plus community, artists and engineers. And writing that out makes it seem that it is still not focused enough. That's right. Bijan. It's not focused enough because you can't show up in all those places. Now, if you said to me, I serve Iranians who immigrated here that are part of the LGBTQ community, who are also artists and engineers, I might say that's too specific. That's too specific.
Ali Katz:
So I want you to think of it, Bijan, as within the groups that you shared.
Ali Katz:
If you were going to go speak to a group of people within that group about a very specific topic, how would you choose among that group? Jeremy, you serve the families of Parker County, Texas, that realize they need planning for protecting their families, and they wish to place an emphasis on passing on and protecting their assets and values for their families.
Ali Katz:
Okay, great.
Ali Katz:
So, Jeremy, Parker County, Texas.
Ali Katz:
Perfect.
Ali Katz:
Who in Parker County, Texas, what has to be true for somebody in Parker County, Texas to have it be that they place an emphasis on passing on and protecting their assets and values for their families?
Ali Katz:
What has to be true for them?
Ali Katz:
What has to be true for them about their income? What has to be true for them about their marital status? What has to be true for them about their age?
Ali Katz:
What has to be true for them about the kinds of work they do?
Ali Katz:
So, Julie, older people, empty nesters. Okay, great. Where are these older people in empty nesters?
Ali Katz:
Julie? Dalia.
Ali Katz:
Single women and families with minor children.
Ali Katz:
Great. Where are they?
Ali Katz:
Who are these single women and families with minor children? Sonamar families with children, blended families, and adoptive parents. So, Sonamar, hearing that what I imagine is true for all of them and what I question about all of them is when you're speaking of families with children, do they have young children or old children? Are they adoptive parents of minors or older children?
Ali Katz:
And these blended families, how old are the children?
Ali Katz:
Alan?
Ali Katz:
Great.
Ali Katz:
45 to 70 year old married couples.
Ali Katz:
With grown children, and I imagine in a very specific area. Right, Alan, tell me more about their income level. Tell me more about their asset level. Jane Allison, families with an Alzheimer's loved one. Ok, so Jane Allison, with the families with loved ones who have Alzheimer's.
Ali Katz:
Are these loved ones with Alzheimer's already in a memory care facility? Are these family members with Alzheimer's at home? Tell me more about these families with a loved one who has Alzheimer's.
Ali Katz:
Ada Marie, all residents of Commonwealth of Virginia.
Ali Katz:
That's far too big. So if you were going to become the star, if you were going t become the go to lawyer, if you were going to have it where everyone in your target market that I'm speaking about here knew you, it was like, oh, yeah, Ada Marie, she's our lawyer. Oh, yeah, she serves us.
Ali Katz:
Could you afford to reach all residents of Commonwealth of Virginia? No. Kimberly, tell me more. LGBTQ+ community. Where and what part of that community?
Ali Katz:
Because you can't reach the whole LGBTQ+ community, but you can reach the LGBTQ+ community in a very specific area, and that has other specifics about them that you can speak to directly.
Ali Katz:
Sandra, those looking to protect their assets for their kids and family, keeping their assets out of probate and protecting them from creditors.
Ali Katz:
Who is that, Sandra, in your community, who is that?
Ali Katz:
Is it people with young children? Is it business owners?
Ali Katz:
Is it seniors?
Ali Katz:
Daniel, special needs families and elder clients, but you're feeling the universe drawing you to high net worth clients. Okay, interesting that you're feeling the universe drawing you to high net worth clients.
Ali Katz:
Special.
Ali Katz:
Let's just focus on the special needs families and elder clients.
Ali Katz:
So serving the folks in your community who have children with special needs, it's pretty easy to reach them with a very specific message. And then, Daniel, the elder clients, what's true about these elder clients?
Ali Katz:
What's true? Right.
Ali Katz:
It's not all elders. It's not all seniors. There's a specific psychographic, especially if they're high net worth, that you want to focus on.
Ali Katz:
Deanna, you want to focus on young families, but you've been all over the place because you feel older people are easier because they know they need an estate plan. So, Deanna, I'm curious.
Ali Katz:
Are you marketing?
Ali Katz:
Are you bringing people to a presentation with you in your community? Are you focusing your laser focusing your marketing? Because if you've been all over the place, you can't be you can't be laser focusing your marketing and that's what I'm calling for here.
Ali Katz:
So what I can tell you is that when I first built my law practice, the hardest thing in the world for me to do was what I'm inviting you to do now.
Ali Katz:
Laser focus. My first laser focus was on families with young children. And when I told the lawyers in my community that that's what I wanted to do, they all said that I would starve. They said families with young children do not want to focus on estate planning. That was not true.
Ali Katz:
The families in my community who were buying thousand dollars strollers and putting their kids into private school and putting their kids into private daycares and had nannies coming to their homes to take care of their kids, they all wanted to focus on estate planning.
Ali Katz:
Once they understood, once they were educated by me, once they heard me speak, once they saw my presentation, once they understood the risk of not doing estate planning.
Ali Katz:
Pantea. Well, this I don't think is Pantea. This is Serena. Serena, it's families and business owners in your community.
Ali Katz:
But which ones?
Ali Katz:
Which ones?
Ali Katz:
Okay, so, Coachella Valley, what's true about the families and business owners in your community that you are here to serve? It can't be all families and businesses in the Coachella Valley. You couldn't serve all of them.
Ali Katz:
Think about this, y'all.
Ali Katz:
You all can only serve a maximum of four to, I'd guess, 16 new clients a month.
Ali Katz:
For the vast majority of you are here, some of you have already built businesses where you could serve 20 to 25 a month.
Ali Katz:
Very few of you, if any, that are on this call.
Ali Katz:
So if you can only serve between four and call it 16, you can't serve all the families and business owners in the Coachella Valley. So you're going to have to get very clear who are the right people within that.
Ali Katz:
Tony? Single professional women with or without children and aging parents. So, Tony, this is perfect. These are the single women. They're professionals. Tell me more about what it means that they're professionals. What is their income range? They may have children. They may not have children.
Ali Katz:
They have aging parents. Now, when you're that specific, you can begin to ask the question, where are these single women spending their time, their free time?
Ali Katz:
Where are these single women spending their free time? Because, Tony, you're going to go out and give them a message that invites them to a presentation where they hear you speak in such a way that they say, that's my trusted advisor, that's my Personal Family Lawyer. That's the person that I want on my side or on my family's side if and when something happens to me I want her to be the one that is holding my aging parents hands or holding my hand as I figure out how to take care of my aging parents. And that will be holding the hands of the guardians of the people that I've named of my children if I can't be there.
Ali Katz:
Anthony, 40 to 55, is that an appropriate age range? I feel like 40 to 65 is a cop out.
Ali Katz:
So 40 to 55 is a fully appropriate age range? Absolutely.
Ali Katz:
Even 40 to 65 could be an appropriate age range. The question is, what's on the mind and heart of a person who's in there from 40 to 55? What is in their mind and heart?
Ali Katz:
What do they care about based on the stage of life that they're in, the age of their children and the age of their parents and their own age.
Ali Katz:
What I am finding for myself now that I'll be 50 in a month, we start to really care about our health. We start to really realize, wow, people around us are dying of cancer or fighting cancer.
Ali Katz:
Wow, I really need to start thinking about where I'm fully showing up as an adult in my life and where I'm not. I really need to start thinking about oh, gosh, are my kids going to actually be the kinds of adults that I want them to be? Are my kids going to be able to take over one day and take care of me?
Ali Katz:
Can I take care of my parents? These are the things that are on the minds of the people in their 40 to 55 age range. Kimberly, you're pivoting to try to serve. Let me rephrase you here. So, Kimberly, you said I am pivoting to try to serve single professionals with or without children like me in the Atlanta metro area. So I want to delete this word.
Ali Katz:
Try, Kimberly, rewrite this for me.
Ali Katz:
I am serving single, professional women because I think if they're like you, they're women. I am serving single, professional women in the Atlanta metro area. Susannah, you're serving 45 plus caring for minor children and aging parents just like me. Catherine, I serve families and landowners with small family businesses like farms in Georgia. Okay, this is a perfect one, right, Catherine? Farmers and landowners with small family businesses like farms in Georgia.
Ali Katz:
You can reach them.
Ali Katz:
In fact, I would argue that you could get a list of every single one of those and you could invite them to a presentation to hear you speak about what farmers and landowners with small family businesses in Georgia need to think about to make sure that their loved ones don't lose the family farm or business if they become incapacitated or when they die. Kimberly.
Ali Katz:
LGBTQ plus community in central Texas, in the Waco area. Great. Now tell me more specifically, what has to be true for somebody in the LGBTQ plus community to want to hear you talk about what happens when they become incapacitated and die.
Ali Katz:
Okay, got it.
Ali Katz:
So, Toby, what's coming up for you is that being narrow seems so limiting when you're struggling to increase the number of your clients and build a million dollar practice eventually, are we supposed to turn people away who don't set our avatar?
Ali Katz:
Absolutely not.
Ali Katz:
So this is a common mistake. Very common mistake. And I'm so glad that you brought this up, Toby.
Ali Katz:
So there's two things here that are getting in your way. There's two things here that are getting in your way. First of all, on your way to building a million dollar practice, you first need to build a $250,000 a year practice. You will not build a million dollar practice without first building a $250,000 a year practice. I want you all to consider how many clients do you need to engage each month to build to your next level?
Ali Katz:
Not to a million dollar practice, unless you're already at 15 or 16 new clients a month. If you're already at 15 to 16 new clients per month, you can be thinking about the million dollar practice that you can be at next year.
Ali Katz:
But if you are not yet at 250,000 a month, your million dollar practice is two to three years away.
Ali Katz:
And the only way you get there in two to three years from now is to focus on what's next. And what's next is 250,000.
Ali Katz:
Now, that's first.
Ali Katz:
But the second piece that you said is, do I turn clients away if they don't meet my avatar? No.
Ali Katz:
If you can serve the people who come, you don't turn them away.
Ali Katz:
Because what will happen when you hone in your avatar and focus your marketing on just marketing to your avatar is that you will get more of everything else, too.
Ali Katz:
This is the most shocking part, is that when you hone your marketing to a very specific avatar and you become a star to a very specific audience everybody else comes to, and you don't turn them away from a service perspective, unless you can't serve them, in which case you do turn them away, you refer them out or you co-counsel.
Ali Katz:
But if you can serve them, you do serve them. So when I focused on serving families with young children, all of a sudden I started getting their parents seniors.
Ali Katz:
I wasn't marketing to seniors, and yet I got seniors. I started getting high net worth because some of the parents of these families with young children were high net worth. Some of the families with young children themselves were high net worth. Some of the families with young children were business owners. I was not marketing to business owners or high net worth families or families with special needs or elders. And yet they all came because my marketing was very focused.
Ali Katz:
So what I am telling you here is not to. You don't have to necessarily narrow your service. You are narrowing your marketing. Why are you doing that? Because you don't have the time, energy, attention, money or ability, frankly, to reach a wider audience yet you've got to master one first. And when you master one, that can get you to your four to six new clients a month, which will then give you the ability to get to your ten to twelve new clients a month which will then give you your ability to get to your eventually million dollar business. But you've got to meet yourself where you are, and I'm telling you without question that this is your first step. Kimberly, great LGBTQ plus community in central Texas with minor children.
Ali Katz:
Fantastic.
Ali Katz:
Now, what happens when you are that clear is you can begin to ask yourself, what is the message that those families need to hear? And where do I need to put that message so that any LGBTQ person with children, minor children in central Texas thinks of Kimberly Souders?
Ali Katz:
What events do you need to attend?
Ali Katz:
What direct mail pieces do you get to send out? What email blasts? What organizations? What other professionals are already serving that community? Bijan refined Iranian professionals who are first generation immigrants and are in the accumulation phase of their lives. Be more clear of what that means. They own a home.
Ali Katz:
They have some investments.
Ali Katz:
They're married with or without children. They're in Southern California. They love arts and are specific. They love arts and are accepting of the LGBTQ+ community.
Ali Katz:
You asked, is that too specific?
Ali Katz:
You're going to need to tell me by testing it. Here's what I want to know. Bijan. First of all, we know that they're going to be accepting of the LGBTQ+ community because that's you and they're either going to accept you or they're not.
Ali Katz:
My question for you is, where are these Iranian professionals? Where are they getting together?
Ali Katz:
How can you reach them?
Ali Katz:
Could you become the go to lawyer for these professionals, first generation immigrants in Southern California? Without question. You just need to identify where they are.
Ali Katz:
Okay, you guys are doing great here. You all are doing amazing.
Ali Katz:
Thanks for listening. If you want the kind of support that you heard me giving in this podcast, go to newlawbusinessmodel.com/show and book your call with a law business advisor so you can map the path to discovering exactly how you can turn your law practice into a business you absolutely love. But before you do that, connect with us on Instagram at newlawbusinessmodel and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And of course, we would love your five star reviews on wherever you're listening to this episode. And after all that, go to newlawbusinessmodel.com/show and book a call with one of our law business advisors. I look forward to seeing you on one of our future coaching calls. Bye for now.