The Webinar: An Alternative to the Free Consult
This week, Jurispage features a great guest post by Billie Tarascio, founder of Modern Law entitled How to Market Your Law Practice With Webinars. As I’d written on the same topic almost six years ago, I initially skipped past until I realized that the blog post title buried the lede: the real story here isn’t so much about using webinars to market, as using them to replace free consultations. Ahh – now that’s something worth reading.
You see, the issue of whether or not to offer free consultations is one of those perennial questions of related to going solo practice, up there with whether to ask for referral fees or the great home v. office debate. The venerable Jay Foonberg advocated free consultations – if only as a way for newer lawyers to gain practice meeting with clients. I too once encouraged free consultations as a way for potential clients to comparison shop lawyers to find the best person to work with. But unfortunately, with many sources advising potential clients to take advantage of free consults to gain free advice, lawyers can wind up spending a lot of time meeting or even talking by phone to new clients with little to show for it at the end.
One solution of course is to simply charge for a consult – a topic I’ll discuss more next week. But another option is the one that Tarascio suggests in her article: using a webinar as a substitute for a free consult. With a webinar, clients have an opportunity to see their potential lawyer in action – and they can also ask questions either live or by sending emails in advance. The benefits to lawyers are obvious as well: whereas arranging a consult with 20 individual prospects involves a 10-20 hour time commitment to meet with each one, the lawyer can address 20 potential clients — or more with one presentation, that can be presented again and again with minimal preparation.
Have you thought about using a webinar to market your practice? What’s been the result? Let us know in the comments below.
I have used webinars to market my law practice. I think the problem is volume and timing. It takes a magician (or dedicated marketing team) to get people to attend a webinar on topics they actually want to learn about (marketing, weight loss). 60 minutes on securities regulation and you’ll probably be talking to yourself. Then there is the timing. Does the prospect just call another attorney who’s willing to chat today, rather than wait two weeks for your scheduled webinar? And if used in lieu of a consult, how do you close? Best bet may be to record a webinar and have the info available on demand on your website. Give tire-kicking clients the link to the video to nurture them through their decision making process.