The Zen of Work: UNEXPECTED HIDDEN COSTS

With “Holly” on a mission to take control of her work situation – aiming to instil a feeling of Zen in her workspace – she has come to us seeking answers.

And we are happy to oblige Holly. As always.

Holly has made a promise to herself to get things well and truly up and running in the next coming months – determined to see her law firm soar in 2023.

To do just that, Holly has once again, started to focus her attention inward. Looking more closely at how her law firm is operating. Better still – how it should be operating.

And there is a lot to take in where the optimal operating of a law firm is concerned.

Take unexpected (hidden) costs as an example.

As a single legal practitioner, Holly needs to understand how to treat each principle of her practice so that she can confidently run her own business.

So, let’s chat a little bit about those unexpected (hidden) costs and put Holly’s mind at ease.

Getting yourself “out-there”

Holly has realised that there are certain costs that she simply didn’t budget for. Certain expenses that she cannot bill her clients for. And they are expenses that are pretty important – as far as securing new clients is concerned.

And these “unexpected (hidden) costs” all have to do with making her practice easy to locate, easy to contact and easy to do business with.

To do this, it’s vital that Holly not only develops a strong brand presence but that she effectively undertakes a sustainable and intelligent marketing strategy. She needs to remain relevant by reminding potential clients that she is out there – open, willing, and able to assist them.

She needs to give them reasons for wanting to work with her.

In addition, a good marketing strategy can also help Holly understand what her client’s needs are, whilst educating them on what her firm can offer.

With a good marketing strategy, Holly can attract new clients and more importantly can convince her existing clients to remain with her, thereby securing repeat business (which is crucial for any business).

The key here is remaining consistent. In however Holly chooses to go about getting her practice visibility.

There is the professional road – where Holly could hire a professional branding and marketing team that can come up with a brand strategy and help Holly not only promote, but come up with content – like Hello World Marketing as an example.

Worthwhile and a sound investment in getting her practice noticed.

But the thing is – Holly doesn’t have an excess of capital to retain the services of a professional branding and marketing company. She just doesn’t have the big budget (yet) to get social media pros posting on every social-media platform, getting her practices name out there. *Holly makes a mental note to reserve budget during her next budgeting session*

So, what can Holly do in the meantime?

In the meantime, Holly can source other – possibly more affordable – design and branding options through websites (and apps) such as Upwork, which utilises the skills of various freelancers at affordable rates.

Or Holly can take matters into her own hands by looking to social media for assistance.

Sure, social media is not everyone’s favourite thing in the world. But by engaging and interacting on social media platforms, lawyers can become more approachable, easily accessible, amenable, witty, humorous, and ultimately human. Because that is the way the world is moving and what is required to do business going forward.

The world wants to hear Holly’s ideas and opinions. It wants to share in her successes, achievements, and celebrations. The world wants to see behind the mask of every law firm – and in so doing – the world wants to do business in a way that is easy, quick, and efficient with a person they already (kind of) know.

All this while Holly showcases her intellectual and legal prowess. Empty profiles that simply have business hours and principal place of businesses are no longer “cutting the mustard”.

And the stats speak for themselves. According to Sprout Social –

1. “In 2023, there are estimated to be 4.89 billion total social media users worldwide.
2. The average person bounces between seven different social networks per month.
3. The amount of time internet users spend on social media is now higher than ever — 151 minutes per day.
4. TikTok is the fastest-growing platform with a staggering 100% user growth rate between 2020 and 2022.
5. The number of social media users worldwide grew by only 3% YoY from January 2022 to January 2023 (+137 million users.)”

No one can deny their relevance.

What’s more is – that’s a lot of potential viewers that could see Holly’s content and be interested in what she has to offer.

Because part of staying top of mind is actually being present where your clients can see you, where they can engage with you and where they can get to know you.

Social media allows that. Social media allows – both existing and potential – clients to get in touch with you. At the tap of a button. Opening up communication channels is extremely important for any business – but sometimes, most especially with law firms.

A word of caution!

Holly must remember that privacy and data protection are high on the list of priorities of businesses and law firms worldwide (in fact they are legislated under Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation). Holly must be careful what information she shares on public platforms. 

Holly must remember that what she posts on social media can easily bring her company into disrepute and end up chasing away clients instead of attracting them. It also doesn’t go away – once it has been posted it remains online for everyone to see. So, she needs to tread very carefully! As Emma Sadleir Berkowitz of The Digital Law Company has said

“If you wouldn’t put it on a billboard, don’t post it on social media”.

Which will be her rule of thumb. Always.

It seems that social media platforms (whether it be Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tik-Tok, or preferably all of them) will become Holly’s best friends whilst she tries to get her name out there. On little to no budget.

Perhaps, looking into the different social media platforms is something she should investigate… Hmm. There is more to come it seems.

With that, Holly can tick off one more thing on her “to-do list” in optimising her practice.

There are many attorneys who have the software packages in place but are just not sure how to fully use them, what everything does and how they can optimise their practice to ensure that it’s performing with accuracy and reliability.

But, with the help of AJS, your practice (regardless of its size) can (and will) succeed.

We will continue going through tips, answering your FAQ’s, and providing you with information that will better equip the everyday user of legal tech, like you and like Holly, to achieve a state of Work Zen.

It’s all easy. If you know how… Just ask us.