Has client development changed since I retired from coaching lawyers? That’s a question I think about.
When I was a lawyer and when I coached lawyers, after years of trying to figure out how I attracted clients and how lawyers I coached could attract clients.
I’m sure I wrote this in previous blog posts, but I don’t want to take the time to find those , so here goes:
- You have to be visible, meaning clients know who you are.
- You have to be credible, meaning clients believe you know your stuff.
- That leads to weak tie relationships, meaning relationships with people who are not in your inner circle.
- Those weak tie relationships lead to a much wider network of people and the weak ties recommend you.
- That leads to a meeting with a potential client during which your potential client is evaluating you and during that meeting the quality of your questions and the quality of your listening leads to potentially being hired.
As you likely know, with all my health issues that brought us back to Texas from Mexico, I spend the majority of my time sitting at a computer writing stories that become novels. AI, including Chat GPT, Gemini, and others, makes it far easier, and more enjoyable. Let me give you a small example.
This morning on our way to church I plugged in my iPhone to Apple Car Play and started playing music from one of my lists. The music from The Mission came up. Some of you might recall the movie. Set in 18th-century South America, “The Mission” follows a Spanish Jesuit priest (Jeremy Irons) and a former slave trader (Robert De Niro) as they defend a remote jungle mission and its indigenous community from the threats of colonial powers. The film explores themes of faith, redemption, and the clash between conscience and authority in a visually stunning historical drama.
So for grins, since we were on our way to church and Nancy was driving I asked Gemini to write a 30 chapter outline with the themes of The Mission but set in the United States in 2025, and provide character sketches for each character. Before we parked, I was copying the outline to Word for future reference.
Let’s get back to client development and compare it to the marketing of my novels. So far, my novels have sold enough copies to produce an amount of royalties I could add for a month of coffee at Starbucks.
It could be that my novels are not very good. That is a distinct possibility. But, just for the sake of making a point let’s assume they are worth reading at least by lawyers who enjoy reading courtroom dramas.
I’ve done a really poor job of marketing my novels. In the meantime, I’ve been scammed by so-called marketing experts that I have paid, only to later learn I had been scammed in some cases by scammers claiming to be a company or organization that they weren’t. You’d think that as a lawyer I’d know better, but…
Even legitmate efforts have not produced readers.
I have an author website. Think of it as like your website bio. If you have a moment check it out. It has my novels, I have YouTube videos of my first three novels. It has links to my two interviews.
That’s all good right? Well, I might think it is wonderful, but if potential readers never find it, the website and the video clips are just something that I can see and play, but they aren’t bringing in readers.
Over the last year, I’ve published two more novels The one I’m most proud of is The Air Between Us. If you have a Kindle or Kindle app on your iPad you can read it for free.
The Air Between Us was born from desire write about the 60s, and 70s, the Vietnam War and to explore how the choices we make in our youth—under pressure from family, country, or ambition—shape the rest of our lives. Through Jake Walker, I wanted to capture what it meant to come of age in a turbulent time, to serve in a war that divided a generation, and to carry those burdens into manhood and ultimately, into a courtroom where justice becomes personal. I hope you’ll be interested enough to read it.
I recently finished two novels. The first title is: Shadow of Doubt. It is the fourth in my Gabriela Sanchez series. The third in my series concluded with her being elected to Congress, serving the Rio Grande Valley. I thought I was done with her as a character, but…
The one at the editor now is about the rise and fall of a law firm. I call it America’s Firm: The Rise, The Fall, The Reckoning. It will be published soon.
One thing I learned about writing stories is to ask the question: What if…? So, the novel I have recently started began with my question: What if Gabriela Sanchez is called upon to represent her father, Roberto, the famed Rio Grande Valley lawyer who is accused of bribing a juror.
How did I get the “what if…” idea? The most famous trial lawyer in the early 1900s was Clarence Darrow. He was accused of bribing a juror in Los Angeles and was defended by Earl Rogers, perhaps an even more brilliant trial lawyer than Darrow. The two didn’t get along. If you are interested in reading more about the trials, look here.
So, back to my question? How are potential new clients finding you?