-Guy learns a lot about web at big company
-Guy gets sales job with big company
-Big company treats clients poorly
-Big company fires Guy
-Guy starts small business selling websites to lawyers
So there we have it. This is when this starts to matter.
Let's say this blog somehow reaches my intended audience, and you are reading this as an attorney who is either looking for a website, or already has one that they pay far too much for. If you are not one of these people, don't despair, I can only hope that my wit and insight is so compelling that even if you don't care about the things I'm saying, you'll still read them.
Let's rewind for a second to Ben Afflac in Boiler Room when he says that (in regards to sales) "there's a sale made everytime...either you sell them on (whatever) or they sell you on why they won't buy it". I always thought about that... and whether this was the cause or the effect, I ended up sort of carrying around "reasons that they WON'T buy from me". I thought about how to overcome these objections:
"Why do I have to pay for this every month...what are you really doing after the site has been built?"
"Why should I buy from a company who has already sold to, and promised 'top' ranking to, my competitors?"
"Most of my clients come from referrals, all I need is a simple site where people can find me, read a little about me, and contact me... I can do that for less than $3,000 - $20,000 a year, right?"
Hmph. I think these lawyers might be right. Let's break these down.
"Why do I pay every month?"
Why would you pay every month? A website is typically built once, and updated from time to time. If you are paying for a website that you haven't updated for the last couple of months, you are over-paying. Hosting plans are available for $60 a year. I actually sell hosting for $50 a month, because I've got some scale there with multiple sites. The good news is that if the term of your contract is over with your current web provider, you own the content (with some exceptions, most notably, their "stock" content). The content (and the coding that supports it, AKA, metadata) is what makes your site rank on Google and other search engines. If you are getting value out of your site beyond people searching for you by name, that is where it's coming from. I have already successfully transferred over coding and content from higher priced companies and maintained or improved ranking and overall traffic.
"You sold to my competitors"
I don't offer exclusive anything at this point. If you buy a website from me, and then your competitor wants one, I WILL sell one to him or her. No reason for me to beat around the bush, I am not here to volunteer. That said, by the time I have relevant rankings for even 2 or 3 clients in this market, I'm moving to another market. I don't need to saturate a market. I can't wait to get out of town and sell in Duluth, and then Phoenix, and then Seattle. Once I have a handful of good rankings to display in other markets, I'm out of here. One other thing on this point, is the company I used to work for expects reps, on average, to sell $40,000 per month per territory. That means they are either going to fail and get fired, or have to sell so much advertising so often, that the "rising tide" is keeping you and all of your competitors at the exact same spot.
"Clients come from referrals"
I heard this so many times. Now that I have built some sites, and keep an eye on the traffic that comes to them, I realize this is at least 50% true. A good portion of the traffic that comes to sites is based on people searching by the name of your business, or your name (especially in the case of lawyers / attorneys). So what do you do on the web to leverage referrals? Well, if you want to read some of my ideas about online social networking for attorneys, click that link and go to lawyers-on-facebook.com to read about it. But yes, the fact is, showing up for "St. Paul Divorce Lawyer" or "Duluth Bankruptcy Attorney" will likely not get you a flood of new traffic or more importantly, clients.
That St. Paul Divorce Lawyer site linked above has been on the first page of Google for the search "St. Paul Divorce Lawyer" for a solid two months and seen relatively humble traffic. So while you can chase all sorts of rankings both organic and paid, lawyers who do a good job for their clients get more clients. That is what generates these name searches, and that is what will make you money. Again, if you want to make sure that all of your potential clients have access to all of your past clients, you should think about getting on Facebook.
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