Join us this week and next week to learn strategies and tactics for marketing your law firm. Power Chat is a new webinar and live phone chat hosted by Total Attorneys that will give you the opportunity to learn how to market your law firm and get answers to your questions. Register and submit questions by visiting the Power Chat registration page. You may also send in your questions by messaging @TotalAnswers on Twitter.

Welcome back for our 9th and final episode of the Total Attorneys Best Practice Series. Last week, Kevin talked a little about recognizing the longterm value of your clients. This week, Kevin will talk to you about ways to stay in touch with your clients after you have closed their case file so that you can reap the benefits of a longterm client relationship. Check back often for new videos and tips to help you grow business and manage your practice.

Last week, Kevin showed you how to view your law firm as a business. This week’s episode will provide a few tips on how to capitalize on clients by building a relationship that will last beyond initial consultations and services. Check back next Thursday for our ninth and last episode of the Total Attorneys Best Practice Series: Staying in Touch with Your Clients. And keep a look out for new videos and series on how to grow your practice, manage your firm, and find a balance between work and life.

Many attorneys are so focused on the practice of law that they forget that they are also running a business. Watch this video to learn tips on how to treat your law practice as a business, streamline processes, market your firm and manage staff. If you missed last week’s episode, Empowering Your Clients to Make Positive Changes, click here to check it out. Come back next Thursday for Episode #8: The Lifetime Value of Your Clients.

Do you ever have trouble convincing your clients to make positive changes in their lives? Check out today’s Best Practice episode to learn how to discover what things motivate your clients and how to use those motivations to encourage clients to retain your services and take the legal actions necessary to effect changes. This week’s segment will expand on last week’s episode: Using Leading Questions to Encourage Clients to Take Action. Remember to check back next Thursday for another episode of the Total Attorneys Best Practice Series: Your Law Practice as a Business.

Last Tuesday, I hosted a show on Blog Talk Radio with featured guest, Alexis Martin Neely, and Total Attorney’s own John Mickalovski from our bankruptcy case support team. The show, Insights on Outsourcing, was one of our best shows yet. Alexis is a business and life coach who focuses on changing the way legal services are provided to families and small business owners. She has been a regular commentator for CNBC, Fox, and CNN, and she is the bestselling author of Wear Clean Underwear, a guide to legal planning for busy parents.

In 2003, she built her law firm and used virtual workers to scale down her firm’s overhead costs. Now she runs three separate businesses from her home, using virtual workers and only one on-site employee. During the show, Alexis, John and I had a great discussion on how to utilize virtual workers and legal process outsourcing to generate revenue and save money in your law firm.

You can check out the archived show by visiting our Blog Talk Radio page, but here are a few highlights from the show:

• There is a big difference between working with employees versus independent contractors: It’s harder to manage employees and keep them happy without an HR department. Using virtual workers and outsourced services helps you minimize some of the headaches created by managing large on-site staffs because you do not have to worry about things such as employee benefits, insurance or office space.
• Almost anything that can be delegated to an employee or paralegal can be outsourced, including scheduling meetings, managing phones, performing client intake, managing cases and delivering messages after office hours.
• By hiring a virtual receptionist to answer the phones with a standard, cheerful greeting that is welcoming for prospects, you can free up time for you and your in-house staff for other important tasks, like providing customer service to your current clients or focusing on legal work.
• By utilizing legal process outsourcing, you can increase the value of your time. If your billable rate is $150 an hour, why waste time filling out form documents that can be done at a fraction of the cost? Instead, try sending some of this work to an off-site service provider and use that free time to increase productivity for your billable hours.
• Is it hard to get started with a virtual worker? Not if you take baby steps. Try hiring someone to do just one task, such as answering the phone. After that, take some time to communicate your needs and requirements up front with your outsourced service provider. In the long-run, the time and costs that you take to carefully choose a virtual worker and set up a working relationship with that service provider will be minimal compared to the amount of time and costs that you will save by using a virtual worker.
• Is outsourcing ethical for lawyers? Yes, as long as you supervise the employees you outsource, review work before filing and perform your due diligence to make sure that the virtual worker our outsourced service provider maintains the security and confidentiality of your client files. For more info, check out ABA Formal Opinion 08-451.

Join us on April 20 at noon on Blog Talk Radio when our featured guest, Kevin Houchin, discusses work/life balance and how to become the kind of lawyer you want to be, both in the office and out.

A prospective client just called or came into your office, or you want one of your current clients to take a certain action. Are you prepared to convert that prospect into a new client? Do you know how to get your client on board with your plan of action for their case? Check out this video, where Kevin Chern talks to you about asking the right questions to encourage prospective and current clients to take action. Come back next week for the sixth segment of the Total Attorneys Best Practice Series: The Art of Asking Empowering Questions.

Join Total Attorneys on Blog Talk Radio this Tuesday, March 2, for a new show hosted by Kevin Chern featuring guests Alexis Martin Neely and Max Gardner—Insights on Outsourcing.  Listen in or call while this group of law practice management experts discusses ways to use virtual workers and legal process outsourcing to cut overhead expenses in your law firm.  The show starts at 11 a.m. Central time, and you can get answers to your questions by listening in here or calling in at (347) 857-1419 during the show.  If you can’t listen in during the show, be sure to check out the Total Attorneys Blog Talk Radio page for more information about upcoming shows and recorded archives and mp3 downloads of our past shows.

Last week, Kevin Chern told you how to track staff conversion rates and talked about the importance of strategically staffing your firm to attract clients. This week, Kevin will discuss the importance of staying in touch with prospective and former clients and building long-term relationships that will result in future opportunities for your practice. Check back next Thursday for segment five of the Best Practice Series: Utilizing Empowering Questions to Convert Prospects into Clients.