How do I get clients if I am working from a home office?

I received that question not too long ago from one of our readers. I am not going to use his name, but I will tell you he is an attorney. A professional service provider as I also like to call attorneys. However, what I tell him really applies to anyone working from a home based office. And it will work to start getting you clients and customers now. Here is what I wrote him in an email in response to his questions:

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you with your question. You really answered this question yourself when you said blog. I am serious, if you want to position yourself as the place to go for legal help, you need to position yourself as the place to go for information first.

And since you are, as you call it, basically a brand new attorney starting out, a blog is one of the best and lowest cost marketing tools you can use. But don't stop there. Incorporate a well thought out and designed email newsletter to your blog too. Give your readers a way to subscribe to the newsletter. And if that is not enough, come up with something you can give them for FREE. A short ezine series on something you are going to be practicing about. Take for example divorce. An ezine on how to prepare and meet with your attorney would be a good one. Anything you can do to show you are the place to go for information is what you want to do.

(A little self-promotion coming up).

If you are not reading my blog, Blog For Profit, go read it and subscribe. And while you are there subscribe to my Newsletter. I talk a lot about blogging for businesses and professional service firms. Not about monetizing a blog with ads. Which there are too many of those.

I hope this helps. Oh, and don't forget some of the other traditional marketing tools. Network, both on and offline. Join a civic group and get involved in your community. If you are going to work at home, where is home? Do you live in a subdivision with a neighborhood center. If you do, offer to give free seminars on something people are wanting to know about. Estate planning is a good one. Bring in other professionals to do them with you. Financial planners for example. They may need the PR with today's market ups and downs.

Drop me an email at grant@g2webmedia.com if you have questions about blogging or working from home. I would be happy to visit more by phone too.

Please leave your comments on other suggestions on how you can get clients or customers if you work out of a home office. The more we can share the better off all of us will be in these uncertain times. Instead of sitting back worrying about the economy, lets get out there and make our own. Lets keep the conversation going!!!!

Comments

[Stephanie Kimbro]

I receive the same question from attorneys asking me about how to pull in clients for a web-based, virtual law practice. I just wrote a blog post over at Virtual Law Practice about getting online clients through a virtual law office (VLO). Many VLOs are home based law practices so some of the same tips would apply to any law practice operated from a home office.

[Timothy P. Flynn]

I've done the "work from home" gig when my 3 children were pre-school age. Works well for the same clientele that the internet works for: criminal and family law. Most small businesses do not want an attorney working from his kitchen table or that has to meet in a public place. Even some wealthier couples seeking estate plans have an aversion to this although that may be loosening up in this relentlessly wireless world.

I am now a partner in a small firm. I have a corner office and three employees but lots and lots of serious overhead. Sometimes I think I am working for them and miss my days of no overhead (albeit less revenue).

My question for this blogger is: how do you get yourself noticed in the attorney-pak when you area working from home?

[Ken Lauher]

When thinking about social media, thought you may find this article of interest. 5 Steps For Successful Social Media Marketing by HubSpot. http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4359/5-Steps-for-Successful-Social-Media-Marketing.aspx

[Grant Griffiths]

You are point on Carolyn. It is especially critical for a home office lawyer to get some "face time" and not spent too much time at the home office. Thanks for your great comment to this post. And I would encourage others to leave a comment on how they "get clients" if they work at home.

[Carolyn Elefant]

Hi Grant,

I would like to chime in on this interesting topic. Of course, your advice is the most on point - it's best if the attorney can come up with ways to market such as blogging or ezines that are independent of location. However, for many lawyers, Internet based marketing, while critical, is not enough; often, they need to do Facetime and this is where working from home can be challenging.
Your suggestion to focus on local activities close to one's home is a good one. I would also add that you could organize a lunch, happy hour or breakfast for colleagues at an establishment near your home. Many times, lawyers who might work in a city still live in suburbs outside, and it's very convenient for them to either attend an early breakfast before hitting the downtown office or to stop by a happy hour on the way home. The other suggestion I have is to try to stack meetings - for instance, schedule a client meeting, a bar lunch and coffee with a potential referral for the same day so that you only have to dress up once and trek downtown one time. Depending on where you live in relation to the "center of the action," just meeting for lunch can take 3 hours out of the work day, so if you can aggregate events, you make the best use of the day. In between meetings, you can work out of a Starbucks or a local court library.