The key to advertising your law firm is building long-term, meaningful, and powerful relationships with Strategic Referral Sources (SRPs). Strategic Referral Sources are people who already have a relationship with the people that you want as clients. For example, if your law firm targets small business owners, some of the potential SRPs would be: accountants, financial planners, chambers of commerce, community leaders, local bankers, CPA's, commercial real estate agents, and payroll processing companies just to name a few.

Here's one great tactic we have used with great accomplishment: set up a cross-referral network. Here's how to do it.

Step 1. Select a group of professionals you would like to network with. This may consist of non-competing attorneys, accountants, financial planners, business brokers, commercial bankers, etc. Gather their names, email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses into a database.

Step 2.Write a letter of introduction and overview. Here's a sample to get your juices going. ?Hello, I'm Attorney Jack Smith and I'm with a Local Law Firm and as you've noticed the economy is experiencing some ripples in it. We know the competition for professional service advisors is getting more and more extreme with more people entering the field. We are looking to connect with other experienced, trusted advisors and create a local cross referral network.

Over the last fifteen years we've been practicing law, we have focused our practice on working with small business owners and high net worth individuals on estate planning, wills and trusts and asset protection. Through a series of brunch meetings and private meetings at our office, we're going to build a cross referral network with a limited number of other professionals who are committed to growing their practice and to sending each other cross referrals.

We are not looking for any kind of a payment for facilitating this network, but we would like to officially invite you to encourage us and see if this is something that you would like to be a part of. For more information give us a call at this number or visit our website to learn more about our law practice.?

Step 3.Send out the letter to at least 30 to 40 qualified professionals and then have your staff follow up with a phone call. As people respond invite them to either a small breakfast meeting at your office or a one-on-one lunch with you and your partners. Be sure to set the model during the meeting. Come equipped to suggest other people you can connect them with or a client they should meet. They will follow your lead so be sure get them going in the right path. As the old saying goes, givers get.

Step 4.The fortune is in the follow up. Immediately after the individual meetings send a thank you email and a letter about 3 days after that. In your email and letter outline three or four ways the two of you can start sending referrals immediately or recommend people you would like to introduce them to.

Step 5.Meet with them on a monthly basis. Emails are good. Phone calls are better, but nothing beats meeting your referral sources once a month. Once you start connecting with several people get them together and facilitate the connection. You want to be seen as the hub to which all the spokes are connected to each other.

Building a cross-referral network does not happen overnight, but with this law firm marketing strategy our clients have been able to start generating new referrals within just a few short weeks.

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