The Law Firm Marketing Minute
The best podcast for law firm owners looking to grow their firms.
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The Law Firm Marketing Minute
Best Of: How Law Firm Owners Save Their Sanity feat. Marc Cerniglia
Did you like this episode? Dislike it?
💬 Every client interaction is a chance to build loyalty—or spark frustration. In this "Best Of" episode, Marc Cerniglia of Spotlight Marketing + Branding unpacks why clear communication is the ultimate client service tool. From expectation-setting to navigating negative reviews, discover how law firm owners can take back their time, energy, and peace of mind—without sacrificing results.
📌 Key Takeaways
- The #1 reason clients feel disappointed (and how to fix it).
- Why setting expectations is more powerful than delivering results.
- How staying in touch can turn clients into raving fans.
👉 8 Ways to Get Clients FAST
📆 Schedule Your Strategy Session
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So it's a bit of a double-edged sword, to be honest with you, and I think especially for lawyers and really any business owners, especially lawyers, who we work with a lot, because the work they're doing is often so intimate when you think about the nature of someone being in a legal situation.
Speaker 2:Get ready to level up your law firm's marketing. We hope you get a lot of value out of today's episode and if you do, we only ask for one thing share with a lot of value out of today's episode.
Speaker 3:And if you do, we only ask for one thing share with a friend. All right, let's get into it hello everyone.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the law firm marketing minute. As always, we are your hosts. I'm smike, I'm eddie and today we have a very, very special guest with us. Very gotta butter him up, because he's the CEO of the company I work for.
Speaker 1:Good job.
Speaker 2:But, mark Cerniglia, excuse me, I'm already messing it up. We appreciate you taking the time out of your day to be on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Anytime, anytime for you guys.
Speaker 2:We talked about this a little earlier, obviously right before we started recording, and one of the things that you have said in the past is that law firm owners, yes, they're lawyers, they went to school to be lawyers but if they own a law firm, they're a business owner first, right. And so the power of effective client communication in a law firm that's what we wanted to talk about today A very important aspect for any small business, of course. So let's just start off real quick. We wanted to talk about today, a very important aspect for any small business, of course. So let's just start off real quick. What does effective client communication? What does that look like?
Speaker 1:So effective client communication, I think, really starts at the beginning, which may sound obvious, but I mean, I think that every business, even a law firm, has a sales process, right, even if even if sales sounds like a bad word, right, you know. So, um, whether that be a consultation, um, uh, whatever way you actually sign someone up or take on a case or take on a job, whatever it might be, Um, but everything in your marketing, everything on your website, everything that you say on the phone in your marketing, everything on your website, everything that you say on the phone, that you say in an email, that you say in a consultation or in the sales call or whatever type of sales meeting, there is your expectation setting in all of that communication, right? So, from what's said on your website about your firm to the actual interactions people have with your firm, you're setting expectations, or you ought to be.
Speaker 3:I guess would be my answer to your question.
Speaker 1:So and here's where I can kind of go from really like long answer on the front end to quick on the back end. The reason the first step to effective client communication is setting expectations at the beginning is because the number one thing needed for success with a client or a customer is for them to receive whatever they expected to get. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So you have to set the expectations as clearly as you can, that, if you work with me, you purchase our product, you purchase our service. This is what you're going to get. Yeah, not necessarily a result, right? A law firm can't guarantee an outcome in a case, but this is what it looks like to work with us. These are the expectations I want to set on what an experience is going to be like. This is the likelihood or unlikelihood of said outcome. Right, we're a marketing agency. Right, it's really important that our clients understand what it is we're actually going to deliver for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it goes way beyond just services. You know, obviously the services are very important.
Speaker 1:I mean, I mean it may or may not. I mean, I mean, I think the thing is is that it doesn't necessarily it all. It all depends on whatever expectations you want to set as a business. I mean, if, if, if I go into a candy shop and I buy a pack of Skittles, I'm expecting it to taste like Skittles.
Speaker 1:I mean, they're really I mean right, I mean, they're really. It's pretty straightforward. But if for some reason, you know, Skittles markets themselves as they taste like chocolate and they don't, right, I mean, that sounds like a silly example, but it's the same idea. A happy customer starts with someone whose expectations were met.
Speaker 3:It's that simple, right.
Speaker 1:I did not taste the rainbow in this particular packet of skittles, right? So it sounds simple, but I think that we can talk all day and we will talk a little bit about. You know, there's all sorts of things you can do to get feedback, to check in with clients and customers. Are they happy? But usually when they're not happy, it's because an expectation wasn't met. Where did that expectation come from? Is that an expectation you set for them or is it potentially an expectation that they created on their own Right that you didn't weren't aware of or didn't uncover, right, you know? So all these things and tools you can do to maintain a good relationship with a client are wonderful, but it starts with what is the customer or client expecting to receive, and do they receive that or something else, or something that falls?
Speaker 3:short of that.
Speaker 1:If you can't nail that, everything else is not a waste of time. But you're starting with one leg instead of two.
Speaker 2:And, I'm sure, especially for small businesses that have small teams. Obviously, when Spotlight started off, you're a small team. That was very important to set it off right from the start.
Speaker 1:We also don't know all of this at the beginning of starting a company.
Speaker 2:True, yeah, very true, very true, very true.
Speaker 1:Um, I think that you know, when you're the business owner, you probably, I think you tend to pay real close attention to your clients more often than not, because you're the business owner and the whole business feels like your baby.
Speaker 1:Um if anything, you Probably most business owners probably get too emotionally invested, don't know how to to like separate emotionally from a client conflict or something like that. So it's a bit of a double edged sword, to be honest with you. You know like and I think especially for lawyers and really any business owners, especially lawyers who we work with a lot, because you know the work they're doing is often so intimate when you think about the nature of someone being in a legal situation.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And so it's really, really tempting for lawyers to want to continue to work closely with their clients for a long time, and the positive of that, honestly, is it becomes that much easier, I think, to have a pulse on everything. We're talking about Effective client communication. What could be more effective than the business owner or, in this case, the law firm owner, is the relationship manager, right? But and I think there's no rules, I think if that's what you want to do in your business, your law firm, you can.
Speaker 1:But it's important to also recognize the toll that it probably takes on you as a person, as a business owner, because you're going to be sensitive to everything more than an employee inside your business would. And then, if you do hand that over to someone else, you got to build customer service systems and processes for them to follow. So they do a good job. But you know and back to your point from earlier, mike frankly doing so also allows you to step back and more work on your business rather than in it, to actually act like a business owner and kind of work on the business. But you know, at the same time it's like I said, it's a bit of a double edged sword because also, no one's going to have as good of a. No one's going to extract as much information from a client relationship as the owner will most likely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something, something that you touched on a little earlier. Um was, uh, about client feedback. Clients are a great way to like send out surveys and whatnot, to get that feedback, um to know what's working, what's not working, what may need a little work.
Speaker 1:I mean you just said it, I mean yeah, I mean I think that. So step one, yes, is setting the expectations. But after you've properly set Hopefully you've properly set clients' expectations, Now you have to actually check in with them. Are those expectations being met? Are they being exceeded? Are we falling below what you just said? What are we doing well? What aren't we doing well? Potentially even, do you have anything else you'd like to see from us, over and above whatever you were expecting?
Speaker 3:Yeah, are we delivering the right expectations? Right, I guess.
Speaker 1:Oh no, absolutely. And then potentially even the cherry on top, if you want to, potentially to ask what else would they want from you, even beyond Right? And this is where businesses also uncover opportunities or needs that their customers have that they didn't know about. Right, so that that and that that is the bonus. Like that part's not necessary Right. Like you deliver X, y, deliver xyz product. Clients expectations are met great. But what if there's, what if there's xyz product out?
Speaker 1:there, we don't know about you don't know about yet, or that you could be doing, and so I think also, you know, sometimes asking for that little bit extra, like what else do you need help with or what else could you want. But it absolutely starts with what are we doing well, what aren't we doing doing well, and so forth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know we get a lot of questions from lawyers asking simply where do I even start with my marketing? Like, what do I do first? What has worked for other law firms, what are law firms planning to do this year? And so we've created one of the best free resources. It is the Legal Marketing Trends Report. We are on the third edition. We surveyed hundreds of lawyers across the entire country, found out what they were doing in their marketing, found out what they weren't doing in their marketing, where the opportunities are. You can get your digital copy by checking out the description for this podcast and get started today. All right, let's get back to it. And I've seen a lot of questions online where people ask small business owners, ask law firm owners, ask hey, I got a negative review or I got a negative comment Almost like a hate mail kind of deal, like where they're just going after you Sure, yeah, very much considered feedback.
Speaker 2:What can you do with that? Is there?
Speaker 1:anything to do with that? Yeah, so let's talk about, maybe, how to handle a negative review. Right, that's a, you know, that's a really good one for any business, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, look, the very first thing, honestly, is, if you can, if you feel comfortable, reaching out to that person privately to just basically say hey, I saw your review. I mean, be empathetic because, even if you feel like you're in the right, because here's the thing at the end of the day, the best outcome for you, as as as the business and the business owner, is for that review to be taken down. Yeah, like, like that's actually the best outcome you could have. I'm willing to suck up my pride a little bit, absolutely If it means that review gets taken down. Yeah Right, because that's that's the. This is also my opinion.
Speaker 1:I know people out there that will combat because they feel like the truth matters more than anything else would be to respond publicly to maybe apologize for the situation, but communicate where you do feel like maybe that review is unfair. There is also a respectful way to respond to a review publicly and disagree yeah Right. And I do think as consumers, I think we may look favorably on that. Yeah, I'm just saying that for the most part, for me, my number one goal is going to be let's just get the review removed, and so I'm going to reach out to that client or customer and say, hey look, I understand you're disappointed.
Speaker 1:And then here's kind of the fill in the blank, right, I understand you're disappointed, I understand you're disappointed. And then here's kind of the fill in the blank right, I understand you're disappointed, I understand you're upset, I'm really sorry about that. And then your fill in the blank is whatever you want to say to that specifically. Is there anything you can offer them or is there any way you can make it up for them? Do you want to go ahead and politely disagree with them in the email and just tell them why? But I still understand your point of view. But I did want to address you privately. But no matter what, at the end you say something like listen, you have every right to leave that review, but it really negatively affects me and my team and the company. Is there any way you would consider removing it?
Speaker 2:And to go a little step deeper, say they don't, would you then maybe respond to it publicly? Yes, yeah, great point, yeah, so how about this?
Speaker 1:100% of the time you should respond to a negative review. Okay, absolutely yeah. I just maybe would try to get it removed first or even after you've responded, even if your response is just hey, such and such, we're really sorry that this was your experience. We're very interested in how we can make it right. We've reached out to you privately, yeah.
Speaker 3:And that works regardless of how out of left field the comment is Like, if they say Spotlight Branding, I mean they were the worst bunch of realtors I've ever had in my life. You know, we're not realtors. I mean it's obviously Right.
Speaker 1:And I think, in a case like that, if you want to go to and address the fact that we're not realtors, Right, you can do that Also. I'm pretty sure I've never been through it personally. I don't know if, like a lot of these different websites whether we're talking Google reviews, facebook reviews that you can file a dispute, yep for sure.
Speaker 1:And I would imagine in this scenario that they just get your business wrong, right Like they think you do one thing and you do another. That would be grounds for probably even getting the review removed. That's another route you could go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and obviously, like we said before, that negativity could have stemmed from some sort of misunderstanding, and so that just goes to prove how important effective communication is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean if you're soliciting your customers' feedback, why are they going to ever feel a need to go leave a review on their own? That's negative. Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm sure it happens. I'm not saying that Without a doubt. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1:You know, if someone leaves a negative review that they wouldn't have if you were doing a better job keeping in touch with them. But you know it takes energy and effort to go leave a negative review. I mean to leave any review right. We typically have to ask for the positive reviews, and that's fine. Ask for the positive reviews Always Right. But it takes effort and energy for someone to leave a negative review and a lot of times they want to feel like they got it out and I don't know. I think human nature is. If I feel like I got it out to you, I'm hurt. If I feel like I got it out to you, I don't feel like the next thing I need to go do is put it online. Unless you gave me some just awful smug response or something like that. Right, yeah, you know you complain to a server at a restaurant and they handle it poorly. You're probably even more motivated to leave a review.
Speaker 3:And sorry goes a long way to disarm somebody. I mean always.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, it's not even always necessarily I'm sorry or something you did wrong. Right Again, going back to here's, the expectations we're setting. Now we're going to check in if those expectations are being met. So it's just knowing if the expectations are being met. And even if they're not being met, sure, there's, I'm sorry, but here's, here's what we can do to meet those expectations or reset those expectations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're staying on top of your client relationships, you know where they're at you know you'll be getting no negative reviews for the most part, and you'll be asking for the positive, yeah, yeah, happiness based on real, realistic expectations, yeah, and to and to kind of move, move this, this conversation, back into a little bit more of a happy, positive vibe. We can talk about effective ways of of communication, client communication, and one of the most effective ways something that we talk about all the time, literally all the time is just simply staying in touch with your current clients, with your current network, through an email newsletter, through social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean, this is the same reason that, even if you wear a certain brand of clothing like nike or something like that, nike still wants to market to you because they want you to continue to think nike's a cool brand, yeah, and, and you know, and maybe a service-based business like a law firm, it, it, it is different. I don't. I don't want anyone to hear me saying you need to go, uh, care about branding in the same way Nike does, because that's not what I'm saying. But when you're working with a service-based industry, as the consumer, as the client, I think, honestly, one of the ingredients in the pot is just feeling like the business you're working with is good at what they do, or maybe it is that they're cool or they're experts. And so when you use your marketing to stay in touch with not just your whole network but your clients Maybe your clients get an email newsletter from you, maybe they get a physical newsletter, maybe you send a holiday card or birthday card in the mail I mean, print still matters.
Speaker 1:Maybe they see your social media posts once in a while and you're putting out content about what you do. I think that just reinforces to your existing and past clients that, like you're up with the trends, in the sense that, like your own social media or you're sending email, you're marketing yourself, you know, and keeping pace. Yeah, you're keeping pace Great way to put it. And so there's that element, also, too, of liking the company you work with.
Speaker 3:Good vibes, good energy.
Speaker 1:So I think that when you use marketing to stay in touch with your existing customers or your past customers or clients, it's good energy. It's good energy whether that's them feeling like you're cool or you're experts, or you're trustworthy, you're credible or you're hip whatever, pick your word, pick your vibe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that makes it a whole lot easier to then ask for feedback, right? Because the feedback helping you grow.
Speaker 1:Well, and it makes them more often, more excited to work with you, which means they want to refer to you, right? Like if you know, if the place you do business with you feel like they're cool, or you feel like they're experts or you know like anything that makes you excited, to tell someone about them Like I know the best blank.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I love giving referrals. It makes me look good, right? I mean, is there something like intrinsically selfish about giving a referral, like I feel good about giving a referral when I trust and believe in something?
Speaker 1:Yeah, or you just like something Just like something.
Speaker 3:Yeah Excited about it, right.
Speaker 1:But no, I think that zooming out the idea of give, give, give, ask is that in all of your marketing, you're giving way more than you're looking to receive. Right, you're giving away information, you're giving away your expertise, you're giving away some of your knowledge, your support, your help. It doesn't mean you'll never ask for something. You can give, give, give, ask. You can give, give, give, give, give, give, ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, but Just as long as you're giving before you ask You're giving more.
Speaker 1:I think you're giving before you ask. You're giving more. I think you're giving more than you ask.
Speaker 3:We're reinforcing the idea of value-based content. I mean, we're not posting cat videos and TikTok dances, right? That's why we're posting valuable educational content. Sure sure.
Speaker 1:But I mean, if somebody was giving value through cat dances and things like that, that's okay too. I mean, I think that's a separate conversation about making sure your content is maybe relevant to what you do. But to be honest with you, I think what matters most is that the content is giving, hopefully in a relevant way to your business. But at the end of the day, I think that old mantra of like you give to receive is really true within business and in your marketing as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely so. Well, that's going to wrap it up. This episode of Law Firm Marketing receive is really true within business and in your marketing as well. Yep, absolutely, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, uh, that's going to wrap it up, this episode of uh law firm marketing minute mark.
Speaker 2:Appreciate you taking the time smart you'll have me back more often. Yeah, we'll see, we'll talk about marketing next time we got you marketing with a c that's right, marketing. Thanks guys, appreciate it always. All right, everyone. Have a great day, have a great weekend and we'll see you next week. Bye.