You can build a profitable Collaborative Law Practice and attract desirable clients by learning how to create and execute an effective marketing plan. This webinar is an introduction to the Grow Your Collaborative Practice Workshop, An overview on the key strategies for growing a Collaborative Practice will be presented.

The Grow your Collaborative Law Practice workshop will help collaborative professionals to build a profitable and thriving Collaborative Practice.

The workshop is for Collaborative lawyers, Mental Health professionals and Financial professionals who want to:

• Attract desirable clients (clients who value what you do best)
• Build a profitable Collaborative Practice
• Educate Collaborative lawyers on the value of mental health and financial professionals
• Increase referrals for Collaborative Practice cases
• Strengthen communication to prospective clients and referral sources via web site, professional bio, social media and networking
• Develop confidence in marketing Collaborative Practice
• Learn personal marketing skills that extend beyond Collaborative Practice

This workshop will change the way you think about marketing so you will have more control of building a practice that is in alignment with what you want.

Learning how to market your collaborative practice will help you take an active step towards building the practice you want to create.

“If we do not change our direction,
we are likely to end up where we are headed”

-Chinese Proverb

For more information on how to schedule a workshop for your Collaborative Practice group, please contact me at eferris@ferrisconsult.com

A key strategy for increasing awareness about collaborative practice is media relations. Clients listen to and are influenced by what they read in the newspapers and internet, see on the television or hear on the radio. A notable story about Collaborative Practice in a reputable publication can significantly increase the visibility and credibility of collaborative practice in your community.

At the same time, a negative story can raise concerns and have the opposite effect. How do you attract the media to notice Collaborative Practice in your community and assure your strategy results in a positive story?

You have two opportunities to attract the press. One is through initiating the story though a press release that you create or pitching a specific story concept to a reporter. The second is responding to a call from a reporter for a comment.

The following tips will assist you in talking to the media for both opportunities.

1.     Speak to the interests of your audience. Focus on what your audience wants to hear verses what you want to say. Avoid talking about the features of Collaborative Practice.  You will increase your opportunity for success if your story is on the benefits (verses the features) of Collaborative Practice, is newsworthy and has a hook.

2.     Provide a real life example of how Collaborative Practice works.  Reporters are not interested in what you say Collaborative Practice can do, they want to know, “how has it helped people?” What is working?

3.     Know the media source- Research the reporter’s web site, publication or radio station. Who is the audience for the publication? What is important to this audience?  Pay attention to the tone and view point of the media source. Is the view point consistent with your message?

4.     Research the reporter- What is the reporter’s style of writing? A simple Google search will provide relevant information on the type of stories they have written before.  Be careful when talking to a “gotcha” reporter. This type of reporter may be looking for a story that conveys a completely different message than you intended.

5.     Ask about the reporter’s deadline and agenda.  Clarify the reporter’s deadline and the focus for the interview. Call the reporter back before the deadline and take a few moments to organize your thoughts and write down talking points. Try to avoid “spur of the moment” interviews without advanced preparation. Remember everything you say can be quoted.

6.     Avoid legal or Collaborative Practice jargon. Try to stay away from too many academic terms and industry jargon, i.e. interests based negotiation, four way meetings, containers, paradigm shift, etc. Journalists like to hear human interest stories that tell a story verses an institutionalized description about process.

7.     Control the interview. Make a list of the points you want to make.  Try not to have more than three key talking points. Find every opportunity to deliver your key messages. Think in headlines and respond in quotes. Don’t just answer the reporter’s questions

Collaborative Practice is an exciting story that is benefiting families across the globe. Take the first step by telling your story through online press releases, calling your local media or writing articles for local and national publications.

A glance at Google alerts for Collaborative Practice demonstrates the collaborative community world-wide has been successful in increasing stories about Collaborative Practice in the media.  By being media savvy you can maximize the opportunity to increase awareness of Collaborative Practice and position yourself as a leader in the industry.

About Elizabeth Ferris: With more than 25 years of experience as a consultant for business development, Elizabeth Ferris helps lawyers, law firms, and collaborative professionals to find a focused path to accelerated growth. She has a strong record of achieving optimal results for her clients through developing and executing strategic and marketing plans.

She launched Ferris Consulting in March of 2000 to help lawyers and other professionals to build and grow a profitable practice that bring significant value to their clients along with personal fulfillment to the individual practitioner.  Elizabeth specializes in working with family law firms and other collaborative law professionals. She and her team of marketing specialists were the original architects for the Collaborative Practice brand, including the logo, tagline, brochure and marketing campaign. That campaign resulted in worldwide name recognition for Collaborative Practice, thus significantly increasing the awareness and demand for Collaborative Practice throughout North America and Europe.

Elizabeth is an author and frequent speaker on the topic of marketing and growing your practice.  She has conducted marketing workshops and strategic-planning retreats throughout North America, much of Western Europe and Australia. Some of the most successful Law Firms in North America and the UK are among her clients.

Elizabeth Ferris can be reached by email at eferris@ferrisconsult.com.
Web site: www.ferrisconsult.com
Blog: www.authenticlawmarketing.com

The following are 3 strategies you can implement today to accelerate your Mediation and Collaborative law practice in a slow economic time:

1.     Develop a road map for business development strategies. Imagine going on an important business trip that has no margin for error, you must make every connection. You would never think about leaving your office without thinking through the important details of your trip and itinerary.  Yet many professionals are trying to navigate the rough waters of a changing marketplace without a plan.  Now is the time develop a clear plan on where you are, where you want to be and most important, how you will get there.

2.     Focus your business development efforts on your ideal client. This is the time to assess  and clarify who your ideal clients and referral sources are.  By knowing the profile of your ideal clients and referrals sources,  you are in a position to convey your knowledge on the unique problem those clients encounter and as important your specialized expertise in helping them solve their problems.  Clients and referral sources are constantly being interrupted with generic marketing messages that do not mean anything to them. Now is the time to differentiate your practice and attract desirable clients and referral sources by speaking to their unique problems, needs and interests.

3.     Accelerate your visibility among targeted referrals sources and clients. Never has the statement, “out of sight, out of mind” been more true for mediation and collaborative law professionals.  In a market where clients have more choices than ever before and immediate access to information about the services they desire, you must stay top of mind with the clients and referral sources you want to attract to your practice. The following are four strategies for increasing your visibility:

Speak at targeted association meetings, organizations and conferences. Research what is going on in your area, create a list of possible opportunities and make contact with the organizations that are the best fit for your market.

Optimize your online visibility. Every client needing your services should be able to find you on the internet. Google your city and the word that describes your practice, what page do you show up on? If you are not on the first page, take action today to increase your visibility. Consider a social media strategy that includes a blog, Twitter and a Linked In account.

Write articles on topics of interest to your target market. In todays on line world, you have direct access to your target market.  The internet has made it possible for you to write articles that can submitted to web sites such as www.mediate.com online press release, blogs and e-newsletters. Instantly your articles will be published.  In addition to online media, local newspapers and magazines are always looking for relevant community based articles that provide good content for their publications.

Get involved. Your business is based on relationships and trust with other professionals. The more time you commit to an organization, association or group you believe in, the more referrals you will see from colleagues and professionals who have some experience with you and your expertise.

In summary, we may be close to an economic turnaround and those lawyers and professionals who take action today will prepare themselves for prosperous growth in the future.  Starting today, begin to take action for accelerating your Collaborative Practice and Mediation practice growth plan.

If you are not sure how to get started on a plan to accelerate the growth of your practice, contact Elizabeth Ferris at eferris@ferrisconsult.com

With more than 25 years of business development consulting including, strategic planning, message development and marketing plan execution, Elizabeth Ferris helps Law Firms, and Collaborative Professionals to achieve accelerated growth.

She has achieved results through developing and executing strategic and marketing plans for some of the most successful Law Firms in North America and the UK. She is a frequent speaker and author on the topic of marketing and growing your practice. Elizabeth has conducted marketing workshops and strategic planning retreats throughout North America, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Austria and England. She can be reached at www.ferrisconsult.com

© 2006 Elizabeth Ferris.  All rights reserved. You are free to use material in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear.

How can professionals with busy lives, demanding clients, and the need for maintaining a certain number of billable hours transform their practice?

In my work collaborative professionals, I have discovered that the key to accelerated growth comes from the choices professionals make about how they are going to spend their time and money, and with whom they will spend it. Successful collaborative practitioners have made a deliberate choice about their commitment to growing their collaborative practice and it is this commitment that has provided the foundation for their accelerated growth.

When my clients tell me they “don’t have the time” to attend forums, go to trainings, or implement practice growth strategies such as meeting with referral sources to educate them about collaborative practice, what they are really saying is, “I have made a choice that something else is more important.”

It may seem like there are no choices and the thought of transforming a practice is beyond your control. However, you have more control than you realize. In the book The Power of Living Your Values, by Hyrum Smith, he crystallizes this thought: “We can be in control of our lives, and that control comes partly from realizing that we are constantly making choices.”

I just returned from the 11^th annual IACP forum in Washington D.C. where 650 people, attended a three-day conference. At the conference, new relationships were formed, newcomers learned from experienced practitioners, and the majority of attendees left with a renewed sense of confidence, excitement, and a clearer sense of direction on how to transform their practice.

The professionals who attended the meeting made a choice to spend money and time on something that was important to them. The choices we make, including those about time, are a matter of confirming what really matters to us.

Ask yourself, “What matters most to me? What would I really like to accomplish? The answer to these questions will act as a guide for making choices that are in alignment with your values, passion, and goals.

Jennifer Tull from Austin Texas is one of the collaborative professionals I have had the privilege to work during the last four years. I have watched her practice grow from a handful of cases to more than 145 collaborative cases. I asked what formed the foundation for her success in growing her practice.  Her answer: “I was passionate about Collaborative Law and the benefits to clients, to children, to me, and to society as a whole.  I bought the concept 100 percent, and saw this as a way that I could continue to practice family law and do other things that I wanted to do. I made the decision that I was going to say, ‘yes’ to everything that supported me in doing this practice, and ‘no’ to everything else.”

My goal in writing this article is to remind you that you have the control to create a practice that brings you joy and improves the lives of your clients. This control comes from making choices about how you spend your time and resources.

One strategy I have found helpful is to start each day asking the question, “What am I going to do today to close the gap between what I am doing and what matters to me?”

At the end of the day, ask yourself, “What have I done today that is consistent with this value? What do I need to do more of? Is there anything I have done that does not reflect this value?”

You will begin to see results by simply increasing your awareness of what is important to you and how you spend your time.

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

–Nietzsche

Elizabeth Ferris, founder of Ferris Consulting, specializes in assisting attorneys, mental health professionals and financial specialists to grow their practice through result-oriented marketing and practice development strategies. She has worked with attorneys, collaborative professionals and mediators across North America to implement effective strategies for increasing awareness and demand for their services. Elizabeth can be reached at www.ferrisconsult.com

© 2005 Elizabeth Ferris, All rights reserved. You are free to use material in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear.

The attribution should read:

“By Elizabeth Ferris of Ferris Consulting. Please visit Liz’ web site at www.ferrisconsult.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for collaborative law and mediation professionals.”

You want to attract more referrals for collaborative and mediation cases, spend less time in court and do more work that is in alignment with your interests and values.

You have decided this is the year that you will transform your practice. However, there is one glitch; you already have a busy practice and you do not have a lot of extra time.

What you would really like is a fast solution, a “magic bullet” to help you make this transformation.

Is there a magic bullet for growing your practice? Something fast and quick that you can do or buy to help you transform your practice.

The answer to this question is the same as the answer to the question of how you would transform any other area in your life.

Health and fitness is one example that comes to mind. Let’s say you wake up one day and decide that you are not satisfied with your health status, including your weight, diet and level of physical activity. You want to feel and look healthier.

You might be tempted by the latest health fad or “quick fix” diet; however, you know from prior experience that the only effective way to increase your health and fitness is through ongoing, consistent attention to your diet, weekly physical activity, and a stress management regimen. In other words, to truly transform your health requires personal commitment and discipline.

The same process applies to transforming your practice. It will only happen through personal commitment and discipline and it will require taking a step back from the day-to-day activities of your busy practice and answering the following three questions:

1.  Where are you today in relation to your practice goals?

2.  Where do you want to be in the next 12-24-36 months?

3.  How you will you get there? (What is your plan?)

Where are you today?

The first step to transforming your practice is performing a self assessment and answering the following questions:

1. Why do you want to grow your collaborative/mediation practice?
2. Why is this important to you?
3. What are your greatest strengths and opportunities for growing your practice?
4. What are your greatest weaknesses and barriers for growing your practice?
5. What are three things that, if you could do them better, would dramatically increase the success of your collaborative or mediation practice?

Use the answers from number 1 and number 2 to clarify and internalize why it is important for you to transform your practice. Knowing these answers will help you to make the personal commitment necessary to transform your practice.

On those days when you just do not want to go to your practice group meeting or write that blog post or article, look at the reasons you gave for wanting to grow your practice. How important is this to you? How badly do you want this? Connecting the activity to your personal values will help to motivate you to make the call, attend the meeting, etc.

Where do you want to go?

In the book, First Things First, Steven Covey says, “You must first have a destination to reach one.”  Where do you want your practice to be in 12-24-36 months? Write these goals down and review them frequently. Use the goals to help you reach monthly or quarterly benchmarks.

Track referrals, calls and new cases. Monitor your success and continually update your plan to accommodate what is working and not working. Embrace the journey and have fun along the way. Much of the excitement of making a transformation is the journey to get there.

How will you get there?

Identify your strengths and opportunities and integrate them into your plan. For example, if you are an excellent writer, use your strength to write articles to increase your visibility among your target market. If you are active on a board and well known in the community, how can you leverage this visibility to grow your practice?

At the same time, be aware of your greatest barriers and weaknesses to growing your practice. If your greatest barrier is lack of confidence in your new skills as a collaborative professional, how will you address this barrier in your action plan?

To create your plan, identify the three to four most important strategies for growing your practice, and then execute them consistently.

If you were going to transform your lifestyle to be healthier, you might choose among the following activities — walking 4-5 times a week, limiting alcohol intake, eating less sugar or fat, increasing time to meditate and relax , etc..

Similarly, if you want to transform your practice, you may want to choose from among the following critical strategies:

• Master your core message so it is clear what you do and the value you provide
• Update your website so it effectively communicates your value and message
• Identify your target market
• Increase your visibility with targeted referral sources
• Write articles of interest to your target market
• Give presentations to groups who could benefit learning about collaborative practice or mediation services
• Achieve excellence in your practice
• Participate in your collaborative/mediation community.

In summary, there is no magic bullet or quick fix to growing your collaborative and/or mediation practice. The good news is you can build a practice that is in alignment with your interests and goals by making a commitment to transform your practice and doing the activities that are consistent with that goal. The key is to take the time to be clear on your goals and implement the strategies that will bring you the greatest return on your investment of time and resources.

“It has been said that the difference between the major and minor leagues
is just a matter of inches and consistency. That is essentially true of the difference between
excellence and mere adequacy in poetry or surgery or anything else.”

– George F. Will, newspaper columnist

• Effectively communicating to prospective clients in advance of initial consultation
• Effectively communicating process options at the initial consultation
• Learning how to speak to clients about the “benefits” of the Collaborative process
• Learning to effectively speak about collaborative practice in a way that entices clients to select the Collaborative process which will lead to more cases for everyone.

How can Collaborative Law professionals effectively communicate what collaborative practice is?

The first step is to create a relevant message that communicates what your audience is interested in hearing verses what you are interested in saying.  This will require preparation and having a solid understanding of your target markets most important problems and goals.

The following chart provides a hierarchal overview on how to create a relevant Collaborative Practice message:

#1 – Most relevant to audience
Divorce does not have to be slash and burn
Family friendly, business friendly and financially friendly way to divorce

#2 – Unique selling proposition
Collaborative law is a process to settle a case without going to court

#3 – Benefits
Preserve wealth
Focus on welfare of children
Preserve confidentiality
Control decision making
Looks to future

#4 – Description
Withdrawal agreement
Team model
Four way meetings

Why have a core message?

An effective core message communicates the value of what you do and who your services are directed towards. It is how you attract desirable clients to your practice. Having a strong core message means you are able to clearly articulate what you do so anybody hearing or seeing your message will understand your value and how it relates to their specific goal or problem.

How to create a core message?

The first step in defining your core message is to answer the following questions:

•    Who are the clients I want to attract to my practice?
•    What is the value clients receive as a result of my expertise (What problem do I solve or solutions do I provide)?

By answering the above questions, you are translating your experiences, competencies and service description into a valued outcome for your client.

Description Based core message

Many Collaborative Practice professionals describe what they do based on list of features about the Collaborative Practice process. For example, the following message is a familiar description for Collaborative Practitioners:

We are a team of interdisciplinary professionals engaged in the practice of Collaborative law.

The emphasis is on the feature of the collaborative practitioner (team of interdisciplinary professionals) and on a description of the service (practice of collaborative law) versus any beneficial outcome to the client. The client or referral source has to work hard to translate what this means to them.

Value based core message

Compare this response to a collaborative family lawyer I consulted with to create a core message. Through the process of creating his core message, the collaborative lawyer internalized who his best client were, how he differentiated himself and the value of his service.

The result has been an increase in referrals from desirable clients. He is receiving web site referrals from clients who want what he does best. A few weeks ago, he was at a networking event and when was asked what he did, he replied, “I help divorcing clients to reach solutions and avoid prolonged conflict.” One gentleman was listening and heard his unique way of helping divorcing clients and immediately asked for his card. The gentleman said, “I am in the process of getting a divorce and have talked to three lawyers who all said the same thing, you are the first lawyer who has talked about reaching solutions.” A few days later, the gentleman retained him as his lawyer.

Summary

The success this collaborative lawyer experienced with his core message came from his ability to differentiate his practice and to convey the value of his services in a way that was relevant to the client. He also had increased confidence about his message which allowed him to focus on the needs and goals of the potential client instead of trying to “sell” Collaborative Practice. When the collaborative lawyer talked about what he did, it was not about the features or the process of Collaborative Practice. Instead he talked about the client, their problem, and his ability to help them solve their problem.

Collaborative Practice is a process to settle cases without going to court and is for clients who want an alternative to traditional litigation. It is not for everyone and it is not the responsibility of collaborative professional’s to “sell” Collaborative Practice to their clients. However, many clients and referral sources are unaware that Collaborative Practice exists and have not been educated on how it could benefit them and their families.

As a result, professionals who have been trained in Collaborative Practice are frustrated about the low demand for Collaborative Law. In my consultation with lawyers and collaborative professionals, I often hear, “I want to do more collaborative cases, but my clients are not asking for it.” or “My clients want Collaborative Practice, but their spouse selected a lawyer who is not a collaborative professional.”

The less clients and referral sources understand how Collaborative Practice can help them solve their problems or reach their goals, the less demand there will be for Collaborative Practice. This means that collaborative professionals who want to attract more collaborative clients to their practice will need to implement new strategies for growing their collaborative law practice.

In my experience working with Collaborative professionals in the UK and North America, I have witnessed the characteristics of successful practitioners and have consulted with those who went from few or no collaborative cases to a significant increase in cases in a matter of 6-12 months.

How do you grow a practice that brings value to your clients, fulfillment to your work and is financially profitable? The following are the top ten strategies for growing your collaborative law practice.

1. Define a Clear Vision — Start with a clear vision of what you want your practice to look like. To reach a destination, you must first have one. The clearer you are about what you want to achieve, the more likely you will carry out your plan.

2. Identify Your Best Clients — Conduct an assessment of your best and worst clients. Know who your ideal clients are and proactively attract these clients to your practice. One of the best ways you can accelerate the growth of your practice is to focus your marketing efforts on the select few who will bring you the maximum return on your time and financial investment. Be clear on who your best clients are, the problems you can solve for these clients and how you are attracting them to your practice.

3.    Define your Core Message — Try to avoid an “all things to all people” message about your practice. You will be sought out by desirable clients and referral sources by identifying what differentiates you and consistently communicating what you do so others understand the value of your services.

4. Clarify what your Practice Stands For — Build on the foundation of your vision, best clients, and core message to create a “brand” for your practice that conveys who you are, who you serve and the value you provide clients.

5. Create a Plan — Resist the urge to embark on random or reactive “tasks” without first creating a road map that gives you direction on where you are going. Take a step back from working “in” your practice to create a plan that is realistic, measurable, and focuses on your most important activities. Specify what strategies and tactics you will use to achieve your goal.

6. Maximize the Internet for Attracting New Clients — Assess how many referrals you receive from your web site. If you are not achieving 1or more referrals a month, review your web strategy and make sure your web site clearly communicates what you stand for, what sets you apart, who you clients are and what services and value you provide. Pay attention to your visibility on the search engines and the quality of the referrals you receive. Consider building a blog and participate in social networks such as Linkedin to accelerate your search engine optimization. Try not to allow your web site to become dated or only function as an “online brochure.”

7.    Network with Targeted Referral Sources — Schedule time in your calendar to stay “top of mind” with key referral sources and professionals in your community. Try to maintain a consistent presence with your referral sources and don’t allow the day to day demands of client work to prevent you from proactively maintaining and developing relationships with essential referral sources. The networking you do today will result in new client work in months to come. 

8. Provide an Exceptional Client Experience — Your number one marketing strategy is word of mouth marketing from satisfied clients and the professionals you work with. If less than 40% of your referrals are coming from past clients and referral sources, you may want to assess your strategy for creating an optimal client experience. Consider using client evaluations and debrief clients after meetings to learn how your client is experiencing the process. A good marketing plan includes ongoing learning, mentoring and seeking new and better ways to deliver exceptional value to your clients.

9. Educate the Public – A successful strategy for growing your practice is built on education. In my experience the key to a successful education campaign for Collaborative Practice includes more than educating the public about the features of Collaborative Practice, it includes educating the public on how Collaborative Practice addresses the issues and concerns that clients have. For example in the area of family law, education should include topics on divorce and how to get the best divorce possible. Write articles about children and divorce, managing the cost of divorce and the value of out of court settlement. Submit article to local publications, blogs and internet forums. Include your articles on your web site and give them to prospective clients and referral sources. Speak on topics about reducing the emotional and financial cost of divorce at local and regional association meetings. Pay attention to current and local events; contact the press about relevant human interest stories i.e. Madonna’s divorce and the trend for amicable resolution and settlements that focus on the best interests of the children. The same education strategy should be used for areas outside of family law. 

10. Make a commitment to your most important goals – You can achieve your Collaborative Practice growth goals by implementing the above strategies. Your results will be realized through a combination of commitment and accountability.  Commitment allows you to reach outside of your comfort zone and provides the discipline that will encourage you to execute activities that will produce your desired results. Your level of commitment will determine your success in growing your collaborative practice.

Having worked with successful practitioners who have transformed their practice to 100% collaborative, I have observed that the answer is as long as it takes to build a collaborative community.

What is a collaborative community? A collaborative community is the synergy created by leveraging the talents and contributions of individuals, local and statewide groups and the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.

Collaborative Community

Building a collaborative practice requires the growth of a collaborative community. For that to happen, attention must be given to each layer of the community.

Individual Practitioner

The first layer of the collaborative community involves the individual collaborative professional.

The greatest myth I hear from individuals and groups is that they will
receive an increase in referrals for collaborative cases if they take a basic training, join a collaborative practice group and pay the annual fee for their group.

In my experience, however, the most successful collaborative practitioners in North America increased their collaborative case load by taking an active role in growing their practice versus passive participation.

The following are the four characteristics of successful practitioners:

1. Successful practitioners internalize the value and principles of collaborative practice. The most successful collaborative practitioners all have internalized, believe and clearly understand the principles of collaborative practice.

Lisa Alexander, a collaborative attorney from Vancouver, emailed this quote on the list serve during a heated debate on the difficulty of getting clients to agree to the disqualification clause: “Let one who wants to move and convince others, first be convinced and moved themselves. If a person speaks with genuine earnestness, the thoughts, the emotion and the actual condition of their own heart, others will listen.” –Thomas Carlyle

It has been determined that 50-70% of communication is nonverbal. Successful collaborative professionals have internalized the value of the collaborative process and effectively communicate this excitement to their clients and referral sources.

Cheryl Fletcher, a Collaborative attorney from Michigan and the Chair of the Collaborative Law Institute of Michigan, was telling me how her collaborative practice was growing and how excited she was about the work she was doing and the results she was experiencing. At the end of the conversation we both agreed that her excitement and confidence about Collaborative was a critical factor in her success.

2. Successful practitioners are actively involved in the collaborative community. Creation of and participation in a collaborative community are essential to growing collaborative practice for two reasons. First, your contribution will strengthen your collaborative community, which is essential for accelerating the growth of collaborative practice in general. Second, the number one referral source for collaborative cases is other collaborative professionals.

You can increase your referrals from collaborative professionals by spending time getting to know them, participating in collaborative activities and making a contribution to your collaborative community.

3. Successful practitioners create a positive client experience. In the book, Purple Cow by marketing guru Seth Godin, he says the only way to grow a business is to provide remarkable service. “Something remarkable is worth talking about.”

The best marketing strategy is through positive word of mouth. This will happen if clients have a positive experience with Collaborative Practice.

4. Successful practitioners market their practices. Many collaborative practitioners have a negative association with marketing and see it as unethical, hype or just not something they want to do.

For those who see marketing this way, I understand and offer you another way to view marketing. Marketing is about educating people who could benefit from knowing about collaborative practice. Seth Godin says, “Marketing is the most powerful force available to people who want to make a difference.” He also says, “Marketing is about spreading ideas and spreading ideas is the single most important output of our civilization. If you have an idea to spread, you’re a marketer.” As collaborative professionals, our “idea” is to transform how conflict is resolved worldwide.

Local/Regional Groups

Local groups are important for growing a collaborative practice because this is where relationships are formed, knowledge is exchanged and mentoring occurs. This is where the collaborative community grows and expands. Creating a successful group requires clarity of goals and meeting the support, educational and networking needs of members.

An example of a group that has created value for members is the Dallas group. Last year their meetings were not going well. People stopped coming, interest lagged. Group leaders determined that they did not have enough influencers attending the meeting and the agenda was not bringing value to the members.

They elected two co-chairs who put structure to the meetings. They recruited a few key influencers to get involved and created a venue that would take into account all the various levels of people in the group.

They separated the attendees into tables of eight and gave each table a key Collaborative question to discuss, e.g., “How do you effectively educate the client to use the collaborative team?” Each table would dialogue and then present their summary to the full group. This allowed members to meet new people and learn something that would advance their knowledge. Attendance at the meetings grew and the group is now sharing its success with other groups throughout Texas.

State/Province Groups

The purpose of statewide or provincewide groups is to help groups grow and expand collaborative practice and to be a unifying voice for legislative, training and public education initiatives.

Examples of successful statewide groups include Minnesota, Wisconsin and Texas, which has helped members promote their practice through a statewide web site, trained hundreds of practitioners through statewide training programs and provided practice resources and tools to members to improve practice excellence. Texas and North Carolina have initiated state statutes for collaborative practice.

International Academy of Collaborative Professionals

The final layer of the collaborative community is the IACP. The purpose of the IACP is to protect the essentials of Collaborative Practice, expand Collaborative Practice worldwide, and provide a central resource for education, networking and standards of practice.

Talia Katz, executive director for IACP says, “The IACP is uniquely positioned to join us together and amplify our communal message to the world. It is by joining together that we will be heard; loud, strong and clear.”

Summary

How long does it take to build a collaborative practice? As discussed here, it will take as much time as needed to first build a collaborative community. For that to happen, it must occur at every layer–individual, local/regional, state/province and the IACP. The resulting synergy will move collaborative practice ever closer to our vision of transforming how conflict is resolved worldwide.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Tipping Point, he provides insight into how messages, ideas, and behaviors can infect a population and spread rapidly just like a virus. This occurs in three ways,to a

The law of the few- a few influential people make a big difference

A sticky message- having a message that makes an impact

The power of context- people are strongly influenced by their environment

Communicate the value you provide vs a description of your services

This concept of contagiousness has stuck with me as I work with collaborative law councils and institutes across the country. Is it possible to infect our population with the message of a more solution- focused approach to resolve disputes? Could we create a Collaborative Law tipping point?

Absolutely! But first we will need a focused effort with the right people, the right message and the right context.

One distinction of a tipping is big changes follow small events and these changes happen quickly. Malcolm Gladwell states, “ The tipping point is the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.”

To achieve critical mass, it will be important to consider how collaborative professionals across the country are spreading the message about collaborative law and individually contributing to the tipping point for collaborative law.  We must create the small events that will result in a big change.

The small events include defining and communicating an effective message; executing specific practice growth strategies; and tracking and monitoring your progress.

Define Your Message

It is estimated that half of the prospective clients who truly understand the collaborative process will choose this alternative and benefit from their decision.  Yet, despite all the remarkable things that have gone on during the past 12 years, less than 2% of the public is even aware this option exists. This tells us that we need to be more effective in communicating the message about collaborative law.

One of the most important strategies to growing your collaborative practice is mastering how you communicate the benefits, value and process of collaborative law. You must convey ultimate confidence to prospective clients and referral sources. Your message must be clear, concise, easily repeated and make an impact. This will require upfront planning and practice. Give considerable thought to the following questions:

What is collaborative law? (Define with an easy to understand short definition)

What are the key benefits of a collaborative divorce? (Spoken in relationship to the clients key needs)

How does the collaborative law process work? (Define in terms of benefits to client or referral source- use stories if possible)

What distinguishes collaborative law from other methods for divorce? (Define in terms of problems solved)

Develop Specific Strategies

Once you have developed your key message, you will need to develop a strategy that will help you reach your goals. An effective marketing process includes a complement of multiple strategies and repetition. Research shows that people need to hear, see or touch a message nine times before they finally listen.

Consider a combination of speaking, networking and mailings to referral sources and prospective clients. The following are recommended marketing strategies to help you grow your collaborative law practice.

1.  Maintain ongoing communication with referral sources- referral sources must be nurtured or they will go away. Rule of thumb in building and strengthening referral sources is to maintain a minimum of 3 purposeful marketing contacts per week.

Action: Make a list of your best referral sources. Schedule time to take them to lunch and tell them about collaborative law.

2.  Identify speaking opportunities- Attend conferences and speak at meetings where your referral sources and target market attend.

Action: Organize your experiences and seek out people who could benefit from learning about collaborative law.

3.  Networking- Go out and talk to people involved in collaborative law and individuals who might be interested, One attorney I talked to said she turns the table on people who are marketing to her- she takes them up on their offer for lunch and then talks about the benefit of collaborative law.

Action: Make a list of key networking opportunities, schedule them in your calendar and make it a priority to attend.

4.  Implement public relations / advertising strategies

- Publish articles in local publications. Write about your experiences in collaborative law.
- Send press releases to your local media about the outcome of successful cases. Tie release to current events, i.e Madonna’s divorce.
- Advertise in local publications
- Develop a quality brochure and send to all referral sources and prospective clients

Action: Educate the media in your community about client success stories. Compare and contrast a collaborative divorce to a traditional litigated divorce.

5.  Have a presence on the internet- Collaborative professionals with web sites receive referrals. At a minimum have a home page with information about your philosophy and work, include easy linking to relevant sites and information, if possible provide an article of the month on some value added information.

Action: Update your web site to include new information on collaborative law. Make sure you are linked to the most resourceful sites. Consider starting a blog and participate in Collaborative Law LinkedIn groups.

Track and Monitor your progress

It is critical to measure your success. Determine what strategies and activities are working and not working. Assess what strategies you should do more of and which strategies you should eliminate. Continually revise your strategy to assure you are meeting targeted goals.

Summary

I believe Collaborative Law is nearing a tipping point in which it may start to rapidly transform the way disputes are resolved in the U.S, Canada, and beyond.

Your challenge is to replicate what the hipster kids in downtown Manhattan did for Hush Puppies. As a group we need to rapidly infect the U.S., Canada, and beyond with the message of collaborative law. We need to create a collaborative law tipping point.

You have an opportunity to create the small events that will result in big change for the way disputes are resolved across the country.

Elizabeth Ferris, founder of Ferris Consulting, specializes in assisting attorneys, mental health professionals and financial specialists to grow their practice through result-oriented marketing and practice development strategies. She has worked with attorneys, collaborative professionals and mediators across North America to implement effective strategies for increasing awareness and demand for their services. Elizabeth can be reached at eferris@ferrisconsult.com or www.ferrisconsult.com

© 2005 Elizabeth Ferris, All rights reserved. You are free to use material in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear.

The attribution should read:

“By Elizabeth Ferris of Ferris Consulting. Please visit Liz’ web site at www.ferrisconsult.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for dispute resolution professionals.”