How To Bring In New Customers With Free Work

In: Business Ideas By: Brian Armstrong

28 Nov 2009

Here is a question from a Breaking Free reader….

Dear Brian,

Your book inspired me to start up my own business based on your Start Breaking Free model.

I was a lawyer working 80 hour weeks at an international firm, doomed to spending the best years of my life behind a desk. I was depressed and my confidence was taking a battering from my unhappy, over critical, negative, unhealthy and institutionalized colleagues.

After reading your book I started to ponder how, if at all, I could escape the rat race.

My answer came a few short weeks after reading your book. If I was working 80 hours a week and making less than a third of my billing target, where was the rest of the money going? After weeks of research I found out that it was going to a combination of a) the under worked over paid partners b) the lazy and inefficient staff and c) the office, stationary, IT and other such expenses.

I decided to setup a service that has none of these expenses and that offers lawyers a better life and businesses a cheaper more efficient service. I set up Matrix Law Group which places lawyers with businesses on a temporary employee basis and which allows those lawyers to work either remotely or from the business’ office (so no office).

I advertise in a few small business publications over here and then hire someone, including myself out (like a temp agency) and charge businesses a low hourly rate (we have no overheads so can undercut traditional law firms). I now work about about 7 to 10 hours a week at £100 an hour and because of more favourable tax treatments, I make a decent wage but a less than I did when I was working 80 hours a week. But guess what? I am much much happier and healthier.

I won’t lie, getting business is not easy, specially since I have to do all my marketing myself.

My question to you is whether you can offer me any advice on marketing myself and my business? My website is www.matrixlawgroup.com, other than that, and a few adverts, I have no other marketing tools. Law is one of those industries that works on a word of mouth basis. I am therefore trying to approach people, such as yourself, to get advice.

Thank you for inspiring me to change my life.

Keep breaking free.
Patrick

Free Work

Hey Patrick,

Wow I love it! I think it’s a great idea and will save people lots of money (the perfect sales pitch at this time).

I’m not sure if you designed the site like this intentionally, but it came across somewhat web 2.0 ish or futuristic. At least for me I’d prefer to see something more professional and old fashioned looking for a legal site, that instills a sense of quality. Up to you of course, just thought I’d mention it. Did you think about listing the available lawyers on the site as well with some sort of profile?

Anyway, I think you’re off to a great start. I actually thought about doing something similar a while back (the UniversityTutor of lawyers sort of thing) but decided to focus just on tutors right now. As for marketing, a couple things come to mind…start blogging, put in the title long tail keywords which you may rank for easier at first (less competitive). Make blog posts naming specific companies and how they could improve their legal costs. By calling them out publicly you can get some attention/controversy. Maybe even make outrageous challenges…for example, you can publicly offer to complete some legal task for free for someone, just to prove how much lower your costs (number of hours) would have been, and then show the work for people to compare quality.

Overall, I think giving away your services for free at first could be great marketing. Basically…

get in touch with some business
ask them what their current legal fees are costing them
if it’s a good fit, offer to do the work they were paying these other guys for for FREE for a month
after that if they aren’t happy with the results then you part ways, if they are happy then they can consider hiring you at your agreed upon rate (highly likely to happen if you work is good)

Some people call this risk reversal – essentially removing 100% of the risk for someone to try you out so you can prove the benefit to them. Charlie Hoehn’s book, Free Work, makes a great case for this.

UPDATE: this Mixergy interview with Neil Patel has some great examples of how free work brought in new business. Neil says “don’t charge celebs or high profile people, take publicity/contacts instead of payment”.

This is just to get started…once you have some regular customers, the referrals will start coming in. Good luck!

Brian Armstrong

P.S. What do other Breaking Free readers think about Patrick’s idea and website? Feel free to leave him a comment below and check out his site.

Hey Patrick,

Wow I love it! I think it’s a great idea and will save people lots of money (the perfect sales pitch at this time).

Anyway, I think you’re off to a great start. I actually thought about doing something similar a while back (the UniversityTutor of lawyers sort of thing) but decided to focus just on tutors right now. As for marketing, a couple things come to mind…start blogging, put in the title long tail keywords which you may rank for easier at first (less competitive). Make blog posts naming specific companies and how they could have improved their legal costs, by calling them out publicly you can get some attention/controversy. Maybe even make outrageous challenges…for example, you can publicly offer to complete some task for free for someone, just to prove how much lower your costs (number of hours) would have been, and then show the work for people to compare.

Overall, I thing giving away your services for free at first could be great marketing. Basically…

1. get in touch with some business

2. ask them what their current legal fees are costing them

3. if it’s a good fit, offer to do the work they were paying these other guys for for FREE for a month

4. after that if they aren’t happy with the results then you part ways, if they are happy then they can consider hiring you at your agreed upon rate

Some people call this risk reversal – essentially removing 100% of the risk for someone to try you out so you can prove the benefit to them. Charlie Hoehn’s book, Free Work, makes a great case for this.

http://www.slideshare.net/choehn/recessionproof-graduate-1722966

This is just to get started…once you have some regular customers, the referrals will start coming in! Anyway, I think I’ll make a blog post out of this since I think others might find it useful. May send you some traffic too. Is it ok if I post your name and body of the email you sent me? Thanks!

Thank you,

Brian Armstrong

35 Responses

Rob

November 28th, 2009 at 5:16 pm

This sounds like a great idea.

I would definitely agree with the suggestion of using a more conservative page design. Lawyers are kind of like banks, in that it is good to use a very professional looking, classical design to convey an image of trust and competence (at least here in the US). I realize you want to differentiate yourself (Law 2.0), but I would probably be more subtle about it, at least in terms of page design. Maybe have the Law 2.0 link stand out in a more progressive way, but the rest of the page be more conservative.

Brian Armstrong

November 28th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

Good feedback Rob, I agree.

Pat

November 28th, 2009 at 6:14 pm

Thanks so much for the feed back, these are all great suggestions.

Marketing, style and technology have never been a important selling point for lawyers. I can definitely see how a strong quality assurance brand combined with some sort of ‘quality guarantee’ could work. This is why working for free for a while could sell.

Law is definitely one of the last bastions for the status quo and old establishment. However, the Law 2.0 concept may help connect with younger entrepreneurs. It is a fine balance.

Brian Armstrong

November 29th, 2009 at 6:23 pm

Hi Pat,

Some good comments on here…I think you’re right there is probably a way to install confidence and show it’s a new concept.

Witold Rugowski

November 28th, 2009 at 10:07 pm

Regarding website – at first look (not matter if will be styled as futurish, web20 or as trustworthy bank :) ) it does not answer most important question – What do You do?

I mean – I have read this post, went to this url and still had trouble to find answer to this question…

And regarding ideas for marketing – I’m not sure what size of companies You are targeting, but if small companies are Your target, what about to do some free consulting in some local business association? That way You could be exposed to small businesses which wouldn’t ever thought about hiring a law firm?

Brian Armstrong

November 29th, 2009 at 6:28 pm

Perhaps a little harsh, but there is some truth here. It’s worth trying to boil down what the single greatest benefit you can provide to people into a simple phrase.

For UniversityTutor is was “Find A Tutor”. For Basecamphq.com it’s “A Better Way To Get Projects Done”. For Dominoes it was “Hot, Fresh Pizza Delivered In 30 Minutes Or Your Money Back, Guaranteed”.

I see you’ve got “HIRE AND MANAGE YOUR OWN AFFORDABLE AND FLEXIBLE IN-HOUSE LAWYER” which is pretty good. It sounds like a feature though, not the benefit you can provide.

Marketers always talk about how you should list the benefit first.

A benefit might be something more like “Cut your legal costs in half with on-demand legal services”. Or something along the lines of saving people money.

What do you think Pat?

Pat

November 29th, 2009 at 6:56 pm

Thanks Brian, this is really helpful. Great suggestion.

Good tag lines and buzz words aren’t always easy or quick to find.
I think I will have to test a few and see how they fare.

Marie

November 29th, 2009 at 12:59 am

I agree with the others about the look and feel of the website.

If your target customers are small businesses, identify the top entrepreneur and small biz blogs for your target market and offer to write guest posts. Do the leg work though to find the burning legal issues for your target market, write the post, and come up with really good blog post titles. Problogger.net has two great posts on how to secure a guest post: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/01/how-to-guest-post-to-promote-your-blog/
and http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/06/04/how-not-to-get-a-guest-post-published-on-a-blog-in-11-easy-steps/

I also would encourage you to benchmark other legal staffing firms (especially the smaller ones) to evaluate their marketing tactics and how they present their firms online. Two good examples are HireCounsel.com and LumenLegal.com. As Lumen Legal has grown over the years, it has publicly marked its success by seeking and winning high profile entrepreneurial awards. It also has sought and received some good mainstream and trade media coverage.

Pat

November 29th, 2009 at 7:18 pm

Thanks Marie. I am sure I can pick up a trick or two from similar models on the other side of the Pond. Learning from other people’s successes and failures doesn’t cost a thing!

Matrix is pretty much a completely new concept in the UK because the legal profession has, until very recently, been very tightly regulated and very old school (we still wear wigs in Court!).

Barb D.

November 29th, 2009 at 1:33 am

I agree with Witold above: you need to spell out on the home page exactly what you do. Otherwise, it just looks like another law website. People don’t have a lot of time to click on a tab to go looking for the answer, they need it quickly on the home page. I like the design, but I agree with the others: most people would probably trust something more traditional looking for such a site. Great idea, though!!
Barb

Richard

November 29th, 2009 at 9:11 am

Speaking as a young entrepreneur (I am in the final stages of setting up my own business having graduated from uni with no job in sight), I actually really like both the concept — which is brilliant for someone like me — and the design of the website. I like the more avant garde design and it makes for a change from the usual stuffy law firms. I think making this law firm look more like the other websites I visit makes it seem more approachable.

I do agree with Witold and Barb about making the actual business on offer more obvious. With our shortened attention spans I want to know exactly what it is about and what I have to do straight away.

Brian Armstrong

November 29th, 2009 at 6:30 pm

Agreed Richard.

Pat, if you are thinking of redesigning it inexpensively, there are some very professional wordpress themes which might work. You could actually built the whole site in wordpress if you wanted (using pages instead of posts which are more for blogs). But this might be too much work, just wanted to include the idea. I use it often to get great looking designs for free.

Pat

November 29th, 2009 at 7:04 pm

Thanks guys. I will definitely be re-doing the website. The feed back has been fantastic and incredibly helpful. Look forward to hearing any more ideas you have. Really good stuff.

Dani

November 29th, 2009 at 10:04 am

I just took a look at the website and I think the Law 2.0 concept is an interesting and fresh approach to providing legal services. With a few tweaks to the website, I think it has a lot of potential. Great idea!

Brian Armstrong

November 29th, 2009 at 6:31 pm

Totally agree, it’s a good idea. Run with it…

Joe Gaines

November 29th, 2009 at 9:20 pm

Hi Pat,

I love the business model – great idea! I would agree with the above comments and I would also add a strong call to action to your home page. You have about 5 seconds to capture a visitor’s attention so I would get them searching for a lawyer in that time. Brian’s UniversityTutor.com does a great job of this so I would recommend something similar for you.

In terms of bringing in traffic I second the blogging plan. After that I would recommend PPC (pay-per-click) advertising. Perry Marshall has some great material on that…

Anthony

November 30th, 2009 at 1:15 am

Pat,

First, congratulations on striking out on your own. It’s a move most people talk about but never make. Kudos to you.

In terms of getting the word out about your firm, here’s an off the wall idea that just hit my cerebellum:

– Determine 5 to 10 local charities in your city that you feel could utilize your services.

– Write a press release announcing that newly formed Matrix Law Group will provide 30 days worth of pro bono work for one of the charities above chosen in a special drawing, to be held on a specific date, in a specific locale.

– Contact the the various charities and inform them of their eligibility for your contest. I have no doubt they’ll be appreciative of free legal advice, especially during a recession. However, remove any organization from your contest that requests it.

– Send the press release to the appropriate media outlets in your market. Work to ensure that you have at least three different media — television, radio, newspaper, internet — covering your drawing of the winning charity’s name from a box, container or hat emblazoned with what else? Matrix Law Group.;-)

– Have the drawing, preferably, in the presence of the press. This would provide some face time for you and a venue in which to tell the story of the Matrix Law Group’s value proposition. Interview opportunities should present themselves to you as a result of your actions in this area. This is also a nice way to cement your profile in the business community at large.

I hope this reply makes sense, since I’m writing it immediately after reading your post. I wish you well in your new endeavor.

Regards,
Anthony E. Russell

PS — You might want to explore giving a one-day legal clinic, for your local Chamber of Commerce, at a reasonable rate. You can upsell the attendant businesspeople with a suite of offerings from your firm in the back of the room.

Pat

November 30th, 2009 at 1:50 pm

Wow Anthony, I like it. Great idea. I am thinking of using a combination of all these suggestions with a view to testing them and then weeding out the most costly (in terms of time and money). Thanks mate. Pat

Brian Armstrong

December 1st, 2009 at 11:31 pm

Great feedback Anthony!

Anthony

November 30th, 2009 at 2:46 pm

Pat,

I’m glad you found the info helpful.

Please keep us informed of your progress. It’s always nice to hear about the fruition of someone’s new ideas.

All the best,
Anthony

Amiel

November 30th, 2009 at 10:29 pm

Patrick,

Your business is a ground-breaking and exciting concept. Many companies would benefit by the ability to hire professional legal help on ad-hoc basis. In a cyclical economy, companies need this flexibility. The big law firms can charge extortionate fees for their services, any alternatives are to be welcomed.

The legal establishment is old-fashioned in many ways and new businesses likes yours will shake things up and challenge the status quo.

Amiel

Dan Thomas

December 2nd, 2009 at 9:59 am

Hey Patrick, this is a good idea. it’s great to see a law firm championing the client for a change. For too long the magic circle of city law firms has monopolised legal aid, charging above the odds and preventing those who need help the most from getting it. Look forward to seeing where you go with this. Keep up the good work!

December 2nd, 2009 at 11:51 am

Great model and great advice. It would be interesting to revisit this one in a few months to see how you go. What do you think Brian?

Careful not to let the business model become a full time drag like your last job. Once settled, try and work remotely and let others pick up the legal work while you have a good time.

Brian Armstrong

December 2nd, 2009 at 8:58 pm

Good idea…would be interesting to see how it could be made more passive, and check back.

Hermann

December 2nd, 2009 at 1:39 pm

Patrick.

I recentlly visited one of the world’s largest law firms in London and they had a football pitch sized reception with one tiny desk. This obscene display of wealth to differentiate themselves from other firms (who often do exactly the same work) is also where your two-thirds goes.

You have an excellent idea and I wish you every success.

College Town Menus (CTM)

December 2nd, 2009 at 4:38 pm

Pat,

Great concept! I agree that your design should be spruced up, but everyone else has already told you that so I’m not going to dive into it. Consider contest websites like 99designs.com and other crowdsourcing sites. I’ve used 99designs for ALL design work for CTM, exceptional quality.

I think you have a great idea here. As a compliment to Brian, I would suggest you take bits and pieces of his UT site and try to model somewhat off his. Read his posts pertaining specifically to UT for his learning so you don’t have to go through all what he did. His website/book/side websites have inspired you because of BREAKING FREE — getting away from work. I just finished reading 4 Hour Work Week, great book with HARDCORE steps to follow – get it. It sounds like YOU are trying to find jobs for YOU to work. Why? Focus on getting a water well like Brian said so that you can focus on your business instead of working FOR your business (which will bring you back to the 80 hours you were working before). Start your company with an exit strategy and self automation, that will be your pinnacle key to success.

Great inspiration! Thank you for sharing your experience with the rest of us!

Pat

December 2nd, 2009 at 4:46 pm

Thank you for that.

Website will be re done and yes UT is a great place to start, in many respects. As you point out, publicity is a lot more than a website.

My thinking is, put the time and effort in now and it will eventually pay off for me.

Thanks for the tip offs. I am trying to spend as little as possible so not to waste money. I was going to get another Wordpress template but will also check out 99designs as well.

Thanks again for the feedback!

College Town Menus (CTM)

December 2nd, 2009 at 11:25 pm

Pat, I agree with trying to spend as little $/£ as possible, but (IMO), time spent is far more of a “Waste” than $ spent. I think starting off small is good like your doing, but if your not an IT guy that knows code and can easily/efficiently modify wordpress, it may be in your best interest to just have someone do it for you, save you time, and move on. Completely your call of course. I just figure, the $200 or whatever you spend would be very high quality, (hopefully) one time payment, vs a full week of you tinkering rather than focusing on getting more clients.

Pat

December 3rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm

I agree. Thanks again for the feedback.

Nathalie

December 2nd, 2009 at 11:45 pm

Hi Patrick

Like all good business models, advertising has to be the key. You have to identify your market in terms of demographics, spending power and need for your services then target them specifically. For example; Who do you see as needing your services? Where would they go to to get legal advice? Would they look in the local paper? Search Google? Ask Citizens advice? Local firms use their banks business advisors for advice on starting/building their business. Who does he/she recommend when they ask if they know a good law firm? A card in the shop window next to the citizen advice bureau may bring better results than a mass marketing campaign.
When clients come to you, find out how and when and why they used you. I would say that searching out your market is key to building your business. You can have the best looking web site out there, but people have to see it. Not only do people have to see it, the right people, who need what you offer have to see it. If you employ the same type of thinking to advertising and marketing that you have obviously applied to your business model, then I’m sure you will succeed.

Just out of interest. I did a quick search on Google to try and find your firm and this is what I found: http://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/
This may cause you problems further down the line with trade names etc.

Good luck with your exciting concept.

Nat

Pat

December 3rd, 2009 at 1:05 pm

Thank you Nat.

That is really good feed back and you are right about effective advertising, I think only a bit of time and some testing will tell.

I have devised a system testing out different forms of advertising and so far the cheapest has been the most effective!

The Matrix Chambers brand is for Barristers, so a different sort of thing, but I take your point.

My website hasn’t been a very important part of my PR so far but I want to change that. This is also part of the reason I wrote to Brian.

It is all a learning process for me but I am enjoying every minute of it so far. Thanks again.

Pat

Alan

December 11th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

I just finished read Breaking Free, and am in the process of starting a business. I think you have a great idea Patrick, and it probably just needs some marketing and a little time to succeed. And I like the feedback people give on this site. I’m looking forward to being involved here in the future. I have done structural engineering in the past, but being out of the workforce for 10 years, seems to make it difficult to be hired. So it looks like for people like me (at 54) we need to consider being in business for ourselves. Good luck and best wishes Patrick. I’m in Barranquilla, Colombia for a month with my wife and her family here for Christmas.

Brian Armstrong

December 11th, 2009 at 6:57 pm

Yes, welcome to the site Alan! Let us know if we can help.

Anthony

December 11th, 2009 at 5:07 pm

Alan,

Welcome to the site and congratulations on setting up a firm.

As I mentioned to Brian recently, the community that he’s fostered here is fantastic. Readers comment, encourage and critique, which is all anyone of substance can ask for.

Also, your trip to Colombia is fortuitous given the myriad business opportunities available in South America, right now. Brazil, is the obvious call but your particular skill set lends itself to being fully realized in Panama. The Panama Canal project is going to need all kinds of products and services. Your expertise as a structural engineer should stand you in good stead, there.

I wish you well in your nascent endeavors.

Regards,
Anthony

Alex

February 2nd, 2010 at 5:23 am

I think you have a good idea. I use a similar service. Everybody needs a good attorney, especially if you have a doubt about something. This kind of service empowers you because you know the law.

I looked at your website and feel that white on black is very difficult to read. Black on white is much easier to read. Look at a newspaper and notice how easy it is to read.

The best,

Alex

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