.png)
Legal Marketing 101
Get the latest on legal marketing! Join our host, Toby Rosen, to find out what's hot in legal tech and digital advertising for law firms. We cover everything from automation to viral marketing, and dive in on some of the latest legal marketing stories. For more information or to subscribe, please click here.
The website: rosenadvertising.com
Legal Marketing 101
Why Did Your Referral Sources Dry Up?
Why Did Your Referral Sources Dry Up?
Referrals are the lifeblood of many law practices, but what happens when this vital stream of business mysteriously dries up? The answer might be more systematic than you think.
Most attorneys operate under a dangerous misconception: that referral relationships are built on loyalty. The harsh reality? Referrals come from relevance, not loyalty.
The solution requires a mindset shift: stop treating referrals as random favors and start managing them as a strategic marketing channel.
Resources:
Cut PPC Costs Instantly (Free E-Book)
Premium Podcast
For more, visit rosenadvertising.com
Why aren't your referral sources sending you cases anymore? Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. Five years ago you might have had the best referral network on the planet, but maybe today you're not really getting the referrals you used to. Where did they all go? It can't all just be because of COVID, can it?
Speaker 1:This episode we're talking about attorneys that rely on referrals and we're talking about what the downsides on that are, because I love referrals and obviously networking and getting into referrals is something that I'm really a big fan of. It's not something I can help with that often, but it's something I think is terrific. The firms I work with that have really strong referral networks are the firms where we get to actually have a lot of fun. We get to try different marketing strategies, we get to do different things, test things, turn things on and off, and it's all because we have that strong referral network base. So today we're talking about why these referrals might have been drying up over the last couple of years, what really causes it whether it's in this particular instance or just your referral source drying up in general and we're talking about a couple of strategies to actually fix that problem. So let's start by busting a myth that quietly costs law firms a lot of serious revenue, and that's the idea that referral sources are loyal. Because most of the time they're not, at least not in the way we like to think, because referrals, they don't come from loyalty, they come from relevance, and that's why we're talking about this. And when you're no longer relevant to someone's client base, you're going to stop getting their referrals. It is just that simple. It is harsh, but yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1:And here's the part that no one's talking about. Most of the time you don't even know that this is happening. Referral attrition is silent. You don't get an alert when a CPA decides to send their next client to a different estate planning attorney. Nobody emails you to say hey, just a heads up, I'm moving on. You just, you don't get the case, that's all. And you don't know that you didn't get the case because we're not going to get into that logic. And then the next one, and then the next one, and by the time you notice the pattern, it's already a trend and it's over.
Speaker 1:So why do these referral sources move on? Sometimes it's just a perception issue. They think you're busy. They think maybe you haven't followed up. They heard you're in trial all month. I mean, there's a million things that silence can come off as not taking new clients, even if that's not true at all, and other times you're just not top of mind anymore.
Speaker 1:Someone else has been more visible. They're posting on LinkedIn, they're popping up at bar events, maybe even dropping a note to say thanks for a past case, and all the time that visibility, visibility wins. And then there's the alignment. This one is really big. Let's say, you used to do a lot of high net worth divorce work, but lately you've shifted more towards custody support cases, that kind of thing. If your referral partners don't necessarily understand that shift, they might assume you're no longer the best fit for the kind of clients that they sent. Or, even worse, they could assume that you're still doing what you were doing three years ago or something that you never did before, whatever it is, and that might no longer serve their needs.
Speaker 1:But the good news is that this isn't about begging for business or just networking harder. It's about understanding the real dynamics behind referrals and adjusting your approach accordingly. Because once you let go of this whole myth of loyalty that you bought this guy lunch once and he's always going to send you his cases. Then you can start building systems around relevance, and that's where things are going to start to click, even if the guy you bought lunch for hates you. That's where things are going to start to click, even if the guy you bought lunch for hates you. Let's be honest If referrals have slowed down, it's probably not just because your contacts got busy or moved away or changed their phone numbers.
Speaker 1:In a lot of cases, the breakdown starts on your end. You are the one who dropped the ball and before you get defensive, know that this happens to everyone. You get caught up in trial prep. You get caught in a big hiring push, marketing campaigns and, all of a sudden, that estate planning attorney who used to send you the cases every quarter, the the mental health professional who sent you divorce cases radio silence. It's because you stopped nurturing the relationship, and that's normal. That's normal in business relationships, that's normal in human relationships. That's normal in human relationships.
Speaker 1:When was the last time you sent a genuine thank you after a referral? Not an automated email, a real follow-up, something that says hey, I appreciate you trusting me with this client? Almost none of us are doing this as often as we should be doing it. What about an update a few weeks later just to let them know how things are going. If you're not closing these loops, you're leaving your referrers in the dark and that erodes trust, whether you're paying attention to it or not, or whether that person is thinking about it or not. Doing it is what helps build the trust Without telling them. They don't know if you took care of the client, if the matter is still pending or if the person just ghosted you completely and nothing ever happened. And when they feel unsure, they're going to stop referring. Simple as that. And I've seen it on the flip side Attorneys have referred other attorneys to me who never followed up, who never reached out, and they never checked in whether or not that person checked in with me. It's basically never happened.
Speaker 1:Another common issue is that we never built a system. This is really hard to do for referrals Well, not really, but it's really hard to wrap your brain around sometimes. But you can build a real system. You might assume that just because someone referred you one solid case, they're going to do it forever. But that is not a relationship. That's just wishful thinking or somebody you met once.
Speaker 1:Strong referral networks require actual structure. They require regular check-ins, a process notes. Otherwise, you're just hoping that lightning strikes twice, and I'm sure you all have a weird uncle that had lightning strike. That's not what we're talking about here. But let's quickly talk about a less obvious culprit that can seriously affect your referral sources. This is your intake process or, really worse, your website. We need to talk about the whole funnel and, yeah, your site or your GMB. It might have been fine five years ago, but does it still really reflect the level of service that your referrers expect?
Speaker 1:Put yourself in their shoes, and I mean this literally. Sometimes, if they send a client your way and that person hits a broken contact form, they wait five days for a call back or they get passed around by some confused receptionist. That is embarrassing. It's not just embarrassing for you, it's embarrassing for the person who made that referral because their advice was not good. A poor client experience reflects directly on the person who made the introduction. On top of the whole reflection on you thing, you're now embarrassing other people outside your law firm. If your systems make them look bad, they are not, I'm not going to say they're going to quietly stop putting their reputation on the line. They may do it loudly Sometimes they may do it very loudly. So, yes, referrals are about relationships, but really they're about infrastructure. We can take the best lawyer in town, but if our followup is non-existent, if he's just, you know, over there in court every day doing lawyer things, if our intake's a mess, if our site feels like it's stuck in 2012, people will move on. Referral sources will move on, even the ones who say they used to swear by you.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk a little bit about what happens outside your firm, because even if you didn't change a thing, the market around you definitely did. Your competitors are not waiting. They're not waiting around for these referrals to fall into their laps. They're not just sitting there. They are actively courting the very same people who used to send you cases, and they're doing it in ways that feel personal and value-driven and they might be better than your system. They're constantly showing up on LinkedIn. They're posting smart insights, they're celebrating wins, they're commenting on posts. They're sending out targeted mailers or newsletters, stuff that's actually useful data, information, sales ideas. Some are even co-hosting webinars or creating content with their referral sources, building something together rather than just building something that brings each other more business. They're building something that brings each other more business together and that kind of collaboration builds trust fast and it makes you look invisible by comparison, because not only is this guy getting the referrals, now he's got this public project with this company and, oh, it's just so good from a branding perspective. That's something we really have to watch out for.
Speaker 1:Because here's another big shift specialization. The days of I know a good general litigator they're kind of behind us. We now say I need someone who does exactly this, sometimes exactly exactly this, because we ask ChatGPT about it. Sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong, but that's not the point. Referrers are looking for hyper-specific partners to solve problems. So when someone says, oh, I need a lawyer for this immigration problem, they're going to go well, what kind of immigration problem? Is it for a 90-day fiance visa? Is it for a work visa? And they're going to find an attorney who specializes in that type of visa, someone who focuses on high conflict custody, but not just general family law. Because we kind of know now what the issue is going to be If your messaging is still this broad and generic yeah, it could be like this on the front page of your website, but once you get deeper, it's got to become clear or even if your brand just hasn't evolved with your real expertise.
Speaker 1:It makes you really easy to overlook, even by people who actually like you, and that disconnect matters. You might be the best option, but if your website, your LinkedIn, your conversations don't make it blatantly diamond crystal clear to the person, people are not going to assume it, as much as professionals think that that will happen and that people will see the quality of the work. That is not the way it works in real life. They're going to go with the firm that looks like the right fit on paper because as far as what's in front of them them being not an expert in the law that's what looks the best. And here's the kicker. Referrers are going to do this too, and they often won't tell you when you don't look the best. It's because they're not trying to hurt your feelings. They're just trying to go with who works the best. They're trying to make sure that their client also has a good experience. And, yeah, they're probably going to do it quietly and then they'll just be gone. So I know that sounds really hopeless.
Speaker 1:So what's the takeaway? The takeaway is that staying still is falling behind. You have to do something If you haven't refreshed your positioning, tightened your niche, worked on your system or started to show up in your referral partner's world a lot, don't be surprised if your name isn't the one they remember when it counts. So let's say now you've recognized the problem your referrals have slowed. It's not just bad luck. There's something we could do. But here's the good news. Like I said, staying still is falling behind, and that means we can fix this. And the even better news is that we can make our referral system stronger than it ever was.
Speaker 1:But here's what I need you to do. I need you to make one big shift. You have to stop thinking of referrals as favors and you have to start thinking of them like a marketing channel, because that's exactly what these referrals are. If someone sent you 10 leads a year and whether it was a Google ads campaign or a Facebook campaign, wherever it came from, you would track this, you'd optimize it and you'd make sure it kept performing. And referrals I want to say that they deserve the same treatment. But that's not true. They deserve better treatment, because this is a much more fundamental part of the business. So let's get into how we actually do this.
Speaker 1:Step one is building a relationship nurturing system. We've talked about nurturing systems a lot before, with email systems like HubSpot, and this does not have to be complicated, but here's the thing it does have to be intentional. So we need to set a cadence reach out to our best partners every month, every quarter, quarterly is good. It gives them a little more space, unless they're sending a lot of clients. And this can be as simple as an email about a five-minute call or a five-minute call and an email whatever variation, or a text or or a DM on Instagram. It totally depends what your relationship is. We can systemize it. We can say it's this on this date, we put it in our to-do list and we schedule it every 90 days, so we can just send a quick email. It says hey, just wanted to check in, let you know how a few things went, see what kind of clients you're you're seeing lately. You don't have to ask for anything, you don't have to try to offer anything, you just have a conversation. And why does this matter? Because it shifts the dynamic from the random favor that happens just when you think of it to an actual professional partnership. And yeah, messaging someone through Instagram does not scream professional partnership in the conventional sense, but it is more professional than just randomly thinking of someone, and people take these professional partnerships a lot more seriously than oh yeah, I think I know a guy.
Speaker 1:Next, we need to add real-time thank yous. So when someone sends a lead, even if the case doesn't pan out, we should still acknowledge the effort. We don't want to do this three months later, right away quick call, handwritten note Once we, you know, do the introductions and whatever, go into a separate email thread and say thanks for trusting me with this, thanks for the referral, blah, blah, blah. And it's really good if we, you know, do that and make this about them of thanks for for trusting me, or thanks for the referral, or thanks for thinking of me, that kind of thing. And then, finally, we need to close the loop. So once a case resolves or progresses beyond, you know whatever the relevant line is, we follow up again, let them know what happened. Just wanted to let you know. We helped get the custody arrangement finalized last week. Your client was amazing to work with. I really appreciate the referral. Once again, this reinforces trust, makes them more likely to send another referral and it's just nice. You can put the warm fuzzies in your tummy, like who doesn't want that.
Speaker 1:So let's go on to step two because once we have that nurturing system, we need to start segmenting our referral sources. Not all of our refers are equal and that's totally fine. We don't need to treat a one-off contact the same way we treat our top three sources, like some big company that's sending me all their excess. So let's start simple. Let's divide our list into our A-list, our B-list and our C-list. And here's how we triage A-listers are reliable, they're high fit, they're consistent, they're sending a lot of referrals.
Speaker 1:Maybe they're not sending a lot of referrals, but they always come to us with the good clients. B-listers are occasional or they show potential to develop the relationship further, and C-listers are one-offs, low fit cases. Maybe it's a nice person, but the odds of it just working out with the client are low and maybe they even check in beforehand and say, hey, would you take this? Something like that. C-listers are, again, not bad, but just less likely to generate referrals and we want to focus our energy on the A-listers. We do deeper check-ins, possible collaboration, phone calls, that kind of stuff For B-list folks. We stay visible, we stay helpful, but it doesn't have to be as close of a relationship and C-list.
Speaker 1:We can automate a lot of this. We don't ignore them. We will absolutely talk to them when they want to, but we don't need to be manually checking in with these people every week or every month. We can just have them on the list to make sure we do check in with them and then we move on to step three. Once we're segmented, we need to start doing a little bit of light automation. Once we have that you know list, this doesn't mean we're blasting everyone with spammy newsletters. It means we're using tools like Lawmatics, mailchimp, activecampaign your typical email automation stuff to stay top of mind in ways that feel natural. So we can set up a quarterly email update that shares a helpful tip, a brief client success story, obviously with no names, maybe a legal change in our niche, something that the referral source might want to know about.
Speaker 1:The goal isn't to sell here, it is just to remind. We're still here, we're still great at what we do, we're still trying to add value for you and you can still trust us to send us a referral, even a birthday email. This is actually something that probably isn't being done a lot. It's really interesting and if your CRM can support this, it's really cool. But a birthday email like hey, it's been a while. I saw it was your birthday, you want to grab a coffee, let me buy you a birthday cookie, or whatever people in your particular area like Let me buy you a birthday cookie, or whatever people in your particular area like. This type of reminder can go a really, really long way and it can be totally automated behind the scenes. Get their birthday when you meet them, put it into your system, have a reminder come up.
Speaker 1:Now step four and this is sort of our last, but I mean referral sources are never done. So step four is to replace strategically, because sometimes it's it's not about winning someone back. That might not be possible. Sometimes we outgrow our referral sources, we change, or or they outgrow us and they change, and that's where referral replacements come in.
Speaker 1:Think about the professionals that are adjacent to our best cases. If we're in family law, think about the therapists, the divorce coaches, real estate agents, boat salespeople in certain areas If you're doing probate, how about financial advisors, elder geriatric care managers, nursing home people. These are the people who are talking to your potential clients before those clients even realize that they need you. So we want to reach out with value. We're not trying to pitch them. We already know what they can offer and they probably know what we want. So we can offer to write a co-checklist, host a joint webinar, create a PDF they can give to their clients with helpful info and, honestly, you'll be surprised how fast a little collaboration can lead to a steady stream of new clients and publishing some kind of information with your contact info at the bottom. Because, again, the bottom line referrals aren't magic. They are manageable, they're systemizable and with a little bit of structure, a little segmentation, a little bit of automation all that kind of good stuff we've got a recipe here to turn our old referral slump into a steady, predictable and a scalable pipeline that we can track, just like all of our other marketing efforts.
Speaker 1:And now, before we wrap up, wrap up I just wanted to take a second to mention our premium podcast subscription and a small change that is coming to that soon. We launched paid subscriptions to the podcast about a year ago and with that subscription you get access to the first episode of every month where I dive into just a little bit deeper on some issues that we do later in the month. Usually we go a little bit less time on those and you also get access to all of our old episodes. So a lot of those episodes are behind the premium paywall and as we get into Q3, nothing is actually changing for the paid subscriptions. But I just wanted to give you guys a little bit of an update that in Q3, we will be putting more episodes behind the premium paywall if not most of the old episodes from before 2025. So if you haven't signed up yet, make sure you do that now so you get full access to every episode on every subject that you need to know about from Legal Marketing 101.
Speaker 1:So back to the referrals. Look, referrals are fragile. They are earned and re-earned constantly. This is a daily battle and if you are treating your referrals like people you take to lunch every now and then, you're just not doing enough anymore. You need to have a system. You need to have a modern version of a Rolodex, or literally just a Rolodex. That would be better than what a lot of attorneys are doing right now, because they'd have at least written down somewhere.
Speaker 1:So let me give you a little bit of a challenge. Today you need to reach out to three lapsed referral sources with a personal check-in Someone who hasn't sent you something in like six months. They used to send you good clients, but they haven't done it in the last six months. Reach out to them today, make a personal check-in. You don't have to tell them that you want referral sources from them. Just reach out and give them some new information. Tell them hey, just wanted to let you know that this happened and we can help with it.
Speaker 1:We're working really hard on these types of cases and if you have anybody that needs help, please let us know. You don't have to be pushy. You don't have to spend time selling. You can just talk and if they ask why you're calling, you can make something up. Or you can just say that they're a great referral source and you really liked working with them and you just wanted to check in with them with no particular ulterior motive. There are so many options for rebuilding these systems and for integrating them into your marketing like a real marketing channel, and I really hope you'll be able to achieve that. If you have questions, as always, I'm here to help, and that's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out RosenAdvertisingcom for more Thanks.
