What You Really Need to Know About Building a Referral Network
LinkedIn more than almost any other marketing tactic works amazingly well for lawyers to get more high-quality referrals. It’s not easy but wow does it work once it’s set up and running each month. We’ve been doing this for years and have learned how to take our game plan and adapt it for each client’s legal practice.
LinkedIn is about two things:
- Meeting other attorneys and
- Nurturing relationships of mutual value.
If you think you are just going to announce yourself as this amazing attorney and that this alone will bring you business, you are not the right client for us.
LinkedIn works best when you become a giver. And being a giver is so darned easy with LinkedIn.
Here’s what it means to be a giver.
- You share articles of value – that either you wrote or that you have curated from other people.
- You make introductions putting people together who don’t know each other – but should.
- You post status updates that appeal to your audience of friends.
Here’s the best kept secret to making LinkedIn work for you.
It’s all about knowing your audience and feeling their pain, and sometimes their pleasure.
- Use Sales Navigator to fine tune the audience search so have a really targeted data set of people.
- Come up with a message that is designed to catch the attention of the majority of the people in this dataset. The beautiful part about LinkedIn is you could create micro-datasets and target 100 people at a time for example with a very personal message.
- Design a communication strategy that keeps hammering home why they should be connected to a person like you. The more you can demonstrate value that answers WIIFM (what’s in it for me) the more likely they are to add you to their inner circle and eventually make referrals.
We handle the whole process from beginning to end so that you just continue practicing law while your referral network keeps growing and turning into more leads.
We redefine lead generation for lawyers.
The Attorneys Referral Network system is the done-for-you program to grow your own lawyers referral network. We do the outreach to other lawyers on your behalf without using automated bots or software.
With our personal approach, we get more people responding to your messages and connection requests.
We also have a live person acting to accept requests and draft responses to your new Linkedin lead connections.
We call this the Natural Outreach Process (NOP)
When the messaging is done appropriately, it works to capture the attention of the people we are targeting for you.
We work with you to draft messages that make sense so they engage and respond. No more getting ghosted on LinkedIn.
We’ll also help you craft an optimizing LinkedIn profile to elevate your game online and help people see you are one of the best in your practice area (if not the best).
ARN gets you actionable outcomes.
- We adjust and monitor your campaign each day.
- Transparency is what helps us craft a great program.
- We give you an awesome Google Sheets report to see ongoing progress.
Faster results than expected.
- You will see trendlines leading to tangible results even in the first week.
- Things move fast when kick off your campaign and get on task.
- It does not take long to start filling your pipeline.
Who am I?
I’m Donald. One of the founders and creators of the Attorneys Referral Network.
For seven years, our team has taught business owners that there is a better way to grow your Rolodex. We’ve shown them how a done-for-you-service is better than a boilermaker on a hot summer day.
ARN is my achievement of building a system that is all about leveraging your time and utilizing a labor pool that can work faster than you and at a fraction of your value.
Nothing beats our system when it comes to filling up your relationship pipeline. Just follow the “ARN strategy” to grow your Rolodex of referral sources and even direct client prospects.
Don’t even think about making another cold-call or sending out a cold email ever again.
- Want a strategy that gets results? Sit with us as we craft it together with you.
- Can’t figure out who to reach out to on LinkedIn? We’ll show you how to mine like an expert.
- Need a communication plan so you don’t sound cheap? We got you covered with professional copywriters.
Let my team act as your LinkedIn outreach and engagement machine.
So maybe you are thinking what is it like to work with us?
I get bombarded with messages. Why should I trust ARN?
Of course, it’s usually about trust, but often it’s also about our system and how we personalize it for you, not just your industry. Anyone can pick up a few law firms as clients and put out a flag saying we specialize in lawyers. ARN is another ball game entirely. Our flag is about you. Obviously we know about lawyers. But our program is tailored to your situation, not just you being a lawyer.
Do I need to post anything in my Linkedin profile?
Well there is a whole other part of our program called Hacking LinkedIn. We don’t talk about it much in ARN because it’s a very different service. Bottom line, the more you publish thought leadership articles the more you look like an authority in your space. With our LinkedIn Hack, we will amplify the reach of your content. That is for another discussion though. The more you post, the more you look like a player in LinkedIn which just improves your positioning in the algorithm. We can help you come up with topics to write about.
How much is Sales Navigator (Linkedin Premium) and do I need it?
It costs near $1000 a year now. You definitely need it because that account level gives you access to features we need to execute our outreach and engagement system on your behalf. Sales Navigator also gives members more features and more allocations of resources. We can use SN to send messages to more people per month than you could without the access. It’s an awesome tool and well worth the cost.
What do I have to do each month?
You know that what you put in is what you get out. We can only open the door to a new relationship. The fast you walk through that door and connect with each prospect, the more likely it is that something material will manifest between you. Here are two rules of thumb. First, is to allocate 10-30 minutes a day to answer inquiries inside LinkedIn. Second, is allocate another 30 minutes a day to make phone calls and have meetings. The sooner you call a new connection, the more something real is going to happen. Emails and LinkedIn messages are never as powerful as a live call.
Is there a specific type of person you want to work with?
The short answer is lawyers. The longer answer is anyone in a professional services business that relies on word of mouth and referrals. If your business is about being a trusted advisor, LinkedIn is the best place to build your rolodex of referral sources. Examples of other industries that work well with ARN include Business Owners, Manufacturers, B2B, Consultants, Accounting, Bankers and Wealth Managers.
Is it OK for me to give you access to my Linkedin account?
It’s sort of a tough answer. Technically, LinkedIn says that no one should access your account. But this is more about a legal concern of privacy than a technical matter of giving access. If you give legal permission to an assistant to access your account, that is probably a legally valid thing to do. The short answer is we do need access to your account. We set up a server in the cloud with a static IP and will log in with you using a secure VPN so that it looks like it’s your own static remote access account. We’ve been doing this for years with no problems.