So you’ve identified your practice's target audience(s). You feel energized and ready for anything. 

But the question now is: What should I do next?

Should you launch a full-scale networking onslaught for all events with that audience? Should you sit on LinkedIn for hours messaging people within that category? Should you host a cocktail event at your firm inviting just those people? 

The trouble for most lawyers is they get stuck on this question and try anything and everything to get clients. The result is massive complexity in marketing and never really knowing what “sticks” – leaving you without an approach you can use reliably and repeatedly. 

In this article, I will share with you the one thing every lawyer must do that everyone misses. It would turn a complex marketing strategy into something simple and stunning. Even if you do this one thing at a half-decent rate, you will stand out. 

Core Messaging is your strategy of persuasion. It comes not from forcefully imposing your ideas but from seeking to understand the other side. 

If you understand your target audience and have a clear message specifically for them, you will not sound like everyone else – and your audience will want to speak with you.

A dictionary definition of messaging is “ideas conveyed implicitly or explicitly, or the way something is done.”  

Core Messaging, on the other hand, is an intense magnification of the ideas most important to our prospects. Core Messaging is best understood in our context by looking at the vast array of areas that can benefit from it...

Here are some examples – How you describe your work, your pitch to close prospects, your bio, your firm’s website, your choice of topics to talk or write about, what you say in client consultations, how you create ads, how you connect with people at conferences or networking events, how you perceive your work…the list goes on…

All these things are made better when you have Core Messaging in mind. 

Many people default to what everyone else (or custom) says or does.

Below is an example of what I mean by using a good and bad example from employment lawyers who deal with employee claims:

Example 1 (Bad): 

“I am an employment lawyer, I represent men and women who want to make a claim against their employer for discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, and other employee rights.” 

Many employment lawyers use this type of messaging. It’s lawyerish. It doesn’t stand out. It won’t particularly appeal to an employee. Does it sound familiar?

Example 2 (Good): 

For this example, I will refer to the lawyer who helped take down Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey: 

Her main theme is “We help victims recover.” She then reinforces this theme by describing other themes that constantly reinforce the main theme, e.g., “We will be your champion.” 

Which do you think would resonate the most with a prospect?

The power of understanding your audience and creating Core Messaging is profound. 

The first step is to step into the shoes of your intended audience. Many lawyers will sit on the opposite side of a table to their clients, but mentally we want to be on their side completely and look at the problems as our prospect sees and feels them. 

Map out their needs fully. Step 2 and the steps that follow will enable you to do this so well that you will know what they need from you to hire you. Go deep with this process – you will need to map out their pains, desires, and goals profoundly. Remember it is extremely rare that it only comes down to price, and I’ve always found the lawyers who most ardently believe it comes down to price are the most surprised with this process. Think about past conversations and interactions - what is said and what is not. Step 2 forms the foundation of your messaging, so take time with it.

Identify the highest pain point(s) and goal(s). The purpose of Step 3 is to identify what matters most to this group. Figure out what they most care about on a mass level across this group. This exercise will bubble up core issues that form the “mental model of immediate needs” for your audience.

The task now is to channel the forces of need in that mental model to your solutions. Start by asking how you solve these problems. What can you bring to the table that answers your clients' needs and goals? What is unique to you? Why do you do the work you do or choose to do it? People often think charisma and charm are desirable in selling, but the truth is people don’t buy legal services because of charisma - they buy legal services for solutions. The decision to buy comes because either 1) they want certainty in achieving an outcome, 2) they can’t do it alone, or 3) they need an advantage they don’t have currently – or all three. All of these decision points depend on your ability to identify problems and channel what you learn into solutions.

When Step 4 is done thoroughly, various powerful themes will bubble up. Often the main “hook” will appear, as well as other hooks that reinforce the broader theme constantly. You can intensify the themes and give them a goal of hiring you based on how effectively you do things, the superiority of your solution, the benefits you bring.

This is the most creative part of this process and, frankly the most fun. Now order your messaging into a 150-word (approx) summary statement - it should start with the main hook  from Step 5 and describe what you do, who you do it for, why it matters to your clients, and what you help them with. 

This statement now contains all the raw ingredients that you can use for marketing, your bio, outreach, pitches, websites, topics to talk or write about for clients, conversations at conferences or networking events, consultations, how you perceive your work etc 

The final step is to test your Core Messaging and watch the feedback. The key to success is always listening to feedback - to see what’s working and remove what isn’t. Rinse and repeat. 

But where do you test it? Instead of running it by a focus group or a marketing department, we get the best feedback by testing in the real world. Put your Core Messaging into your website, your bio, your social media profiles and posts, your articles, your videos. Put your Core Messaging into your outreach efforts, your conversations with prospects, your pitches, etc. 

All 'assets' should consistently stack and layer well with each other. For example -- if you're giving a keynote on technical regulations, always bring it back to the relevant theme in your Core Messaging so it can resonate the best with your audience. Whatever you do, say or write, always loop back to the main theme(s) you’ve identified. Then see how your practice benefits. 

Clearly, other components come into play – knowing how to find prospects, how to close them – and I can talk about these steps in just as much detail, but when you channel pain and desire to a solution in this way, sometimes you don't even really need to pitch…it often sells itself. 

But there’s also something else I see happen…