The Question:
I’m launching my firm soon. What action should I ask my network of friends and family to take?
My Answer:
I see this happen a lot where somebody is launching their law firm and they’ll say, “Hey everybody, like my page.” Actually, not just law firms, but businesses, in general, will say, “Hey, like my Facebook page,” or “Subscribe to me on YouTube.” And it works. You get friends and family that subscribe.
But at the end of the day, you have nothing more than a bunch of friends and family that now like your YouTube page. It’s nice for aesthetics, but it’s not going to bring you more business. If you’re a divorce lawyer and your cousin was going through a divorce, hopefully, they would contact you, regardless of whether they’re on your Facebook page or not.
The Better Way…
So, what I have found works way better than this is the following: It’s basically how you can get your friends and family involved without them feeling like you’re trying to get them involved.
Remember Cutco?
And you won’t have that weird feeling where you think, “I’m going to try to sell you something now that I own my own business.” Because I remember when I was in college, where Cutco got everybody to sign up to sell these stupid knives.
And I actually went to their sales pitch one time cause I thought it was really interesting. And basically, they wanted you to call all of your friends and family and get them to buy these stupid knives from you.
How To Get Your Friends’ Help Without The Sleaze Factor
A lot of times, when people start new businesses, they don’t want to exploit their friends and family. But there’s a way that you can get your friends and family to really help you out — without feeling sleazy or feeling like you’re trying to sell them something. And the way you do that is by creating value videos.
So I was talking to a client about this today. Actually, he’s not a client, he’s in my social media marketing masterclass. We were on a strategy session call today, discussing his law firm and some different ways that he can use social media if he doesn’t have a big budget.
The Value Approach
So I told him if you have a lot of friends and family, go on your Facebook page, maybe even go live on your Facebook page, and just provide tips that are useful to everyone.
You do it almost like a PSA type of thing. So if he is a personal injury attorney, which he happens to be, what I would do if I were him is to go to my YouTube page or my Facebook page or Instagram or wherever people follow me.
And I would say, “Hey everybody, Andy here. I just wanted to give you guys a quick heads up about something that is really, really disturbing to me. We just had a client that got into a car accident and…”
An Example
By the way, I’m completely making this up, this is total BS. I’m just going to give you an example — saying, “We had a client and they got into a car accident. And we started digging in a little deeper and looking at their insurance policy and found that they didn’t have this specific type of coverage.
They didn’t have uninsured motorists, or they didn’t have this, or they didn’t have that, or whatever it was. And as a result, their insurance company denied the claim. And now, they’re in this situation where they’re injured, they can’t get their medical bills paid, and they have no money.
They’re getting evicted from their house, and the whole situation really could have been avoided if they had just had this one thing on their insurance.
So, everyone, just as a quick PSA — I want to remind you, make sure that you have uninsured motorist coverage on your car insurance because you know — it’s such a cheap thing, it’s like $12 a month, you never even think about it.
Nobody ever thinks about going through their insurance, but this is what I do. I do this over and over, and I see this constantly. It’s like $12 a month and it comes back and bites them in the butt. So please, make sure that you have this because it really will save you a lot of money. Thanks a lot.”
What Happens As A Result
And if you provide really, really highly valuable videos that people find very interesting and useful, they’ll say, “Oh thanks for that great tip!” because now, you’re providing value.
It’s the same thing I do to you guys. I just provide value. That’s all I do. I put tons of stuff out there, people share my stuff, and then somehow people contact me and say, I want to hire you for this or that, or I want you to coach me on how to do marketing.
What You Can Do
And you can do that too. I don’t want to say “Do that to your friends and family,” but that’s basically what it is. It’s providing value. And there are a lot of people.
I’ve talked to a bunch of people that do this type of stuff and they’re amazed. They put one video out on their personal Facebook page. You don’t sell anything, and you don’t say the word “consultation” anywhere in there.
You just provide value and people will figure out what you’re doing and they’ll start sharing it. They’ll say, “Hey this is my cousin. He’s got really good ideas.”
And if you do that enough, stuff will keep getting shared and eventually, people will see you and you’ll get clients out of it. I promise you that will happen.
So, if you’re going to try to use your friends and family to grow a new business, that’s the way that I would do it. Just creatr constant value and put the content out there.
