Gratitude is a Gift You Give Yourself

The holidays are upon us and it’s a time when everyone takes actions to show their gratitude. But why confine it to only one or two months out of twelve? Whether you have existing clients or someone nibbling on the postcard hook, or you are out there stone cold calling, take some donuts, or some candy, or a nice basket with cookies.  I do this quite often with my existing clients; yes, existing.  This simple gesture does two things;  it builds customer loyalty, and it lets anyone else in that law firm who isn’t a client want to be your client so they can be the recipient of those goodies.  When following up with those who are not yet a client, but who have shown some interest by responding to some of your other marketing, follow up on the call by making a visit with a sweet offering. 

Most of the people you are going to be dealing with on a day-to-day basis are legal assistants; secretaries, paralegals and legal assistants who are predominantly female.  What wonderful lady doesn’t like chocolate?  Or scented candles?  Or cookies?   Bubble bath soap?  If they weren’t a client yet, by the time you leave the law firm, they will be if not for the simple reason that you made them feel special with your nice gift.  Holidays are the perfect time to focus on gift giving, Halloween, Christmas or even Valentine’s Day, but so is any other day of the year.

Here’s a perfect example of how it can work.  A particular legal assistant at a law firm where I did not have clients had contacted me about obtaining a copy of a court document. She knew I had retrieved a copy of this document for a client of mine who happened to be on the other side of the lawsuit her law firm was working on.  She just wanted to get a copy of the document and knew I could provide it as I had a copy already.  Her firm was going to (naturally) pay for the copy, but that didn’t mean at this point she was going to start using me to obtain court documents or serve legal process or conduct investigations for her on a regular basis.  I saw this one contact as an opportunity and used it to my advantage.

I provided what she needed and sent it to her along with my invoice.  A month went by and the invoice came up in my accounting system as having not been paid.  I wasn’t worried that I wouldn’t get paid.  Someone else might have, but I was familiar with the type of law firm she worked at and had a good feeling that it was merely an oversight by accounting department folks (which it was).  I contacted her, and gently reminded her that the invoice had come up past due.  I also made some small-talk with her, and was generally friendly in tone, then hung up and went about my day.  A week later the invoice was paid.  But that isn’t the end of the story. 

Since I had had some interaction with this legal assistant, I put her on my list for a goody basket for Christmas.  I went to the firm in person and delivered a basket filled with the candy and cookies.  Instead of being confronted by the receptionist as just another solicitor (with a scowl), I was instead welcomed (with a glowing smile).  I introduced myself, said I had a basket for the legal assistant, and asked if she could come and get it so I could meet her. 

As it turned out, the legal assistant wasn’t in that day, but that was fine.  I left the basket for her with her name on it and my business cards in it.  Then six weeks later, Valentine’s Day came up.  I did the same thing.  I delivered a nicely boxed Valentine chocolate from a very high-end chocolatier.  The legal assistant was out to lunch, so again I couldn’t meet her (honestly, my timing was simply off with this one).

On St. Patrick’s Day, I went with a bag of goodies to help celebrate that holiday.  This time, I figured, I haven’t received any work from her, or a thank you, or a phone call, and had not been able to meet with her, so I just left the bag of goodies, and figured this would probably be the last shot at it. 

A week went by and I received a handwritten note from her on the law firm’s stationery.  She told me how sorry she was for not having written sooner, or having called to say thank you, but she was so happy for the goodies she had received over the last few months.  In fact, she was most appreciative of the Valentine’s Day gift as she was single and had been feeling gloomy on Valentine’s Day until my gift showed up.  I still have the letter to this day even though it was written years ago. 

Subsequently, she called me to serve a subpoena for her attorney.  Then another assignment came in -- and then another and another.  Then another legal assistant in her law firm contacted me.  She said she had been referred by the first and needed a citation served, and then she called again a few weeks later, and then called again, and again, etc.  This went on throughout that law firm, which was a sizable office with a couple dozen attorneys.

 To this day, I still receive a substantial number of assignments from various legal assistants and attorneys in that law firm, and some of them have become good friends beyond being merely just clients.  From that one opportunity and a little persistence combined with sweet bribery of the chocolate type, I was able to obtain a repeat client and a large stream of continuous income.  That first legal assistant eventually left that law firm and went to another.  She recommended me around the office of her new law firm.  Then she moved on to another law firm and did the same thing there.  I didn’t even need to sell to these other law firms.  She did the selling for me and all because I made her day … one day …Valentine’s Day.

But, you might ask, why do this for existing clients?  I already have their business. Why would I want to spend the time and the money?  Two reasons: loyalty, and because I personally enjoy giving.  It feels good to give.

Look, your clients are, and will always be, the only reason you are in business.  Without them, you have no business.  You have no income. You have no house, car, computer, phone, vacation money, groceries, or electricity.  Take care of each one of them as if their assignments were the only ones you have in your hand.  If you show them appreciation (i.e., a little love, a little friendship), along with a competent service, they will be a customer for life.  What’s more, you will have such a good feeling in your heart when you see the look in their eyes once they get a nice gift for the holidays.  You’re giving back, you’re saying thank you for the business they have given you which has allowed you to feed your family or make your mortgage payment.  Show a little love and be grateful.

I am so thankful for the opportunity my friends (clients) have provided me by being of service to them. If they hadn’t let me serve their papers, or retrieve their court documents, or investigate the matters involved in their lawsuits, I would be homeless … or worse yet, working in a dead-end job for somebody else.  They have given me everything and I rejoice in that. 

Even if it is just a basket of cookies, it is the very least I can do to bring them a little something to show my appreciation that they do business with me.  And you should do the same with your existing clients.  It is an expression of gratitude which can nurture the continuance of a relationship with your customer. And, being nice is a gift you give yourself.

As a final thought, if you know of someone who is just starting out their process server business, consider gifting them with a copy of my book The Business End of Process Service, Running a Process Service Company from the Ground Up or CounterSpy, The Industrial Counter-Surveillance Manual, both available on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Business-End-Process-Service-ebook/dp/B008E8RBHK/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407774550&sr=1-8&keywords=bob+hill and http://www.amazon.com/CounterSpy-Bob-Hill-ebook/dp/B00BTJYU1Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407774644&sr=1-3&keywords=counterspy/  

Introduce, Involve, Increase (Upgrade)

Are you ready to grow sideways through your client base?  Once you have a client or two, a good way to get more business is to do a great job for them and then keep them in the loop and engaged in the process (no pun intended). 

Educate them a little on what benefits they are receiving from doing business with you and finally, increase the amount of work you do for them simply by introducing them to new, additional services.  It’s the same client; you have just offered a different service that will benefit them.  It’s what McDonald’s does every day.

It works like this at McDonald’s.  You come in and ask for a hamburger.  The attendant asks if you want cheese on it.  You say, yes.  Then the attendant asks if you want fries.  You say, yes.  Then the attendant asks if you want a large order of fries.  You say, yes.  Then the attendant asks if you want something to drink.  And once again you say, yes.  In fact, the whole process with them has become so routine, that most people now walk into their restaurants and before the attendant can even ask if you want a hamburger with cheese and a large order of fries with a drink, the customer already knows what they are going to be asked, and they just spew it all out at once.

You can do the same thing in process service.  How do you upsell when all you are doing is serving a paper?  Here’s an easy example.  Your client contacts you to serve a subpoena.  And you respond by telling them that you can do that, and then you ask, do you want us to place a rush on that?  And they say, yes.  Or, you ask them, do you want me to prepare the subpoena for you (which under certain circumstances you can legally do), and they say, yes. Two add-on services, just like that.

Here’s another example.  Your client may already know that you serve court documents, but do they also know that you know how to locate people who need to be served?  This is called skip tracing.  This is an additional service you can provide.  Or perhaps you can offer to do courier service for the client, or act as a notary public for sworn documents.  If you are qualified and licensed, you can also offer private investigations for your client.  Plenty of attorneys have a need for investigative services.  If you are already working on their process service, doesn’t it make sense that it is easier to give you the investigations, seeing as they already know you, than for them to locate an investigator, get quotes, vet them, retain them, etc.? 

So, in that way you introduce the client to a new service. You involve them in the new service by providing quality customer service (so they know, like and trust you) then educate them into process, and increase the level of services they want from you by introducing yet another new or additional service.  It could become an endless cycle if you could find an endless number of services to provide.  You could start out with the basic service of serving court documents for one client. Using the process above, before too long, you could be serving the court documents, running investigations, locating witnesses, notarizing documents, completing courier deliveries, retrieving court records, researching court files, preparing subpoenas, and on and on and on.

Looking for a great holiday gift for your favorite process service businessperson? Try The Business End of Process Service (Running a Process Service Company from the Ground Up).  You might also enjoy CounterSpy, The Industrial Espionage Counter-Surveillance Manual; my other book. Both may be found on Amazon.com.

Marketing Objectives

As a small process service business, I find it helpful to set marketing objectives. One of the most important objectives I have is to make and/or keep my target market aware of my services. After all, if they don’t know about my business, the likelihood of them using my service is pretty much nonexistent. I know I’ve discussed this before, but I can’t emphasize enough the importance of getting your name out there.

Most of us have limited marketing budgets, making it essential to focus those dollars on marketing that will cost-effectively deliver the intended results. When you set up your marketing projects, think of them in terms of marketing campaigns.  A marketing campaign is a well thought out plan, with a focus on the “what”, the “who” and the “how”. What being the goal, who being your target market, and how being the action or execution of your plan. 

Your marketing campaign should include a solid understanding of who your target market is, where you reside in the market, and where you want to be. It should also be detailed enough to include what you want your message to convey, including specific wording.

For instance, in my business, Record Time Retrieval and Investigations, I always want my market to understand that I place importance on the timeliness of my service. But I also want them to understand that I do it correctly, not just fast.

Further, I need to keep in mind that I while I have one market for process service – the legal community – I have two sub-markets; existing clients and potential clients. This may create a need for separate marketing campaigns; one to attract new clients and one to maintain current clients. Fortunately, in our business most of the time I can utilize the same marketing plan for either type. Review your market to determine if the same will work for you.

Here are a few ideas to include in a good marketing campaign for process service: 

• Advertise in your local bar association newsletter – key here is being industry specific and targeting one demographic – law firms.
• Advertise in the local business pages (delivered and on-line yellow pages, on-line business directories, etc.)  Even a small one line ad is better than nothing.
• Business cards – place these in the hands of every court clerk you meet. Often an attorney or private individual is at the courthouse filing their lawsuit and they don’t know a process server. If they ask the court clerk, who just happens to have your business card on hand, bam! You’ve just received a referral. A word of caution here, don’t just drop your card and expect to receive referrals. Strive to develop a friendly, business relationship. Offer a smile, a friendly word or even an occasional cookie or donut.
• Using a copy of the local bar association membership listing or directory, identify those attorneys who practice litigation. Once you identify them, whether they are in family law, personal injury, commercial litigation, debt collection, etc., develop a mail marketing campaign that targets this specific market. Your mailing might start out as a postcard that provides your contact information (company name, phone number and state) as well as the specific services you offer them. Then consider a second mailing; again it could be a postcard, or a full greeting card, that would send them a friendly greeting. You may have to send out several mailing before you receive a response. However, once you do and you complete the assignment with excellent customer service, you most likely will have a client for life.

When planning your mail marketing campaign, remember the Rule of Five. What is the Rule of Five you ask? The Rule of Five states that a potential customer may have to see your message five times before they actually consider hiring you, using your service or purchasing your product. It helps if your five messages aren’t always asking for something from them (such as business from them), but rather a message that is giving. Can you think of a helpful hint to send that would make their business life easier? How about a postcard just saying, “Have a nice day”? The goal is not to shove your business down their throat, but instead to keep you at the top of their mind so when they have a need for your services, your business number is the one they dial.

These are just a few ideas for a marketing campaign. If you have something different that works for you, I’d appreciate you sharing your comments below.

If you haven’t checked it out, more pertinent information on running your process service business can be found in my book The Business End of Process Service (Running a Process Service Company from the Ground Up).  You might also enjoy CounterSpy, The Industrial Espionage Counter-Surveillance Manual; my other book. Both may be found on Amazon.com.

Micromanaging Your Process Service Business - or not

“Hold on, just a little bit tighter now…”

While those might be great lyrics for a song, they’re not the best way to run your process service business, or most any other business. Sure there are things you have to hold on to tightly, things like control of your finances, adherence to your mission statement, working “on” your business and so on. But there are also areas where you have to learn to let go. Primarily those areas are focused in the area of working “in” your business.

Last posting I spoke of the advantages of outsourcing. Whether you outsource to a 1099 contract employee or you bite the bullet and hire (another form of outsourcing – as you are not doing the work) a W-2 employee there are distinct advantages, the primary one being the freeing up of your time to focus on other than the day-to-day functions. Without the day-to-day stuff holding your hostage you can set up additional prospect meetings, work on customer retention and service or add balance in your life with a short or long vacation, or just an evening off.

So now you’ve taken the big entrepreneurial step and found help for you and your business. You provided the training they would need to do the work you have delegated to them. Awesome! How are you doing with that? Are you letting them do their job, or are you holding on, just a little bit tighter, afraid to let go?

When I finally realized I’d have to suck it up and just delegate the work, I had to overcome that psychological barrier that I think many small business owners deal with as their companies expand – micromanaging helps no one. The reality of it was that other people that I had gathered around me could actually do the job just as good as I could. In some instances, they could even do it better than me; heck, that’s why they were hired. And whenever someone other than me made a mistake, the mistakes were so few and far between, that it was manageable from a customer service perspective. It took a bit of doing, but eventually I overcame me fear of letting go and let others do the work. To be completely honest, this probably saved the company because it allowed me to rest, breathe, and think while others handled the nuts and bolts of day-to-day field operations.

So delegate / outsource where you can and then let go and watch your business grow.

What are your feelings toward delegation? Please share if you are so inclined. As always, I appreciate any feedback.

If you enjoy these tips, you'll find more like them in my book "The Business End of Process Service, Running a Process Service Company from the Ground Up". You might also like my other book "CounterSpy, The Industrial Counter-Surveillance Manual", both available on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Business-End-Process-Service-ebook/dp/B008E8RBHK/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407774550&sr=1-8&keywords=bob+hill and http://www.amazon.com/CounterSpy-Bob-Hill-ebook/dp/B00BTJYU1Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407774644&sr=1-3&keywords=counterspy/  

Growing Your Process Service Business Through Delegation

The goal of every start-up business, including process service, should be to reach a point where you have so much work you cannot reasonably handle it by yourself. Ideally you have already decided how big you want to grow and how to handle the growth.  What makes this tricky is that growth all too often has a mind of its own and doesn’t always follow plan.  Hopefully, you have written at least a simple, basic business plan (nothing fancy required) and have set out the action(s) to take when your business outgrows your personal capacity. Just be flexible and go with the flow when you have your growth spurts, but be realistic in what you can reasonably handle without affecting customer service and your health, both physically and mentally.

What I’m talking about is expanding your business through delegation. But, you say, it’s just me and I don’t have any employees to delegate to. Neither did I when it happened to me many years ago. But after considerable reflection on where my business was and where I wanted it to go, I realized that I would need to bring on additional servers or a partner.

At the time I was working 80 hours a week and the annual gross revenue of the company was only $69,000. The following year, I brought on servers to help out and an admin person in the office. Our gross revenue shot up to $105,000 and my work hours dropped to 55 per week. Even with the additional expense of servers and an admin, I worked fewer hours and made more in net profit. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

You don’t have to hire employees. You can contract process servers and even admin help. With the convenience and flexibility of the “Cloud” so much can be accomplished today between work colleagues without ever meeting face to face. If you can handle the mandatory on-site paperwork (think filing) a virtual assistant can often take care of all the other admin work.

So if you've reached that plateau in your process service business where all you do is work in the business with no time to work on the business, consider delegating. If you're like me, you'll be glad you did.

Process Service Marketing – Reviewing Ten Basic Steps

Sometimes it just makes sense to revisit the basics. Life is not static, neither is your business. What may have worked for you once upon a time, may not work as well for you today. That being said, let’s revisit my ten basic marketing steps that a process server should take to become successful. 

Your primary job is to get jobs. You can't serve court documents if you don't have them in your hand.  To that end, one of the first rules of business a process server has to learn is this.  If you don't have a job, then your job becomes finding a job.  Even when you have jobs, you should always be actively looking for the next one. More succinctly, you need to market your services.

Here are some very basic steps to take to get you moving, some of which require some capital while others require just a little of your time.

1.  Advertise in the classified section of the local bar association newsletter.

2.  Order quality business cards and place them in the hands of every court clerk that will take them.  When someone comes into the courthouse to file a lawsuit, they may not already have a process server in mind, and if they ask the court clerk, your card will be right there at their fingertips.

3.  Obtain the member mailing list from your local bar association.  This could or could not be a little pricey, but now you have the names and addresses of all the attorneys in town that belong to the association.  Begin by mailing postcards to those addresses by the hundreds.  Be patient with this, though.  On average it might take sending your postcard to the same attorneys up to five times before they finally contact you.  Find a way to make your mailing stand out from others they may be getting. For instance, instead of asking them for the job – send a series of cards (a marketing campaign) with different messages – from an introduction, to a “have a nice day” to “give me a call when you need service”. There are programs and services available to make this a smooth, affordable process.

4.  You need a website.  Even if it is nothing more than a very basic online brochure of your services, an online presence is critical in the 21st century.

5.  Social Media Networking.  This falls in line with your website.  You may not have a large budget for setting up and driving traffic to your website.  So, a good way to establish a web presence that may also drive traffic toward your website is through the various social media networks such as Facebook, Linked-In, MerchantCircle, and several others.  Make friends and connections anywhere and everywhere you can, but most especially with fellow process servers, private investigators, and attorneys.

6.  Become a member of an industry association.  Membership fees are generally inexpensive, but the networking possibilities for B2B exchange of work with other servers in other locations throughout the state and the nation are golden.

7.  Become a corporate member of a legal secretaries or paralegal's association.  These associations exist throughout the United States and are a perfect opportunity for you to interact one on one with your key client demographic - legal assistants/paralegals. They may even be a better “target market” for your post card mailings than the attorney list.

8.  Sponsor an event with the local bar association.  You'll get exposure as a vendor and you will be amazed at how inexpensive it is to be a sponsor of an event.

9.  If you already have a client or two (or three), nothing works better than word of mouth.  So, first thing, do a superior job for those clients.  Second, take your clients some goodies -- chocolate works very well with legal secretaries -- or take them to lunch.  Show a genuine interest in them, not just as a client, but as a friend.  Be grateful. Remember, you are building a relationship here that could, over the course of many years, develop into a sizable stream of income, as well as the many, many referrals to other potential clients that these one or two clients will provide where they tout your services for you.

10.  Door to door.  Difficult and sometimes daunting, this one does work, but it is truly a numbers game.  The key here is to know that most likely the law firm you are cold-calling or visiting probably already has a process server to whom they are quite loyal.  You're not there to attempt to take the business away from that process server, but to offer to be the "back-up" in case their guy is too busy, sick, or on vacation.  

Consider what worked for you before. Is it still working? Does the process need modification, updating? What efforts have provided the best ROI? Keep evaluating and refining these ten steps to fit with the current market trends.

I appreciate your following. If you or someone you know would like more tips like these check out my book “The Business End of Process Service, Running a Process Service Company from the Group Up” or for a change of pace check out “CounterSpy, The Industrial Counter-Surveillance Manual”. They are both available on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Business-End-Process-Service-ebook/dp/B008E8RBHK/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407774550&sr=1-8&keywords=bob+hill and http://www.amazon.com/CounterSpy-Bob-Hill-ebook/dp/B00BTJYU1Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407774644&sr=1-3&keywords=counterspy/  I think you’ll find the both useful in your process service business. As always, I welcome your comments. 

Name Branding for Process Service

Record Time Retrieval & Investigations evolved from Record Time Retrieval. Record Time Retrieval was descriptive of the initial service offered of being a business that served subpoenas to obtain business and medical records. It was simple; we retrieved records in record time. Our name aptly described what we did while giving us an identity that our target market could identify with. It was important; however, to be sure we backed our branding by actually providing record time service.

Over time I realized that I was more inclined to work on process service befitting my previous law enforcement background; so the quick turnaround on assignment completions that process service entails was a much better fit for me as owner/employee of the company. As the business evolved we changed the type of service we wanted to provide from records retrieval to process service, eventually adding private investigations. Although we occasionally still do records retrieval, we predominately provide the services of process service and private investigations. Changing the type of service to coincide with my passions and my personality meant that Record Time was no longer as appropriate as it once was. It meant making an adjustment in the name of the company that was more befitting of the services offered.

Here is where we became somewhat stuck. We already had clients, business cards, a website, stationary, etc.  Changing all of that would have confused existing clients and cost the company money.  It was decided that we would change the name of the company from Record Time Retrieval to Record Time Retrieval & Investigations. As you can see, just from my own experience (or lack thereof) the importance of a company name, especially if you change out your services. We actually lucked out in being able to just lengthen the name.

So think carefully when coming up with a name for your business. If your focus is to be a process serving company that is very professional, then a name like Professional Process might work.  If it is important to have your family name on your “shingle”, then by all means, call it Thompson’s Civil Process.  Just remember, the name says it all, and it gives your company a distinct identity as well as (especially, if it has a recognizable, catchy name) a marketable slant that perhaps gives you an edge over your competition.  Think hard and long on it, and what you want the company to represent because you do not want to go through the contortions my company went through when we changed services, but then struggled with how we wanted to represent that change later on down the road.

Like what you've read? Check out my books; available on Amazon.com "The Business End of Process Service, Running a Process Service Company From the Ground Up". or “CounterSpy”. As always, I appreciate your feedback.