Is your lead flow system delivering a trickle or a torrent? If your law firm marketing system is working well, it should be producing a large number of lead opportunities for you. And what you do with those opportunities is almost as important as generating them.

You need to have specific strategies for increasing the number of leads and tracking them. Legal marketing can do some of the heavy lifting for you on identifying lead prospects. But going from a possible lead to a genuine lead and prospect requires a well-designed system that includes follow through.

You also need a system for tracking all incoming leads and where the leads are in the sales pipeline. Once a lead comes in, someone has to keep track of the lead status so leads do not fall through the cracks. Lost leads are lost opportunities, and are akin to leaving money on the table. They also hurt your reputation with your referral sources if they supplied the referral and you didn’t follow through.

Here are some questions to ask as you think about your lead system:

• Who sorts the leads to rank them by priority?
• How do we prioritize leads?
• Who is responsible for assigning leads to members of the firm for follow up?
• Who maintains the follow-up system and holds the firm members accountable?

Generating referrals from your legal marketing strategy is the first step in building your business. Converting those leads into clients, and ultimately referral sources, is how you grow your firm into what you envisioned when you began. 

Without a good lead flow system, the likelihood of you maximizing the possibilities of your marketing program is slim.