Yesterday I wrote about the questions you should ask before you outsource any of your legal marketing. Today, I want to talk about 3 things you should never outsource.

Many attorneys falsely believe they are saving money by handling most or all of their marketing efforts. However, we have found this is actually the most expensive way to do marketing. Think about this—how much do you charge per hour? $200? $300? $400? More? If you charge only $200 per hour for your expertise and it takes you only one hour to research, write and post a 300-400 word article on your blog, then that one blog post “cost” your business $200!

If you do that 30 times every month, which is the best practice according to the latest research, that means you are spending $6,000 per month or $72,000 per year just on blogging! Certainly you can find or hire a full-time writer for less than that. Some business strategy experts would even go further and say it actually cost you twice as much because not only is it taking an hour of your billable time, but that was an hour that you weren’t charging to a client. Either way, that’s a huge expense.

If an attorney came to you and said they are launching a brand new practice area and expected to reach a high level of expertise in that practice area within a few months but were only planning to invest a few hours each week learning about the new practice area, you would probably question either their intellect or their commitment to excellence. Why would you think it’s any different when it comes to marketing your law firm?

It takes years of dedication working with hundreds of different attorneys, running test after test and trying dozens of different marketing techniques with different practice areas to truly become an expert attorney marketer! I would propose that it’s not something you can truly achieve an expertise in by practicing a few hours a week, any more than you can become an expert litigator by reading a John Grisham novel.

That said, there are certain activities that you and only you, as the owner or Managing Partner of your law firm, must do. Here are three important marketing efforts that I never recommend you delegate to someone else:

Building meaningful relationships with your clients. While you can and should have staff members involved in doing the actual work and even managing the client relationship on a daily basis, you cannot abdicate the relationship building responsibility with your key clients.

Meeting potential referral sources. You need to have a systematic approach to setting up introductory meetings with potential referral sources and following up with them after the meeting. You can delegate or outsource both of those activities. However, the actual face-to-face meeting needs to be conducted with a partner in the law firm. You are the face of your business.

Giving a legal seminar to promote your law firm. Presenting to potential clients or referral groups is generally best done by the owner or Managing Partner of the firm. You can have an assistant prepare your slides and handouts, but unless you have another attorney that has a specialized area of expertise or is a significantly better presenter, you should be the person giving the actual talk.

There are many marketing tasks that you can and should delegate or outsource because it’s simply not the best use of your time. But the three listed above are well worth your time because of their potential to deliver a massive ROI.