Where do you start? Funny you should ask - you should start with how your prospects start interacting with your law firm: How can they contact you? Phone call? Form? Chat? Texts? Who handles each of these and how? Where does the contact information go?

Starting with a People, Process and Technology Audit can go a long way in crafting your firm's entire intake process. By first identifying what the theory should be, you can compare that to what's actually happening to improve the overall process, and align the people and tech to it. 

What can't a spreadsheet do? My first inclination is to create a spreadsheet for nearly everything I need as well. 

We're not normal people. Our brains work in if/then statements and columns/rows. 

That and manual data entry and tracking is a thing of the past.

Other people in your law firm need to know where every potential new client is in your pipeline. It shouldn't be a mystery saved in a spreadsheet that MIGHT be saved to the cloud.

Spreadsheets might be easy for you, but when you finally hire that intake specialist, they are going to quit. Or at least quit using it. 

Getting your firm's process into an easy-to-use CRM is scalable. That's what you're trying to do, right? 

I get it. You're an attorney that also loves to "figure it out."

You've spent hours, days, weeks, months, and in some cases years on figuring out how to get that email to land in that spreadsheet, so you can keep track of your "leads."

You may have even figured out how to get phone calls to land in that same spreadsheet. 

The problem is that you can't really report out of your email. 

And you aren't using the spreadsheet consistently enough to know which of those leads actually became a client. Or even had a consultation with you. 

To make matters worse, you can't remember how you got all of this to kind of work together. It's clunky and you don't have time to fix, update, or make it work better. 

Having 10 different tools that one CMR could replace doesn't make sense. Enter: HubSpot. 

We haven't come accross a Matter Management software that doesn't say they can also handle your law firm's intake operations.

Which tells us everything we need to know: They can't. 

They're all glorified spreadsheets that act as a dumping ground for manually creating leads. Pipeline? Good luck. Workflows and automation? Negative Ghost Rider.

Reporting that helps track major KPIs to help your law firm make better business decisions? Nope. In fact, Excel has better reporting. So, it's actually worse. Honestly, you're better off using the spreadsheet. 

Your CRM should compliment your intake operations and support the people in charge of running them. It shouldn't confine them to a specific way of handling intake becausees of technical limitations and a major lack of features. 

Enter: HubSpot. 

Woof. You're so close! Defining your process, adapting HubSpot to fit that, and training your staff is probably the medicine your firm needs to full adopt this powerful CRM. 

Adoption is absolutely no joke. Staying up-to-date on feature releases, changes to processes, and keeping the data withing can literally be many full-time jobs. 

There's hope: outsource that to us and sign up for an ongoing HubSpot training and Support package. 

You'll get your documentation DIRECTLY IN HubSpot for your staff to get answers to common questions, process docs and guides on how to do specific job functions, as well as informative content right where you need it most. 

No excuses. Just tech Adoption. 

Your law firm is growing. You're closing more cases year over year, and you've finally hired some help.

This might be a third-party answering service. It might be a paralegal that's wearing a few hats (*cough* intake *cough). 

The point is - the firm is no longer comprised of "yourself".

You need to pass off the initial phone call to someone, but you need to retain insight into what calls are coming in. Which are qualified. Which are in the process of scheduling a consultation, and ultimately, which calls are turning into clients. 

Your new hire needs a system and a place to execute it...

Maybe it's because your CRM is actually an email marketing tool.

Or it's because your legal CRM is a database. It's databases. It's spread out of tools that weren't meant to report on your funnel, but rather "New Chats."

Whatever the reason, your law firm needs accurate, actionable, and timely reports to make business decisions. 

If you're investing any money into your Marketing (you should be), it's even more important to understand whether or not that investment is returning for your business. 

A legitimate Legal CRM that actually gives you insights into business KPIs/Metrics is exactly what your business needs. 

Pipeline? What's a pipeline?!

Your legal CRM, specifically the intake management software that your firm uses, should give you a very clear picture of where your opportunities are within your law firm's intake process. 

You should be able to quickly look at all the PNCs that your firm has open, see where they are at WRT your milestones, and report on where each lead is at in your legal funnel. 

No more intrusive 2am thoughts about "what the hell ever happened to that lead that was referred to me by Linda?!"

Your tech should help you sleep at night, not give you nightmares. 

Neat.

Who cares?

Where are all those leads?

How long ago did they download the guide?

What did you do after they downloaded the guide?

You put in all the work and money to build it, but you're not leveraging that in any meaningful way. 

These types of resources should feed the top of your funnel. They can only do that if you nurture them, however. 

Can your CMR do that?