I want you to answer a question before you read another word.
Who wakes up every morning thinking about bringing business into your law firm?
And please don’t automatically say, “Me.” That’s the problem.
I don’t mean who owns the marketing strategy. I don’t mean who approves the marketing budget. I don’t mean who meets with the SEO company once a month, looks at the dashboard, records the podcast, approves the social media posts or attends the occasional networking event.
I mean: Who is actually working the relationships with your power partners?
Who is hitting the streets? Who is following up with the referral partners you haven’t connected within six months?
Who is calling former clients just to check in? Who is reconnecting with the prospects who went completely silent?
Who is walking into the CPA’s office? Who is taking the financial advisor to coffee? Who is showing up at the ProVisors event?
Who is building relationships with assisted living communities, realtors, therapists, chiropractors, physicians, funeral homes, insurance professionals, wealth advisors, business owners or whoever your natural referral partners are?
Who is looking at the database and saying:
“There is money sitting in here. There are relationships sitting in here. There are people who already know us, like us and trust us. Why aren’t we strategically nurturing them?”
Because one of the biggest mistakes I see law firms make is believing they have a marketing problem when what they really have is a people and execution problem.
They don’t necessarily need another marketing vendor. They don’t necessarily need another $5,000-a-month strategy. They don’t necessarily need another CRM. They don’t necessarily need another 47-page marketing plan.
They need someone whose job is to work the plan.
And in many firms, that person is a B2B Coordinator, Community Growth Coordinator, Business Development Coordinator—call the seat whatever makes sense inside your firm.
But SOMEBODY has to OWN it.
Stop Making the Attorney the Entire Marketing Department
I have worked with law firms for nearly three decades, and I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this exact scenario.
The attorney tells me: “Molly, we need more leads.”
Okay. Let’s look at it.
You’re paying for SEO. You’re running ads. You’re creating content. You have a newsletter. You’ve sponsored events.
You have hundreds or thousands of names in your database. You’ve had hundreds of former clients. You have referral relationships. You belong to organizations. You’ve attended conferences.
You’ve met financial advisors, CPAs, other attorneys and community leaders.
So let me ask you again:
Do you actually need more leads—or do you need someone to work the opportunities you’ve already created?
Those are two very different problems.
Most firms have spent YEARS accumulating relationships. Then nobody follows up with them.
You go to a conference, collect 22 business cards and put them in your laptop bag. You have lunch with a financial advisor who says, “We should definitely do something together.”
Great. Then what? Nothing.
Your firm does a seminar and 37 people register. Twenty-three attend. Four schedules. What happens to the other 33? Your intake team follows up a few times.
Maybe. Then everyone moves on to the next shiny thing. Meanwhile, you have former clients who loved you but haven’t heard from your firm in two years.
You have prospects who said, “Not right now.” You have referral partners who used to send business but haven’t sent anything recently.
You have leads sitting inside your CRM marked:
No response. Not ready. Follow up later. Didn’t hire. Consultation canceled. No show.
Friends, that’s not necessarily a dead database. That’s a neglected database. And there is a massive difference.
Your “Back From the Dead” List Might Be One of Your Biggest Assets
One of my favorite campaigns for law firms is what we call a Back From the Dead campaign.
Exactly what it sounds like.
We’re going back into the database and finding opportunities everybody else decided were dead.
Not to harass them. Not to send 17 automated emails screaming, “ARE YOU READY TO HIRE US YET?”
We’re reconnecting like actual human beings.
Think about a prospective estate planning client. They came in nine months ago. They liked you. They understood the value. They didn’t sign.
Why? Maybe their daughter went to college. Maybe someone got sick. Maybe work exploded. Maybe they weren’t emotionally ready. Maybe they needed more time to make the decision.
Life happened. That does not automatically mean they chose another attorney. But your firm treats that person like they disappeared into the witness protection program.
Nobody calls. Nobody checks in. Nobody says:
“Hey, Susan, you came in and met with us last fall. I was going through our notes and wanted to check in. How are you doing? Did you ever get your estate plan taken care of?”
That conversation feels completely different from:
“Hi, we’re following up regarding the engagement agreement we sent you.”
One is transactional. The other is relational. And relationships are where law firm growth lives.
Now imagine somebody on your team owns this. Every week. Not when things are slow. Not when the attorney remembers. Not when marketing suddenly becomes an emergency.
Every. Single. Week. That’s a system.
The B2B Marketing Coordinator Should Not Be Sitting Behind a Desk Waiting for Leads
This is another place firms get it wrong. They hire a “marketing coordinator” and immediately bury this person in Canva.
Now they’re making graphics. Updating the website. Ordering brochures. Posting Happy National Donut Day on Facebook. Fixing the attorney’s bio. Uploading videos. Chasing vendors. Ordering promotional products. Changing PowerPoint slides.
And suddenly your “business development person” hasn’t left the office in three weeks.
No. If you’re hiring a true B2B or Community Growth Coordinator, I want that person out in the world building relationships.
Their job should include activities like:
- Building and maintaining strategic referral relationships.
- Scheduling coffees, lunches and office visits with potential referral partners.
- Attending targeted networking and community events.
- Following up with every meaningful connection.
- Running Back From the Dead campaigns.
- Conducting client-care calls.
- Reconnecting with former clients.
- Asking for introductions.
- Coordinating educational events and community partnerships.
- Tracking where referrals are actually coming from.
- Following up after seminars, workshops and webinars.
- Identifying dormant referral sources.
- Creating consistent touches with your highest-value relationships.
- Reporting weekly activity and results.
Notice what isn’t at the top of that list?
Making pretty things. This is not primarily a graphic-design position.
It’s a relationship-development position.
Client Care Calls Are Marketing
I need law firm owners to hear this one.
Taking care of the people who already hired you is marketing.
Some firms are obsessed with getting strangers to know their name while barely communicating with the people who already trusted them with one of the most important issues in their lives.
Think about that.
You spend $10,000 getting a new person through the front door and practically nothing staying connected after the matter is completed.
Your B2B Coordinator or Community Growth Coordinator can change that.
Imagine every former client receiving a genuine client-care call.
Not: “Do you have any legal work for us?”
Please don’t do that.
Instead: “Hi, Jim. This is Sarah from Smith Law. It’s been a little while since we connected, and I wanted to see how things are going with you and Karen.”
That’s it. Have a conversation. Listen. Ask questions. Take notes. If appropriate, remind them of upcoming firm events.
Make sure their information is current. Find out what’s changed in their life. Maybe there’s another legal need. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe their sister needs help. Maybe their neighbor needs help. Maybe they know a business owner who needs help. Maybe absolutely nothing happens today.
That’s okay. Because you’re building relational equity.
The firms that understand this stop treating every marketing activity like a slot machine where they put $1 in today and demand $4 out tomorrow.
Relationships compound.
“But Molly, We Don’t Have Enough Business to Hire Someone.”
I hear this all the time. And sometimes it’s true.
I am never going to tell you to randomly add payroll because you’re panicking. But I want you to challenge the assumption.
Because sometimes the statement:
“We don’t have enough business to hire someone.”
needs to become:
“We don’t have enough business because nobody owns business development.”
Big difference. This is exactly why you cannot hire emotionally.
You have to do the math.
How much revenue does one new matter represent? How many additional qualified consultations would this role need to influence to pay for itself? How many referral relationships need to become productive? How much opportunity already exists inside your database?
What is the lifetime value of a client? What happens if a past client refers one new family? What happens if one CPA relationship produces 10 matters next year? What happens if a dormant list of 500 prospects produces 20 consultations?
Now we’re having a business conversation.
Don’t Hire a Marketing Networker With Zero Accountability
There is another side to this.
I see firms get excited about somebody because they’re “so connected.” Everyone knows them. They have tremendous energy. They’re involved in everything. They know every person in town.
Fantastic. Show me the math.
I don’t want to hear only:
- “They’re such a people person.”
- “They have amazing energy.”
- “Everyone loves them.”
- “They know everybody.”
Those things can absolutely help.
But we’re not hiring the mayor of happy hour.
We’re hiring someone to produce measurable business-development outcomes.
So during the interview process, stop asking only whether you like them.
Ask:
- What have you built?
- How did you build it?
- How did you track it?
- How many relationships were you responsible for?
- How did you turn those relationships into opportunities?
- What was your follow-up process?
- What did you do when people didn’t respond?
- What metrics did you report?
- What was the measurable result?
Can they show you the math? That is a completely different interview.
Hire for the Marketing Seat—Not the Personality
This is why we are so obsessed with defining the seat before we start interviewing.
At Hiring & Empowering Solutions®, we don’t want you shopping for a résumé.
We want to understand:
- What does this firm actually need?
- What must this person own?
- What outcomes must they produce?
- What does success look like at 30 days?
- At 60?
- At 90?
- What behaviors and natural strengths support the work?
- What are the KPIs?
- Who manages this person?
- What authority do they have?
- What happens every week?
Because this is where the breakdown happens.
You hire somebody charismatic. You love them. They’re excited. They have 19 ideas before lunch.
Three months later you’re sitting in my Zoom room saying:
“Molly, I have no idea what this person does all day.”
That’s not necessarily an employee problem. That’s often a leadership problem.
You never defined success.
Give Your B2B Coordinator a Scoreboard
If somebody is responsible for helping grow your law firm, they need a scoreboard.
Not just: “Go network.”
What does that even mean?
Your metrics will vary based on practice area, market, firm size and strategy, but I want you thinking about measurable weekly activities and outcomes.
- How many meaningful referral-partner conversations occurred?
- How many in-person meetings?
- How many follow-up touches?
- How many former-client care calls?
- How many dormant leads reactivated?
- How many referral introductions were requested?
- How many consultations were generated from relationship activities?
- How many new referral sources produced opportunities?
- How many existing referral sources were re-engaged?
- What is moving forward?
- What is stuck?
- What needs attorney involvement?
Now your weekly meeting changes.
Instead of: “So…how’s marketing going?”
You have a real conversation.
Here is what happened. Here are the numbers. Here is what we’re learning. Here is what we’re doing next.
That’s leadership.
Your Law Firm Marketing Needs a Process
This may be the most important part.
You cannot hire a B2B Coordinator, hand them a box of brochures and say:
“Go get us business.”
And yet law firms do the equivalent of this every day.
They hire talented people and give them absolutely no operating system.
No 30/60/90-day plan. No KPIs. No weekly accountability. No scripts. No follow-up process. No CRM expectations. No list of priority relationships. No client-care process. No definition of a qualified referral source. No process for moving a new relationship from introduction to meeting to follow-up to strategic partner.
Then six months later the owner says: “I don’t think it’s working.”
Based on what? What was supposed to happen? What did you measure? What did you coach? Where did they get stuck? What was the process?
This is exactly why hiring and leadership cannot be separated.
Get the Right Marketing Person in the Right Seat
This is where our Smart Hire Solution® comes in.
Because the first mistake firms make is hiring the wrong person.
The second mistake is hiring the right person without giving them clarity.
When we’re helping a law firm hire a B2B Coordinator, Community Growth Coordinator or another growth-focused team member, we’re not simply throwing an ad online and sending you résumés.
We’re defining the seat. We’re identifying the outcomes. We’re determining what success needs to look like. We’re interviewing for evidence rather than charm. We’re looking at the assessments. We’re asking whether this person’s natural strengths align with the actual job. We’re creating the foundation for the 30/60/90-day plan.
Because I don’t want you calling me six months from now saying:
“We really like her, but we don’t know if she’s doing anything.”
I want you to know.
Then Build a Marketing Process Your Team Can Own
And once you’ve got the right person? They need a process.
This is one of the reasons we built The Law Firm Admin Bootcamp™ the way we did.
Because great team members cannot execute strategies that live exclusively inside the attorney’s head.
Your team needs the playbook. They need to understand how to lead meetings. How to track metrics. How to follow up. How to communicate. How to create accountability.
How to own an initiative without running back to the attorney every 14 minutes asking:
“What do you want me to do next?”
Inside LFAB, we’re giving law firm teams the operational process to actually lead the charge. Not merely consume information. Execute it.
Because the end goal is not to create a B2B Coordinator who becomes another person the attorney has to babysit. The goal is ownership.
You give them the outcome. You give them the tools. You give them the scoreboard. You coach them. And eventually you get out of the way.
Your Attorney Should Be the Closer, Not the Entire Machine
Does this mean the attorney never participates in business development?
Absolutely not. There are relationships where the attorney needs to show up.
There are high-value referral partners where attorney-to-attorney or advisor-to-attorney connection matters. There are presentations only the attorney should give. There are strategic lunches where your presence changes the relationship.
But here’s the difference:
You shouldn’t have to manufacture every opportunity yourself.
Your coordinator can tee it up. Research the person. Make the introduction. Schedule lunch. Prepare the talking points. Track the follow-up. Send the thank-you. Schedule the next touch. Update the CRM. Remind you when the relationship has gone quiet.
You show up where your highest and best use is required.
Then your team keeps the machine moving. That’s leverage.
The Question Isn’t “Can We Afford to Hire?”
Sometimes the better question is:
What is it costing us not to have anyone owning this?
What is it costing you when 400 former clients never hear from the firm?
What is it costing you when leads disappear into your CRM?
What is it costing you when your best referral partner hasn’t heard from anyone in five months?
What is it costing you when you spend $20,000 sponsoring events and nobody follows up afterward?
What is it costing you when the attorney is spending ten hours a week doing activity that a properly hired, properly trained team member could own?
That’s the calculation I want you making.
Not: “Can we afford another salary?”
But: “Do we have enough opportunity to justify creating a seat that owns converting relationships into growth?”
If the math says no, don’t hire. But if the math says yes?
Then stop expecting growth to happen accidentally.
Build the Seat. Build the System. Then Get Out of the Way.
This is ultimately what we teach law firms every day.
You don’t scale by doing more yourself. You scale by creating ownership.
The right person. In the right seat. With the right outcomes. Using the right process. Measured by the right numbers. Supported by the right leadership.
That’s how a B2B Coordinator becomes a revenue-producing asset instead of another payroll expense.
That’s how client-care calls become referrals. That’s how Back From the Dead campaigns become consultations. That’s how a coffee becomes a strategic referral relationship. That’s how marketing stops being something you scramble to do when the phone gets quiet.
And that’s how you build a law firm that does not depend on you to create every single opportunity.
Stop Waiting for Your Law Firm Marketing to Work
If your firm has relationships, former clients, dormant leads and referral opportunities but nobody truly owns working them, you may not have a lead problem.
You may have an ownership problem.
And throwing more money at marketing won’t automatically solve it. Sometimes the next growth move isn’t another campaign. It’s a person.
A person who wakes up knowing exactly what they own. A person who hits the streets. A person who follows up. A person who picks up the phone. A person who nurtures relationships. A person who brings dead opportunities back to life. A person who tracks the numbers. A person who keeps moving when the attorney gets busy.
But don’t just hire someone and hope.
Hire intentionally. Train intentionally. Lead intentionally. Measure intentionally.
If you need help finding that person, our Smart Hire Solution® helps law firms define the seat, identify the right candidate and build the foundation for measurable success.
And if you already have the person but need the systems, accountability and leadership infrastructure to help them actually own the role, that’s exactly what we build inside Law Firm Admin Bootcamp™.
Because your law firm shouldn’t need you personally pushing every relationship, chasing every lead and creating every opportunity for growth.
Your law firm shouldn’t depend on you. That’s the whole point.
Ready to Figure Out What’s Missing?
If you’re reading this thinking, “We have the opportunities. We just don’t have anyone truly owning them,” let’s talk.
Book a Clarity Call with our team. We’ll look at where your firm is getting stuck, whether you have the right people in the right seats, and what needs to change to create a law firm that can grow without everything landing back on you.