Why We’re Not a One-Stop Shop

Every once in a while, we chat with a lawyer who wants to know why we’re not a one-stop shop for all their legal marketing needs. The conversation often goes like this – “I really like what you guys do but I want to work with a single company that can handle everything.”

I get it – there’s no doubt it would be convenient to only have one vendor relationship to manage. But if you really think about it, working with a one-stop shop is a bad idea on several levels. Here are a few reasons why this is the case:

1 – It’s impossible to be an expert in every marketing discipline. Just like it’s impossible to be an expert in every practice area. You’d never recommend that someone work with one single lawyer for every legal need that they face. You refer people facing white collar criminal charges to a different attorney than an individual facing bankruptcy or estate planning issues. If your child has acne issues, you take him to a very different physician than you would if he broke his arm. The same principle applies when it comes to marketing – branding, building authority, and cultivating referrals requires a completely different skill-set than engineering your way to the top of Google’s algorithm.

2 – You lose the ability to intelligently evaluate performance and ROI. If you hire a single company and give them a mandate to create a website that reflects their status, to launch a campaign to maximize referrals, to generate leads, to create media exposure, and to get to the top of the search engines… it becomes very difficult to figure out what’s working and what’s not. For example, the website may look great and you may be getting solid PR opportunities, but you’re still not generating the leads you want. If you insist on working with a one-stop shop, your options are limited in this scenario. Do you fire them and lose out on the good work they were doing? Or do you continue to put up with sub-standard results in the areas in which they fall short? It’s better to hire specialists in each distinct area and to track their performance separately. This creates true accountability – and it gives you the ability to build a marketing presence that is firing on all cylinders.

3 – Critical opportunities are overlooked. Often, companies that portray themselves as a one-stop solution… actually aren’t. For example, there are a ton of companies out there that handle web design, SEO, and Pay-Per-Click advertising. They’ll call themselves a one-stop shop for all of your internet marketing needs. But if you ask them what they’re going to do to help you maximize your referrals, they won’t have an answer, because the truth is that they’re ignoring that opportunity. It’s a costly mistake, because studies have shown that most lawyers are only getting about one-third of the referrals they could be getting, and there’s a whole lot your internet marketing strategy can do to close that gap. If you insist on the one-stop shop… you’re likely missing out on valuable opportunities.

At Spotlight Branding, we are laser-focused on serving our clients by branding them as credible experts and leading authorities in their area of practice. We create an “internet foundation” that positions each client as the go-to person in their market. We use tools like social media and an email newsletter to create top-of-mind awareness and ultimately to generate more referrals. And then, when our clients have specific needs that go beyond our areas of expertise – we refer them to trusted partners who specialize in those specific areas.

If you’d like to learn more about what we do, click here to request a call with our team. But whether you work with us or not, I highly recommend that you hire experts in your specific areas of need – rather than trying to find a one-stop shop to handle everything.

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Daniel Decker

Daniel Decker is a co-founder and Partner at Spotlight Branding. In addition to helping lawyers stand out from the crowd, he spends his time writing, dreaming up new marketing strategies, and coming up with catchy subject lines. In his spare time, Daniel enjoys playing sports, guitar, politics, and Minnesota sports.