Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi, glad I found this place.  I would like to get a paralegal/investigator business off the ground.  I do have experience and am licensed.  I would like to market mainly discovery services (as these take up a lot of a law firm`s time).  Discovery includes medical records and other often voluminous records that need to be gathered and thoroughly analyzed in order to determine a case`s merits.  I also would like to provide hospital and pharmacy canvasses (a way to determine where a person has treated at and when, prior to litigation or early on in litigation). 

My target market is attorneys and insurance adjusters.  I have tried marketing this with direct mail, and cold calling and have not got anywhere.  I would love some suggestions on ways to market or other similiar services to add.

Do you have any specifics as to why you`re not getting any response on the direct mail or cold-calling? In other words, have you had a chance to find out why people are "ignoring" you at the moment?

Not really.  I am assuming that 1) the area I live is slow to adapt and 2) getting past the gatekeepers is a big issue. 

Not sure if I am barking up the wrong tree meaning if I need to tweak my business offerings or if I am just not going about it right. 

I`m thinking the first thing most people would ask is if you did your market research. In other words, is there really a need for your product, or do you just think there`s a need. That would be the objective (intrinsic) value versus a subjective value.

Assuming you`ve found there is such a need, and further assuming that it`s the gatekeepers who are preventing your marketing materials from reaching the decision makers, that would be the next set of tactics to discuss.

So: How do you know there`s a need for this discovery outsourcing?

Craig:

Considering that large firms in the US are willing to outsource to India, and considering the success of Midwest Paralegal Services (in WI although I am in the SE), and having worked in both plaintiff and defense practices for over 10 years.  I see that there is a need.  That this area of litigation is time consuming and therefore often not paid it`s proper attention (meaning less money awarded, more time spent with the case open, etc.).  But this is where the true facts of a case are to be found.

Attorneys have to spend hours reviewing medical records, while a paralegal could just as easily do that and the attorney could be doing more substantive tasks.  In insurance defense the pressure is on to keep costs lower and outsourcing work would be a way to allow the attorney to still remain profitable. 

In smaller plaintiff practices, gathering the records quickly and analyzing them thoroughly again could lead to quicker settlement, more money awarded, etc.  It does the small practice no good to have 20 cases signed up and only 2 or 3 moving forward at one time.  While he could have someone working on gathering, summarizing the documents that will allow him to put together his demands and get the cases all moving much quicker. 

Again, my area not being a quick adapting one may not appreciate this non traditional approach but it is working in other areas of the US.  

As far as the canvases go I have found other PI firms offering this, a few, and they do have work.  I originally partnered with someone who was to handle the marketing of this service, we have had some orders but this person has admitted they don`t know how to market the service, so that is a few orders that we were basically lucky to get, meaning there is a need as the people stumbled upon us.  As marketing was the only reason for the partnership, and that is not happening, I am thinking I need to take this bull by the horns and just do my own thing.  (Interesting to note that none of the clients I have had for this service were local, they came from all over the US)

 

 

Alright, so you`ve got a case for intrinsic, real value. (I agree with you, by the way, that your service would be a huge benefit to particularly smaller firms.)

Ergo, it`s got to be a marketing, presentation, pricing, and access issue. One way or another you`re not striking a chord....getting that "Euraka!" moment where the smaller practices *feel* that you`re the solution to a major problem.

What are you using at the moment for marketing material? Do you have a brochure, is it a letter, an email, a flyer? Who did the copywriting for those materials?

Also, do you have a Web site we could examine?

Thanks for your help, I am emailing you the website specifics. 

Try investing in getting a website up and running. Next you should try Search Engine Optimization to get your website to the top. Then you will be getting enquiries rather than cold calling.

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