I've been round and round with clients on that one, amych. I have been known to come up with a version the client was happy with, as long as it would work fine, if not exactly the same, on other monitors. If the client sees one that looks different, you can say "I told you so," only diplomatically.

Usually clients who can't be convinced of that also don't know how to resize their browsers. I have sent screen shots with different views of the page.

I once saw a designer's website that said on the home page: "Best viewed over my shoulder on my monitor."

I once saw a designer's website that said on the home page: "Best viewed over my shoulder on my monitor."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH GOD KILL ME NOW

I haven't done a business update in a while so here goes...

Successes: It's been a bit of a frustrating period (I'll get to that) so it's a little bit hard to talk too much about successes. I did win two really big cases this month - one an appeal and the other a more regular immigration case. Both of those left me feeling very happy and personally satisfied, both for the clients and their families and in my own legal abilities.

Frustrations: I realized a while back that my detention cases (client is in jail awaiting "trial") were huge money losers. Basically, no one ever paid after the case was over. So I switched to requiring all the money up front. Since then, I haven't gotten any cases. The good is that they were hugely stressful and time consuming. The bad is that they were good money makers, even if I didn't get paid everything, and they were very interesting. The sort of downside is that while I had a lot of cases in there, I got a lot of referrals. Now that I only have one guy in there, I'm not getting so many referrals. So I'm trying to rethink how to handle them because I do like them.

My second frustration is that, for the first time since I started this a year ago, i have free time on my hands. That scares me.

Third, this is the first post-divorce month. I am making enough money to pay my bills, but I am working on learning how to manage cash flow. It is a bit anxiety-inducing. I actually took out a very low interest line of credit with the bank, but using it sort of feels like failure, so I hate using it.

Anyway, that was my month in review. I think I'm going to make a second post about advertising in a few.

So...advertising. I don't know if this is relevant to anyone else, but I'd love thoughts.

My business (immigration law) is very targeted to the local Spanish speaking community. I'd be open to changing that, but I suspect that maybe as much as 95% of the local non-US citizen public is Spanish speaking.

One of the unique things about this business is that if X is happy with our service, chances are, he personally knows many other people who could use us. Immigration is a family issue and immigrants tend to be friends with other immigrants.

I advertise in a local, free, Spanish language magazine. I have a quarter page ad and I write a monthly column about immigration-related issues. The ad is $175 a month and has been a hugely successful investment. Maybe as much as 50% of the business comes from that ad.

I recently (August) started advertising on the local Spanish speaking new station. That is just under 10x cost of the print ad. We may have gotten 10x the calls and initial appointments, but I have noticed that the people who come in, after having seen us on TV, tend to have problems I can't fix so I don't end up taking their case. But the advertising has resulted in sort of raising awareness of us in the community. But I'm not really sure how that pays off, exactly.

My inclination is to stop the TV advertising. I just don't see the benefit translating into more clients. But am I missing something wrt the whole community awareness thing?

Stephanie, I get the cash flow frustration.

Could you maybe restructure it so that you only took on a certain amount of the detention cases -- 5 active at a time? -- so that you could still work with the? (I don't know what the workload would be with five; I pulled that number out of my not-a-lawyer butt.)

That way, you could set up an partial fee up-front with sliding payment plans on a monthly basis, still get referrals, but be able to say honestly "I'm overloaded with cases right now, but here's the number of someone I know. Please keep letting me know, as my load may lighten in a few months" or some such.

Just saw 2nd post. Honestly, if the TV ads are breaking into your marketing budget too much, try vids on your website. I'm going to be working on this. Here's a webinar recording I watched last week that was VERY helpful: [link]

Also, are you biz cards printed up with English on one side, Spanish on the other? I would suggest following the local Spanish paper, if your city has one, and if you get any invites to quinces, weddings, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce events, go. Socialize. Do F2F networking.

If there is a Spanish paper in your city, or a Hispanic community center, tell them about your services and see if they'd like to profile you. Go to local Catholic churches or businesses (bodegas, carnicerias, panederias, quince dress shops) and see if they have a community board.

I am NOT an expert on Hispanic life, obvs, but this is what I gleaned from three years as a Hispanic HS with a 75% pop of illegal students and/or parents of students.

Unless the cost of the advertising is seriously prohibitive, I would continue with it. Since August is a very short time in terms of raising awareness. We do a convention every year that is basically the extent of our "new faces" advertising. It is typically ten months to two years after that when we start seeing dollars roll in related to the event.

Do you do solicited email marketing? I don't know if it's appropriate for your target market, but that's been one of our key methodologies for turning casual observers into customers.

I would do an update myself, but I need to get my ass off the internet and finish up my annual report. Maybe next week.

I actually took out a very low interest line of credit with the bank, but using it sort of feels like failure, so I hate using it.

Don't be. This is one of the main reasons that banks exist. If you're only borrowing against money you're sure you'll be receiving, and not digging yourself into a hole, then there's nothing wrong with this.

Thanks, Tom. The line of credit is actually secured by cash that I have in the bank, but it works out better this was for accounting. So yeah, I shouldn't feel bad using it - it's my money already earned. The brain is a crazy, frustrating place.

The brain is a crazy, frustrating place.

Yep, THIS.