4. How to get through that awkward chicken-and-egg stage when you’re just starting out.
A lot of businesses find themselves in this situation. None more so than marketplaces. You need vendors to sell stuff and you need customers to buy stuff from the vendors.
But more important than getting those two groups together, you need to build the systems and habits to make those flows smooth and sustainable.
This isn’t a side issue of building a marketplace, it’s the core issue. It’s an issue that costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time. You have to invest in loss for years to have any hope of a long-term viable business. So be prepared for that.
Right now it appears that you don’t have enough people asking questions, or enough Lawyers available to answer them, so you’re stoking the fire by pre-empting common questions and answering them yourself.
I love the category page design. I see a list of questions and answers under each category. There are over 100 in the Business category and I really admire this effort to get started properly. They should also make for good SEO bait in time.
This is a smart move.
I see a lot of marketplaces that never get past the empty database stage, because it’s simply too hard to convince anyone else to put in the initial effort. Of course your own effort is unlimited.
Maybe the next step is to ask the Lawyers you do have in your database to start expanding upon your initial questions. The more questions they pre-empt, the more gaps they can fill, the more articles appear with their faces on the bottom.
Also, I wonder how the average law office works in Australia. I know in the UK, there are a bunch of lesser paid paralegals for every solicitor. Who is most likely to end up actually doing these question and answer sessions? It is worth knowing that and addressing that. Asking a Lawyer to spend his time answering questions online, isn’t the same as asking a Lawyer to tell his paralegal to spend time answering questions online.
One niche at a time
With so many areas to cover and so many different legal topics, the way to start growing will always be to focus on one niche at a time. For example, pick property law. Then start promoting the ability for the public to ask their property-specific legal questions on relevant real estate websites and magazines. Do interviews with property bloggers. Reach out to property trade media. And approach only property lawyers for a month. Maybe attend a live property expo. By concentrating your forces you’ll create more of a buzz within that community. A community that is likely isolated from the other legal communities. People will start to see and hear about you in multiple places and you’ll seem more active. That social proof will start to kick in.
Hopefully you can generate enough interest to have someone managing that niche and those relationships full time. They become the “property manager” and you move onto promoting the next niche in the same manner.
I’m sure you could learn a lot from studying how eBay and Amazon built their marketplaces. Amazon was not a “book store” that evolved into “the everything store”. It was a plan for “the everything store” that started by focusing on one niche – books. You might also pick up some valuable tips by following Fabrice Grinda, who has built multiple marketplaces around the world.
Action: You’re doing a great job of filling the void of a new marketplace with lots of questions and answers before the people come along. Now, focus on one niche at a time, as you put the systems in place and create a buzz around your free service.
5. Build emotional momentum before asking people to exert themselves.
There’s a nice big orange button at the top right of each page asking “Are you a lawyer?” which leads to a simple pitch, where you are trying to recruit new lawyers to join the service.
The background image is the same as the homepage, which is targeted at consumers, not Lawyers. So I’d change it to a different one.
The pitch is simple and straight forward – join the service for free. We’ll send you the questions that people in your area submit to the website. You choose which questions you want to answer and hopefully that progresses into you being hired.
There are no details of the nitty gritty. But at this stage, all you’re looking for is an email address, an expression of interest, so that may be ok. Once you know who’s interested, you can answer any more detailed questions.
But you still have to get Lawyers hooked on the idea and I don’t think you’ve done enough yet.
You’re not offering to send Lawyers qualified leads, you’re sending them unqualified leads. Specifically people looking for free advice. Most lawyers will have tried some form of free advice clinic. Maybe they hold such a session once a week. They will also have some idea of the work involved and what percentage of people looking for advice turn into paying clients.
In short, they know that there is work and effort involved in this way of gaining business.
Can you prove that you have an active flow of enquiries? Regular members of the public asking questions? You need to be able to quantify this, show that there are fish in the pond. Not in theory, in reality.
Very few people like to invest their time, energy or money into new ideas. They wait to see if those ideas will survive on their own. They only jump onboard when your idea is proven.
Which leads to social proof…
You need to prove that your marketplace is being accepted by an excited community. By the public, the press and by other professionals.
Lawyers are a cynical bunch. It’s part of their skill set. And as such, they may need to see lots of other people getting on board, before they are inclined to commit to putting in the effort.
You really can’t go overboard with offering proof, in the form of quotes, testimonials and case studies. These make your virtual idea into a real thing, that real people are benefiting from.
Action: Before expecting people to expend energy on an idea, you need to really get them emotionally motivated. People are cynical. Virtual ideas come and go on a weekly basis. Ground your idea in reality. Prove you have a realistic long-term plan. Prove that real people, the press and their competitors are all jumping on this idea … and they had better too, before they get left behind.
6. Who is your real, real customer?
I have a history in the magazine world and have studied that model in some depth. When people walk into their newsagents or supermarket and browse the magazines on the rack, they believe that they are the customer. As the customer, there is a certain expectation that the magazine has their best interests in mind.
This isn’t true. For most magazines, in fact most media, the real customer is the advertiser. The media works in their interest, above and beyond that of the consumer. The “cover price” of a magazine, is really the price of covering the editing, printing, packaging and delivery of a book full of advertisements.
As I dig down through this website, I end up having selected a local Lawyer. It raises two questions. Questions which I’m not sure I have an answer for, but I think may need more thinking about.
Look at things from the user’s point of view.
The first question is, as a consumer, let’s say I get 5 possible results from your database. How do I evaluate which solicitor to choose?
As a business, I believe it’s your intention to generate revenue from the Lawyer side of this marketplace. To charge them some fee or percentage of transactions through your site, right?
Then look at things from your “sponsors” point of view.
In that case, your real customer is the Lawyer. So the flip question is, as a Lawyer, how do you make me look the most attractive to consumers?
Right now, I don’t see that mechanism in place. Because there are no live questions, I can’t judge Lawyers by the quality of their answers.
I also can’t judge Lawyers by how they are pitching themselves. Because I don’t see any sort of introduction or pitch. The only real information I have is their headshot.
You do have a review system, which doesn’t seem connected to questions they’ve answered. It’s simply open to public reviews. This could be problematic.
Look at how people really behave, not how you would like them to behave.
Public review systems are open to all sorts of mischief. You really need a LOT of people using them, to balance out the negativity and tricks that the unscrupulous (lots of people) will resort to.
It’s really hard to get so many people using your site that those reviews will be balanced and fair. And if they aren’t balanced and fair, your Lawyers (your real customers) aren’t going to want to keep adding value to this marketplace. They will quickly write it off, because their rating isn’t directly linked to their effort.
So I’d seriously consider whether you want to be allowing people to review Lawyers in this way – for their general performance.
If there is to be any reviewing / rating system, I’d consider limiting it to the quality of the questions which they proactively submit, or questions they answer from the public. Then, within your system, they are getting clear feedback, their value is being measured more fairly to their input, and they should be more motivated to continue contributing.
As a consumer I want to find a Lawyer who is in my area, who (let’s be honest) I like the look of, and who specialises in my field. Who can present a basic pitch of himself. And, as per the main purpose of this site, I want to scan questions that he / she has previously answered. I want to determine if this Lawyer speaks a language I can understand. And I want enough information to feel like I can trust them with my problems and my money.
How are you measuring success, right from the outset?
Finally, I see no actual transaction point at the end of this process. I seem to be left to call the solicitor directly. If this is the case, how are you measuring leads and effectiveness, for yourself or them? How are you going to bill anyone? How are you going to generate revenue?
Action: Seriously look at the downside of an open reviewing system. Consider how many active users you need to make such a system not just viable, but a positive benefit to both parties. Especially your real customers. Make it easier for your Lawyers to pitch themselves, and allow customers to reward them for the effort of answering questions. Make questions they have submitted or answered visible on their profile. And control the final transaction / communication.
Summary
I see so much great work and effort has gone into this site so far. The information architecture is sound. The copywriting is sound. The design is pleasant. The real battle for this business isn’t online, it’s offline. Promoting within each niche with enough force, for long enough, to get the ball rolling and create social proof. Ease Lawyers in by asking them to propose and answer questions to make their profile more visible. Ask people to rate Lawyers based only on the quality of their answers. And control the final transaction. Stay the course, see it through, make your mark!