Brand Discovery - Mary Ellen O'Connor

IDEA TO IMPLEMENTATION

How To Reposition Yourself In Your Market for More Powerful Outcomes Part 3 of 4: Mary Ellen O’Connor By Kia Arian Grab your coffee and prepare to read the stories of four Zine clients who made small but mighty changes to their brand message. They repositioned themselves in their marketplace and increased their value, their authority, and their fees. Client: Mary Ellen O’Connor Mary Ellen is a successful workers’ compensation and social security disability attorney in New York. She is a no-nonsense, hard-working attorney who started out representing insurance companies against workers’ comp claims. When she had had enough of their shady tactics and dishonest methods to deny legitimate claims, she opened her own law firm to help the other side – the injured workers who needed help. When it was time to create her website, she partnered with a company that took the lead for what her website should look like and what it should say. She trusted they knew what they were doing, they’re the experts, after all, and she let them lead the way. According to Mary Ellen, after one year, she got exactly zero leads from her website. She updated her website again and changed the design and the message to look beautiful, modern, and successful. The message that is displayed front and center on her beautiful website:

The Insurance Company Has a Legal Team. Why Don’t You? Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Clever. Powerful. Cool.

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HOW TO REPOSITION YOURSELF IN YOUR MARKET

10 Important Things to Know About Your Workers’ Compensation Case Restoring Your Life and Livelihood ™

Mary Ellen O’Connor Attorney

1 If you plan on returning to work in any capacity, you must inform our office prior to returning to work. If you had, or have, a second job, or own any businesses, you must also inform us immediately. Why this is important: Failing to notify us may be seen as misrepresentation and can lead to complications or reduction in your benefits. It also allows us to update your claim and work status with the workers’ compensation board.

2 If you are out of work as a result of this accident, you must see a Doctor coded by the Workers ’ Compensation Board every 60 days, the Doctor must indicate your degree of disability. Why this is important: It documents the progression of your injury and its impact on your ability to work. Regular medical updates ensure your claim remains active and your benefits continue.

3 If you are out of work for at least 6 months and anticipate being out of work more than a year, contact our office as you may be eligible for Social Security Disability. Why this is important: You could qualify for additional benefits that can aid you financially in the long term.

4 If your Doctor gives a partial disability and you are unable to return to your job, you may be required to look for work within your medical restrictions. Why this is important: This shows your willingness to work within your capabilities. It can affect the status of your benefits, ensuring that you are receiving the correct amount based on your current working ability.

Call 929-470-2225

Mary Ellen O’Connor’s new tagline is short, simple, clear and exactly what her target market needs to hear. It identifies who she helps, and the result they are looking for. It doesn’t try to be clever and cool.

Except would her target market…a blue-collar city worker or construction worker…know why they should care about that? It sure sounds important. But what does it mean? It assumes these regular folk know something about the law, the legal process, and shady insurance companies. They probably don’t. And they may be feeling bad that they don’t know better, didn’t act sooner, or made a mistake. Like most attorneys, she made significant investments in building her website. Though she received a handful of leads and a couple of cases, it was not the ROI she expected.

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HOW TO REPOSITION YOURSELF IN YOUR MARKET

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Let me stop here for a quick side note… Every entrepreneur who thinks expansively, takes big risks for big returns, and wants to scale and create a dream business will, at some point, lose money at the hands of “trusted” vendors and partners who utterly fail them. Some will lose more, some less. It sucks, but it is a fact of entrepreneurial life. You can learn from it and move on, or you can stay frustrated and shrink back. To her credit, Mary Ellen didn’t shrink back but decided to go back to the basics. To create her own content, do what is meaningful for her, and reconnect with the people she’d done business with and enjoyed doing business with–her past clients, referral sources, and other attorneys. She joined Zine’s Raving Clients Growth Program, which starts with the Brand Discovery Intensive. We dissected her existing message, market, and value drivers. And then walked through rebuilding it. Her new tagline: O’Connor Law Helps New York City and State Workers Injured on the Job Get Their Lives Back Fast. Short, simple, clear, and exactly what her target market needs to hear. It identifies who she helps and the result they are looking for. It doesn’t try to be clever and cool. Simple + Clear = Powerful. Humans crave simplicity. Yet ironically, we are wired to complicate things. We think the more complex, the more important and valuable it is. In our practices, we create fancy processes and products to give the appearance of value. The problem is that your market’s needs, pains, and desires are not complicated. They are mostly straightforward. The value isn’t in how you solve it. It is in first identifying it. It’s what makes the connection with your market and opens them up to your solution. — Next month I’ll share the last installment of an Estate Planning and Elder Care attorney who wanted to niche his practice for dementia care. Meanwhile, if you would like more information about how to reposition yourself in your market, visit www.BrandDiscoveryProcess.com or scan the code. KIA ARIAN is the CEO and Founder of Zine, a successful marketing and design agency in the Washington D.C. area. They help attorneys, advisors, and professionals build growth-focused lead nurture and conversion campaigns. This is done with results-driven newsletters, postcards, shock & awe marketing and other authority-building print campaigns from concept to design to implementation and fulfillment. Learn more about Kia at zinegraphics.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay in touch. Request a Vision Discovery Call to see how Zine can help you create raving clients that love you, stay with you, and refer others to you.

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