I'm trying to build my brand. I am an attorney and I have a solo practice. Do you have any advice?

I’m trying to build my brand. I am an attorney and I have a solo practice (felicellolaw.com). Do you have any advice? –@rfelicello

How can you stand out in any industry? In any service? Particularly when you are a one-person service? There are many answers so I’ll give a few.

– Give for free. Set up a blog and start answering legal questions that are common.

– Advertise cheaply online, “I will answer legal questions for free” and then blog about the questions and answers. Why free? Give and you will receive should be your mantra right now. The more you give of yourself to the profession, to the people you want to help, the more returns you will have in the future.

– One problem many people have is that very basic legal documents cost $1000s of dollars if you get them from a lawyer. One time I was starting up a fund. I took my old legal docs from another fund and modified them. My lawyer was OUTRAGED. He had charged me $30k for those documents and wanted to charge me again. I told him I spent the first $30k which means I OWNED them. He didn’t fight back. But why don’t you get basic legal docs (will, divorce, fund, whatever) and give them away for free on your website. And advertise that you are doing so.

Won’t people just take from you then and never use you? Of course not! It’s more than just a document to write a will. People will realize that. Then they will call you and trust you because they know they have already been getting value from you.

Search twitter for people asking legal questions. Tweet the answers back for free to them. Eventually hold a Legal Question Q&A on Twitter.

Guest post on other legal blogs. If you can’t guest post, then put comments every day on every legal blog you can find. At least ten comments a day. And update your blog every day.

Do all of this and you will find your brand building bigger than you thought could be possible and you will be turning away business.