I received a Technolawyer e-newsletter promoting an article, by Lee Rosen, revealing the secret to charging flat legal fees. The secret is to make your fixed expenses variable. One of the expenses suggested to be changed to variable is marketing and ostensibly, advertising.

The article stated: “Now we’ve achieved variability on our marketing expenses. We have no contracts related to marketing. We can start or stop our marketing on a moment’s notice with no penalty. It’s quick and easy.”

While it can be advantageous to have variable expenses, decreasing marketing expenses when revenue is going down is a disastrous idea.  This will reduce revenue even further both now and in the future.

Reducing your advertising and marketing budget will cause your law firm (or any business) to fall further behind and allow your competitors to gain a substantial advantage.  When revenue increases, you will have to start all over again.  Additionally, all previous work and investment in branding will have been for nothing.  In a bad economy, this is precisely the time to take advantage of lower marketing costs.