These are volatile times -- clients are consolidating and going bankrupt, law firms are de-equitizing and laying off lawyers, and stock portfolios are plummeting. However, volatile doesn't make it a bad time to market. In fact, not only can you maintain your book of business despite the bad news, you can actually *grow* your book of business if you take the right approach.

Here's what to do:

1. Continue to market consistently. Marketing works -- in good times and bad. If times are slow, use that "found time" to increase your marketing efforts. Stay in touch. Provide value. Learn about needs.

Don't be afraid to remind clients and prospects that you would love to have the opportunity to work with them; that's good marketing, not desperation.

Warning: Don't let your anxiety sap your confidence. When you aren't feeling as confident as usual, look for ways to bolster your confidence before getting in touch with clients. For example, review the file that contains all those congratulatory notes and e-mails for a job well done that clients have sent you over the years. (You have one of those files, don't you? If not, now is the time to start one.) Review all the matters that you have handled successfully and the great results you've gotten for clients in the past.

2. Focus on your past and current clients. Even in good times, 80 percent of all new work comes from past or existing clients. It takes about eight times as much effort to land a new client as it does to get a new matter from an existing client.

In these times, when matters may be harder to come by, it only makes sense to focus your marketing where it is likely to have the greatest impact. Need some ideas on how to take great care of your current clients? See my previous article "Treat Your Existing Clients Like Gold" [ http://clientfocus.net/ezines/125-existing-clients.htm ].

3. Dwell on what you can control. You can't control the stock market or the regulators' response to the credit crunch, but you can control the quality of client service that you provide. Checking the Dow every hour is just a distraction from the good client service that has built your reputation as an excellent lawyer.

Instead of letting worry sap your energy, put your energies into figuring out ways you can add value in the services you provide.

4. Remember it's about them, not you. Of course you're concerned about your future. Who isn't? But now is the time to forget your own anxiety and instead think about your clients. As I advise my clients when they are faced with the prospect of their largest clients being sold or the general counsel of their most important clients getting fired: Forget your concerns, focus on them.

Ask clients how they are doing. Ask what you can do to help them get through this rough spot. Take them out to lunch and let them vent. For those clients who've lost jobs, offer to help them find new ones. Be sincere about this. It's not a marketing ploy. It is good client service.

When things pick up, your clients will remember that you were there for them in good times and in bad. Their trust in you will have strengthened, and regardless of whether they remain at their current companies or move on to new ones, you will have cemented your relationships with them.

Warning: You'll notice that I'm not suggesting you view their misfortune as a marketing opportunity. If you currently do transactional work for a company in the regulators' crosshairs, don't see this as a golden opportunity to pitch your white-collar defense practice. You'll be viewed (and rightly so) as an opportunistic vulture. An opportunity to provide legal services may come as a natural outgrowth of your sincere interest in helping them, but it shouldn't be your focus.

5. Don't be flashy. In the best of times, clients sometimes feel that lawyers are overpaid. In these treacherous times, they don't need to be reminded of it. Now is not the time for the Jimmy Choo marketing event for your clients or tales about your new beachfront vacation home.

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Use this tumultuous time to provide more value and deepen current relationships. By capitalizing on this opportunity, you'll be positioning yourself both today and in the future as the lawyer of choice.