Archives for August 2011

“What can I do in the next two minutes to grow my law practice?”

August 31, 2011 by
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I know, you’re busy. I also know you have lots of ideas for getting more clients and increasing your income that you aren’t doing. You’re so busy with work, there’s no time for anything else. But actually, there is.

It’s called, ‘marketing in the moment”.

It doesn’t require you to set aside a half day, a weekend, or even an hour to work on marketing projects. Marketing in the moment means taking advantage of the little snippets of time we all have throughout the day to do the “little things” that, in the aggregate, help your practice grow.

The idea is simple (as all great ideas are). Throughout the day, as often as you can, ask yourself, “What can I do in the next two minutes to grow my practice?”

There are lots of things you can do in two minutes. You can

  • Call a client to ask if he knows about your new Facebook fan page
  • Send an email to a prospective referral source
  • Review your notes for your upcoming speech
  • Jot down some thoughts for an article
  • Brainstorm ideas for a new report or seminar
  • Write a list of new key words for your web site
  • Check in with someone who’s working on a project for you
  • Check out a competitors web site
  • Read the comments on a book you’ve been thinking about ordering
  • Read another article on this blog

Periodically throughout your day, between phone calls, while you’re driving, while you’re eating lunch, or whenever you think about it, pause and ask yourself, “What can I do in the next two minutes to grow my practice?” (You may want to write the question on a sticky note or index card and put it where you can see it.)

You’re asking your subconscious mind, of course, and it won’t disappoint you. While you’ve been working and sleeping and doing all the things you do, your subconscious mind has been working on your ideas and coming up with new ones, and, because you asked, it will deliver those ideas to you in bite-sized, two minute chunks.

You’ll remember people you may not have thought about and you’ll call them or email them. You’ll open your bookmarks and see a web site you’ve been meaning to look at. You’ll jot down ideas for your newsletter or blog. You’ll do a lot of things you may never have done had you not asked that question.

Try it. Ask yourself that question right now. Then go do it.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A simple marketing plan for attorneys

August 30, 2011 by
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Yesterday, I said there are two mistakes lawyers make in marketing their services: not having a plan and not executing that plan. Today, I want to help you create a simple marketing plan for your law practice.

Why simple? Because if it’s not simple, you won’t do it.

Forget complicated. Forget long term. A simple plan has a few steps and a short time frame–this month, this week, today. You can create this plan in a few minutes; you can execute the plan a few minutes a day. Short, sweet, do-able. Baby steps, followed by more baby steps.

Most plans are overwhelming. Pages of tasks and sub-tasks, market research, resources, footnotes. A simple plan fits on a sticky note.

So let’s get to it. Let’s create a simple plan and let’s use a magic number: three. Three things. Not seven or seventeen, just three. Why three? Because you can remember three things. You won’t even need a sticky note.

We’ll start with some objectives:

  • Three new clients a month
  • Three prospects a week
  • Three actions a day

Your goal is three new clients a month. (Feel free to adjust these numbers for your practice.) In order to get them, you’re going to get three prospects each week. In order to do that, you’re going to perform three marketing-related activities each day.

So far so good. Easy peezy.

Now, let’s brainstorm some ideas. Write down your ideas–this is not your plan, it is thinking on paper which will help you create your plan.

NEW CLIENTS

There are different kinds of “new clients”:

  • Never hired you before
  • Former clients who hire you again
  • Existing clients with new engagements

Choose one. Let’s say, “never hired you before.”

PROSPECTS

Let’s define a prospect as someone who looks at some information: a brochure, a web page, an ad, a recorded seminar–something that lets them see what you can do for them. Let’s say you’ve written a report on a subject of interest to your target market. Your objective for the week is to get your report into the hands of three people who have never hired you.

Again, simple, and do-able.

ACTIONS

There are many ways to get information into the hands of a prospect. You can do that via

  • Phone
  • Email
  • Social media
  • Advertising
  • Snail mail
  • In person
  • Articles
  • Speaking
  • Etc.

Let’s use your existing network of clients and professional contacts as the conduit for distributing your report and phone and email to do that. So, here are your action steps, in preparation for executing your plan:

  1. Write a report.
  2. Make a list of clients, former clients, and professionals you can contact.
  3. Calendar 15 minutes a day for calls.

Now, here’s your plan:

  1. Monday through Friday, between 3pm and 3:15pm, I will call three people on my list.
  2. I will tell them about my report, confirm their email, and tell them I’m sending the report to them.
  3. I will ask them to forward the report to people they know who might be interested in reading it.

A simple plan. One you can do. One you will do. And one that will work.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Do you make these mistakes in marketing your law practice?

August 29, 2011 by
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There are two mistakes you can make in marketing your law practice and unfortunately, most attorneys are guilty of both.

What are the two mistakes?

  1. Not having a marketing plan, and
  2. Not executing that plan.

As a result, most attorneys don’t do any marketing, at least not with any consistency. Let’s face it, if you don’t have a plan–a list of projects and tasks and a schedule for completing them–any marketing activities you do will be sporadic and isolated. You’ll never generate momentum or sustained growth.

Having a cool web site (or any web site)  may be good for your ego but if you don’t have any traffic to it, that’s all it will be. Traffic doesn’t happen by itself. You need a plan and you need some activity or that traffic will never materialize.

Don’t get down on yourself. The problem isn’t you. It’s not a lack of self-discipline, poor organization, or bad habits. You aren’t lazy and you don’t need to get motivated. What you need is a better plan.

You need a plan that is

  1. Simple (so you can do it), and
  2. A good fit (so you want to do it).

If you want to do something and you believe you can do it, you will do it. You won’t have to force yourself to do things you don’t want to do, you’ll do it because you enjoy it.

In his remarks to the 2005 Stanford graduating class, Steve Jobs said, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” A friend of mine puts it this way: “When you love what you do and do you what you love you’ll never work another day in your life.”

If you don’t enjoy being a lawyer, common sense says to either change careers or find some aspect of practicing law you do enjoy. That might mean a different practice area, different clients, or a job with a different firm. If you don’t, you’ll never be happy and you’ll never do “great work.” The same can be said for marketing.

The good news is that there are lots of ways to market legal services and you only need one or two. You don’t have to be good at networking AND writing AND seminars AND getting web traffic AND social media AND referrals. Pick something that sounds good to you or feels right. For once in your career, put logic aside and listen to your gut.

Maybe nothing feels right or maybe you don’t know enough yet about the different options. That’s okay. Make no decisions, take a step back and simply learn. Read, observe, see what others are doing. Soak it all in and eventually, you’ll find something that’s a good fit.

And then, you need a plan. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Inspiration, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Steve Jobs’ prescription for success and happiness–in his own words

August 27, 2011 by
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In 2005, Steve Jobs addressed the graduating class at Stanford University. I’d never heard his remarks before today, but I’m glad I took 15 minutes this morning to watch this video. Jobs tells three stories, taken from his life experience, to communicate a simple but powerful message. It is one of the most insightful and motivating speeches I’ve ever heard. In light of his recent resignation, ostensibly for health reasons, it is also one of the most moving.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Here is a transcript of his remarks.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Inspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The one thing you need to know about success

August 26, 2011 by
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When I’m asked to recommend good books on business or personal development I usually include Marcus Buckingham’s “The One Thing You Need to Know. . . About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success.” Based on his empirical studies, Buckingham reveals the “secret” to success: “Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it.”

In doing so, you make room for doing what you do like doing:

“The most successful people sculpt their jobs so that they spend a disproportionate amount of time doing what they love. . . . The secret to sustained success lies in knowing which [activities] engage your strengths and which do not and in having the self-discipline to reject the latter.”

Another book, based on a groundbreaking study by famous psychologist, Walter Mischel, presents a different perspective and an actual way to predict success. “Don’t Eat The Marshmallow Yet,” describes a study of a group of four year olds who were presented with a marshmallow. They were told if they could wait 20 minutes before eating it, they would get a second marshmallow, but if they eat it now, it would be the only marshmallow they get.

Some kids were able to wait, others couldn’t resist.

The researchers studied the kids for many years after the initial experiment and found that the kids who were able to delay their gratification and wait 20 minutes to get a second marshmallow were much more successful in all areas of their life.

The differences in results as the kids grew older were startling. The ones who could delay gratification had better social lives, were more intellectual, better off financially, and happier.

The co-author, Joachim De Posada, describes the experiment (and shows us some adorable “test subjects”) in this video:

So if success comes from doing what you want (and avoiding what you don’t) and what you want is to eat the marshmallow now (and not wait 20 minutes), don’t these two conclusions contradict each other?

I don’t think so.

I define success in terms of happiness; the happier you are, the more successful you are. When you know you are on the right path, doing what you enjoy, going where you want to go, you are happy, even though you are not yet experiencing all of the fruits of your labor. In fact, I would argue that delaying gratification actually enhances your joy because success isn’t in the destination, it’s in the journey.

When you imagine what your life will be like a few years from now and the picture in your mind is pleasurable, you can be just as happy now imagining your future as you will be when that future arrives.

So they are both right. In doing what you want to do you enjoy the present and you are also excited about the future. You don’t mind waiting for that future to come because you know it’s coming (and you enjoy thinking about that) and, more importantly, you’re having fun right now.

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Filed Under: Book review, Inspiration, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Steve Jobs’ resignation: what it means for your law practice

August 25, 2011 by
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Steve Jobs’ abrupt resignation yesterday had social media buzzing about the news and what it means for Apple (which saw its stock immediately drop, and then rebound) and for the tech world. Every news channel and blog had something to say and the tweets and wall posts abounded.

But what does his resignation mean for attorneys? How will this affect your law practice?

Well, unless you work for Apple or one of their affiliates, it won’t affect your practice at all.

So. . . why the tease? Was my headline a gimmick to get more clicks?

Well, yes and no.

It’s true that I don’t have anything to say about how this news story will actually affect your practice, and while that smacks of gimmickry, there is a lesson in this.

The headline that brought you here illustrates an important marketing technique: tying your message–blog post, tweet, post, email–to something already on the minds of your readers or followers. According to a new Kindle ebook by Dan Zarrella, about the science and metrics behind social media, this is called “priming”. Zarrella says,

“If a subject is exposed to something related to your idea before he actually encounters your idea, he’ll be more sensitive to it, and this makes it easier to catch his attention. . . .

“The easiest way to make priming work for your idea is to create timely content. If there is a topic or news story currently making the rounds in your target audience, relate your idea to that topic, and the zeitgeist will do the priming for you.”

And so, primed as you were by the news of Jobs’ resignation, you were more inclined to click through to read this story. Yes, I cheated a bit with my headline and yes, it would have been better if I had something to say about how the resignation affected the legal profession, but then this would have been a very different blog post.

Zarrella’s book is brief, not at all dry, and has some great insights and data, such as the most and least re-tweetable words and the best times and days to tweet, blog, post to Facebbok, and send email. “In many cases, the most effective times to send are the less popular times. Because your messages have less clutter to compete with, they break through.”

Zarrella also says that people share on social media not for altruistic reasons but because the information they share reinforces their reputation. People prefer to share breaking news, for example, because it is scarce, rather than humor or opinion which is all too common.

Some might say that putting news in your headlines to piggyback on what’s already on the minds of your readers isn’t a new idea, and they would be right. I’m sure this post, with the headline, “Man Accidentally Impregnates Goat,” is getting lots of traffic. Like my post, the lesson is in the headline, not the story. (Be sure to download the free ebook he mentions, “How to Write Headlines That go Viral with Social Media”.)

So, not a new concept. What’s new is that now, social media metrics let us quantify what we always suspected, while leading us to discover ideas that never crossed our minds.

Zarrella’s book is also free, through August 27.

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Filed Under: Book review, Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The two reasons attorneys don’t get more referrals

August 24, 2011 by
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If you’re not getting as many referrals as you want, there are only two reasons. Either you don’t deserve them or you don’t ask for them.

Lawyers who get referrals are competent, of course, but competency doesn’t make you referral-worthy; you need more. To deserve referrals, you must also

  • Deliver good value,
  • Excel at “customer service”,
  • Give more than is expected, or asked,
  • Show gratitude, and
  • Be likable

Lawyers who do and are these things have clients who are not only willing to refer, they go out of their way to do so. When you give people more than they expect, the “law of reciprocity” compels them to give back. When you deserve referrals, the world responds by delivering them.

If you deserve referrals, you can get more by asking. The best time to do that is at the end of a case or engagement, when you are delivering the check or the final papers, when the client is feeling good about the outcome. But asking is not limited to opening your mouth and “asking”. There are many ways to ask for referrals:

  • You can ask in your newsletter, on your web site, or with a sign in your waiting room
  • You can tell stories that mention clients who were referred to you and how much you appreciate the client who referred them
  • You can ask clients to “Like” your page or forward your email to their friends
  • You can have your employees call and ask for you

Attorneys who ask for referrals get more referrals. But only if they deserve them.

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Filed Under: Referrals Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Seven steps to better delegating for overworked attorneys

August 23, 2011 by
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Attorneys, especially sole practitioners, are often poor at delegating. “Nobody can do it as well as I can,” they say, and that’s not ego talking, it’s usually true.

There is risk in giving a task to someone who might not do it as well as you or might not get it done on time, but delegating is essential to the growth of a law practice. Delegating gives you leverage and leverage helps you to earn more and work less.

To get better results when you delegate, follow these seven steps:

  1. Give specific instructions. Describe what you want done in sufficient detail, in writing if possible. If instructions are given orally, ask them to be repeated back to you. Tell them to ask questions if they don’t understand.
  2. Give objectives, not procedures. Tell them what you want done, not how. If you’ve chosen the right person for the job, trust them to get the job done. Guide them, don’t micro-manage them.
  3. Tell them why. They’ll do a better job when they are invested in the outcome instead of just carrying out orders so explain why the task is important. And, if you give them more than one task at a time, tell them the relative importance of each.
  4. Give a due date (and time). Due dates help them to know what is expected and allow them to prioritize their work flow.
  5. Equip and empower them. Make sure they have what they need to get the job done–tools, a budget, assistance–and the authority to decide what to do. Don’t make them come back to you with every little decision.
  6. Offer incentives. If you have an especially valuable project, you might want to offer something for getting it done early or with a better outcome. A day off, dinner for two for them and their spouse, a cash bonus, all work well.
  7. Give praise. When they do a good job, thank them (even though they were doing their job) and praise them. Let them know you are pleased and they’ll want to do a good job for you next time.
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Filed Under: Leverage, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Zen of Attorney Marketing: Quietly Building a Successful Law Practice

August 22, 2011 by
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What if you could build a successful law practice quietly–without shouting your message but by letting your message be heard, without trying to find clients but by letting clients find you?

In my father’s day, attorneys didn’t do any marketing. Oh, they did a little networking or public speaking or they wrote the occasional article, but they did these things because they naturally flowed from what they were doing in their practice. They didn’t attend a bar meeting because they were “marketing”; they went because they enjoyed being there, catching up with their friends, and learning some things they could use in their practice.

It’s different today. Not because there is more competition, higher overhead, or a faster paced world. Yes, the world is much more complex than it was fifty years ago when my father started practicing, or thirty years ago when I did, or even fifteen years ago, before everyone had broad band and smart phones. But our world is not different so much because of those things but because we make it so.

We run and push and struggle because we’ve bought into the notion that to be successful, we have to shout louder, promote harder, and spend bigger. We advertise or jump on board the latest social media concept, not because it feels natural, not for the joy of doing it, but because we fear being left behind.

Is the effort worth it? We might bring in more clients but are we any happier? Too often, the answer is “no”.

How do we get back to the way it used to be when a lawyer’s practice grew naturally? By getting out of your own way and letting things happen, instead of constantly trying to make them happen.

It starts with letting go of assumptions that don’t serve us and realizing that marketing can not only be organic, for sustained success and true contentment, it must be. Marketing can never be something you loathe or feel like you “have to do.” It cannot be something you do, it must be an expression of who you are.

Leo Babauta, who writes the Zen Habits blog, reminds us that sustained success and contentment don’t come from following the herd or from doing things you resist doing but feel you must, they come from delivering value, something my father didn’t need to read, he just did.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Inspiration, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Feeling down? Don’t give up. Just don’t.

August 20, 2011 by
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Someone reading this post is in a bad place. Things have been rough for them and they’re ready to give up. If that’s you, please listen to this song by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. (You may need to click through to watch it on Youtube). It’s a simple message but you need to hear it.

If you’re okay, you might want to listen anyway–it’s a great song by two virtuosi.

[mc src=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl1rRxG251s&feature=player_embedded” type=”youtube”]Don’t give up–Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush[/mc]

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Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With: , , , , ,
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