I get it. The two reasons you don’t have an email newsletter or blog or, if you do, you don’t write or post very often:
You don’t have enough to write about, and/or, you don’t have the time to do it.
I say you do. I say you have plenty to write about, way more than you realize, and you have more than enough time to do it.
Give me a chance to prove it.
Set up a new notebook or file for this email/blog project, open a page and label it “ideas”. If you have any that come to mind, write them down. If you have other files with blog post or content ideas you’ve collected, add them to your new file.
Go through your hard drive, reading list, saved article files, and do the same.
Next, write down the questions prospective clients and new clients typically ask you–about the law, procedure or process, about their legal rights and options, about what you can do to help them.
You should be able to quickly write down ten or twenty questions.
If you find yourself running short, visit some online forums where people post questions for attorneys to answer, and see what’s being asked.
You can also visit article directories, other attorney’s blogs, and websites that feature legal content and see what visitors are asking in the comments. You can search your keywords on social media and see what people are talking about.
Okay, that’s enough for now. More than enough, actually. You should now have enough ideas to keep you busy for the next several years.
Will you have the time to use those ideas? Let’s find out.
Go through your idea list and pick one. It doesn’t matter what it is, just pick something you have an opinion on or experience with, or something that interests you that you think might interest others.
Now, write down three words or phrases related to that idea.
If you’re a personal injury attorney and you’ve chosen to write a response to the question, “How much is my case worth?” your three words might be, “damages, liability, and insurance,” for example.
Next, take your idea and your key words, set a timer for five minutes and start writing. You can type or use a pen or dictate but don’t stop writing (or talking) until the five minutes is up.
Don’t edit, don’t worry about grammar or punctuation, don’t slow down or stop. Just keep pushing your pen or pounding the keys.
For. Five. Whole. Minutes.
I don’t care how busy you are, you can write for five minutes.
When you’re done, you probably learned that
- You have a lot to say about certain subjects
- You can get a lot of words on a page in five minutes
- You wind up with a mess but it’s not as bad as you thought
At least that’s what I found out the first time I did this exercise.
You now have the first draft of an email or blog post or article. Put it aside and re-write or edit it later. When you’re done, you should have a few hundred words, enough for a blog post or email.
Then, tomorrow, or next week at this time, do it again. Pick another idea, write down three words, write for five minutes, edit later.
Continue doing this until you have at least ten posts or emails.
Now it’s time to decide what to do with them.
You could start a blog. You’ll have ten weeks (or days) worth of material to post.
You could start a newsletter. You’ll have ten emails to load into your autoresponder.
Or you can gather up what you’ve written and turn them into an ebook or report.
The point is, you now know you can do this. You can write something in 30 minutes or less, including editing. (Okay, it might take longer at first but you’ll get faster.)
The only remaining question is, “Should you?” Will it be worth it for you to write something once or twice a week and post or email it? Will it bring in business?
There’s only one way to find out.
For more ideas, and more ways to get ideas, get this
