David M. Ward, Author at The Attorney Marketing Center

I feel good. I knew that I would, now

November 19, 2018 by David M. Ward

Albert Schweitzer said: â€œSuccess is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.â€

Actually, science says he’s right. By mapping the brain to identify dopamine production they found that pleasure results in greater productivity.

When you feel good about what you’re doing, you give it more energy. You work harder and get better results.

Are there exceptions? Sure. In the short term, you can make a lot of money doing something you detest. But it catches up with you in terms of poor health, failed relationships, and other negative consequences. So you wind up with money but you’re still not happy.

Why not start with happy and have both?

Stop looking at happiness as the end result or an added bonus and start seeing it as the pathway to success.

Most lawyers who aren’t happy suck it up and continue working until they have enough money, contacts, and ideas to retire or go with plan B.

Some make it. Some don’t.

How about this:Â If you don’t love what you’re doing, change something–your practice area, partner, job, or methods. Find different clients. Adopt different marketing strategies. Compartmentalize your work so can focus on the parts of your practice you enjoy and delegate or automate the rest.

Because success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.

Get more referrals so you can hire more help and let them do the things you don’t like

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Inspiration, Productivity

What are your three things?

November 16, 2018 by David M. Ward

“Perhaps the most important personal productivity tool ever discovered is what we call the â€œLaw of Three.â€ This law says that 90% of all of your results and eventually, your income, come from only three of your daily activities.”

So says Brian Tracy in a post on his blog.

In 80/20 parlance, those three activities are your “vital few”–20% activities that deliver 80% of your results.

And they’re different for everyone.

Tracy used sales managers as an example. He says their three things are recruiting, training and managing.

So, what are your three things?

Of all the things you do in your practice, what three activities create the most value?

Focus on those three things. Do more of them, get better at them, and you should be able to increase your income at an accelerated rate.

You may also find that you can let go of a lot of things that aren’t your top three. This will give you more time (and energy) for your top three activities, allowing you to compound your results.

But don’t stop there.

Once you’ve done this exercise and found your three activities, do the same exercise for each of those three.

If one of your 20% activities is litigation, for example, identify the top three activities that make you better or more successful at it.

If one of your top three activities is marketing (and if it’s not, what’s up wit dat?), make a list of all of the marketing activities you do and from that list, choose your top three.

Which marketing activity brings in the most clients? Which produces your best clients? Which activity do you do best and want to do more?

Focus your marketing on those three things and consider letting go of or doing less of everything else.

You’ll thank me later.

One of my top three: client referrals

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Productivity Tagged With: 80/20 principle, brian tracy

How to finish what you start

November 15, 2018 by David M. Ward

You know that business project you started last year and never finished? That great idea that had the potential to multiply your income or significantly change your life?

Yeah, me too.

We’re good at coming up with ideas and starting things, aren’t we? Why aren’t we good at finishing them?

Lots of reasons. Fear is a biggie.

But rather than psychoanalyze ourselves, we’re better served figuring out what to do about it.

How can we finish more of the things we start?

One of the best solutions I’ve found is to make sure you have some skin in the game.

Put your reputation or your money on the line so that you are compelled to finish. Let fear work for you instead of against you.

Investing a lot of money into a goal creates an emotional commitment to the goal. Your fear of losing your investment will push you to see it through.

Sign up for a class and get someone to take it with you. They’ll hold you accountable to show up when you might otherwise find excuses to quit.

Announce your project to your email list, friends, or colleagues, and promise to provide regular updates. When you find yourself slacking off, you’ll remember that you’re going to have to explain yourself and pick up the pace.

Projects are easy to start and just as easy to abandon. As Jim Rohn put it, “What’s easy to do is also easy to not do”.

Get some skin in the game and make it not so easy to not do.

A simple way to get a lot more referrals

Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity

My favorite productivity technique (this week)

November 13, 2018 by David M. Ward

Of all the productivity techniques I use and talk about, one stands out as my favorite. I use it when I’m feeling overwhelmed by a project and don’t know what to do. I use it when I’m procrastinating, can’t focus, or I want to give up and go play.

It’s nothing new. Nothing I haven’t talked about before. It’s just something I use a lot when I feel stuck.

I used it recently with my Evernote account. (I just passed 10,000 notes, thank you, and revamped everything. I’ll talk about that later.)

Anyway, I’m calling this technique “going micro” and it has two elements.

The first element is to continually break things up into progressively smaller and smaller parts or steps until I find one that’s so small, I can’t NOT do it.

This is key. If you’re balking at updating your website, for example, pick a first task that’s so small it doesn’t feel like work.

That small first step might be gathering up all your notes on the subject and putting them in one place. I did that recently with a new project. It’s big and daunting and my eyes glaze over when I think about everything I have to do.

Break things up into tiny Kindergarten-simple action steps.

My first step was to put 107 notes about the project in a (temporary) new notebook. Small step, big victory. The project has begun.

My next step, also something so small I can’t not do it, is to sort through my notes, tag the important ones, and move the rest back into “gen pop,” i.e., move them back into my Reference notebook.

Easy. Simple. Done.

Next, I’ll go through the newly tagged important notes and make a “Master Project Note,” describing the project and listing all of the “Next Actions.”

You can bet that those next actions will also be small.

Small steps for the win.

The second element of “going micro” is to work in small increments of time. Five minutes to sort through my notes, for example.

Five minutes is something I can do. And because it’s “only” five minutes, it’s not something I will resist.

When five minutes is up, I might choose to continue working (for another 5 minutes), or do something else. I might choose another task in that project or I might do something fun or frivolous, to reward myself for being a good boy.

By giving yourself permission to stop working after 5 minutes, continuing to work becomes a choice, not a commitment. This lessons resistance and allows us to feel good about what we’re doing.

Anyway, it works for me and it’s my favorite productivity technique this week. Next week? Who knows.

My Evernote for Lawyers ebook

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: avoiding procrastination

Could you use an extra 20 hours a week?

November 12, 2018 by David M. Ward

Ramit Sethi, author of “I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” described his number one productivity “tool” and how it saves him 20 hours a week.

What would you do with an extra 20 hours?

He said he’d tried all the tips and hacks, tools and apps, everyone hears about. Some worked, some stuck, but nothing he tried did more for him than save a few minutes here and there.

“I needed to save more than just a few minutes â€” I needed to free up 2+ hours a day,” he said. “And we all know that working harder isn’t the solution.”

I’m liking where this is going. How about you?

Sethi continued:

The most successful people have something in common: People who can help them â€” a personal trainer, a business coach, a supportive spouse.

I realized I had money but not time â€” and that, with this money, I could “buy back” my time.

That’s when I hired an assistant.

He then details all of the things his assistant does for him. It’s a long list.

As soon as I read this, I thought about how I was at my most productive when I had people working for me. I could power through a big stack of files and get a lot of work out the door in a matter of minutes.

Decide what I want or need. Dictate. Done.

My secretary would type, make calls and take callsÂ and a crap-ton more. It freed me up to do what I do best.

Yep. Delegation. It allowed me to earn more and work less. To work smarter, not harder.

If you don’t have anyone working for you right now, a good place to start is by hiring a virtual assistant. I’ve mentioned before that attorney Gordon Firemark has a VA in the Philippines that costs him a whopping $75 per week and she works for him full-time.

Full friggin time.

She updates his websites, edits videos, posts on his blog, assists with his podcast, and so on, freeing him up to work with clients and marketing. “I get to have dinner with my kids almost every night,” he said.

That’s what I’m talking about.

Marketing is easier when you know The Formula

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: delegation, virtual assistants

What’s the big idea?

November 9, 2018 by David M. Ward

Think big. Act small. That’s the ticket to success.

Thinking big means setting big goals and finding big ideas to achieve them.

If you want to triple your income in the next 12-18 months, you can’t rely on small ideas to help you get there. You need big, hairy, audacious ideas. Things you’ve never done before.Â Things that simultaneously excite you and scare the hell out of you.

Here’s a test to see if you have a good candidate: when you share your idea with someone who cares about you, they either laugh at it or try to talk you out of it. Or both.

(They do this because (a) they don’t want to see you get hurt, or, (b) they don’t want to see you succeed, because your success diminishes them.)

Big goal. Check. Big idea. Check. Now what?

Now you execute. You do the little tasks that advance your idea and move you towards your goal.

We live our lives minute to minute, day to day. The little things we do each minute create momentum towards our goals. It’s the only way we can get there.

You can’t triple your income in the next few minutes but you can do something that moves you forward.

Think big, act small. That’s how you get where you want to go.

What’s your big goal? What’s your big idea? What will you do in the next two minutes?

You can triple your income by bringing in more referrals

Filed Under: Goal Setting, success

Stay in audit mode

November 8, 2018 by David M. Ward

You’ve started something on your list and realize you would rather do something else.

Do it.

It’s your list and you can (and should) re-write it whenever you want.

Sure, you want to get things done. But you have to be flexible about what you do and when you do it. You’re the boss. Don’t fight with your list.

Gary Vaynerchuk said,

People might be surprised by this: Even though I run a $200 million agency, Iâ€™m an obnoxious procrastinator.

But I also get a lot done.

I stay in constant â€œaudit mode.â€ Iâ€™m always leveling up whatâ€™s most important and prioritizing it in real time. Iâ€™m adjusting to the reality of my life in the moment Iâ€™m living it.

Vaynerchuk is a busy guy. He has his finger in a lot of business pies and doesn’t worry about what he’s working on at any given moment.

“As long as Iâ€™m executing on something every single day, I know Iâ€™m moving the needle. I donâ€™t get crippled by the amount of things I â€œneedâ€ to do, or the number of priorities I have.”

He doesn’t fight his tendency to procrastinate he embraces it and uses it his advantage.

Don’t prioritize your lists in advance. Stay in constant audit mode and prioritize in the moment.

Need clients? Start here

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: Gary Vaynerchuk

What’s wrong with this email?

November 7, 2018 by David M. Ward

I got an email from someone who calls himself a “wealth manager and financial advisor”. Apparently, we’re connected on LinkedIn because his email begins, “Hi David. We’re connected on LinkedIn. . .”

He said, “I wanted to reach out to you personally and share important information on some of the recent Tax Changes for 2018 for Business Owners. Please enjoy this short video and give us a call if we can better assist you with your Financial and Estate Planning questions.”

What’s wrong with his approach? His email?

Is it that he oddly capitalized “Tax Changes for Business Owners” and “Financial and Estate Planning”?

Is he trying to impress me by making what he does look more important?

Ooh, he doesn’t just handle estate planning, he handles Estate Planning. He must be good.

Is it that he begins by saying, “I wanted to reach out to you personally. . .” and then says, “give US a call if WE can better assist you”?

We? What happened to “I”? Is he a member of the Royal Family?

Okay, these aren’t deal killers. But they aren’t unimportant. Little things make a difference, especially when you’re writing to a professional nit-picker.

I like that he’s offering information that might be valuable to me. (I didn’t watch the video, so I don’t know.) I liked that he didn’t tell me all about himself and his practice. He provided a link to his website under his signature so I could learn more about him and his practice.

I also liked that he mentioned our being connected on LinkedIn so I would know where he got my name and wouldn’t think he was spamming professionals and business owners he finds on the Internet.

But that’s exactly what his email makes it look like he’s doing.

If he had read my profile, he would know I’m an attorney or a professional, not a business owner. Wait, Business Owner. Okay, I’m also a business owner, but he didn’t do anything to personalize his message so it looks like junk mail.

He didn’t mention anything we have in common. He didn’t say anything about my business or website. He didn’t say anything about one of my posts he liked.

Had he done any of those things, I might have watched his video or visited his website. Who knows where that might lead.

But he didn’t. So I deleted his email and will never find out if he’s someone worth talking to about financial planning or how we might work together.

A cautionary tale.

Cold emails (and calls) are a viable way to build a professional practice. Even when you send them to people who aren’t social media connections.

But if you make no effort to personalize your email or connect with the recipient, you’re just wasting electrons.

How to use email to build your practice

Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services, Social media

Eliminate and grow rich

November 6, 2018 by David M. Ward

If you have too much to do and not enough time to do it, if your to-do list is never-ending and continually growing, if your “someday/maybe” list has cobwebs growing on it, the 80/20 rule can help.

Remember, it says, “a minority of causes, inputs, or efforts usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs or rewards.”Â So, the first thing to do is go through your lists and identify your 20%-ers.

You can do this in one sitting, once a month, or once a day.

Ask yourself, “What can I do today (this week, soon, next) that will deliver the biggest results?” or “What can I focus on right now that will bring me closer to achieving my most important goal?”

NB: The answer will often be something you’ve been putting off.

The next step: take everything else and eliminate it.

Delete or delegate. Or, if you are having trouble letting go of things, bury them–in another app, another file, or somewhere else you won’t see them.

Eliminating things is difficult for most people but it is key to achieving extraordinary results in your life.Â In Essentialism, Greg McKeown said, â€œItâ€™s about making the trade-off between lots of good things and a few really great things.â€

And you need time to do the really great things.

Warren Buffett put it this way: â€œThe difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.â€

What can you say no to today?

Say yes to referrals

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: the 80/20 principle, the 80/20 rule