Digging for gold on your hard drive

April 13, 2018 by
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You have a list. People who know who you are and are willing to listen to what you say.

If you call them, they’ll talk to you. If you write, they’ll read your letter or email. If you meet them in person and they recognize your face or name, they’ll say hello.

Your list may take many forms. It may be in a database, contact management app, or email autoresponder. It may be on paper, buried in the bowels of your closed files. It may be online, stored on the servers of various social media platforms.

But your list exists and it has value.

How much value? I don’t know. All I can tell you is that your list is much more valuable than a list of people who don’t know who you are.

Yes, I’m harping (again) on the need to stay in touch. I don’t feel right unless I do that at least once or twice a month. But today, I’m simply going to encourage you to dig out your list and organize it.

The first thing to do is segment your list into different categories. Use a code or tag or label so you can contact the people on your list with different messages or offers, and on a different schedule.

You won’t talk to current clients, for example, in the same way you would talk to professionals you met once at a networking event.

Anyway, divvy up your list as appropriate to your practice. You might do something like this:

  1. Current clients
  2. Former clients
  3. Prospective clients you’ve met (e.g., free consultations, meetings at networking events, attendees at your presentations, etc.)
  4. Professionals, business executives, centers of influence, you’ve worked with.
  5. Newsletter subscribers
  6. Social media friends and followers
  7. Etc.

You can further segment your list into sub-categories. Your client and former clients, for example, could be classified in terms of annual billing (you to them), types of cases or engagements, frequency, recency, background, industry, and so on.

Your list of professionals might be broken down by specialty, their target markets, number of referrals they’ve made to you (and you to them), mutual clients or contacts, boards or organizations they are connected to, and so on.

Your prospect and email lists can be coded to identify the nature of their inquiry, if and when they’ve attended your events, and other information.

Once you’ve done that, you can create a plan for staying in touch with everyone.

Is all this worth really necessary? Only if you want to get more clients, bigger cases, more referrals, more traffic, more introductions, and build a more profitable practice more quickly and at much lower cost.

Okay, you hate me. I understand. You want that but this sounds like too much work.

Fine. Start with your former clients, going back five years. Email them something. I don’t care what it is. Say hello. Say you’re updating your records. It doesn’t matter.

Two paragraphs. What have you got to lose?

The better question is, what do you have to gain?

Keeping in touch with your list 

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Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services

I don’t care what you think

April 12, 2018 by
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Experts say that most of the wealthiest, most successful people in the world don’t care about what other people think of them.

Do you?

When a client tells you what they think you better pay attention. You should listen to your accountant’s advice. When the Bar has an opinion about your behavior, you probably shouldn’t ignore it.

But don’t let family or friends or “tradition” tell you how to lead your life.

What’s that? Sometimes you do? Sometimes you avoid doing things because you’re worried about what friends or colleagues or your jerk of an uncle will think?

No bueno.

The best way to get rid of that fear is to do it anyway.

Mark Twain said, “Do what you fear and the death of fear is certain”.

Pick something you’ve avoided doing and take a chance on yourself. Tounges may wag. You might get some dirty looks. But when the walls don’t come crumbling down, you’ll know unless those people pay your bills, keep you out of trouble, or sleep in your bed, what they think is irrelevant.

Here’s what I think about getting referrals

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

C’mon, you know you want to

April 11, 2018 by
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Can you approach someone you don’t know but want to speak to via email? Yes, you can. Just make sure you send a personal email, not a “form letter”.

Your first order of business is to get the email opened. A great way to do that is to write something that makes the recipient curious.

Like (I hope) the subject line of this email did you.

But then you and I “know” each other. I can be a little playful. If this was the first time I communicated with you I would (probably) not use that as the subject. Instead, I might use something like this:

“Quick question”.

I got an email with that subject not long ago and yes, I did open it.

Because I was curious.

This may not suit you, however, or your market. What then?

Well, you don’t want to appear too familiar. So “Hey there. . .” won’t make the cut.

You can’t bore someone into opening an email. So forget about using “I hope you’re doing well”.

And you don’t want to come off like you’re selling something, so, “May I send you some information about our xyz services?” is a dog that won’t hunt.

So what can you say to make ’em curious?

I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Okay, cheap trick. Having more fun. I’m not going to tell you what to say. That’s something you have to figure out.

If you were writing to me, what might you say to get my attention and make me curious to read your email (other than “Quick question”)? What’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Do you have an accountant? If he didn’t know you from Adam, what might you say to make him curious?

(“This is about your wife” would get your email opened, but. . .)

Start paying attention to (unsolicited) emails you get that make you curious enough to open. Write down the subject they used. Spend time brainstorming other ideas.

Put your list away for a week or two. When you come back to it, you’ll see a lot of subject lines that make you cringe and say, “Oy vey, what was I thinking” but you may also see a few gems.

Go ahead and try one.

C’mon, you know you want to.

Build your practice online

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Filed Under: Copywriting, Email, Marketing legal services Tagged With:

The hidden costs of every decision

April 10, 2018 by
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Everything you buy or do comes at a cost. You pay the price with your money, your time, or your energy. Some costs you pay without thinking because you believe you have no choice. You pay the rent or the mortgage, for example, because bad things will happen if you don’t.

But you may have other options.

You might negotiate a lower rate. You might move to lower-cost digs. If you never consider these options, you might pay more than necessary. Over time, a lot more.

Decisions come with another hidden cost. The opportunity cost.

The opportunity cost is what you give up when you decide to buy or do one thing instead of another.

When you spend a dollar to buy something, that dollar cannot be spent on anything else. Similarly, when you spend an hour doing an activity, you can’t spend that hour on any other.

What you give up by doing one thing instead of another could eventually cost you a fortune.

An hour spent on a client file might bring you hundreds of dollars. That same hour spent on attracting a new client, however, might ultimately generate hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

Yes, you have to do the work. But don’t do it–or pay your rent–without considering the hidden costs.

How to get more traffic and build your list: click here

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Filed Under: Personal development Tagged With: ,

Plan, do, review redux

April 9, 2018 by
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Success means different things to different people. And the definition changes. Your goals from three years ago might be very different today.

So today, review your goals and plans, to make sure you’re going where you want to go and you’re on track to getting there.

Here are some questions to ask:

  1. RESULTS: What does success look like for me? Imagine things five or ten years from now. What are you doing? Who are you doing it with? Big firm or small? How many clients? What type of cases? How much money? How much time?
  2. SKILLS: In order to achieve the results I want, what skills do I need to acquire or improve? Which tools do I need to acquire, upgrade or master? What books should I read? How should I continue my education?
  3. NICHES: Which niche markets should I target? What does my ideal client look like? What kinds of referral sources would be a good fit? What can I do to dominate my niche(s)?
  4. PEOPLE: What kinds of people should I associate with? Who do I want to meet, model, and work with? Who should I spend less time with?
  5. HABITS: What should I do more often? What should I stop doing or curtail? Which new habits should I acquire? How can I do them more consistently?
  6. SYSTEMS: What processes should I implement into my workflow? What checklists, forms, templates, and methods should I develop or adopt? How should I manage and track my tasks, projects, and goals?

Answering these questions will help you create a plan. Answering these questions again, at least annually, will help you evaluate your progress, correct course, and get where you want to go.

This will help you choose your niche market and ideal client

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Filed Under: Goal Setting, success Tagged With:

How do you transition from lawyer to successful lawyer?

April 6, 2018 by
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Comes a question from a new-ish attorney who works for a firm in Kenya and wants to know how to transition from learning the law to applying what she’s learned and “thinking like a fee earner”?

It starts with acknowledging that practicing law is both a profession and a business and that you must wear both hats. Of course, that’s literally true when you go out on your own but its also true when you work for a firm because if you don’t bring in clients, you might find yourself replaced by someone who does.

It sounds like my Kenyan friend understands this. So, what’s the next step?

The next step is to educate yourself. Take classes, read books and blogs and newsletters on marketing and management. Learn something about sales. And work on your communication skills. Meet other lawyers who are one or two steps ahead of you and find out what they did to get there.

If you’re thinking about going out on your own, build a war chest. Save every penny so that if and when you make the leap you’ll have more staying power and more options.

On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for making the leap before you’re ready.

When I opened my own office I was hungry. Literally. I needed to bring in clients or I couldn’t pay for groceries. I had burned my boats behind me and to survive, I was forced to do anything and everything to bring in business.

Necessity is the mother (and father) of invention.

In retrospect, a lack of money wasn’t the biggest issue, nor was it a lack of experience. The number one challenge was a lack of contacts. So, if you do nothing else, focus on building a list of people who know, like, and trust you.

Do that and you’ll be golden.

Start your education with this

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, success Tagged With:

I thought that was included

April 5, 2018 by
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I trust that most of your clients would describe themselves as “satisfied”. You want them to be thrilled (and let everyone know that), but you’ll settle for satisfied.

Because it’s so easy for a client to be just the opposite.

It happens when you don’t do something they thought you were going to do or you charged extra for something they thought was included.

If you read negative reviews posted about lawyers, after “not keeping me informed” or “didn’t return my calls” and the like, numero uno is a variation of not getting what they expected.

Of course, it’s never their fault. It’s your fault and the world shall know it.

That’s why you have to go out of your way to CYA. Not just to protect against bar complaints or lawsuits, but to make sure your clients know exactly what they get (and don’t get) so you have a shot at keeping them happy.

Especially when it comes to money. Especially because clients are stressed out. Especially because so many clients don’t trust lawyers.

You can’t just slide the retainer agreement across the desk and hope they sign it without reading it. You need to explain everything, slowly and in plain English. Give them a list of FAQs that spell out exactly what you will do and when, and what you won’t do and why.

Ask them to acknowledge that they understand everything. Asking them to initial lots of things is also a good idea.

Maybe give them a three-day cooling off period.

Because if it’s possible to misunderstand something, your clients will find a way to do it. And blame you.

Marketing 101: keep your clients happy

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Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management Tagged With:

A different kind of “done”

April 4, 2018 by
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It feels good to check off a task on your list and mark it done. You’d like to be able to do that more often but you only have so much time and energy.

What if instead of waiting until you complete the task you mark it as done when you do ANY work on it?

Does that sound a little nutty? Hold on, Skippy. Let me ‘splain.

Marking a task as done doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to do. It simply means you’re done for now. If there’s more work to do, you can put it back on your list.

Huh? Why would you mark it as done and then put it back on the same list?

Because doing that will help you to get better at planning and actually finishing your work.

You stopped working on the task for a reason. You didn’t allow enough time, you needed more information, or something more important came up. Or maybe you ran out of gas and just didn’t feel like continuing. By understanding why you stopped, the next time you have a task like this you’ll be better prepared.

But that’s next time.

For now, if you’re not ready to continue working on something, check it off and move on to the next task on your list. When you’ve worked your way through everything on your list, look at the task you marked as done and if there’s more work to do, put it back on your list.

You might put it at the bottom of today’s list and do it later today. You might put it on tomorrow’s list. You might postpone it to another day. Or you might decide you don’t want to do it at all and spare yourself a lot of time and effort.

Is your website pulling in enough clients? Here’s what you need to do

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management

Practice makes pregnant

April 3, 2018 by
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I took drum lessons for several years. I loved playing but I didn’t love practicing. Maybe you can relate.

Our parents and teachers meant well when they told us that it was important to practice. Funny thing, they were right.

It’s called “spaced repetition”. It’s how we learn and how we improve our skills. You can’t expect to get good at anything without it.

“Practice makes perfect,” we were told. But when you’re a kid, especially a teenager, practice is the last thing you want to do. (Unless it’s the kind of thing that makes babies.)

And that’s why many of us no longer play the drums.

As adults, practice is also required. If you want to improve your writing, your oratory skills or anything else, you need to practice. As a kid, we could say, “I don’t want to” and often (eventually) get out of doing it. We can’t do that as professionals.

And yet many do. Nowhere is this more evident than with marketing.

Lawyers start networking, for example, and give up because they don’t like it or because they’re not getting results fast enough. They start a newsletter or a blog or a video channel and give up because it takes too much time.

If they stuck with it, they might find themselves getting good at it. With practice, it gets easier, takes less time, and brings enough results to make it all worthwhile.

They might even learn to like it.

The work is usually not that difficult. Boring, perhaps, outside our comfort zone, but not difficult. Practice a few minutes a day, keep doing it, and eventually, you can master just about anything.

What’s tough is getting our heads right and making the choice to not give up. Whatever it is you want to improve, tell yourself, “I will until” and keep at it until you do.

Want more clients? Practice the art of getting referrals

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Filed Under: Personal development Tagged With:

The list’s (still) the thing

April 2, 2018 by
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Many moons ago, I told you about the lists I kept for my boyhood coin collection. Yeah, the one I sold buy furniture and pay the first month’s rent on my first law office.

Anyway, I had two lists: one for “want” and one for “have”. I kept these in my wallet so that when I visited the Kennedy Coin Club in suburban Chicago, I would know which coins I needed for my collection and extras I had to trade or sell.

I’ve also written about the value of having lists for running your practice. These can be lists of steps, instructions or checklists, to make sure you don’t forget anything, or to train new employees or temps.

Examples:

  • File opening/closing procedures
  • Investigating/background checks
  • Drafting pleadings/discovery
  • Form letters/email templates
  • Experts/vendors (stenographers, investigators, arbitrators, mediators, interpreters, repairs, etc.)
  • Supplies: quantities, where to order
  • How to use software, apps, online services

How about for marketing:

  • Prospective clients
  • Bloggers/editors in your niche
  • Publications that accept guest posts
  • Organizations/groups where you can speak/network
  • Ideas for blog/social media posts/videos/articles
  • Social media posting schedule/process
  • Lawyers you know and what they do (for referrals)
  • Business owners/professionals who sell to your niche market

And a ho lot more.

We can’t be all work and no play (even if we’re not named Jack) so how about some personal lists:

  • Movies/books that interest you
  • Your bucket list
  • Packing checklist
  • Vacation ideas
  • Writing prompts
  • Health metrics (blood pressure, weight, etc.)
  • Exercise routines, workout schedule
  • Retirement planning
  • Investments
  • Debt reduction schedule/journal
  • Jokes/stories/quotes/
  • Recipes
  • Routines (weekly review, inbox zero, computer updates)

And the list goes on. And on and on.

You can keep lists of just about anything, as reminders, as a way to measure progress, or as a way to memorialize your journey.

You might start with a “list of lists”–ideas for lists that can make you healthier, more productive, or more profitable. Or lists that sound like fun.

(Lawyers are still allowed to have fun, aren’t we? Well, as long as there are no witnesses.)

I keep my lists in Evernote

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity
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