Once is not enough

January 12, 2017 by
Share

I read a lot. I know you do, too. I take courses, watch videos, and learn as much as I can about subjects that interest me or that I can use in my work.

Some of the content I consume is excellent. Some is adequate. (If I get one idea from a book or course, I consider it worthwhile since one idea could be worth a small fortune.) Much of what I read, however, is duplicative, derivative or otherwise less than stellar.

When I read something good, especially if it seminal, I do my best to read it again.

I suggest you do the same.

Re-reading or re-watching a high-quality book or course will often be far more valuable to you than reading or watching something new. You have to keep up with what’s new, but not at the expense of something of proven value.

I’ve been known to read high-quality material again and again and I almost always get value out of it. Even if I’ve taken copious notes the first time, there are always points or nuances I’ve missed.

The first time through the material, I might have been thinking about the previous point being made, or taking notes, or been distracted with other things on my mind. This is especially true of a video or live course where the information comes at you quickly. The next time through the material, my mind is in a different place and I routinely see things I didn’t see (or understand) before.

In addition, no matter how much I gleaned on the first read or listen, I confess I often don’t “know” the information until I’ve actually used it.

When you go through one of my courses and learn how to talk to a client about referrals, for example, it’s theoretical. It may make sense to you, you may be able to see yourself doing it, but until you actually do it yourself, it remains abstract and, perhaps, a bit out of focus.

Once you have used an idea you have learned, when you come back to the source material, you understand what you read on a deeper and more personal level. You see it more clearly because of the context of having done it.

Of course, repetition is the mother of all learning, so even if you’ve consumed information several times, consuming it again, especially after the passage of time, will do wonders to reinforce your knowledge and understanding.

When you find a book or course that resonates with you, own it. Digest it, think about it, use it, and come back to it again and again.

How to talk to clients about referrals

Share
Filed Under: Personal development

You may be boring but your message shouldn’t be

January 11, 2017 by
Share

Yesterday, I said that being boring isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a lawyer. Having a sober and level-headed countenance suggests that you know what you’re doing and are confident in your ability to help people.

But while you might be boring, there’s no excuse for having a boring message.

If your articles, blog posts, and presentations are boring, people aren’t going to read or listen, and if they don’t do that, they’re not going to act on them. From your headline or title all the way to call to action, your content must grab the reader by the collar and keep them engaged. It doesn’t necessarily have to be exciting but it can never be dull.

There are many ways to put life and energy into your writing and presentations. One of the simplest is to put people in your content.

Your written and spoken content should include stories about your clients and cases. Illustrate your points by talking about people you have observed or heard about. Provide quotes from experts and other people who have something interesting to say.

In a way, your content should resemble an appellate opinion. Present the facts and the outcome, of course, but drape the facts on the shoulders of real people.

Write a blog post about your client’s business or cause. Interview a colleague about their work or their life. Tell success stories about clients who had problems, hired you, and had a successful outcome.

It is often said that, “facts tell, but stories sell,” and it’s true. Stories sell because they have people in them.

Share
Filed Under: Writing Tagged With:

In praise of boring lawyers

January 10, 2017 by
Share

If you’re a bit reserved and boring, you are exactly what most clients want in their attorney.

They don’t want their attorney to be flamboyant or silly. They aren’t looking for you to be charming and colorful. They’re not looking for a buddy, they want their attorney to be the adult.

So if you’re somewhat introverted, quiet, or lacking in personality, that’s okay. In a tumultuous, frightening world, being calm, cool, and collected is a tremendous asset in an attorney.

Clients want to know that you’ll take care of things. Help them get through the ordeal. Make sure that the paperwork is right, the details are under control, and you’re ready for anything. If they see this in you, you’ve got the job.

Because more than anything, clients want their attorney to make them feel safe.

If you’re boring, own your boringness. Don’t fight it. Don’t try to be something you’re not.

Calm, cool, and collected, but when called into action, ready to get the job done.

Share
Filed Under: Client relations, Image

Is hard work truly the key to success?

January 9, 2017 by
Share

All our lives we’ve been told that hard work is the key to success. And so all of our lives we’ve worked hard or felt guilty if we didn’t. But is hard work truly the key to success?

What about people who work hard and struggle all their lives? What about people who make it big without breaking a sweat?

It’s true that most successful people appear to work hard. They usually work long hours. They usually take on big challenges. They usually do things others see as difficult and stressful.

But are they really working hard?

If you ask them, I believe most successful people would tell you they love what they do and they don’t consider it hard work at all. They work long hours because they can’t think of anything they’d rather be doing.

When it’s fun, can it really be called hard work? Can it even be called work?

“When you do what you love, and love what you do,” it is said, “you’ll never work a day in your life.”

If you don’t love your work, change it. You don’t have to suffer your way to success. (I’m not even sure that’s possible.)

Get a new job or start a new career. Or give yourself permission to move in that direction. In the meantime, look for ways to make your current work more pleasant by focusing on aspects of it that you do enjoy.

If nothing more, see your work as a means to an end, that is, a way to pay your bills on the road to what’s next.

That’s what I did with my law practice. There were many things I didn’t like about it, which is why I decided to start a new career. But I didn’t dwell on what I didn’t like, I focused on the good things my practice gave me: skills, knowledge, experience, contacts, ideas, and most of all, time to start the next phase of my life.

Life is too short to do things you don’t enjoy. Life is supposed to be fun.

As you plan this year and beyond, make sure you’re planning to do something you love. Even if you don’t achieve the financial trappings of success, you’ll be happy. And that’s the real measure of success.

Get more clients and increase your income. Here’s how

Share
Filed Under: Career satisfaction Tagged With:

I dare you to take my marketing challenge

January 6, 2017 by
Share

I’ve got a marketing challenge for you and it will only take five minutes. I want to prove something to you, or rather, I want you to prove something to yourself.

I want you to see that you really do have time for marketing and that it’s a lot easier than you thought.

With me? Great. Let’s get started.

Yes, right now. As soon as you’re done reading this. Because “right now” is the best time to do just about anything.

Okay, grab a pen or open a new page or tab. I want you to write something. And remember, it’s only five minutes so no excuses about being busy.

I want you to write a note to your former clients. In your note, I want you to simply say hello.

You might say, “I wanted to send you a quick note to say hi and see how you’re doing”. Or, “I haven’t talked to you in awhile and wanted to check in and see what you’re up to.” Or wish them a happy and successful new year.

Nothing brilliant. Just touching base.

If you want, you can add a line or two of news about your practice (e.g., mention your new office, new employee, new website, etc.), or share some personal news (e.g., your daughter got married, your son just got accepted to law school, etc.)

But no selling. No promoting. Nothing serious. Just saying hi.

A few lines. Write quickly. Write without stopping.

Five minutes and done. Ready, set, go.

There, that wasn’t difficult was it? (If you haven’t done it yet, go ahead and do it now. C’mon on, I’ll wait. . .)

Now what? Now, put your note in an email and send it. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

Tomorrow, or maybe even later today, you’re going to see what happens.

I’ll let you find out for yourself what that is but I’m pretty sure you’re going to like what happens.

Will you take my challenge? It’s just five minutes, unless you don’t have an email list of your former clients, in which case you’ll need to take care of that, first. And trust me, you’ll want to do that because once you see what happens with your first email, you’ll definitely want to email again.

Let me know what happens so I can say, “I told you”.

Everything you always wanted to know about email marketing (but were afraid to ask)

Share
Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services

How much time should you put into each project?

January 5, 2017 by
Share

I recently read an article about the best way to pay down your debts. Logic dictates that you should pay more towards the balances with the highest interest rates. According to something called the “Snowball Method,” however, it’s better to first pay off the accounts with the smallest balances.

Paying off small balances tends to have a psychological effect on your sense of progress, providing additional motivation to pay down the rest of your debts.

Years ago, when I had several credit cards with varying balances and interest rates, I intuitively made an effort to do just that. Instead of making a proportionally bigger payment on accounts with bigger balances and higher interest rates, I focused on paying off the $500 department store balance, first.

It simplified bill paying and, more importantly, it felt good to see those accounts zero out. I still had the bigger accounts to contend with but overall, it felt like I was making progress.

Does the “Snowball Method” apply to anything else? I suspect it does. If you have five projects on your plate right now, in determining how much time to give each project, it would be logical to consider the potential payoff of each project. Projects with a bigger payoff should get more of your time, one would think. But that would ignore the psychological impact of completing some of the smaller projects, first.

I know, almost every expert says we should do the most important things first so that we make progress on them, and only then work on the less valuable tasks. (Big rocks first.) Hell, I’ve preached that myself.

But we’re human and sometimes we need to do smaller things so we can cross off them off our list and have a sense of progress.

Building your practice is easier when you know The Formula

Share
Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: ,

Want my advice? Will that be cash, check, or credit card?

January 4, 2017 by
Share

Free reports. Free consultations. Free information up the ying yang.

If everything is free, how do you make money?

Good question.

The answer is simple: give away lots of free information but charge for your advice. Another way to put it: if you talk to them, you charge them.

Your time is valuable. Don’t give it away. But information is just paper or electrons and while you invest time in writing or recording or conducting a presentation, you’re investing in creating new clients and the return on your investment is, well, incalculable.

Me entiende?

Information is free. Advice is not.

There is one exception: Free consultations.

Why? Couple of reasons.

First, if you’re in a field where most attorneys offer them, e.g., personal injury, if you don’t offer them, you won’t be able to compete.

Second, ROI. You invest 30 minutes or so talking to a prospective client and in return, you (eventually) earn thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Do ten free consultations, sign up seven new cases (or whatever), and when you add up the collective fees, you look like a friggin genius.

In other words, it’s worth it.

Simple as that.

If we’re being technical here, and we’re attorneys so that goes without saying, you do give the client some advice during the consultation. But at the same time, you’re evaluating whether or not you want the case. Hey, maybe they should charge you for their time.

You can reduce the amount of time you spend on free consults by educating prospective clients and referral sources prior to speaking to anyone. Put information on your website, in your articles, ads, and so on, and especially in your “referral letter,” so that people know when they should and shouldn’t call.

Go write something and give it away. But don’t give away your time. Unless you’re doing a free consultation.

How to create (and use) a referral letter to get more clients

Share
Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With: ,

How often do you do it?

January 3, 2017 by
Share

I heard from a subscriber who told me he does it twice a month and wants to do it weekly but his wife thinks this is too often.

I’m talking about email, of course. What were you thinking I was talking about?

He sends his clients and former clients an email (newsletter) every two weeks and wants to bump this up to weekly. His wife thinks that his subscribers will “get annoyed by that many emails and start tuning them out.”

His wife is right. If he increases the frequency of his emails, some clients will be annoyed. Some will stop reading them. Some will complain. Some will ask to be removed from the list. But none of this is necessarily a bad thing.

If your subscribers don’t enjoy reading your emails, you don’t want them as subscribers. You don’t want to cater to the lowest common denominator. You want to build a list of fans.

If your emails are interesting, entertaining, and otherwise valuable, most of your subscribers will look forward to them, read them, and act on them. And it’s those people who matter because they are the ones who will hire you (again), send you referrals, and otherwise help you build your practice.

Sending emails to clients and former clients is about strengthening your relationship with them. Yes, it’s also about keeping your name in front of them, but you need quality, not just quantity.

Just like in the bedroom.

If you are delivering emails that people want to read, you can write every week or every day. If you’re up to it, you can even write several times a day.

Just like in the bedroom.

On the other hand, if your emails are boring and lack value, if you fail to please your subscribers, it won’t matter how often you email, your emails aren’t going to get the job done. Yep, just like in the bedroom.

Once a week is not too often. It just isn’t. Try it, and see for yourself. You will get people asking to be taken off your list but you will also get people thinking you for your words of wisdom, your valuable information, and your wit. They will look forward to hearing from you.

Don’t worry about the ones who don’t. It’s better to have a list of 100 people who love you than 10,000 people who are relatively indifferent.

I used to email once a week and I was nervous about what might happen if I starting emailing daily. (I also wasn’t sure I could keep up with that schedule). But I did it and I’m glad I did.

Is it different if you’re writing to lawyers or to “regular folks,” i.e., clients? No. If anything, busy lawyers would seem to be less tolerant of more frequent emails. But (most of) my subscribers read and like my emails because I deliver value.

Tell your subscribers (in your emails and on your website) how often they can expect to hear from you and remind them that they can opt out at any time. And then have at it.

If you’re still not sure, or if your wife is nervous about how often you want to “do it,” conduct an experiment. Continue emailing clients and former clients on your current schedule but email more frequently to prospective clients. When you see good things happening, you can have another talk with your wife.

Get good at building an email list and using it to build your practice

Share
Filed Under: Email

Setting up your marketing budget

December 30, 2016 by
Share

Yesterday, I talked about planning what you will do to reach your ideal clients, i.e., connecting with prospective clients directly, via referral sources and other indirect means, or both. I said you should also decide how much time and resources you will dedicate to each method.

In other words, what’s your budget?

How much money will you invest this year in advertising, websites, referral marketing, email marketing, and whatever else you intend to use?

One thing you can do is to talk to your accountant. Have them set up a “chart of accounts” for you to include different categories of marketing expenses, and then provide you with an approximation of what to budget for each category. If your accountant represents other attorneys and firms, they will be able to make more informed suggestions.

If you want to put money into pay-per-click advertising for your real estate practice, for example, based on their knowledge of what other clients in your market are spending, they can tell you whether you should budget 00 per month or 00, or if you can get started with just 0.

If nothing more, this will give you a place to start.

You should also create a “time budget”.

How much time will you invest in marketing each week? What will you do during that time? On what days and at what times will you calendar to do those activities?

If your plan calls for joining a new networking group, for example, you’ll want to book the meetings on your calendar. You’ll also want to book time during the week to do other things relative to attending those meetings, e.g., following up with new contacts.

If you don’t know how much time to budget, talk to people who belong to the same or similar groups.

The primary purpose of creating a marketing budget isn’t to limit what you do or how much you will spend, however. The primary purpose is to force you to think about what it will actually take to carry out your plans and how committed you are to doing them.

Without that forethought, you are more likely to waste resources and get poorer results. Or not get started at all.

Here’s how to get more referrals without spending a lot of time

Share
Filed Under: Marketing Plan Tagged With:

Who will you invite to the dance this year?

December 29, 2016 by
Share

Goal setting, planning, and all that good stuff. It’s almost time to sharpen your pencil and map out the new year.

When it comes to marketing, once you decide on your target market and ideal client, the next thing to decide is how you will reach them. Will you market to clients directly? Will you target referral sources? Will you do both?

Don’t leave this to chance. Think it through. A few things to consider:

  • Where do you get your clients now? Referrals from clients? Professional referrals? Your website? Advertising? Look at your numbers so you can do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t.
  • What do other lawyers in your practice area do to get their clients that you’re not doing, or not doing enough?
  • What mechanisms can you use to reach your audience, e.g., blogs that accept guest posts, groups where you can speak and/or network?
  • What are you good at and enjoy? Writing, speaking, networking? How can you do more?
  • What are your resources–time, money, knowledge, experience, employees/outside help, friends and professional contacts?
  • What are you unable to do (by your bar or firm)? If you can’t advertise to prospective clients, perhaps you can advertise to referral sources. If you can’t advertise your services, perhaps you can advertise your book or seminar. If you can’t use client testimonials, perhaps you can use professional endorsements.

If you decide to market to both clients and referral sources, you also need to decide how much of your time and resources to allocate to each.

You don’t have to decide everything before the year starts but you should start thinking about these things. They’ll help you get focused and get better results.

Ideal client? Target market? Marketing plan? This is what you need

Share
Filed Under: Marketing Plan
« Previous Page
Next Page »