Why you need an office handbook even if you don’t have any employees

June 17, 2016 by
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An office handbook is typically created to provide employees with a set of rules and procedures for handling things like answering the phone, ordering supplies, opening and closing files, and more. If there’s a question about what to do, the staff doesn’t have to ask you or a co-worker, they can look it up.

It’s also a great tool for helping new hires and temps get up to speed.

Every lawyer should have an office handbook, even lawyers without employees.

If you’re making the rules and you’re the only one following them, why bother? No, not “just in case” you do hire someone, although that’s another good reason. You should create an office handbook because the process of doing so will force you to think about the best way to handle all of the bits and pieces of what you do.

As you create a checklist for preparing corporate or estate planning documents, for example, you’ll look for ways to do it more quickly and efficiently and minimize mistakes. You’ll find ways to save time, save money, eliminate duplication and waste, streamline your processes, get better at client relations, and otherwise run a tighter ship.

Writing an office handbook will help you earn more and work less.

When I started practicing and had only a few clients and no employees, I took the time to create intake forms, authorizations, form letters (representation, declining representation, thank you/welcome, etc.)

I also created a checklist for opening a new file. When I interviewed a new client, my forms made sure I asked them everything that needed to be asked and had them sign everything that needed to be signed. I was also able to put a welcome letter in the mail before the new client got to their car in the parking lot.

Without using a computer.

I was able to open and “work” new files without having to think about it because I had already done the thinking. When I eventually hired a secretary, training her was a snap.

If you don’t have an office handbook, you would do well to create one, but don’t try to do everything all at once. Start by taking inventory of the forms and letters you already use or have access to. Pick one and update it; then tackle another.

When you’ve gotten through all of the things you already use, dive in and create the ones you don’t, starting with the most important and valuable. Like a checklist for making sure there’s a fresh pot of coffee brewing first thing every morning.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Productivity Tagged With: ,

The hidden cost of every decision

June 16, 2016 by
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Every decision you make–big ones like whether to go to med school or law school, to little ones like whether to work on the Smith case this morning or work on marketing instead–require an investment of time, energy, money, and mental focus.

You consciously or unconsciously calculate these costs, along with the possible return on your investment.

But there’s a good chance you are omitting something from your calculation. It’s a cost that most people don’t think about, but should, because it might be your biggest cost. Deciding to make that investment might also result in a much bigger payoff.

It’s called the “opportunity cost”–what you give up by taking on project A, for example, when you could instead use that time, money, and energy, to do project B.

Project A might require less time. But when you factor in the cost of losing the benefits of project B, you might decide project B is the better choice.

Savvy investors understand the need to calculate the opportunity cost of their investment decisions, and so must we.

Of course we must also consider the opportunity cost of turning down one project in favor of another. I’ve turned down invitations to speak because I had other things I could do that offered a better return. But in so doing, I lost the opportunity to get my name in front of new people, which, long term, might have had the bigger payoff.

Every decision to do something includes a decision to not do something else.

Look at your task list and see what you have flagged to do next. Ask yourself what you might be giving up if you do it. But also consider what you might be giving up if you don’t.

You invested a few minutes reading this post, minutes that could have been spent reading something else or doing something else. Did your investment pay off? Was it worth it to be reminded about the importance of considering the opportunity costs of your decisions?

If it was, then I made the right decision to write about it.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: ,

Is it better to find clients or help them find you?

June 15, 2016 by
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Is it better to find clients or help them find you? Okay, I know which of these options you prefer. You want clients to find you, call you, and hire you.

You want to put up a website and have people find it, on their own, without any prompting by you. You want them to become enamored by what they see and call you to hire you or take the next step.

You want to be a fisherman, putting hooks in the water and letting the fish find them. You don’t want to be a hunter, finding prey and taking it down.

You want to advertise. Or write articles for someone else’s publication, or speak at someone else’s event. You want your clients and other professionals to recognize your greatness and tell their friends and clients about you.

Who doesn’t?

In marketing professional services, posture is important. You don’t want to knock on doors, you want clients to knock on yours. You want clients to see you as important and successful. You don’t want them to think you need them.

So make “clients finding you” your priority.

But. . . don’t turn up your nose at the idea of you finding clients.

Besides, what exactly does that mean?

When you network with prospective clients, are you finding them or are you giving them the opportunity to find you? When you friend or follow a prospective client on social media, are you finding them or allowing them to find you?

Want to know what I think? I think it’s a bunch of semantics and, as Rick said to Ilsa, “it don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Letting clients find you is great. But finding clients is not a bad thing.

Your number one marketing method? Referrals.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Are you riding an emotional roller coaster?

June 14, 2016 by
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You’re excited. you’ve got a new client or a new project and you love waking up in the morning and getting to work. Life is good.

And then it happens. You discover a flaw. Or something isn’t working. It looks bad. Real bad. And now you are discouraged.

Then you figure out how to solve the problem. Or you get another new client. And you are excited again.

Until the next time something goes wrong.

And there you are, excited one day, ready to stay in bed in the next. You’re riding an emotional roller coaster, up and down and up and down, and you’re about to get whiplash.

You’re heard that you must get off that roller coaster. If you don’t, you’ll get burned out. You’ve heard you need to even out the highs and lows and achieve a state of equanimity and balance.

But is it that true?

Clearly, you don’t want to be discouraged or depressed. But what’s so special about equanimity? Why can’t every day be exciting?

Is that even possible?

Yes.

I know, crap happens. We have problems we can’t solve, we’re human beings and we have bad days.

True. But just because we feel down and discouraged doesn’t mean we have to stay that way. We can turn a terrible day into a great day, and we can do it in a matter of minutes.

Not by ignoring our problems. By changing how we feel about them.

You’ve got a problem and it feels bad. You’re discouraged, unhappy, angry, frustrated. You’re at the low end of the emotional scale. How do you get to the “high” end–excited, happy, positive, optimistic, etc?

You do it incrementally, one thought at a time.

Think about where you are emotionally. Let’s say you’re discouraged. Things are bad, you don’t see any solution. You’re down in the dumps.

Now, think about the situation a bit and see if you can find some aspect of it that feels better. Even just a little.

Maybe you realize that the worst case scenario is highly unlikely. You know from prior experience that there has to be a solution, even if you don’t know what it is.

You feel a little better. You’re no longer discouraged. Your life isn’t over. You’re hopeful, and hopeful feels better than discouraged.

Now, reach for another thought that feels even better. Perhaps you remember a similar problem from the past that eventually got fixed. You realize that this solution may also work for the current problem. Or you realize that if you solved the former problem, you can probably solve this one.

You still may not know how you’re going to do it, but now you’re optimistic. And that feels better than hopeful. Which feels better than discouraged.

So you reach for another thought that feels even better. You realize that you have many resources available to you: tools, friends, ideas, experience. And you realize that the problem doesn’t need to be solved immediately, you have some time to figure things out.

Okay. Now you’re feeling even better. You know you can solve the problem. You might even be feeling enthusiastic. You’re on your way to being excited.

And that’s how you do it.

You reach for a thought that feels better when you think it. And then you reach for another thought, and another, moving up the emotional scale, continually improving your emotional state, until you feel excited.

You don’t have to settle for feeling bad or sad or down or discouraged. And you don’t have to settle for equanimity. You can move up the emotional scale any time you want to. You can make every day exciting, one thought at a time.

 

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Filed Under: Personal development Tagged With: ,

Don’t ignore the bad news but don’t dwell on it, either

June 13, 2016 by
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There is evil in the world and we must acknowledge it. But we shouldn’t let it destroy our quality of life.

So let’s change the subject. I have a question for you that I was thinking about this morning:

If you had to, could you run your practice without computers and the smart devices in your pocket? Could you do everything with just pen and paper?

When I started practicing, some lawyers had computers but most did not. Very few had mobile phones. And there was no Internet.

My office had paper files, real law books, and a land line. I did have electronic typewriters, and a copy machine, but no fax.

And we did fine.

But then we didn’t know what we were missing.

We had what we needed to do our work, and we didn’t know what the future might bring. We felt good about what we had and what we could do.

Today, we can practice law from a device that fits in our pocket. We depend on this tech and if we had to give it up and use pen and paper, knowing what we were missing, it would be difficult. And sad.

But unless we get hit with an EMP or there is a zombie apocalypse, we won’t have to give it up. God willing, we never will.

And for that, we should be thankful. We should be thankful for all of the good things in our lives, because there are a lot of them, and there are more to come.

Don’t ignore the bad news, but don’t dwell on it. Because you get what you think about, think about the good things in your life and get excited about the good things to come.

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Filed Under: Personal development

Selling ice to eskimos

June 10, 2016 by
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I took a speech class in college. When it was time to deliver my presentation, I talked about insurance and retirement planning. Yep, to a bunch of 18-year olds.

A friend was selling insurance and provided me with information I could use in the presentation. I made the case for buying insurance when you’re young and the insurance is cheap. I told them I had purchased a policy for that reason and encouraged them to do the same. I offered to introduce them to my friend who could tell them more.

As you might have guessed, despite doing a good presentation (according to my teacher), there were no takers.

I had a good message (arguably) but delivered it to the wrong audience.

If my audience had been a group of newly married young people or young couples who had just had a child, I might have gotten better results.

There are many elements that go into crafting a marketing message but none is more important than your audience. If your audience doesn’t have the legal problem you’re talking about, for example, and believes they are unlikely to ever have it, your message will fall on deaf ears.

A well-crafted message with a crazy-good offer heard by the wrong audience will fail. A mediocre message and offer delivered to the right audience, however, might do just fine.

Before you do any presentation, write a blog post or article, record a video, send mail or email to a list, or run an ad, the first question you must ask is, “Who is the audience?”

If you have the wrong audience for your message, you either need to change the audience or change the message.

If you’re a personal injury lawyer and you’re addressing a group of people who have never been in an accident, don’t talk to them about how to get the highest settlement, talk to them about what to do when they do have an accident.

Sales people pre-qualify prospects and leads before talking to them, and you should, too. Find out if your audience needs what you’re selling and if they can afford to buy it. If they don’t need it or can’t afford it, go talk to someone else.

Get your website to pre-sell your services to visitors. Click here

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Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Presentations

What would happen if you stopped marketing?

June 9, 2016 by
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What do you think would happen to your practice if you suddenly stopped marketing? If you pulled your ads, stopped networking, never wrote another blog post or article, and never gave another presentation–what would happen?

Henry Ford said, “Without advertising a terrible thing happens–nothing.” He meant, of course, that if a business doesn’t continually keep its name and wares in front of the marketplace, the business will eventually die.

Lawyers don’t have to advertise but if they stopped marketing in all forms, will their practice eventually die?

Maybe not.

If a lawyer has been around for awhile and has a base of a few hundred current and former clients, most lawyers could continue to bring in repeat business and referrals, probably enough to sustain and grow the practice in perpetuity.

But they need a mechanism for staying in touch with their client base and. . . they have to do it. They have to regularly send emails and/or letters, at the very least reminding their clients that they still exist and can still help them and the people they know.

I assume that the lawyer is well-practiced in, and fully committed to, client relations (customer service). When you treat clients like they are kings and queens, when you deliver more value and service than they expect, how could they not come back? How could they not tell others?

Lawyers who excel at client relations, and stay in touch with their clients, don’t have to rely on advertising or networking or other “reaching out” methods to sustain and build their practice.

Notice I said, “rely”. Reaching out to find new prospects and bring them into your marketing funnel is smart. It can help your practice grow faster. If you’re doing these things and they’re working, don’t stop.

But isn’t it nice to do those things because you want to, not because you have to?

Referrals from clients are the foundation of a healthy law practice

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Referrals

You could be in big trouble if you don’t read this

June 8, 2016 by
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AIDA is an advertising acronym that speaks to the elements of an effective ad or marketing message. The letters stand for “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action”. “Attention” is first because unless and until you have the reader’s or listener’s attention, there’s no point in presenting anything else.

One of the most effective ways to get the reader’s attention is to say something that speaks to their self-interest. Something they want or something they fear.

If you are a criminal defense attorney, for example, your ad’s headline might use words like, “handcuffs, jail, guilty, or sentencing”. Or about the charge itself, e.g., DUI.

It’s the same for email. You want to get the recipient’s attention and get them to open the email because if they don’t open it, you’re not going to get them interested in what you’re selling.

But email has some other considerations, as illustrated by an email I got this morning from The State Bar of California:

“Dear State Bar Member,

We have received numerous calls and emails alerting us to a fraudulent email being distributed with the following subject line: “The State Bar of California Complaint.”

Please be advised that this email is not from, or authorized by, the State Bar. If you receive one of these fraudulent emails, please do not respond or click on any attachments. Delete it immediately. These emails are NOT from the State Bar of California and may contain links to files that open malicious software.”

The subject line in the referenced email would get many lawyers to open it, wouldn’t it? It speaks to one of our greatest fears. That fear would override our knowledge that Bar complaints, like notices from the IRS, only arrive via regular mail.

So plus one for getting attention.

The spammer probably wasn’t selling anything but was looking to do harm, but suppose they were selling something like information on how to avoid ethics violations or services in the event of being so charged? Putting aside the fact that the email was unsolicited, we’d have to admit that the headline worked because it got us to open it.

The problem is that it was unsolicited email and there are some additional rules.

If instead of an email the same headline was used in a print ad, or in a letter sent by regular mail, we’d read it wouldn’t we? If there was a legitimate offer we probably wouldn’t complain to the state Bar. And we might be more likely to buy something because once the advertiser got our attention, however provocatively they did so, we saw that they offered a product or service we wanted to buy.

Context is crucial in marketing. It’s okay to be provocative and take risks. More than okay, it’s often a great way to get attention. Just make sure you don’t break the rules to do it.

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Filed Under: Advertising

Who fills out the paperwork in your office?

June 7, 2016 by
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In my practice, when I had a new client in the office I didn’t have them fill out any forms or paperwork in the waiting room and I didn’t have my staff do the initial intake–I filled out the paperwork myself.

One reason was that I wanted to talk to them about their case, get all the details, and ask follow-up questions my staff might not ask. I was able to do a better job for them as a result.

Another reason was that I didn’t want them fussing with paperwork when what they really wanted was to unburden their troubles on me and let me fix them. I thought they appreciated my making it easier for them to do that.

I could have had someone else do the initial information gathering before I saw them, and if I was pressed for time I sometimes did that. But I preferred to fill out the forms myself because it gave me an opportunity to spend a few more minutes with the client and get to know them.

I could ask about their kids, their job or business, and where they were going on vacation. I might tell them about a case I had that was similar to theirs. I could have some fun with them and lighten their load.

I often saw my clients only two times: at the first appointment and at the final appointment when I presented a settlement check and final paperwork. Those two visits were an opportunity to bond with them and I didn’t want anything to take away from that.

When clients like you, and think you like them, they come back to you and refer their friends.

So who fills out the paperwork in your office? You? The client? Staff? Do you send them a form to fill out before they come in for their first appointment? Or do you use a combination of the above?

Every practice is different, of course, so I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. I’ve told you what I did, and why, but you need to decide what’s best for your practice.

What I can tell you is that while this may be a “little thing,” you should spend time thinking about it because when it comes to building relationships, and building a successful practice, little things mean a lot.

Do it right and your clients will send you more referrals

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Referrals Tagged With: , ,

Why I get high at work and you should, too

June 6, 2016 by
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Think about all of the projects you’ve started but didn’t finish. All of your unrealized goals and forgotten dreams. When you think about them, or look at the unfinished documents on your hard drive, it’s not a good feeling.

You failed. You weren’t good enough. You didn’t do what you said you would do.

Ugh.

Now, think about the things you did finish. The projects you completed. The cases you settled. The documents you pushed out into the world.

Different feeling, isn’t it?

It feels good to finish things because doing so validates your abilities and value. Getting things done might mean more revenue, or simply the affirmation of a job well done, but whatever it is, there’s no question that it is enjoyable.

One reason it feels good is that finishing causes the pleasure centers of your brain to experience a rush of chemicals that literally make you feel good. You get high on finishing, so you are compelled to do it. And start the next thing on your list so you can finish that and enjoy the feeling again.

It’s a positive addiction and I encourage you to become a junkie.

Give in to your cravings. Finish what you start and feel the rush.

You need to know when to abandon projects that don’t “pencil out,” of course, but when you do that, use the reclaimed time to start and finish something else.

Something else that feels good: referrals

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity
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