7 out of 10 lawyers agree

May 19, 2016 by
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Remember that toothpaste commercial from years ago claiming that, “7 out of 10 dentists agree. . .”? What if I told you the real number was “8 out of 10”? Why on earth would they low-ball it?

Actually, I don’t know what the real numbers were. They might have been “8 out of 10,” “9 out of 10,” or nearly “10 out of 10,” but they would have been smart to use a lower number.

Because “7 out of 10” is more believable than “9 out of 10”.

“7 out of 10” has verisimilitude. The appearance of truth. Which is a critical element in sales and persuasion. Because if your prospective client, reader, judge or jury, doesn’t believe your assertion or promise, it doesn’t matter that it is true.

As long as there are no legal or ethical reasons why you shouldn’t do it, it’s better to understate the truth.

I guess you could call this “reverse exaggeration”.

Anyway, remember this for your presentations, negotiations, advertising, motions, and anything else where you want to persuade someone to do something. If the real numbers or facts stretch credulity, lie (in a positive way) to tell them something they will believe.

Add qualifiers if you must. Say, “More than. . .” or “Better than. . .” before your statement, to cover your behind and let your conscious be clear. But as long as what you say is true, it doesn’t matter that it’s not completely accurate.

Okay? Make sense? Good stuff.

Now before I let you go, you’re probably wondering what it is that 7 out of 10 lawyers agree on?

You probably think I’m going to say “nothing”. Lawyers are a bunch of cantankerous, argumentative, pugnacious souls, genetically incapable of agreeing on anything.

But this isn’t true. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

Most lawyers, more than 7 out of 10 I am sure, agree about nearly everything. No, not when it comes to arguing a client’s case or negotiating their lease. We do the job we’re paid to do. I’m talking about things like marketing and image, the things that allow us to stand out from other lawyers so that clients will choose us instead of them.

When it comes to marketing, most lawyers look the same.

You could take their ads, marketing documents, presentations, and the like, put another lawyer’s name on it, and no one would be the wiser.

The reasons aren’t important. What’s important is that because 7 out of 10 (or is it 8 out of 10?) lawyers conform and follow the same (narrow) practice-building and career-building path, most lawyers never get past “average”.

Average activities, average results, average income, average lifestyle.

If you want to stand out from other lawyers and have more clients choose you, if you want to have a better than average lifestyle, you need to be one of the 3 who isn’t like the other 7.

Let everyone else do what everyone else does. You be one of the few who doesn’t.

To be different, start here

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Filed Under: Image, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, success

I like big checks and I can not lie

May 18, 2016 by
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I like big checks. The bigger the better. Yeah, I admit it. Big checks really make my day.

Wire transfers, direct deposits, and piles of cash also make my heart sing. If it spends, I like it. That’s just how I roll.

I like big checks and I can not lie. You other lawyers can’t deny, that when a client walks in and pays big money it’s exciting–a thing of beauty to behold.

Yeah, I like big checks, because big checks let me pay big bills and buy big things and watch my bank account grow.

Nothing wrong with that. It’s natural. So if you have a big check I want to talk to ya.

But you know what? I also like little checks. Because little checks can pay little bills and lots of little checks can pay lots of little bills.

It’s a beautiful thing.

And clients with little checks can come back and I’m always happy to see them. Sometimes they come back with big checks, and you know I like that. Sometimes they send you their friends with little checks, and big checks, too.

It’s all good.

So yeah, I like big checks but if you’ve got a small check, I like that, too.

Client got check.

C’mon, you know you want more referrals

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Referrals

Faster than a speeding retainer

May 17, 2016 by
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When a prospective client visits your website and fills out a “contact me” form or emails you directly, you do know that you’re not the only attorney they’re contacting, right? Because you know this, I know that you have a strict policy in your office for contacting said inquiries as quickly as possible.

But how quick is quick?

According to the Harvard Business Review, companies that follow-up within an hour of receiving an online query from a potential customer are almost 7 times as likely to qualify that lead than companies that contact prospects only an hour later.

“Qualifying a lead” means talking to a decision-maker to find out if they are a good match for you. Do they have a problem you can help them with, are they willing to make an appointment right now, and can they afford to hire you, for example. Qualifying prospective clients quickly is a key to signing up more of them.

By the way, HBR also noted that companies that waited a day before following-up were 60 times less likely to qualify a lead than companies that did it within the hour. I’m just saying.

Consumers today are impatient to the extreme. They want answers and solutions immediately and will seldom wait for a vendor or professional to get back to them. You may be the best lawyer for the job but repeatedly lose cases or clients to lawyers who are a little faster.

By the way, everything I just said about email applies equally to phone calls. Inquiries from prospective new clients who leave a phone message should be called immediately, even if it is to have someone tell them that you’re unavailable and schedule a time when you can talk.

So raise your right hand and solemnly swear that from this day forward you will respond to prospective clients who contact you at the speed of light. Make sure someone in your office monitors your voicemail and email inbox and replies in 60 minutes or less. If prospects call or email after hours, your phone message or email auto-reply should indicate when you will contact them, and (unless it is an emergency) that should almost always be the first thing the next day.

Marketing is easy when you know what to do

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services

Why you should spy on other lawyers

May 16, 2016 by
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If I ask you to name a lawyer you admire whom would that be? Maybe you admire their lawyering skills or their marketing acumen or the way they run their office. Maybe you know them and are impressed with their interpersonal skills.

Write down the names of lawyers you would like to emulate and then set up a file for each. Add notes about what you see them doing. Study their website. Search for articles about them and add them to your file. Find their ads or marketing documents and add those, too.

Study them so you can get ideas and inspiration and model their behavior.

What do they do differently from other lawyers, including yourself? What do they do that other lawyers don’t?

Study attorneys in your practice area and in other practice areas. Study some attorneys for their marketing prowess, and others for their speaking or writing or courtroom skills.

Find attorneys who are good at marketing online and digest their websites and blogs. How are they organized? What kind of content do they write? How often do they post? Study their headlines, bullet points, and calls to action. Do they publish a newsletter? Subscribe to it and see what they send to their list.

Study their social media platforms. Observe how often the post and how they engage with their connections.

You might study another set of lawyers about how they manage their practice. Study their fees and billing and payment options. Study their office hours and parking policy.

If you admire attorneys for their speaking and writing abilities, read what they write, find where they are speaking and show up to listen. To study trial lawyers, you might reach out to them, compliment them, and find out if you can attend their next trial.

As you do this, no doubt you’ll get a lot of ideas. You’ll also find inspiration as you realize that you can do what they do. Don’t accept everything as gospel, however. They may be successful not because of what they do but in spite of it.

The biggest benefit of this exercise is that you may find out how much you’re doing that is as good or better than what they do.

You’ll be inspired to keep doing it, and someday, other lawyers will study you.

Marketing is easier when you know the formula

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Filed Under: Law office management, Leverage, Marketing legal services Tagged With:

I’d rather be eating pizza and binge-watching Netflix

May 13, 2016 by
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I was out for a morning walk and saw a car with a license plate frame that read, “I’d rather be riding horses”. I thought about the work I had waiting for me at home and it made me think about what I’d rather be doing.

I like my work, but I don’t want to do it 12 hours a day. I don’t live to work. Never have. I’ve always had other things that were important to me and I always made time to do them.

How about you? What would your license plate frame say? What would you rather be doing right now? Not just at this moment but in your work this year and for the rest of your life?

You may be one of the lucky ones who love what you do and can’t imagine doing anything else. Or you might be like many people, reasonably content with your work because you’re good at it and it provides you with a good living but in your heart of hearts, you’d rather be doing something else.

Imagine that you had money out of the way and that you never had to work again. Would you suit up every day and head down to the office or would you put on your sandals and head to the beach?

If you’d rather be doing something else, it’s okay to admit that to yourself. That doesn’t mean you’ll drop everything and start over. But you might start thinking about the next phase in your life and take some steps to prepare for it.

The other day I thought about someone I went to law school with but hadn’t spoken to in over 30 years. I wondered what he was up to these days and searched for him online. Was he still practicing? Was he still doing family law? Was he retired? In another line of work?

I couldn’t find his website, nor any links on social media. I couldn’t find anything about him, which I thought was weird. But I knew him before “the Internet” and shrugged it off, thinking he was just another dinosaur who had refused to evolve.

“Surely he has an email address,” I thought and went to the California bar website to find it. That’s when I learned that my old friend was deceased.

He was my age and now he’s gone. Had he had a successful career, I wondered. A happy life? Did he always love his work? Or would he rather have been riding horses?

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction

A simple way to be more productive

May 12, 2016 by
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If you ever sent me an email, whether by replying to one of my emails or by using the “contact” form on my site, there’s a very good chance that you didn’t get a reply. One of the ways I stay productive is by saying “no” to most of the things that cross my path, and that definitely includes email.

I do read my email and I encourage you to write to tell me what’s on your mind or to ask questions. I get a lot of ideas for blog posts from your questions and comments, so please don’t stop writing. But don’t be disappointed if you don’t hear back from me, or if you get a one or two-word reply.

Time is money. Tempus fugit. I love ya, but I get a lot of email and I can’t spend hours every day replying to everything.

How about you? Do you answer all of your email? Do you “say no” to most of it? Or do you do something in between those two extremes?

I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do because everyone is different. But I encourage you to think about your situation and establish a policy that works for you.

Obviously, you shouldn’t ignore emails from clients or prospects. Nor should you discourage them from writing. In fact, you should do just the opposite–the more you communicate with them via email, the less time you’ll need to spend on the phone.

The point is that email (and regular mail) takes up a good portion of the day for most professionals and it is okay if you don’t reply to everything. If you can shave off 30 minutes a day by not doing so, doesn’t it make sense to move in that direction?

A good place to start is by deleting or archiving emails from people who want to sell you something or do business with you. It’s not rude to ignore unsolicited email, however personal and polite (or known to you) the sender might be. Your refusal to reply is, in itself a reply that says, “thanks, but no thanks”.

It’s also okay to have someone reply for you. And to use form replies that require no more than a couple of clicks.

Start by making yourself aware of how much time you spend responding to email, and to whom you are responding. You might want to keep a log for a week or two and then imagine that time being spent doing billable work.

If you want to get more done in the course of your day, you need to say no to most things that cross your path, and email is a good place to start.

How I got my email to “inbox zero”

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Filed Under: Email, Law office management, Productivity

Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better

May 11, 2016 by
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French psychologist Emile Coue famously promoted the curative powers of repeating a daily mantra: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”. Apparently, those who repeated this to themselves many times each day saw greater improvement than those who didn’t.

Whether this is true or not, and without debating the rationale behind it, I think we can agree that the more frequently we do something designed to improve our skills or knowledge, the more likely it is that we will see improved results.

If you want to become a better writer, for example, it’s better to write every day than it is to write sporadically.

The reason is obvious. It is the compound effect of your daily effort.

When you do it every day, you don’t start each day at zero. You have the previous days’ experiences to draw on. If you write only once a month, on the other hand, every month you start from scratch.

To become a better speaker, every day, even for a few minutes, study the advice of good speakers and practice what you learn. Work on your timing, add better stories, seek feedback from others, and make continual adjustments, however small.

As you get better at speaking, you will gain more confidence. As your confidence grows, you will get better at speaking.

And so on. Success creates more success, through the power of compounding.

Whatever you want to improve, work on it daily, even for just a few minutes.

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Filed Under: Personal development Tagged With:

Three things playing poker taught me about marketing legal services

May 10, 2016 by
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I played a lot of poker in college. I wasn’t necessarily a great player but I usually won because I got a few things right.

One thing I got good at was bluffing. Poker teaches you that you don’t have to have “the goods” (the best hand) to win the pot, as long as the other players think you do. In a law practice, we call that “faking it” until you make it.

You can get clients and win cases if you sound like you know what you’re doing, even when you don’t. But like poker, you can’t bluff all the time. If you do it too much, you’ll eventually get caught.

Do what you have to do as a new lawyer to get your practice started, but get some help when you’re in over your head. And whatever you do, make sure your clients don’t know how much you don’t know.

Poker also taught me that you don’t have to always win the big pots to win the game. You can do nicely by winning a preponderance of small to medium-size hands and letting the other players fight over the long shots. Some players in our game went hard after the biggest pots and while they sometimes won them, their net for the night was often a big loss.

By contrast, I almost always walked away from the table a winner. I did the same thing in my law career, focusing on small to medium-sized cases. They didn’t bring me many of the biggest pots, but I didn’t have any great losses, either.

The biggest thing poker taught me about marketing is that you don’t have to be a great player, you just have to be better than the other players at the table. Apparently, that’s how I was able to do so well.

In building a law practice, you may have a large number of competitors, but most of them aren’t very good at marketing. You can beat them by getting good at a few key marketing strategies. If you’re a little better at getting referrals, for example, you can become a “top player” in your market.

You can let others spend big on advertising and chase the big prizes while you consistently go home a winner.

The best way to get good at getting referrals

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Is your law practice a fixer-upper or a tear-down?

May 9, 2016 by
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Some real estate investors look for properties they can improve by remodeling the kitchens and bathrooms. Others look for “tear-downs” and build new structures from the ground up. And some look for “ugly” properties that need nothing more than cosmetic improvements like floor and window coverings, paint, and minor landscaping.

Ugly property investors seek a quick turn around and look for properties with “the right things wrong with them”.

How would your practice fair as a potential investment? How could you quickly increase your cash flow and profits?

No matter how well run and profitable your practice is, there’s always room for improvement. Some practices need a little paint and polish and other “cosmetic” improvements. Some have structural problems and need major work. And some practices should be probably be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

Take a look at your practice through the eyes of a potential investor. What do you see?

Are you in an office that’s too big or too expensive? Renegotiating your lease or moving to a less expensive building might help. If your office is too small for you or poorly located, however, a new location might allow you to bring in more clients or better clients and give you room to expand.

Examine your staff. Do they need to improve their skills? Does anyone need to be replaced? Do you need more people helping you so you can focus on marketing and big-picture projects?

Examine your computers, software, library, and other resources. What needs to be repaired or replaced? What would allow you to do your job quicker, more efficiently, or at lower cost?

Do you need new practice areas? Do you need to “fire” some of your clients to make room for better ones?

Do you do something in-house that might be done better or less expensively by an outside contractor? Are you spending too much outsourcing tasks that could be done by your employees?

Once or twice a year you and your staff should stand down from your regular activities and ask these kinds of questions. Take inventory of what you have and how it could be improved. Look for ways to lower overhead, increase your billing and bottom line.

Does your practice need major repairs or cosmetic improvements? Does it have the right things wrong with it?

Your marketing should start with this

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Filed Under: Law office management

Can Johnny come out and play?

May 6, 2016 by
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Are you up for some fun today? I thought we might take the rest of the day off, catch a movie and grab some pizza.

How does that sound?

You’ve got too much work on your desk? You’ve got appointments and deadlines?

Screw it! The work will be there when you get back. You work hard enough. You need to get out of the office and have some fun! You deserve it, don’t you?

C’mon, you know you want to. And you can. Just tell your staff you’re leaving for the weekend and have them reschedule your appointments.

They won’t understand? You feel guilty? Okay, tell them you’re not feeling well and need to leave early.

That’s true, isn’t it? You don’t feel well thinking about the fact that you can’t be spontaneous and take off a few hours when you feel like it.

So there. Problem solved. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.

What do you mean you’re not sure? Don’t be a party pooper, let’s go! It’s only a few hours. And I’m buying!

You’ll come. Great! I’m on my way.

By the way, I’m impressed. You really are a good negotiator. Playing me, holding out until I said, “I’m buying”.

Nicely done, my friend.

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Filed Under: Just for fun
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