Organization 101: File it, don’t pile it

May 25, 2012 by
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I’m looking at the table I use for a desk in my home office. There is an in basket, a vertical file holder, and one stack of files and papers. At first glance, it is the desk of an organized person. It’s tidy and there is only one (short) stack of files and papers.

At second glance, it is a mess. It’s a mess because the files and papers in that one stack belong in a file drawer, not piled on the desk.

But on third glance, it is the desk of a genius: someone smart enough to know that filing (or scanning) the papers in that stack can wait until other, more important tasks are done.

At least that’s the way I choose to look at it. And being organized is subjective, isn’t it?

But only to a point.

We’ve all seen (and maybe been guilty of having) desks that look like the aftermath of a tornado. I don’t care what the owner of that desk might say or think, they don’t know where everything is. The owner of a desk like that is not organized.

But look, if you can find the file or paper you need (rule of thumb: thirty seconds or less) and you feel in control of your work place, who am I to suggest you need to get more organized. If, on the other hand, you are often unable to find what you need and you’re not happy about it, it’s time to do something about it.

Un-piling your desk isn’t difficult. I think the hard part for some people is the notion that if they file something away, they won’t remember a task they need to do or they won’t remember where they filed something they need. Ironically, that’s exactly what their mess of a desk does.

The solution is to have a system that (a) allows you to remember what you need to do, and (b) lets you quickly find what you have filed when you need it. That’s what Getting Things Done is all about. That’s what a program like Evernote allows you to do.

Getting things out of your head and onto paper or its digital equivalent is the first plank in the Getting Things Done platform. The second is having a system that allows you to regularly review your lists of tasks so that you will be reminded of them and can choose what to do next. The third plank is having a reference system that allows you to put things away, out of sight, but easily retrievable.

For me, filing reference material was the hardest part of the system, at least in a paper based world. For one thing, much of the reference material I collect has more than one purpose and could be filed in more than one place. Indecision often led me to defer filing and I wound up with boxes filled with paper.

Today, I file most things digitally. The pile on my desk will be scanned into Evernote. With Evernote’s  keyword searching capability, and other tools like tagging and “note links,” I can quickly find what I’m looking for, as I detail in Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity.

If your desk is a mess, it’s time to un-pile and smile.

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Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Could you charge more for your legal services? Here’s how to find out

May 24, 2012 by
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Could you charge higher fees for your legal services than you charge right now?

What if you could get paid one-third more than you now get without losing any business. Wouldn’t that be cool? Or, maybe you might lose some business but increase your net income because of the higher fees you are paid from everyone else. Also cool.

Most attorneys set their fees by looking at what other attorneys in their market charge. They don’t want to charge a lot more or a lot less so they play it safe. But some attorneys do ask for more and they get it.

True, these higher paid attorneys may have more experience or a higher-profile reputation. They might offer more value to their clients. Perhaps they are better “sales people” or have more chutzpah. Maybe they took a chance when quoting fees and got lucky.

The point is that some attorneys get paid more than other attorneys for doing essentially the same work. What if you could, too?

There is a way to find out if you could charge more. No, not by asking your clients or prospects if they would be willing to pay more. They have a certain, um, bias, don’t you think? No, if you want to find out if people are willing to pay more you have to charge more, and see if they pay it.

But hold on. Don’t raise your fees across the board just yet. That’s too risky. You don’t know if this will be successful. What if you ask for too much and lose too many clients? Not good. Conversely, what if you don’t ask for enough? Your clients may pay ten percent more without flinching, but how do you know they wouldn’t have paid twenty percent more?

The answer is to test higher fees with small groups of clients and/or prospects and measure the results.

Pay-per-click advertising is a great way to do “split testing”. Basically, you quote one fee to the first inquiry and a higher fee to the second. You alternate quotes until you have a meaningful sample of responses and clients. With enough responses, you’ll be able to see which fee is producing (a) the most clients, and (b) the highest income.

Pay-per-click advertising has become extremely expensive and you might not want to use it as an ongoing marketing tool. But for short term testing purposes, wouldn’t it be worth it to find out conclusively that you could safely charge a lot more than you do now?

If your practice isn’t amenable to advertising, there are other ways to test fees with smaller groups of prospects. If you do seminars, for example, you could quote every other attendee a different fee. Or quote different fees at every other seminar.

The results of price testing are often surprising. You would think that charging higher fees would decrease the number of sales (clients) but that is not always the case. Sometimes you sell just as many at the higher price. And sometimes, believe it or not, you sell more at the higher price.

But you’ll never know unless you test.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Attorneys fees, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Prioritize your to-do list by asking why

May 23, 2012 by
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When you tell a young child to do something–pick up their clothes, finish their veggies, do their chores–you invariably hear them ask “why?”

They don’t ask this because they want to drive us crazy, although I know you might disagree. “You don’t know my kid!” Mostly, they really do want to know why they should do what you’ve asked them to do.

In other words, why is it important?

They are learning about the world, trying to make sense of everything and how it all fits together. In that context,”Why do I have to finish my veggies–I don’t like them,” is not an unfair question. Why indeed should they finish them?

By the way, if my father is reading this, “Because I said so,” is not a good answer.

When you tell your children why something is important, why they should do it, even though they still may not like it, they will be more likely to do it. It’s not just something on a never-ending list of things children have to do, there’s actually a reason for it.

And yet as adults, we make lists of things we have to do without always understanding why. It shouldn’t surprise us then that our lists contain tasks that never seem to get done simply because we are not motivated to do them.

When you make a “to do” list, the parent in you is telling the child in you to do these things but not telling you why. Why not ask your inner parent why?

According to an article in Psychology Today, knowing “why” will help you accomplish more of the things on your task list, especially things you “have to” do but might not feel like doing.

The author recommends making a “why do” list rather than simply a “to do” list. Write down why a task is important, the benefits to be had for doing it. If those benefits are important to you, you’ll be more motivated to complete the task.

I love this idea. Not just because it helps us get things done we otherwise might not do but because it lets us compare the tasks on our list and see their relative value. This lets us prioritize our list so that we get the most valuable tasks done first.

In other words, knowing why helps us become more effective.

Right now, I’ve got hundreds of tasks on my master task list. I prioritize my list based more on gut feeling than anything else. Sure, there are tasks with deadlines and there are things I do every day because they are part of my long term business model. But most of the tasks on my list are discretionary and for those, I’m going to start writing down why.

Right now, I’m off to get another cup of coffee. Why? Because I said so.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is marketing legal services hard work?

May 22, 2012 by
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It’s just work. Marketing, that is. And it’s not hard, really. Compared to the rest of what you do, how hard is it to make a few calls or write a few emails?

It’s not hard to write an article or outline a talk. It’s not hard to invite someone for coffee. It’s not hard to hand write a thank you note to your new clients.

It’s not hard to do these things. It’s just work. But you have to do it.

I heard from an attorney yesterday who has a friend who always seems to have plenty of new clients, yet he doesn’t “do” any marketing. Trust me, he does. If he has a big enough base of clients, which he does after twenty years of practice, marketing for him means little more than saying please and thank you and staying in touch with his former clients. He did the “hard work” years ago when he had no clients. Now, marketing is so easy for him it appears like he isn’t doing any.

The hard part for many attorneys isn’t the work, it’s the ego. If you believe you “shouldn’t have to do this,” you’re going to resent doing it and it will be unpleasant for you. If instead, you believe that marketing is part of the job, not beneath you and really not that difficult, you might actually enjoy it.

You’ve got to get your ego out of the way and just do the work. Schedule time on your calendar every day for marketing and keep the appointment with yourself. Even 15 minutes a day will help you make progress, if you do it every day.

It’s just work.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client relations, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Thank you letters Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Networking 101: Two simple ways to start a conversation

May 21, 2012 by
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So there you are at your bar association or chamber of commerce mixer. Lots of people you don’t know but would like to meet. “I should talk to them. . .”. but you don’t because you don’t know what to say. So you find a familiar face and talk to them instead. Sadly, another networking opportunity has passed you by. Oh well, maybe next time. . .

If this sounds familiar, I’m here to rescue you. I’ll share two very simple ways to initiate a conversation with someone you don’t know.

Before I do, I should point out that if you are at a function where the attendees are expected to mix and meet, like a bar association or chamber of commerce meeting, talking to people you don’t know is expected and not at all hard to do. Just introduce yourself: “My name is David, what’s your’s?”

Easy.

After that, ask them what they do. Let them do the talking. Ask more questions. Ask for their card.

Of course they’ll ask what you do and ask for your card. Presto-chango, new contact.

What about when you’re not at a mixer or other organized function where meeting new people is part of the agenda? How do you start a conversation when conversation isn’t expected?

This is also easy. You can either,

  1. Ask a question, or
  2. Pay a compliment.

“Do you know where the rest rooms are?” “Hey, I like your tie?” “Is that a Coach bag? It’s gorgeous.” “What time does the program start?” “Do you work near here?”

Either way, you will get a response and a conversation will have ensued. What to do next depends on the circumstances. When in doubt, another question usually keeps the conversation going.

What do you do to break the ice with people you don’t know? Please share your experiences in the comments.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How to use CLE to get new clients and new referral sources

May 18, 2012 by
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When it comes to continuing legal education (the mandatory kind), there are two types of attorneys:

  1. Those who take the classes only because they need the credits (98%), and
  2. Everyone else.

C’mon, be honest. If you weren’t required to do so, would you have signed up for most of the CLE classes you’ve taken over the years? How about if they were free?

Me neither.

But this is not a post about how ridiculous it is to compel professionals to do what the realities of a competitive marketplace already do. No, this is a post about how to make money with CLE.

Want to know how?

Okay, there’s a very simple way to leverage the time you spend taking CLE to grow your law practice. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you have to listen to the presenters and you have to take notes. No playing games while the audio is playing. And no multi-tasking, either. You actually have to pay attention.

Yeah, I know, I’m not doing a very good job of convincing you that this is a good thing, but it is.

So you take notes of the CLE programs you take and when you’re done, you write a one page summary of each class or each segment. Kinda like a brief. Actually, you can put it into any format you want: a summary, FAQ’s, case studies–whatever floats your boat. You can even record an audio if you want.

You with me?

The next thing you do is distribute your summaries to people who might like to see them. You can send them to people you know or you can contact people you don’t know and offer to send them. Or any combination thereof.

To whom do you send them (or offer to send them)?

  • Your competition. You lose nothing by giving this information to other lawyers in your practice area(s). They still have to take the class if they want the credit but your gesture of good will is certain to be appreciated and remembered. They next time you need a favor, some information or advice, you’ll have a ready made list of people willing to help you out. And the next time they have a conflict of interest on a case or otherwise have to refer out a matter, you might just be on their short list.
  • Other non-competitive attorneys. This is where you can really score some points. Take that tax class you just completed and slant your summary for attorneys who don’t practice tax law but need to know something about it. Summarize the changes in SSD for PI lawyers. You get the idea. By delivering value to attorneys in other practice areas, you position yourself as an expert in your area and someone worth knowing. If nothing else, your summaries give you a great excuse to contact potential referral sources and initiate a relationship.
  • Other professionals/referral sources. Financial planners, real estate, insurance, CPA’s–other professionals need to stay informed about the legal issues that affect what they do. Your summaries can spare them the time and trouble of wading through a mountain of information they don’t need and will undoubtedly earn their appreciation.
  • Prospects/clients. Obviously, you need to make the information suitable for lay people and you’ll probably want to avoid mentioning where you got it, but educating your clients and prospects about the legal issues they face and the available solutions (that you can provide, of course) is always a good strategy.

There are other ways to use your CLE notes. You can turn them into articles and blog posts, reports and ebooks, talking points for a speech or seminar, and hey, you can even use it in your actual, honest-to-goodness legal work. Imagine that.

As you can see, with a little creativity you can leverage the time you spend taking CLE classes (and writing summaries thereof) to create some simple tools you can use to grow your practice.

Now, for extra credit, here’s something else you can do: send your summaries to the author or presenter of the CLE class. They may not have any use for it but they will be pleased that someone actually paid attention and took notes. You now have a new contact, a well-regarded attorney who might just know some people you would like to meet and who might be willing to make those introductions.

And hey, they might even give you the hook up so you can submit your own CLE program. If you do, let me know how many credits I can get. I need 36 units and I’m way behind.

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Filed Under: Continuing Legal Education, Marketing legal services, Referral sources, Referrals Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

3 Essential Marketing and Communication Skills for Every Attorney

May 17, 2012 by
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When I opened my first office fresh out of law school I knew nothing about marketing and it showed. For several years, I struggled to bring in clients and pay my bills. Fast forward five years and I had built a very successful practice and was on my way to teaching other lawyers how to get more clients and increase their income.

What changed? I did. I had learned a lot about marketing and I acquired some new skills. Those skills allowed me to apply that knowledge in the real world, transforming the abstract into dollars and cents.

If you want to develop your practice, I consider these 3 skills to be essential:

I LEARNED HOW TO SELL

Many attorneys I speak to tell me, “I didn’t go to law school to become a sales person.” “Actually, you did,” I reply. “They just didn’t teach you very well.”

Okay, I get snarky sometimes. But the truth is, while attorneys may not be sales people in the literal sense of the word, attorneys do sell.

The best attorneys are very good at persuading people to do something they otherwise might not do (or do as much). Sometimes we use intimidation and thinly disguised threats to accomplish these outcomes. Sometimes we appeal to logic and reason. Sometimes, we appeal to emotion.

Some people see selling as manipulative but couldn’t the same be said for what attorneys do?

Actually, selling is not manipulative, at least not done correctly. If you’re among those who believe that selling is less than honorable, an article in INC. Magazine, How to Sell if you Hate Selling, might help you to see that selling is a natural extension of being an advisor and advocate, and a benevolent one at that. It is benevolent because it allows you to do a better job of helping people to get what they want and isn’t that what we are paid to do? Of course sales skills will also help you get what you want but isn’t that at least part of the reason you went to law school?

Learning how to sell was the most valuable of the 3 key skills I acquired in my transformation from struggling neophyte to successful professional. But 2 other skills were also essential.

I LEARNED HOW TO WRITE

It started with demand letters. I let go of the legalese and formality that I had been hiding behind and started writing letters that communicated and persuaded. I stopped writing in the “third person”. I began using active verbs and specific nouns. I used personal references and I told stories. I can’t say it always brought in higher settlements. Most of the time it probably made little difference. But it opened my eyes to what is possible with a good command of the written word.

I read many books about writing and I began journaling. I wrote as much as possible and continually improved my abilities. I also studied copy writing and with a lot of practice, got good at that, too. Eventually, I wrote all of the ads, sales letters, and collateral material that sold millions of dollars of my Referral Magic marketing course.

Yes, you can hire people to write brochures and sales copy for you. But just as learning how to sell makes you better at every aspect of marketing, so too does learning how to write.

I LEARNED HOW TO SPEAK

Seminars or luncheon presentations may not be a primary marketing tool for your practice, but becoming a good public speaker is an invaluable skill for every attorney.

Speaking is very different from writing. You may present the same information and you may achieve the same result, but speaking and writing are two completely different sets of skills.

I’ve spoken to small groups and to groups of thousands. I’ve been on many webinars and conference calls and done hundreds of live presentations. I’ve trained lawyers and business owners and influenced the buying decisions of thousands of prospects. In addition to bringing in a lot of business, my speaking skills have made me a better writer, a better sales person, and a better lawyer.

Selling, writing, and speaking are 3 marketing and communication skills that are essential for every attorney. I hope I’ve sold you on making them an important focus of your personal development.

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Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Public Speaking, Salesmanship, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to get people talking about you and your law practice

May 15, 2012 by
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One of the best ways to help people understand what you do is to tell stories about the clients and cases you’ve handled in the past. All of your marketing documents and messages should be peppered with client stories for reasons I’ve written about before.

But if you want people to talk about you and remember you and send business to you, there’s one more story you need to tell: your story.

People are fascinated by lawyers. Yes, they criticize us and make jokes about us, but at the same time, they love to watch TV dramas and read novels featuring attorneys.

Of course we know that the real world of practicing law is not anything like that depicted on TV. By and large, what we do is boring.

Nevertheless, your clients and prospects and social media fans and followers believe you lead a fascinating life. They would love to peek behind the curtain to see what you do.

Don’t tell them. Remember, what you do is boring.

But who you are is not.

Tell them your story. What drives you? What gets you out of bed in the morning, ready to slay dragons and save princesses? Why do you do what you do?

Share your passion for your work and insights into who you are. What fascinated you when you were growing up? Who influenced you? What experiences made you the person you are today?

Share your feelings and beliefs, desires and dreams, and even your fears. Let people see that you are a real person, just like them.

Real stories, of course, have a dramatic arc. There is controversy, disagreement, hardship, struggle. Our hero (that’s you) wants something, but there are obstacles in the way. The dragon doesn’t roll over and die, you have to slay him.

Find the dramatic story of your life and tell it. It’s what makes you unique and memorable. It’s what will help you stand out in the crowd.

Your story will attract people and get them talking about you and sending you business. And hey, if your story is good enough, one day we might see it on TV.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Communication, Copywriting, Image, Marketing legal services, Public Speaking, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Seth Godin’s latest example of bad advice

May 14, 2012 by
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I often comment on other blogger’s posts. I take their ideas, add my two cents, and re-frame their generic information so it is appropriate for attorneys. I think writing teachers refer to this as, “compare and contrast.” It’s an easy way to create interesting, timely, and relevant content.

But while “comparing and contrasting” might make for an interesting post, there’s nothing better than writing a post where you completely disagree with someone, especially when that someone is a respected and well known expert. Such was the case with a recent post by marketing expert extraordinaire, Seth Godin, with which I completely disagreed.

Oops, Seth did it again.

Seth’s new post is about “sampling,” offering free samples to prospective customers to get them to try your product. In the food market, shoppers are offered a taste on a cracker, for example. If they like it, they buy the product.

Seth says it’s a bad idea. A waste of money.

Au contraire, mon frère

Sampling works. Yes, you wind up giving free samples “to people who have no intention to buy,” as Seth points out, but you sell far more than you give away.

Seth claims merchants look at sampling as a cost of doing business, like overhead. Not true. It’s an investment. Done right, it earns the merchant a big return on that investment.

Spend X dollars giving away free samples. Take in Y dollars in resulting product sales. The difference is profit.

You spend money to make money. It’s how business works.

And let’s not forget that once you try a new product and like it, you might then purchase that product every week for years to come.

Or, you might not buy the product being sampled but you might like the cracker it was served on and buy that. You might see something on the shelf you had not noticed before because you usually don’t stop in that part of the store and buy that. Or maybe it’s as simple as coming back to shop at that particular store because you like the free samples and the store down the street doesn’t offer them.

Look, the retail industry tracks everything: every product, every price point, every penny earned as a result of a sale or promotion.

If sampling didn’t work, trust me, they wouldn’t do it.

Well guess what? Sampling works for attorneys, too. When attorneys invest an hour in a free consultation, they usually get the client to sign up. (If you’re not, we need to talk). Those consultations don’t cost you, they pay you, by bringing you more clients, some of whom come back again and again and refer others.

Give prospects a sample of what you sell and they will buy more of what you sell.

Not only is there a mountain of empiracal evidence to support this, it’s also been documented by psychologists. It’s called “the law of reciprocity” which says that when you give something to someone, they are psychologically compelled to reciprocate.

The more you give away, the more you get in return.

For the record, there are other ways attorneys can offer samples besides a free consultation. You can give away the service itself, a free will for example, knowing that in doing so, you’ll sign up many of those clients for living trusts or other services.

Of course marketing is both art and science. You have to know what to give away, and to whom. You have to keep track of your results so you know what works best. You don’t want to give away more than you need to get the client, but you don’t want to give away less than you need and not get them at all.

Sampling isn’t something an attorney must do. But clearly, it works. If you don’t want to give away consultations or services, you can give away digital products–reports, ebooks, audios, and so on–to provide prospective clients with a sample of your knowledge and expertise. Seth thinks this is a good idea and does this himself to promote his products. Digital products are good to sample, he says, “. . .because more free samples cost you nothing.”

Oh, now I get it. Seth does know that sampling works. He’s just cheap.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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