New eBook Shows Lawyers How to Use Evernote to Organize Everything

January 10, 2012 by
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If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know how much I love Evernote. I use it for everything: notes, documents, writing, task management, you name it. Today, I’m proud to announce the release of a new eBook, “Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity“.

Lawyers manage an incredible amount of information and finding that information quickly is imperative. More and more attorneys use Evernote for capturing notes and web clips, and initially, that’s all I used it for. I’ve since discovered many other ways Evernote can be used to organize the information in my life, and that’s what this book reveals.

Topics include using Evernote for research and writing, time and billing support, marketing and career development, and managing client files and documents. Other chapters include, “going paperless,” “data security,” “working with email,” and “working with your calendar”.

Attorneys who use David Allen’s Getting Things Done® methodology (or want to), will want to read Chapter 4, which covers this subject at length. I’ve written before about my Evernote/GTD system. Evernote for Lawyers presents my latest thinking on this subject, as well as the latest updates to my gtd system and work flow.

Evernote currently has 20 million users world wide and was recently honored as Inc. Magazine’s 2011 Company of the Year.

Evernote is free and is available for Windows, Mac, on the web, and all major mobile platforms. A premium version with enhanced features is also available.

Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity is available for immediate download in pdf format at OrganizedLawyer.com

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Filed Under: Law office management, News, Productivity, Technology, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to find a legal job in this economy

January 9, 2012 by
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A new attorney contacted me recently, seeking advice on getting a job. I don’t know that I’m the right person to ask since I’ve never had a job, unless working for your father for a year out of law school counts, but I do have some thoughts about the subject.

If I was looking to work for someone else, I’d consider what everyone else is doing (job hunters) and do the opposite.

First, I wouldn’t write a resume. Resumes are a mechanism for rejecting the masses and not a good way to stand out. Instead, I’d write a sales letter.

This letter would show what I’ve done for others (clients or employers) and include endorsements from influential people who know me and what I can do, and testimonials from people I’ve previously helped.

Before this, I’d do my homework. I would choose a handful of firms or companies I was interested in working with and look at their “resume” (web site). I’d study them and their industry and learn everything I could. I’d talk to people who work there and people who used to. I’d find professionals who know the principals of the firm and buy them coffee. I’d learn about the firm’s strengths and especially, their weaknesses. What problems do they have? What objectives are they trying to meet? What can I do to help them?

Then, I’d ask the people I met during my research period for an introduction. If they don’t know the top dog, I’d ask them to introduce me to someone who does.

When I met the owner, I’d ask questions that let him know I knew something about their firm. I’d keep asking questions until I saw an opening to make some suggestions. That’s when I’d show them I had something to offer.

If I do a good job of showing them I can solve some of their problems, it won’t matter whether there is a job opening or not, they’ll create a position for me.

If they asked me for a resume, I’d give them my sales letter.

Statistics tell us that two-thirds of all jobs are never advertised and are filled through networking. I like those odds better than the resume game.

And if I didn’t have enough experience for the position I wanted, as this new attorney suggested, I’d lower my sights initially and do the same thing for a company or firm where I could develop that experience. Or I’d volunteer somewhere that would provide the experience and take a “Mc-Job” in order to pay the bills.

So, my advice is to think of yourself not as an employee looking for a job but as the owner of your own company. Don’t ask for a job, market your company to prospective clients.

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Filed Under: Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to get clients if you hate networking

January 5, 2012 by
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I don’t like networking. It doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s not my “thing”.

I know how to do it. I’ve done it enough. I just don’t enjoy it. I’d rather talk to someone on the phone or in a one-on-one setting over a cup of coffee.

Does that make me a bad person? Does it doom me to marketing failure?

No, not at all.

Marketing is (or should be) a mechanism for you to express yourself in a natural way. Marketing isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a mold you must contort your body and soul to fit.

So if there is some aspect of marketing you don’t enjoy (and you’ve given it a fair shake), don’t do it. Life is too short to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous marketing. Or whatever.

It doesn’t matter how well others are doing with a particular strategy, or how many goo-roos are touting the latest and greatest tool or technique. You have to do what’s right for you.

If you don’t like networking–don’t do it. Speaking give you the willies? Cross it off the list. Social media got you tied in knots because you don’t want to “talk” to strangers online? Choose something else.

If you force yourself to do things you don’t enjoy, you’re not going to be very good at them anyway, so what’s the point? Go try a lot of things, pick one you like, and go nuts with it.

Okay, I know there’s someone who’s dying to ask this: “What if I’ve tried every type of marketing and I don’t like anything?”

The answer to that is simple: get a job.

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

How to find time for what’s important

January 4, 2012 by
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Being productive means doing more of the things that advance your most important objectives and less of the things that don’t. How to you find more time to do the high-value/high-payoff activities?

You don’t.

You can’t find time. But you can buy it.

We only have so many hours in our day. We have to sleep and eat and take care of household duties. We have family and hobbies and other things we do that add value to our lives. We also have responsibilities, things we simply cannot delegate. Add it all up and there are only so many hours a day for work.

The only way you’ll be able to spend more of your work time doing high-payoff activities is by cutting out something else. You must buy back the time you now spend on low-payoff activities so you can spend it on the activities that matter most.

If you want to be more productive (translation: earn more without working more), the following three-step exercise will help:

Step one: take inventory.

For the next week (assuming it is a typical week), write down everything you do, 24 hours a day, in 15-minute increments. (Okay, if you want to use 6-minute increments, you can, but no padding. . .)

If you’re like most people, you’ll resist doing this exercise. You’ll make excuses, you’ll “forget,” you’ll bitch and moan about yet another silly personal development exercise.

Trust me, it’s worth it.

If you can’t do a week, try it for a day. You’ll see. You’ll be amazed at how much time you spend doing some things.

This simple exercise is a real eye-opener for a lot of people. They find large pockets of wasted time they can easily reclaim to do other, more valuable activities.

Which leads to. . .

Step two: Grade yourself.

Go through your time diary again and put a mark next to all of your high-payoff work-related activities. Write down the amount of time you spent on each. Add it all up for the week and divide by five (or six) days.

On average, what percentage of your working day is spent on high-payoff activities?

Highly productive people spend at least 70% of their time working on high-payoff activities. Most people (who are honest with themselves) find their number is 30-40%.

If you discover there’s room for improvement, it’s time for step three.

Step three: Go shopping.

Go through your diary one more time and circle all of your low-payoff activities. Feel free to skip things like grooming, sleeping, meals, caring for children–things you still have to (or want to) do.

What remains is your shopping list of low-payoff activities. This is where you will “buy” time. Go through the remaining list and ask yourself, “What can I cut down on?” and “What can I cut out?”

The point of this is to help you define your current reality and show you a simple way to change it. Spending a few hours this week doing this exercise is truly a high-payoff activity.

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

The secret to creating blog and newsletter content your prospects actually want to read

January 3, 2012 by
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Many lawyers say they want to start a blog or newsletter but are afraid they won’t have enough to write about.

If you think your prospects don’t want to read all about case law and procedure, you’re right. There will always be exceptions, but most clients have their own lives and businesses to run. If they were that interested in the law, they would go to law school.

Here’s a heads up: PI lawyers, nobody wants to read for the umpteeth time what to do in an accident or how to maximize the value of their case. I’m not saying this isn’t important information–it is. You should write about it. Once. And link to so those who want and need this information can go read it.

So, what do you write about if not about your field of expertise?

Actually, the answer to this question is incredibly simple. And yet, not one in 10,000 lawyers does it, at least not consistently. When you hear what it is, you may just slap your forehead and have one of those “of course!” moments.

Now, I should also point out that when you do this, you will have a never-ending supply of fresh content and a huge surge in reader involvement and viral traffic. You’ll have people talking about your blog and about you. Other blogs will mention your posts and link to them. Reporters may call to interview you.

Have I got your attention?

Here’s the secret: don’t write about the law, your services, or your cases, other than occasionally. When something interesting happens. Instead, most of the time, write about the niche market or markets you are targeting.

Did I just lose you? Well, if you don’t have a target market, maybe so. If you think “anyone who gets injured as a result of someone else’s negligence” is a target market, you’re wrong. It’s way too big. And every other PI lawyer says the same thing.

You want to target smaller sub-sets of the entire market. In a niche market, the people know each other on social media and in real life, they attend the same meetings, and read the same blogs. There is strong word of mouth in niche markets. And it’s easier to identify the key people in them.

A niche market would be something like “health care professionals in Los Angeles County”. Not too big, not too small. As a matter of fact, this happens to be a good target market. When a physician is seriously injured, there’s usually some serious damages. But I digress.

So, you write about health care in Los Angeles. You write about who’s doing what–promotions, speaking gigs, published articles. You write about trends and issues that affect this market. You champion their causes and support their charities.

You interview people who work in this niche. You read the popular blogs and comment on their posts.

So, you might write about some changes in policy at XYZ hospital. Not legal issues, necessarily. It could be anything that people want to know about.

Here’s more good news: you don’t have to do all the writing yourself. Other professionals who target this market will be happy to supply content. Consultants, sales people, other lawyers, accountants, hospital administrators, insurance brokers, medical supply reps–dozens of informed people with big networks of their own and they would love to provide a guest post or supply some tips or let you interview them. All you have to do is ask.

Guess what will happen? The people in your posts and those affected by this information will talk about them and share them with their colleagues and co-workers. They’ll post them on Facebook and link to them on their blogs. Your blog will get noticed and so will you.

Writing a blog about your target market is one of the smartest things you could do. You’re learning about this market, aren’t you? Take what you learn and turn it into content.

Use your blog as a platform to stay in front of your market. You will become the attorney in this niche, the one that everyone thinks about when they think about personal injuries and the one they call when they need your services or know someone who does.

This is not rocket science. Choose a niche market and dedicate yourself to it. Learn everything you can about the market and the people in it. Subscribe to their blogs and newsletters. Attend their meetings. Become an expert in that market and then write about it.

And if something law-related occurs in that market, go ahead and write about that, too.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Networking, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Publicity, Social media marketing, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Designing the perfect legal career

January 2, 2012 by
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In Steven Covey’s, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” habit 2 is, “Begin with the end in mind“. Determine your destination before you begin so you wind up where you want to go. Covey says, “If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.”

So, where do you want to go in your career?

I assume you want to be successful. Well, what does success look like for you?

Take some time today to answer this question:

“If my practice/career/job were perfect in every way, what would it look like?”

Write down your answer. Here are some additional questions to help you clarify your “destination”:

  • Where would you be living?
  • Who would you work for?
  • What kind of office would you have or would you work from home?
  • How many hours would you work?
  • What services would you offer?
  • How much would you charge?
  • How much would you earn per month or per year?
  • What kinds of clients would you work with?
  • How many people would you employ?
  • What systems or tools would you use?
  • What makes you different from other attorneys?

Once you’ve got something on paper, take a step back and look at what you wrote. Did you write what you think you should be doing based on where you are right now or did you turn on your dream machine and “go for it”?

Forget logic for a few minutes. Quiet the adult in you and let the little kid speak. Ask your inner genie to grant you three wishes.

No rules. No restrictions. No responsibilities. What does your perfect career (or life) look like?

It’s your career, after all, your journey. Where do you want to wind up?

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Goal Setting, Inspiration, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How to promote your legal services without feeling sleazy

December 30, 2011 by
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sleazy lawyer attorneyAre you uncomfortable with self-promotion? I think most people are, even those of us with “healthy” egos.

According to this inc.com article, “How to Self-Promote–Without Being Sleezy,” we feel this way in large part because of what we believe our friends will think.

Of course “being sleazy,” as the author (or her editor) words it, and “feeling sleazy” aren’t necessarily the same thing. It’s not per se sleazy to promote yourself, yet we may still feel that it is.

Why? It comes down to our sense that when we promote ourselves, our friends will be jealous and stop being our friends. Or something like that.

I say, stop worrying about what your friends think. If they are truly your friends, they will support you even if they are a bit jealous. And if they’re not your friends, it’s okay to let them go.

Okay, that’s easier said than done. Let’s turn to the article for some suggestions on how to lesson the impact:

  1. Tell the story of the struggle behind the success.
  2. Be excited, but be humbled.
  3. Give credit where credit is due.
  4. Enlist the help of your friends to get the word out.

Okay, good ideas. But nobody wants to listen to your broken record about how great you are, not even your mother. So if you really want to do a good job of promoting your services, and not turn anybody off or feel sleazy about it, here’s what you should do:

Don’t talk about yourself.

Talk about your clients and prospects. Talk about their problems and the available solutions. Talk about the law and the procedure. And talk about your other clients and what they have been able to achieve.

Do this with intelligence and grace and you won’t have to promote yourself.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Image, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to make a quick screen capture video for your blawg

December 29, 2011 by
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How to create free screen capture video for your blawgYesterday, I issued an “attorney marketing video challenge“. Today, I want to show you a free and very easy to use web app that allows you to make screen capture videos. I’d seen ScreenR before and was reminded to take another look when I read a review of screenR this morning.

I created the following video a few minutes after I set up an account. I uploaded the video to my Youtube account and then embedded it in this post.

Very easy, very quick.

Even if you don’t want to take the video challenge, I encourage you to set up an account and do a few practice videos. Put your web site or blog on screen, say something intelligent, and you’re done.

You can download the video, post it at youtube or other video sharing sites, put it on your web site, or leave it hosted at ScreenR and post the link to your social media friends and followers.

Note, your video will be public (on the free account) so don’t go too crazy in your video.

Take a look and share your comments. If you are unable to see the video, refresh your browser or you can view it here.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing, Technology, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Attorney marketing video challenge

December 28, 2011 by
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attorney marketing videosAbout a year ago, I wrote and “produced” a simple video about a new lawyer attending his first ABA Convention. This was around the time the ABA was considering new rules to regulate attorneys behavior online and the video played off that theme and an ad hoc write-in campaign to tell the ABA to back off.

The ABA didn’t go nuclear on us, but I don’t think my video was the reason. What my video did do was get a lot of attorneys watching it and sharing the link with others. I got a lot of traffic from it.

No, it wasn’t a big hit on youtube, but in my niche market, it did okay.

My challenge to you is to create your own video and put it on youtube and on your blog.

You can use the free service I used, Xtranormal, which allows you to give voice to animated characters. Or, you can act out a skit with other live “actors”. You can narrate slides on your desktop, or simply talk into the camera.

Your best bets for going viral are to use humor or to take a controversial stand, but I would stay away from politics. How about a funny commercial by one of your “competitors”? Or something about one of the new laws that take effect in January?

Anything goes, but remember, your clients are watching (and so is the ABA!)

Keep it under five minutes. Watching my video today, I realized I could have achieved the same effect with a much shorter spot.

You may not see a ton of results from your video but you will learn some things that might allow you to create another video that does. And you’ll have a lot of fun.

Send me the link to your video. I’ll choose a winner and feature it in a future post.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Blogging, Just for fun, Legal industry, Marketing legal services, Social media marketing, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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