Successful lawyers are unbalanced

November 7, 2007 by
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A few years ago, I didn’t know the difference between leadership and management, and, frankly, I didn’t care. To my way of thinking, these were "corporate" concepts, irrelevant to my needs as a sole practitioner trying to build a law practice.

In my never-ending quest for personal development, I have since learned a great deal about these subjects and now appreciate their value in building a law practice.

If you would like a shortcut to understanding the essence of these subjects, I’d recommend a book by Marcus Buckingham, author of the best sellers, "First, Break All The Rules" and "Now, Discover Your Strengths. Buckingham’s latest is "The One Thing You Need to Know. . . About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success." His insights on leadership and management will truly help you become more effective in managing your practice. His conclusions about "sustained individual success" will not only help you attract more clients and increase your income, they will help you enjoy the process.

Success and happiness. Not a bad combination.

I agree with Buckingham’s conclusion that success does not require (and may actually be inhibited by) balance, a conclusion supported by another book I recommended and frequently refer to, "The 80/20 Principle" by Richard Koch. Yes, we want balance between our careers and personal lives, but when it comes to marketing a law practice or building a career, I have always counseled an unbalanced (focused) approach: specialization, niche marketing, and maximizing strengths while making weaknesses irrelevant.

So when people say I’m unbalanced, that’s a good thing.

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Filed Under: Book review, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Specializing Tagged With:

What is your highest and best use?

November 5, 2007 by
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As a lawyer, you do a lot of activities throughout the week, but what do you do best?

Take the time to answer this question because if you want to have the maximum success of which you are capable, what you do best is what you should do most of the time.

You may be good at a lot of things but you will achieve
more by becoming BRILLIANT at just a few.

Society pays top dollar for mastery. Your strategy should be to focus on your strengths and make them even stronger. Too often, we focus on improving our weaknesses. We realize that we don’t know how to build a web site, for example, and so we set out to learn. But learning how to build a web site is not going to make us more valuable to our clients. It is not the “highest and best use” of our time.

The 80/20 princple says that the majority of our results, probably in the neighborhood of 80%, come from a minority of our efforts (probably 20%). Conversely, only 20% of our results are derived from 80% of our activities. We can multiply our effectiveness, therefore, by spending more time on those high payoff, 20% activities that bring 80% of our results.

What are your 20% activities? What do you do best? What is it that if you could only do more of, it would add tremendous value to your practice? What brings you more income? What makes you more valuable to your clients? More attractive to referral sources?

When I set out to answer this question myself, I did an exercise that was a real eye-opener.The idea is to track all of your activities for a full week (in a spiral notebook or legal pad), noting everything you do, minute by minute, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. (If you want, you can limit this exercise to just your work hours, but if you’re like me, the line between work time and personal time is usually blurry.) Record everything you do, even if it takes just a minute or two, and how much time you spend doing it.

When you’re done, you should have a list of at least 50 activities you do throughout the week and the amount of time spent on each. Now, go through the list and put a star next to those things you believe are high payoff activities. They produce work product, generate revenue, or otherwise have a material role in your job description.

Now comes the hard part. Look again at the starred list and identify the THREE most important activities you do, the ones that give you the very highest payoff. What three things constitue "20% activities that produce 80% of results"? What if you come up with five things, or seven, or ten? Keep looking. Most of the time, you will be able to zero in on three things that contribute 80% of your results. You may have to combine items or describe them differently, but keep looking until you find those three.

The next step is to add up the amount of time you spent on these three activities. Based on the number of hours you work each week, what percentage of your time was spent on these three activities?

If you’re like most people, you probably spend less than 30% of your time on high payoff activities. Imagine what would happen if you could double the time you spend on those activities.

YOUR RESULTS WOULD GO UP 160%!

That’s because you would be investing two blocks of time on activities that now produce 80% of your results, so you would get two blocks of 80% results. A corollary is that by spending more time on high payoff activities, you would get more accomplished in less time. If you are satisfied with the results you are getting but want to cut your work hours, this is the way.

Where do you find the time to do more high payoff activities? By eliminating as much of your low payoff activities as possible. Look at your list. What can you eliminate completely? Be ruthless. Remember, every hour of time you reclaim will be worth much more than an hour to you when you reinvest it in high payoff activities.

Next, for anything on the list that cannot be eliminated completely, look for ways to delegate or outsource them.

Your objective is to do only what you do best and delegate the rest.

You will find a number of activities that aren’t high payoff (your list of three) but cannot be eliminated or delegated. You are the one who must do them. First ask, "Is that really true?" We often fool ourselves into believing that nobody can do what we do, when in fact, there are many who can do it as well, or almost as well, and sometimes, better! Again, if it’s not one of your high payoff activities, find someone else to do it.

For those things that you and only you can do do, look for ways to do them less often. Do you really have to do them every week? And, what can you do more quickly? Are their any tools you could use? Can you get some training on how to do it more efficiently?

Finally, give yourself permission to relinquish perfectionism. Some things just aren’t as important as others, and while we still need to do them, "good enough" might just be good enough.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management Tagged With:

50 ways to market your practice (guess what’s missing?)

November 2, 2007 by
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Grant Griffiths, at Home Office Lawyer, wrote about his disappointment with a recent ABA Journal article, 50 Ways To Market Your Practice: Top tips from successful solos and small-firm practitioners, because the list doesn’t include blogging or, indeed, much of anything about marketing legal services online.

I agree. It is a glaring omission.

Many of the tips came from the ABA’s Solosez discussion group, comprised of more than 2000 solos and small-firm lawyers, and you would think that lawyers in that demo would be more progressive. But this is THE ABA we’re talking about and we really shouldn’t expect them–or their readers–to be on the leading edge of thought regarding the business of law, any more than we should expect this of law schools.

I suspect that many of their readers know about blogging but don’t do it, and that’s why they didn’t offer it as a "marketing tip". Let’s face it, most attorneys from all demographics still don’t have a web site, let alone a blog. Attorneys are risk-adverse and most aren’t early adoptors (I still consider November, 2007 to be early in the blogging game). Congratulations to those of you who have been at this for awhile–you can be proud of your leadership.

As more attorneys consider blogging, I predict that most will come around slowly, at best. Here’s why:

  1. The don’t see the benefits
  2. They don’t know how to do it
  3. They see it as too much work
  4. They don’t (believe they) have the time

Many lawyers will eventually see the benefits, and monkey-see, monkey-do. (Does anyone remember that expression?) We’ll start to see more attorneys at least talking about blogging.

For those who are challenged by technology, there are ebooks that show how to do it quickly (and free), and other information resources. There’s also software (which is what I used), and firms like this and this who will design and set up a blog for you. We’ll see more resources coming along, so that lack of "know how" will no longer be an excuse "not to".

Those who say it’s too much work are right, of course, assuming they don’t see the benefits or don’t believe they have the time. And then there will be those who say they will set up a blog only if they can delegate the work to someone else, and, of course, that’s not blogging.

The biggest group will be those who see it and want to do it, but don’t think they have the time. Of course if one compares blogging to other marketing activities, i.e., seminars, public speaking or networking, fifteen to thirty minutes a day, a few days a week doesn’t sound like much, and it’s not, especially if you blog not just for the material benefits but because you enjoy it. Nevertheless, a lawyers’ time is precious and I’m going to do my part to demonstrate that with a little thought, you can easily line up more material for your blog than you will ever be able to use. Let’s use the ABA article to demonstrate.

The article presents 50 ways to market a law practice, and while they aren’t all gems, most are good ideas. Marketing is often simple ideas, well executed, and so while these tips might be in the "I already know that" category for some, they will be completely new, for others. And everyone can benefit from knowing not just what to do (the tip) but how to do it (or do it better). That’s where I come in. From this one artcle, I can get enough ideas to write my blog for an entire year.

The first tip is to join your local chamber of commerce. Well, now, I could write a dozen articles on that subject alone! There’s what to look for in a suitable chamber, how to do due diligence before you join, how to meet people, what to say when you introduce yourself, which committees are best to volunteer for, how to start a conversation with people you meet, how to get others interested in you, how to leverage your membership to create other marketing opportunities, and so on.  Two, maybe three weeks worth of material from the one tip, and who knows what other ideas that will lead to.

The second tip is to have a unique business card and hand it out frequently. I’ve written on this subject before, and have more advice in my head (and in my marketing course), and, in addition, a quick search on the Internet will bring other ideas, as well as resources I could recommend (e.g., designers, printers).

And so on. Enough ideas for a year or more.

It’s true that a tip is not an article (I have to produce that), but when you are an expert on something (marketing, your practice area), you have a lot more to say than you may realize. What is obvious to you is often brilliant to those who don’t know it.

And blog articles are usually short. They provide a few pointers and/or resources, share a story, or offer an opinion about something in the news or on someone else’s blog. It doesn’t take a lot of time to write a few paragraphs, especially when you are knowledgeable about (and interested in) the subject.

One caution if you’re thinking of starting a blog: it can be addicting. If you’re not careful, you could spend too much time writing and not enough time doing everything else you need to do, like I have done today. Maybe I should reconsider that delegating thing. . .

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Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Writing Tagged With: , ,

More free traffic to your blawg: BlogRush Phase 2

October 31, 2007 by
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Internet empresario John Reese, announced today that Blogrush, designed to help bloggers generate free, targeted traffic to their blog, has entered phase 2. (I announced the arrival of Blogrush, here.)

You’ve seen the Blogrush widget on this blog, and others, for the last month or so. The widget displays posts from other related blogs, providing visitors with a convenient method of finding other relevant blogs. My posts have appeared in the widget on other law-related blogs; posts from other blogs have appeared on mine. The result: free, targeted referral traffic to my web site.

Thanks, John!

Because my blog is new and I don’t yet have a lot of traffic, Blogrush gives me free "bonus credits". This gives me extra impressions, which bring extra traffic. Thanks again!

In Phase 1, The Attorney Marketing Center has been listed in the "law and legal" category. On Friday, Reese says the company will unveil new categories. I’m hoping to see vertical market categories for lawyers and others interested in marketing legal servicees. I sent an email to the Blogrush team today, and suggested some representative key words: attorney marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing, legal marketing, marketing legal services. I could live with a category that includes law office management and marketing, but the more specific the categories, the more targeted the traffic.

Blogrush is free. If you have a blog, go watch the movie and see how Blogrush can bring you free traffic.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Web traffic

Building a law practice from the inside out

October 29, 2007 by
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Last week, I talked about personal development and how it affects every aspect of our personal and professional lives. One of the hallmarks of personal development and building a balanced life, is good health. Of course a key component of good health is getting enough sleep, and if you’re like me, you usually don’t get enough. Lack of sleep not only affects our physical health, but also our mental well-being. It is a factor in how we handle stress, how well we perform, and our overall quality of life. To our rescue comes Steve Pavlina, who just wrote a comprehensive article, How to wake up feeling totally alert.

Pavlina’s blog is one of the most popular on the web, and it’s easy to see why. It is a treasure trove of information and advice on personal development, well documented, interesting to read, and always right to the point. Some of his material may appear to be out in left field, but there’s no doubt Pavlina is an intelligent observer and leading edge thinker. You’d almost have to be when your "slogan" is "Personal Development For Smart People".

By the way, if his home page looks vaguely familiar, it’s because I modeled mine on it.

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Personal development, Productivity

Change your life by changing your thoughts

October 25, 2007 by
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“You are what you think about,” said Earl Nightengale. If that’s true, then we can change our lives by changing our thinking. According to John C. Maxwell in “Thinking For a Change,” this is how it works:

  •  When you change your thinking, you change your beliefs.
  •  When you change your beliefs, you change your expectations.
  •  When you change your expectations, you change your attitude.
  •  When you change your attitude, you change your behavior.
  •  When you change your behavior, you change your performance.
  •  When you change your performance, you change your life.

Maxwell says, “If you want to improve an area of your life, don’t start by trying to change your actions. Start by changing your mind.”

I agree.

How do we change our thinking? Through personal development.

On a conceptual level, personal development is everything we do to improve ourselves–our thoughts, our attitudes, our habits, our knowledge, and our skills. It affects everything–who we are, what we accomplish, how much we earn, our health, our entire quality of life. It is based on the so-called “Law of Attraction” which says, “like attracts like,” the idea being that we get what we ARE (as defined by our thoughts), not necessarily what we WANT.

Why is it that “the rich get richer” and some people are “always lucky”? The Law of Attraction.

Why is it that “negative” people always have negative things happening to them? The Law of Attraction.

Negative people aren’t negative because bad things happen to them,
bad things happen to them because they are negative.

According to the Law of Attraction, if you want a more prosperous life, you need to first become a more prosperous person (though your thoughts, habits, attitudes, etc.) and personal development is how you do it.

Ben Franklin was speaking about personal development when he said that if he had three hours to chop down a tree, he would spend two hours sharpening his ax. Jim Rohn said, “Success is not to be pursued, it is to be attracted by the person you become.” He also said, “To attract attractive people, you must be attractive. To attract powerful people, you must be powerful. To attract committed people, you must be committed. Instead of going to work on them, you go to work on yourself. If you become, you can attract.”

So, how do you “do” personal development? There are five mechanisms:

  1. Learning: (What you read, listen to; training, seminars, etc.)
  2. Activities: (Practice; real-world “trial and error”)
  3. Modeling: (Associating with people who have the desired thoughts, habits, skills, etc.)
  4. Mentoring/Coaching: (Contextual advice from others; structured accountability)
  5. Teaching: (Teaching/coaching others, speaking, writing)

Personal development is a process, something you do for the rest of your life. I like to think of it as Continuing Personal Education.

Personal development takes commitment and it takes time, but you can start with as little as thirty minutes a day. (You may already be doing things that “count” towards your CPE credits.) Start by scheduling time each day for reading and/or listening. Check this blog for recommended books, web sites, CDs and audio downloads.

Be an active reader or listener. Think about what you are learning. Take notes. Write down questions. Apply what you learn to your activities. As you get better results from your activities, that feedback will influence future learning. Learned knowledge, followed by activity knowledge, followed by more learned knowledge. Over time, you develop better thoughts, and eventually, you attract a better life.

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Filed Under: Personal development

13 ways to get web traffic without search engines

October 23, 2007 by
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At last count, 564 subscribers to The Prosperous Lawyer newsletter have downloaded the free ebook from websmartlawyer.com I mentioned a few days ago. Apparently, a lot of lawyers have or want to have a web site to help them build their practice. If you didn’t get your copy, here is the link.

In reading the author’s discussion of search engines, optimizing web pages, and generating search traffic, I started thinking about how all lawyers should have a web site but many undoubtedly hesitate to get one because of the enormity of the task of generating search engine traffic. If you feel that way, forget about search engines for the time being and get a web site anyway because it provides other valuable benefits.

A web site is a mechanism for prospective clients and referral sources to get to know, like, and trust you. It sells you and your services and operates 24/7, at almost no cost to you. Browsers can spend as much time as they want, getting to "know" you through your web site, learning more about what you do, and for whom you do it, and discovering everything else they might like to know that could bring them closer to calling and making an appointment.

Your web site can be (should be) a resource of valuable information, helping clients and prospects to better understand their legal situation and the options that are available to them, as well as demonstrating your experience in helping others with similar issues. This can result in new business, repeat business, and referrals.

Your web site allows you to "cross sell" your other services to clients who may not know "what else" you do.

It provides a mechanism for building your email list, allowing you to communicate more frequently (and at less cost) with clients, prospects and referral sources.

And it is a resource for networking with other professionals. Your clients may be among the 25% of Amercians who don’t use the Internet, but I assure you, your prospective referral sources are not. Your web site and online newsletter give you a reason to reach out to those professionals, perhaps to have them write "guest articles" for your newsletter or blog, or to participate in an online survey.

Now don’t get me wrong, you do want search engine traffic. It’s free, it’s targeted, and it’s a brilliant way to build your practice. But there are other ways to get visitors to your web site, beyond search engines. Here are a baker’s dozen:

  1. Put your website on your business card, stationery, brochures, and in your email signature. (I hope you’re not still using your personal email address. Instead of lawyerjoe[at]sbcglobal.net, it’s much more professional looking to use yourname[at]yourdomain.com. It also allows you to "brand" your domain with every email you send. If you don’t already have your own domain name, get one immediately.)
  2. Use a "resource box" at the end of articles you write; list your contact information, including your web site
  3. Put your web site address in your bio, and your introduction for speaking engagements
  4. Write articles and post them in online article directories (e.g., www.ezinearticles.com, et. al.)
  5. Post comments on others’ blogs or in online forums or list servs, and link to your web site
  6. Write press releases and submit to www.PRlog.com or www.PRWeb.com
  7. Advertise offline: newspapers, magazines, TV/Radio, direct mail, etc.
  8. Advertise online: ezines, Google Adwords & other PPC, www.craigslist.com, etc.
  9. Provide an appropriate testimonial for a product or service you use, with a link to your site
  10. Submit your site to online niche directories
  11. Buy a domain name related to your niche that is already receiving traffic and forward it to your site.
  12. Create an Amazon.com profile and submit reviews for books and other products
  13. Create an ebook and list in on the free ebook sites; contact others who serve your target market and offer to provide this as a free resource to their clients (just like the author at websmartlawyer.com)
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Filed Under: List building, Networking, Online Marketing, Web traffic Tagged With:

“The 30-second rule”: more clients and better verdicts?

October 22, 2007 by
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In a recent post, How to make people like you, I said that a positive attitude is a key to getting people to like you, especially when dealing with people facing stressful situations. Being liked may not be first on the list of traits you associate with success in the legal field, but countless studies demonstrate that people prefer to do business with people they know, like, and trust. All things being equal, clients will choose you and referral sources will refer to you, because they like you.

Let’s face it, even litigators benefit when juries, judges, adjusters, and opposing counsel like them.

Books like The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life’s Dreams by Tim Sanders and 25 Ways to Win With People:How to Make Others Feel Like a Million Bucks by John C. Maxwell and Les Parrott substantiate this and offer specific strategies for achieving greater likability.

Maxwell and Parrott say the way to make people like you is to make them feel good about themselves when they are with you. One way to do that is with something Maxwell calls, "The 30-Second Rule: within the first thirty seconds of a conversation, say something encouraging to a person."

Maxwell learned this from his father who taught him that when you make contact with people, instead of focusing on yourself, search for ways to make them look good. It could be saying thank you for something they have done for you or someone you know. You might praise them on an accomplishment, or offer a word of encouragement as they work towards a goal. Or you might simply compliment their appearance.

Maxwell encourages us to ask ourselves, "What positive, enouraging thing can I say to each person I will see today?"

With whom is your next appointment? Who will you be speaking with later today? Think about what you could say to them that will make them feel good about themselves, and say it.

This may feel uncomfortable, at first, but give it a try. What might surprise you is how good you feel making others feel good about themselves.

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Filed Under: Book review, Client relations, Image, Relationship marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

New resources for marketing your law practice online

October 18, 2007 by
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If you’re interested in marketing your law practice online (and you should be) there are two resources I want to recommend. The first is a new book, "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" by David Meerman Scott. The sub-title is, "How to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing & online media to reach buyers directly." That about says it all. I’ve just started reading it and can tell you, it’s excellent. Highly recommended.

The other resource is a free ebook from consultant Brandon Cornet at websmartlawyer.com. It covers web sites, blogging, search engines, lead generation, and has links to oodles of resources. Valuable stuff.

Cornet’s ebook is itself a fine example of viral online marketing, in that it is a free download from his web site (you don’t even need to supply an email address to get it), coupled with good content that demonstrates his knowledge and experience. Sure enough, here I am "distributing" it to you, and thus, this strategy could quickly generate hundreds of qualified leads for Cornet’s consulting services.

It illustrates another key marketing concept, niche marketing. Cornet could hold himself out as, simply, an Internet/website consultant, hoping to appeal to "everyone" but, like so many others, he would find his voice drowned out by his many competitors. Instead, by targeting lawyers, he narrows his focus, which should make it easier to both generate leads and close them, since clients (and that includes lawyers) prefer specialists.

Both books agree, the Internet has forever changed the rules of marketing. Those who ignore this, do so at their peril.

 

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Filed Under: Blogging, Book review, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Press release, Publicity, Specializing, Technology, Web traffic Tagged With:

How to close a client–more ways to get them to ‘yes’

October 17, 2007 by
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I learned a lot about marketing legal services by studying sales and marketing in other fields. Apparently, Susan Cartier Liebel has, too. Her post, “How to close a client,” suggests that lawyers use a thought process similar to what a sales person would use to help clients move forward to a “yes”. I agree. In fact, I think every lawyer should read books on sales and salesmanship. “How to Master the Art of Selling,” by Tom Hopkins is a great place to start.

I wrote about overcoming objections and closing in my article, ‘What to say when the client says, “I want to think about it.” When it’s time to ask the client to sign on the dotted line, most lawyers don’t want to sound pushy or overly aggressive. But at decision making time, many clients do hesitate, even if they have no good reason for doing so. But if hiring you is in their best interests (it is, isn’t it?), then I think you have an ethical duty to help them make that decision. You don’t want to push, but you could give them a little nudge.

Here are a few easy ways to do that:

SOFT CLOSE:

“It makes sense to me. What do you think?”

“What part of this makes the most sense to you?”

ALTERNATIVE CHOICE:

“Would you like to get the trust AND the LLC done today or just the trust?”

“Would Tuesday or Thursday be better for you?”

“How would you like to take care of this, check or credit card?”

ASSUMPTIVE CLOSE:

“Go ahead and put your name here and I’ll get started on this immediately.”

“Where do you want me to send your copies of the documents we file in your case?”

“I have everything I need; how soon would like us to get started working on this?”

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Filed Under: Closing the sale, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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