The 15-minute weekly review

December 28, 2021 by
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Do you ever find yourself rushing through your weekly review or skipping it entirely, simply because it takes too long?

Many do.

What if didn’t take so long? What if you could review everything that needs to be reviewed and tick all the boxes that need to be ticked in just 15 or 20 minutes?

How is that possible?

I’ll tell you. But first, a point of clarification.

We call it a weekly review, but we should really call it a weekly “plan” because that’s what it is (or should be). A little reviewing, but mostly planning the upcoming week.

Therein lies a clue.

Istead of spending an hour or more reviewing all of your projects and tasks, past, present, and future, just review the tasks and projects that pertain to the following week.

If you aren’t going to work on a project this week, schedule time to review and plan that project next week, next month, or some other later date.

And don’t think about it until then.

The result is a shorter and more focused plan for the upcoming week. You’re welcome.

But yes, there is a catch.

If you want to create the future, you can’t ignore it, so besides a weekly planning session, you need to allocate time to plan those future weeks and months.

Yes, a monthly review (plan).

Once a month, schedule time to consider your goals—the outcomes you want to achieve that month and beyond—and identify the projects and tasks you need to work on to achieve those outcomes.

So far, so good. But yes, there’s another catch.

The daily plan.

It’s the key to making this all work.

Every evening, take 5 or ten minutes to plan your work for the following day.

Look at your calendar and your weekly plan, identify your most important tasks for tomorrow, and put them on a short list.

When tomorrow arrives, you know exactly what to do.

Let’s recap.

Schedule 15 or 20 minutes once a week to plan the week ahead. Once a month, schedule time to plan the upcoming month. And each afternoon or evening, take 5 or 10 minutes to plan the following day.

So, are you nodding your head in agreement? Does this sound doable? Easier than forcing yourself to spend an hour or two each week going over your entire life?

If it does, and you do this consistently, you will become a productive powerhouse and goal-achieving Ninja.

Unfortunately, there’s one more catch.

You have to do the work.

Sorry. You can’t spend all day reading emails and blog posts from yours truly. Much as you would like to, I’m sure.

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Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With:

New year, new you. Or something.

December 27, 2021 by
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I’m trying out a new task manager. It’s not that I’m looking to replace the app I currently use, it’s that trying out a new app makes it easier and more fun to do a “task reset,” something I do periodically but especially at the beginning of a new year.

Basically, that means I’m cleaning house.

I’m purging old tasks and projects I realize I’m not going to do, organizing the ones I still want to do, and moving my most important tasks and projects front and center.

No matter how effective our systems are, they tend to slow down after we’ve used them for awhile, often to the point of overwhelming us. When you feel like you don’t want to look at your lists anymore, it’s probably time to do a reset.

Moving things to a new app makes that easier because it forces you to go through everything one by one, and consider its importance. A new app helps that process because it is unfamiliar. You have to slow down as you figure out how to use it, what you want to add or keep, and where to put it.

When you’re done, you should have a smaller number of important projects to focus on and fewer things to distract you.

But you don’t need a new app to do this. You can do a task reset in the app you currently use.

First, move all your tasks and projects and routines from their current place of “residence” in the app into a temporary home, a new project labeled “reset” for example, leaving the rest of the app empty.

Then, go through everything you just moved, item by item, and move them back to either their original home (project, area, file, folder, etc.), or a new one.

Make each task, project, or goal earn a place in your new setup.

New year. New you. New setup.

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Filed Under: Productivity

Spying on clients and competitors

December 22, 2021 by
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Do you know what’s going on in your clients’ businesses? The latest good news? The latest dirt?

You should. And you can. Just set up google alerts for the business and their key people and you’ll get an email whenever something happens.

When someone gets sued, investigated, or arrested, when someone wins an award, gets married, or dies, you won’t have to wait for someone to tell you, you’ll know. You can contact your client and congratulate them or express condolences.

Do the same thing for their industries and major competitors. When you learn something your client may need to know, they’ll appreciate your telling them, even if they already know.

If you represent consumers, set up alerts for their employers, their employer’s industries, their places of worship, and their local markets.

While you’re at it, set up alerts for your major competitors, your practice area, your referral sources, and yourself. You need to know when someone is talking about you or doing something that interests you or may concern you, things that present an opportunity or a threat.

And yes, you can also get a lot of ideas for your newsletter or blog this way.

Go here and set up an alert or two. You can always remove it, modify it, or add more.

Automate your market (and marketing) intelligence. Let technology bring the information to you so you don’t have to go looking for it.

The Attorney Marketing Formula

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Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management, Marketing legal services

Know thy client

December 21, 2021 by
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I read an article in the Wisconsin Lawyer that provided “tips for writing in ways that attract the attention of search engines, readers, and new clients.”

It’s good information. And a good reminder about the importance and value of writing in building a law practice.

But that’s not why I’m telling you about it.

At the end of the article, in her “bio,” the author tells a story about one of her consulting clients who was unhappy with her advice:

A few years ago, an attorney I was working with called me to complain because one of their former clients gave them a bad online review. I had encouraged them to follow up with clients to thank them for their business and ask for reviews, so the bad review they received was, in their mind, my fault. It didn’t occur to me that I needed to tell attorneys that they should only ask for reviews from clients they suspected had a positive opinion of them. I now emphasize that you should never ask for a review you don’t want. It’s the legal marketing equivalent of the age-old advice that you should never ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to!

It seems so simple. Ask for reviews; don’t ask for reviews from clients who might not love ya.

You want reviews. You need reviews. Good reviews can bring in a boatload of clients.

Seriously.

So you should ask for reviews.

But how do you avoid bad reviews?

Simple.

Ask for reviews, but do it in stages:

  1. Routinely send every client a form to fill out to provide feedback about you, your services, your office, etc. Include a question asking if they would recommend you to others, and why or why not.
  2. When the client provides positive feedback and says they would recommend/refer you, ask them to post this in a review (and give them a link to the site you prefer).

Keep your enemies close. Keep your friends (and clients) closer, because you never know what they might say about you.

The Quantum Leap Marketing System

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Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Writing Tagged With:

Asking for help

December 20, 2021 by
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I don’t do it as much as I could. Or should. You may be the same. Asking for help feels like you’re being needy. A burden.

But what if it’s not?

What if there are people out there—on your email list, following you on social, in your building or on your list of contacts—who would love to help you?

If you asked, they’d be delighted to answer your questions. Share your page. Recommend your practice. Review your book.

What if some people get as much out of helping you as you hope to get when they do?

My suggestion, to you and to myself, is to try it and find out. Look for opportunities to ask for help, and to appreciate the help you get and the people who give it.

If you don’t feel comfortable asking for help, remember this. . . When you are good at asking, you allow others to enjoy giving.

What a wonderful feeling for both of you. At this or any time of the year.

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Filed Under: Inspiration

A simple way to sell more legal services

December 17, 2021 by
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Prospective clients need your help but may hesitate to take the next step. There are things you can do to nudge them in the right direction.

Start by prompting them to take action of any kind. Ask them to do something easy—like your post, share your link, or forward your email. Easy to do and when they do it, they’re more likely to do it again.

You might ask a question. What do they want you to write about in your next post? What did they like best about your last one? Which do they prefer, X or Y?

Maybe you ask them to subscribe to your podcast or watch your video and leave a comment. Sign up for your webinar and tell their friends, or reply and tell you if they have any questions.

You ask for little things and they do them. They get used to responding and interacting with you, which helps build familiarity and trust, and prepares them to take a bigger step.

When you ask them to call to ask questions or schedule a free consultation, or to fill out a questionnaire and tell you about their legal situation, they’ll be that more likely to do that.

But here’s the thing. When you ask, not everyone will respond.

People do what they do.

So, you need to ask again. And again. And again.

Never stop asking.

Be nice about it. Ask in different ways and at different times. But keep asking—until they buy or die.

If you keep asking, eventually they’ll take the next step.

And then you can ask them to do something else.

Email Marketing for Attorneys

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Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services

Milk it

December 16, 2021 by
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You like the idea of writing shorter emails and articles and using them to stay in touch with your subscribers and followers. You like being able to get your blog post or newsletter done in less than an hour.

You have time to do that. But what if you need to or want to write longer pieces?

Some content can take hours to write. Or days. You can’t do that every day or every week.

You don’t have to.

You can use all the research and writing you do to create a 5000 word article, report, podcast, or presentation to create additional content, the kind of content you can create in minutes because you’ve already done the heavy lifting.

The research is done. The writing is done. Go back to your original material and create new content:

  • A summary of the key issues or arguments
  • Profiles of the parties or stakeholders
  • Additional issues or cases related to your subject
  • A list of resources
  • Answers to FAQs
  • Additional comments by you or others
  • Additional cases or examples you didn’t use
  • Recommendations for readers in different niches
  • A PDF collection of your slides, notes, or case summaries
  • Transcripts of interviews from your research
  • And on and on

Each of these ancillary bits of content shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to put together.

You might get a month or two of additional posts out your original post or presentation.

Each post gives you another opportunity to stay in touch with and provide value to your readers and followers. Each post gives you another opportunity to be found through search and social.

And, when you think you’ve milked your original content dry and there’s nothing left to write, write one more post summarizing and linking to all of your posts, for the people who came late to your party, and for those who will come next month and next year.

Email Marketing for Attorneys

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Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Email, Newsletters, Online Marketing

Plagiarizing for fun and profit

December 15, 2021 by
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Yesterday, I talked about finding blog posts and articles written by other lawyers and rewriting them, as an easy and effective way to create your content.

Today, I have an even easier method.

No, I’m not going to tell you to plagiarize their content—copy it and call it your own.

You can’t do that. But you can plagiarize your own content.

You can re-post or re-send something you’ve shared in the past.

Take one of your old posts and post it again. Without changing a word.

Can you really do that?

It’s your content. You can do whatever you want with it.

But should you?

Yes. Here’s why.

You’ve got new subscribers who didn’t see your article before. You’ve got readers who saw it months or years ago and won’t remember. You’ve got readers who read it before weren’t ready to do anything with the information. And readers who did something but need to be reminded to do it again.

Do you do everything I tell you to do? No, you don’t. Which is why you’ll hear me say it again.

Sometimes I re-write, update, shorten or lengthen my old posts. Sometimes, I write a new post on the same idea. But you don’t have to do any of that and if you don’t want to or you don’t have time, don’t bother.

Click and send that puppy and get on with your day.

Now for the best part.

You can take some of your better articles or posts, load them into your autoresponder, and schedule them to go out over the course of the next few weeks or months. When the cycle ends, you can reset it and let your best stuff get sent all over again.

Automate your self-plagiarism. For the win.

Email Marketing for Attorneys

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Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Email, Newsletters, Writing

You don’t get extra credit for originality

December 14, 2021 by
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Nobody reads your blog, your newsletter, or your other content, and compares what you wrote to your competitor’s content.

Nobody.

But even if they did, they wouldn’t favor you because you wrote something or offered something unique, or disfavor you because you wrote about the same topic other lawyers wrote about.

So don’t worry about coming up with original ideas. You don’t have to do anything original to pass this class.

Which means your content creation problems are solved. You’ll never stare at a blank page again.

All you have to do is find out what others are doing that’s working and do the same thing (but better).

If 27 other lawyers write about a case in the news today, you can too.

Put it in your own words, use your own examples and stories, and you’re good to go.

In fact, not only is this “okay,” it is a smart approach because all those other lawyers writing about that case is “proof of concept”. They’re writing about it because they know their readers want to know about it, which means your readers do too.

Want to test this?

Do a search on your top keywords or your practice area and find another lawyer’s blog or article. They don’t have to be local to you, anywhere will do.

Go to the first article or post that catches your eye. Copy it and re-write it. Change the title or headline, give your opinion, talk about a case or client of yours to illustrate, and you will have something ready to publish.

The good news is that even though you wrote about the same subject, your article will be original.

The bad news? No extra credit.

More: Email Marketing for Attorneys

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Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Newsletters, Writing

No pressure

December 13, 2021 by
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The headline of your article or post or the subject line of your email are critical. If you don’t grab the reader’s attention and persuade them to continue reading, they often don’t.

Which is why good writers spend a lot of time getting their headline or opening right.

You should, too.

But that doesn’t mean you should start your writing there. Because the pressure to get it right might throw you off and stop you in your writing tracks.

So it’s often best to start writing somewhere else.

Sure, sometimes you know the perfect opening before you write anything. That happens to me sometimes, but usually it doesn’t.

So I start somewhere else.

I start with a rough idea, a question or a couple of points I want to flap my gums about. Sometimes, I start with the end—the conclusion, summary, or takeaway.

But I usually don’t know what that will be until I’m well into the writing.

So basically, I start wherever I feel like starting.

I might write some bullet points, a working headline. or copy and paste a quote I want to use. I might have a story I want to share.

More often than I like to admit, I have only a very basic idea I want to talk about and just start typing. And see where that takes me.

Once I’m done, I go back and write (or re-write) the opening.

There’s enough pressure on us to get the writing done, especially on schedule, and make it half-way decent. The sooner I can get some words on “paper,” the sooner I can finish writing and get it out the digital door, so I try not to dawdle.

The point is, you don’t have to write in any kind of order. Start with something easy, whatever is in your head or your notes, or whatever words appear on the page once you start typing.

And let those words show you your opening.

How to build your law practice with an email newsletter

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Filed Under: Writing
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