You’re doing something right

December 19, 2018 by
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Where are most of your clients coming from right now? Look at your current client list, tally up the score, and make some notes.

How many were referred by other clients? Which clients referred them? What legal issues? What did the referred client ask? What did the referring client tell them or do?

Describe what happened if you have it in your notes (and start taking notes if you don’t).

How many new clients were referred by other professionals? Write down the names of any and all referral-givers and the types of clients they’re sending your way.

How many clients found you online? What keywords did they search? What articles did they read? Which sites did they visit before finding yours?

How many came in from advertising? Which publications or sites? Which ads? Which keywords? Which headlines? Offers? What was the cost per click/per lead?

How many came from networking, speaking, writing, or other sources? Where? When? What did you say or do that led to them contacting you?

Look at last year’s new clients and cull out the same information. 

Look for patterns. Figure out where most of your clients or cases are coming from. Figure out where your biggest or best clients are coming from. Calculate your highest ROI’s on marketing.

You need to know these things so you can manage and improve your marketing. Tracking numbers will tell you what to repeat and expand, and what to reduce or give up. Keeping notes will help you improve your process and your results.

If you’re getting clients now, you’re doing something right. But you can always do better.

Marketing is easier when you have a plan

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

How old farts get more done

December 18, 2018 by
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I read about a study that says people over 40 are most productive when they work three days a week or less.

Great. Where do I sign up?

Actually, I signed up a long time ago when I was still in my twenties. Cutting my work week to three days (from a less-productive, stress-filled six-day schedule) allowed me to multiply my income and start enjoying life.

So, even though I haven’t always worked only three days a week, this idea gets a thumbs up from me.

The question is, what are you going to do with this piece of information?

If you aren’t self-employed and you want to give it a whirl, you’re going to have to negotiate with your employer. See if you can work out a way that you get paid for your output instead of your time.

When I started paying my staff a salary instead of by the hour, I told them I didn’t care how many hours they worked as long as they got their work done.

They did and we were both happier.

If you’re self-employed and you want to cut your hours, sit down and have a talk with yourself. See if you can work something out.

What if you bill by the hour?

Stop doing that.

Try flat fees or package your services in a way that you can get paid no matter how many hours the job takes you.

You’ll work less and earn more. And you and your clients will be happier.

Even if you’re still in your twenties.

Get the check: stress-free billing and collection

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Filed Under: Fees and Billing, Productivity, success

How Ebeneezer Scrooge got rich

December 17, 2018 by
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One thing that distinguishes successful (accomplished, wealthy) people from the rest of the folks is how much they value their time. 

Because of this, they say “no” more than they say “yes”. 

They say no to requests for their time or money that don’t align with their mission, values, or plans. They say no to low priority projects. They say no to things that waste their time or that they don’t enjoy. 

Which lets them focus on important things, which is how they get rich.  

If you want to follow suit, you must commit to saying “no” more often. 

On the other hand, Mr. Scrooge was a miserable old coot. He might not have realized this until he saw depictions of the harm he had done and the bleak future that awaited him, but once his eyes were opened, he redeemed himself and was happier for it. 

His dream provided context and allowed him to realize what was truly important.  

Say no more often, say no to most things, so you can say yes to important things. Just make sure you know what’s really important. 

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Filed Under: Productivity, success

How much is your time really worth?

December 14, 2018 by
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On my walk yesterday, I heard a doctor being interviewed on the radio. He was talking about his book. It was a one-hour interview and I wondered how much income he was giving up by not seeing patients during that time. 

When I got home, I checked the books ranking and saw that he was selling a ton of books. I guessed he probably earned $500 to $1,000 for the day. 

Was that a typical day or was there a spike in sales from his appearance on the radio?

Actually, it doesn’t matter. 

The book is clearly getting him a lot of exposure, and that exposure will bring him a lot of patients, and other opportunities to be interviewed. 

Promoting his book allows him to leverage his time and earn far more than he would have earned seeing patients for an hour.  

Which is how attorneys should think about all of their marketing. 

The hour you spend with a prospective referral source, for example, might open doors to an incalculable influx of new clients. Two hours invested in writing content for your website might lead to picking up a new client every month.

No, you don’t know if what you’re doing will work, or how well. You keep doing it, trusting that some things will work well enough to make it all worthwhile. 

In fact, if you keep doing “it” (marketing) long enough and consistently enough, you may eventually reach a tipping point where your practice starts growing at an accelerated rate. 

When that happens, when you’re bringing in more business than you can handle and your income is doubling and tripling, you won’t ask yourself if all that time you spent marketing was worth it.  You’ll ask yourself why you didn’t do more of it. 

The New Year is around the corner. Do you have a  marketing plan?


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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Why I turned down law review

December 13, 2018 by
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In law school, I was invited to join law review. I turned it down, much to the chagrin of my father who thought I was making a mistake.

I did it so I could concentrate on school and the Bar exam.

I worked for my father in law school and the plan was that I would continue doing so after I graduated. So I didn’t need to add law review to a resume to get a job.

I got good grades and passed the Bar the first time. I don’t what would have happened if I’d had the additional burden of law review eating into my schedule.

Writing for law review would certainly have improved my research and writing skills, which could have helped me as a practicing lawyer.

So, did I make a mistake?

To answer that, I have to be honest about another reason I said no: fear.

I remember thinking, What if I’m not good enough? What if I can’t handle the work?

Yes, I knew I had been recommended by a professor who apparently thought I could handle it, but it wasn’t his ego on the line.

Unfortunately, I’ll never know if I could have handled it, so to that extent, I regret turning it down.

Throughout my career, I’ve successfully navigated more than a few challenges. Once I opened my own office, for example, I had to figure out how to bring in clients.

I had to do it, so I did.

Which makes me wonder, What if I hadn’t had a job waiting for me out of law school and needed to add something like law review on a resume?

What are you not doing because you don’t have to?

How to get maximum referrals

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Filed Under: Personal development Tagged With: ,

Big plans start with small steps

December 12, 2018 by
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I did a coaching call with an attorney who is planning to leave the firm where he works and open his own office. He’s been planning this for a few years. 

I remember what it feels like to open your own office and I’m excited for him. He’s got a lot of promise, and a lot planned, and I think he’s going to be very glad he made this move. 

But there was one part of his plan that bothered me and I told him so. His plan called for him to immediately open two offices, followed soon by a third, in different cities many hours driving time from each other.

He has reasons for believing he can succeed in all three locations, and I have no reason to doubt this, but I told him he should start with just one. 

One office, get it going, make it profitable, hire help, and then explore opening office number two. 

Keep it simple. 

Simple means “something you can do”. Something he can do: open one office.

With some experience in opening the first office, some cash flowing and some help helping, he will have the knowledge and wherewithal to open the second office and make it profitable in less time and with less effort.

As for marketing, we talked about his many options, but here again, I suggested that he keep it simple. Other than getting his website up and running, that means continuing to do what he’s been doing to bring in business–an email newsletter. 

It is his primary marketing method and it’s working well for him. I gave him suggestions for expanding and streamlining what he’s doing, leveraging what he already knows and does to get to the next level. Given his experience, I have no doubt that he will do exactly that.

Start where you are with what you have. Good advice for marketing and opening offices. 

Marketing online for attorneys

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With: ,

How to get more clients like your best clients

December 11, 2018 by
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Some clients are better than others. They have more work for you, they are willing to pay higher fees for better service, they treat you well and send you referrals.

Yes?

Ah, but while they may be better, they may not be your best.

Your best clients, your “ideal” clients, match a profile that you have decided is where you want to make your mark.

Your ideal clients have values that align with yours. They have needs and wants that you are better equipped to satisfy than most attorneys because you have more experience with clients like them. They have characteristics–personality, background, lifestyle, income–similar to those that identify your other ideal clients.

Your ideal clients provide you with your highest value and you want more of them. You’ll tolerate clients who don’t fit this profile but you target prospective clients who do.

Or at least you should.

Not just because you want more of them but so that you can appeal to them more effectively in your marketing.

When you try to appeal to everyone based solely on legal need, as most attorneys do, you dilute your message and diminish your results.

If you want your best clients to find you and hire you, focus your marketing so that it speaks exclusively to them. 

Most attorneys are “an inch deep and a mile wide” in their marketing. They aren’t intentional and they don’t focus.

Don’t do that.

To build a practice comprised primarily of your best clients, figure out what your ideal clients look like and show them why you are their ideal attorney.

This will help you create a profile of your ideal client

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With: , ,

Instead of setting goals next year, I’m doing this

December 10, 2018 by
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I know you’re ready to think about your goals for next year. Ready to put pen to paper, chisel to stone. 

Before you do that, think about the goals you had for the current year. 

How’d you do?

If you’re like me, you missed a lot of things and you’re not happy about it. You set big goals because you want to accomplish big things, but you’re tired of falling short. 

It’s discouraging. It makes you want to lower your goals, or do away with them completely.

Don’t do that. You need goals. You need to have a place you want to go.

Robert Heinlein said, “In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.”

I agree. But next year I’m going to do something a little different.

I’m going to call them “projects” instead of goals. 

Projects don’t define us the way our goals (and “life’s purpose” or “long-term vision”) do. If we don’t meet a project’s objectives, we adjust and carry on. Or we move the project from “active” to “inactive” or “pending”.

We’re in charge of our projects, unlike goals which seem to be in charge of us. 

Projects? Goals? Yes, these are just words, but words frame our thoughts and infuse them with emotions that attach to those words. 

So, no goals next year. Just projects. 

I can’t wait to see how they turn out.  

Plan your marketing with this

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Filed Under: Goal Setting

Start before you’re ready

December 7, 2018 by
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Endless research. Planning. Preparation. Waiting for inspiration, the killer idea, the right timing.

Enough. It’s time to do something. It’s the quickest way to find out if your idea is any good, the best way to gain feedback so you can improve it.

John Goreman said, “Success isn’t about knowing more, it’s about acting on imperfect information.”

I know, you’re afraid of failure. Wasting time, losing money, embarrassing yourself. You want to do this right, or not at all.

Hey, I go through this with just about every project. My left brain keeps reminding me of all the things that can go wrong.

I put the doubts and fears in a lockbox and get on with it.

If you don’t do that, you never find out how far you could go.

So enough with the planning. Do something. And give yourself permission to create dreck.

One thing I’ve learned: dreck can be fixed.

You can take something that’s terrible and improve it. You can even make it great. But you can’t fix something you never start.

Another thing I’ve learned is that things have a way of turning out okay. They’re usually not as bad as you feared, in fact, they’re often damn good.

Look at all of things you’ve done in your life, all the completed projects, milestones, and accomplishments.

You’ve got some, right?

You can get more.

My advice: Look at your list of ideas. Take the one that scares you most, the one that looks too big, too risky, or too expensive, and put it at the top of your list.

It’s probably the one you should start next.

Notice I said “start,” I didn’t say “do” or “complete” or “launch”.

I said start.

Take the first step and see where it takes you. If you like what you see, take another step.

One foot in front of the other until you get where you want to go.

If you get lost, you can do more research. And start again.

If getting more clients is on your list, here’s where to start

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Filed Under: Inspiration, success

Be happy. Get rich. Part deux.

December 6, 2018 by
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Last month, I shared a quote from Albert Schweitzer, who said: “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”

“Actually, science says he’s right,” I said. “By mapping the brain to identify dopamine production they found that pleasure results in greater productivity.

I reasoned that, “When you feel good about what you’re doing, you give it more energy. You work harder and get better results.”

How it works might be open to debate. But I’m convinced that it works.

Another attorney who would tell you the same is my friend, Steve Emmert, who shared something I’d like to pass along to you:

Thanks for this note, my brother. It reminded me of something I reasoned out many years ago, before I decided to specialize in what I love doing.

I perceive that there are four kinds of jobs. Type A is one that pays you well, and you love doing it. That’s ideal. Type B makes you happy even though you aren’t getting rich. Type C doesn’t make you happy, but it makes you plenty of income. And Type D makes you neither happy nor wealthy, but it’s the best job you can get.

Many years ago – you know the story, because you told it – I knew I wasn’t happy in what I was doing. A quick check of my bank balance told me that I wasn’t starving, but I was nowhere near rich. That meant that, by default, I had a Type D job. I decided to transition to Type B, and spent plenty of time planning, then building, and then growing it. Guess what? I missed my target. I wound with a Type A career, by accident. Who knew? I mean besides Albert Schweitzer.

When he said I told his story, he was referring to the book I published based on the interview we did, wherein he shared many other pearls of marketing and practice-building wisdom.

It’s a good read, no matter what your practice area. It might be just what you need to create a Type A practice.

Read it free on Kindle Unlimited

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Filed Under: success Tagged With: ,
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