Do one thing every day that scares you

October 18, 2013 by
Share

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” I like that advice. It reminds us to get out of our comfort zones, try new things, or do old things in a new way.

That’s how we learn and grow. In fact, without change there can be no growth.

Attorneys do the same things every day. Same documents, same activities. Yes, different clients, and that does keep things interesting, but when today is pretty much a re-run of yesterday and tomorrow will undoubtedly be like today, we risk growing stale.

Yes, change is scary. Our fears are like signposts leading us into uncharted territory. We might get lost. We might get hurt. But we also might have an exciting adventure.

I realize that when you look up the word change in the dictionary you’re unlikely to see a photo of an attorney. Attorneys don’t like change. We avoid risk. We’re boring and we like it that way. So I don’t expect you, dear reader, to do something every day that scares you, but how about doing something every once in awhile?

Think about your marketing. Is there a prospective client you would love to approach but you’re nervous and don’t want to blow it? Great! That’s who you should contact next. Is there a negotiating or trial tactic you heard about at a seminar but have been afraid to try because it’s so different? Cross your fingers and take a chance.

Yes, I know, you might blow the case. That’s the risk. But there is also the possibility of reward. You might discover something that allows you to reach amazing new levels of success.

What else could you do that scares you? Or, if scares is too strong a word, what could you do that you don’t like?

If you don’t like networking, that might be exactly what you should do. Not forever, necessarily. I’m not suggesting you make yourself miserable. Try it once and see what happens. Maybe you’ll meet the client of your dreams. Maybe you’ll discover that networking really isn’t so bad and you’ll want to try it again. Or maybe you’ll confirm that networking isn’t your thing but you’ll be proud of yourself for trying something new.

Commit to doing something new (scary) before the end of this month. Start small. Try a new route to the courthouse, perhaps. Maybe you’ll save five minutes or find a better parking space. Or maybe you’ll be late for court and get yelled at. Embrace the risk and the excitement of trying new things.

If you don’t know what to do, ask someone else for a suggestion. Your spouse or partner probably know you better than you know yourself. In fact, I’m going to take my own advice. As soon as I’ve published this post, I’m going to ask my wife what she thinks scares me but could lead to my growth. I’ll admit, I’m nervous thinking about what she might say, because she will probably suggest something I’ve been avoiding for a long time.

Want to Make the Phone Ring? Click here to see how I do it.

Share
Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Personal development Tagged With: , , ,

Here’s a topic for your newsletter or blog

October 17, 2013 by
Share

I just updated my privacy settings on Google. They were going to use my name and face in ads. Now they can’t. It was easy. Here’s how to update your Google settings.

Next, Facebook. Last time I checked, my settings allowed anyone to post updates on the front lawn of my house. Or something like that.

By the way, if you know how to turn off all game invitations, could you do me a solid and let me know?

Anyway, privacy is a hot topic today, and your clients want to know what you think and even more, what you advise. If you’re looking for a topic for your newsletter or blog, something that will get opened and read and appreciated (and bring you some search traffic, too), this is it.

What are the current laws? What needs to be changed? What can people do to protect themselves?

Do you have an opinion on Snowden, the NSA, or The Patriot Act? Have we gone too far in the name of stopping terrorism or is our lack of privacy a necessary evil?

You don’t have to take a position if you don’t want to. You could present both sides and let your readers decide. Or, you could come out with both barrels blazing and get people fired up.

At the very least, pass along to your readers some basic information about how to update their settings, as I did at the top of this article. Of course changing settings doesn’t really protect you from much of anything. It just makes us feel a little less powerless than we really are.

Get hundreds of ideas for your blog or newsletter with this.

Share
Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , ,

How to finish a writing project when you’re stuck

October 15, 2013 by
Share

Attorneys write a lot. At least we’re supposed to. We have deadlines to meet and bills to pay and we have to keep cranking. But sometimes, we get stuck. We may be half-way through a writing project and find ourselves unable to finish.

“7 Ways to Finish Difficult Writing Projects” is about how to finish a writing project when you’re stuck, and I’ve used most of the 7 ways. Reading my draft out loud and going for a walk to clear my head, for example, have helped me figure out where I am in the writing and where I want to go.

One of the suggestions is to make an outline, which I usually do, but sometimes my outline is the reason I’ve become stuck. Like a mis-calibrated GPS program, the outline took me to the wrong destination.

If I know what’s wrong, I’ll write a new outline. But sometimes, the piece isn’t working and I can’t figure out why.

When this happens, I write a outline of what I’ve already written. I may do this in a linear list with topics and sub-topics, or in a non-linear “mind map”. Reverse engineering the draft lets me see what’s missing or what I need to re-arrange to make things work. I then compare this outline to my original and from these two, create a third outline that allows me to move forward.

But sometimes, I’m still stuck. I know something is wrong but I can’t put my finger on it. What do I do? I go for a drive.

Once I’m on the road, I start talking and record myself. I pretend I’m speaking to my intended reader and I tell him what I want him to know. Speaking it out this way helps me get to the essence of the material. “I know I’ve got all these pages written, but here’s what I really want you to know. . .”.

In fact, sometimes, I do my first draft this way. I don’t write an outline, I just jot down a handful of topics I want to talk about, press record, and talk. Not only do I get the first draft done quickly, it’s often much better than what I might have written because the ideas flow naturally, instead of being forced to fit the structure of an outline.

If you ever find yourself stuck in a writing project, or you don’t know where to start, stop writing and start talking.

Earn more without working more. Here’s the formula.

Share
Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Writing Tagged With: , ,

How to get new clients through email

October 14, 2013 by
Share

Can a lawyer really get new clients through email? Sure. If direct mail works, why not direct email?

If it’s ethical in your jurisdiction (it probably isn’t), and you don’t mind being accused of spamming (you should mind), you could pick up some clients this way. Go find some people in your target market, send an email and offer them something of value they would find helpful in their business or personal life. An article, report, video, seminar transcript, or newsletter that helps them solve a problem or achieve a goal.

They’ll read or listen, see that you know what you’re doing and can help them, and some of them will contact you to take the next step towards hiring you.

Make sense?

But there’s a much better way to get new clients through email that’s not unethical, tacky, or spammy. And it will probably work even better.

Instead of reaching out to prospective clients by email, reach out to prospective referral sources.

Find other professionals who serve your target market. Study their website and google them. Then, send them an email that says you target the same market they do and want to introduce yourself. You’d like to find out more about what they do and see if there’s a way the two of you can work together. Ask if they want to meet for coffee, or chat on the phone.

Make your email personal. Say something specific about them or their website, so they know you’re not sending a “form letter” to thousands of others.

When you talk to them, find out what they are looking for and see if you can help them get it. I know, they want referrals and you may not have any to give right now, but there are other ways you can help them. Do they have a seminar you can promote? Would they like to come to your networking meeting as your guest? Do they have a Facebook page you can like?

At some point, tell them about your video, report, article, or newsletter and invite them to make this available to their clients, subscribers, and followers. They also may not have referrals to give you right now and this gives you another way to gain exposure to their contacts.

Send ten emails this week and see what happens. If only one professional offers your report or video to his or her list, hundreds of prospective clients, perhaps thousands, will not only get your information, they will get the implied endorsement of that professional. New clients won’t be far behind.

Learn more about how to get more referrals from other professionals. Click here.

Share
Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services, Referral sources, Referrals, Relationship marketing Tagged With:

My trick for getting things done that I don’t want to do

October 11, 2013 by
Share

Yesterday, we talked about trusting your gut to choose your most important tasks for the day. But there are always other things we need to do. Small things, unpleasant things, things we may not be excited about, things we strongly dislike.

Want to know my secret for getting things done that I don’t want to do?

I just do them. I don’t think about why I don’t want to do them, or worry about what might happen. I just hold my nose and take the first step. If I have to make a call I don’t want to make, I just start dialing. Before I know it, the call is over.

If you find yourself procrastinating or avoiding something you need to do, just start doing it. Don’t think about it. Don’t write out a plan. Just start.

Okay, easy to say, not always easy to do. Sometimes, you don’t know where to start. Or it’s a big project. Or you need more information.

In that case, I find something I can do now and do that. Even if it’s just writing down an idea of how I might start or what I need to find out. There, I’ve started.

This works most of the time. But not always. I still procrastinate. I might have low energy, I might want to do something else instead, or I might be afraid. When this happens, I tell myself, “Do it anyway.”

  • I don’t have enough time: Do it anyway.
  • I don’t have enough information: Do it anyway.
  • I don’t know what to do: Do it anyway.
  • I don’t know how: Do it anyway.
  • I don’t want to: Do it anyway.

“Do it anyway” is a trigger phrase. I’ve conditioned myself that when I hear those words, I drop shields, get out of my own way, and do it. It’s like a hypnotic command. (No, don’t email me with some crazy idea and tell me to do it anyway. I’ve got to say it to myself.)

It’s close to Nike’s, “Just do it,” but I hear that as a command and I don’t follow orders very well. The word “anyway” acknowledges and validates my resistance. It says, “yes, there are reasons for not doing it but there are more reasons or better reasons for getting it done.”

Sure, it’s a trick. And no, it doesn’t always work. But it works enough of the time, and that’s good enough for me.

The next time you’ve got something on your list you don’t want to do, do it anyway.

Need a marketing plan? The Attorney Marketing Formula comes with a plan that really works.

Share
Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , , , ,

How to prioritize your daily tasks

October 10, 2013 by
Share

I use my own version of GTD (Getting Things Done) as the backbone of my productivity system. Every day, when I sit down to prioritize my lists and choose what to work on for the day, I choose three “MIT’s” (Most Important Tasks). If I get my MITs done, I call it a good day.

Some people recommend the 1-3-5 system: 1 big thing for the day, 3 medium things, and 5 small things. Others use the 3-2 method: three big things, two small things. And then there’s the ABC/123 method.

For me, “three things” is about right.

Many days, it’s just one or two MITs. The number really doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am effective because I’m getting important things done.

But how do you decide what’s important? How do you look at a long list of tasks and projects and select three Most Important Tasks?

I don’t know. I just do it.

Sure, there’s a certain amount of logic in the process. I look at deadlines and appointments and reminders. But more often than not, it’s my gut that tells me what to do.

In “The 4-Hour Work Week,” Tim Ferriss offers a suggestion for deciding what’s important. He says, “Imagine you’ve just suffered a heart attack and are allowed to work only two hours a day. What would you do during those two hours? And if you had another heart attack and were allowed a maximum of two hours of work per week, what would you do?”

Ferriss also says, “. . .requiring a lot of time does not make a task important,” and I agree. He is also a proponent of making a “don’t do list,” ignoring things that aren’t important so you can focus on what is, which I wrote about recently.

I like learning about new productivity systems. But most of them are too complicated and time consuming to learn and use. I like the simplicity of focusing on just “three things”.

If you want to know how to prioritize your daily tasks, start by acknowledging that some things are much more important than others. Think 80/20. A minority of tasks, perhaps 20%, will contribute to the majority of your results.

You’ll never get everything on your list done, and trying to categorize and prioritize hundreds of things that aren’t important, or as important, as your three things, isn’t efficient or effective.

This post is one of my MITs for today. Next for me is to finish another writing project. I’ll get to that right after I check my calendar.

I explain my productivity system in my Evernote for Lawyers ebook.

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

Simple, inexpensive, and oh so powerful marketing for lawyers

October 9, 2013 by
Share

How would you like to have five or ten local businesses or professionals passing out your report, brochure, or other propaganda to every one of their customers or clients?

Okay, here’s what you do:

  1. Make a list of categories. What type of business or professional has customers or clients in your target market?
  2. Make a list of candidates. Go online and find websites of businesses and professionals in those categories in your market. Put a star next to the names of those who have a newsletter, blog, mailing list, or social media followers.
  3. Contact each candidate and tell them you have a proposal that could be to your mutual benefit. Basically, you’re going to hand out their literature to your clients and prospects and they’ll do the same for you.
  4. Create a handout. This could be anything with your name and contact information on it–a brochure, report, coupon, gift certificate, free consultation offer, or anything else. Have them do the same.

Print the handout. Create a pdf version, too, for email lists and website visitors. On your handout, add a different code for each cross-promotion partner, so you can see which ones are sending you the most business.

Now, all you have to do is pass out each other’s literature. When your supply gets low, notify your partner so they can provide you with more, and of course, you want them to do the same.

Okay, that’s the idea. Simple, isn’t it? But very effective.

You may have to contact ten or twenty candidates to find a few who understand the power of this idea, but you only need a few. Why? Because a cross-promotion carries with it the implied endorsement of the cross-promotion partner (so make sure you choose good quality businesses and qualified professionals). A handful of partners passing out your information to hundreds of people every day could bring you more business than you can handle.

Marketing for lawyers doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. Cross-promotions allows you to leverage the lists of other professionals and businesses, bringing targeted traffic to your website and hot prospects to your phone.

For more ways to get traffic and clients by leveraging OPL (other people’s lists), get this.

Share
Filed Under: Advertising, List building, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Online Marketing, Referral sources, Referrals Tagged With: , ,

Illegal aliens can now practice law in California

October 8, 2013 by
Share

California Governor Jerry Brown just signed a bill allowing illegal aliens to become attorneys.

Yep.

Officers of the court no longer have to abide by the law. That oath thingy? Upholding the Constitution? Nobody really takes that seriously, do they?

Grow up, people. Laws are silly.

I am curious, though. When an illegal alien attorney reports his or her income, whose social security number are they using? Who cares, as long as it’s not mine.

Anyway, just when you thought there were already too many attorneys competing for clients, now this. What to do. . .

Take sides. Make some noise for or against this, on your blog and in the media. Tell the world what you think. Why it’s wrong (or right), what it means, what’s next. Issue a press release. Write a paper. Give interviews. You can do this even if you’re not in California.

Whatever you do, do it loudly. You’ll get support from people who think you’re saying something that needs to be said. And you’ll get attention from people who think you’re evil and should be burned at the stake.

Either way, you’ll get traffic to your website and new clients. Just like I’m sure this post will do for me.

Need ideas for blog posts? Other ways to get traffic? Make the Phone Ring has what you need. Go here.

Share
Filed Under: Legal industry, Marketing legal services, News, Online Marketing, Press release, Publicity, Web traffic Tagged With: , ,

Grow your law practice today by getting excited about tomorrow

October 7, 2013 by
Share

Your employees (and you) come to work every day knowing pretty much what to expect. You’re going to have documents coming in, you’re going to produce documents and send them out. You’ll open some new files and close others. You’ll be on the phone talking to people about the same things this week as you talked about last week, and the week before.

Same old, same old.

Where’s the excitement? Where’s that something new that gets people out of bed in the morning with their pulse beating a little faster? Where’s that something different that people can talk about and look forward to?

You need to find that something.

Something you can promote to your team so they can get excited and creative and work harder than they’ve ever worked before. Something that makes them look forward to coming to work each day, glad to be a part of your team.

What are we talking about?

It could be money. A bonus for achieving certain results. A trip. A weekend. A dinner. (You do know that your employees can bring in a lot of business, don’t you?)

It could be recognition. Employee of the month, who gets featured on your blog and gets the last Friday of the month off, with pay. Recognition is powerful. Men die for it. Babies cry for it.

It could be a cause. Something in the community you are passionate about. Something you want to change or build.

It could be new tools or techniques. Cool new tablet computers. A new training program. A new way of doing what you’ve always done.

Create an environment that’s fun and exciting, where your folks don’t know what’s going to happen every day.

Every day, you should either have something to promote or something to recognize. It could be progress reports on something already announced. It could be something new. Or it could be something that’s not yet here but is coming next week or next month.

How do you make things fun and exciting for yourself? Set a goal and a reward for reaching it. If you bring in so many new clients this month you get to take that trip to Tahiti. If you really want to make it exciting, tell your team (or family) about the goal and the reward so they will hold you accountable.

Same old, same old may get the job done, but if you really want to grow your law practice today, you have to get excited about tomorrow.

Want more referrals? Quickly? Try a 30 Day Referral Blitz.

Share
Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Personal development Tagged With: ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »