Do you ever completely unplug? Me neither.

July 26, 2012 by
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I confess, I’m one of those people who is never completely unplugged.

When I’m not in front of my computer, I have my iPhone with me and it is never off.

I check email every hour, often several times an hour. In fact, in the middle of writing this paragraph, I clicked over to my always open gmail tab to have a quick look.

I can be reached by email or phone or text or instant message at any time of day (or night, if I’m up).

You may think I’m weird. Or you may say, “Me too,” or “That’s nothing. . .”.

In the Woody Allen movie, “Play it Again, Sam,” Tony Roberts plays a character who is obsessed with work and always being connected. Each time we see him he calls into his office to give a phone number of how to contact him and for how long, and then the next contact number.

That’s not me.

I am not a social media junkie. I get on when I can (perhaps once or twice a day), and get off.

I don’t get nearly the number of calls I used to get.

And even though I can receive information at any time, that doesn’t mean I respond to it. Sometimes I do, often I don’t, at least until I’m ready.

I like being connected. If I didn’t, if I was feeling overwhelmed by incoming communications or the need to respond, I would change something.

How about you? Are you always connected? Is it a problem for you? How about for your family?

How about vacations? Do you completely unplug?

I admit I don’t. I’ll shut things off for several hours, but I’m never completely “offline”. When we were in Europe years ago, before I had a smart phone, I made sure there was an Internet cafe within walking distance so I could log on at least once a day.

Michael Hyatt is a very busy and very accomplished individual who recently returned from a 100% unplugged vacation. I don’t think he needed to do it. He seems to lead a very orderly life. He wanted to unplug, and he did.

He wrote about everything he did to prepare for that trip, and it was extensive. He says it was worth it. He came home truly rested, and more in touch with the important things in his life. And because of his preparations, everything at work was just fine without him.

Reading his posts on the subject made me think he is onto something. Taking a vacation without my phone or the Internet, completely unplugged, intrigues me.

If I can just get used to the idea that everything at work will be fine without me.

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Law office management, Personal development, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Why attorneys need to brag (and how to do it without opening your mouth)

July 25, 2012 by
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One of the primary objectives for any attorney interested in attracting clients is to show the world why they are a better choice. One way to do that is by bragging about your achievements.

Unfortunately, nobody likes a braggart.

The obvious alternative is to let others brag about you. That’s what word of mouth is all about. Happy clients telling others. Your task, then, is to make sure your clients and contacts know about your achievements and have an easy way to share them with others.

You need a “brag book”.

What is a brag book?

A brag book is a place to collect laudatory information about you. It’s a physical notebook, or the digital equivalent, with pages of clips and stories and information about you and your accomplishments.

Those clips and stories show people what you have done for others and suggest that you can do the same for them. The book is filled with third party validation, proving that you are experienced and knowledgeable and trustworthy.

What’s in a brag book?

Your brag book can have a variety of content:

  • Testimonials
  • Endorsements
  • Awards
  • Thank you letters
  • Articles about you, your cases
  • Articles by you, especially if they appear in an important publication
  • Photos of you with happy clients
  • Photos of you with important people
  • Photos of you helping a charity or important cause
  • Photos of you speaking from stage
  • A photo tour of your office
  • Success stories about your clients/cases
  • Stories about big/important verdicts
  • Press releases
  • Your CV or bio
  • Client survey results
  • FAQ’s that show how and why you are different/better

How do I use my brag book?

Use the contents of your brag book whenever you create a new marketing document. Having this information and these documents and photos in one place will make it easier for you or your copywriter to put together new brochures, seminar slides, web pages, or other documents.

You can also put together an entire book that can be shown to clients and prospects, meeting planners, publishers, and others you want to impress.

Use your brag book, or mini-versions thereof:

  • On the table in your waiting room
  • Framed on the wall in your office
  • As a page your web site; link to it from your “About” page
  • As a handout at seminars, networking events
  • As your “firm brochure”
  • In your “new client kit”
  • Send it to prospects who inquire about your services

How do I start a brag book?

Start by collecting these documents and putting them in one location. If you have paper documents, scan them. You could set up a separate notebook in Evernote for this purpose, or simply add a tag (i.e., “bragbook”) to any note that contains brag-worthy information or documents.

As your collection of items grows, you’ll be prompted to seek out additional documents to add to your book. You might ask more clients to provide a testimonial, for example, or make a point of saving copies of photos you have been tagged in on Facebook.

Once you have started your book, it will remind you to fill it, and use it.

Do you have a brag book? Are you going to start one? How will you use it?

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Filed Under: Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Productivity, Referrals Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Using teleconferences and audio messages to market your law practice

July 24, 2012 by
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I just hosted a conference call for my business partners. It was a twenty minute call with a guest speaker. We could have invited our partners to dial into the call live but in this case, we simply recorded it. We will give the playback number to our partners, but I could also download the recording and either email it or post it on a web page.

Teleconferences allow you to create the excitement of a “live event” for your clients or prospects, and recording allows you to make that event available 24/7.

Here are some uses for teleconferences:

  • Live seminars for prospective clients
  • Informational programs for clients
  • Training employees; instructing new clients
  • Creating audio brochures or reports
  • To capture testimonials
  • Creating information products you can sell or offer as bonuses

You can do one-one-interviews, group presentations with multiple speakers, or simple broadcasts, with or without caller participation.

Speakers use a different code to dial in so they can be heard. Participants can be muted, or they can be allowed to ask questions.

There are many free and paid teleconference services available. The paid services usually offer additional line capacity and features, but for most purposes, the free services work just fine. For today’s call, I used FreeConferenceCall.com, which allows up to 96 callers.

FreeConferenceCall.com has another free service for recording audio messages directly for playback. It works like voice mail, but there is no limit to the length of your recording.

I’ve used this to record introductory messages, aka “sizzle calls,” to generate interest in a product or service I was promoting, for training messages, to record live conference calls for permanent playback, and for FAQ-type messages.

You can get a single audio playback number, or one with “extensions” so the caller can press “option one for information, etc. . .”.) The free version requires callers to dial an extension to listen. There is a paid version ($5/mo.) if you want a direct dial number without an extension or pin number.

The audio recording service can be set for “playback only,” so callers can access information, or you can allow callers to leave a message. This can be used as a lead capture tool for advertised promotions.

I’ve used teleconferences and audio recordings extensively in my businesses, both the paid and free versions, and they are an excellent, low-tech way to communicate with a large number of people. If you have not used these services in your marketing, I encourage you to do so.

A good place to start: set up a free account and record a message, “Three Reasons For Hiring [Your Firm Name] for Your [Legal Issue/Engagement]”.

How have you used teleconferences and audio messages in your practice?

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Filed Under: Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Why you need to get rid of all of your clients and start over

July 23, 2012 by
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You need to get rid of all of your clients. No, not literally. Emotionally.

What I mean is that you need to detach from the need for your clients to be something they aren’t.

You can’t make your clients appreciate you if they don’t. Let them go. Mentally release them and your need to change them.

You can’t change the complainers, the price shoppers, and the trouble makers into model clients. Let them go.

You can’t change your clients. All you can do is. . . change your clients.

Let go of the wrong ones to make room for the right ones. The clients who value what you do for them, and tell you so. The clients who follow your advice, pay your bill, and re-tweet your brilliance. The clients who come back to you again and again and refer others, again and again.

You know the kinds of clients I’m talking about. The ones you’d like to clone.

Let go of all of your clients to make room for the right clients, the best clients, the clients that make everything you do worth doing.

They are out there and they will find you. But only if you make room.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client relations, Increase your income, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How to sell your legal services in 15 seconds or less

July 20, 2012 by
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You’re at a networking function and someone asks you what you do. “If you can’t tell me what you do in 15 seconds, I’m not buying.” So says Carmine Gallo, a communications consultant to some of the world’s biggest companies.

Gallo suggests that whether you’re pitching a product, service, investment, or idea, you should use a “message map” to create a visual display of your idea on a single page.

There are three steps:

Step One. Create a Twitter-friendly headline
Step Two. Support the headline with three key benefits.
Step three. Reinforce the three benefits with stories, statistics, and examples.

You can see this process in more detail, including a short video demonstration, in this post on Forbes.com.

I tried this for The Attorney Marketing Center:

Step One: Headline

The Attorney Marketing Center helps attorneys earn more and work less.

This is the single most important thing I want people to know about my company and blog. In fact, I use “Earn more. Work Less.” as a tag line on the blog.

Step Two: Three benefits

We do this by showing attorneys how to

  • Get more clients,
  • Increase their income, and
  • Get more done in less time

These are three benefits attorneys get when they read the blog, buy my products, or hire me to help them.

Step Three: Supporting points

If I want to elaborate in a presentation or in sales copy, these are some bullet points I would use to prompt me:

  • Get more clients (Referrals, online marketing, niche marketing)
  • Increase income (Better clients, higher fees, repeat business)
  • Get more done (Get organized, effectiveness (doing the right things), efficiency (doing things right)

Now you try it. Create a message map that can be used to tell people what you do in 15 seconds or less. Feel free to post it in the comments.

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Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Public Speaking, Salesmanship, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Free PR for attorneys and their clients

July 19, 2012 by
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Tim Ferriss has a great guest post by PR expert Ryan Holiday, author of the new book, Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator.

At first glance, you may wonder if Holiday has anything to say that applies to attorneys. The slightly outrageous photos from his clothing company campaigns had me wondering the same thing, even though one of the stories features a (fully clothed) attorney.

The process of getting PR is the same in any field, however, and Holiday’s tips are solid.

First, he recommends starting small by becoming a resource for reporters who are researching stories. Help them do their job and get your foot in the door. (Great resource: HelpAReporter.com — a service that matches reporters researching stories with sources).

Next, Holiday says to “always appeal to self-interest”. Give the writer what they want (an exclusive on a good story) rather than what you want (exposure for your firm). Make their job easy by providing the background evidence to support the story.

The final tip is to “feed the monster,” meaning give the media what it wants. It wants what readers want: controversial, sexy, topical. These are what people want to read, and what they will share.

I’ll add my tip: the story you pitch doesn’t have to be about you. Use your clients, their businesses, or their causes. Surely there will be a legal angle and your client’s lawyer will need to be quoted. Just make sure you have something to say that people want to hear.

Holiday knows what makes a story go viral and he knows how to get the attention of reporters and bloggers. He got Tim Ferriss’ attention, and he got mine.

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Filed Under: Publicity, Social media Tagged With: , , ,

Marketing legal services: Do one thing and do it well

July 18, 2012 by
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Unix is a forty year old computer operating system that owes its longevity, in part, to its simplicity.

Simple and powerful. Or perhaps, simple IS powerful.

Unix programmers speak of the Unix philosophy approach to writing software. They say, “Write programs that do one thing and do it well.”

I immediately saw the parallel to success in the practice of law.

If you’re trying to do too many things in your practice, you’re certainly finding it harder to do everything well. Success is more likely when you keep things simple. One practice area. One niche market.

Do one thing and do it well.

The same is true of marketing legal services. If you’re trying to do too many things at the same time, or what you are doing is anything but simple, you’re much less likely to do it well enough, or long enough, to get good results.

I’ve seen great practices built with one or two marketing techniques. The key is to have a simple strategy (program) so that you can execute it well.

Simplicity is also key to success in the area of productivity. I get more done, and more important things done, when I keep things simple. I don’t use two apps when one will do. I look for ways to eliminate options because too much of a good thing usually isn’t a good thing.

Forget complicated. Keep it simple. Do one thing and do it well.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , , , ,

How to make sure you never run out of clients

July 17, 2012 by
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In my practice, every time I closed a client file I reminded myself that I needed to replace it. My future income depended on it.

Early in my career, this made me nervous. I would look at the void in my file drawer where the active file had been and wonder what I could do to replace it.

At some point, I realized that every client can lead me to at least one new client, and if that’s true, I would never run out of clients.

It’s called, “the power of one”.

Every client can refer at least one new client. If not now, at some point in the future. The clients they can refer can do the same.

Of course this is not always true for every practice area. Not every client can refer, or will. But some clients will refer three clients, or ten clients.

Every client can do something to “replace themselves.” If they don’t know anyone they can refer, they know someone who does. Ask every client for the name of their insurance agent, CPA, or other professional. Ask for an introduction. Ask if you can use their name.

Every client can help you build your contact list. Ask every client to distribute your report, promote your seminar, or forward your email.

Growing your practice by leveraging your relationships with existing clients begins with the belief that what your clients pay you for the work you do is only part of your compensation. In addition to your fee, you expect them to refer at least one client or introduce you to at least one professional contact.

Some attorneys discuss this with new clients when they talk about fees. Some actually put this in their retainer agreement.

No matter what you say, or don’t say, one thing is clear: Attorneys who get more referrals expect their clients to refer.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Leverage, List building, Marketing legal services, Referral sources, Referrals Tagged With: ,

Has the “Law of Association” Been Repealed?

July 16, 2012 by
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W. Clement Stone said, “Be careful the environment you choose, for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose, for you will become like them.”

Our parents, teachers, and spiritual leaders always cautioned us about our associations. If my parents didn’t approve of someone I was hanging around with, they didn’t hesitate to let me know.

Some say we become like the (5) people we associate with most. We are influenced by them. We adopt their habits, behaviors, and opinions.

It’s called “The Law of Association,” but perhaps the word “tendency” would be more accurate than “law”.

If you spend most of your time around people who smoke or drink or have poor eating habits, does that mean you will adopt those habits? You might. But then through your example, you might be the one who influences them to clean up their act.

If your friends are all negative people who complain all the time and see the dark side of everything, it doesn’t mean you will become a negative person. Environment is important but it’s not everything.

But while the people we associate with may not change us, the right ones can expose us to better ideas and better opportunities.

If you associate with successful professionals and business executives, for example, you can gain insights into how they think. You can study what they do. You can model their behavior and their language. By watching them and by seeking their advice, you can learn how to avoid mistakes and improve your outcomes.

Successful people can also open doors for you. They can introduce you to prospective clients and referrals sources, help promote your practice, or point you towards profitable investments.

Who you know, and who you spend time with, does make a difference.

As I mentioned in a previous post, you do have a choice. You can choose to associate with positive people who inspire you and help you grow, and you can disassociate from people who don’t.

But you may have some work to do, first.

People tend to seek out people who are like themselves. We prefer to be around people with similar habits, viewpoints, income levels, and hobbies. Birds of a feather do flock together. And therein lies the challenge.

If you want to associate with successful people who can provide you with better ideas and better opportunities, you have to earn the right to do so.

Why should they associate with YOU? What are you bringing to the table? What better ideas and better opportunities will you be able to share?

There’s another law at work here: The “Law of Attraction”. Like attracts like. Birds of a feather flock together because they are birds of a feather.

If you want to be around successful people, you have to attract them and to do that, you have to become them. You don’t necessarily have to have achieved what they have achieved, but you must have similar philosophies.

That’s why personal development is essential to success. That’s why Jim Rohn said, “Work harder on yourself than you do on your business.”

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Personal development, Relationship marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

You got into Harvard Law School? That’s funny!

July 13, 2012 by
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In the movie, “Legally Blonde,” Reese Witherspoon plays Elle Wood, a beautiful blonde who is dumped by her snobbish fiancé because he feels her lack of intelligence will hurt his career plans. Not ready to be dismissed so easily, Elle applies to and is accepted at Harvard Law, where she meets up with her ex- in the hallway on the first day of class.

He is surprised to see her and reminds her that their relationships is over. When he realizes she’s not visiting, she is a student, he is incredulous. “You got into Harvard Law?!”

Whereupon, Witherspoon delivers a line that still has me chuckling more than ten years after I first heard it: “What? Like it’s hard?”

Now if you don’t find that funny, you either don’t have a sense of humor or you went to Harvard. Wait, that’s redundant.

What? You’re still not laughing? You must be a tax lawyer.

Okay, I do have a point: We all need to laugh more. It’s good for our health and good for our business.

People like people who make them laugh. They like people who are fun to be around. They like people who smile and enjoy life.

Yes, what we do is often terribly serious. But not everything and not all the time.

I’m not suggesting you learn to tell jokes. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. I’d love to take a stand up comedy class. People always tell me I’m funny. I remind them that looks aren’t everything.

Hello, is this on?!

Anyway, we all need to lighten up and have some fun. Even when times are tough. Especially when times are tough.

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Filed Under: Communication, Just for fun, Personal development, Public Speaking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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