5 simple steps for improving productivity

November 19, 2013 by
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I’m going to give you a simple checklist for improving productivity. To use it, first make a list of everything you do in your work day. Do this over the course of a week so you don’t leave anything out.

Include everything: seeing clients, paperwork, calls, meetings, administrative. Include your commute and errands. Also include things you do during work hours that aren’t work related (e.g., playing games on your phone, coffee breaks, watching videos, etc.)

Once you have your list, go through every item. Look at the checklist and make notes. For best results, go through the list several times.

CHECKLIST FOR IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY

1. Eliminate. Ruthlessly purge anything that is unnecessary or does not contribute enough value to continue doing. Peter Drucker wisely said, “There is nothing less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.”

2. Delegate. Just because something must be done doesn’t mean you are the one who must do it. Assign these tasks someone in house or outsource them, so that you can do, “only those things that only you can do.”

3. Do it less. What could you do less frequently? If you do something daily, could you do it once a week? Once a month? What can you consolidate with other tasks? For example, can you do some of your reading or dictation during your commute?

4. Do it faster. What could you do in shorter chunks of time? If you routinely take an hour to do something, find ways to do it in 30 or 45 minutes. How? Eliminate or delegate parts, use forms and checklists, improve your skills, or get help (i.e., do it with a partner).

5. Do it later. Are you doing anything during prime time you could do after hours? What can you do when your energy is lower? Which tasks are routine or low priority and don’t require your full attention?

Improving productivity means improving effectiveness (doing the right things) and efficiency (doing things right). 80% of your improvement will come from steps 1 and 2 which focus on effectiveness. Eliminating and delegating things that don’t need to be done or could be done by someone else frees you up to do more high value tasks. The remaining steps will help you become more efficient at everything else.

The Attorney Marketing Formula shows you how to earn more by working smarter, not harder.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , ,

How to get better clients

November 13, 2013 by
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A lawyer emailed wanting to know how  to get better clients. He said he is in a slump. “People come see me but they don’t have the money to retain our services. It’s been a tough month. What can I do?”

Are there any lawyers in your market who do what you do and have clients who can afford to pay their fees? If not, you need to change practice areas or move. If the business isn’t there, it isn’t there.

On the other hand, if other lawyers in your field are getting paying clients, then it’s not the market. The work is there. You just have to get those better paying clients to come to you instead of those other lawyers.

Start by looking at what those other lawyers are doing. Study them, as I mentioned yesterday. What are they doing that you’re not doing? What are they doing better than you are doing? What are you doing that they don’t?

Do they specialize? Specialists generally earn more than general practitioners. One reason is that clients prefer to hire specialists. They are also willing to pay higher fees to a specialist. If these other lawyers specialize and you don’t, you have to consider doing so, or at least disguising the fact that you don’t. One way to do that is to have separate websites for each practice area.

How much do they charge? More than you, less, about the same? Most attorneys compete for the bottom eighty percent of the marketplace. The most successful attorneys target the upper ten or twenty percent, which obviously includes people with money.

How do they bill? Hourly? Flat fees? Blended? How big of a retainer do they get? What do they do to make it easier for their clients to pay?

Look at their website. What elements do they have that you don’t? Can you do something similar? How can you improve on what they have done? What are you doing on your website that they don’t do that might be hurting instead of helping you?

Valuable information, yes?

Also look at what you are doing. Look at the better clients you have attracted over the last year or two (the ones who have money). Where did they come from? If they came from referrals from your other clients, for example, figure out what you did that precipitated those referrals and do more of it.

In addition, look at what your better clients have in common. Industry, occupation, ethnicity? Where can you find more like them?

Also look at the people who are contacting you who can’t afford you. Where are they coming from? Whatever it is that you are doing to attract them, stop doing that. And screen them out before they come to see you. For example, you might quote your minimum fee package on the phone or on your website. This way, if they can’t afford this, they won’t call or come to see you.

I don’t know what you’re doing now to market your services but whatever it is, there are always other things you can try. It might be helpful to get out a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and on the left side of the page, write down everything you are doing that could be considered marketing. On the right side, write down things you aren’t doing, including things you used to do but abandoned. Keep adding to the list on the right and try some new things. Create a simple marketing plan.

In addition, look for ways to improve what you are doing. If you are networking, for example, consider finding a different group and/or working on your follow-up.

Finally, seek some perspective on your current situation. You say you’re having a bad month but everyone has bad months. Next month could be great. If it is, don’t rest on your laurels. The best time to ramp up your marketing is when you’re busy, not when you’re in a slump.

If things continue to be bad, don’t panic. It’s nothing five new (paying) clients can’t fix. You can turn things around quickly. Cut overhead to give yourself some breathing room and get busy with marketing. You have the time for it, right? That’s one of the advantages of a slump–less work means more time for marketing.

Think about getting some help. Get a workout partner. Hire someone to point you in the right direction and/or coach you.

Whatever you do, don’t dwell on the bad. Think about where you are going, not where you have been.

If you need help with your marketing, contact me and let’s talk. 

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Mentors & Coaches, Online Marketing, Specializing Tagged With: ,

Thinking outside the box: what it means and why we need to do it

November 11, 2013 by
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Human beings live inside a box, the walls of which are comprised of our beliefs and habits. (For the record, lawyers live inside two boxes. In case one breaks.)

Our beliefs and habits protect us from harm. They help us avoid dangerous situations and make decisions that mitigate risk. They also make our lives more productive and less chaotic. Once we have found the love of our life, for example, our belief in monogamy keeps us from looking elsewhere. (Okay, we may look but we don’t touch.)

Our beliefs and habits our foundational to how we govern our lives and by and large, they serve us well. But if they are too rigid, they keep us from growing. In the context of marketing legal services, for example, our old beliefs can cause us to fall behind our younger, less constrained competition.

The world is constantly changing. We must be aware of, and responsive to, those changes. We must be prepared to try new things and learn new skills, and update the old ones.

But how? How do we get outside of our comfort zone?

With some things, we just do it. We pick up the phone and make the call. We show up at the meeting. We write the report.

With other things, we need some preparation. So we read about them and talk to people who are doing them. We make notes and jot down ideas. And then, we try something.

We start with something small and easy. We dip our toes into the cold water. Once we get used to it, we jump in. Or, if it’s harder than we imagined, we wade in. Eventually, what was once scary and difficult is familiar and easy. What was once firmly outside of our comfort zone is now comfortably inside.

But there are some things that are so far outside of the box we can’t imagine ourselves doing them. They are too difficult, too risky, or too far away. What then?

The first rule of change is having the desire to change. If you’re happy where you are and don’t want to try anything new, despite the possible rewards, then be okay with not trying. You can’t change if you don’t want to change. But if want something better, admit that you do.

Second, you must be willing to do the work associated with that change. That means being willing to invest time, physical effort, and money, in new things. Of course that means you will probably have to re-allocate resources from things you’re currently doing. There are only so many hours in a day and you only have so much energy.

Finally, and most importantly, you have to be willing to undergo the emotional transformation that takes place by thinking and doing things that challenge your existing habits and beliefs. That’s the hardest part of thinking outside the box, and why most people don’t do it.

Change is emotionally difficult. Giving up old beliefs and ingrained habits, learning new philosophies and methodologies, are the very essence of personal growth. This is the hardest part of the journey. And it takes place outside of the box.

Do your clients pay you on time and in full? If not, you should learn how to Get the Check.

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

Why you need to think outside the box

October 31, 2013 by
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Your Uncle died. It’s sad, but he was 102 and lived a good life. In his Will, he left you $1,000,000, but there is one condition. You only get the money if you spend it all on advertising your law practice.

You can spend it on any kind of advertising you want. Magazines, newspapers, direct mail, TV, online banner ads–whatever you want. You can spend it all at once or set up a monthly budget. But you must spend all of it in one year or less. (This is starting to sound like a movie.)

If you already advertise, or you have always wanted to, you’re probably dancing around the room right now. Imagine how much business you could bring in with that kind of ad budget!

If you don’t advertise, and have never seriously considered it, would you consider it now?

It’s free money! This could be a life changing opportunity for you. A million dollars, spent wisely, might bring you five million dollars in business.

(If advertising isn’t permitted in your jurisdiction, pretend that it is.)

So, what do you say? Would you say, “No, advertising isn’t appropriate for my practice. I’ll have to pass”? Or would you figure out a way to do it that was appropriate?

If you would figure out a way to do it, if you would spend your Uncle’s million dollars on advertising and you have never considered advertising before, I’d like to know why. Why would you spend someone else’s money but not your own?

Too risky? You don’t know how to do it? You don’t have the money?

You may not have a million dollars to spend on advertising, but do you have $1,000? One or two good ads might bring you $10,000 in new business. So, why haven’t you tried advertising before, or even considered it?

Okay, I’m not trying to talk you into advertising. My point is to get you to think outside the box about marketing your services. Ask yourself, “what am I not doing that might work for me?”

Marketing (anything) is about trying lots of things and seeing what works. You get rid of what doesn’t work and do more of what does.

If you don’t know how to do it, find out. Read, hire someone, or find other attorneys who are doing it and model them. If you don’t have the time, get some help. If there is cost involved, test it on a small scale.

And. . . don’t give up on something the first time it doesn’t work. You may have to do it longer before it does. Study, practice, and try again.

You are a better attorney today than you were the day you were sworn in, aren’t you? Marketing works the same way.

Need a marketing plan? You get one free with The Attorney Marketing Formula.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development

How to get more legal clients with promotions

October 21, 2013 by
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In many ways, selling legal services is like selling any product or service. You tell people what you can do to help them solve a problem or achieve an objective, you tell them your “price,” and they make a decision. They hire you or they don’t.

Many of the ones who don’t hire you are on the fence. They’re not sure if they can afford it, they’re not sure if they should choose you or another attorney, or they’re not sure if they really need to hire anyone right now.

There are many fence sitters on your list. People you have talked to or sent some information, people who heard you speak or saw your video, prospective clients who almost hired you, but didn’t. One of the easiest ways to get more clients is to offer those fence sitters a special incentive that tips the scale in favor of hiring you.

There are two key elements to this offer. The first is value. Something extra for saying yes: a discount, a bonus (i.e., a free extra service), recognition on your website or in your newsletter, enhanced access to you, or an entry into a drawing for a special prize. Another example: Announce an impending fee increase and allow them to lock in the current rate.

The second element is scarcity: a time limit or limited quantity. A date when the offer expires or a limit on how many you will accept.

The second element is the more important of the two. Remember, they were already interested in your services. They don’t really need anything extra. It is the time limit (or fixed quantity) that gets them off the fence.

Fear of losing the special offer gets them to decide.

Promotions can help you sign up a lot of business. In addition to getting fence sitters off the fence, they can get prospects to choose you instead of your competition, get former clients to return, and get new clients to sign up for more services than they originally contemplated.

Find something you can promote. Add a deadline or limited quantity. Promote it.

Promoting is much more than announcing. Promoting means dramatizing the benefits of the special offer (as well as the core services). It means telling them what they will gain and also, what they will lose if they don’t accept the offer.

Promoting means repeating the special offer frequently, reminding prospects of the benefits and the impending deadline. It means telling them there are “only 48 hours left” or “only three spots remaining” and that the clock is ticking.

You don’t have to look beyond your email inbox to see examples of promotions. You’ve gotten them from me and from others, and no doubt purchased many products and services about which you were previously on the fence.

Promotions work, and you can use them to sell more of your legal services.

By the way, if you’re thinking a promotion might be unseemly or inappropriate for your practice, here’s what I suggest. Tie your promotion to a charity or worthy cause.

You might run a holiday promotion. For every new client who signs up before December 10th, you’ll donate $100 worth of new, unwrapped toys to your local “Toys for Tots”. C’mon folks, do it for the kids.

Marketing is simple. If you want to know how to get more legal clients, this is how. Create a special offer, put a time limit on it, and promote it to your list.

Want more referrals? Get The 30 Day Referral Blitz.

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Filed Under: Closing the sale, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Salesmanship Tagged With: , , ,

Do one thing every day that scares you

October 18, 2013 by
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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.

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

Grow your law practice today by getting excited about tomorrow

October 7, 2013 by
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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.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Personal development Tagged With: ,

New report shows attorneys how to quickly get more referrals

October 3, 2013 by
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The Attorney Marketing Center has announced the release of a report that shows attorneys how to quickly get more referrals. “The 30 Day Referral Blitz” is an expanded and updated version of a report previously available only to author David M. Ward’s consulting clients.

“Lawyers are often told that the way to get more referrals is to ask for them. The problem is, they don’t like asking. The 30 Day Referral Blitz gives them an alternative,” Ward says.

Not only does The Blitz show lawyers how to get referrals without asking, it shows them how to do it quickly. “A ‘referral blitz’ is a concentrated burst of activity that takes place over a 30 day period. After a few hours of prep time, The Blitz can be done in as little as 15 minutes a day,” Ward says.

The original version of The Blitz was slower and more expensive. It required lawyers to use regular mail and the telephone. The new version takes advantage of the speed and reach of the Internet and email, making it easier, quicker, and more economical. “You can do The Blitz every month, if you want to,” Ward says.

The 30 Day Referral Blitz shows lawyers how to get referrals from existing clients, former clients, and other contacts, including professionals and social media connections. For more information, visit The Attorney Marketing Center or this page.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, News, Referral sources, Referrals

Lawyers: your messy desk is costing you business

October 2, 2013 by
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I’ve written before about how to clean up a messy desk and how doing so can make you more productive. But there’s another reason why a messy desk is bad for business: It gives your clients (and others in your office) a negative impression.

A messy desk implies that

  • You have an equally messy (confused) mind
  • You are inefficient and waste time
  • You are disorganized and may forget things
  • You take longer to do things, costing your clients money
  • You don’t pay attention to detail
  • You have too many other clients and don’t have time for new ones
  • You are sloppy in other areas (i.e., billing, deadlines, negotiating, drafting, research, personal hygiene, etc.)

Most of all, a messy desk tells people you don’t care.

Yes, you want clients to know you are busy. Busy means you are in demand, that other people value your expertise and want to give you money to help them. But you can be busy and organized. You can be busy and care about making a good impression.

If you have a messy desk, some clients won’t hire you again. You make them nervous. Neither will they refer their friends.

Clients want to know that you know what you’re doing, that you do it efficiently, and most of all, that you care about them. Why give them cause to think anything else?

Marketing is everything we do to get and keep good clients. Everything. Here’s the formula

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Filed Under: Client relations, Image, Increase your income, Law office management, Productivity, Referrals Tagged With: , ,

Creating an operations manual for your law practice

October 1, 2013 by
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Early in my career I rented space from an attorney who had a very lucrative high volume personal injury practice.

He had half a dozen employees, including one attorney, and everything ran very smoothly. The office was busy but quiet. Everything was orderly. They never seemed to miss deadlines or suffer a major crisis.

One reason why the office was so successful was that the attorney had prepared an operations manual. Every aspect of the practice was documented. Every employee knew what they were supposed to do.

He created the manual, I was told, so that if someone quit or went on maternity leave or got sick, the new hire or temp would be able to quickly get up to speed.

The manual explained how to open a new file, how to close a file, and everything in between. There were forms and checklists for every stage of the case, and fill-in-the-blank form letters, too. The calendaring procedure was spelled out in detail.

As a result, nothing fell through the cracks. The cases got worked and settled or tried. Things moved quickly. Mistakes were rare.

I never saw the actual manual but hearing about it inspired me to create my own. I started by making extra copies of every letter I wrote and putting them in a separate file. I created checklists for repetitive tasks. I asked other attorneys I knew for copies of their forms and form letters and re-wrote them to suit my style and work flow.

I was also able to build a sizable practice with a relatively small staff, in part, because of my manual.

One of the benefits of going through this process is that it forces you to think about everything you do, allowing you to find ways to do them better. You find holes in your procedures, places where mistakes can happen, and you can patch them. You find wasteful tasks and can eliminate them. You see opportunities for doing things faster.

You also find ways to improve client relations. For example, you may discover gaps in communicating progress to clients about their case, or find ways to make their experience less stressful. Repeat business and referrals will increase because you always send welcome letters and thank you letters and remember clients’ birthdays.

The bottom line is that creating an operations manual for your law practice will save time, save money, help you avoid errors (and malpractice claims), and make your practice run more smoothly and more profitably.

If you don’t have an operations manual for your practice, I encourage you to start one. If you have staff, enlist their aid. If you do have a manual, make a note to review it periodically, so you can update it with changes in the law, new forms, and new ideas.

You’ll thank me later.

For more on creating an operations manual, see The Attorney Marketing Formula

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client loyalty, Client relations, Communication, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Productivity Tagged With: , , , , ,
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