The 80/20 Principle and your law practice

September 11, 2013 by
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One of my favorite books is The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. In it, Koch makes the case first articulated as The Pareto Principle, that “a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards”.

The idea is that as much as 80% of your results may come from 20% of your effort. In the context of practicing law, that might mean that 20% of your clients produce 80% of your income. The actual numbers, however, aren’t necessarily 80/20. They might be 90/30, 60/20, or 55/5. The point is that some things we do bring results that are disproportionate to our effort and that it behooves us to look for those things and do more of them.

Koch says, “Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.”

We’re talking about focus. About doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. About using leverage to earn more without working more.

Look at your practice and tell me what you see.

  • Practice areas: Are you a Jack or Jill of all trades or a master of one? Are you good at many things or outstanding at one or two?
  • Clients: Do you target anyone who needs what you do or a very specifically defined “ideal client” who can hire you more often, pay higher fees, and refer others like themselves who can do the same?
  • Services: Do you offer low fee/low margin services because they contribute something to overhead or do you keep your overhead low and maximize profits?
  • Fees: Do you trade your time for dollars or do you get paid commensurate with the value you deliver?
  • Marketing: Do you do too many things that produce no results, or modest results, or one or two things that bring in the bulk of your new business?
  • Time: Do you do too much yourself, or do you delegate as much as possible and do “only that which only you can do”?
  • Work: Do you do everything from scratch or do you save time, reduce errors, and increase speed by using forms, checklists, and templates?

Leverage is the key to the 80/20 principle. It is the key to getting more done with less effort and to earning more without working more.

Take inventory of where you are today. If you’re not on track to meeting your goals, if you are working too hard and earning too little, the answer may be to do less of most things, the “trivial many,” as Koch defines them, so you can do more of the “precious few”.

My course, The Attorney Marketing Formula, can help you.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, Productivity, Specializing, success Tagged With: , , ,

Fracking your law practice

September 3, 2013 by
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You’ve waited long enough. It’s time to finally open the floodgates of untapped resources that lie beneath your feet. New clients, better clients, and an abundant and fulfilling lifestyle await you. All you need to do is go get them.

Every law practice has natural resources that aren’t being accessed. What are these resources?

Your client list that could easily bring a steady stream of repeat business and referrals but is all but ignored in favor of expensive and time consuming efforts to find new clients.

Your knowledge and experience that could be packaged and presented in a way that makes you stand out from the crowd and be seen as the best lawyer for the job but instead, is shackled by the chains of conformity.

The passion that drove you to choose a legal career but has been dulled by low margins and mindless work could be rekindled with new ideas, if only you would slow down long enough to learn them, and loosen up enough to try them.

These and other resources, if allowed to surface, could transform you from struggle to success, from success to untold wealth. All you have to do is embrace these resources, develop them, and allow them to deliver their bounty.

Why aren’t you developing these resources? Adherence to tradition. Not wanting to admit there is a problem. Fear of what others will think or what might happen if something goes wrong.

Yes, there are dangers. If you start a blog it might take up too much time. But what if it doesn’t? What if it takes up much less time than you thought? And what if it brings you lots of prospective clients who see why they should hire you instead of anyone else, and do?

If you get started with social media, your unhappy clients and crazy clients may smack talk you and harm your reputation. But what if they are few and far between and your happy clients set the record straight and build up your reputation and increase your following?

If you stay in touch with your clients and former clients, you might waste time that could be spent getting work done. But what if staying in touch brings you so much work you can afford to hire staff to do most of it and you can get home before the kids are in bed?

There are dangers to doing things you’ve never done before. You might be embarrassed. There may be costs. Things could go wrong. But the greater danger is that you will never discover what was possible, never realize your potential, and never have the time or financial resources to make the world a better place.

If you’re ready to tap into your natural resources, this and this will show you what to do.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client loyalty, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Productivity

Random acts of marketing legal services

August 22, 2013 by
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A new study suggests that investing at random is as effective as hiring expensive financial advice. As reported in Wired, a physicist and an economist in Italy seem to have proven that throwing darts at stock listings can actually bring decent returns.

What if marketing legal services works the same way?

What if instead of hiring expensive consultants to manage their marketing, lawyers simply chose marketing related activities at random. Instead of trying to figure out the perfect strategy, they just kept busy?

I like this idea. You don’t need to hire experts and gurus or go to expensive seminars. You can ignore the “method of the week”. Just do something, every day, to reach out to people you know and people you want to know.

Call or write to someone. It doesn’t matter who. They don’t have to be your best client. It doesn’t matter if they can’t send you a lot of referrals. What happens next doesn’t really matter because over time, everything will average out and you will at least get average results from your efforts, if the analogy is true.

But hold on. Since most attorneys do no marketing, or do marketing very badly, your random acts of daily marketing should bring you results that are much better than average.

So, here’s what you do. Get out your calendar and schedule 15 minutes every day for marketing. Mark this time on your calendar as an appointment with yourself. If someone wants to see you at that time, you must tell them you have an appointment and you’ll have to see them a little later.

Now, keep that appointment. Every day, do something marketing related. It doesn’t matter what it is, just do something.

Scroll through your contact database and pick someone at random. Call or email them and say hello. If it’s a client, say thanks for being a good client. If it’s someone you met at a networking function three years ago and haven’t spoken to since, tell them you just found their name and wanted to see how they are doing.

It doesn’t matter who you contact or what you say. These are random acts of marketing, remember? Just keep busy and do something every day. If you get stuck, go find a chimpanzee and when he points at something, do that.

Marketing is simple. Lawyers are complicated. Stop thinking so much and do something.

Marketing is simple with this and this.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Relationship marketing Tagged With: , , ,

A simple marketing plan for lawyers

August 15, 2013 by
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The experts and gurus tell you you’re not doing nearly enough to market your legal services. They provide you with a laundry list of tasks you need to do and you had better do them, they say, or you will be left behind by your competition.

Screw ’em.

You don’t have to do everything. I certainly don’t. Not even close.

I write a daily blog post, I occasionally do some guest posts, and I spend about five minutes a day on social media. Okay, you got me, I also do a lot of reading. But I am not consumed with doing everything others say I must do. I don’t worry about what anyone else is doing, and you shouldn’t either.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are,” Teddy Roosevelt said. He was replying to a request for more guns and soldiers during the Spanish American War. His generals wanted more. He told them they were fine with what they had. You are, too.

Yes, there are other things I’m working on. Because I want to, not because I have to. I’ve got the basics covered.

You may be different. You may have more time than I do. Okay, let me re-phrase that–you may want to spend more time on marketing than I do. You may love posting and pinning and tweeting and commenting and sharing and instagramming. You may be a video stud or a mobile maven.

And that’s fine. It’s great, in fact. God bless you. You’re doing what you enjoy and it’s working for you. That’s the way marketing should be.

Because if it’s not, if marketing is something you loathe in all it’s forms and iterations, you shouldn’t do it. Why make yourself miserable? Partner up with someone who likes marketing. Or get a job.

Because marketing must be done.

If you want to do more, do more. Not because you see other lawyers doing more and you think you must keep up with them. Do it because it makes sense to you and you want to do it.

Start by learning about what’s possible. This blog is a good place to start. My course, The Attorney Marketing Formula, provides a system for marketing legal services and includes a simple marketing plan for lawyers. My other course, Make the Phone Ring, shows you how to do marketing on the Internet.

I mentioned Teddy’s quote in a previous post where I also quoted Mark Zuckerberg. He said we often start projects with the hard parts, figuring we can always do the easy bits. He says that instead, we should start with what’s easy. This way, we will have started and starting is the most important part.

If you start, you can get better, maybe even learn to like it. If you never start, that can’t happen.

Starting is easy. Starting includes things like reading and thinking and making notes.

So don’t worry about what anyone else is doing, or what anyone says you must do. You can market your services any way you want. Find out what’s possible, do something and see how it goes. And start with easy.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

My clients are driving me crazy

August 13, 2013 by
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I got an email from an attorney who said, “my clients are driving me crazy”. Apparently, many of his clients don’t appreciate him. They are rude and think they know better and he is finding it difficult to maintain his composure.

What do you do in a situation like that?

The first thing I would suggest is to take a look at yourself. Why? Because your law practice is a reflection of you–your attitudes and habits. If you have a preponderance of clients who don’t appreciate you, that may be because you don’t appreciate them.

We don’t attract the clients we want, we attract the clients we deserve.

Do you appreciate your clients? More importantly, do they know it? Do you show them by your words and deeds that you care about them and will do whatever you can to help them? In what ways do you show them? How often do you show them? Is it sincere or is it something you do because you think you have to?

You can’t fake this. People know.

But you may not know. You may not be able to see yourself clearly. So, ask your staff what they think. Ask other professionals who know you. And ask your clients. Send them a survey they can respond to anonymously and leave room for their suggestions.

The other thing I suggest is that you focus on the clients who do appreciate you so you can attract more like them.

What’s different about them? What services do they hire you to perform? How did they find you? (Clients who come from referrals are often better than clients who come through the Internet or advertising).

Are they at the high end of the fee spectrum or the low end? Are they first time clients or repeat clients? What is their background or occupation? Age? Income level?

Survey them as well and see what they like best about you.

Look for patterns and create a profile of these better clients. Then, work on attracting more like them by focusing your time, energy, and resources marketing to people who fit that profile. Start with your existing and former clients who fit that profile. They will lead you to people like themselves.

And, as soon as possible, start pruning your client garden. Get rid of the clients who don’t appreciate you, first, before you have found clients to replace them. Scary? Yes. But you will feel great getting rid of all that negative energy and soon, the void you create will be filled with the clients you want and deserve.

This shows you how create a profile of your ideal client.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client loyalty, Client relations, Communication, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development Tagged With: ,

One year ago I. . . and today. . .

July 30, 2013 by
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Let’s try a little exercise. I want you to think back to one year ago. Look at your calendar to remind yourself where you were and what you were doing. Sort your notes by date. Read your diary.

What did you do or change one year ago that has positively affected your life today? It doesn’t have to be exactly one year ago. Close enough is close enough.

Write it down.

“One year ago, I. . .” and then describe how your law practice or personal life has improved as a result. Something like this:

One year ago. . .

“. . .I started. . . and today, I. . .”.

“. . .I improved. . . and today, I. . .”.

“. . .I changed. . . and today, I. . .”.

“. . .I updated. . . and today, I. . .”.

“. . .I stopped. . . and today, I . . .”.

You might find it easier to work backwards, that is, to think about something positive in your life right now and see if you can relate it back to something you did last year. For example, if you are seeing an increase in new clients today, you might realize that last year at this time, you began reading my blog or you purchased one of my courses. (Smiley face with big grin goes here.)

Anyway, if you can find something you did last year that has benefited you this year, it should be noted and reflected upon. How did you come to make that change? What precipitated it? What has been the best part? What might you have done differently or better?

Now, think about the future. How can you amplify what you did last year to make it even better this year? What should you continue doing and what should you consider changing? What should you do more of and what might you cut back on?

By now, you have probably figured out that the point of this exercise isn’t really to get you to look back so much as it is to get you to look forward.

What could you do today so that one year from now, you can look back at this date and see how you effected a positive outcome?

Go on, give it some thought and write down your answers. What could you start, improve, change, update, or stop doing today?

Send me an email next year and let me know how it worked out.

The Attorney Marketing Formula includes a simple marketing plan. Check it out here.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, success

3 simple questions for managing your law practice

July 17, 2013 by
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Managing your law practice is anything but simple. There are a lot of moving parts. People, problems, deadlines. It’s easy to get lost.

If you find yourself busy but not achieving your goals, if you find yourself doing but not getting things done, I want to offer you a way to gain clarity and get back on track.

All you have to do is ask yourself 3 simple questions.

The first question is. . .

1. What do I want?

More clients? Better clients? Bigger cases?

Lower overhead? Less stress? Shorter hours?

Do you want to build a big practice or do you want to work towards retirement? Do you want to eliminate a problem or achieve a milestone?

Whatever it is, write it down, and be specific. You need to know what you want before you can work on getting it.

Let’s say the answer is “I want to get an average of two referrals every week.”

Nice. Now you know what you want. Now, answer the next question.

2. Why don’t I have it?

Why aren’t you getting an average of two referrals every week right now?

Are there any obstacles? Problems? Defects? Something you should do but aren’t? Something you are doing but aren’t doing enough? Something you are doing but aren’t doing well enough?

Be honest. There could be many reasons for not getting the referrals:

  • You don’t have enough referral sources
  • You don’t have enough former clients to provide enough referrals
  • Your existing and former clients don’t know enough people who need your services
  • Your clients don’t know you want their referrals; (you’re not asking for referrals or asking often enough)
  • Your fees are higher than other attorneys and you haven’t made it clear why you are worth more
  • Your fees are lower than other attorneys and people think there is a reason (i.e., you don’t have the experience, don’t get the results) and get scared off
  • You’re intimidating or have a reputation for being unapproachable
  • You haven’t made it easy for people to refer (i.e., told them what to do, what to say, etc.)
  • There aren’t enough cases or clients in your market
  • You don’t have a website (so referrals can’t “check you out”)
  • Your website isn’t good enough so when referrals check you out, they get scared off
  • Your competition gets the lion’s share of referrals because they [know someone, spend big money on advertising, etc. . .]

There are lots of reasons why you might not be getting the referrals you want. Write down everything you can think of. Ask your staff. Ask your colleagues.

You may not like some of the reasons, especially the ones that reveal your personal shortcomings. Those are probably the ones you need to pay the most attention to.

Okay, one more question to answer.

3. What can I do about it?

Once you know why you don’t have what you want, it’s time to focus on solutions.

What can you do to remove obstacles? Fix problems? Make improvements?

Write a “can do” list–a list of what you can do.

If you’re not getting enough referrals because you don’t have enough referral sources, that’s something you can work on. Write it down. You can get more referral sources.

On the other hand, if you’re not getting enough referrals because you don’t have enough former clients to make those referrals, you can’t do anything about that right now. That’s not something you “can do”.

There may be items on your “can do” list that you choose not to do. That’s okay. Write them down anyway because you may decide to do them later or they might give you ideas for other solutions.

For example, if your market isn’t big enough to supply you with the referrals you want, you can move, open a second office in another town, or take on another practice area. All things you can do, but you might choose not to do any.

However, although you might not want to open a second office right now, or ever, writing it down as a “can do” might prompt you to find an attorney in another town and establish mutual “of counsel” arrangements. Now you can promote your “other office” to your clients and contacts and start getting referrals in that other town.

A “can do” list shows you what’s possible. Instead of dwelling on problems, you will focus on solutions and be on your way to getting what you want.

Does your website need work? I can help. Let me show you how to Make the Phone Ring.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, Referrals Tagged With: , , , ,

Is building a law practice a sprint or a marathon?

May 15, 2013 by
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If marketing is everything we do to get and keep good clients (and it is), then you would assume that building a law practice is a marathon, and you would be right.

It’s all of the little things you do, over time, not big things you do once or twice.

It is your daily habit of sending thank you notes or birthday cards. It is the way you always see clients on time and never make them wait. It is writing a blog or newsletter and consistently delivering valuable information in an interesting way. Any one of these “little things” might not make a difference by itself, but over time, your daily habits compound. One day, you find your practice has doubled and you don’t really know how.

But building a law practice can also be a sprint.

Let me explain.

Let’s say you are looking at your calendar for the next 90 days and mapping out what you’re going to do to get your name and face in front of your target market. You plan to line up some speaking engagements, publish some articles, and go to lunch with centers of influence you have identified.

Every week, you book something. You have two speaking engagement each month, a new article coming out once a month, and every Friday, you’re having lunch with another prospective referral source.

This is good.

But there’s another way you could approach this. Instead of spreading everything out over 90 days, what if you did everything over the next two weeks?

You speak every day. You have lunch with someone every day. All of your articles appear this week.

You cram in as much activity as possible over a short period of time.

Why? Because now, your target market sees you “everywhere”. In a two week period, they hear you speak, see your article, and hear your name mentioned by two people they know and respect.

You get noticed. People talk about you. And remember you.

This is why advertisers spend $20,000 to run a bunch of ads this week, rather than $1000 a week for twenty weeks. And why they will run those ads on TV, radio, in print, and online at the same time, rather than TV this week, radio next week, and print the week after that.

Whether you’re spending time or money, concentrating your expenditure in a short period of time allows you to make a bigger impact on your market.

A marathon is you dripping on your target market. A sprint is you opening a fire hose. Never stop running the marathon, but consider getting in a few sprints along the way.

You can build a big practice if you know The Formula. Go here.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan Tagged With: , ,

If you only had $100 a month for marketing, how would spend it?

May 14, 2013 by
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If you only had $100 a month for marketing, what would you do? Would you spend it on advertising? Join a networking group? Improve your website?

Want to know what I’d do? I’d spend it on myself.

I’d buy books and courses and takes classes and learn everything I could about marketing. Because the best investment a professional can make is an investment in themselves.

And, when I was a young pup of an attorney, just starting out and clueless about marketing, that’s exactly what I did.

I scoured the shelves of libraries and checked out everything I could find on marketing and small business. I visited bookstores once or twice a week and never came home empty handed. I talked to more experienced attorneys and asked them what they did to bring in business.

Of course learning is only part of the equation. If you want to bring in business, you actually have to do something. And so I did that, too. I tried all sorts of things and found out that I wasn’t very good at most of them. But because I tried lots of things, I found some that I was good at and actually enjoyed.

And that’s when things took off.

I found out I was good at writing and getting referrals from my clients, and that’s what I focused on. If I was starting out today, I would be doing the very same things but I would add one more: I would learn everything I could about marketing on the Internet.

So, learn everything, try lots of things, find one or two you like and are good at, and keep doing them.

But never stop investing in your education. Learn about advertising, even if you never advertise. Learn about sales, even though you are not sales person. Learn about networking, even though you’re shy.

Because while you may not DO what you learn, you will USE what you learn, somewhere in your marketing.

Continue (or start) your marketing education with this.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development Tagged With: ,

Marketing your law practice one hour a week

May 9, 2013 by
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If you only have one hour a week for marketing your law practice, I would spend that time on the phone. Here’s how I would break it down:

  • Twenty minutes speaking to clients and former clients. I would call new clients to say thank you (in addition to sending them a thank you card) and current and former clients to see how they are doing. These people put food on your table and are your best source of new business. Speaking to them “off the clock” is a highly leveraged marketing activity.
  • Twenty minutes speaking to referral sources. I would call other professionals I work with, thank them for their recent referrals, look for ways I can do something to help them, and brainstorm ways we can work together to our mutual benefit.
  • Twenty minutes reaching out to other professionals. I would call people I don’t know, to introduce myself, find out what they do, and see if there is a way we could can work together to our mutual benefit.

A law practice is a people business. We talk to people to strengthen our relationships and cultivate new ones. If you can’t meet people face to face, the phone is the next best thing.

In some ways, the phone is even better than face to face because there is no travel time. So, with only one hour a week, I would smile and dial.

Of course if I had two hours a week for marketing, I would use the second hour to have lunch or coffee with people I know and people I want to know.

This shows you how to set up marketing joint ventures with other professionals. 

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Networking, Referral sources, Referrals, Relationship marketing Tagged With:
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