Activating your list for fun and profit

May 8, 2015 by
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You have a list of clients, prospects, and professional contacts. What are you doing to activate that list and turn it into repeat business and referrals?

How do you get that list to DO SOMETHING?

Some of the people on that list will do something merely because you stayed in touch with them. When they need something you offer, or know someone who does, they will click or call.

What about everyone else?

What about the people who need you but think the problem will go away by itself? What about the ones who don’t know how bad the problem can get if they don’t do something?

What about the people who don’t realize all of their options? What about the ones who didn’t have the money before, or didn’t want to spend it?

What about the ones who know people who need your services but didn’t think about referring them?

You need to do something to get these people to do something.

But what?

How about creating an event and inviting them to it? A webinar, teleseminar, or video hangout.

Invite your list to see some new information, or new ways of looking at the solutions. Teach them how to stop the problem from getting bigger and keep it from happening again.

You’ve got to get them thinking about the problem again. Comparing solutions. Considering the options. What better way to do that than to invite them to access this free information from the comfort of their tablet or smartphone?

During the event, make them a special offer. A free consultation, perhaps, so they can discuss the specifics of their situation with you. Or a discount, bonus, or inexpensive partial solution. Tell them you now take credit cards or offer a payment plan.

Give them an incentive to do something and tell them what to do to get it (e.g., call, fill out a form, stop by the office).

Record the event so you will have something to offer to new subscribers. Transcribe the recording and turn it into a report or ebook.

You can create an event today and announce it to your list tomorrow. By next week, you can have more people calling, subscribing, and referring.

How to set up an email list for your website or blog

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Filed Under: Email, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Seminars and webinars

How to write faster than you thought possible

April 14, 2015 by
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I wrote the first draft of yesterday’s blog post in 5 minutes. I also wrote the first draft of today’s post in 5 minutes.

If you want to write faster, here’s how to do it:

STEP ONE: CHOOSE YOUR TOPIC

Choose a topic you know well. If you need to research your subject, do it before you sit down to write.

What do you want to write about? What point do you want to convey? Write down your topic.

My topic yesterday was, “How to promote an event or offer”.

STEP TWO: TURN IT INTO A QUESTION

Take the topic and turn it into a question. Why? Because when it is in question form, your subconscious mind gets to work and searches for answers. The question primes your mental pump and the words start flowing.

My question was, “How can I promote an offer or event?”

STEP THREE: WRITE DOWN 3 “SEED WORDS”

Think of three words related to your topic. Whatever comes to mind. These may change as you start writing but these 3 words will help you start.

My seed words yesterday were, “Excitement,” “Urgency,” and “Repetition”. They became the three points I wrote about to answer the topic question.

STEP FOUR: WRITE NON-STOP FOR 5 MINUTES

Set a timer and write. Don’t stop to correct spelling or do any editing. Just write, as quickly as you can, until the timer goes off.

I’ve heard that most people who do this will write between 200 and 400 words in 5 minutes, and that’s what I did. When the timer sounded yesterday, I had written 269 words.

The 5 minutes flew by for me. I had more to say so I continued writing for roughly another two minutes.

STEP FIVE: EDIT

Using this method, you will probably find that your first draft is quite good and won’t require a lot of editing. I found that to be true.

I did some cutting, added a thought or two, edited, and changed the title. Total time from start to finish was around 20 minutes. That included time to make notes about what I was doing, in preparation for today’s post.

Not too shabby.

By the way, although this method is meant for writing short pieces, you could also use it to write longer pieces. Yep, in 5 minute increments.

So, how many posts, articles, and emails could you write if you use this method to write your first draft in 5 minutes?

Why not try it and find out?

Need ideas for topics? Get this 

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Filed Under: Blogging, Email, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Writing Tagged With: ,

Another technique for improving your writing you won’t want to do

March 27, 2015 by
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Yesterday, I told you about a technique for improving your writing. I told you that I dramatically improved my writing by hand copying other people’s writing that I admired and wanted to emulate. Today, I want to share something else I did that elevated my writing to an even higher level.

Behold:

Every morning without fail, I rolled out of bed, grabbed a spiral notebook and pen, and wrote for twenty minutes.

Some would call this journaling, but that implies that I had something to say that I wanted to capture on paper. Instead, what I did was “free write”.

There are two rules to free writing.

First rule: write whatever comes into your mind, no matter how silly or meaningless. Write gibberish if that’s what comes. Write, “I don’t know what to write,” if you don’t know what to write. Write a list of words that have no connection to each other, or write the same word over and over, until your mind coughs up something else.

Which leads to the second rule: don’t stop. Keep your hand moving for twenty minutes and don’t stop for any reason.

So, what happens when you do this? At first, not much. You write a lot of useless junk and your hand gets really tired. Eventually, however, two things happen.

One thing that happens is that you start writing cogent thoughts about important things. Your writing taps into your subconscious mind and reveals your deepest beliefs and feelings, long forgotten memories, and amazingly valuable ideas you can use in your business and personal life.

Free writing becomes a kind of self-examination. It is cathartic and therapeutic. You write your way through problems and find solutions. At times, it is frightening, but ultimately, it is liberating. At first, your writing might reveal feelings of inadequacy, guilt, or pain. After a few weeks or a few months, you start feeling better about yourself and get really clear about your future.

Fun times.

The second thing that happens with free writing (when you do it long enough) is that you become a better writer. Your practice of writing daily (and freely) eventually clears away the warts and blemishes that disguise your writing and protect you from revealing your true self.

You start writing plainly and clearly. Your writing has energy and emotion. Writing is fun, and faster, because you are primarily talking on paper.

If you do this, do it first thing in the morning, before coffee, before you are fully awake. Your adult brain will be tired and put up less resistance, allowing your inner child’s brain to be heard.

Don’t show your writing to anyone. It’s just for you, at least for now. But don’t read what you write, at least for several months. Reading your insane scribbles might frighten and inhibit you.

How long should you do this? As long as it takes. Three months, six months, a year, a lifetime. You don’t have to figure that out right now. Just start, have fun with it, and trust that when you come out on the other side, you will be a better writer. Because you will.

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Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Newsletters, Personal development, Writing Tagged With:

A simple way to improve your writing you probably won’t do

March 26, 2015 by
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Do you want to improve your writing? Of course you do. Well, there’s a simple way to do that but I’m afraid you won’t do it.

Yes, it’s simple. Easy, even. But it takes a fair amount of time. Most people aren’t willing to put in that time.

But it’s worth it. I promise. When I did it, it changed the wiring in my brain and I became a much better writer.

I used to write like a lawyer–stilted, passive, thorough to a fault, and boring. Everything changed when I started using the method I’m about to share with you.

In a nutshell, this method involves finding writing exemplars you would like to emulate and copying them. I did this with sales letters and newsletters that tickled my fancy, but it will work for any kind of writing.

The idea is that the inputting of words into our brains processes those words differently than when we output them. When you studied for the bar exam, for example, you re-read your notes and outlines and all but memorized the information. But it wasn’t until you did practice tests and outputted that information that you truly internalized and could best use that information.

Something like that.

Anyway, find good writing samples and copy them. Re-type the entire piece. Then, do it again. Keep doing it until you know what the next sentence will say before you read it.

This process allows your mind to slow down enough to see things you ordinarily ignore. You’ll ask yourself why the writer chose one word instead of another, you’ll see how they started and ended sentences and paragraphs, and you’ll notice patterns in the way they staged the information.

You’ll also see how how the writer gets your attention and makes the piece easier to read with headlines, sub-heads, and bullet points.

Now, if you’re really committed, you’ll do what many professional copywriters did when they were learning their craft. You’ll copy the entire piece by hand.

Writing by hand invokes a more direct connection to the brain. You may have read articles recently about studies showing that taking notes by hand improves recall of the information. Copying someone else’s writing works the same way.

Whichever method you use, keep at it. Do it several times a week. Give it three or four months. Maybe more. Eventually, you’ll notice that your writing has started to change. It’s clearer, more concise, and more persuasive.

I can’t swear to it, but I’m pretty sure that when I stopped writing like a lawyer and started writing to communicate, I started settling cases faster and for more money.

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Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Newsletters, Writing

Why didn’t you write this?

March 12, 2015 by
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I saw a post on Mashable this morning and thought of you. The title is How to decide whether to elect an S-corp for your business. I’m mentioning it to you because I wanted to ask, “Why didn’t you write this?”

In the five hours since it was published (as of this writing), it has 1300 shares. If you had written this, a lot of people would have seen your name, your bio, and a link to your website.

The post is around 900 words. You could have written this in less than an hour. You might not have had it published on Mashable, but maybe you would. The author isn’t an attorney. She got it published. Why not you?

You could write a basic article like this about any practice area. And there are hundreds of places to have your article published. Blogs, magazines, and newsletters galore that need content, written by authorities like you.

Maybe you haven’t written an article like this before and don’t know where to start. No problem. Start with this article (or find one in your practice area) and reverse engineer it.

Make an outline from the article, then write your article from that outline. Add different information, add stories from your clients files, write in your own voice and style, and change the title. Done.

Here’s your homework:

  1. Set up a file for this project and start adding ideas for articles you could write.
  2. Do a search with keywords appropriate for your practice area and find articles you could have written. Add the links or actual articles to your file. Use these articles to write your own version of these articles, or to get more ideas.
  3. Search for websites and blogs in your target market. Find their “editorial guidelines” (article length, topics, focus, etc.) and their submission or query process. If all of the articles appear to be staff written, you can still query the editor. You never know. Yours might be the first outside post they accept.
  4. Write your first article this week. If you’re not ready to submit it to a blog or magazine, publish it on your website.

Publishing articles brings website traffic, enhances your bio, and gives you material your can re-purpose for reports, ebooks, and presentations. It can get you invitations to speaking engagements and interviews, and opens doors to getting more articles published.

Still not sure? Write a “practice” article that you won’t show anyone. Give yourself permission to write something awful.

When I was getting started writing, that’s what I did. I told myself to just get a first draft written, no matter how bad, and I could fix it later. When that draft was done, I found it really wasn’t that bad. It was actually quite good. A little editing and I had something publishable.

I’m betting it will work out that way for you.

Need ideas for writing? Get this

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Filed Under: Blogging, List building, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Web traffic, Writing Tagged With:

Email marketing for attorneys done right

February 26, 2015 by
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I read an article for real estate agents about ten ways email marketing beats social media. It’s a good article and I agree with all of it. I was going to tell you that it makes no difference whether you’re selling legal services or houses, email reigns supreme.

I even had a favorite “reason”–number 9 on the list: “Email is more intimate”. I was going to talk about how email allows you to have a simulated conversation with people, which helps you build a relationship with them, so that, over time, they come to know, like, and trust you, even before they’ve ever spoken to you.

But I’m not going to do that. Not today, anyway.

Instead of trying to convince you to make email your number one marketing tool, instead of beating the drum about how you are losing clients and money and making your life so much more difficult by not having an email list, I’m going to assume that you’re on board and talk about the right way to use it.

I see a fair amount of lawyers’ email newsletters, mostly because many of my readers think it’s okay to add me as a subscriber to their email list (it’s not). What I see, in my humble but accurate opinion, isn’t getting the job done.

For starters, just because it’s called a newsletter doesn’t mean it should look like a newsletter. Newsletters tend to be boring and self-serving, one small step removed from advertising. They “look” commercial–with stock photos and html layouts and links that say, “click here to finish this article”.

One glance at these and the reader knows that this email is probably not very important and doesn’t have much to say that is of interest to them. They know it’s probably all about the lawyer and not about them. The lawyer’s “exciting news” about how they are expanding or how they won a big case is exciting to the lawyer, but nobody else.

Most newsletters go unread because readers have come to know there’s nothing in them that interests them. There is some value to having subscribers see your name in their mailbox, reminding them of your existence, but it is so much better if they open and read your emails, appreciate them, and look forward to them.

So, for starters, your newsletter shouldn’t look like adverting or anything commercial.

It should look like a letter.

A letter (email) with some news or helpful, relevant information. Something readers care about, something that makes their life better, something worth reading.

It should also read like a letter, from a real person. Not from a committee or “the firm”. Not “canned” articles purchased from a newsletter company.

It should be written in “me to you” format, just like you would write a real letter to a real person. It should look like you sat down and penned a personal message to an individual. Because while you may be sending this same email to hundreds or thousands of people, each person who reads it is an individual.

Write to one person, not to “everyone”. Talk to that one person, as though he or she was sitting with you in your office or talking to you over the phone.

If you do it right, when your subscriber sees your email show up in his or her email, he should get a little excited. “I wonder what [you] will share with me today?”

Kinda like what you’re reading right now.

I share information I hope you find interesting and helpful. I tell stories from my days of practicing and stories about my life today, to add color and interest to that information. Sometimes I’m serious and preachy, sometimes I’m funny, but I’m never boring or irrelevant.

Yes, most of my emails are cut and paste jobs of my blog posts, but my blog posts are usually written like emails.

Many subscribers tell me they read my emails every day and look forward to them. Some tell me they are the highlight of their day.

That’s what I’m going for. A relationship. Intimacy. Transparency.

So, if you aren’t using email to build your practice, you need to. I’ll pound on that again at another time. If you are using email, but you believe social media is more important, go read the article. And if you understand why email is supreme and you want to get better results using it, take my words to heart.

Kill the fancy newsletter, write letters to the people on your list, and tell them something they want to hear.

Learn more about email marketing for attorneys. Go here

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Filed Under: Communication, Email, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Social media

Paying for referrals and getting away with it

February 20, 2015 by
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Okay, let me first say that you need to check with whoever regulates you and make sure that this is something you can do. I’m covering my behind by telling you this so please cover yours.

It’s a very simple idea, really. But it could bring you a lot of business in the short term, and a lot more long term.

You’ll need a website (that you control) and a way to capture email addresses. An autoresponder is your best bet. You can see what I use and recommend here.

Yes, you can also do this “old school,” i.e., manually, but you’ll get better results if you automate everything and spare yourself some calluses.

Now, you’re not really going to be paying for referrals. You’re not even going to ask for referrals. Not directly, anyway. Instead, you’re going to ask people to help you build your email newsletter list. You ask them to refer subscribers, not clients.

As people come to your website to subscribe, they see what you do. Some of them hire you, or take the next step in that direction.

After people subscribe, you stay in touch with them. You send them helpful information, and information about what do. Over time, some of them hire you. Or send you referrals. Or send you other subscribers who hire you and send referrals.

Build your subscriber list and you build your client list.

You can stop right there if you want to. Simply ask your clients, friends, readers, subscribers, social media connections and anyone else who will listen to help you build your subscriber list. They’ll help you because they like you. They also want their clients and contacts to know about you and the goodness you offer.

Ask them to Tweet, Like, post, and otherwise recommend your newsletter or download link (for a report, ebook, or other incentive) and your list will grow.

No legal or ethical issues with this, right? Where it gets iffy is when you offer to compensate them for doing so. But doing so could multiply your sign-ups manifold. If you would otherwise get 100 sign-ups, offering compensation might get you 1000.

What you do is announce a contest. Anyone who sends subscribers has their name entered in a drawing for a prize.

How do you track this? How do you know who sent subscribers?

The simplest way is to hold another drawing for all of the new subscribers, with an equally spiffy prize. When you draw their name as the winner, you email them and ask them who referred them and they both get a prize.

There are other ways to “pay” people for their help in building your list. You can sell your book, for example, and set up an affiliate program. There are many others. But if you are allowed to do so, a drawing is a simple and effective way to pay for referrals and get away with it.

For more ideas, get The 30 Day Referral Blitz.

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Filed Under: Email, List building, Newsletters, Referrals

You get a lot done by consistently doing a little

January 15, 2015 by
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I just passed the 1000 blog post milestone. 1009 to be exact. That’s 1009 ways someone could find my blog through search engines. 1009 snippets of my wisdom that could convince a visitor to follow me. 1009 pages someone might share with their connections or link to from their blog.

It’s a body of work that brings prospective clients to my virtual door and convinces them to do business with me.

Sound good? Sure. And daunting. If you had told me a few years ago that I would write 1009 posts, I would have thought you were crazy. And yet here I am.

How do you write 1009 posts? You don’t. You write one post, and then you write another.

You get a lot done by consistently doing a little.

That’s why I say you can successfully market your practice in as little as 15 minutes a day. It’s not how much you do today necessarily, it’s what you do in the aggregate over time.

If you have some big projects you’re thinking about tackling, don’t let their immensity put you off. Any project, no matter how big, can be broken down into bite size pieces. Isn’t that how we eat an elephant?

Also, the more you do something, the better you get at it. I’d like to think I write better today than I did a few years ago. I’m also faster. I can knock out a blog post or email in just a few minutes.

What do you want to accomplish this year? Okay, hit the deck and give me 15 (minutes).

Do you know the formula for marketing your law practice? Here it is

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Filed Under: Blogging, Email, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Personal development, Productivity, Writing Tagged With:

How much selling should a lawyer do?

January 14, 2015 by
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How much selling should you do in your letters and emails and blog posts?

More than you think.

The people on your list, your readers and subscribers, your friends and followers, need your help. If they’re not getting that help, if they don’t hire you, they will continue to have those problems and needs.

Your job isn’t to wait until someone taps you on the shoulder and asks you to get to work. It is to reach out to them and persuade them to hire you, or at least take the next step in that direction. If you don’t do that, you’re doing them a disservice.

Educate your prospects about the law and procedure and their options, but don’t merely deliver information. Sell them on why they need to hire you to get the solutions and benefits they want.

Pound your drum with warnings about what could happen if they don’t hire you, or if they wait too long. Share horror stories about people with the same issues who failed to act. Make your prospects feel what it was like for those people, and imagine what it will be like if they follow the same course.

Do everything in your power to convince people to hire you. Pull out the big guns. Don’t leave them to suffer their problems and pain when you can help them get relief.

Don’t be all thunder and brimstone, however. They’ll tune out. Mix things up. Share success stories. Back off the main message and talk about something else. But never stop reminding people about their problems and how you can help them.

And don’t leave it up to them to figure out what to do next. Tell them to hire you, or tell them to call with questions, schedule a consultation, fill out a form, or read more about the issue.

How much selling should you do? More than you think.

If you want to get more clients and increase your income, get this.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, Copywriting, Email, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Salesmanship

How to write a blog post in ten seconds

December 5, 2014 by
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Every day, I quickly go through my blog feeds. I delete most of the articles, skim one or two, and save the rest to Instapaper to read later. I often use these saved articles as blog post ideas.

This morning, I opened an article which had an intriguing quote as the headline. It said, “Be the type of person you want to meet“.

I expected to find some advice on personal development. Or networking. Or how to “mirror and match” the people you meet.

But that was the entire article. Just the quote. Nothing else, not even the name of who said it.

Can you really use a single sentence as the entirety of a blog post? Or an email to your client list?

Why not?

If the quote inspires you or makes you think, if it’s something you’d like to share with your readers or subscribers, if you’re pressed for time and all you can come up with this week is a one sentence quote, then that’s what you should do.

Nobody will report you to the blog police.

The whole idea of staying in touch with your list is that they hear from you on a regular basis. You want to be “in their minds and their mailboxes” when they are ready to hire you or have a referral.

Sometimes you write substantive posts. Sometimes you share a story. Sometimes you promote something. And sometimes, you share a link, a photo or infographic, or a quote.

Of course if you’re like me, you’ll be forced to add something. Lawyers are windy, don’t you know. So you’ll add a comment or two about why you like the quote or whatever else you’re sharing. And sometimes, you’ll find that you’ve written 300 words. Like I found I just did in this post.

For more on how to write a blog post (or how to start a blog or newsletter), get this.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Client relations, Email, Newsletters, Relationship marketing
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