What to do when the yogurt hits the fan

October 9, 2012 by
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Something in Seth Godin’s post today caught my eye. He said, “Most things that go wrong, go wrong slowly.” That’s true, isn’t it? If you’re having challenges in your law practice, they usually take time to develop.

If you’re income is going down, it probably hasn’t happened all of a sudden. It’s probably been happening for months, maybe years. The good news is that because it happens slowly, there’s time to fix it.

When you are experiencing a downward cycle, Seth says the wrong thing to do is rationalize it and ride it out. Or, in the case of declining income, think that cutting costs is the only thing you can do.

The right way to deal with a downward cycle, he says, is learn to recognize it and replace it with an upward cycle. “Understand what triggers [a downward cycle] and then learn to use that trigger to initiate a different cycle,” he says.

So if your income has been declining, instead of waiting for the economy to improve, you have to do something to bring in more income.

But what?

Start by asking yourself some questions:

  • What did I do, or fail to do, that contributed to this situation? How can I change this?
  • What have I done before to turn things around?
  • What are other lawyers doing that’s working?
  • What do I need to learn?
  • What bad habits do I need to eradicate?
  • Who can help me? (Start with categories, i.e., CPA, marketing expert, banker, then look for candidates)
  • What do I need to do more of?
  • What do I need to get better at?

If I were coaching you, among other things, I would tell you to look at where most of your income is coming from now, or has in the past (practice area, referral sources, marketing methods, etc.) and expand this. Leverage your strengths. Do what has worked before.

And focus on what you can do, not on what you can’t do. You can’t change the economy, but you can make some calls.

If you want to learn how to earn more than you ever thought possible even if you’re in a downward cycle, download The Attorney Marketing Formula.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Personal development Tagged With: ,

The three stages of lawyer marketing (where are you?)

September 17, 2012 by
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The other day I wrote down an idea for a blog post: “The day I decided to get serious about marketing.” I was going to talk about how I came to realize that a law practice is a business and that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to put marketing first.

The truth is, that day never occurred.

I don’t remember waking up, slapping my forehead, and saying, “of course!” No light bulb appeared over my head. The realization that marketing must come first didn’t occur at any particular moment, it was a process, over time.

At first, I didn’t want to believe that marketing was important. I was young and idealistic and I wanted to believe that if I did great work, I would be noticed and rewarded. I knew other attorneys who didn’t seem to do any marketing and they were doing just fine. Why not me?

What I didn’t realize is that the attorneys who seemed to be completely disengaged from marketing, were actually very good at marketing, so good in fact, you couldn’t tell by looking at them.

And it’s true. If marketing is defined as, “everything you do to get and keep clients,” (and it is), then marketing must include all of the little things we do for our clients to keep them happy and sticking with us and sending us referrals. The little things that maintain loyalty and create positive word of mouth aren’t readily apparent to the outside world.

Most marketing, certainly the most valuable marketing, isn’t public, it’s private. It’s done through letters and phone calls and newsletters to our clients. It occurs one-on-one, networking with key people. It’s done by leveraging the relationships you already have with clients and professional contacts, to meet the people they know and show them why they should hire you instead of anyone else.

Advertising, public relations, public speaking, blogging, and other public marketing activities are important when you’re starting out and need to build momentum, or when you are already successful and want to generate additional income. But they are never more important than what you do privately.

As I came to realize these difference, and accept the importance of marketing in building my practice, I went through three stages:

Stage One: Indifference

At first, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I had an opinion about marketing and that was that. Many attorneys are at this stage, although fewer and fewer today, due to (a) the economy and increased competition, and (b) The Internet.

Obviously, if you are reading this post, you aren’t at this stage. You know that marketing is important. But there are attorneys who still don’t care about marketing. Generally, they fall into two categories:

  1. Successful, and don’t realize that they are engaged in marketing (the private kind) or how much more successful they could be if they paid attention to marketing, or
  2. Arrogant, stubborn, and destined to struggle.

I’m sure you know lawyers in both categories.

Stage Two: Acceptance

After months of struggle, I still didn’t get it. I did busy work and told myself things would change. Eventually, I realized that nothing would change unless I did. Necessity (paying rent, eating) became the mother of invention. Once I accepted that what I was doing wasn’t working, I opened the door to change.

Most attorneys in private practice today, at least those who aren’t newly minted, well- financed, or well-connected, understand why marketing is important, and most of them do something that could be called marketing. They want to do more and get better results, but don’t know how. There are two reasons:

  1. They dabble. They don’t do anything long enough to get meaningful results. Or they do things they think they’re supposed to do but their heart isn’t it so they do them poorly and get poor results, and/or
  2. The focus on “public” marketing and ignore “private” marketing. They bring clients in through the front door and lose them through the back door because they don’t take care of them.

Does this describe you? Do you feel like you are spinning your wheels and not getting great results? Are you getting clients on the front end but they don’t come back or you’re not getting enough referrals on the back end? The good news is that you can change your results by making a commitment to marketing.

Stage Three: Commitment.

Once I accepted the importance of marketing, I began studying it and trying different things. I didn’t get good results, however,because I was dabbling. It was a start and it allowed me to see which direction I might eventually go, but it wasn’t until I committed to marketing that things really began to change.

How did I make that commitment? I found something that worked and I got excited.

“More, please!”

I did more and worked harder and eventually, I fell in love with marketing and what it could do.

And that’s when my practice really took off.

I think a lot of attorneys are afraid to commit to marketing because they are afraid of what it means. Being committed to marketing doesn’t mean compromising your values or spending time or money doing things you don’t want to do.

Commitment to marketing means two things:

  1. Mindset. You must believe that a law practice is a business and that you (the professional) work for that business (practice), and that without clients, you are out of business. You must believe that marketing isn’t beneath you and that it is benevolent because the more successful you become, the more people you can help. You must believe in the primacy of “private” marketing and understand that if you can’t start there (because you don’t yet have enough clients), that this is where you can eventually go. And you need to get excited about marketing and what it can do.
  2. Consistency. You don’t have to spend a lot of time on marketing. You can make a lot of progress in just 15 minutes a day. The key is to do something every day. If you don’t, you are a dabbler. If you do, your efforts compound and your results accelerate.

So, what stage are you in? Are you a dabbler or are you committed to marketing? Do you have the right mindset and are you prepared to do something every day?

If you are committed to marketing, The Attorney Marketing Formula is required reading.

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

How to be successful today, and also tomorrow

September 14, 2012 by
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In a previous post, “The one thing you need to know about success,” I noted the dichotomy between the premise that success is predicated on doing what you like doing (and avoiding what you don’t like doing) and studies which show that the ability to delay gratification is an accurate predictor of future success. I suggested that these conclusions aren’t really in conflict because thinking about your future success can be as enjoyable, if not more so, than the actual achievement.

Blogger Derek Sivers writes about the delayed gratification study and agrees that “future focused” people (i.e., those who can delay gratification) are the most successful, but notes that they may miss the enjoyment of the present. Similarly, too much focus on the present “can rob life of the deeper happiness of accomplishment.”

For true happiness, Sivers notes, we need to be flexible:

The happiest and most effective people are balanced: equally high in future-focus and present-focus, and viewing the past as positive. When you have work to finish, be future-focused. When your work is done and it’s time to relax, be present-focused. During family holidays, be past-focused to enjoy family customs.

He also says that our focus changes depending on our circumstances. “Cavemen needed a full present-focus at all times to survive in the wild and find food each day.”

When I started practicing and had no money and no clients, my circumstances forced me to delay gratification. I had to learn how to “survive in the wild and find food each day.” Like the caveman, I was not focused on the future, I was focused on eating. You can’t think about a five year plan when your rent is due next Tuesday.

If you want a marketing plan that really works, today, not five years from now, pick up a copy of The Attorney Marketing Formula. You’ll thank me later.

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Marketing Plan, Personal development, success Tagged With: , , , ,

Stupidity is contagious

September 7, 2012 by
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At one point in the presentation I gave last night I said, “stupidity is contagious.” I was referring to people who without thinking, buy into what someone else is saying or doing. We see this in politics, don’t we? Someone takes a position and others follow suit, often for no other reason than the person who said it sounds like they know what they are talking about.

It’s also true in business and marketing. An”expert” declares the new direction and like lemmings, legions follow. They sign up for the webinars, buy the courses, and invest countless hours with the new tools. Of course their friends take notice and they don’t want to be left behind so they do it, too. Before you know it, everyone is rushing after mobile or ebook publishing or Pinterest pinning, until something newer and better comes along.

People get caught up in the excitement. Greed sets in. Like the Gold Rush, nobody wants to be left behind. But like the Gold Rush, the only ones who make money are the ones who sell the picks and shovels. Most of the miners get the shaft.

I’m not saying these are bad ideas. Some are quite good. Some will take off and change the world. But you don’t have to be an early adopter to leverage these new ideas. Someone signing up for Facebook for the first time today, after nearly a billion other people beat them to it, can be just as successful in using it to generate leads and referrals. Arguably more so now that it has proven itself for so many others.

What I’m saying is, wait a bit. Don’t rush in. Stand back and observe. Let others spend their time and money sorting through the multitude of things that don’t work or don’t last, to find the few that do. Spend your time and money doing things that have proven themselves over time.

Technology comes and goes. There will always be something new. What has never changed, and never will, are strategies that invoke the human element: giving your clients extraordinary service, positioning yourself for referrals, and leveraging your existing relationships to create new ones.

Now, excuse me, I have to post a link to this post on Facebook.

If you want to learn the strategies that have always worked and always will, pick up a copy of The Attorney Marketing Formula.

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

How to grow your law practice by establishing routines

August 17, 2012 by
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Lifehack has a post today on improving productivity by turning important tasks into routines. The idea is that you are more likely to do something when it’s part of a regular routine, just like you do, for example, every morning when you get ready for work.

How might this be applied to marketing?

We know it’s important to regularly reach out to clients and former clients, via email, regular mail, phone (and possibly, social media). The return on your investment of time, in terms of repeat business and referrals, is tremendous. A few minutes a day spent connecting like this could bring you thousands of dollars in additional revenue every month.

Arguably, there is nothing more important to the growth of your practice.

It’s important, you know it’s important, you WANT to do it, but somehow, you’re not doing it. Life keeps getting in the way.

What if you established a new routine whereby every day at lunchtime, before you eat or before you leave for a lunch meeting, you take ten minutes to connect? You send out ten emails, make three phone calls, or write and mail a handwritten note.

Easy stuff. And because it’s your part of your daily routine, you do it.

At first, you schedule this ten minutes on your calendar. You see it there every day, reminding you to take action. You have an app send you an alarm. Later, when you’ve been doing it for a month or three, when it has become a habit, you won’t need to be reminded. It’s as much a part of lunchtime as eating.

Make a list of marketing activities you do, or know you need to do. Look for ways to make them routine.

Marketing is easy. The hardest part is remembering to do it.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Start where you are with what you have

August 13, 2012 by
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I think we can agree that most attorneys are analytical. We wouldn’t be much use to our clients if we weren’t.

But many attorneys are overly analytical. They get caught up in crunching the numbers and sifting through the facts. They can’t stop saying “what if” and “on the other hand”.

At some point, decisions must be made and advice must be given. And ultimately, it is. The attorney delivers their recommendations.

They are able to do this because they are accountable to their clients or employer. They are paid for their advice so advice they must deliver.

But what happens when an overly analytical attorney has to make decisions about marketing or the management of their practice? When there is no client to answer to, very often they can’t decide.

They procrastinate. They defer. They make no decision and take no action.

This is one reason why many attorneys stagnate and struggle to find success.

There have many times in my business and professional life where I have found myself fighting this very tendency. Most of my bigger projects would still be on the drawing board had I not found some solutions.

If you find yourself holding back because you’re uncomfortable with moving forward, here are three things that can help:

  1. Give yourself permission to do it badly.You’re the only one who will see it for now. You’ll have time to make it better. You can edit a bad first draft, and turn it into something great, but only if you have a first draft. When I wrote my first marketing course, I was afraid it wouldn’t be any good. Instead of fighting my fears and trying to talk myself out of them, I acknowledged those fears. “Yep, it’s gonna be bad, but I’ll make it better,” I told myself. Of course when I read the first draft it wasn’t bad, it was actually quite good. My fears and doubts had lied to me.
  2. Focus on activity, not outcome.You can’t control your results, only your activities. If you do the activities, you are successful. The results will come. If you focus on results, however, your ego gets in the way. If the results aren’t what you want, you may become discouraged and give up too soon. “Progress, not perfection,” is the byword. I wrote about this in this post about how to stop procrastinating.
  3. Start with easy. Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview, “I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.” I wrote about this before:

Many people who start a business project, myself included, tend to focus on the hardest parts first. My thinking has been, “I can always do the easy things, I need to conquer the toughest challenges first because if I can’t lick those, this project will never get off the ground.”

How about you? Do you start with the easy things or, like me, do you first jump into the deep end of the pool?

Perhaps we equate “easy” with “having less value,” but in the practical sense, that isn’t true. The things we can do without a lot of thought or effort are often of greater value because they allow us to get started and getting started is the most important part.

Most business projects never see completion because they never get started.

When you start with the easy things, you have started. You’re on your way.

I think these three tips for moving forward are effectively summed up by something Theodore Roosevelt once said: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Do you find yourself procrastinating on projects? What have you done to move forward?

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: ,

What would you do if you lost all of your clients and had to start over?

August 7, 2012 by
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I was a guest on a panel of experts taking questions from a group of business owners. One asked, “What would you do if you lost all of your clients and had to start over?”

In response, I asked, “What would you do if you didn’t?” In other words, do what you did to build it the first time. Go back to basics. Stick with what works.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the flavor of the day. The latest social media platform, software tool, or psychological technique. But these are almost always distractions. Let someone else try them. You stick with the fundamentals.

Jim Rohn said, “There are no new fundamentals. You’ve got to be a little suspicious of someone who says, “I’ve got a new fundamental.” That’s like someone inviting you to tour a factory where they are manufacturing antiques.”

I had to start over once. I got out of practicing law to pursue a business. After two years, I came back. But I had no clients and we had moved to another county where I didn’t know anyone. I had to build my practice again, from scratch.

In some ways it was easier the second time because I knew what I was doing. In other ways, it was harder because I knew how much effort it required. But I did it, by going back to basics.

Jim Rohn: “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”

What exactly would I do if I was starting over? I answered that in my post, If I were starting my law practice today, here’s what I would do to bring in clients.

If you have lost everything and have to start over, don’t dwell on the loss and don’t look for short cuts. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.

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

You are friggin amazing!

August 6, 2012 by
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When was the last time you patted yourself on the back? If it’s been awhile, you might want to take a few minutes to do that.

Think about what you have accomplished in your lifetime. No doubt it’s quite a list. Remembering those victories and achievements makes you feel good about yourself. It gives you confidence about the future.

If you can’t remember all your accomplishments, or even if you can, I suggest you create a “Book of Achievements” to collect those memories. Probe your mind, dig through those storage boxes, ask your spouse for help. Record your accomplishements on paper or digitally, so you can look at them from time to time.

If you’re blue, you need to remind yourself that the future is bright. If you feel good, reviewing your past accomplishments will help you feel even better.

You can decorate your book and add photos if you like. Make it fancy and detailed, like a scrap book, or keep it simple, a line or two about each accomplishment.

Have fun remembering what you have done. Go back to your chidhood. Remember that school play or the paper with the gold star.

Remember passing the bar exam. The awards, the big cases, the letters of thanks.

Most people will never do what you have done. Hell, most people will never try.

Your life is a series of accomplishments. You have done more than you realize. You have helped a lot of people. You have made the world a better place.

You are friggin amazing. I hope you remember that.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Inspiration, Personal development Tagged With: , ,

Get rid of what’s not working in your law practice

August 1, 2012 by
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The military periodically schedules a day or a week to “stand down” from normal operations and review everything they’re doing to make sure it’s still necessary and working at peak efficiency. They fix or get rid of anything that’s not working and make room for new or better ideas.

Anita Campbell, Founder of Small Business Trends, suggests we do something similar with our businesses. She says,

What if we approached innovation from the opposite direction – by getting rid of what isn’t working before we try to come up with something that works.

This is good advice for any law practice. Strip things down to the essentials, lighten the load and add back only what is necessary. Make room for new ideas, tools, and procedures by getting rid of anything that isn’t working:

  • Legal services you no longer sell or are no longer consistent with your long term plans
  • Inefficient processes (forms, letters)
  • Employee functions that are no longer necessary or can be assigned to someone else; employees who no longer carry their weight
  • Furniture, equipment, technology that no longer works
  • Office space that is not being used
  • Closed files you no longer need to retain
  • Ads that no longer pull or cost too much relative to the alternatives
  • Subscriptions you no longer read; books you haven’t referred to in over a year
  • Groups you no longer participate in

Campbell says,

Like cleaning out your garage and tossing unused belongings, jettisoning old processes or products can give your business a whole new start. You’ll be surprised how much space you suddenly find in your mind, and how free you and your team will feel to create something new without all that clutter clogging up your brain.

Earlier this year, my wife and I did an extensive spring cleaning at home. We got rid of a ton of stuff and simplified our lives. I guess it’s time to do the same for the business.

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