If you love what you do, 2 things happen

February 14, 2020 by
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When you love your work, you look forward to getting to the office each day, your work is relatively easy to do, and you almost always get better results.

The other thing that happens when you love what you do: the people in your life can sense it.

Your clients and prospects, colleagues and centers of influence see your passion. They see your confidence and the ease with which you carry yourself.

They know you’re happy and successful, and they are drawn to you.

What happens when you don’t love your work? When you have to force yourself to do it? When you are basically phoning it in?

You feel unfulfilled. Unmotivated. Unhappy.

You aren’t excited about getting to work, and your results aren’t always what they could be.

And people sense this about you.

They see the furrow in your brow or hear the tension in your voice. They get a sense that you’d rather be somewhere else.

The same dynamic occurs at the micro level. If you love Twitter, for example, you’ll eagerly be there every day–you won’t have to remember to post or force yourself to come up with something to say.

Or hire someone to do it for you.

If you hate Facebook, it will be a chore. Something you dread. Something you have to force yourself to do.

Of course, loving/not loving are extremes. You may love some aspects of your work and hate others. A little introspection can help you identify what you need to change.

And change you should.

Because while you can make a nice living doing competent legal work and showing up every day, if you want to earn a fortune and be happy, you should do what you love, not just what you’re good at.

If you’re ready to take a quantum leap in your practice, go here

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Filed Under: success

The perfect law practice

February 13, 2020 by
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If you could design the perfect law practice (perfect for you, that is), what would it look like?

Why not take some time and write it out?

Consider things such as:

  • Where would you have your office(s)?
  • Which practice area(s) would you focus on? Eliminate? Add?
  • How much would you earn?
  • What types of clients or cases would you have? How many?
  • What billing model(s) would you use?
  • Would you work for a big firm? Own the firm? Would you have partners?
  • How many employees would you have?
  • How would you build your practice? What marketing methods would you use?
  • Where would you live? How long would you commute?
  • How many hours would you work per day/week? How many weeks would you take off each year?

Don’t stop there. You’re designing your perfect practice (and life) so make sure you have everything the way you want it.

Once you’ve done this exercise, put it away for a few hours or a day or two, come back to it, add or modify it, and then ask yourself two questions:

1) How much of this do I already have in place?

You may be pleasantly surprised to discover that you already have much of what you want, or close to it. If not, you’ll know exactly what needs to change.

2) How do I get from where I am to where I want to go?

Asking this question will help you create a list of things to do, think about, or research. It will also prompt your subconscious mind to start looking for answers.

If you take the time to do this, develop a plan and begin working on it, the impact can be life changing.

This can help you plan your ideal practice

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing Plan, success

Decision making 2.0

January 24, 2020 by
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We have so many options today it’s hard to choose. Which project, which task, which app? Which marketing method, which market, which topic for our next article or talk?

Should we recommend settlement or to hold out for more? Should we accept juror number 10 or challenge them? Should we vote for this candidate or that one?

We’re logical creatures and nit-pickers and smarter than the average bear so you’d think we would make good choices.

Too often we don’t.

So, I propose a new way to make decisions. A new standard for choosing what’s best.

And it’s not based on logic or weighing the facts.

This new way to decide is to look at each option and see how we feel about it.

And. . . if it’s not “hell, yes!” then it’s “hell no”.

We choose what excites us. Even if it goes against conventional wisdom or the counsel of our partners, colleagues, or friends.

Because our gut knows best.

If you gut tells you option A is the right choice, that’s what you go with. If you’re excited, you’ll give it everything you’ve got, making success that much more likely.

You’ll also have a lot more fun.

Especially when everyone thinks you’re crazy and you prove them wrong.

So, what do you think about my idea?

Actually, wrong question. How does this idea make you feel?

Are you with me?

Is it a hell yes or a hell no?

NB: if you have to think about it, you’ve already made your decision.

Which marketing method? Here’s what I’d choose

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Filed Under: success

Working hard or hardly working?

January 10, 2020 by
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Many lawyers complain (brag) about having too much work to do. Other lawyers don’t have enough work (clients, cases, billable hours) and want more.

How about you?

Are you earning as much as you want? Working as much as you want? Are you working too hard or are you ready for more?

Hold on. It’s not as simple as getting more clients or working fewer hours. There’s another option.

You could bring in “better” clients and “bigger” cases.

Instead of clients who pay $5,000 or $10,000, what if you brought in clients who pay $25,000 or $50,000?

Instead billing $300 per hour, what if you could get clients who pay $800 per hour?

Instead of handling tort cases with $20,000 contingency fees, what if you could attract the ones with six- and seven-figure potential?

They’re out there. Someone is getting these cases and clients. Why not you?

I’ll tell you why not. Perhaps, deep down, you don’t want them. You know you’d have to do too much to get them, and if you did get them, you’d have to do more work or take on more overhead or deal with more pressure than you want.

And that’s fair.

For most of my career, I handled small to medium cases and clients, for those very reasons. And made a good living doing it.

So, if that’s what appeals to you, I’m on your side.

Right now, we’re hearing a lot about a four-hour work-week. Some companies who’ve tried it are reporting more productive and happier employees and no loss of revenue. Some companies say they’re earning more.

In my practice, I cut my work-week down to three days and saw my income soar.

Anything’s possible.

You can earn more and work less. You can build the practice and lifestyle you want.

Some advice:

This year, instead of waiting to see what happens, decide what you want to happen and find ways to make it so.

This can help

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Filed Under: Fees and Billing, Law office management, success

When the typo hits the fan

November 18, 2019 by
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I heard from an attorney who liked my new Kindle book but. . . found a typo. A big, hairy one I can’t believe I missed because it was in the introduction. In fact, it’s the word “introduction” which was missing the letter “r”.

Did you catch it? Neither did I.

Neither did my writing software. Or my editing/spell-check software. Or Amazon’s upload mechanism which gave me the “all clear” on spelling when I uploaded it.

I’ll take the blame but that software has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Anyway, Christine, the attorney who caught it, pointed out that the error could cost sales and she’s right. People judge you on things like this. So, as soon as I heard from her, I fixed it. It took a couple of minutes and the updated book was available within a few hours.

Which is one of the nice things about publishing ebooks. A few clicks and you can fix or update your book or the sales page and get back to work.

So, if you want to write a book but are concerned that it might not be your best work (or might have typos), go ahead and do it anyway.

But you might want to send a copy to Christine because she’s got a great eye for typos.

NB: “How to Sell Your Legal Services in 15 Seconds or Less” will be coming off the free promotion tomorrow so if you’d like a copy, grab it now.

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Filed Under: success, Writing

Krispy Kreme’s missed opportunity

November 4, 2019 by
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You run Krispy Kreme and you hear there’s a college student in Minnesota who drives four hours every Saturday to buy up to 100 boxes of your doughnuts and resell them to his fellow students.

What do you do?

Do you applaud him, interview him, write about him, maybe offer him a job?

Do you look into opening stores in the town where this guy goes to school?

Do you encourage your franchisees to offer a delivery option to people who don’t have time to get to a store?

Think, man, how would you leverage this to get some great publicity and increase your sales?

Maybe you saw the same news story I saw. The one with the headline, “Krispy Kreme orders Minnesota student who bought, resold doughnuts to ‘shut down operations'”

Yeah, that’s what they did.

This kid reminds me of myself in elementary school. I bought candy and gum at the 7-11 and re-sold it to the other kids. I had a nice little business going. So I felt for this guy.

He wasn’t doing anything wrong. But, someone at corporate thought what he was doing might be a liability for the company, so, right or wrong, they told him to stop.

But that’s not the whole story. The best part of this story is what happened next.

He didn’t call a lawyer. He didn’t complain to the government about restraint of trade. He didn’t hold a protest march and cry victim.

No. He shut down his business.

I don’t know if he felt he couldn’t fight the company or that it just wasn’t worth it but, just like that, he was out of business.

But not for long.

His posted this on social media:

“Life happens, and it could be a sign that something else is meant to be. Appreciate everyone’s love and support to make this happen, couldn’t have done it without you all.”

And then he encouraged everyone to stay tuned because he might “have another entrepreneurial adventure you will be interested in”.

I love this young man’s attitude. And I can’t wait to see what’s he does next.

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Filed Under: success

What would you do with an extra hour a day?

October 18, 2019 by
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If you had an extra hour a day available what would you do with it?

More client work?

More marketing and practice building activities?

More time off?

Would you start a new business project? Work on your hobby? Get in shape? Write a book?

It would be nice, wouldn’t it? It could be life-changing.

But it’s not going to happen. You’re never going to find an hour a day in your busy schedule.

Unless you decide to.

If you do, here are some questions to ask yourself that could help you free up that time:

  • Look at your calendar and task list. What do you regularly do that you could safely stop doing or cut back on? Yesterday, I talked about eliminating unnecessary expenses. Why can’t you do the same thing with your time?
  • What project are you working on you could indefinitely defer?
  • What could you outsource or delegate? (Give this a lot of thought; it could free up days, not hours.)
  • What could you do more quickly by improving your skills, acquiring tools or tech, or streamlining your work-flow or systems?
  • What content, marketing collateral, or work product could you re-purpose or re-use (so you don’t have to spend time creating more)?
  • What marketing activities (networking, presentations, podcasting, videos) could you eliminate, shorten, or replace with something simpler and less time-consuming?
  • Do you have any services or practice areas that take up a disproportionate amount of your time and focus (and could be eliminated)?
  • What meetings could you eliminate or shorten? What boards or committees could you step down from?
  • Could you shorten the commute to your office? Could you work from home or a second office a couple of days a week?

It’s important to ask yourself these questions because you might like the answers.

And because one hour a day is 250 hours per year.

Extra.

What would you do with that time?

If you want some help finding an extra hour per day, let me know.

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Filed Under: Productivity, success

Lawyers are big babies

October 14, 2019 by
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Lawyers are cautious creatures, as they should be, but their cautious nature often prevents them from reaching their potential.

We see it all the time.

We see lawyers emulate their competition because it seems like the smart and safe approach, but you can’t stand out from the crowd when you are a part of it.

We see lawyers majoring in minor things, making incremental improvements in what they already do instead of trying big ideas that might help them achieve next-level growth.

We see lawyers settle for low hanging fruit, targeting average clients and charging average fees, instead of reaching for the sweetest fruit that’s a little bit out of reach.

We see lawyers stifling their productivity by riding the wave of perfectionism, not realizing that done is better than perfect.

We see lawyers working hard and staying busy, because that’s what’s expected of them, instead of looking for ways to achieve exceptional results with less effort.

It’s fear. Fear of failure, fear of being different, even fear of success.

Are you guilty of any of this?

You can’t change overnight but you can change. You can adopt a new mindset, one that values being different and the lessons taught by failure.

A mindset that says success doesn’t depend on the elimination of all risk but on the intelligent management of it.

A mindset that focuses on what you want instead of what you think you’re supposed to do.

Fear can be tamed. Optimism can be learned. Success is available to all.

Even lawyers.

If you’re ready to get to the next level, this is how you get there

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Filed Under: Inspiration, success

Calculation fatigue

October 11, 2019 by
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That’s the title of an article in this month’s Chess Life magazine. The sub-title is, “The dangers of delving too deeply into one particular variation”.

The article is an examination of a botched game by a strong player, a game that might have been awarded a brilliancy prize but for the player’s errors occasioned by following one idea too far and losing the central theme of the game.

What does this have to do with practicing law? Everything.

Because lawyers (and other very smart people) often do what this Grandmaster did. They focus too much on the details, the minutia of a case or an issue, and sometimes lose a won game.

I’ve done it. I’m sure you can think of times when you’ve done it, getting lost in researching an issue to the nth degree, perhaps, making a big deal about a small point.

You see it during oral argument when the judge or jurors eyes glaze over and you know they’re didn’t follow your last point, or no longer care.

You see it in marketing. You get bogged down in choosing better keywords or creating better funnels, months go by and thousands of dollars have been spent and you find you could have gotten better results with something simpler.

You see it in a lot of websites. A would-be client visits, hoping to learn something about his problem and what you can do to help him and is confronted by a library of information. There’s too much to read, he doesn’t know where to start, so he leaves.

(NB: keep the library but hide it and link to it for those who want more information.)

We see it in presentations where we try to make too many points and leave no stone unturned and we simply confuse the audience (and a confused mind says no).

What should we do? We should periodically stand down from business as usual, put aside all the small stuff and focus on the big picture.

The strategy, not the technique. The main argument, not the “Hail Mary” we throw in just in case.

You started practicing with a few simple ideas and you did okay. If you’ve found yourself getting off track lately, a return to fundamentals might be just what you need to reset and revitalize your practice.

It might even earn you the brilliancy prize.

The Attorney Marketing Formula can help you get back on track

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing Plan, success

Lead, follow or hold my beer

September 18, 2019 by
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Most attorneys copy what their competitors are doing to get more clients or otherwise build their practice. The problem is, most of those attorneys are also doing this.

Most play “follow the follower” instead of “follow the leader”. But following the leader isn’t necessarily the way to go, either.

When you copy anyone, you risk copying something that doesn’t work. You don’t know if what you’re copying is generating results or the results (you think) they’re getting are from other factors.

They might have skills or resources that allow them to get results you won’t get.

Their “successful” ad, for example, might be successful because they have a better system for closing leads. Or, they might break even or lose money on every ad but profit on up-sells, back-end business, repeat business, and referrals.

The other problem with copying others, even if you copy things that work, is that you are merely a copycat. You fade into the background, just another lawyer with nothing special to offer.

So, what’s the answer?

Don’t ignore your competition. You might get ideas from them. But don’t copy them. In fact, a good rule of thumb is to look at what the majority do and do the opposite.

Then, decide that you will be the leader others want to copy. Go your own way, even though it means doing things that might frighten you.

In fact, if it doesn’t frighten you, if it doesn’t take you out of your comfort zone, you’re probably playing safe, which is not what leaders do.

You don’t have to throw yourself into an abyss or run naked in the streets. You don’t have to risk everything.

Follow the path of least resistance. Find something small and easy to do and start there. From that perspective, you’ll be a different person, ready to take the next step.

Ready to take a quantum leap in your practice? Here’s the first step

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, success
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