Writing Archives - Page 7 of 34 - The Attorney Marketing Center

Adventures in dictationland

February 16, 2022 by David M. Ward

I’m not a dictation-only kind of guy. I enjoy typing and do most of my writing that way. But there’s something liberating about being able to sit down, flap my gums, and have the words appear on the page, and when I dictate, I’m able to crank out a lot of them.

For a long time, I used DragonNaturally Speaking to dictate on my Windows desktop. I recently retired that computer in favor of a new laptop and haven’t installed Dragon. When I want to dictate, I’ve been using Google Voice Typing, which is fast and accurate, at least for me. The only drawback is that you can only use it via the Chrome browser and I use Brave as my default.

A few days ago, I downloaded a free app called LilySpeech (Windows only) and have been trying it out. It uses Google’s servers for transcription and seems to deliver equally impressive results.

The advantage of LilySpeech is that I can use it anywhere on Windows—in any browser or app, including Scrivener, which is something I wasn’t able to do with Dragon. Right now, I’m dictating this into Obsidian, and it works like a charm.

On iOS, Siri dictation works well but times out after 30-40 seconds. I tried Google Docs Voice Typing, both the app and via Safari, and it also times out. But who knows, I may be doing something wrong.

The Drafts app (iOS, Mac, Android) does dictation well. I just tested it on my iPad and it didn’t time out, even after several minutes of continuous speaking. (If you get different results, try launching a new document via the widget instead of the app.)

When I started practicing, I would dictate and record and have a secretary transcribe it. Today, many attorneys record and upload to a transcription service like Rev.com. But unless human transcription is required, I’m a proponent for letting technology do it.

There are many other options for each platform that seem to deliver varying degrees of speed and accuracy. If you’d like something that’s cross-platform and can be used via the web or an app, I recommend giving Otter.ai a try. They have a generous free plan and the paid plan is reasonable.

Otter has a couple of killer features to recommend it. It allows you to transcribe a conversation, identifying each speaker by time stamp. Very handing for interviews and meetings. Otter also adds punctuation (at your option), meaning you don’t have to dictate it.

So, over to you. Do you use dictation? What apps or process do you use on desktop, web, and mobile?

I’m all ears.

Filed Under: Productivity, Writing Tagged With: speech to text, voice dictation

When you don’t feel like writing anything, do this

February 9, 2022 by David M. Ward

What do you do when you don’t feel like writing anything on your blog or in your newsletter?

Most people will tell you to suck it up and write it anyway, because you made a commitment to your subscribers or followers and they’re expecting to hear from you, and because you don’t want to break the chain.

“Figure it out,“ they tell you. So you scramble to find an idea and force yourself to get it done.

And all is right with the world.

But sometimes, you just can’t. You’re fresh out of ideas, you’re ill or recovering from surgery, you’re slammed with work, or you’re having a sad and need a day off.

Take it. Take the day off.

It’s your blog. Your newsletter. Your channel. The world won’t end if you miss a day.

If you don’t feel like writing or have nothing to say, say nothing. That’s why God created sick days and snow days and bad hair days. If you need some personal time, take it.

Or. . . go to Plan B.

Plan B is to write a very short post. Instead of hundreds of words, you write a paragraph or two.

Yes, you can.

Seth Godin does it. So do many others. Why not you?

Something else. If you still can’t think of anything to say, go ahead and post something someone else said.

You can do that, too.

A passage from a book or article. A pithy quote. Or an intriguing question you saw that’s got you thinking.

Note to self: set up a file and start collecting this kind of stuff.

If you don’t feel well, you can post this “as is” and go back to bed.

But you might find, as I often do, that a short passage or quote you dig out of your notes gets your juices flowing and you find yourself writing a “regular-sized” post.

Many of my posts start that way. I grab something I found interesting and see what I have to say about it.

In fact, that’s how I wrote this post.

Email Marketing for Attorneys

Filed Under: Email, Newsletters, Writing

Choosing your topic

February 3, 2022 by David M. Ward

“What should I write about?” asks many an attorney.

“That’s simple,” comes the answer. “Write what you know.“

Here’s the thing. What’s obvious and basic to you is obscure and complicated to your readers. They don’t know what you know. If they did, they wouldn’t be reading you or hiring you.

Write about something that’s obvious to you, because it’s not obvious to them.

Unless you’re writing to other lawyers, of course.

In which case, write about the kinds of things you would talk to them about if you were speaking to them. Shop talk—strategy, interesting cases, new laws, or your thoughts about something that might interest them because it interests you.

But if you’re writing to lay people, however sophisticated and intelligent they may be, you don’t need to give it much thought. Write about something you know well, something you could rattle off the top of your head in less time than it takes to ask, “What should I write about?”

You know this stuff, remember?

It might help to imagine you’re writing to a specific client, teaching him something about the law, procedure, or process. Or telling him about an interesting case you had (or heard about), explaining what happened and why it could be important to him.

You could give him a peek behind the curtain and show him what you do when you meet with a new client. What do you ask? What do you tell him? Do you fill out any forms? What’s on them? What do you do with the information?

Do you explain “what happens next?” Give him a quick rundown now so he can see what it will be like to work with you.

It doesn’t really matter what you write because your reader doesn’t know any of this and you know everything. He will see you as the expert and the solution to his problem, so make sure you also tell him what to do to get started.

How to write a newsletter that brings in business

Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters, Writing

Get to the point

January 18, 2022 by David M. Ward

The best presenters don’t begin their presentation by welcoming the audience or telling them they’re going to get a lot out the presentation. They start their presentation.

That’s what people came to hear and they let them hear it.

They start by saying something important or remarkable. Or they tell a story or ask a question. In the first few seconds, they get the audience involved.

If they have announcements or promotions, if they want to introduce themselves, they save it for later—after they’ve got people listening and nodding their heads, glad they showed up.

Because if they don’t, the audience will tune out. And think about the work they need to finish or the errand they need to run on their way home.

Good speakers get to the point.

The same is true of good writers.

One of the best writing tips I’ve ever heard was to get rid of the “throat clearing”–the filler at the start of your article, post, report or email.

The purpose of the first sentence is to get them to read the second sentence. If that first sentence doesn’t hook ’em, like the audience at a presentation, the reader will tune out.

Yes, there are exceptions. Occasions where a little warm up or background is appropriate. But those are exceptions.

The default: get to the point.

Filed Under: Public Speaking, Writing

Know thy client

December 21, 2021 by David M. Ward

I read an article in the Wisconsin Lawyer that provided “tips for writing in ways that attract the attention of search engines, readers, and new clients.”

It’s good information. And a good reminder about the importance and value of writing in building a law practice.

But that’s not why I’m telling you about it.

At the end of the article, in her “bio,” the author tells a story about one of her consulting clients who was unhappy with her advice:

A few years ago, an attorney I was working with called me to complain because one of their former clients gave them a bad online review. I had encouraged them to follow up with clients to thank them for their business and ask for reviews, so the bad review they received was, in their mind, my fault. It didn’t occur to me that I needed to tell attorneys that they should only ask for reviews from clients they suspected had a positive opinion of them. I now emphasize that you should never ask for a review you don’t want. It’s the legal marketing equivalent of the age-old advice that you should never ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to!

It seems so simple. Ask for reviews; don’t ask for reviews from clients who might not love ya.

You want reviews. You need reviews. Good reviews can bring in a boatload of clients.

Seriously.

So you should ask for reviews.

But how do you avoid bad reviews?

Simple.

Ask for reviews, but do it in stages:

Routinely send every client a form to fill out to provide feedback about you, your services, your office, etc. Include a question asking if they would recommend you to others, and why or why not.
When the client provides positive feedback and says they would recommend/refer you, ask them to post this in a review (and give them a link to the site you prefer).

Keep your enemies close. Keep your friends (and clients) closer, because you never know what they might say about you.

The Quantum Leap Marketing System

Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Writing Tagged With: reviews

Plagiarizing for fun and profit

December 15, 2021 by David M. Ward

Yesterday, I talked about finding blog posts and articles written by other lawyers and rewriting them, as an easy and effective way to create your content.

Today, I have an even easier method.

No, I’m not going to tell you to plagiarize their content—copy it and call it your own.

You can’t do that. But you can plagiarize your own content.

You can re-post or re-send something you’ve shared in the past.

Take one of your old posts and post it again. Without changing a word.

Can you really do that?

It’s your content. You can do whatever you want with it.

But should you?

Yes. Here’s why.

You’ve got new subscribers who didn’t see your article before. You’ve got readers who saw it months or years ago and won’t remember. You’ve got readers who read it before weren’t ready to do anything with the information. And readers who did something but need to be reminded to do it again.

Do you do everything I tell you to do? No, you don’t. Which is why you’ll hear me say it again.

Sometimes I re-write, update, shorten or lengthen my old posts. Sometimes, I write a new post on the same idea. But you don’t have to do any of that and if you don’t want to or you don’t have time, don’t bother.

Click and send that puppy and get on with your day.

Now for the best part.

You can take some of your better articles or posts, load them into your autoresponder, and schedule them to go out over the course of the next few weeks or months. When the cycle ends, you can reset it and let your best stuff get sent all over again.

Automate your self-plagiarism. For the win.

Email Marketing for Attorneys

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Email, Newsletters, Writing

You don’t get extra credit for originality

December 14, 2021 by David M. Ward

Nobody reads your blog, your newsletter, or your other content, and compares what you wrote to your competitor’s content.

Nobody.

But even if they did, they wouldn’t favor you because you wrote something or offered something unique, or disfavor you because you wrote about the same topic other lawyers wrote about.

So don’t worry about coming up with original ideas. You don’t have to do anything original to pass this class.

Which means your content creation problems are solved. You’ll never stare at a blank page again.

All you have to do is find out what others are doing that’s working and do the same thing (but better).

If 27 other lawyers write about a case in the news today, you can too.

Put it in your own words, use your own examples and stories, and you’re good to go.

In fact, not only is this “okay,” it is a smart approach because all those other lawyers writing about that case is “proof of concept”. They’re writing about it because they know their readers want to know about it, which means your readers do too.

Want to test this?

Do a search on your top keywords or your practice area and find another lawyer’s blog or article. They don’t have to be local to you, anywhere will do.

Go to the first article or post that catches your eye. Copy it and re-write it. Change the title or headline, give your opinion, talk about a case or client of yours to illustrate, and you will have something ready to publish.

The good news is that even though you wrote about the same subject, your article will be original.

The bad news? No extra credit.

More: Email Marketing for Attorneys

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Newsletters, Writing

No pressure

December 13, 2021 by David M. Ward

The headline of your article or post or the subject line of your email are critical. If you don’t grab the reader’s attention and persuade them to continue reading, they often don’t.

Which is why good writers spend a lot of time getting their headline or opening right.

You should, too.

But that doesn’t mean you should start your writing there. Because the pressure to get it right might throw you off and stop you in your writing tracks.

So it’s often best to start writing somewhere else.

Sure, sometimes you know the perfect opening before you write anything. That happens to me sometimes, but usually it doesn’t.

So I start somewhere else.

I start with a rough idea, a question or a couple of points I want to flap my gums about. Sometimes, I start with the end—the conclusion, summary, or takeaway.

But I usually don’t know what that will be until I’m well into the writing.

So basically, I start wherever I feel like starting.

I might write some bullet points, a working headline. or copy and paste a quote I want to use. I might have a story I want to share.

More often than I like to admit, I have only a very basic idea I want to talk about and just start typing. And see where that takes me.

Once I’m done, I go back and write (or re-write) the opening.

There’s enough pressure on us to get the writing done, especially on schedule, and make it half-way decent. The sooner I can get some words on “paper,” the sooner I can finish writing and get it out the digital door, so I try not to dawdle.

The point is, you don’t have to write in any kind of order. Start with something easy, whatever is in your head or your notes, or whatever words appear on the page once you start typing.

And let those words show you your opening.

How to build your law practice with an email newsletter

Filed Under: Writing

How to remove the starch from your writing

November 24, 2021 by David M. Ward

A newsletter is not the place for formal writing. Even if your readers are academics or others steeped in formality, they’re people before they are lawyers or professors and unless you have a good reason not to, write to them the way you would speak to them—informally.

Are you picking up what I’m laying down?

“Oh, I could never write like that,” says many a lawyer. They don’t want to appear un-lawyerlike.

You don’t have to go as far as I go sometimes. You don’t have to write completely informally to write less formally. (But you have to admit, it might be fun. Guess what? It’s fun for your readers, too.)

What you have to do is make clarity and simplicity your top priority.

When you do, not only will your readers be able to quickly understand your message, they will appreciate you for lightening their cognitive load.

(Sorry, some old starch found its way onto my keyboard.)

The simplest way to keep things simple, as I mentioned in a recent post, is to write an email, not an article.

If you need a little help to do that, follow the advice of writer Laura Belgray, who uses what she calls the Email From a Bestie (EFAB) technique:

“I write each email as if I am writing to a good friend, one who happens to have the needs of my target audience.”

Try it. Write a salutation. Write to your bestie (and leave out the starch). Close.

Then, remove or modify the salutation and close to suit.

When you do this, your readers feel there is a real person behind your words, and you’re speaking just to them.

That’s when they connect to you. That’s when they feel you’re the one.

When you’re done with your first draft, you may feel a little naked and self-conscious and want to add back some of the starch.

A little starch is okay. Because lawyer. Just don’t overdo it.

Ya feel me?

If you want to know how to do it right, with lots of examples, templates, and sample language, get my Email Marketing for Attorneys course

Filed Under: Email, Networking, Writing

You’re so vain, you probably think this post is about you

November 12, 2021 by David M. Ward

You want people to know you’re good at what you do. That you’ll work hard for them, advise them, protect them, and help them get what they want, and you know how to do this because you’ve done it for many others.

But it’s hard to talk about yourself without sounding self-centered.

So, what do you do?

For one thing, whenever possible, you let others do the talking.

You share client testimonials and reviews. You share letters of endorsement from other professionals. You share articles written about you, your awards and your victories.

You let others talk about why they hired (or referred) you or wrote about you, and why they would do it again.

Let them tell the world how good you are.

Yes?

What else can you do?

You also share your own writing and recordings, which demonstrate your knowledge and experience. To illustrate your points, you cite examples from your work, showing yourself “in action,” helping people, solving problems, delivering results.

And when you do that, you talk about the client or case or other person in the story, not about yourself.

You’re still in the story. But as the narrator, not the protagonist.

Your reader will understand that you were the driving force in solving the problem and delivering the results. But the story is about your client, so let them have center stage.

You don’t have to avoid using the word “I” or hide behind the stage curtain. Your readers want to know what you think and what you did. And you should tell them.

Just don’t make the story all about you.

The Attorney Marketing Formula

Filed Under: Image, Marketing legal services, Writing