Search Results for: evernote

Why attorneys need to brag (and how to do it without opening your mouth)

July 25, 2012 by
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One of the primary objectives for any attorney interested in attracting clients is to show the world why they are a better choice. One way to do that is by bragging about your achievements.

Unfortunately, nobody likes a braggart.

The obvious alternative is to let others brag about you. That’s what word of mouth is all about. Happy clients telling others. Your task, then, is to make sure your clients and contacts know about your achievements and have an easy way to share them with others.

You need a “brag book”.

What is a brag book?

A brag book is a place to collect laudatory information about you. It’s a physical notebook, or the digital equivalent, with pages of clips and stories and information about you and your accomplishments.

Those clips and stories show people what you have done for others and suggest that you can do the same for them. The book is filled with third party validation, proving that you are experienced and knowledgeable and trustworthy.

What’s in a brag book?

Your brag book can have a variety of content:

  • Testimonials
  • Endorsements
  • Awards
  • Thank you letters
  • Articles about you, your cases
  • Articles by you, especially if they appear in an important publication
  • Photos of you with happy clients
  • Photos of you with important people
  • Photos of you helping a charity or important cause
  • Photos of you speaking from stage
  • A photo tour of your office
  • Success stories about your clients/cases
  • Stories about big/important verdicts
  • Press releases
  • Your CV or bio
  • Client survey results
  • FAQ’s that show how and why you are different/better

How do I use my brag book?

Use the contents of your brag book whenever you create a new marketing document. Having this information and these documents and photos in one place will make it easier for you or your copywriter to put together new brochures, seminar slides, web pages, or other documents.

You can also put together an entire book that can be shown to clients and prospects, meeting planners, publishers, and others you want to impress.

Use your brag book, or mini-versions thereof:

  • On the table in your waiting room
  • Framed on the wall in your office
  • As a page your web site; link to it from your “About” page
  • As a handout at seminars, networking events
  • As your “firm brochure”
  • In your “new client kit”
  • Send it to prospects who inquire about your services

How do I start a brag book?

Start by collecting these documents and putting them in one location. If you have paper documents, scan them. You could set up a separate notebook in Evernote for this purpose, or simply add a tag (i.e., “bragbook”) to any note that contains brag-worthy information or documents.

As your collection of items grows, you’ll be prompted to seek out additional documents to add to your book. You might ask more clients to provide a testimonial, for example, or make a point of saving copies of photos you have been tagged in on Facebook.

Once you have started your book, it will remind you to fill it, and use it.

Do you have a brag book? Are you going to start one? How will you use it?

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Filed Under: Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Productivity, Referrals Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Marketing legal services: Do one thing and do it well

July 18, 2012 by
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Unix is a forty year old computer operating system that owes its longevity, in part, to its simplicity.

Simple and powerful. Or perhaps, simple IS powerful.

Unix programmers speak of the Unix philosophy approach to writing software. They say, “Write programs that do one thing and do it well.”

I immediately saw the parallel to success in the practice of law.

If you’re trying to do too many things in your practice, you’re certainly finding it harder to do everything well. Success is more likely when you keep things simple. One practice area. One niche market.

Do one thing and do it well.

The same is true of marketing legal services. If you’re trying to do too many things at the same time, or what you are doing is anything but simple, you’re much less likely to do it well enough, or long enough, to get good results.

I’ve seen great practices built with one or two marketing techniques. The key is to have a simple strategy (program) so that you can execute it well.

Simplicity is also key to success in the area of productivity. I get more done, and more important things done, when I keep things simple. I don’t use two apps when one will do. I look for ways to eliminate options because too much of a good thing usually isn’t a good thing.

Forget complicated. Keep it simple. Do one thing and do it well.

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

How to be more productive by killing time

July 6, 2012 by
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Being more productive helps us earn more and work less (or waste less time). That’s why I use and write about the systems (e.g., GTD) and tools (e.g., Evernote) that improve productivity.

But I will be the first to admit that being productive is not the number one objective. It’s being happy.

We want to be more productive because doing so makes us feel good. Not just the results of being more productive but the feeling we get in the process of doing so. It feels good knowing that we are being effective (getting the right things done) and efficient (getting things done right).

But sometimes, “too much of a good thing is not a good thing”.

Most productivity experts advise us to make the best use of our time, all the time. If we’re at the doctor’s office and we have 15 minutes before our appointment, we should use that time to review a file or write notes for something we’re working on. On our way to and from court or an appointment we should make calls or dictate a letter or memo.

Don’t waste this time, they tell us. 15 minutes here, ten minutes there, and we could gain an additional hour or two of work time every day.

I don’t disagree with this. I do these things myself. But, as Leo Babauta’s thoughtful post, “Why Killing Time Isn’t a Sin,” reminds us, “life is for living, not productivity”.

If you would enjoy reading the biking or travel magazine for 15 minutes in the doctor’s office, go ahead and do it. If doing some work would be even more enjoyable, you can do that instead.

The point is, you have a choice. You don’t have to work all the time. Do it because you want to, not because you believe you must. Do it because of the pleasure it gives you, not because it’s on your list.

Do you ever “call in sick” and spend the day at the beach or the movies? Just because you want to? You should. Yes, the work will be there when you get back and yes, you will be a day behind. But you’ll be a day ahead on life.

We aspire to be productive because it makes us feel good. Why not start with feeling good. You’ll wind up being more productive.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Three Tips For Your Next Speaking Gig

June 28, 2012 by
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At breakfast this morning I reminded myself that I did not yet have a topic for today’s blog post. When that happens, I usually dig through my backlog of ideas (saved in Evernote) and unread articles and blog posts (saved in Instapaper). Instead, this morning I began with a title.

Actually, not the whole title. I wrote down, “Three Tips for. . .” and went back to my eggs.

My subconscious mind came to the rescue. It reminded me that earlier this week, I had given a luncheon presentation. There must be three things I could share about public speaking.

The first one was easy. It was something I didn’t do but will do the next time. The other two I nailed.

So here are my three tips:

Tip number one: Meet the audience before you begin.

Had I done this, I would have learned that one of the guests was an attorney. I could have tailored my remarks to him. I might have engaged him with a question or two. Another guest was a real estate agent. I could have incorporated her background in one of the examples I used in my talk.

It’s usually not possible to meet everyone but meet as many as you can. I knew I was addressing business owners and professionals, but had I met some of them in advance, I would have been able to provide more relevant context (examples, stories) and generally deliver a better talk.

Tip number two: Don’t depend on A/V.

There was no projector available at this location, so I could not use slides. No problem. I knew my talk and could deliver it without any visual aids. In my opinion, this makes for a better presentation because the audience focuses on you instead of the screen.

Use slides if you have to. Avoid them if you can. No matter what, you need to know your subject well enough so that you can deliver it when there is no projector, no electricity, or the bulb burns out.

Tip number three: Have some friendly faces in the audience.

A speaker is only as good as his audience. We draw our energy from the people in the room. If you are addressing a group of dullards, people who don’t smile, don’t laugh at your jokes, and don’t respond when you ask for a show of hands, I don’t care how good you are, your talk will suffer.

My wife was with me. I can always count on her. One of my business partners was in the front row and he has good energy. When I looked at him leaning forward in his seat and smiling at me, it not only helped me, it helped the others in the room who took their cues from him. I had him “keep score” every time one of my “jokes” got a laugh and this added to the fun.

So those are three tips gleaned from this week’s presentation. Okay, I just thought of one more. If you’re doing a lunch presentation, start off by asking for a show of hands: “Did anyone order a salad?” Apologize and tell them you asked the restaurant to leave out the tomatoes. “They’re way too easy to throw at the speaker.”

Make people laugh and they will like you and your presentation. Even if you don’t have any slides.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, Public Speaking Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Rule of 3 in Writing, Speaking, and Productivity

June 15, 2012 by
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Last week I did a training for a group of business partners. I created a series of slides and each one began with, “3 Things. . .”, “3 Ways. . .”, or “3 Reasons. . .”. I did it that way because it’s an effective way to convey information in writing and public speaking.

3 things are easy to follow and easy to remember.

If I gave you 142 tips for writing better blog posts, you would read or listen to the first few, perhaps nine or ten, and then you would begin to tune out. It’s too much information to process, absorb, or remember. Yes, you can go back later, but you may never do so. You can handle 3 tips, however, and later, I can give you more.

There’s too much information coming at us today. To protect ourselves, we have learned to tune out most of it. If you want to get someone’s attention and deliver an effective message, if you want them to act on your message, put that message in a smaller package.

The same is true of our task and project lists.

If your list has too many things on it, it’s overwhelming. You look at that list and wonder how you can possibly make a dent in it, let alone finish everything. It’s daunting and depressing.

In addition, when you have too many projects and tasks, there is a tendency to choose the easiest or most urgent ones, instead of the most important.

I have long lists of tasks and projects, but I don’t let them overwhelm me. I use The Rule of 3 to help me sort out the most important things and keep those in front of me until they are done. The rest, I keep out of sight until it’s time to go back and get some more.

To adopt the Rule of 3 to your tasks and project lists, choose (no more than)

  • 3 tasks for the day.
  • 3 outcomes for the week.
  • 3 goals for the year.

I’ve written before about the concept of MITs (most important tasks). Every day, I choose one to three MITs for that day. If I get those done, I can go back for more, but if I only get those done, I know I have had a productive day. I also wrote about how I use MITs in my Evernote for Lawyers eBook.

The 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) says that in most situations 80% of results (income, clients, happiness, etc.) come from 20% of causes (efforts, clients, tasks, etc.) That means that most things aren’t important and can be safely eliminated.

Focus on the few things that are important and valuable and likely to advance you towards your most important objectives. Don’t worry about anything else.

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Filed Under: Communication, Personal development, Productivity, Public Speaking, Time Management, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Organization 101: File it, don’t pile it

May 25, 2012 by
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I’m looking at the table I use for a desk in my home office. There is an in basket, a vertical file holder, and one stack of files and papers. At first glance, it is the desk of an organized person. It’s tidy and there is only one (short) stack of files and papers.

At second glance, it is a mess. It’s a mess because the files and papers in that one stack belong in a file drawer, not piled on the desk.

But on third glance, it is the desk of a genius: someone smart enough to know that filing (or scanning) the papers in that stack can wait until other, more important tasks are done.

At least that’s the way I choose to look at it. And being organized is subjective, isn’t it?

But only to a point.

We’ve all seen (and maybe been guilty of having) desks that look like the aftermath of a tornado. I don’t care what the owner of that desk might say or think, they don’t know where everything is. The owner of a desk like that is not organized.

But look, if you can find the file or paper you need (rule of thumb: thirty seconds or less) and you feel in control of your work place, who am I to suggest you need to get more organized. If, on the other hand, you are often unable to find what you need and you’re not happy about it, it’s time to do something about it.

Un-piling your desk isn’t difficult. I think the hard part for some people is the notion that if they file something away, they won’t remember a task they need to do or they won’t remember where they filed something they need. Ironically, that’s exactly what their mess of a desk does.

The solution is to have a system that (a) allows you to remember what you need to do, and (b) lets you quickly find what you have filed when you need it. That’s what Getting Things Done is all about. That’s what a program like Evernote allows you to do.

Getting things out of your head and onto paper or its digital equivalent is the first plank in the Getting Things Done platform. The second is having a system that allows you to regularly review your lists of tasks so that you will be reminded of them and can choose what to do next. The third plank is having a reference system that allows you to put things away, out of sight, but easily retrievable.

For me, filing reference material was the hardest part of the system, at least in a paper based world. For one thing, much of the reference material I collect has more than one purpose and could be filed in more than one place. Indecision often led me to defer filing and I wound up with boxes filled with paper.

Today, I file most things digitally. The pile on my desk will be scanned into Evernote. With Evernote’s  keyword searching capability, and other tools like tagging and “note links,” I can quickly find what I’m looking for, as I detail in Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity.

If your desk is a mess, it’s time to un-pile and smile.

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Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Save time, reduce anxiety with a DON’T do list

April 2, 2012 by
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It is said that successful people make up their minds quickly and change their minds slowly, if at all. As someone who often spends waaaay too much time thinking about things, that’s not what I wanted to hear.

But when you’re intelligent, you can see many possible outcomes. Things are rarely black and white and we should never decide anything important without taking time to reflect.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

Actually, what I think happens is that we often do decide quickly, but as human beings with ingrained self-doubts, and as lawyers trained to see both sides, we go back and forth challenging our decisions in an effort to justify them. We’ll go through the motions of trying to find fault, but usually, we’ve already made up our minds.

I don’t think we can’t change the way this works. We can, however, eliminate much of the anxiety and time wasting that occurs by re-thinking and second-guessing our decisions.

One way to do that is with a “don’t do” list.

If you’re married or otherwise monogomous, there are certain things you don’t do. You don’t go to single’s bars for example. In fact, you don’t spend any time thinking about single’s bars. It’s on your mental “don’t do” list. Why not create a similar list for other areas of your life?

For example, as you read this blog, you are presented with many ideas for marketing your legal services. Some ideas you like. Other ideas you have considered and rejected. They’re not for you. And yet you continue thinking about some of those ideas. Even though you have rejected them, you continue reading about them, you download apps, and you talk to other lawyers to see what they think.

I suggest you make a decision and be done with it. Put it on a “don’t do” list.

Open a text file or an Evernote note and start recording a list of things you’re not going to do. Once something is on the list, don’t read about it, don’t think about it, and by all means, don’t worry about it. You considered it and made your decision. Move on.

Your list might include advertising, for example. Your practice area might be one where many attorneys advertise and you’ve thought about it. Make a decision–will you or won’t you?

Maybe “advertising” is too broad. It might be something you can see yourself doing at some point. No problem. It doesn’t go on your list. But perhaps you’ve decided that yellow pages advertising is something you aren’t going to do (or no longer do) and you can put that on your don’t do list.

Maybe you don’t like social media and have decided you’re not going to have anything to do with it. Fine. Think of all the time you’ll save by not reading about it, exploring the different platforms, or actually engaging in it. You should feel good about your decision.

You see an article about lawyers getting clients through Pinterest. Tempting, eh? But you’ve already explored it and put it on your don’t do list. Not for you. So you don’t read the article or ponder the issue (“maybe there’s a new angle to this. . .”). Next subject. . .

On the other hand, social media marketing can produce a lot of business and just because you don’t have time for it right now or you don’t want to do it right now, you might not want to write it off completely. Don’t put it on your list. But if you’re camera shy and you know you don’t want to make youtube videos, put that on your list.

This doesn’t mean you never re-consider your decisions. I do many things today I never saw myself doing a few years ago. People change, technology changes, circumstances change. So, periodically, perhaps every six months or once a year, re-visit your don’t do list and see if there’s anything you want to remove.

Every day we are confronted with issues that require a decision. The less time we spend deciding, and the less time we spend re-considering our decisions, the more time we will have to do the things we’ve decided we want to do. A don’t do list can help.

So, what’s on your “don’t do” list? I know, I know, you want more time to think about it.

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Smart marketing by a smart lawyer

March 29, 2012 by
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Yesterday, I was interviewed live via a new video broadcast service, Spreecast. The interviewer was my friend and fellow attorney, Mitch Jackson. The subject was using Evernote in a law practice and my Evernote for Lawyers ebook. You can watch the replay here.

In the interview, you’ll note my comment to Mitch that his Spreecasts are smart marketing on his part because it allows him to network not only with the experts he interviews but with a large number of attorneys and allied professionals who come to watch. It positions him as a leader and gets his name in front of a lot of people who can either directly refer clients to him or who can lead him to others who can.

Although these Spreecasts are new, I know Mitch has for many years done a great job of networking in this fashion, promoting others’ law practices, books and events to his large network. I also know he gets a lot of referral business.

Smart marketing, and you can do the same thing. It’s called being a connector.

Being a connector can not only help you grow your practice, it is also a great vehicle for learning. I’m sure Mitch will tell you in reading the blogs and books of the experts he interviews, he learns the best ideas and latest techniques, which help him become a better lawyer and a better marketer.

To become a connector you need two things.

First, you need a platform. This can be a blog, a Facebook or LinkedIn Group, a newsletter, your own Spreecast channel, or a local breakfast group. This is where you match up content (writing, speaking, interviews) with your audience. You are the organizer, the master of ceremonies, the interviewer, the publisher. Everything goes through you.

The platform is easy. Just pick something and plant a flag.

The second thing you need might be a little more difficult. It’s not something you sign up for, it’s something you must have within you. To be effective as a connector, you need to truly enjoy helping others. It’s true, the more value you create for others, the more you promote them and champion their practice or product, the more you will benefit. But you must be willing to help others without any agenda, other than the pleasure you get from seeing others succeed.

Mitch has a series of great interviews lined up. Follow his Spreecast Lawyers Group (channel) and invite your friends.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking, Online Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Getting things done by letting your “trusted system” remind you

March 26, 2012 by
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Waiting for others to do what they’re supposed to do used to make me anxious. Not anymore. Instead of trusting my memory, scraps of paper, post-it notes, et.al., I record the task in a “trusted system” and let the system remind me. Until it does, I don’t think about it.

A trusted system usually starts with a calendar. Most attorneys routinely calendar due dates, but are sometimes unprepared when the due date “sneaks up on them.” The solution is to add a review date prior to the due date, prompting you to check up on the outstanding task. Or a series of review dates if there is a long time horizon. You can also calendar review dates even when there is no fixed due date.

Another way to handle “waiting” tasks is to keep a separate list of them and review that list on a regular basis, i.e., during a weekly review. Or, instead of keeping everything on one list, you can assign a tag or label to each individual task. During your weekly review, check everything that has the “waiting” tag or label or is in your “waiting” folder.

For your own tasks, you can keep separate lists or folders labeled “Now” or “Next” or “Someday” or use tags for the same purpose.

For my trusted system, I use my calendar (google) for tasks with a due date or a review date, and Evernote for everything else. Anything on the calendar that has an associated note in Evernote is linked to that note with a “note link,” a hyperlink that opens the note in Evernote.

Gmail now allows you to star or label your outgoing emails, which makes tracking replies so much easier. Before you click “send,” add a “waiting” label, for example, to any email where you are waiting for a reply. You can then forget about it until your periodic review.

Getting things out of your head and into a trusted system can help you achieve a “mind like water”. The “open loops” still exist, but you can relax and let your trusted system take care of the remembering and reminding.

—
I’m being interviewed live this Wednesday at 3pm Pacific about using Evernote in a law practice and my Evernote for Lawyers ebook. I hope you can join us. If you can’t make it, you can post your question on my new Evernote for Lawyers ebook fanpage.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , ,
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