Communication Archives - Page 15 of 30 - The Attorney Marketing Center

Calling all note-taking junkies–come and get your fix

July 29, 2015 by David M. Ward

Who knew?

I had no idea how many different note-taking methods there were. Different methods for different styles and a variety of situations, from classroom to courtroom and everyone in between. And then I read a blog post, The Ultimate Guide to Note-Taking, which I heartily recommend to you.

Even if you’re not a note-taking fanboy or girl, or looking for something different from what you currently use to record notes or ideas, you’re bound to find something you can use.

The postÂ presents a wide variety of note-taking methods, including the traditional outline/list method we first learned in grade school, visual methods like mind maps and charts, the Cornell method, and more. The author first demonstrates a paper version of each method, and suggests how it might be adapted for digital.

I think we all develop our own methods of taking notes. I know I did, first in law school, and then in depos and court. For the latter, I would write down what a witness said, what I thought about what they said, and notes to myself about what to ask in cross or what to look into when I got back to the office. I used abbreviations and visual marks to identify notes to zero in on when I later reviewed them.

I do something similar when I’m listening to a presentation or in a business meeting.

I’m going to study this blog postÂ to see how I can use some of these methods for recording tasks and projects and for taking notes on books and blogs.

If you want to talk nerdy to me, check it out and let me know what you think.

Filed Under: Communication, Productivity, Writing Tagged With: note taking

One step forward, two-steps back?

July 23, 2015 by David M. Ward

A tax resolution firm is running a radio ad featuring one of their satisfied clients. He says he hadn’t filed a return since 1990 and the IRS had finally caught up with him and demanded $68,000 in back taxes.

I don’t know how he could ONLY owe $68,000 after 25 years, but that’s his story. He couldn’t pay it and didn’t know what to do.

Enter the tax firm.

They did what they do, and helped him eliminate most of his indebtedness.

Here’s the problem.

As he tells his story, he laughs gleefully at his good fortune. Twice. Like he got away with something. His story, and especially his attitude, suggest to listeners that we’re all suckers for paying our taxes.

I can imagine prospective customers listening to this spot and intentionally calling another firm because it looks like this firm isn’t helping good people who fell on hard times, it’s helping irresponsible people get away with irresponsible behavior.

That’s the sub-text.

They could have conveyed the message thatÂ they know what they’re doing and can help you with IRS problems, without the negative sub-text, had they portrayed the client as “relieved” and “thankful” instead of flippant and irresponsible.

They shouldn’t have mentioned 25 years of unfiled returns, just that he’d fallen behind and couldn’t pay $68,000 the IRS said he owed. And they shouldn’t have had him laugh. Twice.

Obviously, the ad is working because the firm keeps running it. But how much better might it work if they madeÂ the client more sympathetic?

Filed Under: Advertising, Communication, Copywriting, Image

Career day for fourth graders

May 12, 2015 by David M. Ward

Did you attend your child’s third or fourth grade class for career day? Do you remember explaining what a lawyer does and making it as interesting as possible? Tough to do when you’re competing with Joey’s dad who is a professional magician, but you did it.

You explained what you did, who you helped, and why it is important. You helped some future lawyers see that being a lawyer is cool.

If you had to do it again (or for the first time), what would you say?

Think it through and write it down, or record it. This is a valuable exercise, even if you don’t have any kids.

It can help you explain what you do to prospective clients and referral sources. It can also help you create content for your website, articles, and presentations.

You don’t necessarily have to write at a fourth grade level, but keep it simple enough that your ideal clients can follow.

Here are some ideas to prime your mental pump:

What kinds of clients do you represent? What kinds of problems do you handle? Give some examples of real clients you have helped.
What’s the first thing you do when a new client comes to you? What do you do after that?
Do you charge by the hour? Flat fees? Why? How is this better for your clients?
Why did you become a lawyer? What do you want to accomplish in your career? Do you have any role models?
What’s the best way to find a good lawyer in your field? What questions should someone ask?
What’s the hardest part of your job? What’s the worst case or client you have had?
What are you most proud of about your work? What do you like best about what you do?
How is your practice different from others in your field? What do you do that other lawyersÂ don’t do, or what do you do better?
Who would make a good referral for you? If someone knows someone like that, what should they do to refer them?
What questions do prospective clients and new clients typically ask you? How do you answer them?

Take one of these and write a few paragraphs. It won’t take you more than a few minutes and you can start using it immediately. And, if you run into a fourth grade class and are asked to speak, you’ll be ready.

Filed Under: Communication, Inspiration, Legal industry, Marketing legal services, Networking, Online Marketing, Public Speaking, Referrals

Another way to stand out and get noticed

May 6, 2015 by David M. Ward

Yesterday I talked about making your ad look like an article or feature story and thus get noticed and read.

Because people tend to ignore ads.

If your ad looks like an article, more people will read it. More readers eventually means more clients.

Are there any other ways to make your ad get noticed?

I’m glad you asked.

Another way is to get noticed is to make yourÂ ad. . . what’s the word?. . . oh yeah, UGLY.

Lost of copy, tiny print, random layout, “noisy” messages—-anything but pretty, anything but normal.

Why? Because in a sea of normality and prettiness, ugly stands out. People will notice your ad because it looks different.

When all the other ads look like they were designed by a slick graphic artist, your ugly ad gets noticed.

You still want the ad to be easy to scan and read. White space, short sentences and paragraphs, bullet points and sub-heads. But it should look different.

The same goes for your website and emails.

Show people that you’re not “advertising” you are telling them something they need to know.Â Put the magic into the words, not the photos and design.

When other lawyers use html emails, make yours plain text. When other lawyer’s websites use the same templates and layouts used by every other lawyer, along withÂ stock photos of The Scales of Justice, law books, and courthouse steps, make yours look anything but the same.

Be different.

Of course you don’t want to be so different that you scare people off. Clients have definite expectations about what a lawyer does and what they look like and you need to give them what they expect.

When you use a photo of yourself you should be wearing business attire. If you use a photo of your office, it needs to look like a law office.

Be different, but not weird.

Do you know what to put on your website? Find out here

Filed Under: Advertising, Communication, Email, Image, Online Marketing

The best way to close a presentation

April 22, 2015 by David M. Ward

Yesterday I talked about the best ways to open a presentation. Today, I want to talk about the best way to close a presentation.

Many presentations close with a summary of the key points made during the talk. You tell the audience what you want them to remember, perhaps numbering them in some fashion, and that’s fine.

Another way to close is to tell another story that illustrates those key points.

Stories can dramatize your message and create an emotional response in the listener. People tend to remember the stories you tell long after they have forgotten the facts.

You might combine these two techniques–summarize a few key points, then tell a story that reinforces them.

Another good way to close is to say something that echoes something you said at the beginning. Finish the story you began early on, or provide another startling statistic.

One of the best ways to end a presentation, and something I do in almost every presentation I give, is to tell the audience what to do.

Tell them to fill out the paperwork. Tell them to visit a web page. Tell them to like your page. Tell them to buy.

What do you want them to do after they leave the presentation? What do you want them to do while they’re still in the room?

They’re listening to you because they want to learn something. What do you want them to do with that information?

You’re delivering this talk to gain a new client, subscriber, supporter, or follower. What should they do to take the next step?

The same idea applies to written pieces, mostly. Close with a call to action. Tell them what to do. Tell them why.

When you tell people what to do, more people will do it.

Like this:

If you’re reading this in an email, please forward it to three attorneys you know. If you’re reading this on the blog, please like, tweet, or share.

And this:

Your friends will thank you for thinking of them and how they might benefit from this information.Â I will appreciate you, too.

So thanks for sharing. You’re a good egg. And thanks for listening. You’ve been a great audience.

Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Public Speaking, Writing

3 sure-fire ways to start a presentation

April 21, 2015 by David M. Ward

In any presentation or piece of writing, the first words spoken or written need to get your audience’s attention. Those first words are your headline. They tell people, “look at this–this is important”.

If your audience knows you and trusts you to deliver something they will value, you can jump right in and say what you want to say. That’s what I did at the start of this post.

But in other situations, you need to do more.

You can’t go wrong by promising a benefit in your headline. Tell people what they will learn or gain by reading or listening. The title of this post does that by promising to show you 3 sure-fire ways to start aÂ presentation.

But there are other ways to get attention. Here are 3 of the best:

(1) Tell a story

Start your talk or article with a story. People like stories because they are about people and things that happen to them. They keep reading or listening to find out, “what happened next”.

Start with a story about a former client, for example. What happened to him? What did you do to help him? How did it all turn out?

(2) Make a provacative statement

Say something unusual or shocking, something people don’t know or don’t expect you to say. You might share a surprising fact, for example, or a statistic related to the subject of your talk.

If I was speaking about identify theft, for example, I might say, “Most people think identity theft means that someone has stolen your financial information. The truth is, there are five different types of identity theft”.

This gets the audience thinking about what these are, and whether they might be a victim of one of them.

(3) Ask an probing question

Questions work because they bring the reader or listener into the conversation. If you start your talk by asking, “When was the last time you updated your Will?” your audience starts thinking about the answer to that question.

Questions asked at the beginning of a presentation also make the audience continue to listen or read, to find out the answers.

With that in mind, would you like to know the best way to end a presentation? I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Public Speaking, Writing Tagged With: headlines

3 Keys to promoting your event or offer

April 13, 2015 by David M. Ward

So you want to get people to register for your seminar, hire you for your service, or buy your new book. What should you do?

Promote it.

Promoting isn’t announcing. Announcing is merely stating the facts. Promoting has an emotional element to it. Here are 3 keys to promoting your event or offer.

(1) Get excited

If you’re not excited about what you are promoting, you can’t expect anyone else to get excited. If they’re not excited, they’re probably not going to look at what you’re offering, let alone sign up.

Start by asking yourself why you are excited about your offer. What’s new about it? What’s different? What will it allow people to do that they can’t do now?

Put your thoughts on paper or record them. Tell people why you are excited and, more importantly, make sure you sound excited.

Don’t go over the top, and don’t make up things. Just share how you feel about it.

Instead of just saying that you are excited, illustrate it. For example, you might say that as soon as you heard about this, you ran to your laptop and started writing. Or at breakfast, you couldn’t stop talking about the upcoming seminar, “just ask my wife!”

(2) Urgency

Tell people why they need to act immediately. Tell them why they should not delay.

What will they gain by taking action now? What will they lose if they don’t?

If there is limited seating or phone lines or quantities, tell them, and be specific. If you’re offering an added benefit for the first ones who respond such as preferred seating, additional bonuses, or lower pricing, tell them.

Make sure they know why they shouldn’t wait, and then tell them what to do: go here, do this, do it now.

(3) Repetition

Don’t tell them once, tell them several times.

They may not have received your email, or read it. They may have been busy with other things and forgot. They may not realize that what you are promoting is as good as you say it is, or believe you when you say you’re not sure it will be repeated.

So tell them again, and tell them in different ways.

In one version of your message, appeal to their desire for gain by emphasizing the benefits. In another message, appeal to their fear of loss by telling how many others have signed up or how many seats are left.

Get excited, use urgency and repetition to promote your event or offer and you’ll get more people signing up.

Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, List building, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Writing Tagged With: promoting

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

March 27, 2015 by David M. Ward

Yesterday, I told you about a technique for improving your writing. I told you that I dramatically improved my writing by hand copyingÂ 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.Â You don’t have to figure that out right now. Just start, have fun with it,Â and trust that when you come out on the other side, you will be a better writer. Because you will.

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

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

March 26, 2015 by David M. Ward

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 doÂ 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.

Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Newsletters, Writing