Put your contact list on a diet

July 10, 2012 by
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I’ve written before about the value of creating a “Focus 30” list–a list of your most important clients, best referral sources, and other people to whom you want to give your time and attention.

Keeping that list in front of you will remind you to call, write, and engage with the people who contribute most to your success.

I didn’t say so then, but I should mention that you can include on your Focus 30 list people who are important to you outside of your professional life. Friends, spiritual leaders, and others you influence you in positive ways also deserve your attention.

If your Focus 30 list is the cream of the crop, the tip of the top, there are undoubtedly people in your life who are just the opposite.

You know the ones I mean.

  • People you don’t like
  • People who waste your time
  • People who are abusive to you and others
  • Takers/users

You get the idea.

Your relationship with these people does not serve you. You should take steps to either reduce the amount of time you spend with them or completely eliminate them from your life.

Of course some people (i.e., clients, close relatives) you may have to put up with to some extent. But this should be a conscious choice you make, not something you do merely out of habit or a sense of duty.

The easiest way to put your contact list on a diet is to go through the list, one name at a time, and rate each person. If you don’t recognize a name, or you don’t communicate with that person often enough to matter, you can skip them. For everyone else, assign a number based on how you feel about them:

1 = Positive
2 = Neutral
3 = Negative

That’s a lot quicker and eaiser than trying to figure out why you don’t like someone. Trust your gut.

If you’re not sure about someone, give them a 2.

Anyway, don’t agonize over anyone and don’t spend a lot of time on this.

When you’re done, go back through the list. 1’s and 2’s are okay. (You may see some 1’s you want to add to your Focus 30 list).

You need to do something about the 3’s.

Some you’ll stop seeing and taking their calls. Cross them off your list. Eliminate them completely from your life.

Others, you’ll reduce the amount of time you give them. If they are a client worth keeping, give the task of dealing with them to someone who works for you. Get away from them as much as possible. If that won’t work, you’ll need to decide if the negative feelings you get from being around these people are worth the money they pay you.

Or, look at it this way: How much more would you earn by getting rid of your negative, anxiety-causing, slow-paying, trouble-making, pain-in-the-ass clients?

Now, as for your relatives. . .

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client loyalty, Client relations, Dealing with stress, Personal development, success Tagged With: ,

Build a more profitable law practice by relaxing and doing less

May 9, 2012 by
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Yesterday, I spoke with an attorney who is on the verge of burnout. I could hear it in his voice. After thirty years of practice, he’s struggling to attract clients, he’s stressed out and he doesn’t know what to do.

He tells me he’s competent and people like him when they meet him. “Put me in front of someone and they’ll sign up,” he said. He doesn’t do a lot of networking and admits he doesn’t get in front of enough people.

He has a web site and a blog for each of his five practice areas. He’s spent considerable time and money creating content for his blogs and optimizing them for search engines. Unfortunately, the clients who have contacted him through his site have had little money or were looking for free advice.

Within a couple of minutes, I could see his problem and told him what I thought. I could do that because his “ailment” is so common. Like many attorneys, he’s spread too thin and trying to do too much.

I told him he needed to slow down and get focused. Choose one practice area, the one he likes and is best at, and stick with it. His background is in business law. He doesn’t like doing divorces but that’s the kinds of clients his web site seems to be attracting so he added that to his repertoire. While you can’t ignore what the market wants, you are never a slave to it.

I also told him to specialize in the kinds of clients he represents. Some clients are better than others. They have more money and more legal work, the kind you enjoy doing, and you should concentrate on attracting them. Choose an industry or market niche where you have some knowledge and experience and own it. Everything is easier when you do.

His blogs have a lot of content but I suspect it is content created for search engines more than for real people. When you write for SEO purposes you often wind up with content that is mechanically correct but lifeless. When your content is organic, coming from your experiences with real clients, you attract similar clients who resonate with your message.

The process I recommended was one of subtraction: getting rid of most of what he was doing and starting over with a clean slate. Most of his good clients had come through referrals and that’s where they will continue to come from, once he stops trying so hard.

Marketing professional services should be a natural outgrowth of who you are. It starts with knowing what you want and giving yourself permission to have it, choosing your clients instead of letting them choose you.

Relax, do less, but do what you are, not what an SEO expert says you should be.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Career satisfaction, Communication, Dealing with stress, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Specializing, Web traffic 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What are you focused on right now?

March 7, 2012 by
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We all have problems. Some people dwell on their problems, some focus on solutions. Guess what? We get what we focus on.

Focus on the mess you’re in and you get more mess. Focus on what you can do, how you want things to turn out, and you can work your way out of that mess.

I have a mantra, something I say to myself every day. It keeps me focused on solutions, not problems. It helps me move forward with a positive expectancy, instead of being held back by concerns and regret. I don’t know about you, but I don’t do my best work when I’m worried about something. I’m at my best when I’m hopeful and excited and looking forward to a positive outcome.

What do I say to myself? I remind myself to, “Think about what you want, not what you don’t want.”

When I do this, I feel better about the situation. Instead of worrying and shutting down, I stimulate my creativity and attract the resources, people, and ideas I need. Thinking about what I want brings me closer to getting it.

Why does this work? I’m not sure. Some say it’s the “Law of Attraction” or quantum physics doing it’s thing. Others say it’s your subconscious mind which understands your thoughts as a command which it then executes. Some say it’s the hand of God.

Whatever the reason, it does work. Try it and see for yourself.

When you think about what you want, you feel better, more in control, more creative. Your mind comes up with ideas instead of being mired in negative emotion. You are inspired to take action, guided to the next step and the step after that.

Because we get what we focus on.

I do have a caveat. Sometimes, when you think about what you want you’re really thinking about the absence of what you want–why you don’t have it, why things went wrong, why you’re not able to find a solution. All that does is attract more negative outcomes. When you focus on “not having” you get more “not having”.

I know, crazy, right?

How can you tell you’re doing it right? If you think about what you want and that thought doesn’t feel better than your previous thought, you know you are focused on “not having”. If the thought feels better, if there’s an emotional uptick, however small, it means you’re moving in the right direction.

Think about something you want but don’t have. How does it feel? If you feel frustrated or angry or disappointed, change the thought to something that feels a little bit better. From there, you can reach for an even better feeling thought.

The better you feel, the closer you are to getting what you want. When you feel excited and joyous and positive about what you want, what you want is just around the corner.

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Inspiration, Personal development, success Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

If Goldilocks went to law school

February 27, 2012 by
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You can’t blame us for feeling the stress of our jobs as attorneys. After all, we deal with other people’s problems all day long. Some problems have life or death consequences. Others hold us accountable for every word in a fifty page document. A single omission could cost millions.

There are unrelenting demands on our time and we are under tremendous pressure to perform. Some attorneys find it difficult to cope with the stress. We read about them in the back pages of our bar journals. Most attorneys find acceptable ways to handle the pressure, however, and some even thrive on it.

What about you? Do you have too much stress in your life?

When Goldilocks ate the first bowl of porridge, it was too hot. The second bowl was too cold. She found the third bowl was just right and “ate it all up.” I think stress is like that. Too much stress can lead to burn out. There are warning signs and ways to cope, but while there may be ways to handle the stress you have to ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” If not, it’s time to make some fundamental changes in what you’re doing.

If you have no stress in your life, however, if the porridge is too cold, it’s likely that you’re not growing. If you never try anything new, never get outside your comfort zone, at best your routine will become boring. At worst it will lead to stagnation and eventually, the death of your spirit.

Your challenge is to find a level of stress in your life that is “just right”. Not too hot, not too cold. You don’t need to read books or go to therapy to figure this out. All you have to do is regularly ask yourself a simple question: “Am I happy?”

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , ,

Slowing down to speed up

November 10, 2011 by
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Stop running. Yes, I know you have to get to court, crank out a new agreement, and meet with your new client. I know you’re busy and this is how you earn your living. I know that if you don’t do the work you won’t get paid.

Slow down anyway. Better yet, come to a complete stop.

At least for a few hours.

Slowing down allows you to refine what you’re doing so you can do it better, and faster. Just as a race car needs pit stops, so do humans. By taking a break periodically, we can ensure that everything is working properly and that we are on course and on pace. Taking a break allows us to recharge our energy and clarify our focus. It allows us to go faster, assured that we are going in the right direction.

Take some time to evaluate what you are doing and the results you are getting. Are things moving in the direction you want? Is there anything you could do better? What’s working well that could be expanded?

Take some time to look at your calendar. How are you spending your time? What else might you do? Is there something you are doing that you don’t really need to do? Is there something that takes you two hours that could be done in one?

Take some time to rest and reflect on the bigger picture. What big ideas could you start working on that might help you take a quantum leap? Where do you want to be five years from today and what could you start doing today to help you get there?

Take some time to get rid of clutter and distractions. If it doesn’t serve you in some way, eliminate it. Simplify your life so you can focus on what is important and valuable.

Take some time to read things you don’t usually read. Look for ideas and inspiration. Have some fun. Goof off. Go to the movies in the middle of the day. Take your best friend for a long lunch.

And take some time to give thanks for all that you have. When you appreciate the goodness in your life, you attract more of it.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Inspiration, Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing legal services: doing things you don’t want to do

October 31, 2011 by
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Conventional wisdom says that success lies outside of your comfort zone. If you want something you don’t have, you have to change what you are doing and this will probably be uncomfortable, as is anything new. Over time, you will become comfortable with your new activities and you may actually enjoy them.

But then, you will have a new comfort zone. To get to the next level in your growth, you will once again need to go beyond your comfort zone into new territory.

Success, therefore, requires continually being uncomfortable.

This is what we are told, but is it true?

Let’s take marketing for example. Let’s say you really don’t like networking. You’re shy, you don’t like being away from your family, you’re not a “people person”. Whatever. You just don’t like it.

But networking is a proven way for attorneys to build their practices. So what if you don’t like it, there are lots of things we have to do in life that we would rather not do. Shouldn’t you just get out of your comfort zone and do it anyway?

No.

If you tried it and truly don’t like it. . . you don’t like it. Don’t do it.

There are other ways to bring in clients. You don’t have to continue to do things that make you uncomfortable, you can do something else.

Ultimately, success lies inside your comfort zone.

When you like something, you’ll continue doing it. The more you do it, the better you get at it. The better you get, the more successful you will be and the more you will enjoy doing it. And the cycle will continue.

In contrast, when you force yourself to do something you despise, you are miserable. You’ll find ways to avoid going to your networking event, even to the extent of getting sick. You won’t get better at it and your lack of results will only frustrate you and make you hate it even more.

Doing what you enjoy doing is the recipe for success.

Don’t fight how you feel, don’t try to talk yourself into it, and don’t do it because you think you must.

There, did I just hear a big sigh of relief from you?

Good. I’m glad I could help. Just don’t be too quick in deciding what is and what isn’t inside your comfort zone.

Often, we decide we don’t like something based on too little information. Sometimes, we never try at all, basing our opinion on what we’ve heard from others or what we imagine. Sometimes, we try it once, have a bad experience, and never try again.

Don’t give up too soon and don’t assume that when you try something and it is uncomfortable, it will always be so.

Give it a fair try. Study and learn how to do it better. Find mentors who can counsel you. Give the new experience enough time for the newness to rub off.

If it really isn’t your cup of tea, relax, you don’t have to do it. On the other hand, you might discover some things you thought you hated that you’re actually quite good at and now enjoy.

My wife and I grew up with dogs in the house. Cats? Not for us. We don’t like them. All that changed when our daughter was young and wanted a pet but nobody wanted to walk a dog. So we got a cat. Then another.

We gave them a chance and today, Seamus and Andre are like members of the family. That’s Andre in the photo with me, sharing some love with his daddy.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Inspiration, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Making Money in the Current Economy: Advice for the Nervous

October 12, 2011 by
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A friend emailed me recently, seeking financial advice. He’d just watched a video on our current economic woes and the bleak forecast for the future.

He’s in his late 20’s, a creative type (graphic arts, web design, dance, music), and intelligent, but not savvy about business or finances. He currently works part time and does some freelancing, and he is nervous about his future.

He asked for books I might recommend, so he can educate himself, and for advice. I thought I’d share with you the advice I gave him, edited and with a comment or two for attorneys.

Here is what I told my young friend:

  • The best thing you can do is to own your own business. Don’t rely on a job, hire yourself. Yes, that’s risky and frightening, but so is being dependent on someone else.
  • Do something that excites you, even if you don’t know how you can make money at it. If you’re passionate about what you do, you’ll do it long enough to get good at it and the money will find you.
  • Focus. Put all your eggs in one basket. You can have more than one business [he has several interests], but only if they are related, or you start one after the first is successful.
  • Employ leverage. Find ways to use OPM and OPE (other people’s money and other people’s efforts). If your income depends solely on what you do, you’ll never grow as big as you could and vacations and retirement will be problematic.
  • Work at your business every day. Most people give up; you can stand out by consistently showing up.
  • Give more than is expected of you. The more value you deliver, the more your business and life will be enriched.
  • Go global. Use the Internet to offer your products or services worldwide. [Attorneys, if possible, don’t depend on just your local market. Can you get licensed in other jurisdictions? Can you create a law-related product (book, course, etc.) that can be sold to people outside your local market?]
  • Don’t fear competition, embrace it. Your voice and style makes you unique. You can earn more by working with your competition than you could trying to beat them. [Attorneys, you don’t sell your services so much as you sell yourself. You are your brand and your brand is valuable.]
  • Surround yourself with good people. You only need a few but choose them carefully.
  • Don’t worry about whether or not you’re good enough right now. Study your craft, do it every day, and you will soon be good enough. Just get started. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
  • Don’t worry about the economy or fixate on politics. Don’t put your head in the sand but realize you can’t do much about it. I agree with Barbara Bush who said, “What happens in your house is far more important than what happens in the White House”.
  • Think about what you want, not what you don’t want. You will attract what you think about.

A law practice is an extension of you. You are worth far more than you know.

Marianne Williamson said it beautifully:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Increase your income, Inspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Evernote and my plan for achieving “Inbox Zero”

October 11, 2011 by
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I have tens of thousands of emails in my Gmail inbox. At last count, 16, 503 are unread. I have over 50 labels set up. I don’t use any of them. It’s a mess

When I first learned about Inbox Zero I swooned. The idea is intoxicating. When your inbox is empty, you are no longer overwhelmed by email. You are in control. You enjoy a Zen-like feeling of tranquility. You process your email inbox once or twice a day, keeping it at zero. You have a “mind like water”.

I loved the idea, but the thought of going through tens of thousands of emails was about as appealing as a state bar complaint.

Email has long been the final frontier in my productivity makeover. I’ve resisted changing for a long time. But now, I have a plan.

My plan involves my favorite productivity tool, Evernote, which I use for collecting information and managing my projects and tasks. I use it all day long, in every part of my work flow, as my tool for Getting Things Done. Read my previous posts on how I use Evernote for getting things done.

Right now, when I get an email that requires action of any kind (a reply, a call, review, read, etc.) or that is related to a project I’m working on, or is something I want to keep for reference purposes (receipts, newsletter ideas, research, documents, etc.), or something I am waiting for, I forward that email to Evernote. I then tag it and incorporate it into my gtd system.

If an email requires a reply that will take no more than two minutes, I do it. I may also send a bcc to Evernote.

Sometimes, I get emails requiring action that I don’t send to Evernote. An example is an email I got recently from someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. I didn’t want to dash off a quick reply, I wanted to give it some thought. In this case, I added a @Reply label and archived the email in Gmail. When I’m ready to reply, the label will help  me find it.

Yes, I could also send these to Evernote, but I like having the orignial email connected to my reply. And, if I do send it to Evernote, I want to do so after I’ve replied, so I have both the original email and my reply in one Evernote note.

So, here’s my plan for achieving email bliss using Evernote and Gmail:

First, when I have some quiet time, (this will probably require several sessions), I will go through my Gmail inbox, scanning (not reading) and quickly doing the following:

  1. Unsubscribing from newsletters I don’t read.
  2. Adding @Reply label to anything I need to reply to that will take more than two minutes but does not need to be tracked.
  3. Sending Action and Reference items to Evernote.
  4. Trashing or archiving everything else.

Once my email inbox is empty, as new emails come in, I will review and process them, as follows.

  • If it requires a response or action that will take two minutes or less, I will do it, then Archive it; if I want to, I can also send a bcc to my Evernote account.
  • If it will take more than two minutes but I don’t need to keep notes, add it to a project, or track it, I will label it @Reply and do it as soon as possible.
  • If I’m waiting for a reply or for something to occur, I will send it to Evernote (and add a @Waiting tag).
  • If it’s something I want to keep for reference, an important email, an exemple of a good sales letter, a receipt, or something I want to read later, I will send it to Evernote.
  • All other emails will go into Archive or get trashed. At day’s end, I will again have an empty Inbox and an empty mind.

The premise behind all of this is to identify emails that need action. That’s key. Everything else is reference and can be found through search.

Note, I will use just one label in Gmail, @Reply. I am open to adding others down the road, but only if they truly serve me. For example, I may find it easier to label emails @Read/Review in Gmail, rather than sending them to Evernote for that purpose. I may also add labels for specific projects, or use them temporarily (e.g., for promotions). But for now, one label will do.

Wish me luck. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Have you achieved “Inbox Zero”? What do you think of my plan?

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Email, Law office management, Productivity, Technology, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Every law firm must manage only these three things

September 19, 2011 by
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John Jantsch’s post today is about the three things every business must manage: Purpose, Projects, and Process:

  • Purpose: create and tell the story about why the business does what it does.
  • Projects: create actions steps and assemble resources to fulfill the business purpose.
  • Process: implement the action steps.

These three functions obviously apply to every attorney and law firm. However, while we all need to manage purpose, projects, and process, we’re not all in the same business (practice area).

A few years ago, I wrote a post, “The Three Things That Matter Most,” about finding and focusing on the essence of what you do. The three things that matter most for you are the “twenty percent” activities that deliver eighty percent of your (desired) results. When you focus on these three things, you can eliminate (delegate) or curtail everything else, freeing you to do more of your “twenty percent” activities, getting more results.

If you want to earn more and work less, you must focus on the things that matter most. Therefore, once you know and are prepared to articulate your purpose, take the time to reflect on what matters most in your practice before you create any projects or engage in the process of fulfilling that purpose.

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Handling objections, Inspiration, Personal development, Thank you letters Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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