Increase your income Archives - Page 14 of 22 - The Attorney Marketing Center

Grow your law practice today by getting excited about tomorrow

October 7, 2013 by David M. Ward

Your employees (and you) come to work every day knowing pretty much what to expect. You’re going to have documents coming in, you’re going to produce documents and send them out. You’ll open some new files and close others.Â You’ll be on the phone talking to people about the same things this week as you talked about last week, and the week before.

Same old, same old.

Where’s the excitement? Where’s that something new that gets people out of bed in the morning with their pulse beating a little faster? Where’s that something different that people can talk about and look forward to?

You need to find that something.

Something you can promote to your team so they can get excited and creative and work harder than they’ve ever worked before. Something that makes them look forward to coming to work each day, glad to be a part of your team.

What are we talking about?

It could be money. A bonus for achieving certain results. A trip. A weekend. A dinner. (You do know that your employees can bring in a lot of business, don’t you?)

It could be recognition. Employee of the month, who gets featured on your blog and gets the last Friday of the month off, with pay. Recognition is powerful. Men die for it. Babies cry for it.

It could be a cause. Something in the community you are passionate about. Something you want to change or build.

It could be new tools or techniques. Cool new tablet computers. A new training program. A new way of doing what you’ve always done.

Create an environment that’s fun and exciting, where your folks don’t know what’s going to happen every day.

Every day, you should either have something to promote or something to recognize. It could be progress reports on something already announced. It could be something new. Or it could be something that’s not yet here but is coming next week or next month.

How do you make things fun and exciting for yourself? Set a goal and a reward for reaching it. If you bring in so many new clients this month you get to take that trip to Tahiti. If you really want to make it exciting, tell your team (or family) about the goal and the reward so they will hold you accountable.

Same old, same old may get the job done, but if you really want to grow your law practice today, you have to get excited about tomorrow.

Want more referrals? Quickly? Try a 30 Day Referral Blitz.

Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Personal development Tagged With: leadership, promoting

New report shows attorneys how to quickly get more referrals

October 3, 2013 by David M. Ward

The Attorney Marketing Center has announced the release of a report that shows attorneys how to quickly get more referrals. “The 30 Day Referral Blitz” is an expanded and updated version of a report previously available only to author David M. Ward’s consulting clients.

“Lawyers are often told that the way to get more referrals is to ask for them. The problem is, they don’t like asking. The 30 Day Referral Blitz gives them an alternative,” Ward says.

Not only does The Blitz show lawyers how to get referrals without asking, it shows them how to do it quickly. “A ‘referral blitz’ is a concentrated burst of activity that takes place over a 30 day period. After a few hours of prep time, The Blitz can be done in as little as 15 minutes a day,” Ward says.

The original version of The Blitz was slower and more expensive. It required lawyers to use regular mail and the telephone. The new version takes advantage of the speed and reach of the Internet and email, making it easier, quicker, and more economical. “You can do The Blitz every month, if you want to,” Ward says.

The 30 Day Referral Blitz shows lawyers how to get referrals from existing clients, former clients, and other contacts, including professionals and social media connections. For more information, visit The Attorney Marketing Center or this page.

Filed Under: Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, News, Referral sources, Referrals

Lawyers: your messy desk is costing you business

October 2, 2013 by David M. Ward

I’ve written before about how to clean up a messy desk and how doing so can make you more productive. But there’s another reason why a messy desk is bad for business: It gives your clients (and others in your office) a negative impression.

A messy desk implies that

You have an equally messy (confused) mind
You are inefficient and waste time
You are disorganized and may forget things
You take longer to do things, costing your clients money
You don’t pay attention to detail
You have too many other clients and don’t have time for new ones
You are sloppy in other areas (i.e., billing, deadlines, negotiating, drafting, research, personal hygiene, etc.)

Most of all, a messy desk tells people you don’t care.

Yes, you want clients to know you are busy. Busy means you are in demand, that other people value your expertise and want to give you money to help them. But you can be busy and organized. You can be busy and care about making a good impression.

If you have a messy desk, some clients won’t hire you again. You make them nervous. Neither will they refer their friends.

Clients want to know that you know what you’re doing, that you do it efficiently, and most of all, that you care about them. Why give them cause to think anything else?

Marketing is everything we do to get and keep good clients. Everything. Here’s the formula

Filed Under: Client relations, Image, Increase your income, Law office management, Productivity, Referrals Tagged With: cluttered desk, first impressions, messy desk versus clean desk

Creating an operations manual for your law practice

October 1, 2013 by David M. Ward

Early in my career I rented space from an attorney who had a very lucrative high volume personal injury practice.

He had half a dozen employees, including one attorney, and everything ran very smoothly. The office was busy but quiet. Everything was orderly. They never seemed to miss deadlines or suffer a major crisis.

One reason why the office was so successful was that the attorney had prepared an operations manual. Every aspect of the practice was documented. Every employee knew what they were supposed to do.

He created the manual, I was told, so that if someone quit or went on maternity leave or got sick, the new hire or temp would be able to quickly get up to speed.

The manual explained how to open a new file, how to close a file, and everything in between. There were forms and checklists for every stage of the case, and fill-in-the-blank form letters, too. The calendaring procedure was spelled out in detail.

As a result, nothing fell through the cracks. The cases got worked and settled or tried. Things moved quickly. Mistakes were rare.

I never saw the actual manual but hearing about it inspired me to create my own. I started by making extra copies of every letter I wrote and putting them in a separate file. I created checklists for repetitive tasks. I asked other attorneys I knew for copies of their forms and form letters and re-wrote them to suit my style and work flow.

I was also able to build a sizable practice with a relatively small staff, in part, because of my manual.

One of the benefits of going through this process is that it forces you to think about everything you do, allowing you to find ways to do them better. You find holes in your procedures, places where mistakes can happen, and you can patch them. You find wasteful tasks and can eliminate them. You see opportunities for doing things faster.

You also find ways to improve client relations. For example, you may discover gaps in communicating progress to clients about their case, or find ways to make their experience less stressful. Repeat business and referrals will increase because you always send welcome letters and thank you letters and remember clients’ birthdays.

The bottom line is that creating an operations manual for your law practice will save time, save money, help you avoid errors (and malpractice claims), and make your practice run more smoothly and more profitably.

If you don’t have an operations manual for your practice, I encourage you to start one. If you have staff, enlist their aid. If you do have a manual, make a note to review it periodically, so you can update it with changes in the law, new forms, and new ideas.

You’ll thank me later.

For more on creating an operations manual, see The Attorney Marketing Formula

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client loyalty, Client relations, Communication, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Productivity Tagged With: avoiding malpractice, client satisfaction, creating an operations manual, law practice management, managing your law firm, training new employees

Why you must only do work you love

September 30, 2013 by David M. Ward

My first five years of practice I was unhappy and broke. I took any legal work I could find and wound up doing a lot of work I hated. Most of it paid very poorly and every day was a struggle to stay afloat.

One day, I was so miserable, I made a bold decision. I started turning down work I didn’t love.

When I was done cleaning house, I had only a few clients left and lots of free time to think about what I had done. I was scared, but something told me I had done the right thing.

It’s funny how things work. The vacuum in my practice quickly started to fill. I began attracting the kinds of clients I wanted and soon my practice was busy. I was making good money (for the first time in my life) and I was happy.

I know, it’s hard to say no to someone who wants to pay you. But if you’re taking on work you don’t love, it’s actually costing you money.

Turning down work you don’t love makes room for more of the cases and clients you enjoy, and creates a cycle of increasing prosperity and joy.

When you do work you love you are excited to do the work. Because you are excited by your work, you get better outcomes and finish faster. As you get better outcomes, you attract bigger cases and higher paying clients. Because you finish faster, you have more time to accept more good clients and your income increases further. As your income increases, you are more excited and attract more work you love, earning even more income.

Now, what happens when you take work you don’t love? You aren’t excited by the work. When you aren’t excited by the work, you get poorer outcomes and take longer to finish. As you get poorer outcomes, you attract poorer cases and clients and your income decreases. Because you take longer to do the work, you have less time for good clients and your income decreases further. As your income decreases, you are unhappier and attract more work you don’t love and earn even less income.

Prosperity starts by drawing a line in the sand and saying no to work that you don’t love.

Learn more about how I turned around my practice. Click here.

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Increase your income

How much do lawyers earn?

September 18, 2013 by David M. Ward

How much do lawyers earn? A lot, apparently. According to a recent study, law firm net profit margins were among the highest in the world of commerce, at nearly 20 percent. In contrast, the average net profit margin for private companies is around 7 percent.

But so what? Does knowing this help you in any way?

Unless you are an economist (or the mother of a lawyer) there’s no point in comparing the legal “industry” with any other. You are not the industry.

In the same way, there’s little point in comparing your profit and loss statement with that of any other lawyer. True, you may learn that you are spending too much on rent or employees or advertising, relative to your gross revenue, and maybe you could make some adjustments. But what really counts isn’t how much you spend running your practice, it’s how much you take home.

If your net margins are “only” five percent but you take home millions, who cares that you spent a fortune on advertising or payroll?

On the other hand, if your net income is one-third of revenue, much higher than the average, but your gross is only $150,000, you don’t have much to brag about.

I’m not suggesting that you pay no attention to the cost of overhead. In fact, I’m a big believer in keeping fixed costs as low as possible. But, your number one priority isn’t low overhead, it’s net profit.

How much did you take in? How much did you spend? How much was left?

Don’t forget to subtract the value of your services before you calculate your net. If it would cost $150,000 to hire an attorney to do what you do and your net income is $150,000, your net profit is zero.

A cynic would say, “you don’t own a practice, you own a job”.

Yeah, but I’ll bet you’re the best boss you’ve ever had.

Get more clients and increase your income. Get this.

Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Increase your income, Law office management, Legal industry Tagged With: attorney earnings, law firm profits, lawyer earnings, legal industry profits

The 80/20 Principle and your law practice

September 11, 2013 by David M. Ward

One of my favorite books is The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. In it, Koch makes the case first articulated as The Pareto Principle, that “a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards”.

The idea is that as much as 80% of your results may come from 20% of your effort. In the context of practicing law, that might mean that 20% of your clients produce 80% of your income. The actual numbers, however, aren’t necessarily 80/20. They might be 90/30, 60/20, or 55/5. The point is that some things we do bring results that are disproportionate to our effort and that it behooves us to look for those things and do more of them.

Koch says, “Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.”

We’re talking about focus. About doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. About using leverage to earn more without working more.

Look at your practice and tell me what you see.

Practice areas: Are you a Jack or Jill of all trades or a master of one? Are you good at many things or outstanding at one or two?
Clients: Do you target anyone who needs what you do or a very specifically defined “ideal client” who can hire you more often, pay higher fees, and refer others like themselves who can do the same?
Services: Do you offer low fee/low margin services because they contribute something to overhead or do you keep your overhead low and maximize profits?
Fees: Do you trade your time for dollars or do you get paid commensurate with the value you deliver?
Marketing: Do you do too many things that produce no results, or modest results, or one or two things that bring in the bulk of your new business?
Time: Do you do too much yourself, or do you delegate as much as possible and do “only that which only you can do”?
Work: Do you do everything from scratch or do you save time, reduce errors, and increase speed by using forms, checklists, and templates?

Leverage is the key to the 80/20 principle. It is the key to getting more done with less effort and to earning more without working more.

Take inventory of where you are today. If you’re not on track to meeting your goals, if you are working too hard and earning too little, the answer may be to do less of most things, the “trivial many,” as Koch defines them, so you can do more of the “precious few”.

My course, The Attorney Marketing Formula, can help you.

Filed Under: Increase your income, Leverage, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, Productivity, Specializing, success Tagged With: focus, the 80/20 principle, the 80/20 rule, the pareto principle

If your five year old was managing your law practice

September 6, 2013 by David M. Ward

It’s been a long time since I had a five year old in house but not so long that I can’t remember what kids are like. Hey, I can even remember what I was like.

So, what if kids ran the world? More to the point, what if your five year old was managing your law practice? What changes might they make? What would they tell you to do?

1. Have fun. Find ways to put some fun into what you do. Because if you don’t, you’ll burn out. Or get sick. Or ruin your marriage.

That might mean you need to delegate more tasks. Eliminate others. And loosen up. Find some light in the darkness. Find something to smile about and laugh about every day. Put some play into your day. Because if your practice isn’t fun, at least some of the time, you probably need to do something else.

2. Learn stuff. Kids love to learn. It’s keeps them young. If you’ve stopped learning, you need to rekindle your innate thirst for knowledge and learn something. Legal stuff doesn’t count.

Read and listen to things outside your normal areas of interest. You can use those nuggets in your blog posts, articles, speeches, and conversations.

Schedule weekly learning time and study marketing, writing, speaking, leadership, management, and productivity. Read history. Read profiles about business leaders and creative people. Go to museums and art galleries.

3. Tell me a story. Kids love to read stories and have you read them stories. You do, too. You just forgot. So, read some fiction now and then. All facts make Jack a dull boy.

And tell stories to your clients and prospects. Stories are the best way to show people what you do and how you can help them. They are interesting because they have people in them and because something happens to them. Put stories about clients and cases in your marketing materials.

Visuals can tell stories, too. Put photos on your website. Use charts and diagrams to deliver information (but only if they are simple and interesting).

Oh yeah, make sure you have some coloring books and crayons in the office so your client’s kids have something to do.

4. Could I have a dollar? Kids like to have their own money to spend so we pay them for chores or give them an allowance. If they ran your practice, they wouldn’t understand it if you did work but didn’t get paid. Get rid of clients who don’t pay. Ask people who owe you money to pay you (but don’t cry or throw your toys if they don’t).

5. Nap time. Stop running all day. Take breaks. Get some rest. Have a snack. And make sure you get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

If your five year old were managing your law practice, your law practice would be pretty cool place.

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Increase your income, Law office management, Personal development Tagged With: Law office management, law practice management, managing your law firm

Fracking your law practice

September 3, 2013 by David M. Ward

You’ve waited long enough. It’s time to finally open the floodgates of untapped resources that lie beneath your feet. New clients, better clients, and an abundant and fulfilling lifestyle await you. All you need to do is go get them.

Every law practice has natural resources that aren’t being accessed. What are these resources?

Your client list that could easily bring a steady stream of repeat business and referrals but is all but ignored in favor of expensive and time consuming efforts to find new clients.

Your knowledge and experience that could be packaged and presented in a way that makes you stand out from the crowd and be seen as the best lawyer for the job but instead, is shackled by the chains of conformity.

The passion that drove you to choose a legal career but has been dulled by low margins and mindless work could be rekindled with new ideas, if only you would slow down long enough to learn them, and loosen up enough to try them.

These and other resources, if allowed to surface, could transform you from struggle to success, from success to untold wealth. All you have to do is embrace these resources, develop them, and allow them to deliver their bounty.

Why aren’t you developing these resources? Adherence to tradition. Not wanting to admit there is a problem. Fear of what others will think or what might happen if something goes wrong.

Yes, there are dangers. If you start a blog it might take up too much time. But what if it doesn’t? What if it takes up much less time than you thought? And what if it brings you lots of prospective clients who see why they should hire you instead of anyone else, and do?

If you get started with social media, your unhappy clients and crazy clients may smack talk you and harm your reputation. But what if they are few and far between and your happy clients set the record straight and build up your reputation and increase your following?

If you stay in touch with your clients and former clients, you might waste time that could be spent getting work done. But what if staying in touch brings you so much work you can afford to hire staff to do most of it and you can get home before the kids are in bed?

There are dangers to doing things you’ve never done before. You might be embarrassed. There may be costs. Things could go wrong. But the greater danger is that you will never discover what was possible, never realize your potential, and never have the time or financial resources to make the world a better place.

If you’re ready to tap into your natural resources, thisÂ and thisÂ will show you what to do.

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client loyalty, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Productivity

Attention lawyers who hate practicing law

August 26, 2013 by David M. Ward

If you hate practicing law I have a question for you: If you were earning five times the income, would you hate it any less?

If the answer is yes, you’re lucky. All you need to do is increase your income. Keep reading. I’ve got something that can help.

If the answer is no, then you might need to get a new career. Before you decide to jump ship, however, let’s see if there’s anything we can do about the things you don’t like (and that includes “not enough income”).

I’m going to give you a simple exercise to do. I’ve done this exercise before and I can tell you that it really does help.

Grab a legal pad and write at the top of the page: “What I don’t like about practicing law” or “. . .about my practice”. Draw a line down the middle of the page.

On the left side of the page, write down everything that you don’t like about your practice. Write fast. Don’t worry about repeating yourself. Take as much time as you want and get it all out.

Done? Good. How did that feel? When I’ve done this before I’ve had mixed feelings. It feels good to give voice to my frustrations. Cathartic. Therapy on paper. But I also feel angry that I have allowed things I don’t like to continue for so long.

The point of this isn’t to make you feel bad or to dwell on the things you don’t want, however. It is to find solutions. So, on the right side of the page, next to each item that you don’t like, write down what you can do about it.

You don’t like the stress of litigation? What can you do about that? Don’t think too much, just write whatever comes to mind. If you can’t think of anything, perhaps you can ask someone who might know or you can do some research. Write that down. Or, just skip it and keep writing.

What can you do about your high overhead, inconsistent income, or ungrateful and overly demanding clients?Â Write down what you can do even if it’s radical, strange, or not something you want to do. If it’s something you CAN do, write it down.

There will be things on your list that you can’t do anything about it. You can’t change people, for example, only yourself. Don’t worry about what you can’t do or can’t change.

Write down as many “can do’s” as possible. When you’re done, go through the list again and see if there’s anything you can add.

You don’t have to tolerate things you don’t like. You can fix them, delegate them, or get rid of them. You can find ways to make things better.

A “can do” list is very empowering. It gives you a list of tasks and projects you can begin to work on. It gives you a checklist of ways to make your practice better, more profitable, more fulfilling. Even if you choose not to do some of the things on your can do list, you’ll feel better knowing that you have that power.

Look at your list of can do’s. Before you had problems and frustrations. Now, you have a list of things you can do. Imagine how good you’ll feel getting those things done!

What’s next? Transfer your list of “can do’s” to your task management system and hide your original list. No sense looking at what makes you frustrated (the left side of the list). It’s time to focus on taking action to eliminate problems and improve results.

A few months from now, when things are better, take a peek at your original list to see how far you’ve come. Smile. Then, start another list.

Need more income? Want to know what you “can do”? Study thisÂ and this.

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Increase your income, Inspiration, Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: lawyers who hate practicing law