Lawyer networking and the 80/20 rule

July 16, 2014 by
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Lawyer networking–is it a good use of your time?

Some say that formal networking (the way most people do it) is a low yield activity. They say that the people you meet at chamber of commerce and other formal networking events are unlikely to have much business to give you. They are networking because they need business. The ones who have plenty of business, and thus plenty of referrals to give you, are not at the events, they’re at the office helping their clients.

I’m not sure I’m willing to accept this as a universal truth, but let’s say it was true. If you’re thinking about networking as a means to grow your practice, does this mean you should reconsider?

No. It means you need to approach networking with a different agenda.

One way to do this is to forgo meeting most of the attendees at these events and instead focus on meeting the organizers and speakers. These people know the people at the events, and many more who aren’t. They can steer you towards prospective clients and other professionals who might be a good match.

Meeting these centers of influence allows you to leverage your time. You will have to work just as hard to build a relationship with them as you would with anyone else, but if you are successful, that relationship could yield far more results than a relationship with someone who is just starting out.

On the other hand, networking with people on their way up can also be a good thing. They may not have much business to give you right now, but if you stick with them while they grow and become successful, they could become good clients or referral sources.

Spend 80% of your networking time courting high-value connectors and centers of influence. Note that these people are probably sought after by others who want to know them and may also have attorneys to whom they are already committed. These people may be a tougher nut to crack, but if you are successful, they could open many doors for you.

Spend 20% of your networking time building relationships with people who can’t do much for you now, but might someday. They may be small potatoes, but in a few years, they may be so busy, you’ll never have a chance to meet them.

The Attorney Marketing Formula helps you create a plan for marketing your practice

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

Getting things done by getting rid of your to do list

July 8, 2014 by
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No matter which method of task management we use, the challenge we all face is having a task lists that has become unmanageable.

Right now, I have over 600 “next” items on my list. (I keep everything in Evernote using tags.) That’s too many.

The “Getting Things Done” (GTD) system requires us to go through our lists once a week, to update our priorities for the following week. But my list is too big and it’s been a long time since I have done a weekly review.

Please don’t tell anyone.

The weekly review is what makes the whole system work. When you stop, you no longer have a task management system, you have a library.

How do I fix this?

I’m thinking about doing something drastic.

I’m thinking about starting over. Clean out the list and start a new one.

Yep, get rid of all of my “next” items and start from scratch.

What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll forgot something I haven’t thought about in months? It couldn’t be that important, could it?

Don’t we pretty much know what’s important? Aren’t we already working on what we need to do right now? Don’t we also know what we’ll probably do after that?

And we’re got our calendars for anything with a deadline.

A clean slate sounds like it would be delightful, doesn’t it? After you add back a handful of “next” tasks you remember or that come up this week, your weekly review will be quick and easy. You won’t avoid it. You’ll start getting things done.

But letting go is hard to do for a lawyer. Too many “what ifs”.

So here’s an safer alternative:

Move all of your tasks to a temporary folder or apply a temporary tag. Then, go through everything one time and decide if it should still be on your next list. If so, add it back. You will probably delete a good portion of your list this way.

Of course the danger with this safer method is indecision. We have too many things we are sure we need to do, and we can’t eliminate them.

Being a lawyer can be a royal pain in the arse.

Okay, if you can’t decide, move those tasks to “someday”. Keep your next list lean and mean.

Yes, we’re also supposed to go through our someday list during our weekly review. But if you don’t, if you go through it every six months, or every once in awhile, I won’t tell anyone. Pinkie swear.

See how I use Evernote to manage tasks and projects. Click here.

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

Striking a balance between accessibility and availability

July 3, 2014 by
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At one extreme are lawyers who are always available. They give out their cell phone number to everyone, answer their own phone, and respond almost immediately to email. There is no buffer between them and the world.

At the other extreme are lawyers who are hard to reach and hardly ever available. Clients and prospects speak to intermediaries. If they want to speak with the lawyer, they make an appointment and it might be days or weeks before that takes place.

Always being available is neither good posture, nor a good way to value and manage your time. If you are always reachable, people will start to expect it. You don’t make your schedule, others do.  It doesn’t allow you to focus on the most important people and tasks in front of you. And, if people can’t reach you when they want to, as they have come to expect, you will have disappointed them.

Some lawyers can (and do) successfully maintain the other extreme. They are very difficult to reach and are thus seen as successful and desirable. Not everyone can pick up the phone and speak to Donald Trump whenever they want to. You have to pass through the gauntlet before you get an audience with The Donald.

It takes the right practice area and clientele to pull this off, however, as well as a high degree of confidence. If you are inclined towards this position, do you establish these guidelines first, before you are busy and successful, or do you evolve into this persona when you’ve got the chops to prove it? Tough call.

For most lawyers, it’s probably best to strike a balance between availability and accessibility. Be reasonably accessible but not always available. Don’t give out your cell phone number to everyone, reserve that for your inner circle or perhaps also for your best clients. Don’t make people wait weeks to see you, but don’t tell them they can see you “any time this week”. (Give them a couple of open time slots later in the week.) Don’t ignore messages or turn everything over to intermediaries. Return messages in a reasonably timely manner.

Show people that you are accessible but that you value your time and are busy doing important work. Unless it is an emergency, they need to accommodate your schedule, and they may need to speak to someone else before they can speak to you.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client relations, Image, Law office management, Productivity

5 critical skills to teach yourself before opening your own law office

June 27, 2014 by
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Reasonable minds may differ, but rarely do they differ so completely.

Exhibit A is this article: 5 critical skills to teach yourself before starting your first business. The skills, along with my comments:

1. Daily routine

I wouldn’t classify this as a skill. More like a habit. Quibbling aside, should this really be number one on the list of “critical” skills to teach yourself “before” starting your first business? Valuable? Yes. Critical? Not really. Could you develop this habit after you start your business? Um, yes you could. But then, reasonable minds may differ.

2. Email management (etiquette, productivity, security)

Okay, you haven’t opened your business, so you’ve got no emails to worry about. Are these skills going to bring in business? Help you get financing? Or do anything else a new business owner needs to survive and thrive? And couldn’t you just read an article or two to learn what you need to know and do?

3. HTML and CSS

Seriously?

I run a business. I know basic HTML (very basic) and nothing about CSS. I certainly didn’t need to learn anything before opening shop. I could make the case that this knowledge is even less important today, in view of WYSIWYG options like WordPress.

4. Marketing and Promotion

Finally, something we can agree on. Sort of. Marketing is a critical skill (a set of critical skills, actually), but you learn marketing mostly by doing it. Reading about it (or taking classes) doesn’t provide real world context.

In the real world, you learn an idea, you try it and see how it works. You adjust, make changes or try something different. You develop your skills by taking to real people. You learn by making mistakes.

In my humble (but accurate) opinion, you will learn more about marketing in a month of running your business than you will  in four years of college.

5. Data Analytics (Google, social media metrics)

Seriously?

Again, helpful, but not critical. And something you can learn as you grow. By the way, I can’t remember the last time I checked my stats. Just sayin.

Okay, what do you think about the author’s choices of critical skills?

What’s that? You want to see my list? Well, I have a different take on the whole subject.

I think that what’s needed before opening a business or a law office aren’t skills so much as values and attributes. Things like guts and persistence, the desire to change the world, a love of problem solving, and a passion for what you’re doing. That, and a big pile of cash, so you have time to learn and make mistakes.

I don’t think there any critical skills needed before opening your own law office. But if you want to be successful, here are 5 critical skills you should develop as soon as you can:

1. Salesmanship

Lawyers sell clients on hiring us, judges and juries on finding for us, and opposing parties on settling with us. There’s probably no more valuable skill for a professional or business owner than the ability to communicate ideas and persuade people to act on them. But like marketing, this is best learned in the act of doing.

2. Writing

If you’re not a good writer, you need to become one. You can read and take classes, (hint: study copy writing) but you have to apply what you learn. Write every day. In a year, you can become a good writer.

3. Networking

Arguably the most valuable marketing skill for professionals.

4. Leadership

Leadership is a skill and it can be learned. And it should be. If you have employees, or intend to, if you want to become a leader in your community or organization, study leadership, and start applying what you learn.

5. Touch typing

In terms of every day productivity, this is the skill that that I would put at the top of the list. And hey, it is something you can learn before opening your own law office.

That’s my list and I’m sticking to it. So there.

The formula for marketing legal services.

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Filed Under: Copywriting, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Networking, Productivity

How to be more creative

June 26, 2014 by
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You’re in a rut. Every day you do the same things. The spark is gone. Your creativity machine has become rusty.

What if you played a game where you used your imagination to come up with some fresh ideas?

It’s called, the “What if?” game and it will help you be more creative.

Let’s play.

What if you were marketing used cars instead of legal services. What would you do to get more people to your showroom, sell more cars, or earn more from each car sold?

Well, you might hold a big sale. “An extra $500 off on any car this weekend only”. You might have elephant rides on your lot and encourage people to bring their kids. You might take your sales people on a retreat and have a trainer teach them some new techniques. You might also have that trainer consult with you on how to motivate your sales team with bonuses, trips, and other incentives.

Okay, that was fun. It was nice to think about things you could do if you weren’t constrained by law and propriety. You discovered that you can still be creative.

But so what? You can’t really use any of these ideas.

What if you could? (Yep, still playing. . .)

You’re probably not going to hold a sale, but perhaps you could put together some kind of limited time offer. “Book your appointment this week and get free document updates for life.”

You’re not going to have elephant rides in your building’s parking lot, but how about adding a toy chest and coloring books to your waiting room so clients can keep their kids occupied?

What about that employee retreat and sales trainer idea? You actually could do that. Bring in someone to teach your employees how to work with clients, to keep them happy and stimulate referrals.

If you want to be more creative, look at things from a different perspective. Think about the question or problem as if you were a different person, or under a different set of circumstances. Imagine you had different tools or different skills.

In other words, think like a kid.

Kids don’t settle for the way things are. They use their imaginations. They think about the way things could be. They ask, “What if?”

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , ,

The power of one: getting things done for procrastinators

June 16, 2014 by
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Are you a black-and-white kinda guy or gal? I mean, do you have things you’d like to do but haven’t started because you’re not ready to give them your full attention?

You know what I mean. You either do things full force, or not at all. You don’t want to start a newsletter or blog, write a book, or join a networking group because of the perceived immensity of the task or the ongoing commitment.

You’re a perfectionist. And you aren’t getting things done.

Of course you know that by not doing certain things, you’re losing some great benefits. How many new clients, new cases, and new opportunities are you missing out on by putting off these things?

But what can you do?

I’ll tell you what you can do. You can stop thinking about the big picture (and avoiding it) and just do “one thing” to advance the project.

Instead of writing an entire book, write one page a day.

Instead of becoming a networking ninja, set a goal to meet one new professional this week.

Instead of putting off calling all of your former clients to say hello, make one phone call today.

One is a powerful number. It is the difference between not doing and doing.

You can do one.

One page, one idea, one phone call. Progress, not perfection.

So figure out one thing you can for each of your important projects and do it. One thing a day, one thing a week, one thing a month, or just one thing for now.

If you can do that one thing, even once, you can do it again. Before you know it, the project will be complete or, if it’s an ongoing project, well underway.

Start your marketing plan. Click here for help.

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Filed Under: Marketing Plan, Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , ,

Are you chronically late? Here’s why and what to do about it.

June 9, 2014 by
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Are you chronically late? Late to court. Late for appointments. Late getting home for dinner. If you are, there’s a reason.

You’re late because you want to be.

Being late serves you in some way. You may not be consciously aware of this, but it’s there nevertheless. How do I know? Because showing up on time is completely under your control.

I’m not talking about the things that happen to everyone from time to time. A traffic accident, a judge who keeps you late, an emergency at home. Stuff happens and everyone is occasionally late. But if you are frequently late, it’s because you want to be.

You choose to be late. You can choose to be on time.

You can schedule appointments far enough apart to give you enough time to get from one to the other. You can set alarms and reminders on your devices to let you know when it’s time to leave. You can get apps that provide traffic alerts. You can ask your staff to help you get out the door.

So why don’t you? I don’t know. All I know is that you don’t have to be.

I read an article that offered several “reasons” why people are chronically late. To my eye, they aren’t reasons in the sense that you don’t have control over them, they are excuses. They are HOW you CAUSE yourself to be late.

Sleeping late is the first on the list. You sleep late because you’re not getting to bed early enough. That’s how you cause yourself to be late. The question is why. You have free will. You can decide when to turn off the lights. You don’t because sleeping late serves you in some way. Perhaps it allows you to excuse less than excellent performance at work. Perhaps being late is merely a part of the process, or a byproduct.

In Eighth grade, I had to deliver a report in front of the room. I wasn’t ready and asked the teacher if I could have another day. When I was told I could not, I told him I didn’t feel well. That was true. I felt like crap because I was going to have to deliver a report I wasn’t prepared to give.

The teacher sent me to the nurse. Called my bluff, he did. The nurse did what nurses do, she took my temperature. Surprise–I had a fever. The nurse called my mother and sent me home and I had another day to prepare my presentation.

Our minds are powerful instruments. They can make us sick when we want to be, and they can make us late when we want to be.

You don’t have to be chronically late. Just like you don’t have to smoke, overeat, or watch too much TV. You can change your habits any time you decide to change them. So the next time you’re late, don’t make excuses, and don’t feel bad about it. You’re late because you wanted to be.

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

I don’t have enough time. (Yes, you do.)

June 3, 2014 by
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We all know super busy people who seem to get more done in a day than we do in a week. They don’t have any more time than we do. They simply have different beliefs about time.

Most people believe time is scarce. They believe that because time is finite, there’s never enough of it to do what we need to do. But our beliefs create our reality. If you believe you don’t have enough time, then you don’t. If you have an abundant view of time, however, if you believe there is more than enough time to take care of everything that’s important, you will always have more than enough time.

How do you change your beliefs about time?

One way is to treat it like money.

If you believe you will always have enough money, you probably will. People who are generous with their money, tend to have plenty of it. People who tithe, for example, often report that money comes to them faster than they can give it away.

If you want to change your beliefs about time, give it away. That’s one idea that caught my attention in a post about re-framing our attitude about time.

“I have enough time to be generous with it”–is a surprisingly effective antidote to the time-scarcity mindset. Simply giving your time away to others, even as little as ten minutes, creates a sense of “time affluence.”

I can hear what you’re thinking: “You can always earn more money, but you can never get back your time.”

This is true, but too literal. We’re not keeping score, here. We’re trying to change beliefs.

I think giving away time as an attitude adjustment mechanism would be very effective for lawyers who often equate time with money. (They shouldn’t, in my opinion; but they do). “What? Give away billable time? Like, for free?”

Yes, for free.

“I don’t know, that doesn’t make any sense. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with that.”

I understand. But maybe that’s exactly why you should try it. You might be surprised to find that like money, the more you give away, the more you have.

I use Evernote to manage my tasks and projects. Click here to learn more.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management

Scrivener, oh how I love thee

May 30, 2014 by
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I’m just putting the finishing touches on a new book. I wouldn’t be able to say that had it not been for Scrivener, a writing app that has changed my entire work flow. If it hadn’t been for Scrivener, I’m sure I would still be struggling to cobble together hundreds of pages I’ve written into something anyone would want to read.

Scrivener’s genius is that it allows you to break up your writing into shorter parts (chapters, scenes, snippets), and then arrange and re-arrange those parts to your heart’s content. Compare this to MS Word where you either have to open multiple documents or have one very long document. Cumbersome, at best.

Scrivener provides a huge number of features for outlining, writing, organizing, editing, and outputting your work. You can outline with note cards on a cork board, and re-arrange the cards to suit. You can use a traditional outline if you prefer. You can organize your work in folders and text documents, add labels and meta data, and link notes and research materials (text, pdfs, web pages), internally (i.e., within the project) or externally (i.e., on the web, on your hard drive, etc.)

When you’re done, you can export the finished product (”compile” in Scrivener parlance) to just about any format—pdf, .doc(x), .rtf, .epub, .mobi, and more).

Scrivener isn’t only for books. In fact, I’m writing this post in Scrivener, using Full Screen Mode that allows for distraction free writing—just me and a blank piece of digital paper.

I bought Scrivener more than two years ago. The first time I opened it, I was overwhelmed. There is so much to see, and so many ways to use it, and I told myself I didn’t have time to learn everything. At the time, I didn’t realize I didn’t need to learn everything to start using it. For two years, it sat on my hard drive, unused. I opened it a couple of times, and updated it when prompted, but nothing more.

Last fall, I decided to give it another try, and I’m glad I did. Today, I’m fully on board with Scrivener as my primary writing tool.

You can use Scrivener for any kind of writing. Books, articles, papers, reports, or blog posts. You can write legal documents in it, (but you’ll need to expert them to a word processor for formatting).

The bottom line is that Scrivener allows you to write more, write faster, and write better. I know, that’s a big claim, but I’ve found this to be true. I encourage you to give it a try and see for yourself.

Download Scrivener for a thirty-day free trial. Note, this is thirty days of use, not thirty calendar days, so there’s plenty of time to give it a whirl.

The Windows and Mac versions are marginally different. The Windows version, which has just been updated, lags behind the Mac version, but I have not found it to be lacking. By the end of this year, the company says they hope to achieve feature parity between the two versions. They also hope to release an iOS version.

Once you have download the program and opened a new project, you will be prompted to go through the tutorial and read the detailed user guide. I found these to be only somewhat helpful for a first time user. Instead, I would recommend watching some of the youtube videos provided by the company and by users.

I also suggest that you dive in and use the program. Write something, import something, and play around with it. Take the thing for a test drive. I learned how to use Scrivener by using it, and it was a lot easier than I imagined.

True, I’m still learning. I use only a fraction of the features that are available. But I haven’t needed more.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Technology, Writing Tagged With:

Grow your law practice by training your creative muscles

May 29, 2014 by
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If you’re like me, you don’t finish every project you start. Not even close.

On your hard drive or in a box in your closet lie countless half-written articles, outlines for seminars that have never seen the light of day, and volumes of clippings related to things you thought you might do someday.

It’s okay. You don’t have to do everything you think of, or finish everything you start.

At some point, though, you have to finish something. Not just because it might be useful to you in your work or another aspect of your life, but because finishing things is the cutting edge of growth.

I know you finish things every day. You settle cases, you draft documents, you produce. But most of what you do in your work is routine and unlikely to lead to anything more than incremental growth.

If we want to take a quantum gigantic leap in our personal and professional life, we need to do things we’ve never done before. We need to create.

Creating strengthens your creative muscles. The more you do, the more you will be able to do. In time, you’ll be able to take on bigger projects, the kind that can create fortunes.

You will also train your subconscious mind to find new ideas to tackle. The more you say “yes” to the ideas your mind serves up, the more ideas it will bring you.

Eventually, you will have an abundance of big ideas, and the capacity to bring them to life.

Go through your electronic notes and physical repositories and find something you can finish. Start with something small, something you can finish today. Then, do something bigger.

It doesn’t matter if what you create is any good, or even whether you use it. What’s important is that you get in the habit of taking on new creative tasks and finishing them.

If you want to grow your law practice, start by growing yourself.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, success Tagged With:
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