success Archives - Page 3 of 33 - The Attorney Marketing Center

Do more of what works?

September 7, 2023 by David M. Ward

Yesterday, I quoted Peter Drucker’s comment about the “aim of marketing” and shared my thoughts. Today, I want to chew on another quote from the man which you will surely recognize. It begins:

“Do more of what works. . .”

That sounds like good advice, but how do we know when something works?

If we get desirable results, we have to say it’s working, but what if we could get better results doing something else?

Or doing the same thing, but differently?

We might dramatically improve our results by changing our words, our process, our timing, or by involving different people. In which case, continuing to do what’s working might not be best.

We should always look for ways to make what’s working work better.

Hold on. What does “better” mean?

In the context of marketing, better might mean bringing in more clients, but it might instead mean bringing in clients who have more work for us, bigger cases, or work that is more profitable.

“Better” could also mean “easier”. Or more enjoyable. Or more consistent with our values and long-term goals.

Okay, we get the idea. Don’t stop doing something that produces desirable results unless you find something better and always look for something better.

But we can’t ignore the second half of Drucker’s quote, “…and quickly abandon what doesn’t (work)”.

What does this mean?

No results? Poor results, compared to what? Results that require too much time and effort, i.e., aren’t worth it?

And, if we determine that something doesn’t work, should we completely (and quickly) abandon it? Doesn’t it make sense to see if we can fix it?

So many questions.

The full quote, “Do more of what works and quickly abandon what doesn’t” is easy to understand and remember. It isn’t bad advice, just incomplete.

But it’s a great place to start.

Filed Under: Productivity, success

How do you know if it’s working?

August 25, 2023 by David M. Ward

Everyone says, “Do more of what’s working and let go of (or change) what isn’t”. I said it myself yesterday. But how do you know if something is working?

Sure, the numbers. Your return on investment. How many new cases or clients, how much revenue, how many leads, what percentage you close.

Are you hitting your KPIs, getting lots of butts in seats, increasing your list of subscribers and followers?

Yes, the numbers tell the story. But not the entire story.

Because there are things you can’t measure. Testimonials, reviews, and new referral sources which haven’t (yet) paid off but could soon rock your world.

Invitations to speak in front of a prestigious group, being endorsed by an influential professional in your target market, or meeting the right person at the right time.

You can’t measure these things. Or predict their effect. The small case that doesn’t pay much (or anything) but leads to a big referral. Writing 20 articles that nobody reads and then someone does read one, likes it, forwards it a friend, and it goes viral and brings in a steady stream of new business.

You don’t always know something is working. Or where it might lead.

The numbers aren’t irrelevant and in some situations (advertising) they are critical. But you can’t always count on the numbers. So, I propose another way to tell if something is working.

Are you having fun?

Fun? Yes, fun.

If you’re enjoying what you’re doing, you’ll want to continue. You’ll do it regularly and enthusiastically, without forcing yourself or reminding yourself. You’ll be more creative and consistent. And your excitement in the doing, not just the results, will attract clients and referral sources and opportunities galore.

Do more of what’s fun. Because if it’s fun, it’s working.

Filed Under: Marketing Plan, success

Start with the end in mind

August 2, 2023 by David M. Ward

What does it mean to ‘start with the end in mind’? It means instead of starting from where you are and moving forward, you start with your goal and work backwards.

We usually start with where we are right now, and that’s okay, but it’s not always clear what to do next. You’re shooting into the dark and make it more likely to get distracted or waste time figuring out what to do.

When you start with the end, the last step before reaching the goal is the first step in your plan.

Sounds crazy, but try it with your next project or goal.

Let’s say your goal is to sign up 10 new estate planning clients in the next 60 days, who pay you an average of $10,000, and you want to accomplish this via referrals from your current and former clients.

That’s the goal. What do you do?

You ask yourself if you could accomplish that goal tomorrow and when you say you can’t, you ask, “What would I need to do (or what would have to happen) first?”

You might say that you would need appointments with 20 prospective clients (assuming you typically close one out of two). “Could I see 20 prospective clients tomorrow?” No. “What would I have to do first?”

You might answer that question several ways, but let’s say you decide you would need to have 75 clients contact 3 people they know and tell them about you and what you can do for them.

They would explain to their friend why they hired you and why their friend should do that, too. Your clients would send them information you provide about estate planning, your services, and a special offer or incentive.

Could you send all that to your clients tomorrow?

No. First, you would have to write the email you want your clients to send to 3 people they know, your report or other information, and the terms of your special offer.

You’d also have to compose the email you will send to your clients asking them to email this information, or the outline of a short script you can use if you call them instead.

Could you write and send all that tomorrow? Let’s say you can’t. You first have to outline what to write and make a list of clients to send it to.

Could you do that tomorrow? If you could, that’s your plan for tomorrow. That’s your first step.

There might be more steps, different variables, or a completely different plan, but this is the process for laying out everything you need to do, in the order in which to do it.

When you have a goal or a project and you’re not sure how to get started, start with the end in mind and work backwards.

Filed Under: Productivity, success Tagged With: planning

To dream (and achieve) the impossible dream

June 30, 2023 by David M. Ward

Think bigger. Follow your dreams. Don’t play small. We’ve heard all this before (and probably said it a time or two) but do we do it?

No. We’re lawyers. Logical, careful, traditional. We don’t like risk. At least when it comes to our business.

So we take ten years to reach our goals, if we reach them at all, when we might reach those goals in one. That’s what authors like Tim Ferriss, Benjamin Hardy, Grant Cardone, and others tell us.

“Impossible goals are easier to accomplish than “possible goals” they say. And they actually have a point.

When you set reasonable goals and seek incremental growth, to increase your income by 10%, for example, you have too many options and strategies to choose from. These are the “trivial many” in 80/20 parlance. Small ideas, common strategies, that are likely to only reach small results.

To grow by more than 10%, we should be looking at the “precious few”.

To increase your income by 10%, you might look for a new marketing technique or improve an existing one. You’ll do what you’re already doing or something like it. With hard work and a little luck, you might achieve the goal. But because the goal is small and unexciting, you also might lose enthusiasm, get busy with other things, or bump heads with every other lawyer who is trying to do what you’re trying to do.

Instead of walking, you need to run. Instead of playing it safe, you need to do things you’ve never done before.

Not only are these likely to be more exciting and motivating, they are the only things that offer you a chance of achieving massive growth.

The reason they do that is simple. Impossible goals force you to innovate and find things nobody else has thought of, let alone is doing. Find and focus on those precious few ideas, connections, or strategies, and you can grow much bigger and much faster.

Impossibly big goals help us to “shape the process,” in part by making us ask better questions. If you ask, “What would I have to do to increase my income by 10% this year?” you get a long list of options. If you ask, “What would I have to do, or what would have to happen, to grow my income by 1000%?” you get a very small list of options to choose from, and you only need one.

The idea comes from “constraint theory” which is explained in the book, “The Goal”. Every goal, but especially a big goal, has a core restraint or bottleneck that is keeping the business from achieving it. Most people don’t focus on the bottleneck or constraint. They focus on the 80% that doesn’t matter.

Growing by 10% is about doing more. Possibly a lot more and for a long time. Growing by 1000% and achieving your impossible dream is about doing something different.

Filed Under: Leverage, success Tagged With: 80/20 principle

Nobody messes with mom

June 29, 2023 by David M. Ward

Promise your mother you’ll do it and you’ll do it. Because nobody messes with mom.

Accountability is a proven method for getting things done you might otherwise not do. When someone else is watching and will call you out when you don’t do what you said you would do, you are much more likely to do it.

In school, you may have had a study partner you met in the library who kept you accountable. You showed up because you didn’t want to explain why you didn’t.

In law school, you might have been in a study group where you agreed to brief certain cases and present a summary to the other members. You did it because they were counting on you.

Today, it might be your spouse, your law partner, or a business coach. Someone you know who is watching and will call you out if you don’t do what you committed to do.

Try it sometime. If you are pursing a goal and having trouble sticking with your plan, having someone hold you accountable might be just the thing that gets you to stick with it.

But there’s something else you can do. You can hold yourself accountable to yourself.

Start your day with a written list of tasks you intend to do. At the end of the day, write down what you did and didn’t do.

That’s it. The simple act of writing down what you did and comparing it to what you said you would do keeps you self-aware and accountable. You can’t cheat because you know the truth.

You’ll either follow your plan or change it. Changing it is okay because it’s your plan. So when you change it, you’ll know, and either be okay with that or feel guilty and change it back.

Unfortunately, there is another possibility. You might quit.

You’ll quit because accountability is a bitch. That’s why it’s so effective.

And, if holding yourself accountable isn’t working, there’s only one thing left to do.

Yep, call your mom. She won’t let you get away with anything.

Filed Under: Productivity, success Tagged With: accountability

Going on a research diet

June 16, 2023 by David M. Ward

If you’re like me, you never know if you’ve done enough research. There’s always more to look at and, God bless us, we can’t help ourselves—we keep looking.

In school, in business, and in a law practice, due dates and deadlines come to our rescue. We “call a lid” because we have to get the work out the door—or else.

When there is no deadline imposed by a teacher, a client or court, however, it’s a different story.

How long have you been planning and researching that book or business project?. Exactly.

You never know when you’ve done enough research so you keep doing more, just in case.

Perfectionism? Self-doubt? Imposter syndrome? Call it by any name, but it boils down to our fear of making a mistake.

But we can’t spend our life in perpetual research. At some point we have to say, “enough”.

But how?

One way is to redefine the project or goal. Instead of doing enough research to write the book, for example, the task is to do enough research to START writing the book.

But that’s only a partial solution because you will inevitably see something that calls for you to do more research.

What then? How do you know when you’ve done enough?

You don’t. Not by any logical metric, anyway. You’re better off trusting your gut. When you feel pulled towards the finish line more than you feel pulled to doing more research, you go with that.

It’s your only option. Unless you’re prepared to hold yourself accountable to someone else. A partner, spouse, or friend—someone who won’t let you get away with endless research.

Someone who will kick your butt for you. Like your teacher, your client, or the court.

Filed Under: Personal development, Publicity, success, Writing

“You’ve got to explode out of the mud!”

June 14, 2023 by David M. Ward

When you can’t seem to get started on a big project, or make progress on one, or you’re struggling with a difficult situation and don’t know what to do, typically, you change your approach. You do more research, try different tools and different strategies, and little by little, step by step, you climb out of the mud.

And that usually works.

But sometimes, the mud turns into quicksand, and you’re stuck. And the harder you try, the harder it is to get out.

You need a different approach. Instead of tinkering and looking for incremental solutions, you have to do something radical.

“You’ve got to explode out of the mud,” says CEO and author John Addison.

To do that, you’ need to change how you think about things. And use your imagination.

Look at what others have done when faced with similar challenges and ask yourself, “What would (this person) do if they were in my position?” You couldn’t find the answer. Maybe they can.

If your goal seems impossibly difficult, ask yourself, “What would I do if this was easy?” If things are going too slowly, ask, “What would have to happen for me to finish this project in the next 30 days?” Or, “What would I do if I had one year to live and failure was not an option?”

If you’re stuck, pretend you’re not. Pretend you know what to do to explode out of the mud.

Filed Under: Productivity, success

Expensive? Damn right!

June 9, 2023 by David M. Ward

When you look through the app store, you see more than a few complaints about certain apps being too expensive. They’ll tell you why and compare the app to others that are available for less.

Guess which apps sell the most? Which apps are the most profitable?

Yep. The “expensive” apps.

People may complain but they want high quality and they’re willing to pay more to get it. The’ll tell you why, right there in their review. They say,“It’s expensive, but worth every penny.”

Which just happens to be what you want your clients to say about you.

Of course, you have to get the “worth it” part right first. You can’t raise your fees and expect clients to pay top dollar for services that aren’t “worth it”. But if you are worth more, you should charge more.

You will lose some clients who can’t afford you, it’s true. But more than make up for that loss by higher revenue from the ones who stick and the new ones to ome along.

What could you do to increase your value so you can justify higher fees?

That’s what you have to figure out.The good news is it doesn’t take as much as you think.

In marketing, perception is everything. You don’t have to get the highest verdicts and settlements or have the most prestigious clients to qualify. Other factors come in to play. The things your clients say about you, the people you associate with, the causes with which you are identified, are also important. So are the articles you write, the interviews you give, your videos and podcast and presentations..

They are all part of how people perceive you and thus part of the value you offer.

And guess what? Your fees are part of that, too. Charge more and people assume there is a reason. They assume that if other people pay those higher fees, you must be worth it, because people associate price with quality.

Bottom line, increase your fees and do what you can to get everyone to say you’re worth it. If enough people say it, it must be true.

The Attorney Marketing Formula

Filed Under: Attorneys fees, success

Why we don’t do things we know we should

May 25, 2023 by David M. Ward

My dad always told his business clients not to sign any contracts without showing them to him first. More often than not, they didn’t listen, usually because they didn’t want to spend the money.

No doubt you’ve seen the same thing in your practice.

Why don’t clients listen?

For the same reasons you don’t do things you know you should.

You’ve repeatedly heard from me and others about the value of staying in touch with your clients and prospects. You’ve heard that you should delegate more of your work and not try to do everything yourself. You’ve heard about the value of improving your writing, speaking, and interpersonal skills.

You know these things, but don’t always do them.

Maybe you don’t want to spend the money, or the time. Maybe you’re busy. Maybe you intend to do them but forget.

But the biggest reason you don’t do these things, and others, is that you don’t believe they are important. Or important enough. Because if you did, you would.

Think about it, if you truly believed that staying in touch with your clients and contacts via a weekly email (for example) could help you double your practice in less than a year, you would do it, wouldn’t you?

If your clients truly believed that calling you before they sign a contract would save them a lot of money and a lot of grief, they would do it.

Reminders help. Accountability helps. But if you want to change your clients’ behavior, or your own, work on their (and your) belief.

Show clients and prospects what happened to other clients who didn’t follow your advice. Show them testimonials and positive reviews and success stories of people who did.

Because if you say it, they can doubt it. If your other clients say it, it must be true.

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Filed Under: Email, Newsletters, success

Think bigger, run faster, work harder

May 24, 2023 by David M. Ward

We’re often told that hard work is the answer. I say hard work can be a path to success, but it’s not the only path. Just look at how many people bust their butt every day but make little (or no) progress.

Some people are successful by showing up consistently over a long period of time. Objectively speaking, they don’t work hard or run fast. They do a little every day, do it well, and keep doing it. They improve their skills, deepen their relationships, and allow their efforts to compound.

Slow and steady wins their race, while others burn brightly and burn out.

Some people have good business connections and leverage them effectively. Some have money to burn. Some people are smarter than average, some have more charisma, and some happen to be in the right place at the right time.

There’s also the “passion” factor. Some people love what they do and their enthusiasm and joy for doing it attracts people and opportunities that allow them to leapfrog others who are just doing a job.

Here’s the good news. We get to choose our path. Some choose to work hard, some choose something else.

We need to give ourselves permission to choose the path that’s right for us, and remind ourself to focus on our strengths instead of trying to run fast enough to overcome our weaknesses.

When we do, we can not only get where we want to go, we can enjoy getting there.

Filed Under: success