If you’re not growing quickly enough, this may be why

September 8, 2021 by
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If your practice isn’t growing as quickly as you want it to, or you seem to be going in the wrong direction, it might be because of what you’re not doing.

For example:

You’re not keeping things simple

The simpler your system and process, the faster you can grow. There are fewer moving parts, fewer decisions to make, fewer parties to involve, and fewer things to do to go from point A to point B.

If your system is complex, everything is more difficult and takes longer, and there are too many things that can go wrong

You’re not spending your time on the things that matter most

To get you where you want to go, you have options. Different projects to start, different goals to focus on, different methods to implement, but not all options are created equal.

Some things are more important than others. 20% activities that deliver 80% of your results.

Figure out what they are and focus on them.

You’re not tolerating enough risk

To grow, you have to try new ideas, work with new people, and otherwise put yourself at risk.

If you’re not doing that enough, you may put limits on how far you can go or how fast.

In any business or professional practice, we are called upon to intelligently manage risk, not eliminate it.

To do that, you may need to loosen up.

So, there are three reasons you might be limiting your growth, and what to do about them. .

One more thing you might not be doing: giving things enough time.

You need enough time to fail so you know for certain what doesn’t work and you can correct course, and enough time for the things that do work to compound.

We all overestimate how much we can accomplish in a few months, and underestimate how much we can accomplish in a few years.

A bit of a dichotomy, yes? You want to grow faster, but to do that, you probably need to give things more time.

This marketing system can help you get bigger, faster

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Filed Under: Law office management, success

Beast mode

August 3, 2021 by
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According to the dictionary, “‘Beast Mode’ refers to a state of performing something, especially difficult activities, with extreme power, skill, or determination.”

Some people operate in beast mode all day every day.

They hustle like there’s no tomorrow. They fill every minute of their day with activity. They continually push themselves to the limit.

They don’t have an off switch. “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” they say.

When they get an idea, they try it. While others are thinking about it and researching it, they’re doing it.

Instead of launching one product, they launch 10.

They might fail at a lot of things but they make fortunes from the things that work.

Musk and Vee, I’m looking at you.

On the other hand, history is littered with the bodies of people who gave it their all but didn’t make it.

They burned out or failed and couldn’t recover.

Working harder and longer doesn’t automatically equal more success, or quicker success.

And most people couldn’t do it even if they wanted to.

On the other hand, some massively successful people proudly tell us they don’t work that hard. Warren Buffett is a notable example. But most people don’t have what it takes to do what he does.

So, where does this leave us mere mortals?

How do we find a plan and a pace that allows us to achieve big things without sacrificing our health, our relationships, or other aspects of our life?

The answer is simple.

For most of us, beast mode shouldn’t be a way of life, it should be something we turn on when we need extra power or endurance.

We need to be like David Banner—nice and normal most of the time, but turn into The Hulk when we need to.

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Filed Under: success

Does your life need to go on a diet?

August 2, 2021 by
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It was just yesterday that you started practicing. Or so it may seem. The days whiz by, don’t they? Another day, another week, another month, another year, come and gone.

Where will you find the time to do everything?

The answer is to let go of things you don’t need to do or want to do but continue to do out of habit.

A good place to start is by reducing physical and digital clutter. Clean out closets and drawers, delete apps, and cut down on subscriptions.

To do your work, you need a calendar, a place for notes, a list of tasks and projects, a tool for writing, and a system for managing and storing documents.

You probably don’t need much more.

If you do, be judicious about what you add to the mix.

You want to reduce the noise around you and simplify your workflow. You want to focus on the “precious few” instead of the “trivial many”.

The goal is to be effective, with as little friction as possible.

To do that, you need to keep things as simple as possible.

The same goes for the information you consume. Be selective about what you read. Buy fewer books and courses, re-read and study the best ones.

You don’t need every idea; you need a few good ones.

Improve your note-taking skills and habits, so you can better use the information you consume.

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens will show you what to do.

Read broadly but focus on your core skills: your practice area, marketing, writing, speaking, leadership, and productivity.

One thing you should add to your workflow if you’re not already doing it, or doing it consistently, is time for planning.

Spend ten minutes every afternoon planning the following day. Spend an hour each weekend planning the following week.

This habit will help you get the most value out of your limited time.

One more thing.

When you do your planning, make sure you schedule time to enjoy the life you’re building.

Because no matter what you do, the days and weeks will continue to whiz by and you don’t want to look back someday and wonder if it was all worth it.

The only course you need on email marketing

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Productivity, success, Time Management

If you don’t start, you can’t fail; you can’t succeed either

July 19, 2021 by
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What’s on your bucket list, your dream board, your list of someday/maybes? What projects have you been avoiding because they’re too big or you don’t have the time or you don’t what to do?

What would you love to do but have avoided because it’s important to you and you’re afraid you might mess up?

How about giving it a go?

If you’ve tried before and lost your way, how about trying again?

It’s not difficult. You only need to do 3 things:

(1) Do something. Anything.

Starting is the hardest part. Do something easy, something you feel almost zero resistance to doing.

Write a few ideas or questions, read an article, or set up a new file.

Focus on that first step, and nothing else.

Once you’ve taken that first step, you’ve started. You’re on your way.

(2) Take the next step.

It might be to write more notes or read another article. It might be to write a paragraph explaining to yourself what you want to do and why it’s important.

Whatever it is, the next step will be easier, because you’re not starting from scratch.

(3) Do something every day.

Make a commitment to yourself to keep going, and to do something every day.

Even 5 minutes.

But it has to be every day, or at least every work day.

Put it on your calendar or in your task or reminder app and don’t miss a day.

Some days, perhaps most days, you’ll work for just 5 minutes. Other days, you work for 30 minutes. What’s important isn’t how much time you give it but that you work on it every day.

Without fail.

If you work on it every day, your subconscious mind will understand that this is important to you and work on it when you’re doing other things. It will give you ideas, help you focus on the right things, and remind you to keep going.

Eventually, you’ll build build enough momentum to carry you through to the finish.

Even if you mess up. Even if it’s harder than you thought. Even if it takes longer than you imagined, eventually, you’ll get where you want to go.

Dale Carnegie said, “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

But nothing happens until you take the first step.

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Filed Under: Inspiration, success

Plan 9 from Mars

July 15, 2021 by
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We often do it. Spend too much time planning, too little time doing.

We want something, it’s important, and our fear of failure makes our inner perfectionist raise his fussy head and insist that we iron out all the kinks before we start.

It’s usually better to just start.

Because it’s not the plan that gets us there, it’s the work.

The plan gives us a place to start. A first step, maybe two or three. It gives us something to work towards, but we still have to do the work.

Nothing happens until you do.

The best way to achieve your goals: Start before you’re ready.

Write something, call someone, or ask someone for something. Take the first step, then the second, and see where it takes you.

You’ll make mistakes, spend too much money, get sidetracked with other things, but in the end, you’ll go further, faster, because you took action instead of trying to figure it all out.

If you want more clients, your plan should be to choose a marketing strategy and get busy.

You don’t need to learn everything you can about that strategy; you don’t need to figure out what you’ll do next week or next month, or even tomorrow, you need to take the first step right now.

Any step will do.

A simple plan for marketing your legal services

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Filed Under: Marketing Plan, success

Implementation intention

June 28, 2021 by
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In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear describes a British study about building better exercise habits. The participants were divided into 3 groups.

The first group (the control) was asked to track how often they exercised. The second group (the “motivation” group) was asked to track their exercise and given information about the benefits of exercise for reducing the risk of heart disease and improving health.

In addition to the above, the third group was asked to form a plan as to when and where they would exercise over the coming weeks. They were asked to write their plan in the following form: “During the next week, I will exercise at least 20 minutes on (DAYS) at (TIME) IN (LOCATION)”.

The results were remarkable. In the first and second group, roughly 35% exercised at least once per week. In the third group, 91% exercised at least once per week.

What explains the dramatic difference? The third group had a plan.

A plan about what they will do, when and where they will do it. Scientists call this an “implementation intention”.

Clear says that hundreds of studies show that “people who make a specific plan for when and where they would perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.”

“When situation X arises, I will perform response Y,” he says.

Trigger and response.

He says that time and location are keys to using an implementation intention to create a new habit, ostensibly because time and location are effective triggers.

Your mind recognizes, for example, that when it’s 6am and you’re in your den, it is your intention to meditate for 15 minutes, and so you do.

An implementation intention can help you achieve other goals besides starting a new habit.

You want to bring in more clients? What’s your plan? What will do, when and where will you do it?

Write down your plan and look at it often.

“Each weekday at 1pm, I will email 3 clients or professional contacts”. “Every Tuesday, when I’m at my desk, I will write for 30 minutes.” “Each time I close a case, I will call the client the next day to see if they have additional questions and ask them to sign up for my newsletter.”

What do you want? What will you do to get it? When and where will you do it?

How to create a simple marketing plan for your law practice

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Filed Under: Marketing Plan, Productivity, success

Tooting your horn when your horn needs tooting

June 18, 2021 by
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When you win a big case, get an award, or achieve an important milestone, don’t keep it a secret.

Tell people about that great testimonial or endorsement you received. Tell people about the results you obtained for a client.

Don’t hide your light under a bushel.

Tell you clients and prospects about your accomplishments, because they want to know they are dealing with a lawyer who knows what they’re doing. It validates their decision to hire you or send you referrals, or tips the balance in your favor if they haven’t yet taken that step.

Share your good news, especially if it suggests you’re growing–your new hires, new offices, new clients, new services or new practice areas.

When you write a (new) book, start a video channel, update your website, start a newsletter, or get invited to speak at a prestigious event, let everyone know.

It’s not bragging if it’s true.

And if it’s true, it can help you.

On the other hand, while your clients and business contacts like knowing they work with a lawyer who is smarter than the average bear, nobody really cares that much.

It’s nice, but they’re a lot more concerned about themselves.

So, toot your horn when your horn needs tooting, but don’t lay on the horn.

Because that can get annoying. Maybe even make some people jealous.

How much is too much tooting? I’d focus mostly on the big stuff, the stuff that moves the needle, and the stuff that directly benefits your clients and contacts.

Tell them about cases you win that make new law or receive a lot of press. Tell them about your new office, your new services, or the new content on your website.

But don’t ignore the review you got from a client who thanked you for being so supportive and working hard to help them. Or the new software you installed that makes things easier for you and your clients.

And when you toot, make sure you look good doing it.

Be brief, say you’re honored or thrilled, thank the people who need to be thanked, and move on.

Toot well, my friend.

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Filed Under: Client relations, Communication, Email, Image, success

When you don’t know, find a lawyer who does

June 7, 2021 by
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When you don’t know how to do something, when you’re looking for new ideas or ways to improve what you do, the simplest place to find some answers is to look at what other lawyers do.

Read their blogs. Listen to their podcasts. Subscribe to their newsletters. Analyze what they’re doing and find some ideas you can use.

Because some lawyers know things you don’t know and are better at certain things than you.

When they talk about a strategy they use to win cases, take notes. When they mention a book or blog that inspired them, read it. When they describe the tools and techniques they use to improve their productivity or results, go take a look.

Study successful lawyers and learn from them, so you can emulate them.

But don’t copy them.

Take what you learn and adapt it to your practice, your market, your style. Because you’re different and so are your clients, friends, and followers.

But. . . a word of caution.

When it comes to marketing and practice building, many successful lawyers can’t teach you anything.

They were successful because they had connections you don’t have, or spent a lot of money you don’t have (or don’t want to spend), or they were in the right place at the right time.

They had an uncle who opened a lot of doors for them, a few key clients who sent them a lot of referrals, or a case that got them featured in the right publications.

Study them. See what you can learn. But don’t assume you can do what they did.

You also need to be careful when you read lawyers’ blogs or newsletters looking for ideas you can write about in yours.

This can be a great source of ideas, but don’t automatically assume you should write about the same topics.

Why?

Because many lawyers write what they want to write, not what their readers want to read.

Just because you’re in the same practice area doesn’t mean you should write about the same subjects, or do it the way they do it.

Make sure you know your readers, so you can write what they want to read.

One more thing.

Don’t limit yourself to studying other lawyers. Read and follow and learn from other professionals and business owners who sell to or advise the same markets you target.

You may not be able to (or want to) do what they do to market or manage their practice or business, but you can learn about your target market–what they want, how they think, and how to connect with them.

Your local real estate broker can teach you things you’ll never learn from other lawyers.

How to choose your target market

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Filed Under: success

Maybe you should go on a diet

May 28, 2021 by
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If you’re like many people, your work and personal life may have gained a lot of weight lately. And by that I mean you have too much to do that’s not getting done–because you have too much to do.

Too many tasks on your daily task list. Too many projects you’re working on or plan to work on soon. Too many commitments, responsibilities, and priorities.

You work hard but often end the day feeling like you got nothing done.

If this sounds familiar, you might want to put your life on a diet.

Once a year, or more often if you think it would help, schedule a quiet day to review your life and see what you can eliminate from that big plate of yours.

What are you doing that doesn’t need to be done? What can you do less of, or do less often? What can you delegate, automate, or do faster?

Look at the people in your life, the tools you use, and the processes you follow. There’s “fat” in there and you’ll do yourself a big favor by cutting it out.

Start by taking inventory. Make a list of everything you do in a typical day and week and note the amount of time you take to do it.

When your list is done, look at everything and make some decisions.

Nothing on your list should be sacred. Make every task and tool earn the right to continue in your life.

If you’re not sure, if you find yourself arguing to keep things the way they are, you might enlist the eyes and ears of someone who can be objective. Someone who might see things you can’t see, or don’t want to.

Make several passes through your list. On the first pass, add a label to indicate things that you can safely eliminate. Tools you don’t use, projects you are unlikely to do in this lifetime, people you really don’t want to speak to again.

On subsequent passes, identify projects you could move from “active” to “someday” or schedule to review them at a later date.

Think big. Cut your current projects or goals down to one or two in each area of your life and put the others out of sight.

But don’t ignore the small things. Collectively, they can take up a lot of time and energy.

Go for “lean” and “simple”. A small list of easy tasks and important projects, things you’re excited about and look forward to doing.

Favor projects with big potential. One big project that could transform your life instead of ten projects that probably won’t.

To get there, ruthlessly cut things you’re not certain you want to keep. For now, you’re just thinking and writing. You haven’t actually cut anything in the real world and you can always add something back if you change your mind.

There’s no right or wrong way to do this. Listen to your heart as much as your head. Favor things that make you happy as much as your most sacred obligations.

When you’re done, you should feel good about what remains. And feel good about all the time you reclaimed that you can now use to do important things and achieve your biggest goals.

If you “diet” day is successful, there’s just one more thing to do. Schedule your next diet day because if you’re like most of us, you’re going to gain back some of that weight.

Click here if you want to double your income in the next 90 days

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Filed Under: Productivity, success

What if you could only have 10 clients?

May 14, 2021 by
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What would happen if you allowed yourself to have no more than 10 clients or 10 active cases at a time? Everyone else gets referred out or turned away. Or told they have to wait until you have an opening.

Because you only take 10 clients at a time.

I’ll tell you what would happen.

You would have more time to serve your clients, which would help you attract better clients and bigger cases. You would be able to charge more, have lower overhead, spend less time on admin and marketing, have more focus, less stress, and enjoy what you do.

In short, you’d earn more and work less.

That’s the theory, anyway. Is this practical? For most attorneys, no. Not without making a lot of changes they aren’t willing to make. So I’m not recommending this way of doing business to all attorneys.

I am recommending that all attorneys think about it, however, because this is the kind of thinking that can lead to some great ideas.

Ideas that can help you earn more and work less.

So. . .

What would you change about your practice if you adopted this rule? Which clients would you eliminate to make room for your 10?

What types of cases would you turn down? What would you change about your fees and retainers and billing? What expenses would you be able to eliminate or reduce?

What would you change about your work process? How would you make things easier, quicker, or more effective?

Let your mind run with this idea. Imagine what your practice (and personal life) would be like if you fully embraced the “no more than 10” rule.

You might get some ideas you can use immediately, or start working towards. Or gain valuable insights about what you’re doing well and what you need to improve.

After this exercise, you probably won’t go “all in” on the “no more than 10” rule. But you might.

Would you like to build a “100% referral” practice? Here’s how

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Law office management, success
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