Archive for year: 2012

Last fall, I shared that I’d joined a gym, and I drew some parallels between getting into the regular gym-going habit and regularly engaging in business development. If you missed those notes, you can read them here and here, and I recommend you do so.

I haven’t written about the gym since last September, partly because when things went a bit haywire in my personal life and got frantic with business, I quit going. Isn’t that the story?  I worked out on my regular schedule while I was away on vacation, but when I got back to “real life” in November, real life crowded out my goals.  (At least, that was my story.  The truth, of course, is that I allowed that crowding out to happen.)

The lessons I’ve learned from this experience apply equally to business development.

1. Take full responsibility for your choices. I would love to blame circumstances for my gym interruption.  And, in fairness, I could — life threw several big curveballs that boomeranged around over and over.  But if I blame circumstance, that puts circumstance in the driver’s seat and I can only play along.  Thanks, but no.  I’d rather take responsibility for my choices because doing so creates an easy-to-see opportunity for change.
2. Do what you can even when things fall apart. Even though I wasn’t able to stick with the workout schedule I’d planned, my fitness goals remained important and so I focused on eating well rather than using my “inability” to go to the gym as license to abandon the goal completely.  Results?  I’m down almost 30 pounds since I started going to the gym, despite the 3 months of not working out.  And my first day back to the gym was much easier than it would have been had I used the lack of workouts as an excuse to spend time with my pals Ben and Jerry.
3. Get back to your plan as soon as you can. The more fully you observe the first point, the quicker “as soon as you can” is likely to occur.  But even when you lose sight that the timing is largely within your control, keep a sharp eye for the first opportunity.  As soon as you see it, seize it.
4. Consider whether the disruption reveals the need to revise your plan. I was going to the gym for an hour a day four or five days a week.  That pace isn’t realistic for my life right now.  However, I can revise my plan and go two or three times a week and supplement with neighborhood walks.  That change takes account of my own changed circumstances and makes it much more likely that I’ll stick to the plan.

Let’s face it:  sometimes we let life or business get in the way of our goals. If you keep these tips front-of-mind, however, you’ll find a lot more success even when you might be tempted to throw in the towel and wait for things to settle down.

What suggestions do you have for staying on track under adverse circumstances? I’d love to hear.  Just click here to email me directly.

“Do first things first, and second things not at all.”
~Peter Drucker

“Action expresses priorities.”
~Mahatma Gandhi

Two blog posts that got me thinking about how I start and spend my days:

Tim Miles, “How Do You Keep Up With All This Writing“

Tim is the author of Your Customers Like This: The Whats, Whos, Hows, & Whys of Shareworthy Customer Service, which I reviewed earlier this month.  As I noted then, I’m a fan of Tim’s blog and so I’ve been delighted that he’s posted every single day this year.  And I’ve wondered how he managed that, since generating that much good content is no easy feat.  His post is helpful for those of you who write articles and blog posts (as most everyone should do) and his emphasis on ritual is worth noting and considering.  (See, for example, the discussion of ritual in The Power of Full Engagement.)

Erika Napoletano is Redhead Writing

Erika is a brash, opinionated writer who has merciless views about time management and priorities.

I’ve chosen not to include the title of this post or any of the subheadings because they include multiple expletives.  If cursing bothers you, please don’t click through to this post!

Her wake-up call is so persuasive and the directives offered are so blindingly obvious and yet easy to overlook that I’m suggesting you check it out if you’re not faint of heart.  Not all will work for lawyers or for those who aren’t sole practitioners, but the overall thrust is worth a skim.

Social media is among the hottest activities online. It comes in many different flavors:  the “big 3” (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter), Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, and many others.  When done in a way that generates conversation and connections, blogging becomes one of the most effective social media platforms available.  And yet, using any of these platforms takes time and efforts.

The biggest question I encounter about social media is, Why bother? It’s a fair question, especially given the number of lawyers who complain publicly about the lack of results from marketing via social media.  The three key reasons to use social media, however, also suggest how to use it effectively and why you should bother.

1. Use social media to build connections. Depending on the platform you use, you may build collegial consequences to serve as a sounding board for tough practice questions or you may build connections within your target market industry or individuals.  As with in-person connections, social media contacts may refer clients to you, request co-counsel assistance, or point you toward opportunities that you might otherwise miss.Isolation is bad for practice building. Social media allows you to build a wide web of connections that reaches beyond geographic limits, without requiring the time and travel required for in-person meetings.  However, don’t assume that an online-only connection holds the same value as an online connection.  Take valuable contacts to face-to-face or telephone meetings so that you can cement relationships.  You may also use social media to further develop offline relationships through repeated exposure.Remember to put the “social” in social media. Engage and interact rather than simply shouting about your latest adventure.
2. Use social media to build your expertise and develop others’ perception of your knowledge. Answer questions (exercising, of course, due care as you do so), share relevant articles or blog articles you’ve written, and share slides from helpful presentations.  Doing so not only assists your social media contacts, but it also builds a digital footprint that helps others to assess your knowledge in your area of practice.Even in the absence of interaction (for instance, the vast majority of blog readers will not post comments or otherwise interact with the author), creating and sharing content related to your practice elevates the perception of your expertise. Rather than being someone who simply recounts experience that suggests skill, you have the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge and insight.  If you use social media for this purpose, your top task is to curate information, selecting what’s likely to be most relevant for your readers, and to provide the “so what” analysis that goes beyond mere reporting.
3. Use social media to let others “meet” you before they even decide to contact you. Social media creates the opportunity to build relationships that facilitate in-person relationships.  For example, I recently met a new client face-to-face for the first time.  Although we had not met previously, we felt as if we had because we’d seen each others’ social media postings and videos.  Social media had given us the opportunity to experience one another without actually meeting, and our first face-to-face meeting had an air of familiarity as a result.Especially if your clients may be a bit leery of contacting you, this opportunity offers significant advantages. Social media exposure gives the potential client the opportunity to get to know, like, and trust you without ever interacting with you.  That familiarity with you (especially when it’s buttressed by evidence of your relevant knowledge and skill) creates comfort that may be lacking otherwise.

Social media has many additional purposes, but these three are foundational. If you’re using social media, you should be fulfilling at least one of these purposes and preferably all three.

What’s your social media plan?  And how consistently successful are you in implementing it?

Quiz: What’s the task that’s on your list over and over, daily or weekly, that makes you groan every time you think about it? Maybe it’s keeping your time, filing expense reports, updating your LinkedIn contacts, or reviewing and paying invoices. Pick the one that nags at you the most, the one that feels like it’s always hanging over your head.

My “oh no, not this again” task is filing. Even in our electronic age, I produce and receive a ton of paper. Most of it gets scanned and then filed online, and accomplishing that is my most dreaded task that feels pointless yet necessary. (Even when I’m able to delegate that to an assistant, the task is still there in some way, since I need to indicate how the filing should be done.)

My first job after law school was clerking for a federal District Court judge, and that’s where my dislike of filing began. When I started, the senior clerk suggested taking Friday afternoons to update the case files, but I always wanted to crank out a little more “real” work to finish the week instead. Result? The senior clerk would face Monday morning with a clear desk and empty in-box, and I’d have a huge stack of papers and a feeling of dread. After all, Monday is definitely for “real” work. How and when to cram in the necessary but onerous task of filing?

Unfortunately, I didn’t master the task while I was clerking. I always played catch-up and hated it, but not enough to change my pattern. And then, while practicing, I figured it out: create an on-the-spot system to ensure that the necessary but annoying “non-work” tasks get done bit by bit, on a regular basis. For filing, that means that I now tack on an extra minute or two to scan and save documents after I do the “real” work. I rarely keep time now, but when I do, I keep a pad by my desk to make running notes and tally it up at the end of the day. It’s ongoing (just like the annoying tasks) but it makes the irritation easier to handle because things don’t pile up.

How do you spot “on-the-spot system” tasks, and how do you create the system? Seven steps.

1. As you do your work, notice what “unthinking” tasks you do and dread over and over.
2. Determine the central actions of the task. Is it scan paper, save file, recycle paper, as with filing? Is it categorizing receipts from a business trip?
3. Determine how long that central action takes. Is it something that could be accomplished “in the moment” rather than piling a lot up to handle all at once? “In the moment” tasks are those that could be handled in one or two minutes, tops. (Filing correspondence, yes; writing it, no.) Is there a benefit to doing it all at once? If so, you need a system, but not an on-the-spot system.
4. Set aside time to clear yourself of the backlog. Take an hour and respond to all of those LinkedIn requests or catch up on your billing. Finish the dreaded task. Notice the feeling of delight, and notice how quickly the next task of the same kind pops up.
5. Create your in-the-moment system. Starting immediately, scan and file each paper as it comes in. Starting immediately, note your time as you work. Starting immediately, put your receipts for business trips in envelopes labeled by client or by trip. Whatever you do, begin it right away. Otherwise, your system is doomed before it begins.
6. Do the task as it arises, every time it arises. Starting work? Note the time and task. Reviewing email (in your designated email review time, please) and see a LinkedIn request? Click accept, then send a “great to connect” message, delete the email, and move on. Whatever your task, do it without delay, and don’t let it mount up.
7. When you slip (and you will) go back to step 4 and start over.

Once you get accustomed to your system, you’ll find it much easier to handle the small pieces of these annoying recurring tasks as they pop up. You may even discover that someone else can help you and that tasks broken down to the central action are more delegable than you’d imagined.