Archive for year: 2014

Overthinking can ruin your plans. One of the biggest mistakes I see lawyers make is coming up with a good, solid plan and then discarding it before ever giving it a shot. Overthinking takes the oomph out of a strategy, and there’s no better way to short-circuit than to let fear take over and reverse a decision.

This week’s quote is right on point.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy. 

 Dale Carnegie

There you have it. Go out and get busy!

“Pressure is what you feel when you don’t know what you are doing.”
– Peyton Manning

This quote stopped me in my tracks. My first inclination was to disagree, because I sometimes feel pressure because of a deadline or because of the importance of some activity, even though I know what I’m doing.  Digging a bit deeper, though, I think Manning has a point.

When it comes to business development, the lawyers most under pressure are those who don’t have a cohesive plan, who aren’t implementing their plan consistently, or who haven’t fully committed to one or more activities that are likely to help them secure work.  Although they know what they’re doing on certain levels, there’s a disconnect between intellectual knowing and buckling down to do the work. If you know that you should request an on-site meeting with a client, for example, and you expect that you might well land more business or receive a referral or even deepen a valuable relationship, but you don’t ask for the meeting, you’re going to feel pressure.

In contrast, if you have a plan that you’re implementing consistently, though you may feel tension until you see results from your plan, that tension is different in nature. When you know what you’re doing, both in terms of the specific activities and the timing, you also know that you can shift your plan as needed to tweak your results.

You know that you have something that’s fundamentally workable. You’ve done your homework and you’ve prepared yourself and your plan.

Do you feel pressure about business development? If you do, take a few minutes today to get to the source of that pressure. You’ll probably find that it’s one of these issues:

• You don’t know what you’re doing (you don’t have a plan or you don’t know how to implement some aspect of your plan)
• You don’t know how to make time to implement your plan consistently (so you never have an opportunity to reach momentum)
• You don’t know how to perform one or more activities incorporated in your plan (and so you haven’t even started)
• You’re terribly uncomfortable about some aspect of your plan (you aren’t confident that you can engage in business development activity without harming relationships… or your ego)
• You need to bring in new business now and you don’t yet know that your plan will work (you haven’t implemented your plan and you’re focusing on the need for business rather than on your ability to meet that need)

Which of these issues underlies the pressure you’re feeling?  Once you’ve identified the problem, you’re that much closer to solving it. If you aren’t sure where to start, please schedule a complimentary consultation so we can get acquainted and mutually decide whether I can help.

My first legal job was serving as a clerk for the Hon. J. Owen Forrester of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. I knew I wanted to be a litigator, and so working for a trial judge was my idea of the perfect job. Sure enough, I learned lessons that have lasted the test of time.

Judge Forrester died on July 1, and while attending his funeral, I asked a number of his other clerks the most important lesson he taught them. Interestingly, every person alluded to exactly the same lesson:

To be effective, solve the root problem rather
than spending time on peripheral, non-dispositive issues.

The application is clear in litigation: if you can dispose of (or win) a case based on jurisdiction or standing, very often you won’t have to address more contentious matters. You’ve heard the saying bad facts make bad law, and applying this lesson offers a way around that problem.

Today, I apply this lesson in consulting with clients about business development through planning and strategy. Without a cohesive, strategic plan, no tactics can be ultimately successful. When I begin consulting with a client, I always start with the plan, and sometimes that even leads to a deeper root issue (like what kind of practice you want to build) that must be resolved before we can create a viable strategy.

Judge Forrester taught me many other lessons critical for business and business development, including the importance of integrity and compassion; the necessity to offer more than reason alone when crafting an argument; and how to research a controlling decision back to its wellspring to understand it.  Most importantly, the Judge demonstrated his respect for every person who entered his courtroom—and the willingness to withdraw that respect if it was abused. I draw on these lessons in my professional and personal life, and they serve as the support for all of the work I do with clients.

A mentor is irreplaceable, and I (and many others) will miss the Judge terribly. But I know that he would be gratified to know that his lessons will live on and will be handed down.

What lessons have you learned from your mentors? And what lessons are you teaching those who look to you?

You have competitors, and depending on your area of practice and your geographic area, you may have lots of competitors. How can you stand out? I’ve covered some options previously here and  here, for example.

One of the key ways to distinguish yourself is to go where your ideal clients and referral sources are and to deliver something of value to them. That often means speaking, writing, teaching seminars, and so on. All true, all potentially effective (especially if strategically selected with proper follow-up in place), but it all starts to sound a little wah-wah-wah, like the teacher’s voice in Charlie Brown TV specials and the NON-MOBILE version.

I read a good, if somewhat sensationalized, article this week titled 12 Most Savvy Ways to Go From Anonymity to Thought Leader. While it’s a bit of a stretch to say that using these 12 tactics will by themselves vault you to the top of your field, when you use them and direct your efforts to an appropriately niched audience, you will garner attention that will build your credibility as a practitioner.

The 12 tactics include: 

• Address your customers’ concerns: find out what questions and concerns your clients have, then create articles, blog posts, issue updates, videos, podcasts, etc. to address those topics. Let your audience direct your content rather than expecting your content to influence your audience.
• Go where your customer is: use multiple avenues of influence to reach your target clients, including traditionally published articles, blog posts, tweets, videos, podcasts, etc. Bonus tip: when you generate content in one format, ask yourself how else you might use that content. Don’t recreate the wheel every time.
• Get quoted by the media: with the explosion of content generated every day, journalists need fresh sources. Get to know journalists and build connections (blogs and Twitter can be effective platforms for forming these connections) and offer your insight. Also be sure to subscribe to HARO and monitor it (or, better yet, have an assistant monitor it for you) for inquiries you might answer.
• Shine in the light of a better-known partner: look for others who interact with and influence your ideal clients and who are well-respected by them, and look for opportunities to partner with them. 

The article includes either additional routes to raise your profile. Choose one or two and start implementing them today.