April Showers Bring May Flowers Becoming an effective networker is mission critical to growing and sustaining your practice. Business development is not typically a “quick fix” activity; you can’t expect to meet someone today and get new business from that person tomorrow. (Exceptions do, of course, exist — but don’t count on them when the […]
Take Control of The Wine List Laurie Forster, The Wine Coach® Imagine this — You are seated at an upscale restaurant with one of your best clients and then handed a wine list thicker than a college textbook. You want to pick out the “perfect” wine to impress your client but everything looks like it […]
A relatively new client who hired me to work on business development asked me this week about using Twitter and mobile marketing to push blog and newsletter content. Interesting idea, except that this client doesn’t yet have a blog or a newsletter! When I pointed that out, she pushed back at first, telling me that […]
The No [Censored] Rule By Robert Sutton, Ph.D. Note: To avoid triggering filters, I’m substituting the word “jerk” for the censored word in the title. You can see the original in the image. Dr. Robert I. Sutton is a champion of the civilized workplace, created and maintained through careful enforcement of the no “jerk” rule. […]
When you talk, you want others to listen, right? Whether it’s a now-or-never event (making a key point in an oral argument, for instance) or one in a long stream of communications (talking with a colleague about some aspect of a representation), getting your point across and making some sort of advance in what you’re […]
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The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them And People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell The subtitle of Maxwell’s book is “Follow Them, and People Will Follow You.” Each time I read that line, I hear a rejoinder in my head: “Don’t follow them, and people won’t follow you.” Revised and updated in […]
I burn my candle at both ends It will not last the night. But ah my foes and oh my friends It gives a lovely light. Edna St. Vincent Millay What do you think when you read this? If you’re like many lawyers, you felt a flutter of recognition — perhaps just before you recoiled […]
Through years of school and various jobs and activities, we’ve learned how to persist even in the face of difficulties. Persistence is an important trait, since (in the words of one of my current favorite songs) “what’s worth the prize is always worth the fight.” No fight may mean no prize, and we’ve integrated that […]
Last year was incredibly busy for me, first with writing The Reluctant Rainmaker and then with designing programs like the Lawyers Business Development Bootcamp, plus working with many 1-on-1 clients. It was a great year, but toward the fall I started to notice that I’ve met very few of my clients and newsletter readers in […]