A Tale of Two Sales
I went shopping a few weekends ago. I’m in the market for a new car, and I need a dark rose or burgundy tablecloth for my dining room table. I haven’t purchased either just yet (though I’m moving closer), but two very different sales experiences have offered plenty of insight. Saturday afternoon, I went to […]
Is It Too Late?
I gave a 1-hour presentation about rainmaking last week in the Chicago office of a large law firm, and following the presentation, a lawyer approached with a question: Is it ever too late to rebuild professional relationships that have languished? The short answer is that it depends on the relationship. The deeper the relationship, the […]
Five Steps to a Profitable Practice
Most of us didn’t have any law school training about business development. (Fortunately for today’s students, that’s starting to change.) Law school classes tended to assume that the clients would just be there and that being a good lawyer is all that’s necessary to build a book of business. I’m not convinced that was ever […]
Dread it? Do it.
I strive to avoid procrastinating or, if resistance is futile, to procrastinate productively. Even before temptations like Facebook and YouTube existed, I learned that wasting time would only leave me further behind and frustrated. (One exception: when I was working in a large firm, I once spent a delightful afternoon with a partner who was […]
Procrastinating? What you don’t know can hurt your productivity.
In the fall of 2013, I offered a webinar titled Conquer Procrastination! How to Manage Your Time to Build a Profitable Practice and a Rich Personal Life. It turned out to be one of my most popular offerings yet. I walked through the five root causes of procrastination and what you can do to counteract […]
Don’t Underplay Yourself
When a law firm hires me to work with a junior associate, very often one part of the engagement centers on the associate’s leadership presence and self-confidence – how he or she presents to others. (Of course, that focus is not by any means unique to junior associates.) Although reviewers may use a variety of […]
Top 10 Tips to Overcome Overwhelm
Overwhelm can tank a day faster than just about anything else. When you have more email than you can handle, an out-of-control task list, and phone calls that just won’t stop, it’s almost impossible to operate effectively. Even if you manage to limp along, you may find that you’re distracted and that things are falling […]