What’s your number?

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There’s an old maxim that 50% of marketing efforts are a complete waste of time. The problem is, as the punchline holds, that nobody knows which efforts fall into the 50% that succeed.  That’s amusing only if it’s untrue.

I’m quick to climb up on a soapbox and start to rant when a client or a prospective client (or, for that matter, anyone within earshot) bemoans the “fact” that they just can’t bring in new business. Woe is me, it’s hard, the skills don’t come naturally, I may as well quit. I try to quell my irritation (and remember that I once felt similarly), but it’s easy for me to jump into conversation with a prickly request that’s designed to catch the bemoaning would-be rainmaker short:

What’s your ROI on each market effort?


If you don’t know the ROI at least in qualitative terms, you’re operating in the dark. (You really should know or be able to get quantitative information, as well, but let’s focus on basics for now.)  The truth about marketing is that some of it will fail gloriously, some will succeed wildly, and most of it will just kind of tick along with nothing special resulting.

ROI matters because, in the words of Lord Kelvin, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”

Two key factors help to determine your ROI.

  1. Objective-defined measurement. While it’s great to build relationships through networking, if all of those relationships remain friendly or personal in nature and never cross over into business, your ROI is zero.  (Of course, ROI depends on your objectives:  if your goal is simply to meet colleagues and build professional relationships, your ROI could be stratospheric without your landing a single client.  That isn’t a business development objective.)
  2. Conversion rate. If you’re looking at ROI for business development purposes, conversion and ROI are almost synonymous.  A conversion rate, at its most basic, describes the ratio of new clients (or new business) to consultations with the potential client.  You must know your conversion rate.  Why?  If you don’t have enough business, a conversion rate of 20% suggests one avenue for improvement whereas a 90% conversion rate means that your problem is somewhere upstream of a sales conversation.  Diagnosis leads to solution.

Depending on what kind of marketing activities you’re doing, you should also know conversion rates for your newsletter sign-ups, your follow-ups after making a call to action in the course of a presentation, and for your direct mail marketing, for example. At the very most basic, do you know how each of your clients found you?  And do you keep records over time so that you can track effectiveness?

It’s important that you know your ROI “number” so that you can guide future activity. One of the most dangerous mistakes I see comes to light when someone really, really believes that a marketing effort will succeed and when he maintains that belief despite evidence to the contrary.

If you’re reluctant to evaluate your ROI, consider the possibility that you may be making a conscious decision to engage in unproductive activity. Maybe what you’re doing is comfortable.  Perhaps it pleases someone else.  There’s no sin in continuing unproductive activity when the lack of results is acknowledged, but I see too many people who are willfully blind to the lack of results, and that only keeps them stuck.

If you aren’t tracking your ROI, start today. Ask yourself how ROI should be measured for the activity you’re undertaking.  For example, is new business the right metric, or is it building strong relationships with a particular group?  In some cases, if you’re building your credentials, you can get tremendous ROI simply by writing an article, having it published, and then using the basis of the article for a presentation.

Once you’ve defined the right measurement, track your activity and results and perform an ongoing analysis. After three to six months, you should have enough ROI information to determine whether the activity is producing results.  If you don’t have solid qualitative data, at a minimum, within six months, guess what?  The activity probably isn’t producing.

If you’re one of those who’s very busy with business development activity but unhappy about the outcome, and if you aren’t tracking your ROI, we should talk.  Please contact me to set an appointment for a complimentary consultation.

How to Adjust for Chaos

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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.

Priorities of Trust

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I’m in the middle of two renovation projects. You’ll see the results of one project in the next few weeks, as I life the curtain on some significant changes to the face of my business.

The messier renovation by far is taking place in my home and my home office. It’s been loud, with lots of dust and people dashing through the house, often needing answers to questions I hadn’t even thought to contemplate.  My mantra has become, It will be worth it when it’s done!

My contractor is terrific. He’s creative, thoughtful, thrifty, and careful, and I’ve recommended him to several friends.  When I told him yesterday that I’d passed on his name again, he looked somber for a moment and then said, “Tell them that I’ll be with you until the job is done.  If they’re in a hurry, they’ll need to call someone else.  I won’t shortchange you just to get another job, and they have to understand that.”

I’m not his only customer, but really?  I feel as if I am. He’s doing a few other small jobs along with mine, and he’s renovating other houses he owns and plans to sell.  He always has time for me, he answers all of my questions (annoying though they must be, since I know nothing about renovations), and he’s always thinking about what would make my job come out the best it can possibly be.  He’s even made some suggestions that are not related to the renovation, and they’ve been right on point.  I am absolutely thrilled to be working with him.

I feel as if my job is the most important job he’s handling. No matter what comes up (and in a house built in the mid-1920s, there’s lots that does come up), I know he’s on top of it and he has it handled.  He’s on the job, so I can breathe easy.

Can you inspire that kind of trust?  Can you treat all of your clients as if they’re your only client? It’s a challenge I’ve assigned myself.  Not easy, but certainly worthwhile.

Quotes of the Month

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“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.

Daily Busyness

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This past week has been so busy that it’s made the hours I kept while in practice look appealing. Those of you who are sole practitioners or equity partners know that being a business owner as well as a practitioner means that you burn the midnight oil even more often than non-owners.

My current busyness is the result of great developments:  clients who are up to big things, new opportunities, and working behind the scenes on some significant projects that you’ll hear about soon. But it still means that I have more work than hours in a day.  Perhaps you can relate?


I recently read a quote that reminded me why I encourage (and practice) the discipline of daily business development activity.

“A small daily task, if it be really daily,
will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.”
~Anthony Trollope

The same point applies to all manner of pursuits. I’m working to do the small daily tasks in my most critical areas of business and life, no matter what else is going on.  It isn’t easy, and I don’t always succeed, but consistent effort gets me much further than delaying important tasks.

What are your small daily tasks? What are you doing to keep track and make sure you’re getting them done?

Why Bother?

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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?

Two Must-Show Qualities

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The Whats, Whos, Hows, & Whys of Shareworthy Customer Service
By Tim Miles

Sometime last year, I began receiving emails from a blog titled The Daily Blur, written by Tim Miles. I have no idea why I got on the list (though I’m sure I subscribed) but I found value in almost every email, so I kept reading.  Tim is a Mac aficionado, and his emails helped guide me through my switchover.  Handy tips, links to interesting posts across the ‘net, but I still wasn’t quite sure what the blog was all about.

After what seemed like a long silence in the Fall and early winter, I began getting daily emails at the beginning of this year, and they started focusing on customer service with a Jan. 9 post that announced “Best Buy Made My Mom Cry”. A long series of posts culminated in the eBook The Whats, Whos, Hows, & Whys of Shareworthy Customer Service, which is available for a minimum 99-cent donation to Touchpoint’s Central Missouri Autism Project.  Being a sucker of a win/win proposition, and having been impressed with the blog series, I bought.  So should you.

According to Tim, “shareworthy” customer service is composed of “policies and procedures that arouse such delight in customers that they head to Facebook and Twitter and their blogs to brag about you.” Realistic for lawyers?  Probably not, given the sensitivity of the matters we handle for clients.  What is attainable, however, is service that will prompt your clients to tell their friends and colleagues about you, service that makes it a pleasure to deal with you even (or perhaps especially) when the underlying matter is anything but a pleasure.  You might even get call-outs on Facebook or Twitter, not to mention positive reviews on LinkedIn, Avvo, and the like.

Tim suggests that “shareworthy” service always has two common threads:  professionalism and kindness. Each of these threads breaks down into seven subcategories, which Tim calls the 14 Facets of Shareworthy Customer Service:

Professionalism

  • Appearance
  • Attentiveness
  • Consistency
  • Dependability
  • Focus
  • Proactivity
  • Simplification

Kindness

  • Active listening
  • Empathy
  • Engagement
  • Memory
  • Manners
  • Playfulness
  • Privilege

Nailing these “whats” of shareworthy client service isn’t easy. It takes thought, creativity, and dedication.  It also takes willingness to discover and shift following a failure.

Stories of terrific customer service help to inspire creativity, and Tim shares plenty of stories. One recounts the experiences of visiting the Cleveland Clinic.  A hospital with great patient service?  I’ve never heard of that before, but it appears that the Cleveland Clinic delivers from the get-go in ways that lawyers might adapt, such as making quick appointments designed to match the patient’s schedule, a website and social media presence that provides a plethora of useful information, and a health information file that patients can access and update.  You can deliver amazing customer/client/patient service, regardless of whom you serve or what you do.

Where Tim’s eBook excels (and where it goes substantially beyond the series of posts I mentioned earlier) is in its implementation section — the “how” of shareworthy customer service. In short:  get granular.  Ask your staff to implement each of the 14 Facets.  They may know more about what frustrates and what delights your clients, and they’ll certainly have insight that you’d miss otherwise.  What’s more, they know what will energize the team, the ones who create the client service experience.  Energize the team, get them thinking about how to dazzle the client, and you change your clients’ experience.

What if you don’t have a staff, or if you’re a cog in a large firm wheel? You can still apply Tim’s insights.  You’ll find it helpful to get input from others about what kind of client service they want and need, and you can even seize the opportunity to ask your clients for their suggestions.  (You’re a large firm associate with little direct client contact?  Remember, the more senior lawyers with whom you work are your clients.)

There’s more to it, of course, and I encourage you to buy the eBook for the rest of the story. It’s 93 pages long, you can read it in no time flat, and your brain will light up with ways that you can make your clients’ experience better.  I’m always skeptical of something that only costs a buck, and especially skeptical when a product purchase benefits a charity, but I’m glad I took the plunge on this — and even happy that I chose to pay more than the recommended 99 cents.

As for me, I felt inspired when I finished the eBook, and I have a list of changes to make. It’s tough work that always delivers rewards.  If you’re ready to improve your client service, buy Tim’s eBook today and read it by the end of the weekend.

Make It Simple

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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.

The Main Thing…

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I’m back in the office this week between two business trips. Last year, I decided to cut back on travel, and I’m now away less than a week each quarter – not counting my annual 3-week vacation. Being in the office more than out has highlighted the importance of staying on task in a few ways.

When I have more time available to be at my desk, I find that it’s easy to get pulled into non-essential busywork. Email is a terrific example. When I’m on the road, I’m ruthless about clearing out my email. I read, act, and delete as quickly as possible. But if I’m not attentive, that pattern slips when I’m in the office. Decisions get delayed (no time to read it now, but I’ll save and read it later… really!) and email piles up.

I’ve also noticed that a long stretch of time in the office increases the risk of scheduling my work around others’ priorities. When traveling, my flexibility is naturally limited. When I’m in the office, my scheduled is less fixed – if I don’t have a client meeting, it’s easy to reschedule blocks of time I’d intended to dedicate to long-term projects.

A friend often reminds me, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”And so I ask myself each morning, what’s the main thing for today? Whether I’m in the office or on business travel, asking that question gives me immediate focus.

In this week’s post…“I’m sharing a few favorite quotes about focus. We all talk about it.

What’s your main thing?

Quotations of the Month

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

— Alexander Graham Bell

“An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.”

— Edward de Bono

“Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.”

— Aesop

What You Know Can Keep You Stuck

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Book Review: Strategy and the Fat Smoker

By: David Maister

As the title of David Maister’s book Strategy and the Fat Smoker suggests, the problem isn’t that we don’t know what to do: it’s that we do know and yet we choose to ignore that knowledge. Maister promises a dose of “real” strategy: “Real strategy lies not in figuring out what to do, but in devising ways to ensure that, compared top others, we actually do more of what everybody knows they should do.” In other words, it’s all about implementation, and that’s the focus of the book.

Organized in sections pertaining to how organizations should think about strategy itself, clients (including marketing and selling), and management, Strategy and the Fat Smoker speaks to those who understand that knowing without doing brings little value. This can be a trap for lawyers, because we like to find the best answer and so we can research and think and plan well past the point of diminished returns. But “best” can sound like “perfect,” and perfect is unattainable.

Maister’s introductory chapters on strategy include several gems, including:

If you truly want to succeed (and many people do not want it badly enough to make it happen) then you must never settle, never give up, never coast, never just accept what is, even if you are currently performing at a high level.

and

[T]he primary outcome of strategic planning should not be analytical insight or smart choices, but a superior resolve to accomplish something.

and

The best way to approach this re-evaluation [of the organization’s purpose, mission, vision and values] is to begin with a very small inner circle of top management leaders, who can look each other in the eyes and ask: “Are these really the decision rules we as leaders are prepared to stick with?”

Maister invites readers to plunge in with any chapter, and Chapter 17, titled The Trouble with Lawyers, invites study. Maister’s preface to this chapter indicates that he originally wrote it to explain, “Why lawyers and law firms are different from other professions.” He then notes that others in consulting and the financial services industry identify with the culture and behavior that Maister ascribes to the legal profession, but almost any lawyer who reads this chapter will recognize that Maister is indeed speaking to us.

Maister highlights four problems that prevent “lawyers from effectively functioning in groups:”

  • problems with trust;
  • difficulties with ideology, values, and principles;
  • professional detachment; and
  • unusual approaches to decision making (referring to lawyers’ propensity to attack any idea presented to locate and highlight its weaknesses, with the result that “within a short time, most ideas, no matter who initiates them, will be destroyed, dismissed, or postponed for future examination.”)

Having identified and explained these peculiarities, Maister asks why lawyers do so well financially if the profession is riddled with these problems. His answer?

The greatest advantage lawyers have is that they compete only with other lawyers. If everyone else does things equally poorly, and clients and recruits find little variation between firms, even the most egregious behavior will not lead to a competitive disadvantage.

Writing in 2007, Maister suggests that only client pressure is likely to compel firms to begin to act “as firms — delivering seamless service, practice areas that have depth (and not just a collection of individualistic stars), and true, cross-boundary teamwork.” The last few years have demonstrated exactly that client pressure, and some firms have prospered while others have self-destructed. Maister’s books (including the classics The Trusted Advisor and Managing the Professional Service Firm) offer numerous insights into how lawyers and firms may shift with (or even in advance of) client pressure.

Other chapters of Strategy and the Fat Smoker have application to lawyers and firms as well. (See, for example, a chapter on client relationships that asks the key question, Do You Really Want Relationships? and the chapter titled Strategy Means Saying “No”.) The book does an excellent job of delivering its subtitled promise of teaching organizations and individuals to do “what’s obvious but not easy.” It’s readable, practical, and insightful. Buy it, read it, and apply it.