How much should you market?

There’s one question I’m asked over and over: How much time should I spend marketing? Depending on the situation, I may respond in terms of how many hours a week a lawyer should spend marketing at various stages of practice, in terms of the minimum amount of time a lawyer should invest in marketing where there isn’t enough time to keep a full schedule, or in terms of what current results indicate about future activity. All of those measures are valuable, but there’s really a deeper question that most lawyers forget to ask….

What activities count as marketing? There’s active marketing (finding opportunities to speak to potential clients or referral sources, for example) and passive marketing (such as writing a blog post or article and waiting for it to garner suitable attention to lead to an inquiry from a prospective client). You probably know the broad buckets of activities within each of those categories…

But there’s a better answer.

Next time you wonder whether you’re marketing enough, think about how you’re approaching the people you encounter and whether you need to market better, not just more.

Getting real about connections

He spent the first 45 minutes typing on his phone.

My college friend Helen came to visit me recently, along with her partner of four years whom I’d never met. Tom pulled out his phone as soon as he sat down and kept it out for almost the whole evening. When we tried to draw him into conversation, he’d respond and then return to his typing, and when Helen prompted him to talk about his work, he pulled out his phone to show us some videos related to his job. Tom has a great smile and friendly eyes, but I didn’t get a feel for who he really is. Technology prevented the connection.

Now, you’d never spend time typing on your phone when you meet someone new for business development purposes, right? But think about these instances in which one might unintentionally let technology block a beneficial connection:

  • You’re attending a conference and you spend breaks checking your email and voicemail to avoid getting too far behind instead of chatting with someone new.
  • You make a new connection on LinkedIn (or other social media) but don’t take the relationship any further.
  • You email a client or contact instead of picking up the telephone—not because you know that the person you’re communicating with prefers email, but because it’s easier for you.
  • You have a follow-up plan in place for new contacts, and it relies primarily on email or social media.
  • You’re so busy processing email during a flight that you don’t even notice the person in the seat next to yours, much less speak to him or her.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these scenarios, but if they repeat frequently, you’re probably missing out on opportunities. Technology can extend your reach and allow you to work in places you couldn’t have in the past. It’s a strength to use technology well, but any strength overused becomes a weakness.

How can you use technology well for business development purposes? Use it to connect on a regular basis with people interested in your practice (through newsletters, blogs, and social media), to identify and contact people with whom you have common interests, for quick check-ins, and so on, but…

Especially in the early stages of building a business relationship, you’ll benefit from making the effort to interact face-to-face or by voice. Think about the contacts you plan to make this week and ask yourself whether a visit or telephone call would advance the relationship more effectively than an email–and keep your eyes open for new opportunities that you might miss if you’re engaged with technology rather than with the world around you.

What’s really stopping you?

You’ll find information on how to land new business anytime you pick up a law practice management magazine. You can’t avoid advice and resources about business development. And maybe that’s a good thing.

If all that information hasn’t helped you to develop your own method for securing new work, there’s something you need to figure out more than how or even why to get new business… 

It’s what Seth Godin describes as “help and insight about getting to the core of the fear that is holding us back.”

Read this quick post, and then get honest with yourself about what fear is getting in your way. (Some common fears that I see are fear of seeming desperate or needy, fear of rejection, fear of disapproval, and fear of looking foolish. It’s worth noting that I have yet to see someone fail because of a fear of success.)

Need help with this? Let’s talk.

Want change? Think goal, not tactics

What if you could make it easier to change your habits and meet your goals? That’s the promise of The Key to Lasting Changes: Think Goal, Not Tactic on the Harvard Business Review Blog. Elizabeth Grace Saunders. The post’s author, proposes three steps to help “identify tactics that will actually work for you and keep your focus on your big objectives:”

  1. Determine which goals you’ve been unable to meet despite your best efforts;
  2. Brainstorm other tactics you could use to achieve your goals; and
  3. Test one of your hypotheses.

As Saunders recognizes, change will always require discipline, patience, and practice. In other words, change requires effort, but it doesn’t have to be hard. 

I’ve been using these steps recently to change a long-standing but detrimental habit of using my email inbox as a tickler file. Using a new folder for items that require follow up and an If Then Then That recipe to create a reminder on my calendar, I’ve been able to clear those items from my inbox. Not only is my inbox cleaner (which feels good), but I’m better at follow-up. That’s a huge win.

What would you like to change? Give Saunder’s process a try. I’d love to know how it works for you.

Informal networking for pleasure and (maybe) profit

Clients have been asking a lot of questions lately about networking. Whenever you have an opportunity to meet people, it’s a networking opportunity. If you expand your thinking beyond business networking, you’ll find that you can make useful connections just about anywhere. That means that you could bring back more than shells from your next beach vacation, if (and only if) you have a plan in place that will let you connect with people in a friendly way that opens the door to business conversation if appropriate. Here’s how you do that… 

First, keep your eyes open for opportunity. Especially since so many people are on smartphones and tablets all the time, it’s easy to miss a good connection. And if you’re open to talking with others, you may find that reading a newspaper or magazine makes you more approachable than reading the same thing on a device. Because this is casual networking, don’t try to be strategic about the people with whom you’re talking. Unless you’re in a pre-selected group of people, you’ll find it difficult (if not impossible) to isolate someone who’s ideal for your business purposes.

Make your overture. Your opener doesn’t need to be special or memorable, fortunately. Try ordinary openers like, “First time at this resort?” “How’s the coffee here?” or even a simple greeting. Remember how you meet people when you’re just being friendly? Do that.

Ask questions in a curious (but not prying) way. Your goal in asking questions is to find a point of connection. That might be business, but more likely you’ll start with a personal connection, like a shared hometown, kids who are the same age, or a spouse who begged off whatever you’re doing to spend the day by the pool. A caveat here: don’t be the person who starts off by asking, “So, what do you do?” It doesn’t matter whether you’re at your child’s soccer game or at a resort in Fiji, that question is more likely to close conversation than to open it.

Keep this quote in mind:

At some point, work will probably come up naturally in the conversation. If not, there’s no harm in asking.

If you discover a potential business connection, share what you’ve found and suggest continuing the conversation at a later time. Share enough to pique curiosity (the nature of your mutual interest, how you might benefit each other, what you might be able to offer), and then suggest a later telephone conversation or meeting for business conversation. Although it will occasionally be appropriate to talk business in the moment, more often you’ll find too much other activity nearby and a lack of privacy.  Here’s more on how to handle this stage of the conversation

Be sure to get contact information for follow-up, and where it’s appropriate, follow up as soon as reasonably possible. If you’re vacationing, you might wait until you get home, but if you bumped into someone new at your child’s camp or at a friend’s barbeque night, send a quick email or LinkedIn connection (with a personalized introduction!) within 48 hours.

If you don’t discover a business connection but you enjoy the person, keep talking. Perhaps you won’t find any business benefit from the connection, but you might be able to make a useful introduction to someone else, or maybe you’ll just make a new friend or pass a pleasant few minutes chatting. That’s the beauty of informal networking.

How committed are you?

The topic of commitment has been coming up over and over in the last few weeks. What’s the first thing you think when you think of commitment in the context of your practice?  Without commitment in three particular areas, success is unlikely.

Commitment to business development.  To get consistent results in building your practice, you must be consistent with your business development efforts.

When I consult with a potential client who wants to secure more work, I always ask questions to uncover not just what business development activities they’ve tried, but how consistently they’ve tried them. That’s because when a practice is underperforming, consistency is always lacking.

  • Calendar your plans and keep a checklist, divided into daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly activity.  This kind of reminder keeps you from leaving your activity up to chance.  It also avoids allowing your activity to slip when some change in outside circumstances might undermine habits you’ve developed. 

    One of my former clients wrote articles for a publication every other month for several years, but when the journal that published those articles closed, he neglected to put writing for publication on his checklist, and guess what?  He quit writing.  He found a couple of journals that were eager to publish his articles and added writing to his quarterly task list so it wouldn’t slip through the cracks again, and his stalled list of publications began growing again.  Checklists and schedules will help to keep activity consistent.
  • Commitment to clients.  I have observed lawyers who are so committed to growing their practices that they focus almost solely on getting the next new client, leaving behind current clients.  Legal ethics rules mandate a minimum level of client service, but when’s the last time you felt good about receiving merely adequate service?

    If you want to succeed in practice, make it your habit to create value for your clients through exceptional client service.  That means providing the substantive service the client needs, plus providing it in a way that surpasses need.  Every lawyer will do this in a different way that suits the lawyer, the practice, and the client. A few ideas: be proactive, share information, educate your clients about topics that are relevant to their needs, and look for opportunities to introduce your clients to other professionals they should know.

    Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable has many ideas on crafting service that will delight your clients.  
  • Commitment to succeeding in the business of practicing law.  What’s your backup plan if your practice doesn’t prosper?  Many lawyers, risk-averse by nature and training, need to have a backup plan to feel secure, and that isn’t a bad thing.  However, having a fallback can be a sign of serious trouble.

    I once spoke with a lawyer who told me that she was excited about moving in-house, but that if things didn’t go well, she could always go back to the firm she was leaving.  Plan B so permeated our conversation that I virtually guarantee she’ll be back at the job within a year.  And that’s ok, except that she’ll return with a feeling of failure if she doesn’t recognize that she was never really committed to building her own practice.  (I would be remiss not to note, though, that without a book of business, she may find it difficult or impossible to return to private practice or to return at the same level she held when she left. That’s part of the business of practicing law as well.)  
  • If you start every week (or every day or every project) with Plan B in mind, that’s where you’ll end up before you know it.

So, where’s your commitment level in each of these areas? You only have three options with respect to these three areas of business: get committed, find an alternative, or look for another way to practice law.

Legal Marketing: How to build business development commitment, consistency, and frequency

I’ve often drawn the analogy between business development activity and going to the gym. Both require commitment, consistency, and frequent activity for optimum results. For both activities, success comes only when you step outside what’s comfortable and familiar. And building muscle is likewise spot-on for both.

This summer, I’ve been swimming laps almost every morning. While I was swimming last week, I thought of another similarity: consistency comes more easily when the activity is fun. I really enjoy swimming, but especially when I’m focusing on increasing the number of laps I can squeeze into my timed swim, it isn’t that much fun.

After I’d hit my goal of swimming at least five times a week, I bought a waterproof iPod, and now I listen to music while I swim… And that brings back the fun for me. I usually look forward to spending time outside, enjoying music, and getting in some activity. Sure, I still have those days when I really don’t want to get in the pool, but as soon as I get in and turn on some of my favorite music, that reluctance fades away. More often than not, my swim time passes quickly, and I’ve done extra laps a few times just because I’m enjoying it.

Even if you enjoy business development activities, I’m certain you hit days when you just don’t want to do it. Those days when you’re tired because of other things going on, when you’re discouraged because you aren’t seeing results, or you’re just not in the mood. And if you think of business development as a necessary evil, every day might be an “I don’t wanna” kind of day.

That’s when you need to find your equivalent of the waterproof iPod. How can you build fun into business development? Here are a few ideas that have worked for my clients over the years:

  • Meeting a contact at a new restaurant each week
  • Inviting clients (or prospective clients) to go fly fishing, wine tasting, white water rafting, or boating
  • Launching a competition to see how many effective follow-up contacts you can make in a certain number of minutes
  • Planning a special side trip or spa day when you attend an out-of-town conference
  • Eating a special treat (which may or may not be healthy) every time you sit down to write an article
  • Taking a walk while planning a presentation, pausing periodically to dictate notes directly into Evernote 

Fortunately, the possibilities for bringing fun to business development are limited only by your imagination. What might you do to make the time more pleasurable so that you can build your commitment, consistency, and frequency of engaging in business development activities?

Achievable work/life balance? It’s possible.

Last week I offered an idea on how to manage business development through upcoming hectic vacation times, and boy did that strike a chord! I received a bunch of responses asking for more suggestions.  And so…

This week I’m reprinting a 2011 review of Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life by Wharton professor Stewart Friedman. This book asserts that building an integrated life calls for finding activities that will benefit more than one domain of your life (work, home, community, and self) so that you can maximize the positive effects of each action. Instead of doing one thing to serve your practice and another to serve your family, maybe there’s a way to serve both at the same time—and perhaps even your community and your self as well. It’s the soundest approach I’ve seen to living a high-performance, satisfying professional and personal life. And doesn’t that sound more achievable than work/life balance?

Book Review: 

Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life

By Stewart D. Friedman

Spurred by conversations I’ve been having with clients recently, this month’s book review focuses on “work/life balance” or (as I prefer to call it) work/life integration.  As I’ve previously written, self-management is a critical skill for leaders.  That it’s also a challenge is reflected in the number of leaders who excel at work but have less satisfactory home lives, or those who prioritize “success” above health and suffer the consequences.

In Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life, Stewart Friedman urges leaders to seek “four-way wins,” meaning high performance in the four domains of life: work, home, community, and self (mind, body, and spirit).  Achieving these wins creates “total leadership,” which in turns creates sustainable change to benefit the leader and the most important people around him or her.

Traditional “work/life balance” principles, which suggest that there’s one single point called balance and innumerable other points that are unbalanced.  That connotation is why I prefer the phrase integration to balance, and why I find Friedman’s approach to be so helpful.  By recognizing that our lives are more than “work” and “everything else,” Friedman opens the possibility that we don’t have to live on a see-saw.  Instead, we can find give-and-take among the domains, ideally finding activities or ways of being that serve all four.  Doesn’t that sound better than stealing time from work to serve life, or vice versa?

Scoring four-way wins is grounded in a clear view of what you want from and can contribute to each domain of your life, now and in the future.  Naturally, you must pay thoughtful consideration to the people who matter most to you in each domain (the “stakeholders”) and the expectations you have for one another.  Doing so raises the likelihood that you will take steps that serve not only yourself but also the stakeholders in each domain. Otherwise, you might end up with a brilliant plan that suits you perfectly but undermines or alienates colleagues, friends, and family members—or one that serves everyone in your life except yourself.

Having done this foundational work, the next step is to systematically design and implement carefully crafted experiments, doing something new for a short period to see how it affects all four domains.  If an experiment doesn’t work out, you stop or adjust, and little is lost.  If it does work out, it’s a small win; over time these add up so that your overall efforts are focused increasingly on what and who matter most.   Either way, you learn more about how to lead in all parts of your life.  The ROI that Friedman reports is truly impressive:

In a study over a four-month period of more than 300 business professionals (whose average age was about 35), their satisfaction increased by an average of 20% in their work lives, 28% in their home lives, and 31% in their community lives. Perhaps most significant, their satisfaction in the domain of the self – their physical and emotional health and their intellectual and spiritual growth – increased by 39%. But they also reported that their performance improved: at work (by 9%), at home (15%), in the community (12%), and personally (25%). Paradoxically, these gains were made even as participants spent less time on work and more on other aspects of their lives. They’re working smarter – and they’re more focused, passionate, and committed to what they’re doing.

Four-way wins tend to have direct impact in one domain of life and indirect impact in others.  For example, a commitment to working out three mornings a week directly benefits the leader’s “self” domain, with better health and reduced stress, and the work and home domains indirectly benefit as the leader focuses more effectively on matters at hand, has greater emotional stability, and is a better “partner,” whether to colleagues or family members.

Each individual will create his or her own unique experiment, but Friedman has identified nine general categories of worthwhile experiments:

  • Tracking an activity and reflecting on progress toward a goal: increases self-awareness
  • Planning and organizing: find ways to use time more effectively and plan for the future
  • Appreciating and caring: building relationships
  • Focusing and concentrating: being fully present to key stakeholders
  • Revealing and engaging: enhanced communication and relationship-building
  • Time shifting and “re-placing”: changing when and where work is done
  • Delegating and developing: passing appropriate tasks to subordinates and assistants
  • Exploring and venturing: taking steps to align the four domains of life with a leader’s core values and aspirations

As Friedman recommends, tracking the results of the experiment is critical, and tweaking an experiment as it proceeds will often increase the benefits.

What’s in it for lawyers?  Friedman’s approach is an evidence-based approach to help lawyers learn to make changes that will benefit all aspects of their lives.  Choosing no more than three experiments, measuring the results, and then deciding whether to continue the experiment removes the “high stakes” nature that so often tanks sweeping changes.  (For example, how often have you sworn “never” to do something again, only to find yourself doing the foresworn activity within the next few days?)  This excerpt encapsulates why I expect Friedman’s work will speak to lawyers:

The best experiments let you try something new while minimizing the inevitable risks associated with change. When the stakes are smaller, it’s easier to overcome the fear of failure that inhibits innovation.  You start to see results, and others take note, which both inspires you to go further and builds support from your key stakeholders.

If you’ve been looking for a workable work/life integration solution, pick up Friedman’s book.  You’ll find it a rational, sensible approach that will offer substantial directions toward a life you want to lead.

Legal Marketing: What’s today’s biz dev goal?

In the northern hemisphere, we’re looking forward to summer break, while southern hemisphere dwellers are looking toward a winter break. Wherever geography may place you, at some point or points over the next couple of months, you’re probably going to be facing an even stronger than usual collision of work, personal commitments, and culture-driven expectations. “Spare” time, probably never plentiful, will become even more rare. 

It’s easy to let business development take a back seat during this time (or when you’re especially busy otherwise), but instead of dropping back simply because you can’t squeeze in a lot of activity, set one simple goal a day. Get in touch with someone you’ve been meaning to contact, send a useful resource, put some time into turning your LinkedIn connections into real relationships.

Here’s why:

Your task: for the next thirty days, select and accomplish one strategic business development action each day. If it doesn’t work for you, you can always go back to spasmodic action… But chances are that you’ll see significant benefit from this simple approach. And if you don’t know how to select the right step, check this post I wrote in 2011.

Legal Marketing: How do you handle silent rejection?

It’s hard to hear “no” when you’re working to increase your visibility through speaking or writing or when you’ve asked a potential client for new business. But as difficult as it is, you probably hear “no” on a regular basis. (In fact, if you don’t get turned down at least every now and again, you’re probably playing it too safe and not pursuing enough opportunities.) 

You’ve likely come up with some methods to handle the disappointment of the “no”…

But how do you handle it when you’ve made an overture and all you get back is silence? Do you assume rejection? Do you follow up, or follow up again, and how do you avoid becoming a pest? Do you take a new approach and see if that gets you further? Do you tuck tail and give up? Ugh—these are tough questions.

Consider these questions when silence is the only answer to an inquiry:

Diagnostic questions: What (maybe) went wrong?

Was your overture interesting enough? Did you offer a juicy tidbit designed to pique interest? For example, rather than simply describing an article you’d like to write on some aspect of law, offer the same description plus a snappy tentative title.  If you’re requesting a meeting with someone, be sure you’re offering a good reason for your contact to give up the time to meet with you. Always seek to show explicitly or implicitly, what’s in it for your recipient.

  • Was your request clear enough? Instead of asking for a short meeting, ask for a 15-minute meeting. Suggest a target length for the article you’re proposing. If you’re inviting someone to speak on a panel, suggest a couple of topics she might consider. Details yield specific thought, and you’re more likely to get a response if it’s clear what you want and why (and,as above, why it is in their interest to respond positively).
  • Did you choose the right method of communication? Sometimes you’re stuck with a prescribed format (how to submit an article proposal, for example), but take the time to think it through when you have options. If you know the recipient, what mode of communication does he prefer? How likely is it that his email in-box is overflowing and yours simply got overlooked in the volume?

Prescriptive questions: What can you do now?

  • Might you follow up to try again for a response? Follow-up is fairly easy when you have a somewhat close relationship with your contact or when your contact actually suggested you be in touch. Even without some previous connection, you can typically follow up once (and, depending on the circumstances, perhaps twice) even on a cold contact.

    If you’ve pinpointed a potential problem with the diagnostic questions, edit your request and try again. To avoid looking like a pest, give serious thought to calling if you’d previously emailed or vice versa. Pay attention to the way you phrase your follow-up: consider the difference in tone between “my email dated 5/1/15 may not have reached you” vs. “you may have overlooked my email dated 5/1/15.” Whatever you do, think pleasant, not pushy.
  • Do you have some other reason to be in contact? Be careful with this approach, because it can backfire if you’re clearly manufacturing a reason to communicate with the person. However, if you have an article that they might find useful or if you bumped into a mutual acquaintance who shared some interesting information, pass that along with a gentle reminder about your initial request.
  • Look for another route to that person. Especially if you’ve made a cold contact, look for a way to network into the connection. Check for mutual connections on LinkedIn, for example, or ask around in your firm or circle of acquaintances. Finding someone who can introduce you or promote your request can be an effective way to gain attention.
  • Let time pass, then try again. When you can’t follow up again, make a note on your calendar to get back in touch in a few weeks or months. End-of year and summer holidays are often a good time to get back in touch with someone thanks to cultural expectations. You might also watch for an announcement or publication that affects your request or for some suggestion that your contact was involved in something time-consuming that may have prevented a response. One of my clients was frustrated by the lack of response from a distant friend until he discovered that the company in which the friend was an executive had just negotiated an agreement to purchase a competitor. That news both explained the silence and opened an opportunity to get back in touch.

Most importantly, don’t take silence personally. Chances are good that your contact was simply too busy to respond to you. Even if the silence was intentional, the lack of an explicit rejection leaves the door at least cracked for a future attempt at communication.