Innovate

Newsletters offer a way to stay in contact with a large number of contacts easily, consistently, and productively.  Newsletters focus on substantive information, and assuming you’ve defined your areas of practice carefully enough, your content will be valuable to recipients and therefore welcome.  Better yet, if your topics are timely and if you include an appropriate call to action, you may even receive requests for assistance on matters related to your writing.

Most firms have multiple newsletters tailored to their various areas of practice, often with multiple contributors.  Whether you’re responsible for coordinating the content for your firm’s (or team’s) newsletter or you’re a sole practitioner with soup-to-nuts responsibility for the newsletter, you’ve probably had more than a few hair-raising moments wondering how you can possibly get it all done.  (And if your firm doesn’t have a newsletter, I can virtually guarantee that fear is the top reason why not.)

So, let’s make newsletters simple.  These five tips and resources will reduce the time and angst required to produce a newsletter that delivers results. Continue Reading

One of the primary objections lawyers have to business development is that business development equals sales, and “sales” is a four-letter word.  (Sometimes the stereotype of math-challenged lawyers does stick!)  The word may conjure the stereotpyical used car salesman, ready to unload a lemon just to make a quick buck.  And, of course, no one wants to be a part of that kind of sale–to sell or to buy.

A sale, however, only refers to the exchange of money for a good or service.  There’s nothing unprofessional or sleazy about that.  The distate we feel for sales comes from how the sale is made, not from the fact of the sale itself.

If ethically questionable business development tactics are repellant to you, you will likely take great care to avoid engaging in them.  Be certain by reading your jurisdiction’s ethics rules, and make a note to reread them at least annually since rules and commentary may change.  In most cases, you wil find the rules broad enough to encompass any type of activity you might choose to do.  If you have any question, you’ll need to find answers before you proceed, since this is not the place to hope or assume something is acceptable.  Most of the time, within a few well-understood rules, you won’t even wonder. Continue Reading

A few years ago, I had to drive to an important business meeting in an unfamiliar city.  Because this was before I had GPS, I printed out directions before leaving my office, so I had a good idea of where I was going.  The sun was beaming down and my “pump me up” playlist was blaring, and I was feeling really good.

But then I hit an unanticipated obstacle:  a road closed due to construction.  I didn’t know the area and the detour wasn’t well-marked.  Before long, I had no idea how to get from here to there.  I knew which roads I needed to find, but looking at the map was useless because I didn’t know where I was.  So frustrating!

When I talk with lawyers about business development, this story feels all too familiar.  So often, lawyers have a sense of what they’d like to accomplish (the destination) and even how to get there (the directions), but after hitting an obstacle–sometimes even despite a lack of obstacles–what had seemed clear seems confusing.

If you want to succeed in business development, you must:

• Know where you’re starting. One of my favorite cautions is, “Don’t mistake luck for skill.”  If you’ve had success in landing clients, make sure you know why and how to replicate that.  If it’s sheer luck, you have to find a way to shift that luck into something you can repeat and transform into skill.  What’s going well?  What’s broken?  What questions do you have, and what resources do you need?I created the Law Practice Profitability Audit to simplify this step.  Take the Audit here. Continue Reading

The statement “I’ve got your back” is one of the most powerful business development messages there is.  When you have someone capable and attentive on your side to offer assistance and cheer you on, you’re likely to be more willing to undertake new, difficult, or risky-feeling activity.

Consider this:  a child learning to walk or to ride a bicycle will often look to a parent to be sure that someone is there to encourage them if they waiver.  We applaud speakers and those receiving awards as a way of saying, “Good job!”  And we’ve probably all called a friend for support after being rejected by a potential client or date, or a job opportunity.  Just about everybody appreciates encouragement and support.

There’s another side to “I’ve got your back”, too:  someone capable who’s in the trenches with you, ready to help.  And that’s where “I’ve got your back” goes from a source of feel good emotional support to a do-good, hands-on promise.  That’s also where it becomes a powerful business development message.

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