We’d all like more referrals. However, we—many of us, anyway—aren’t comfortable asking for them.

How can we get them? This approach will work for you. I promise.

Identify some good referral sources. Come up with a list. Think about professionals who come in frequent contact with your ideal client. Consider attorneys, mental health professionals, clergy, accountants, and even hairdressers. Identify some specific people in these or other groups.

Now think about what you can do for the people on your list. Come up with ways you can help them. You might have to do some digging to figure it out. You might have to ask the referral source what you can do. You might have to ask one person what would be of use to the other. Dig, dig, dig. Don’t worry: you can’t get into much trouble by aggressively trying to help others.

Here are some ideas. Your neighbor is a TV reporter. She’s working on a story about a big criminal case. She needs an attorney to comment for her story. You’ve got a criminal defense attorney on your list. Hook them up: that’s a two-fer.

You’ve got an attorney on your list who has a high school junior in the family. You’ve got an old classmate who’s an administrator at a big college. Maybe you can arrange a personal tour for the kid.

You’ve got a client who’s a chef at a restaurant where it’s impossible to get a table. Your referral source has an anniversary coming up with his foodie wife. Can you score a table?

One of your referral sources is having marriage trouble. You know who the best (and worst) marriage counselors are. You can provide some guidance and advice on selecting one of the good ones.

It works. Trust me, I know. Here’s my proof.

Over a year ago, I started writing these articles on this site. I did it in an effort to help. I’m taking what I know and passing it along.

What happened?

Referrals, that’s what happened.

I did something nice in an effort to help you out, and you reciprocated. I didn’t have a plan when I started. I never asked for your referrals, but you came through with them. (Thank you, by the way!)

You don’t have to ask for referrals. You can simply do your best to help others, and the cycle will commence. What are you waiting for?

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Generate Referrals Without Asking for Them

What would you think if I handed you my business card and all it had on it was a QR code? What’s a QR code? That’s the doohickey pictured next to this article. It’s a special code that, when scanned by your mobile device or webcam (with the right software running), takes you right to my biography on my website. Why would I bother with putting my name, address, and phone number on my card when I can do all that and more with a QR code?

Would that work for you, or would I be getting ahead of my market?

I’m guessing I know the answer, and that’s why my business card still has that identifying information printed on it.

What would your client think if she hired you and discovered that she can’t get her billing info or check the status of her case online? What if she can’t check to see whether you received an e-mail from opposing counsel? Or whether a document is ready to be reviewed? What if she tries to connect with you on LinkedIn and you aren’t there? What if she tells her friend about you and he or she can’t find your website?

Of course, your client uses the Web to check package delivery status, review her banking balances, receive her lab results from her doctor, and schedule appointments with her dentist. She moves money from one mutual fund to another online and reviews her children’s homework online. She buys hotel rooms and plane tickets online. She can even pay her property tax online to that backward bureaucracy at the county office building. What do you mean she can’t get an update about her divorce case online?

It’s important to know your market and stay even with them. Don’t get too far ahead or too far behind. You want to be in sync with expectations and seek to do more than they expect, but not so much that you leave them baffled and befuddled.

Use your own perspective as a test of where you stand. Think about what you’d expect if you were the client. Many of us have been a client, and we know what it feels like. If you haven’t yet had a need for a lawyer, try to imagine what it feels like from a client’s perspective. Put yourself in a client’s shoes. That’s a great way to start.

More importantly, ask your clients what they think about how you’re meeting their technology expectations (and other expectations as well).

You know how you spend hours sitting with your clients during mediation or negotiation sessions? You’re desperate for conversation. That’s a great opportunity to research your market. Ask what they expected. Ask what would have made things better. Ask what they liked and disliked. They’ll be thrilled to have the tables turned and be the dispenser of advice rather than the recipient.

Don’t create an issue for yourself by getting too far off track from what your clients think you’re supposed to be doing. Stay informed, continue asking questions, and keep your practice even with your market.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Is Your Technology In Sync with Your Clients?

TechnoLawyer is running some columns I’ve written in its SmallLaw series. They have some excellent writers (plus me) addressing small firm issues. TechnoLawyer makes the columns public a week after release on the TechnoLawyer blog. You can get the content a week earlier by subscribing to SmallLaw via e-mail.

My most recent column came out yesterday. I hope you enjoy it:

The success of your practice depends on a core of solid, reliable referral sources. You count on these people to send you business in good times and in bad. They know you, like you, and trust you. You can’t live without them. You’ve got to create and nurture these relationships, or you’re dead. In this column, you’ll learn how to do so and have fun at the same time—nine tips in all.

To keep reading, click for the rest of Nine Ways to Nurture Your Referral Relationships.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

TechnoLawyer: Nine Ways to Nurture Your Referral Relationships

Two weeks ago, I posted an article about virtual law offices (VLOs) as a result of my concern that lawyers buying these services and the service providers fail to fully discuss and/or understand the marketing challenges involved. I got some great feedback and some criticism. I’m glad to have stimulated some discussion (here, here, here and here).

Just so we’re clear, I love the idea of a virtual practice. We’ve had a client portal for more than a decade, and I’m experimenting with some other VLO concepts on my North Carolina Divorce website. We’re iterating on a weekly basis. It’s a struggle, but I believe it will work—eventually.

In pondering the issues involved, I came up with a modest proposal that I think would help the lawyers thinking about buying a virtual law office as well as the sellers.

Vendors, how about sharing anonymous post-audited financials from some of your customers? Show us that customers are making money using your product. Prove it to us.

Help us understand where virtual practices are working and where they aren’t. Give us data so we can make objective decisions before buying your product. Lot of vendors, of other services, provide case studies. Will you do that for us and provide the data?

That’s a win-win. We, as customers, get proof that we’re making a good investment. You, as vendors, build trust. Plus, if some of you are helping your customers generate greater profits than others, you’ll win even more of the available business.

I’d love to see some financials for the purely virtual practices as well as numbers from more diversified firms showing us the results for the virtual portion of the practice. Assuming that the numbers are good, this can only accelerate the adoption of these technologies.

While we’re at it, wouldn’t it be great if we got financials for the clients of consultants trying to sell us management and marketing consulting services? I’d love it, and I’d be far less skeptical of some of the claims I’ve heard.

What I’m asking for is kind of like what the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires of franchisers. The FTC mandates all sorts of disclosures plus a list of 10 recent purchasers in close proximity to the customer. Let’s bring some transparency to the industry so we can all know what we can expect.

Vendors, what do you say? Are you in? Can we bring some tangible reality to the virtual marketplace?

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

What’s the Truth about Virtual Law Offices?

I think this is an upgrade from the cat video I posted last Sunday. This truly is funny in a bizarre sort of way. Click through if you can’t see the clip.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3Bl3LvzTSs

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Better than a Cat Video

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

HOW TO: Handle an Employee’s Controversial Online Behavior

The 12 Best Ways To Customize Your Facebook Pages

5 Ways to Get Rockin Reviews

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Saturday Quickies: Bad Behavior, Facebook, and Client Reviews

I’ve been getting lots of questions lately about hiring. Mostly, solo practitioners are asking me whether they’re ready to add the overhead of a staff person or second attorney.

It’s a tough question to answer because the answer depends on a variety of factors. We all know that the same numbers mean something different in different parts of the United States (I’m focusing on the United States because I understand U.S. money. If you’re in another part of the world—and I know lots of you are—you’re going to have to extrapolate). Dollars in a big city don’t go as far as they go in some small towns and vice-versa. However, we are more alike than we are different (the McDonald’s dollar menu is nationwide), and we can tweak these numbers as necessary.

My answer to this question is based on revenue. It’s important, however, not to become overly distracted by the revenue number. Revenue is the second most important number. Profit is the most important number. Generating lots of revenue without generating a profit isn’t sustainable. While I’m focusing on revenue to answer this question, you should be very careful to keep your eye on your personal profit.

I think you should run your operation by yourself with no other personnel until you generate about $25,000 per month in revenue. When you hit that number, then it’s fine to add assistance. Don’t add people until you’re consistently in that zone. You should be able to pay for some assistance prior to hitting $25,000 in revenue, but do it using outsourced and virtual services like an answering service, bookkeeping service, IT help desk, etc. Don’t commit to a salary for your help.

When you hit $25,000 monthly, you’re collecting a bit over $1,000 for each workday. At $200 per hour, that’s about five billed hours a day (although I’m not big on billing hourly). That’s a reasonable amount of billing, and you can manage that along with the other tasks of running your office. As you get close to $25,000, you might want to add a bit of part-time help—maybe a courier service, a virtual assistant, or a virtual paralegal if you’re able to take home a big chunk of that $25,000 each month. If you’re generating close to $25,000 and you’re not taking half of it home, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board and see where the money is going.

There are lots of reasons that my number can miss the mark in your practice. Of course, I have the most experience in family law. If you’re practicing in another area, my number might not be relevant. If you’re spending big dollars on marketing (25%+), my number might not work. You might also have objectives regarding family time (but I think you can achieve that by taking fewer clients more easily than by hiring someone). I’m answering this question because I’m being asked for an answer, and it’s tough to answer without being very specific.

Some of you won’t like my number. You’ll complain that your working like crazy and can’t get things done without help even though your revenue is substantially below $25,000. I’d suggest that the problem isn’t a lack of assistance. It’s more likely a failure to charge and collect appropriate fees, an organizational issue or some other problem. If you correct the underlying issue you won’t be on overload and you won’t need the help.

If, however, you’re like most of the family law practitioners that I talk to, then my number probably makes good sense. You should be very hesitant to add people to your payroll until you’ve exceeded $25,000 per month in revenue.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How Much Revenue Should You Have Before Hiring Help?

I just wrapped up a guest appearance on The Small Business Advocate with Jim Blasingame. We talk about my use of Twitter and how it helped us grow our practice. It’s about 10 minutes long and you might find it helpful. While I’m pimping my media appearances – I appeared on CNN last week talking about Alienation of Affection. Here’s the CNN link if you’d like to watch.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Now I’m a Social Media “Expert”

I wish I could tell you how to live your dreams. Unfortunately, I don’t know what your dreams are.

It really doesn’t matter if I know what you’re dreaming. The question is, do you know what your dreams are?

Do you have something you’re working toward? Do you have a vision of where you’re headed?

It’s easy to get on the train of high school, college, law school, law firm, and then ownership of a family law practice. Here we are.

Is this really where we want to be?

If so, great. You’re already living your dream.

If this isn’t your dream, then all is well so long as you know what your dream is. If you have a clear sense of what you’re seeking, then you can get yourself on track to get there. We lawyers are pretty skilled at drawing a line from point A to point B and following the path.

The problem some of us face is not knowing what we want. We’ve concluded that we don’t like what we’ve got, but we don’t know where we should be headed. That’s a big problem.

I’ve talked about this topic before and suggested that if you aren’t clear on your goals and dreams, you should spend some time thinking. After getting some feedback, I don’t know that my advice was good enough. I think many of us may need more input than we get from quiet reflection. We may need the thoughts and advice of others to help us reformulate our new destination.

I’d suggest you start seeking out alternative approaches to figuring out what you’d like to do with your life. In conversations with attorneys over the past week, we’ve talked about retreats, seminars, and counseling. I think they’re all good options and are worthy of your consideration if you’re assessing your situation. There are more options available than you’ll have time to try.

Do some research and see what’s available to you. I’d love to hear what about what you find, how it helps you, and what you conclude.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Live Your Dreams

I’ve always thought of our law firm as a user of tech support. We’ve got an IT guy we rely on. He and his minions run around rebooting our laptops, plugging in our cables, and generally fixing the things we’ve broken on our network.

Recently, we realized that we’ve got to start giving tech support rather than just receiving it. I guess we’ve been in the tech support game for a while but hadn’t realized it.

Our clients need tech support. We provide them with a bunch of technology, and sometimes they have issues with making it work properly. We’ve been handling the issues one at a time in an ad hoc way.

Now we’re getting organized and adding staff hours to help. We’re helping in a variety of situations:

Our clients have trouble with our client portal. Sometimes they can’t access a document or have questions about the interface. Frequently, they lose their passwords or their usernames. Someone calls or e-mails about these issues on most days.

Clients of our virtual service run into problems posting questions to our help desk. Sometimes they can’t find the forms they need. Sometimes they can’t make a video play. These folks are usually pretty tech savvy, but they can’t always solve their own problems.

Prospective clients have issues using our forum. They also lose passwords or have trouble posting questions or answers. They want to be part of our community and can’t always get the system to do what they expect it to do. We’re ready to help.

Subscribers to our e-mail auto-responders have problems as well. They miss an e-mail they really wanted and ask for a duplicate. Sometimes they can’t download a document they need. They often have issues playing videos.

We have mental health and financial professionals listed on our Stay Happily Married site. They have trouble changing or adding a photo. They sometimes struggle with updating their profiles, and they lose their passwords with amazing frequency.

In all these instances, we get calls and e-mails about the problem. We’ve had a variety of people responding, and they have all created their responses on a one-off basis. They haven’t thought of the problem from a systemic perspective. For instance, we haven’t developed standardized responses, comprehensive instructions, or employee procedure manuals.

That’s all changing. Now we’re reviewing the technical support we provide and consolidating all technical support in one person. We’re developing a system for dealing with the issues, and we’re hoping to provide a higher level of service than we have in the past.

We’re ready to start providing excellent technical support and to become givers rather than just takers.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Tech Support: Be a Giver, Not a Taker

I’m a big fan of the MiFi 2200 by Novatel Wireless. It’s a handy little gadget that creates a WiFi cloud wherever you are. I like to whip mine out at the airport. I’m big on using it in hotel rooms to avoid the crazy charges some chains impose. I turn it on and leave it in my briefcase at conferences so I’m not bothered by the crappy Internet connection in most conference and convention centers.

The most amazing thing I’ve ever done with my MiFi was to drive from Miami back to Raleigh in our minivan. My wife and I took turns driving while the two kids played Internet games, streamed movies, and used Facebook from the backseat on their laptops. The MiFi allows up to five devices to connect simultaneously. Lisa and I worked and played on our computer when we weren’t driving, and we were back in Raleigh before we knew it.

My MiFi came from Verizon. I pay $60 per month, and it came with a two-year contract. Similar deals are available from most of the other carriers. Sprint has another device in addition to the MiFi as well.

Lots of lawyers would like a MiFi but can’t justify committing to the two-year agreement since they only need the connection for occasional use. You might need it for a trip or a day spent in mediation at the office of some dinosaur without WiFi.

That’s where Virgin Mobile comes in. It offers the MiFi on a prepaid basis. You can order one via the Virgin Mobile website or pick one up at your local Best Buy. The MiFi will cost you $149, and you pay for use as you go. For instance, you can get 5 GB for $60 (which is what I get from Verizon). You’ve got 30 days to use it. You can get a smaller amount of connectivity for less. You can then let your MiFi sit in a drawer for a while until you’re ready to use it again. Simply add some more credit, and you’ll be good to go.

I’ve had good luck with Virgin Mobile in the past. We had prepaid cell phones for our kids before they moved up to a regular plan, and Virgin Mobile was our provider. Virgin Mobile makes it easy to have connectivity on the road without the long-term commitment at the same rate you’d pay with a commitment. Seems like a deal to me.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Get Connected without a Contract

We’ve outsourced lots of projects over the past few years. It has generally, but not always, gone well.

My favorite outsourcing story is what happened with Rosen.com. It’s a huge site, and we wanted to move it from a proprietary content management system to an open-source platform. We selected WordPress and went to work on finding someone to do the work.

We got several quotes from local web design shops. They went as high as $35,000 to do the work. We were given a timeline that involved six months worth of meetings, feedback, approvals, and the like.

We put the project up on Elance.com to see what we’d get back. We got a bunch of bids and on a lark took the $500 bid to see what might happen. We figured that if it didn’t work out, we’d only be out $500. The guy who offered the bid said he’d have it done in two weeks.

Two weeks later—voila!—the site was finished. We paid our $500 and moved on. Amazing.

We’ve since outsourced other design and programming work, writing, and a range of other things. We’ve learned a bunch of lessons, but one stands out above all the others.

The key to successful outsourcing is properly defining the project. It’s critical that you decide in advance what you want and clearly articulate your specifications. This is not a “I’ll know it when I see it” game. Before you start, you’ve got to know what it’s going to look like when it’s finished.

That holds true in the literal sense for software design and projects of that ilk. It’s less literal, but still important, with graphic design. If you have no idea what you want, you’re not likely to get what you want. Spend a bunch of time up front thinking through what you hope to achieve and how you’ll define success. The clearer you are, the more likely you are to end up with a result that works for you.

We’ve outsourced some legal work in the past. Legal work, for us anyway, is the best example to use to explain the need to define the project. For instance, you can’t simply tell someone to handle the appeal and expect it work out. You need to break out the parts, define your expectations, and assign each task. Who’s going to get the record prepared? Who’s going to call the clerk? The court reporter? Who’s going to talk to the client as the appeal progresses? Who’s going to draft the brief? Format it for printing? Print it? Upload it? Conduct oral argument? And on and on. You’ve got to clearly define the project if you’re going to achieve the results you want.

Outsourcing can be an amazing way to extend your capabilities. Just don’t go into it without carefully defining what you expect to get out of it.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

The Most Important Part of Outsourcing

Sunday Funny reaches a new low, but it really is funny.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5rtU5w8f70

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Don’t Steal from a Cat

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

You’re a little company, now act like one – There are lots of pertinent lessons found in this article that isn’t aimed directly at lawyers. This guy is great.

3 Ways to Capitalize on a Referral Source Call – So, yes, if you cite me in your blog post I do suggest your material as part of my Saturday routine. It’s a worthwhile read despite the fact that she refers to me.

A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places – Time to start learning about Facebook Places.

What to Do if You Are Attacked Online: Setting a Social Media Policy for Your Business – It’s inevitable. Better be prepared.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Saturday Again! Calls, Places, and Attacks

Facebook announced Facebook Places earlier this week. It allows Facebook users to check in wherever they are. This is something that has been going on for a while on other services (for example, FourSquare, Gowalla, brightkite, My Town, and Yelp), and millions of users use these services daily.

For the uninitiated, checking in simply requires you to open an app on your mobile device, use the GPS to determine where you are, and click on a button to indicate that you’re there. You can publish your location to a variety of places (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and add a comment or a picture if you wish. Some of the apps award points and honorary titles for checking in, and some merchants provide discounts to people who check in.

Location was important before, but it was only important to a relatively small, tech-forward group of people. (I’m the FourSquare Mayor of a Greek Fiesta. It’s oddly important to me.)

Facebook Places is location on steroids. Location is really important now because Facebook has 500+ million users. Location just went nuclear.

The big question is, will location matter to your practice? Yes and no.

You’re not going to see an impact today. But soon, it’s going to become really important.

Imagine this scenario:

A prospective client has called your office and scheduled an initial consultation. She has shown up and is sitting in your lobby waiting for her meeting. She’s playing with her phone (who isn’t?) and opens her Facebook app. Facebook realizes she’s in your office and offers to check her in. She declines, not wanting to tell the world she’s seeing a divorce lawyer.

That’s where the scenario stops today.

But soon (and this stuff is moving at the speed of light), she checks in automatically with a passive check-in application (it knows where she is and does an auto check-in when she arrives), and Facebook presents her with reviews and comments about your service (much like what she’d get now if she searched on Google Places). Instead of searching for reviews of your practice, she’ll receive them automatically on your firm’s place page on Facebook.

And—this is really important—the reviews she gets won’t be from strangers like they are on Google Places. They’ll be from her friends as well as strangers. She already trusts strangers more than you (according to a fair amount of market research), and you can be absolutely certain she trusts her friends more than strangers. By the way, she’ll also get ads from your competitors in case she doesn’t like the reviews and decides to leave.

Suddenly, reviews from friends come automatically as she arrives in a new place. It’s word-of-mouth on steroids. If they drug tested this “word-of-mouth,” it would be disqualified from the race.

How soon will this scenario come to pass? I don’t know, but it won’t take long, and it’s something consumers want. Consumers love sitting down in a restaurant and being presented with tips from their friends about what to order before they’ve even been handed the menu. Suddenly, the menu means something because you know your buddy had the fish here for lunch today and it was fresh and delicious. That’s valuable information. That’s exactly the kind of info they’re going to get about you. You’d better be fresh and delicious (or at least competent and personable).

What do you need to do? You need to stay focused on positive word-of-mouth. Deliver great service, care about your clients, and encourage the placement of favorable reviews (consistent with your state ethics rules). It’s more important than ever that you encourage those reviews—NOW.

Don’t be caught by surprise. Location is here, and it just landed in the hands of hundreds of millions of your prospective clients. Pay attention. The world is changing very, very quickly. Stay ahead of the curve. That’s what we’re trying to help you do. Execution is up to you.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why Facebook Places Matters to Your Law Practice

You’ve called a prospective referral source. He or she is on the line with you now. You’ve never spoken before, but you got an introduction from someone you know, so you’ve already got a connection to the person on the line.

How can you blow it now, create a situation where you won’t end up at lunch with this person, and be sure you won’t get any referrals? If you do the following five things particularly well, you’ll do just that, and you might even alienate the person who introduced you to the referral source.

1. Start selling now. Tell your contact how great you are. Tell the person why he or she should refer clients to you. Don’t worry about building a rapport or getting to know one another. Explain that you offer the best service, lowest price, and so forth regardless of what he or she says.

2. Once the person answers the phone, just start talking and keep on talking. Don’t ask any questions. Say what you need to say and roll on. Try not to take a breath. Go, go, go! If the person on the other end of the line starts to talk, just talk over him or her.

3. Try not to listen. Don’t waste time asking the referral source whether this is a good time to talk. If the person explains that he or she is in the midst of a deadline, don’t worry about it. Just keep going and don’t offer to call back at another time.

4. Don’t pay attention to your referral source’s needs. Don’t ask for ideas about how you might be able to help him or her. If the person starts to sound like he or she doesn’t have many referrals to make to you, then blow off the person. Get off the phone and don’t waste your time getting to know the person and taking him or her to lunch.

5. Insist on lunch at the place of your choosing. Don’t ask where he or she would like to go. Tell the person where you like to eat and how much he or she is going to like it.

Basically, put your interests ahead of your referral source’s, and you’ll be well on your way to destroying any hope of ever getting a referral. I hope you’re laughing because you’re so sure you’d never do these things. Unfortunately, I’m not laughing. I just hung up after getting a call just like the one I’ve described. Needless to say, I wiggled and squirmed my way out of the lunch invitation.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

5 Ways to Mess Up a Referral Source Call

I’ve had the opportunity to meet with several attorneys attempting to run a virtual practice via a website and portal. In my firm, we are also experimenting with selling services online. There seems to be great interest on the part of attorneys in the concept of running a virtual firm and delivering services via phone, e-mail, and a web portal rather than conducting business in a traditional office.

I think it’s a great idea.

Unfortunately, most of the attorneys buying into the concept miss something important when they evaluate the likelihood of success of a virtual practice. They get caught up in the cool technology: the bells and whistles and the shiny objects. The thing they’re missing gets short shrift from the vendors selling the back-end services. No one is focusing on marketing.

Most attorneys interested in a virtual practice get excited about the possibilities of generating lots of revenue via the Internet and fail to think about the likelihood of actually selling the service. The vendors are thrilled to sell their hosted product and aren’t going to raise any negatives. They’re in the business of selling to lawyers, not to clients.

One of the vendors claims it offers “Everything You Need to Practice Law” in its promotional material. I beg to differ. In fact, I think the online platform is the least significant part of what you need to practice law. The web platform is a trivial part of selling your services. It’s easier to get a web platform than it is to rent an office space. Both are equally insignificant to your ultimate success: they just don’t matter very much.

What you need is clients—good clients. Having a virtual office doesn’t magically bring clients to your virtual door. In fact, in many practice areas, I don’t think there’s much demand among clients for a virtual practice. A virtual lawyer isn’t what most clients are thinking of as the solution to their problem. If they want something virtual, they’re perfectly happy with services like LegalZoom. In fact, I’ve seen a survey indicating that many clients prefer a paralegal-provided service to an attorney-provided service, even when both are offered at the same price.

If you’re going to run an online practice, you’ve first got to figure out where the clients are going to come from. That’s the most important piece of the puzzle.

I don’t entirely blame the sellers of these hosted services for leading lawyers down the path to opening unsuccessful virtual practices. The fact is that most of them refer to marketing in their sales pitch. They’re willing to talk through those issues with lawyers seeking advice. Unfortunately, most lawyers getting excited about a virtual practice aren’t all that interested in the marketing part of it. They don’t slow down long enough to ask about the marketing or the customer demand.

Most of the virtual lawyers I’ve met buy the website first and only talk to me when they realize they aren’t making any money. What they need to do is figure out the client generation element first and then open the virtual practice. Don’t put the cart in front of the horse.

In some practice areas, virtual practices might be a great idea. Just be careful that you aren’t building a service delivery system for something that doesn’t have prospective clients. Clients first, platform second.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

What the Virtual Office Advocates Aren’t Telling You

I’m a big fan of flat fees. We’ve talked about that many times before. Whether you’re using fixed fees or hourly billing, the issue of pricing is a constant concern. We’re always wondering whether we’re charging too much or (gasp!) too little.

How can you determine whether the price is right?

It’s tough to know whether you’re doing it right, but here are three clues.

1. If you quote the fee and the client readily hires you and immediately pays, then you’re probably charging less than you should.

2. If you quote the fee and the client stands up, storms out, and never comes back, then you’re probably charging more than you should.

3. If you quote the fee and the client hesitates, goes home and thinks about it, calls back with questions, and consults with a few friends and possibly another attorney, then you’re probably getting it right.

You don’t want to be the bargain-basement attorney. And you don’t want to charge so much that you never get a client. Getting it right will create a bit of stress for you as you wait for potential clients to conclude that you’re the attorney they need and that you’re charging a reasonable fee. The waiting and the stress are important parts of being sure you’ve got it right.

Of course, not every transaction will pan out as I’ve described. Some people will–no matter how high the fee—hire you immediately. Others will–regardless of how low the fee–refuse to hire you. But, on average, my formula will give you the feedback you need to be sure you’re getting it right.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Tell Whether Your Pricing Is Right

YouTube is terrific. I use it to host a number of videos you might have seen here. It’s easy, cheap, and incredibly convenient. However, it’s not the ultimate video hosting solution for your firm website or blog. I’d suggest you avoid it.

When you put videos on YouTube, you may end up with advertisements on your videos. YouTube uses pre-roll and lower-third ads in some circumstances. Those ads might be for your competitors. That’s less than ideal.

Additionally, when visitors click through from your site to YouTube, there is a strong likelihood that they are going to be introduced to videos you don’t want associated with your practice. For instance, I was watching a family law attorney video on YouTube yesterday and found myself distracted by the Lady Gaga video ”Bad Romance.” YouTube assumed it was a “related video.”

As an aside, the divorce lawyer video had been viewed about 200 times. The Lady Gaga video had 252 million views. The Lady Gaga video was also MUCH more interesting than the divorce lawyer video. (Sorry, Miles.)

Let me clarify one thing: I’m not suggesting that you avoid YouTube entirely. I’m only talking about the videos you have on your website. I suggest you put videos on YouTube in addition to having them on your site. YouTube is definitely a place to expose your expertise; I just don’t want you to embed your YouTube videos on your site using the YouTube embeds. The people coming to your videos straight from YouTube are already exposed to the ads and suggestions. That’s unavoidable.

So what should you do with your videos? Here’s what we do, and it works for us on our family law site. We upload the videos to a private hosting account. (We use Libsyn.). Libsyn is one of many hosting services. Libsyn, like many of its competitors, offers accounts starting at $5 per month. We’ve been happy with this service.

You’ve got to set up a player on your site to play the videos if you’re not using YouTube. When you’re using YouTube, you’re embedding the YouTube player on your site. When you leave YouTube, you’ve got to have your own player. We use JW Media Player from LongTail Video. The Libsyn/JW Media Player combination has served us well on our sites for some time. Our sites run on WordPress, and LongTail Video makes integration between its product and WordPress easy and seamless. Each platform is different, so you’ll need to do some checking to find out what’s going to work for you.

By avoiding YouTube, you introduce some hassles and some expense. You also avoid some potentially embarrassing and damaging fallout. For attorney videos, I’d suggest you look somewhere other than YouTube and other public video hosting sites.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why You Shouldn’t Host Your Attorney Videos on YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzNhaLUT520

If that’s not enough for you, then stick around for the Auto-Tuned version below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Hide Your Wife, Hide Your Kids

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

How to Let Go and Delegate a Task – Pretty self-explanatory title. I’m not sure I know anyone who doesn’t struggle with delegation.

Business Owner Shows How NOT to Respond to Negative Yelp Review – Increasingly we can respond to reviews. Don’t make it worse.

Is the ABA’s leadership ignoring their obligation to engage people through social media? – If you didn’t have enough reasons to avoid the ABA, Kevin O’Keefe adds a few more.

Launch: Intelligence Just Got Smarter! – Google Analytics is fantastic and free. It just got better.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Delegation, Negative Reviews, ABA Ignores Members and Analytics. Happy Saturday!

Lawyers love the “track changes” feature in Microsoft Word. I suspect we’re the primary people that feature was intended to help. It’s one of the many benefits of the rich feature set of the fully developed products offered by Microsoft (some call it “fully developed”; others call it “bloat”).

The lack of a track changes equivalent in Google Docs has made some lawyers reluctant to shift over to the cloud for creating documents. That has been a shame because it’s so easy to share and collaborate on documents stored on Google Docs. The Google Apps platform is all about collaboration.

TextFlow is a new product from Nordic River for tracking edits in Google Docs. You can get it in the Google Apps Marketplace. I’ve tried it, and it works. It’s free for light users and $29 for a premium license.

Nordic River is a Swedish company doing innovative things with text. Its products are also available for use with Microsoft Word and with Box.net. Interesting, innovative, progressive—that’s good stuff for us.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Track Changes in Google Docs

The family law industry is undergoing change at a rate faster than I’ve ever experienced. A number of forces have converged to create a level of uncertainty that is unprecedented.

Why are things changing? Three reasons.

First, competition for business is at the highest level ever. With law schools graduating more lawyers than ever, new lawyers are flooding the marketplace. Experienced lawyers are being laid off by their firms. More and more of them strike out on their own and imagine that family law is something they can do to make a living. Couple all of that with the growing competition from document drafting services, mental health professionals handling negotiations and mediations, and accountants stepping into the arena, and you have tremendous pressure on family law prices. The ever-increasing anti-lawyer sentiment plays right into the hands of non-lawyer competitors.

Second, prospective clients have experienced an economic reset. They now view family law as less valuable than they once did. They are less willing to pay premium rates. Clients who were once ready, willing, and able to put a divorce on a credit card or a 401(k) loan are now more conservative with their money and have less credit available. Clients who once demanded “the best” are now willing to live with “good enough.”

Finally, technology has changed everything. I’m talking about advances in technology that facilitate practice efficiencies. I’m also talking about technological advances that change the nature of sales and marketing. Technology is a factor in family law like it has never been before. Being a family law expert now requires a thorough understanding of the technology of practice management along with the technology of sales and marketing.

What will it look like when things shake out? I don’t know. I do know that it will be different from what it is now. Different money. Different professionals. Different expectations from clients, and a different type of service than we deliver now. Tomorrow won’t look at all like yesterday.

So what does that mean for you? It means tread cautiously. If you’re expanding, be careful about using leverage to do it. If you’re considering family law as a career, be cautious: it might not support you for the decades you need to build your financial career. Family law is changing, and it won’t look the same in the near future. Ignore that prediction at your peril. If you’re currently practicing family law, think about profit taking. Don’t invest a great deal today expecting to reap the benefits tomorrow. Market forces may be more powerful than your ability to overcome them. Be very careful out there.

What do you think? Am I on track? Off base? Thoughts?

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

The Truth About the Future of Family Law

Let’s play a game today. Let’s play Can I Actually Get That File Back?

Someday you’re going to lose a computer file and need to restore from your backup copies. I’m sure you’ve got a good data backup system in place involving three copies of every file on two different media types, one of which is offsite. Right? That’s the 3-2-1 Rule.

The glitch comes in when, for some reason, the backup copies can’t be read. They’re corrupted or the software can’t move them back to your system or some other screw up.

Today is the day to find out whether your system works. Do it now before you actually need to do it because something is actually lost.

Open the software now and get the backup copy of a file. Do it yourself if you’re the IT person or ask your IT person to do it for you. Pick a file at random and ask for the backup copy. Open the copy and make sure it is what it’s supposed to be. Just do it. If it works, then you’ll have wasted five minutes. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be able to fix the problem before disaster strikes.

Some of you are discovering that your system doesn’t work properly. Others are discovering that no one knows how to restore the files. Some of you are realizing that you don’t have a backup system in place. It’s all good because this is a test—this is only a test. When real disaster strikes, you’ll have a system that works.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Does Your Backup System Work?

YouTube has been around since 2005. We’ve all become familiar with it, and most of you have watched a video on it this week. YouTube is everywhere you turn. You can watch it on your computer, most mobile devices, and, increasingly, on your television. YouTube is owned by Google and makes many of its services available free. You need to put YouTube to work to help you with your practice. Here are 11 ways to do just that.

1. Upload educational videos. YouTube allows you to upload videos to its site for others to view. Get a camcorder and create some educational videos on family law. Answer common questions and provide an overview of the law. Give a tour of your local courthouse. Explain the process in your county. YouTube gets an amazing volume of traffic. It’s one of the most visited websites in the world, and it’s useful for you to come up in the search results when someone goes hunting for divorce information in your jurisdiction.

2. Find illustrative exhibits. YouTube is a great source of video on just about anything. If you need video to illustrate some testimony, you’ll likely find it on YouTube. You’ll find everything from anatomy demonstrations to video of nearly every location on the site. Do some searching and see what you can find. Of course, you might have admissibility issues with the video, but you can argue that it’s offered only for illustrative purposes if that helps.

3. Add funny videos to your blog. I put a funny YouTube video up on this site nearly every Sunday. I get great feedback from visitors. I’m serving as the curator and saving my readers the time required to find something amusing. You’ll find a wealth of humor on the site, and your visitors will appreciate something short and funny every so often.

4. Find relevant material for referral sources. To stay top of mind with referral sources, you’ve got to stay in touch. A quick e-mail every month is helpful to remind them that you exist. Send a video sometimes if it’s relevant and useful. Consider your audience and do some searching. You’ll have a range of options within minutes.

5. Locate videos for PowerPoint. When you prepare your next PowerPoint, skip the words and use videos exclusively. I’ve got a talk where I encourage lawyers to experiment at one point. While I’m talking about experimenting, the video in the background features something exploding in a test tube. When I start talking about the ups and downs of family law, the video of a roller-coaster ride comes on.

6. Search opposing parties and witnesses. YouTube has a great search engine. Search on the names, business names, and so forth of opposing expert witnesses, parties, and others involved in your case. You never know what you might find on YouTube.

7. Find firm meeting illustrations. Hopefully you’re holding firm meetings. Sometimes showing a quick video at the meeting will illustrate your point better than you can say it with words. We were talking about getting people in alignment at a recent meeting and played a video of a crew team rowing in unison. It took about 30 seconds to find the video on YouTube.

8. Subscribe to educational stuff. You can subscribe to videos on YouTube. The site has resources for everyone. I find some business books incredibly helpful in building our practice. I keep a close eye on the YouTube channel featuring Google Authors. These videos are filmed at Google and feature authors speaking about their latest books. Business books are prominently featured, as are many other genres.

9. Check out travel destinations. When I’m planning a vacation, I like to know what I’m getting into. You can’t always trust the videos provided by visitors’ bureau, tourism groups, or hotels. YouTube videos of a destination posted by real people show the reality of the situation. For instance, I stayed at a beautiful resort in Jamaica. If you viewed the hotel videos, you saw nothing but the spectacular rooms, restaurants, and resorts. My video posted on YouTube reveals the shantytown next door that leans up against the resort’s barbed wire fence. My video presents a much more realistic sense of the resort and the visitor experience.

10. Advertise. You can place advertisements on YouTube just like on Google Adwords. YouTube is the second most used search engine, and it’s worth exploring and testing the advertising possibilities.

11. Learn something. There are tens of thousands of how-to videos on YouTube. When you’re having a problem, search YouTube for the answer. Need to know how to change the battery on your cell phone or how to insert footnotes in a Microsoft Word document? Do a quick search and you’ll find a bunch of demonstrations providing an answer. Need to know how to play the guitar or how to speak Spanish? Again, you’ll find the answer on YouTube.

YouTube is more than just a place to go watch someone fall off a skateboard or mix Mentos with Coke. It has tremendous potential for your practice. Spend some time exploring it, and you’ll discover many more possibilities.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

11 Ways to Use YouTube in Your Law Firm

I went rafting with my daughter last week. We paddled down the Nantahala River in western North Carolina. Delaney was a champ and did a great job navigating the river. That’s me in the picture.

From the moment we called to rent the rafts, we knew we were in good hands with the Nantahala Outdoor Center. In fact, we’ve trusted them for years. They opened back in 1972, and I rented from them very early on.

From the time the young woman on the reservation line picked up the phone, it was clear what was happening and what was going to happen. She explained each and every step of the process from booking the raft, to payment, to how to get to the river.

Upon arrival at the river, we walked up to a desk with a clearly marked sign. The young guy explained what he was doing and what we should do next. He handed us a piece of paper, told us where to go for our wetsuits, and then told us exactly where we needed to be in ten minutes for our briefing, equipment allocation, and bus ride. There was never a moment when we didn’t know what was happening and what was next.

Do your clients know what’s happening? Do they know what’s next? Are they feeling in control and informed? When we know what’s going on, we relax, even in the face of whitewater. We know we can trust you, and we feel confident that we’re in good hands.

As we walked up to the life preservers, someone explained that they were universal in size. He told us we could use them if we weighed between 100 and 400 pounds and directed anyone over or under to a different space. On the bus, the driver explained what would happen on the ride and what would happen when we got to the put-in. Everything was explained step by step. Even as we started down the river, we knew what was coming. We’d been shown a video of the first rapid and told which path to follow.

Do your clients know what you did for them today? Do they know what you’re doing next? Or are they facing unexpected surprises?

Are they being served with documents they didn’t anticipate? Are they being asked to gather information at the last minute? Are they being told they need to come to court without lots of advance notice and time to prepare?

The situations we navigate with our clients are challenging, but we’ve been down this river before. We know where the rocks are and where the waves are and aren’t predictable. Sure, sometimes things go differently in a particular circumstance, but we often know which parts of a case involve those tricky situations, and we can predict the range of variables. The more we explain, the more secure our clients feel. Step-by-step explanation needs to be our standard operating procedure. We need to provide as much, if not more, certainty about the process as the whitewater river operators at the Nantahala.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Are You Guiding Your Clients Through the Rapids?

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

Awesome New Feature from Google Places: Review Responses – This is huge news and you should absolutely pay attention to what’s happening with Google Places and your ability to post responses.

22 Small Business Phone Services – Nice review of your phone options in the cloud.

10 Steps for Successful Social Media Monitoring – If you’re not already monitoring, then it’s time to get going.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Happy Saturday!

About a year ago, we started experimenting with asking for videos from job applicants. We’ve done it several times, and it works. It screens out lots of people who are too lazy to create the video, and it gives you a good sense of the applicant and his or her personality.

HireHive is a new tool designed expressly for this purpose. It makes it easy for the candidate to prepare the application and for you to review it. HireHive offers a free trial account so you can try it out. If it works for you, sign up for a paid account based on the number of applications submitted each month.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create an account (which takes 30 seconds).

2. Create a questionnaire for applicants. This can take some time if done right. You’re given the option of posting numerous questions and selecting the type of response you’d like to get. You can choose to receive a video response (of up to 60 seconds), a single word, a sentence, or a paragraph. You can also create a question that allows the applicant to submit a resume.

3. Share the survey by making the link available. You might share it by e-mail with applicants or include it in your job posting.

4. Review the submissions.

I set up a trial account and created a test application. It’s quick and easy.

HireHive is a great alternative to the traditional approach of cover letters and resumes. It puts technology to work to give you far more information than you would have ever obtained via the old system. I can’t wait for us to have an opening so we can put HireHive to work for us.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

A New Video Tool for Screening Job Candidates

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks are still misunderstood, feared, and ridiculed by many family law attorneys. They aren’t willing to learn, experiment, and engage with social media, and you should be thrilled that they feel that way.

In family law circles, social media is still a neglected tool for building referral relationships and generating business directly from prospective clients. Even the attorneys who have made the leap usually go only so far. They set up a listing on LinkedIn, they sign up for Twitter, and they set up a Facebook page.

They aren’t willing to go all the way. They put a toe in the water and pull it out. That’s like going to a party, standing by the door for five minutes, and then leaving. They aren’t going to meet new people and build new relationships if they’re gone before anyone even knows they’ve arrived.

You’re going to win at social media because you understand that this isn’t a fad. You know it’s not going away. Social media is here to stay. This is an important new way for creating and maintaining relationships.

Not very long ago, using a personal ad or dating service or meeting someone online was weird, weird, weird. You were supposed to meet someone at work, at school, or at church or by joining a singles group. People talked about the odd person they knew who had met a stranger through his or her computer.

Now online dating is normal. Everyone does it. My impression is that online introduction services are the most important way to meet someone today. Online introductions aren’t going away: they are now part of our social fabric.

Today, social networks play as important a role in business relationships as dating sites play in personal relationships. You’ve got to wrap your head around that fact and jump on in.

If you can make the mental shift, or if you already have, then you’re well positioned to generate business from relationships you start online. If you’re still hesitant, fearful, and reluctant, then you’re going to be left behind.

For lawyers, social media is still wide open. Even the lawyers who have jumped in often do it in a strange manner. They broadcast promotional messages instead of engaging in conversation. They fail to take their relationships offline and really get to know people. They fail to engage with others, and they present themselves as one-dimensional people without personalities.

You can win because you can use social media to meet new people, build relationships, and enhance your relationships with people you already know. You can present yourself like a real person who cares about people, issues, and other things that matter. You can think of social media as more like a party and less like a billboard. You can recognize that these sites have more in common with a dating service than a TV ad.

If you’re willing to get engaged, you’ll figure it out. If you showed up at a party, stood by the door for five minutes, and didn’t meet anyone, you’d recognize the need to tweak your approach. Similarly, you’ll get plenty of feedback in social media if you get involved. Pay attention and you’ll figure it out, just like you learned how to behave at a party.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why Some Lawyers Win at Social Media While Others Lose

I’m visiting a small town in the mountains of North Carolina today and I need lunch. I’ve been hanging out in a coffee shop using the free wifi and searching for a restaurant.

I went to Google and typed in “restaurants Brevard NC” and got a list. The local business results came up and a bunch of the restaurants had customer reviews. I started clicking and scanning.

The first restaurant had four reviews: three bad, one good. I immediately scratched it off my list. Truthfully, I gave it all of about ten seconds of thought. Some poor person has spent years building this restaurant, and I wrote it off in seconds based on a few reviews from people I’ve never met. In fact, it’s conceivable that these aren’t even real people. I know a bunch of techniques for vetting these reviews, but I didn’t use any of them. I just reacted.

In ten seconds, I let some anonymous people make a decision for me that resulted in my skipping that restaurant now and forever. Boom. Done. No second chance.

Do you think prospective clients evaluate you based on the reviews on online sites? If you don’t, you’re living in fantasyland. Online reviews are word of mouth on steroids. You’ve got to pay attention. You’ve got to find a way to encourage positive reviews (within the rules in your jurisdiction), or you’re going to get sandbagged by an unhappy client, opposing party, or other anonymous person.

These review sites are incredibly powerful. Ignore them at your peril.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How Powerful Are Online Reviews?

A new visitor arrives at your website. He or she came for a reason. It’s not an accident. The visitor has an agenda.

Something happened. It might have been something that happened this morning. Maybe it was last night. Maybe it was a series of happenings all leading to this moment. Something triggered the visit.

The triggering event raised questions. It raised concerns, fears, and issues. This person has lots on his or her mind. Coming to your site isn’t a trivial event. After all, you’re not Facebook, Google News, or AddictingGames.com.

The question is this: When visitors arrive at your site, do you have a response to the triggering event? Do they immediately know that they’ve come to the right place?

Some visitors come seeking counsel. They’re ready to move forward, and they want to know what you do, how you do it, and how much it costs. Others are seeking answers to their questions about divorce. They aren’t ready to move forward; they just want to understand their rights.

Some are experiencing the situation as an emergency, while others are organizing a plan they intend to implement over the long term. They each process the trigger and respond in a unique way.

It’s important for you to think about your visitors and what caused them to come to your site. You need to put your head inside their head and make sure your site speaks to them in the most effective way.

There is no universal approach to prospective clients. It’s important, however, that you address your visitors’ concerns and are cognizant of the reason for their visit. Don’t emphasize the things you might think are important. Focus on the things they think are important. If you don’t, that will be the reason they didn’t call you after visiting your website.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why Some Clients Don’t Call After Visiting Your Website

Many years ago, our firm switched to fixed fees. We had previously employed an hourly billing model. The switch was motivated by the confusion our clients experienced under the hourly billing system. They were in a constant state of agitation, and we needed to find something that worked better for them so they would stop aggravating us.

When we used the hourly system, we assessed the case and asked the client to deposit a certain sum into our trust account to secure the payment of our bill. Each month, we would tally up our bill and transfer the payment from our trust account to our operating account. We’d then ask the client to replenish the trust account if we anticipated further work.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard we tried, our clients frequently failed to understand the need to replenish the trust account. We explained our system repeatedly, both orally and in written client agreements, yet our clients seemed to hear only the need for the original deposit to our trust account. Additional payments frequently triggered a client upset. It drove me crazy.

The big question we had about switching from the hourly system to the fixed fee was, how much should we charge? We had to come up with some guidelines or we would be making wild guesses about fees.

Here’s what we did. We pulled out five years’ worth of files. We also pulled the billing records for those files. We then categorized the files in a variety of ways to look for patterns.

We ultimately discovered that many of our files were resolved without the need for any court appearances. We called those our “non-litigation” cases. These files had a fairly consistent total fee without great variation. We broke them down and looked for commonalities that affected the fees of these files.

What we found was that the fee tended to be lower when the parties didn’t have children or retirement plans. Having either of those variables present moved the fee from low to average. When the parties owned a business or professional practice, the fee tended to be at the higher end of the range. When one spouse was financially dependent on the other, the fee tended to be a bit higher. Additionally, when one of the parties had engaged in marital misconduct, the fee was higher than average.

A smaller number of our files ended up going to court (or an action was filed and the matter was settled before any hearings). We studied the data and found that the more issues that were present (custody, child support, spousal support, property division), the higher the fee. Again, we found that ownership of a retirement plan, business, or professional practice also increased the fee. Obviously, the longer the case dragged on, the higher the fee.

Once we discovered these patterns, we pulled all the fee data together for the files and grouped them around these variables. We ended up with average fees for clients without the need for litigation and those with the need for litigation. We were able to break out those fees more specifically for people with children, marital misconduct, financial dependence, and ownership of more complicated assets.

Analyzing the files was a labor-intensive task, but it gave us the data we needed. In a sense, we were fortunate to have the data to analyze. This process is more challenging when you’re new to the practice and don’t have the old files and fee data. When you’re in that situation, you’re forced to do more estimating based on your sense of the time required to do the work. That can be tricky, and nearly universally, attorneys tend to underestimate the time required to do the work.

Once we had set our fees, we started quoting them to clients. It wasn’t always smooth sailing. We’ve had a variety of issues, including concerns raised by our State Bar. We’ve tweaked our system repeatedly over the years. If you’re going to try fixed fees, you should expect to treat it as a work in progress. You’re going to learn many lessons—some the hard way—as you lock in on your numbers.

While determining fixed fees can be challenging, it’s worth the effort. Once we fully rolled out our system, we had a dramatic reduction in clients experiencing distress over fees. They like knowing the total cost of the representation in advance. They appreciate gaining the ability to make cost/benefit decisions as they move through the process, and they fully understand what they’re getting into before they commit.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How One Firm Switched to Fixed Fees

Ten seconds of funny.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE1ZvCnwkYk

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Wal-Mart Moonwalker

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

Outsourcing Content Creation – You know you don’t want to write the stuff yourself, right?

How to Rank on Page 1 of Google Without Buying One Paid Link – Need I say more?

How to get hired – Great advice for job seekers.

6 Actually-Useful Facebook Apps For SMBs – New stuff for tweaking your Facebook page.

The 12-Step Landing Page Rehab Program – We’ve made most of these mistakes. Have you?

HOW TO: Enhance Your Online Presence with Video – Video is a big part of the game now. Your camcorder is, today, as important as your laptop or smartphone. Is that a camcorder in your pocket?

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Content Creation, Number 1, Jobs, Facebook, Landing and Video. Saturday Mishmash!

I was reading through some posts on Mashable this morning and came across this handy new service you’ve got to know about. It’s called Slydial and it’s free.

It lets you dial a number and go straight to voicemail so you don’t have to actually speak to the person, but you can leave your message. Get it? When you call them, their phone never rings, they can’t answer because they don’t know you’re calling. Boom, like magic, you’re connected to their voicemail.

How many times have I wished for such a service?

I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.

Will I use it to leave an essential communication for my mother? Mother in law? Teenage child? Opposing counsel?

Of course, I’d never use it get straight to a client’s voicemail. Never.

Here’s how it works -

1. Dial 267-SLYDIAL (267-759-3425) from any landline or mobile phone.

2. At the voice prompt, enter the U.S. mobile phone number of the person you want to Slydial.

3. You will be directly connected to their voicemail. Leave them a voicemail, sit back and relax.

Slydial is supported by ads. You can skip the ads by paying $3 per month. They’ve even got Slydial apps for Blackberry and iPhone. Life is good.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How To Skip Unpleasant Phone Calls

I’ve been getting calls from attorneys asking for advice. It’s fun to talk about the issues involved in growing a family law practice, and I enjoy the discussions.

I have to be careful, however, not to jump to conclusions. It’s tempting for me to assume that everyone who calls me has goals like mine. That’s not always the case (which is probably obvious to you, but I’m kind of slow sometimes).

People calling me have lots of different objectives. Some want to grow like crazy and have lots of cases and employees. Others want better cases and fewer of them. Some want a decent income and time with family. The list of possibilities goes on and on.

The only way for me to help is to listen first. I’ve got to understand where we’re going before I start giving advice about how we’re going to get there. I’ve been reminding myself a lot lately to shut up and listen.

Recently, I’ve had several calls where no matter how hard I listened, I couldn’t discern the goal. Why? Because the callers couldn’t yet articulate a goal. They haven’t figured it out yet, so they can’t tell me about it.

Unfortunately, asking for help before you’ve decided what you want won’t help you get closer to your destination.

I’ve heard it said that “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Makes sense to me.

You’ve got to know where you’re going if we’re going to figure out how you’re going to get there.

Figuring out what we want is harder than it sounds. It’s easy to get caught up in other people’s goals. It’s easy to follow the crowd or the expectations of others. I think it’s harder to find your own path and break free of the expectations.

I’ve met lawyers who’ve been practicing for forty years and just realized that they aren’t doing what they were meant to do. They figured out very late in the game that they should have followed a different path. Fortunately, the lawyers I know who’ve traveled that path aren’t filled with regret: they’re excited about their discovery and are passionate about what lies ahead.

Recently, I’ve been talking with lawyers in their thirties and forties who are realizing that there are alternatives and that they might want to choose one before it’s too late. They’ve got energy for the change. Of course, they are worried about the cost of the transition. That’s smart, but be careful not to let your prudent approach to life cause you to stick to a path you’ll later regret.

So what are your goals? What’s the plan for the rest of your life?

I suggest that you take some time and commit to figuring it out. Last week, I heard Deepak Chopra (love him or hate him) on Larry King remark in an aside that he had just returned from three weeks at a Buddhist monastery. He said he spent the time figuring out what’s next for his life. Three weeks—thinking.

Maybe you don’t have three weeks you can set aside for figuring out the rest of your life. But maybe you should find it given that we’re dealing, after all, with the REST OF YOUR LIFE. At a minimum, take three hours and, if you aren’t already clear, give your life some thought.

Know where you’re going, and you’re going to find it much easier to get there.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

What Are YOUR Goals?

I asked the attendees at my Idaho State Bar talk about their use of document assembly products. Very few hands went up. If you aren’t using a document assembly product, you’re not alone.

What is document assembly? It’s fancy fill-in-the-blank software. It allows you to create a template and fill in the variables with the information for a specific client. It comes in really handy for producing routine documents that you have to produce hundreds or thousands of times over the years.

The software is sophisticated. It can do things like fix “child” and “children” based on how many kids the parties happen to have. It guides you through gathering the required information and knows to skip questions that aren’t pertinent. For instance, if you respond “none” to the question about how many children the parties have, it won’t ask you questions about child support, custody, etc. It knows to fix things like “him” and “her,” and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Document assembly software is handy even if you run a small practice with a limited number of clients. You don’t have to use it for every document or even for every part of a document. Some attorneys use it—initially, at least—for creating court captions and signature blocks. Later, they take it to the next level and add various provisions to the process. They build one step at a time to a full questionnaire that leads to the completion of an entire document.

Some document assembly systems make it easy to start small and grow. Others require a more comprehensive approach to system design and essentially require you to think through your entire workflow before jumping into the first document. We’ve settled on Pathagoras. It’s tightly integrated with Microsoft Word, and it makes it easy for us to take an incremental approach to adding provisions and documents to our system. It’s not perfect, but it’s a workable solution.

We’ve been using document assembly products for years. We started with HotDocs (which languished for some time and has recently made a strong comeback) and GhostFill (which left the legal marketplace). Pathagoras is easier and less sophisticated than some of the other products, but it works for our approach. It’s important for you to find something that you’re going to use rather than buying something and putting it away for later (which never comes).

I’m intrigued by ContractExpress (watch the interview), but I haven’t tried it yet. It’s a cloud-based system and looks good. Typically, big firms have been the target users for ContractExpress; only recently has the software focused on the needs of small and medium firms. I really like the idea of renting the software and letting it live on someone else’s server.

DirectLaw is another cutting-edge product worthy of your attention. It takes document assembly to the next level and enables you to assemble the documents and sell them, via its system, directly to clients.

The reality of our lives is that we create lots of documents. Shaving seconds or even many minutes off the time it takes to create these documents can have a dramatic impact on our bottom line. Document assembly systems are much, much more efficient than hunting for a “go by” form and cutting and pasting. Document assembly helps you standardize your approach to documents and ensures that your entire firm is working from the same knowledge base. When you improve your agreements and other forms, you’re improving them for the entire team.

Take a look at the websites for the various document assembly products and evaluate them. Many of them offer some form of free trial. If you haven’t dabbled in document assembly before, it’s time to start now.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

What Is Document Assembly?

TechnoLawyer is running some columns I’ve written in its SmallLaw series. The website has some excellent writers (plus me) addressing small firm issues. TechnoLawyer makes the columns public a week after release on the TechnoLawyer blog. You can get the content a week earlier by subscribing to SmallLaw via e-mail.

My most recent column came out yesterday. I hope you enjoy it:

Fear is incredibly powerful. It makes us do things we wouldn’t otherwise do. More importantly, it stops us from doing things we’d like to do. Fear stinks. It’s fear that slows us down when it comes to marketing. I’ve seen it stop otherwise amazing lawyers in their tracks. Let’s explore a recent example.

To keep reading, click for the rest of The Biggest Impediment to Successful Law Firm Marketing.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

TechnoLawyer: The Biggest Impediment to Successful Law Firm Marketing

You’d like to create a blog and post to it regularly. Maybe you already have a blog and you’re not posting to it very often. Lots of lawyers get stuck for ideas about content.

Here’s the deal: you’ve got to think about your audience. Most of you are blogging for prospective clients, so think about what prospective clients want to know.

What they most want to know is how you address a problem like their problem. They want to hear stories about recent situations that sound exactly like their situation. They want to know how you solved the problem, what the solution looked like, what it felt like, how long it took to achieve, and what it cost. They want to know how it felt to have the problem, what it felt like as it was being solved, and how it felt after it was resolved.

Fortunately, you’re in the business of solving problems just like their problems. You’re uniquely situated to tell the story of the problem, the solution, and the happiness your client experienced by virtue of the solution. You are the source of the great story your prospective client is seeking to hear.

Your writing should focus on (1) identifying the problems you solve, (2) explaining how you solve them, and (3) the happy clients you’ve had as a result. That’s it.

You’ve got a million of these stories. You can tell the story of the man denied access to his children. You can relate his sadness, anxiety, and anger. You can share the things he said and regretted. You can convey the steps he took that helped and hurt. You can detail the process he followed to achieve resolution of the conflict, and you can explain how long it took and how much it cost. You can describe how he felt while he waited for a decision, and you can provide the status of his relationship with his children now. You can be the hero of the story. You’ll be right there in the middle of things making sure it all goes well.

You can do the same for the woman who had the affair with her subordinate and describe how that affected her situation. You can explain how her actions affected her finances and relationships. You can tell us whether she continued with her subordinate or whether it came to an end, resulting in sexual harassment litigation. You’ve got the best stories around. Tell them (without, of course, violating your rules of professional conduct). These are the things prospective clients want you to write about.

You can write about other topics as well. Feel free to give us the 5 Tips of Better Visitation or 12 Ways to Avoid Alienating Your Children. It’s all good, but it’s the stories they can relate to that prospects most want to hear.

Spend your time on stories, and you’ll turn those prospective clients into clients.

One last thing: we lawyers love to write about recent developments in the law. I’m not sure why, but clearly we love it. That’s a lawyer-focused thing, not a client-focused thing, at least in family law. Most prospective clients don’t want to know about recent updates. Generally, recent developments are refinements of earlier law. They are clarifications of the details. Most prospective clients want to better understand what’s going to happen in their situations. They’re looking for a broad understanding rather than the nitty-gritty details addressed in recent cases and statutory amendments.

Tell them stories. They’re dying for stories. They want to know that others have been where they’ve been and they want to know what to expect. Go tell a story, and soon you’ll have a new client.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

What Should You Blog About?

This one-minute video makes the best of an awful situation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bZ7dyi3Ynw

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Who’s Representing Mel?

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

ToneCheck Checks Your Tone Like A Spell Checker Checks Your Spelling – Great idea. I think many of us suffer from tone deafness in our writing. Failing to pay attention to tone sometimes aggravates the situation we’re trying to move toward resolution.

12 Pyschological Triggers – You’ll have to stretch this to apply to your marketing, but it’s good stuff.

How Social Media Drives New Business: Six Case Studies – Take note of the dentist.

10 Tips for Corporate Blogging – Solid, basic stuff you should consider if you’re new to blogging.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Tone, Triggers, Niches, New Business and Blogging. Saturday Again!

I was ranting about using Skype the other day. I was explaining that I use the video calling feature to talk with others who are also on Skype. I’m in love with the video calls.

Skype video has become my primary means of communicating with my team when I’m out of the office (which is most of the time). I use it to talk with my wife when I’m on the road, and it’s the primary way I communicate with one of my close friends. I’m on it all day long.

During my Skype love rant, someone asked whether Skype made any difference when talking to clients. My response—it makes a huge difference.

Here’s the deal: most of our clients are taking an extreme position on some issue or another. We spend gobs of our time attempting to move them toward a more moderate, reasonable position. We usually have these conversations on the phone. As we speak with our clients, we collect data to assist us in guiding them. Unfortunately, our data collection is limited to one sense: we can only listen.

However, if you move the conversation to Skype video, you’re instantly collecting data and evaluating it with your ears plus your eyes. You’re picking up visual clues that you never would have observed on the phone. Your ability to collect data grows exponentially. Now you have far more information to assist you in responding to your clients. Really understanding where your clients are coming from helps you move your clients toward resolution more quickly. You win, and your clients win.

All you need to get started with Skype video calls is your computer, a webcam, and the free Skype software. Of course, your clients need the same setup on their end. Many computers now come with built-in webcams. Ask your clients whether they have one; if not, they can buy a webcam for as little as $30.

Try some free Skype video calls and see how they affect your client interactions. For me, it’s like the difference between night and day. Or better, the difference between radio and TV.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Radio Is to TV What the Telephone Is to _____?

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of family law practitioners at the Idaho State Bar Conference in Idaho Falls. It was a terrific trip, and I truly enjoyed getting to know some Idaho lawyers (who are very likely the friendliest people I’ve ever met).

My talk, “15 Ways to Take Your Practice to the Next Level,” was a slightly updated version of my presentation to the ABA Family Law Section in New Orleans in April.

I really enjoy delivering this program because it’s packed with practical ideas for dealing with the new environment in which we’re all practicing. I get excited by the innovative concepts, but I also love talking about things you can do in your practice to make changes immediately. This program lets me wear my futurist hat simultaneously with my presentist hat.

On the flight back to North Carolina, I reflected on how much fun I have speaking to family law and small firm practitioners. I never leave without making a new friend and stealing a good idea or two. I’d like to do even more speaking.

In addition to “15 Ways to Take Your Practice to the Next Level,” I’ve pretty much nailed a program on “Essential Technology Tools for Family Law” and one called “Marketing Your Family Law Practice in the New World.” Confidentially, I’ll confess that I have the most fun with the marketing programs (probably because I vigorously challenge the old ideas of some in the crowd and I kind of enjoy the conflict). The technology programs are fun as well, and I’ve been doing the “60 Tips in 60 Minutes” program about once a month (and three times in August). We’ve now developed a special version of “60 Tips” for paralegals (who laugh about twice as much as lawyers–what’s with that?).

So where am I going with this? I just want you to know that I’m ready, willing, and able to come talk to your group when the need arises. Shoot me a message via the contact form here in the site, and we’ll see whether we can work something out. Keep me in mind when the topic of finding a speaker comes up.

Remember, I’m a bargain as a speaker because, since I shaved my head, I’ve eliminated haircuts (which can be expensive for lawyers in North Carolina), so I’ve reduced my overhead (pardon the pun) and can pass those savings along to your bar association or firm.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Here’s Where You Can Find a Great Family Law Speaker

I get up every morning and pee. Then I weigh (I’ve always struggled with weight). I throw on running shorts and socks. Then I head downstairs and eat breakfast while reading the New York Times on my iPad.

Now I’m supposed to head out for a walk or run. That’s where the plan often comes off the rails. Those first few steps are the toughest. If I can get to the door, I’m golden. I’m not always golden.

Lots of days I detour upstairs, shower, and go to work.

It’s funny because I know (intellectually) that exercise works for me. If I can get out the door, I’ll have a better day. I’ve already succeeded when I get back from my run, and success breeds success. I’ll feel better, my interactions with everyone will improve, and I’ll make more money. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.

Marketing is a lot like exercise. It’s tough to get going, but once you get going, everything falls into place. Referral source meetings are the best illustration. Making the call to a referral source to set up lunch starts the ball rolling. Once you’ve set the appointment, you’re a winner. You’ve accomplished an important goal. Everything in your business will go better because you’re winning.

It’s all downhill once you’ve made the appointment. Doing the lunch is easy. It’s on the calendar. All you’ve got to do is show up and be nice (which is hard for me, but you’re probably a nice person, so it’ll be easy for you). Good conversation will happen, and referrals will follow.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. You know making that call will be good for you (like exercise), yet you get hung up on making the call. If only you could get your fingers moving over that phone keypad, everything in your life would smooth out. You’d feel good. Your revenues would increase. Your employees would stop worrying. You’d be golden.

Make the F R E A K I N G call, okay?

Once we get going, whether it’s exercise or marketing, it’s much easier to keep going. Now we’re feeling good about ourselves. We’ve got momentum. It’s that first effort that’s so challenging. We’ve got to kick ourselves in the pants.

The only secret I can share–something that sometimes works for me–is to focus less on why I don’t want to act and focus more on the results. I like to think about how good I’m going to feel with my success. I visualize the way it feels when I walk into the office building knowing that I have already accomplished one of my most important goals for the day. When I get my brain in that success space, I’m far more likely to get out the door.

It’s your turn now. You’ve got a phone in your pocket or on your desk. All you’ve got to do is dial. It’s time to stop focusing on the reasons not to act and start focusing on what it’s going to feel like when you’ve already accomplished your goal of scheduling that meeting. Move your head toward that success space. You can do it.

It’s time to make a call.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How Marketing Is Like Exercise

I recently had the opportunity to have a video featured on Chris Brogan’s site, Man on the Go. It’s a travel-related site filled with tips for business travel.

The tip involves my secret method for finding my way back to the hotel when going for a run in a strange city. I didn’t want you to miss out, so here’s the video. It’s about 90 seconds long.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT8j5v0Nbo0

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Avoid Getting Lost

A bagel, on its own, is dry. Cream cheese without a bagel just doesn’t work. Put the two together, and you’ve got something delicious (especially if it’s right out of the oven at the bagel shop).

If you can find the right cream cheese for your bagel, you’re going to have something magical. Similarly, bringing on a marketing partner can take your marketing to the next level.

Here are some ideas.

You’d like to do an open house for your new office. There’s a new bakery in town. Team up and feature its baked goods at your party. Promote both businesses in the invitations, press releases, and announcements. Better yet, do it at the bakery and feature special cakes for divorce parties.

How about a reception with an accounting firm? You invite your attorney and mental health referral sources to meet their accountants. They invite their business clients to meet you. Get a local string quartet to join with you and promote its services to the attendees by playing and passing out cards and brochures.

It’s not too early to start thinking about a holiday party. Consider assembling a group of small firms to co-sponsor the party. Have everyone chip in an agreed amount and allocate a set number of invitations to each firm. Make sure the firms are competitive. Your firm, obviously, will be the sole family law practice. Seek out other firms from several different practice areas. Be sure everyone meets everyone else at the party.

Just make sure you’ve got things straight with the cream cheese before you spread it on your bagel.

Before you commit to a joint project, be certain your marketing partner has a good network of connections. Make sure the project is going to be mutually beneficial, and be sure you’re both comfortable promoting each other to your clients and referral sources. A joint project won’t work unless each participant is on the same page and has the same understanding of the goals and objectives. Talk through all the issues before you commit to the project.

As you work through the issues with your prospective marketing partner, be sure you talk about the money. Create a budget in writing and agree to the terms before you get started. Build in some cushion for the unexpected. Overcommunicate with your partner. It’s easy for events to head in unexpected directions, and you need a strong relationship with your partner. You want your event to strengthen your relationship with your partner as well as with all the new people you’ll be meeting.

Marketing with a partner enables both of you to build relationships you wouldn’t have otherwise created. It helps you reduce your marketing expenses, and it comes with the benefit of having someone else promote you rather than you having to do it yourself. Find the right marketing partner, and you’ll have everything you need to keep buying bagels for a very long time.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How Marketing Is Like a Bagel with Cream Cheese

As is often the case, what I think is funny might not be funny to you. This is 2 minutes of seriously wild stuff.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8x2oii4cIM

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Marriage by Force?

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

An Inside Look at Competitors Backlinks with Open Site Explorer

Facebook Marketing: Ultimate Guide

Why You Should Be Your Own Toughest Competitor

Young = Flexible = Growth = Life

Presentist

Does Snob Appeal Sell More Products and Services?

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Happy Saturday! SEO, Facebook, You, and Some Deeper Stuff

I had the opportunity to do a webinar for RocketMatter recently. We covered a lot of ground and provided an overview of the hardware and software necessary to get your practice up and running. It was tough to cover this much material in an hour, but the time restraint resulted in a good, quick overview of the essentials. You can watch, listen, or download by visiting the RocketMatter blog.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Set Up a Modern Law Practice and the Technology Tools You’ll Need

Do you ever get a file in your e-mail that won’t open on your computer? Maybe it’s a document file type that your word processor doesn’t support, or it could be a video file format that isn’t compatible with your player. What do you do?

Here’s a quick video tip. It’s about two minutes long. I’ll show you how to deal with those files by converting them to a format you can open. The best part is that the converter is free. Be sure to bookmark Zamzar after you’ve watched the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfNYqFQOtWc

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Open Those Email Attachments That Won’t Open

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

The Best Way To Find The Best New Employee

You’ve done a great job. Everything has gone as planned. The outcome is better than you expected. However, your client is unhappy.

Your opponent was mediocre. He wasn’t well prepared. Everything about his work was second-rate. The outcome wasn’t good. His client is happy. In fact, his client is much happier than yours.

How can that be? How can things have gone so well for your client, yet your client is disappointed?

The difference is the gap between what the client expected and what you delivered. For some reason, your client expected more than you delivered. For some reason, your opponent’s client expected less than your opponent delivered.

The key to happy clients is managing those expectations. You need to make promises and then overdeliver on those promises.

Taking things to the extreme: “I promise you’ll see your children again at some point before you die.” Client gets alternating weekend visits, and I’m the hero. “I promise you’ll have enough money to eat–beans and rice, that is–at least once per day.” Client can afford to eat in a restaurant once or twice a month after the judge rules. Again, I’m the hero.

You have to manage your clients’ expectations proactively. You don’t want to leave your clients free to imagine whatever outcome they please. Inevitably, they’re going to expect an outcome that’s better than you can deliver. It’s inevitable. You should start managing expectations from the moment of your first contact.

You should go beyond managing expectations about results. You should also manage expectations about fees, call return times, who will be the primary contact, and the like. Start early and keep managing expectations throughout the representation.

The fact is that client satisfaction is totally determined by how your clients compare what they expected to what you delivered. You have a huge impact on what they expect. Grab their expectations by the horns and rein them in. Then exceed those expectations by doing more than your clients ever thought you would or could do.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Consistently Exceed Expectations

Creating new content for your blog or website is tough. Between client work, managing your office, and everything else, it’s difficult to find the time to keep creating new material for your audience.

When you do create something useful, it’s critical that you get the most out of it. You’ve got to recycle and reuse the content as much as possible for maximum return on your investment.

Here are five ways to repurpose your content so that you get as many benefits from your effort as possible.

1. Turn it into an e-mail. You can use every article you write as an e-mail to your current client list, prospective client list, and former client list. It’s great to keep yourself top of mind with all these folks. Use a service like Aweber to maintain the list and allow your contacts to control the e-mail on their own.

2. Turn it into a video. Take your material and convert it into a conversational video. Place the video on your website and YouTube and make it available to referral sources for their use. Don’t go crazy with hiring a video production company and spending a fortune. Just crank out something simple using a camcorder set up in a quiet location in your office.

3. Create a report. Gather several posts on the same topic and create a report for downloading from your site. You might offer it in exchange for signing up for your e-mail list. Maybe you can take five or ten of your articles on child custody and create a child custody e-book. Make the e-book available via download from your site. You can have the report professionally printed and snail mail it to referral sources.

4. Send the report to the media. Take the report you created on child custody, attach a cover letter, and send it to all the local TV, radio, and newspaper reporters for them to save as a reference when these issues come up in the news. You can e-mail it if you like and include a link to the e-mail. Make it clear, through your writing, that you’re an expert and assert that you’re available as a resource when the need arises.

5. Post your article or report to article sites. Submit the report to EzineArticles. This website will be happy to publish your material–free. Be sure to include a link back to your website so readers can find you.

There are many more options for recycling your content. You can submit articles to local publications for their use. You can take your articles and turn them into a speech for local civic groups. You can use the articles as the basis for an adult continuing education course. You’ve spent considerable–and valuable–time creating your material. Make sure you use it over and over again.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Recycle Your Blog Posts

www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WV5galRYc

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Vuvuzela Orchestra

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

11 Reasons Customers Don’t Trust Your Web Site

Employed With A Side of Startup

The Inside Line On SEO

How to Blog Effectively to Market Your Small Business

Twitter’s growth continues at super-linear rate : Powerful professional and business development tool for lawyers

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Websites, Blogs, Twitter, SEO and Starting Up. Yep, It’s Saturday

I’ve been talking to attorneys across the United States about their practices. In multi-attorney family-law practices, revenues are climbing in a small, steady way after more than 18 months of being flat or down. Some practices are up 10 percent or more, while others are leveling off after a period of decline. Things are turning around. Whew!

In a ten-attorney practice, a 10 percent gain in revenues means it’s time to add an attorney. Or does it? Could it mean, alternatively, that it’s time for all the attorneys to ramp up their effort–and with it their compensation–by 10 percent?

That’s a tough call. Some business advisors suggest that you hire early before you fully have the need. Being ahead of the curve allows you to maintain quality, creates the space necessary to keep growing, and facilitates the ramping up required to absorb the growth. Other advisors caution you to wait until you reach the breaking point before adding people. They push a conservative approach that protects your resources and prevents you from acting prematurely.

I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker: I tend to hire early. For my firm, the adrenaline of having a big payroll drives our marketing. When we need more clients, we work like crazy to get more clients. I’m not sure whether it’s the chicken or the egg or what, but when we need the work, we bring it in, and we only need it when we have too many people on our staff. I know it sounds crazy, and it is, but this approach has always worked for us.

What should you do? I suppose it depends on your goals and your risk tolerance. Many family law attorneys have modest goals and a low tolerance for risk. That’s fine. The key is to accept that you are who you are and to be comfortable with your approach. When those big-goal risk takers grow and you don’t, avoid being upset with yourself or with them. Be happy with the decisions you make and remind yourself that you aren’t where you are by accident. You’re there by design.

What’s the plan? What’s your approach? What are you going to do?

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Should You Hire Someone Now?

About 2,000 people visited our family law firm’s website yesterday. More than 250,000 people have visited so far this year.

Why do so many people visit?

Is it that sweet picture of me in the middle of the page? Probably not.

Is it all the money we’ve spent this year on search engine optimization (SEO)? Nope, we haven’t spent any money on SEO in quite some time.

People come to the site because they are in pain. Their marriages are unraveling, and they are afraid. We give them what they need: answers to their questions. That’s why they come.

Every week, we add something to the site. We put up a new article or video. We tweak something here or there. We do our best to keep it current. We answer questions on the site every day; we dream up new ways to provide assistance, via the site, at every opportunity.

Of course, the site ranks well in Google and other search engines. Why? Because it has many, many inbound links from other sites. Other sites link to our site because they want to link to resources that are helpful for visitors to their sites. Our site is useful.

Many visitors to our site become our clients. They also become the clients of the many attorneys we link to from the site. The site is a powerful marketing tool.

Want traffic to your site? Want that traffic to convert to clients? Then build a site with great content. Be helpful to those in need, and you’ll get all the business you can handle. It’s working for us.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Get Visitors to Your Website

You do lots of things with regularity. You brush your teeth twice a day (some people do it three times–I see them in the men’s room at the office). You have a routine.

In fact, you’ve got a bunch of routines like calling your mother on Sunday, bathing once a day, exercising daily (maybe), and eating lunch. These routines serve you well. You don’t think about them. You just do them.

I’d suggest a new routine for you. I’d suggest that you call all of your clients twice per week and give them an update. Call before noon on Wednesday and call again before the end of the day on Friday. Tell them what’s happening. If nothing’s happening, tell them that as well. Don’t wait for them to call: initiate the call. Of course, if they’ve already called and talked to you before the deadline, you can wait until the next deadline.

The key here is to get in the habit of working through the list twice a week. Never let a client go more than two business days without a call. Be proactive, not reactive. Don’t wait for the call.

Clients are afraid, nervous, and uncertain about what’s going on. They want to know that you’re looking after their interests. They want to be in the loop. They want to know whether things are moving in the right direction and, if they’re not, they’d like to know that it’s not because of your inattention. Calling twice a week addresses all of these issues and keeps you on good terms with your clients. This simple routine will solve more than 95 percent of all problems with upset clients.

Adopt a new habit. Make the call. Wednesday before noon. Friday before you go home. Do it, and you’ll have happy clients.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How a Routine Can Make Your Clients Happy

There are many reasons for failure. Personally, the one I like best is that someone else is at fault. I’m comfortable with blaming others. Let’s go with that for now.

Every management book I’ve read emphasizes the importance of hiring the right people. Some experts are fond of saying “get the right people on the bus.” I agree. Unfortunately, I’ve got a tendency, once I’ve got the wrong person on the bus, to keep them on the bus.

I’m a big fan of Ram Charan. He’s written extensively on management topics and had a great article in Fortune back in 1999 citing some academic research (I’m catching up on my reading). He reports on the reasons we leave incompetent people in their roles even when we know they aren’t doing the job. This failure to make a change leads to our downfall over and over again.

There are several reasons we leave these people in their jobs despite knowing we should let them go, and I can totally relate to all of them.

Here they are:

1. “This person has to succeed.” The person is so talented, educated, and smart that he or she can’t possibly fail. It’s illogical to think this person can’t do the job. It can’t be his or her fault. It must be something else.

2. “This person’s my guy/gal.” This person has been with you for some time. Maybe the person followed you from your old firm. Maybe he or she has a relationship with you or your family outside of the office. You’re loyal, and you just can’t bring yourself to cut the cord.

3. “I can coach this person.” I can fix this. He or she just needs more time from me and we can bring the performance up to acceptable standards.

4. “I’ve fired a lot of people lately.” Turnover is bad, and you don’t want more of it. You hang on to this poor performer so that you won’t demoralize the rest of the staff and have everyone worrying about the safety of his or her job.

5. “Everyone likes this person.” I don’t want to cut someone out when the local bar, the staff, the clients, and everyone else like the person. Of course, they don’t know he or she isn’t cutting the mustard.

6. “This person’s in the job, and I’ll take the devil I know over the one I don’t.” You’ve made hiring mistakes before, and there’s no reason to think the next person will be any better. It’s easy to get stuck where you are and avoid the risk that comes with making a change.

These are not good reasons to keep people in their roles. They’re excuses. I make them to myself all the time, and it’s clear to me that making these excuses is my biggest mistake (at least it’s my biggest mistake when I’m in a blaming mode). If you’re hanging on to someone who’s not doing the job and making these excuses to allow yourself to keep the person, it’s time to act. Hanging on to these folks is a big reason behind your failure to achieve your goals.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why You’re Keeping the Wrong Employees

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsKN2yik4-Y

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Baby Race

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling in Love

9 Things to do Before Entering Social Media

The Twitter Generation Will Change Everything

How to Create a FaceBook Landing Page

Explosive Q&A App Formspring Goes Multiplayer

How the Web Is Affecting Social Relations [STUDY]

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Lots of Social Media Stuff. Welcome Back to Saturday!

I bought some notecards recently with my name printed on the top in raised lettering. I enjoy stroking the letters with my fingers. The notecards look and feel so cool that I just can’t put them down. I love these things. I’m not sure whether it’s the way they look or the fact that they have my name on top that drives my attraction.

What am I going to do with the cards?

First, I’m sending a handwritten note to all of my new clients thanking them for trusting our firm to help them with their matters.

I’m writing something like this: “Dear Client, Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to be of service to you. Helping people start fresh is our mission, and we are thrilled to be able to assist you. This is our life’s work, and we appreciate that you’ve chosen to work with us. Your trust and confidence in us is greatly appreciated.”

Second, I’m sending a note to the referral source who sent the client.

That note reads as follows: “Dear Referral Source, Thank you for your referral of Bob. We’re getting started on his case and promise to give it the attention and care this matter deserves. We are grateful for the trust and confidence you’ve shown in us by sending Bob our way.”

Third, I’m sending a note to the referral source when we can’t take the case.

Here’s what I’m planning to say: “Dear Referral Source, I appreciate you sending Bob our way. Unfortunately, we aren’t going to be able to help. I wish we had been able to do the work, but it would not have been a good fit. We have referred Bob to someone who has agreed to assist him. I’m confident that Bob will be in good hands.”

Fourth, I’m sending notes to referral sources I’ve talked to on the phone but haven’t yet met.

Here’s my note: “Dear Referral Source, It was a pleasure talking with you today. I’m looking forward to our lunch next Thursday. As I understand it, we’re meeting at Greek Fiesta at noon. I’ll see you then. By the way, I spoke to Andy and thanked him for introducing us. See you next week.”

Finally, I’m sending a note to all clients on their one-year anniversary with our firm. Most of our cases get resolved within a year, but some of our litigation cases drag on forever. At the end of the year, I’m writing as follows: “Dear Client, It’s been a year since we started working on your case. As usual, we’ve had our ups and downs. This is a tough process. I wanted to acknowledge our anniversary together and thank you for giving us the privilege of being of service. Thank you.”

That’s what I’m doing with these fancy cards. It’s inexpensive to order these cards with your name on them. Do it. Start writing. It’s easy, and you’ll see the benefits in increased revenues. I’m planning to place a reorder for more cards and envelopes soon.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Use Notecards to Get New Clients

The term “cloud computing” gets thrown around quite a bit. It usually refers to software and data that’s stored on a remote server. Cloud-based applications are appealing for a variety of reasons: you don’t have to install software (generally), you don’t have to buy and maintain servers, you get professional-level backup of your data and security, and you get the benefit of software updates and advances without having to install the software yourself.

A good example of a cloud-based application is Yahoo! Mail. It’s an e-mail software program running on a Yahoo! server. The e-mails live on the server, as does the mail software. Users access the software and data remotely using a web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.) or some other software application on their computers.

Yahoo! Mail is a baby step to the cloud. It’s easy to sign up for an account and put it to work.

The next baby step to the cloud is moving some of your files from your local hard disk or server to a cloud-based server. For instance, I save my documents in a Dropbox folder on my laptop. When I save a file in this special folder, it’s automatically synced with a folder on the server at Dropbox. If I edit the file and save it with the changes, it’s automatically changed at Dropbox. I still have the file on my laptop, but it’s also on the Dropbox server.

Once the file is synced to Dropbox, it’s available to me, via my browser, from any other computer. I can also access the file from my smart phone. I can share the file with others if I wish. I can even e-mail the file to myself or someone else. You can sign up for a free Dropbox account and give it a try. Dropbox charges a fee if you decide to upgrade to an account with more than 2 GB of storage. (My account is free.)

A third baby step is Google Docs. With Google Docs, you open your browser and visit the Google Docs site. Once you’re there, you use Google’s software–a word processor, spreadsheet program, etc.–to create a document. Save the document on a Google server, and you’re done. You won’t have a copy of your document on your computer: the document will only be saved in the cloud on the Google server. You can access the file anytime, from anywhere, so long as you have Internet access. You can download the document to your computer if you wish. Google also offers software that allows you to sync your documents so you have a copy on your local computer and on the Google server. (You can also upload your existing documents in other formats to Google Docs.) An account with Google Docs is free.

There are cloud-based applications for accounting, case management, customer relations management, and on and on. Eventually, I suspect, we’ll all move our software and data to the cloud. We’ll give up our servers, and we won’t have to pay nearly as much to our computer support people (of course, we’ll be paying some of the cloud providers). Now is the time, if you haven’t already, to get familiar with the cloud and take baby steps so your comfort level increases and you’re ready as technology changes and evolves.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Take Baby Steps to the Cloud

There are many ways to skin a cat (whatever that means), and there are many ways to market your practice. Here’s one idea that I guarantee will work for you. How can I guarantee it? I know it works because it’s working right here, right now. This site, Divorce Discourse, generates a gazillion referrals to our North Carolina family law practice from people like you. We get calls and e-mails every day from attorneys across the United States and in many foreign countries.

How can you replicate my success? It’s really simple.

Start a blog on a topic of use to your peers in other parts of the country. They’ll start reading and, when they have a case in your area, they’ll refer it to you because they already know you. It’s like magic. You do something for them, and they’ll do something for you. Over time, they’ll come to know you, like you, and trust you.

How do you do it?

1. Pick a topic. I suggest something that’s important to us and hard for us to keep up with. Ideally, the topic won’t be state specific. Think about divorce taxation, ERISA issues in divorce, or business valuation issues. Other topics you might consider include custody evaluations, cross-examination of psychological experts, closing arguments in family law, or international child abduction.

Do a quick search on Google for the terms you think matter to the area you’re considering and see whether anything ranks at the top of the first page. By and large, you’re going to come up with little if anything useful on these topics. There isn’t much competition.

Do you need to be an expert on the topic to write about it? No, you don’t. We’ve all had the experience of teaching something. You know how quickly you learn when you’re put in a teaching role. If you’re not an expert now, you will be in the blink of an eye. You’ll certainly know more about these topics than the average family lawyer after you’ve read a book and a handful of articles on the topic. Remember, an expert is someone who knows more than the reader. You’ll be an expert in about 20 minutes. Seriously.

2. Start writing. Don’t publish anything yet. Just start writing and see how it goes. Find the format that works for you. I publish every day, and my pieces are short. You might go long and publish once a week, maybe twice. Maybe you’ll go short like me and publish daily. Either way, write enough so that you can start out with six weeks of material in the bank.

I’ve been doing this for about a year and a half. It gets easier and easier. Ideas come to me all the time. The writing flows. Admittedly, it wasn’t that way for the first six months. I ran out of ideas; I struggled to get the words out. The more you write, the easier it gets. I’m actually enjoying it now (especially if I’m on caffeine).

3. Publish. Set up a blog site. You can try WordPress (what I’m using here, but it requires some tech savvy) or SquareSpace (that’s what I’d do if I were you). If you want a full-service provider, you might check out LexBlog (it’s the gold standard for legal blogs). Pick a domain name and register it. Don’t use the free URL from blogger or WordPress: buy a custom domain name. Don’t get bogged down in the appearance of the site. Most subscribers are going to read your posts via RSS feed or e-mail. They aren’t going to come back to the site often.

Trust me, if you explain the tax issues in language we can understand or if you offer helpful advice for cross-examining an expert, we aren’t going to criticize you for your design. We are, however, going to send you business when we have a case in your area.

4. Keep publishing. Don’t let the site die. That’s almost worse than not doing it at all. Commit and keep it going. Don’t start if you aren’t willing to stick to it. This is your career, your future, and your retirement plan, so don’t dabble. Get in the game and stay there. Don’t become discouraged when your readership consists of five people for a while. More readers will come if you keep going. It might take a year, but we want help, and you’re providing it.

5. Market your site. Write guest posts for other blogs, submit your articles to legal publications, and offer to speak at CLEs. Promote, promote, promote. Everything you write for the blog should be repurposed for other sites, publications, and speeches.

6. Manage your cases. When the referrals come–and they will–you’ve got to get the work done while continuing to feed material to your site. Use my advice here to build systems that allow you to get the work done while juggling everything else. You don’t want to fail your newfound referral sources by dropping the ball with their clients. Stay on top of everything by employing excellent technology and systems.

That’s it. This approach will work. If it doesn’t, just submit your request for a refund of what you’ve paid for the use of this site. All kidding aside, this approach is a winner. We love people who help us out. We’re grateful, and we feel an obligation to pay you back. Give us what we need, and we’ll give you what you need. We understand where you’re coming from, and we want to help those who help us.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

A Surefire Plan for Generating Referrals

TechnoLawyer is running some columns I’ve written in its SmallLaw series. The website has some excellent writers (plus me) addressing small firm issues. TechnoLawyer makes the columns public, a week after release, on the TechnoLawyer blog. You can get the content a week earlier by subscribing to SmallLaw via e-mail.

My most recent column came out yesterday. I hope you enjoy it:

Marketing is about more than taking referral sources to lunch, updating your Facebook page, and conducting seminars. It’s about asking yourself some important questions and taking action based on the answers. Let me first tell you about the 10 questions. Then I’ll tell you a quick story about some people who answered those questions and turned their practices, and their industry, upside down.

To keep reading, click for the rest of 10 Questions That Lead to Explosive Practice Growth.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

TechnoLawyer: 10 Questions That Lead to Explosive Practice Growth

I’d like your opinion, please.

Here are the facts:

I interviewed a lawyer for a podcast here on Divorce Discourse. The interview went well and it’s fairly interesting. It’s still on the site.

Since the interview, the lawyer was arrested on charges of distributing child pornography. He has now surrendered his law license and agreed to plead guilty. He will appear in court next week for entry of the plea.

My question is this: should I leave the interview up on this site or take it down?

Thoughts? Thanks.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

I’ve Got a Sticky Situation. Can You Help?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLreo24WYeQ

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Will It Blend? iPhone 4

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday, I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

LinkedIn Takes Groups To The Next Level With Likes, Follows And More

STEPPING IN DO

Ways to make customers right … even when they’re wrong

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

LinkedIn, Getting Things Done, and Making Clients Right. Saturday!

I visited the website of a family law attorney yesterday in search of his phone number. I needed to place a quick call to this guy about some help I needed. I had a crappy Internet connection, and I was in a hurry. I found the site easily by searching on his name and city. So far, so good.

I scrolled down to the bottom of the site looking for the number. Nothing. I got agitated.

Then I scrolled back up to the top. There was a “Contact” button. I clicked, waited for the page to load, and found the number. I was calmer now.

The whole two-minute episode got me thinking. What’s the most important thing on the site? I suppose one could argue that it’s the headline, the copy, the information provided, and on and on. Or one could argue that the phone number is the critical piece of information.

After all, nearly every client who hires you comes in via the phone. If prospective clients like what they see on the site, they give you a call, schedule an appointment, and come in for a consult. Most people will call to make an appointment even if you’ve integrated a slick meeting scheduler into your site. They like to call. It’s comforting to talk to a person. They’re going to need your phone number, or they’re not likely to hire you.

What to do?

Put your phone number on the bottom of every single page of your site. Feel free to put it on the top and on the sides as well if it makes you happy. Just put it in a bunch of places. Make finding your number easy. Make it as frictionless as possible. Make it simple for an idiot like me to find it with the least amount of effort.

The last thing you want is for a prospective client to become frustrated and call someone else with a great, big phone number on their site.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

The Missing Element That Destroys Your Website

Divorce lawyers end up divorced as often as our clients. I’m not sure why we don’t acquire some special knowledge from watching so many people make the same mistakes over and over. But, alas, we don’t seem to gain any immunity from our experience. Plenty of us get divorced.

I’ve been fortunate not to have been through the experience. In fact, yesterday was the twentieth anniversary of my marriage to Lisa. It seems like only yesterday that we were married. The wedding was eventful: my wedding ring was stolen, along with the marriage license, from our car the night before. Just a few hours before the ceremony, the police recovered the license and ring.

We’ve been through quite a bit together. When we were married, she was 22 and I was 29. I left my job and started my law firm four months before our wedding. We had our first child after three years and our second child three years after the first. When Delaney, our second, was 18 months old, I had a heart attack and quintuple bypass surgery. Lisa was 31. She was amazing. She took care of me and juggled both kids. We had quite an adjustment to make, and she led the way. She has been incredibly supportive of me through many trials and tribulations—health related, business related, and otherwise.

Last night, we had dinner at a great place in the mountains of North Carolina where we’ve been staying for the last few weeks. We reminisced about our adventures, we talked, and we worried about our kids. I told her how grateful I am for everything she has done for me, what she means to me, and how much I value the connection we share. We’ve been best friends for more than 20 years. I love her deeply and am as excited as ever about our future together.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Can a Divorce Lawyer Stay Married?

This site runs on WordPress. I also run my other sites, North Carolina Divorce, Stay Happily Married, and Divorce Talk Radio, on WordPress. The WordPress software is free. We pay for hosting at Rackspace, but the software costs us absolutely nothing. In fact, we’ve installed dozens of plugins created by the WordPress community, and they are usually free as well.

WordPress is amazing. It works well. It’s fairly easy to use, and it will do just about anything we can dream up. It’s terrific.

Unfortunately, sometimes it’s also tricky. The plugins will, occasionally, have bugs. More likely, one plugin will conflict with another. For instance, our video player plugin once had a problem with our backup plugin. Both plugins, on their own, were wonderful, but together they caused our site to crash.

When we need to fix something like the plugin problem we had, we have to do a bunch of digging around and experimenting. It’s time consuming. Sometimes the problem simply exceeds our knowledge, and we have to hire someone to help us figure out things.

I advocate using WordPress, but only if you’re prepared—and staffed—to handle the challenges it brings. If you don’t have the staff and you want to use WordPress, consider using WordPress HelpCenter. These experts charge a reasonable fee to take care of your WordPress support needs. At the low end, you’re going to pay $550 per month for their help. That’s fair considering what you’d pay to have someone on your staff.

If you aren’t up to the challenge or expense of WordPress, I suggest experimenting with SquareSpace. I’m a fan. It’s simple, and it works. You can try it free for 14 days. You don’t even have to provide a credit card.

You have to pay for SquareSpace, but it’s cheap (between $14 and $30 per month). SquareSpace users are creating amazing, unique, beautiful sites. Libke Insurance is a good, simple example of a SquareSpace site. SquareSpace has a huge portfolio of other examples. If you’re willing to do it yourself, you should give SquareSpace a look.

What if you aren’t willing to build and manage your own site? Obviously, you can pay a web designer some money and have them build the site. I’ve done that—twice. Here’s my problem with that approach—you need to keep up your site. It’s going to change a bunch if you’re doing a good job with it: you’ll be adding articles, videos, podcasts, and the like. You can hire a web marketing company, pay it $3,000 to $15,000, and have it build a great site. My experience is that after it’s up and running, you’re going to pay significantly to make changes. The fees are never-ending, and changes are always a major undertaking.

I’ve heard the pitches. “We’ll build it and turn it over to you. You can change anything you want.” The reality, however, is that it’s never easy to change everything. It might be easy to change some things, but inevitably, you’re going to want to change the thing that costs money to change.

Today, websites are essential—they have become a core business tool. You’ve got to control the core. It’s too important to delegate.

I really like having control of my site. I can do it in WordPress. You might not be ready for that. You are, however, ready for SquareSpace. They make it easy. They constantly improve the product, and they charge you a fee that is more than reasonable. Consider SquareSpace and take control of your web presence.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

The Price of Free Software

Calling a prospective referral source for the first time is tough. We all feel a bit hesitant about what to say and how to say it. It reminds us a little of calling someone for a date. We fear rejection. It’s awkward. 

Here’s how you do it. 

Ideally, you won’t be placing a completely cold call. Hopefully, your call will be a little bit warm. Maybe you’ll have the name of the person who referred you. Or you’ll have met before, maybe long before. Sometimes you’ll have a connection that makes it easier to open the conversation. 

If it were a date, you’d be able to say, “Hi, I’m Alice. You know me: we’re in Physics 201 together. I sit on the other side of the room, and we’ve glanced at each other once.” 

Okay, I guess it’s clear that I didn’t get many dates, huh? 

What if the call truly is cold, almost frigid? What if you have no connection to the person at all? 

Here’s how I do it. I call and introduce myself and go for it right off the bat. 

“Hi, I’m Lee Rosen. I practice family law here in Raleigh. I’m working on growing my practice, and I’d like to meet you. I’ve heard great things about you, and I’d like to learn a bit about what you’re doing. I’d only need a few minutes, and I’d be happy to come by your office, meet you for coffee, or take you out to lunch. Would you be up for that?” 

Shockingly, most everyone I’ve ever called has said “sure” and we’ve proceeded to work out a plan. We usually meet for coffee or agree to have lunch. 

The anxiety I have about making the call is almost always unwarranted. The fact is that most professionals want to meet other professionals and are happy you’ve made the call so they don’t have to do it themselves. 

On another day, we’ll talk more about what to do at the meeting (hint: listen a lot!). For now, pick up the phone. Make the call. Report back to me and let me know how it went in the comments below. 

This is going to be easier than you think!

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How to Make a Cold Call

You put up a website so you could get new clients. Then you added a blog. You went at it with the best of intentions, and you’ve done a good job of keeping it up to date—until recently.

Now the site is getting stale. The copyright date says “2009.” You haven’t updated your blog since early April. You’ve been busy. Being busy is typically a good thing.

Unfortunately, your web presence is starting to hurt you. It’s beginning to look like you moved on. It’s beginning to seem like you’ve taken a job elsewhere, fallen ill, or retired—or worse.

Suddenly, we aren’t as comfortable sending you a referral. We don’t want to give out your name if you’re not in the game. We don’t want prospective clients coming back to us complaining that we steered them in the wrong direction.

When we see a stale site, we simply move on to the next person on our list. We aren’t going to take the time to hunt you down and figure out what’s going on. We’re going to go with Plan B.What should you do? The website needs to look current. If you aren’t going to update the copyright date, then take it off (there probably isn’t anything critical there anyway). If there are other clues about when you last changed the site, get rid of them.

On the blog, if you’re going to take some time off, tell us. Put up a post indicating that you’re focusing on client work or other things. Let us know where we can find you on LinkedIn or Twitter. Tell us why you aren’t updating—we’ll understand. We may even think your services are more valuable because you’re so in demand.

The important thing is to avoid the appearance of a problem. We probably came to the site just to grab your email or phone number. Don’t throw us off track—that way, you’ll still get our referrals.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Does Your Website or Blog Have a Terminal Disease?

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

Why Your Grandpa Is on Facebook – I keep hearing from lawyers that their clients and prospects aren’t on Facebook. So who are those half billion people?

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Facebook, Guarantees, Margins, SEO and Offices. Super Saturday!

The week is over and I’m wondering where it went. Truly, it seems like Monday was only yesterday and suddenly it’s Friday.

RescueTime to the rescue. RescueTime is a free (for a basic account) piece of software that runs on the Mac and in Windows. It runs in the background and you won’t ever notice it’s doing its thing. All the while, it’s watching you. It’s keeping tabs on what you’re doing, what software your using, what websites you’re visiting, etc.

Then, at the end of week that went by too quickly, you can run a report and figure out where your time went. You might even find some time you forgot to bill.

RescueTime even lets you set productivity levels for activities. You could set Westlaw up with a +2 and DrudgeReport with a -2. You can set up targets for productivity and see how your day rates once it’s over.

You might want to install RescueTime on every computer in your office. There’s no telling where the time is going. You might find that your co-workers and employees are also losing some time.

RescueTime might just help you solve the problem of the days getting shorter and shorter as you get older. They claim they recover nearly four hours a week for the average user.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Recovering Lost Time

A law firm administrator approached me a couple of weeks ago with some questions about Twitter. She flattered me excessively and I was, of course, putty in her hands. I answered her questions for as long as she kept asking.

One question that came up, and I’ve heard it before, is “can we have someone else tweet for our attorneys?” She thought that the receptionist would be great at Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and could provide status updates for the senior attorney and maybe some others.

I’ve also had this come up in the context of blogging. The idea of having a ghost writer attorney, or a marketing person, handle the blogging for the firm comes up with some frequency.

Unfortunately, I don’t think social media should be delegated. In fact, if the people you want on Twitter, Facebook, etc. don’t want to be there then I don’t think they should be there. Social media really doesn’t work unless the participant is really participating.

Social media is social. It’s not like advertising. It’s a conversation. There’s a back and forth. There is honesty. There’s self-disclosure. It’s about being a real person.

Delegating social media would be like delegating your relationship with your best friend. It wouldn’t work and you wouldn’t have your best friend for long.

You’ve got to do it yourself or it isn’t going to feel right. You’ve got to do it yourself of you won’t create new relationships with new people. You won’t get what you want out of social media if you aren’t personally involved.

That doesn’t mean I’ve just added one more thing to your task list. You don’t need to be involved in social media. You’ll survive without it. It just means you need to focus your marketing energy in a direction that feels right for you and works.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Can a Ghost Writer Do Social Media for You?

I’ve got business cards, but rarely hand them out. Occasionally, I collect a card from someone I meet, but I think we’re really in a post-business card era.

Oddly, however, I get plenty of questions here at Divorce Discourse about the appearance of business cards. The most recent question was from a woman fretting that her card design might be overly feminine.

I’d suggest that you not worry about your business card anymore. If you want to have one – fine. Make it simple. What people really want and need is your name. It wouldn’t hurt to provide your email address and phone number. Most importantly, they need your website address. That’s where they’re going to go first to get in touch with you.

When they arrive make it easy for them to get in touch with you. Put your phone number, email address, and physical address in places that are easy to find. Give the user the option of clicking to email or clicking to call. Make it easy.

Some people won’t even type in your website address. They’ll simply type your name into Google and expect to find you. Be sure your web presence comes up at the top of the search engine results page for your name. I’ve given up on sending referrals when I couldn’t find the lawyer I was looking for in Google. I got frustrated and moved to the next name on my list.

To ensure you rank well on Google, for your name, have your LinkedIn profile complete and up to date. Do the same for Twitter. Create a bio page on your website with your name as the page title. If you’re buried in the results you may want to pay for a Google Adwords ad for that page so you’ll be findable.

Realistically, I don’t hang on to the business cards I gather and I doubt you do either. I snap a picture of the card with WorldCard on my iPhone and it enters the info into my address book. I only enter the data for contacts I really need to keep. The others are headed for the circular file under my desk.

Don’t stress about your business card. Keep it simple. In fact, the fancy, complex, colorful cards make it tough to scan and capture the data. Those cool cards end up aggravating me. The simpler, the better when it comes to business cards.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why Your Business Card Doesn’t Matter

TechnoLawyer is running some columns I’ve written in their SmallLaw series. They have some excellent writers (plus me) addressing small firm issues. They make the columns public, a week after release, on TechnoLawayer blog. You can get the content a week earlier by subscribing to SmallLaw via email.

My most recent column came out yesterday. I hope you enjoy it:

It’s time to incorporate video into every aspect of your practice. It’s a great tool for marketing, communicating, documenting, and training. You can leverage an inexpensive camera like no other single tool in your arsenal. You can buy a camera, microphone, tripod, and lights for less than $500. You’ll recoup your costs in a few hours. We use a $150 Kodak Zi8. We’ve added a lapel microphone from Radio Shack, a tripod from BestBuy, and some bright halogen lights from Home Depot. The high definition picture looks stunning. Below you’ll find 12 ways you can put video to work.

To keep reading click for the rest of 12 Ways to Use Video in Your Law Practice.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

TechnoLawyer: 12 Ways to Use Video in Your Law Practice

I hear lots of family law attorneys whining about family law. The clients are driving them crazy. The other lawyers are a pain. The judges are annoying. The money stinks and on and on. I’ve written on this topic before, but I’m doing it again because it makes me crazy and I hate to see people wasting their precious time. I spent time with one of these people last week and my head is spinning.

By and large the attorneys that complain the most aren’t particularly successful. They aren’t happy and they aren’t satisfied with their careers.

Realistically, they aren’t going to develop a thriving practice, they aren’t going to see real money flowing through the doors and they aren’t going to create happy clients.

Why? Because they don’t love their work. They aren’t energized by the engagement with family law clients. They aren’t thrilled by the challenge of making a novel argument. They aren’t stimulated by figuring out new ways to make their clients happy.

These lawyers don’t feel good about family law and they aren’t fueled by the work. It’s a drain for them, not an energy source.

Answer these questions with a yes or no -

1. Do you read every family law case coming out of the appellate courts in your state (or at least a synopsis)?
2. Have you ever volunteered for a family law related board, group or activity?
3. Have you read a book on divorce taxation (I didn’t say own a book or skimmed a book)?
4. Have you read a book on the division of pension plans?
5. Do you scan the Internal Revenue Service Private Letter Rulings for family law issues?
6. Do you subscribe to a family law related publication or newsletter?

If you’ve got three or fewer “yes” responses then you’re probably in the wrong practice area. It’s probably time to give some serious thought to other areas of the law.

The lawyers that love family law find themselves reading family law articles and recent cases because they want to. They offer to speak at seminars. They write articles. They mentor other lawyers. They call clients before the clients call them. They dig around for interesting approaches to cases. They practice closing arguments in front of the mirror. They read trial strategy books and join the family law section of every bar association. They attend as many educational programs as they can find.

These lawyers love family law. They are totally jazzed by the practice. Sure, they have down days. They have days that go poorly, but that doesn’t slow them down. They’re as excited by family law at the end of a long day as they were at the start.

If you aren’t in love with family law – quit. Do something else. Find something you love. Continuing to do something you don’t like, continuing to complain and be unhappy, won’t lead you anywhere and you’re wasting your time.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Family Law – Love It or Leave It

This is pretty funny if you can ignore the reality of the devastation. Just heard a report that predicted the destruction of the Florida economy within months.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: BP Spills Coffee

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF LABS – great stuff on acting on ideas.

An Encyclopedia of Judges and Courts – finally.

A Tale of Two Balls – inspiring.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Labs, Judges and Balls. Welcome to Saturday!

Why do some lawyers talk all the time? I’m probably the wrong person to try to answer that question – because I pretty much talk all the time.

Unfortunately, for me anyway, talking too much kills your conversion rate when meeting with prospective clients. They want to talk. They don’t want to listen to a lawyer who starts talking before they understand the problem.

The single most important factor in converting a prospective client into a client is to ask good questions and then listen to the answers.

It’s critical to ask “Where do you want to go?”, “What do you want to accomplish?”, and “What are your goals?” You will, of course, have you own approach and style for asking, but you’ve got to find out what’s important to the client.

Why should you ask? Because the client wants to tell you. They want to know that you know their priorities. They want to know that you understand what they’re all about and where they’re headed.

If you don’t ask and you start talking you’re in trouble. If you start offering solutions without having asked about the client’s priorities, they know you aren’t proposing a plan that meets their needs. They assume you’re offering the same old solution you give everyone with no consideration for their needs.

What if your doctor prescribed medication without asking you what was wrong? You wouldn’t be happy, would you? That’s what it feels like when the client sits down and you start explaining how you’re going to fix things without asking sufficient questions. It doesn’t work.

Slow down, ask the questions, listen to the answers. Then the client will be ready to listen, ready to trust you and ready to hire you do what you’ve proposed.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do To Get a New Client

The lightning fiasco is nearing its end. As regular readers know, my house got hit by lightning last Thursday. We have nearly everything back to normal. Our insurance company will, hopefully, reimburse us for about $6,000 for damage to the house, electrical system and various electronics.

I’ve written about how I was able to keep working without my Macbook by using my iPad and my data stored on DropBox, JungleDisk and Evernote.

The Macbook was dropped off at the Apple Store about two hours after the strike on Thursday. Apple replaced the system board and disk drive and had it back in my hands on Tuesday morning. Amazing.

Of course, my new hard drive was blank. I had to restore my programs and data from a backup.

I powered up the computer and booted it from a portable drive (one just like the Western Digital drive in the picture). I opened my backup software (SuperDuper!, a Mac only program) and performed a restore while I left and had lunch from my favorite place – Greek Fiesta. While at lunch I checked on the restore using LogMeIn on the iPad. When I got home, about 90 minutes later, the restore was about finished. Moments later I was back up and running just like I had been on Thursday afternoon when the lightning struck.

This story has a happy ending. Not every story about dead computers ends this well. We get reminders to backup our data, all the time, from just about everybody. Yet, sometimes, we don’t do it. I got lucky this time. I could have spent all day (if not longer) reinstalling software. Thankfully the backup worked perfectly.

Backup, backup, backup. Make your ending as happy as mine.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How a Backup Will Save You a Day or More

The most important number you can track is the number of referrals from existing and former clients. You’ve got to know how many referrals you’re getting from these people each month.

If the number of referrals from people who have actual experience with your service isn’t increasing you’re in trouble. A steady or declining number of client referrals is a big red flag indicating trouble.

When this number isn’t increasing you’re doing something wrong.

Fact – you have more existing and former clients every month. This is a cumulative number – it’s always increasing.

Fact – these people are the people with the greatest knowledge of the service you provide.

Fact – these people will send their friends and family to you when the need arises if they’re happy with their experience.

How do you collect the data? You should ask every new client how they found you. You may need to probe deeply to really determine how they ended up in your office. We have some trouble with people telling us they found us through our website. We probe further and find that they were often referred to the website by others. What we really want to know is how they were first referred to us or to our site. We dig around until we’ve got an answer.

What do you do with the data? Once you know the source of the client, start categorizing the referrals. Some come from advertising, some come from other professionals and others come from existing and former clients. Create a spreadsheet and start totaling up the referrals by category.

Create a graph and plot the data. You should see a line for referrals from clients and former clients that climbs steadily. It’s essential. This is not optional. You must see an increase in these referrals month after month.

If you’re not seeing that steady rise on your graph then you’ve got to figure out what’s happening. Bottom line – your clients aren’t happy. You’ve got to find out why. Ask them. Dig in. Don’t ignore the problem. Failing to correct this situation will, ultimately, lead to your failure. You’ve got to fix it quickly.

The number of referrals from former clients is truly the most important thing you can measure. It’s your most important leading indicator. Measure it, graph it and take action when it’s not headed in the right direction.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

How Your Referrals are a Window Into Your Future

Some attorneys hear the “I can’t afford you” line from lots of prospective clients. The attorney conducts an initial consultation. The client needs the service and seems interested. The attorney quotes the fee and asks if the client is ready to move forward.

“I can’t afford you” is, sometimes, the response. The attorney knows the client’s finances and knows that money is tight. The attorney explores payment options with the client and the client leaves never to be heard from again.

Later, when reflecting on the loss of the prospective client, the attorney rationalizes the loss by agreeing that the client really can’t afford the services.

My question is – do you do the same sort of financial analysis when you win – when the client hires you? Do you look at the numbers to see if your new client can afford you?

Probably not. You don’t worry about the client’s decision if they hire you. You only study the prospective client’s decision when they decide not to hire you.

I’d suggest that plenty of people in the exact same financial situation as the “I can’t afford you” client make a decision to hire you.

So what’s the difference between those that hire you and those that don’t when they’re in the same financial situation?

The difference is that one client perceives what you’re offering as having value and the other doesn’t. There’s something different about what you said, how you said it or how they perceived it.

What was different? I don’t know. That’s something you’re going to have to figure out.

I do, however, know that the answer lies in studying your wins as closely as you study your losses. Spend as much time thinking about why the client hired you as you spend thinking about why the other client didn’t hire you.

Start tracking your wins and losses. Gather data around each situation. Figure out the finances of both sets of people, analyze the gender, occupation, education and your approach to the meeting. Consider the source of the client – how did they find you? Start looking for patterns and you’ll start finding the answers.

Eventually, and we’re in this for the long-term, you’ll generate ideas based on your successes that you can apply to miminize your failures. That won’t happen until you recognize that the “I can’t afford you” line is just an easy way to let you down when they don’t see you as the solution to their problem.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

What “I can’t afford you” Really Means

I’ve always been reluctant to tell a prospective client that I don’t want their case. I don’t like having to turn them away. It’s awkward and uncomfortable.

But, there are times when it’s important to turn them away. Sometimes it’s clear that they won’t ever be satisfied. Sometimes it’s clear that we won’t be able to stand dealing with them. Sometimes it’s clear that the client’s mental illness will make it impossible for us to be of help. The list of reasons to turn someone away is long.

Usually these people have big red flags. They are on lawyer number three. They’ve got huge outstanding legal bills. They’re abusive to your staff. The warnings signs are abundantly clear.

When I have one of these people in my office I fantasize about doing this – I tell them I have something I want to show them in the lobby. I walk them out there. They step through the lobby door and I jump back and pull it closed. We’ve got this great combination lock and I hear it click shut.

I can’t however do it. It just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.

So instead of saying “we won’t take your case” I do something else. I quote them a fee. I quote them a really big fee and hope they will go find someone for less. Amazingly, that doesn’t always work and they call back a week or so later with the money ready to go.

Suddenly I’m facing a huge dilemma. I know I shouldn’t take the case. I also know they’re offering me a bunch of money to take it. It makes me crazy.

What do I do? Sometimes I’ve taken the case, other times I’ve turned them away.

Nearly every time I’ve taken one of these cases, I’ve regretted it. I never should have gotten involved and it stings twice as bad when it goes sour because I knew it was going to happen.

As I get older, I get better about passing these cases by. It’s still a challenge. I remind myself, constantly, that clients are like buses. There’s always another one coming.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Clients are Like Buses, There’s Always Another One Coming

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYREnvJ9WsE

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Are You an NPR Fan?

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

How To Make Sure You Get Paid On Time – Here’s something I know you care about.

HOW TO: Organize Your Contacts for Networking Success – This kind of organizing is critical to your long term marketing. It’s easy, once you get going, to overlook people and fail to follow-up. Here’s some practical advice.

The Penny Gap Between Founders – I can’t really imagine a situation where a 50-50 ownership split makes sense for a law firm. Here’s some food for thought.

6 Baby Steps to Get Started with Evernote – I love Evernote. If you haven’t tried it check out this advice for getting started.

16 questions for free agents – Should be titled 16 questions for lawyers contemplating going out on their own. Seth Godin is consistently excellent.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Getting Paid, Networking, 50-50 Partnerships, Evernote and 16 Questions. Happy, Happy Saturday!

If you read my post yesterday you know that my house was struck by lightning yesterday afternoon. My Macbook Pro, printer, scanner and some other gadgets got fried. I keep finding new things that aren’t working.

I had to get up, as usual, this morning and get to work. How would I survive without my trusty Macbook?

Thankfully my data is stored and accessible in a few different places. My current documents (and other stuff) are synced, moment by moment, with DropBox. DropBox has a copy of everything. When I save my document it’s immediately uploaded to their site. They aren’t the only game in town. There are several others, notably SugarSync and Box.net, and they’re all great. I have a free account with each of them and use them all from time to time.

I can access my DropBox files via the web interface from any machine. I’ve mostly been using my iPad today and can upload, download, edit and print documents, spreadsheets, etc. from DropBox.

I keep less than 2 GB of data on DropBox since that’s the limit of their free plan (I love free). When I have old stuff to save I upload it to my account on JungleDisk. I pay them and they’re cheaper than DropBox, but less convenient. They use the Amazon S3 Cloud servers and make them easy to use. I pay JungleDisk by the gigabyte. JungleDisk is also easily accessible from any machine and I can do pretty much the same things with those files that I can with the files on DropBox.

My email and calendar live on a Microsoft Exchange server hosted by Rackspace in Dallas. Again, I can access the data from anywhere with an internet connection via any device with a browser.

I’ve also got a bunch of notes, files, pictures, etc. in Evernote. I’ve been using those files all day via the iPad as well.

I use OmniFocus as my Todo system. My data lives on a free server in Switzerland and allows me to sync OmniFocus to my Macbook, iPad and iPhone.

I needed to access our firm financial data this afternoon. It’s stored on a server in Washington State with Atlas Networks. My iPad has a remote desktop client that allowed me to open up Quickbooks and do what needed doing.

Oh, one other thing, our home internet is dead as a doorknob. The Time-Warner people promised to be here today. No luck (they are a miserable breed of cable company). Now the claim to be coming on Saturday. We shall see. Our Verizon MiFi is serving us well. The whole house has internet.

The bottom line is that with this setup a dead computer is a non-event. All is good even in a disaster. My data is safe, sound and accessible and living in the cloud.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why Getting Struck By Lightning Was a Non-Event

I’ve been running behind on writing articles for this site so what you’re seeing is pretty much written a few hours before you see it. Fresh is better, right?

I’m not going to get to it right now. We just got struck by lightning. Literally.

I was sitting in front of my computer at home on a video call with Ned, our marketing director. It was raining and thundering. It got louder and louder right up until – BANG. Ned was gone. Sparks went sailing by the window.

I rushed downstairs and everyone was fine. We checked things out and found the garage door going crazy so I pulled the plug. I went up to the attic and smelled smoke, but only a little – it was probably from the strike itself.

We kept checking things out and sniffing around. I had to disassemble the garage door opener to get it open. It was trashed.

Then we decided we definitely smelled smoke downstairs. Lisa called the fire department, we grabbed some photos and headed out.

Five firetrucks arrived and quickly determined that nothing was burning. A bunch of neighbors came out and asked to have their houses checked. It was like a block party.

Once the firetrucks left we started calling repair people. An electrician came and went to work within an hour. He found an switch that had been blown off the wall. Most of our circuit breakers had flipped. A bunch of outlets and fixtures were damaged.

We found a bunch of dead gadgets – my Macbook Pro, a cordless phone, the printer, scanner, router, etc. Oh well, at least no one was hurt.

The garage door guy is here now – got here without 2 hours of our call. The cable people are coming tomorrow (good thing I have a Verizon MiFi or you wouldn’t be reading this right now) and we should be back to normal with the exception of the landline. This might be the end of the road for our AT&T phone. They won’t come for a week.

Anyway, that’s why you aren’t getting a family law practice management agree. You’ve got to agree – this is a big step up from “the dog ate my homework.”

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Well That Was Interesting

Should you be in a networking group? Probably not.

Networking groups, like BNI International, are not generally helpful in building a family law practice. They’re great, I suspect, for some other types of businesses. But, in family law you need to meet two kinds of people. You need to meet (1) people contemplating divorce and (2) people with ready to access to people contemplating divorce.

In a networking group the odds are that most of the people you meet will not, at that particular moment, be thinking about getting a divorce. Sure, some of them will go through a divorce during your time in the group and some will have friends getting a divorce. These groups aren’t a total waste of time.

They are, however, an inefficient way to market. You have a limited amount of marketing time – you’ve got to be as efficient as possible. You need a laser beam focus, not a shotgun.  You need to, as they say, fish where the fish are. You’ve got to use every moment to achieve the maximum return on investment.

Beyond that reasoning, you should be aware that some networking groups have  a requirement that you make reciprocal referrals. That requirement might, in some jurisdictions, cause you to violate the rules of professional conduct and could subject you to discipline simply for joining the club and playing by the rules.

So, if you’re not going to join a networking club, what are you going to do with your marketing time? Well that’s the subject, most days, of the articles posted here. We’ve talked about referral source meetings, speaking, advertising, etc., and I’m suggesting that any or all of those activities would be a more efficient use of your time and will achieve better results for you.

I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with networking clubs, They just aren’t where you ought to spend your time, especially before you’ve exhausted all other approaches to marketing. Again, you’ve got to be efficient.

Be careful about these clubs, they’re everywhere and their members are on a never ending mission to recruit new blood. You’re going to get approached and it’s going to feel like an easy way get going with your marketing. Resist. Politely decline the invitations and try some of the alternatives mentioned above.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Should You Join a Business Networking Group?

Once upon a time I talked to lawyers about marketing and they really weren’t interested. They simply weren’t going to do the things I suggested. Their plan was, generally, to hang out their shingle and wait for whatever business walked through the door.

That’s not the case anymore. Nearly every attorney I talk to is desperate for marketing ideas and information. They ask me question after question about marketing strategy and tactics.

I’m happy to dispense all the advice that I can. I’ve been doing it with greater and greater frequency as the economy has changed over the past couple of years.

I realized, a few weeks ago, that much of the advice I dispense is never implemented. I was baffled as to why that might be the case. After all, these people are very serious about getting the information.

Why aren’t they taking action on it.

I wondered if maybe the advice I was giving was overly radical. On occasion, we talked about things like Google Adwords or advertising on TV. Those ideas don’t always fly with the people coming to me. But, upon reflection, I concluded that most of the advice I give focuses on doing conventional things like taking referral sources to lunch. Nothing radical about that.

So, again, I was baffled as to why my advice was not always implemented.

During a conversation last week with a solo practitioner I listened carefully to the responses as we discussed marketing. I was using that conversation to explore why my ideas aren’t implemented. I was wondering, as we talked, if I could find the source of the resistance. Was it that my ideas were being rejected or that there was something bigger going on here?

As I listened, I began to realize, that the problem was really a simple matter of priorities. The attorney that I was talking to, who is pretty representative of the attorneys I usually advise, felt that the highest priority in her day, was to get the client work done. That comes first and nothing else matters until it’s done. Sounds reasonable at first glance.

Once the client work is done she addresses the other pressing issues – things like dealing with staff, dealing with family, office equipment, etc. Her marketing activities are getting pushed to the bottom of the list. In fact, they’re getting pushed off the bottom of the list and they are only rarely being addressed.

That’s got to change.

The only way that marketing will get done is if you shift your priorities. Some things aren’t going to get done in a typical day. It’s easy to explain to ourselves that client work is the number one priority. That’s fine except that for many of us that means that the marketing won’t get done.

Maybe it’s Parkinson’s Law – “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Maybe we’re not saving time, at the end of our day, for doing marketing. I really don’t know how to explain the fact that we don’t get to the marketing.

All I know is that if the marketing is not a high priority – if it’s not the highest priority – it simply doesn’t get done by many, many practitioners.

We’ve got to find a new way to think about marketing or we’re not going to get to it. In my conversation with the lawyer last week, I suggested that she simply make marketing her first priority. My guess is that if she does that she’ll get the marketing done, and that she’ll get the client work and other priorities dealt with because they’re essential. She’ll make time. She’ll find a way to fit everything into her day.

I’ve asked her to try it for a week or two and see how it goes.

Maybe I’m just reiterating the same old ideas that some productivity gurus advocate like putting first things first. That’s one of Stephen Covey’s principles. If that’s what I’m saying then, apparently, Covey is right.

I’m not sure exactly what you need to do in order to get everything done in a day. I know that time is limited. I do believe, however, that you should try to move marketing up – way up – on your list for a while and see what happens. This is the time to get it done.

When you put marketing at the bottom of your list you’re not getting done the things you say you want to get done.

It’s time to juggle the priorities list. It’s time to put marketing at the top.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why Aren’t You Doing The Marketing You Want To Do?

Happy Memorial Day. It’s important for us to honor our fallen soldiers. We have them to thank for the fact that I can publish these comments each day. Freedom of speech has really exploded in the internet age. All Americans now have access to the printing press. That’s not true everywhere and we should be grateful – I am.

Today couldn’t be further off from the usual topic around here. Today we’re talking about eyeglasses and if you don’t wear reading glasses you might want to stop reading right now.

Several facts -

(1) My eye doctor told me that most people need reading glasses starting at about age 40. (2) I love gadgets of all shapes, sizes and varieties and they don’t have to relate to the practice of family law. (3) I spend a bunch of time on the computer (like you probably do). (4) Having difficulty seeing drives me crazy.

All that leads to TruFocals.

I was wearing bifocals for a short while. They were fine. I could see well at a distance and I could read. I couldn’t, however, see my computer screen so I would lean my head way back or switch glasses. Then I’d have to switch back to the bifocals. I was carrying around two pairs all the time. Nightmare, plus my neck was sore.

TruFocals are a very recent invention. They have a slider that allows you to focus the glasses. You can, with one hand, adjust them to the precise distance you need at the moment. One pair of glasses – no changing.

I’ve been wearing them for about a week. They’re kind of geeky looking, which happens to work for me. They have one style and a few colors. They’re not cheap. I’m loving them.

TruFocals offers a 30 day trial. You can order them over the internet. They also have some eye care professionals that sell them.

If you give them my number – SO-000598 – they’ll give you 10% off.

These things are absolutely worth a try if you need glasses.

Plus, they qualify as a gadget since they have a switch and the guy that dies with the most gadgets – wins!

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Your Vision of Family Law

As is often the case, you might not find this video as funny as I did. In fact, you might not think it’s funny at all. I can’t decide which one of these guys is a nut, but in lots of ways it reminds me of the bizarre interactions we have in family law cases.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugX4HRJQD1Y

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Sunday Funny: Conflict with TV Reporter

Happy Saturday! Every Saturday I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across that might interest you. These are things that caught my attention this week. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if you’re curious. I also include a picture I like.

How to Build Your Brand Working For Someone Else

USE LINKEDIN EFFECTIVELY

Anonymously Confess Your Cheating Ways

4 Online Legal Marketing Trends Every Other Industry Knows About

All Links are Not Created Equal: 10 Illustrations on Search Engines’ Valuation of Links

IT’S ALL ABOUT THEM!

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Your Brand, LinkedIn, Cheating, Trends, Links and Them. Welcome to Saturday!

I’ve read a number of articles lately, written by lawyers, explaining why buying forms from LegalZoom is a bad idea. It may well, in some cases, be a very bad idea to use the forms from LegalZoom. I’m not going to get into that debate.

Unfortunately we aren’t going to win that argument with the people who are going to use LegalZoom. They aren’t going to believe us. They assume we have a financial stake in the outcome of the argument and that we’re only saying what we need to say to bring the revenues to us rather than to LegalZoom.

We instinctively know, most of us anyway, not to trash the lawyer down the block when we’re competing for business. We’ve seen that behavior backfire. We know better than to do it. The same holds true with LegalZoom. To the LegalZoom target demographic, LegalZoom is just like that lawyer down the street. Keep that in mind.

The people interested in using LegalZoom aren’t going to be easily convinced that LegalZoom is a bad idea. In fact, many of them have a strong preference for getting their work done without the involvement of a lawyer. The prospective LegalZoom clients that want the involvement of a lawyer take note of the fact that LegalZoom was founded by two big firm lawyers and that a member of the O.J. “Dream Team” is a founder and spokesperson for the company.

What you need to do with a prospective LegalZoom client is give them a reason to hire you – not an argument against using LegalZoom. If you’re lucky enough to have attracted them to your office or website, give them a reason to stay. Give them a dose of your personality, your wisdom, your value. Give them a dose of you.

Go further and offer them something special, offer them something they can’t buy on LegalZoom. Make sure it’s something they want and need at a price they think is reasonable. If you put together a big dose of you with a great offer, you’re going to get a client. That’s a formula that works, I guarantee it.

Maybe you should tell some stories on your website about people you’ve helped and the things you care about. Maybe you should explain your passion for your clients, your family and your community. Maybe you should tell them how you’ve made mistakes in the past and learned from them and grown to better serve everyone in your life. Those stories will get you further than a straight up attack on LegalZoom.

Besides, the flaws in LegalZoom, that get pointed out in these articles, are fixable. LegalZoom has resources and they’ve got time. They’re going to fix every issue they identify and, eventually, they’re going to have an excellent product. They’ll build greater and greater intelligence into the service and they’ll, one day, get it right for every client.

Once they get it right, you’re still going to need to make a living. It’s time to start telling the stories of how you add value and give people a reason to come to you.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why Attacking LegalZoom Won’t Work

I was involved in a conversation with a small group of attorneys and the discussion turned to Gmail, the free email service provided by Google. We spent a minute talking about the terms of service and the anxiety created by the possible loss of attorney-client privilege. I understand why that worries some attorneys.

Then we swerved off into the twilight zone. One attorney piped up about the chat feature in Gmail. She advised the group to be careful to turn it off since leaving it on would allow clients to send instant messages. She didn’t like the idea of clients being able to grab her when she wasn’t expecting it. She wants to run her client contact through the phone and email.

I know clients are annoying and all, but we’ve got to remember that without clients we don’t have a practice. Without clients we don’t get to do this work we’ve chosen. Without clients we don’t eat.

We’ve got to do things the way clients want us to do things – not the way we want to do things. That’s how we get more clients. That’s how we have happy clients.

I’m not suggesting that you do everything a client wants. I don’t think routine calls, at home at 1 AM are a good idea just because a client wants to chat. However, it’s important to remember that we work for them, they don’t work for us.

I remember when banks used to close at 2 PM. Now they’re open on weekends and they have bankers standing out in front of the grocery store branch giving away free coffee and key chains. The world has changed for bankers.

It’s changed for lawyers as well, especially in family law and especially now.

If they want to use instant messenger – let them. Make them happy, treat them with respect, do it the way the way they want to do it.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Are You Hiding from Your Clients

Once a year I meet with everyone in the firm for the purpose of getting their answers to three questions. I ask -

(1) What should we start doing?

(2) What should we stop doing?

(3) What should we keep doing?

I schedule a time to sit down with each person and meet privately. I alert everyone that I’m going to arrange a meeting with them and ask them to start thinking about things and keeping some notes.

Sometimes the meetings last 15 minutes, other times they last 90 minutes – it depends on the person.

When we sit down I explain that we can’t necessarily do everything they suggest. I explain that we’ll listen and consider every idea. I also explain that I won’t reveal the source of any particular suggestion and that I won’t take action that reveals that one person had an issue with another.

Some folks come to the meeting with a long list of suggestions. They tend to focus on the starts and the stops, but we get a good number of keeps.

Once I’ve introduced the meeting I get quiet. I listen to the person, take notes and nod. I prompt them for more and I shift us from start to stop and then to keep. I ask questions if necessary and I don’t wrap up the meeting until the person has totally run out of gas.

Some of the suggestions are easy to implement. I love the easy to do items. We’ve had requests that we start stocking Diet Cherry Pepsi in the drink cooler. We did it that day. We’ve had requests that we get private offices (we’re in a bullpen). We didn’t do it as it conflicts with some of our core values and philosophies. The suggestions are all over the place and are frequently things I never would have thought of had I not asked.

We’ve made some changes to our procedures as a result of the meetings that have saved us thousands and thousands of dollars. The meetings pay for themselves many times over.

More importantly, the meetings give everyone a chance to be heard and to participate in the management of the firm. You can’t put a value on the feeling someone gets from knowing their opinion is desired, considered and, frequently, acted upon.

Put start, stop, keep meetings on your list of things to start.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Find Out What You Should Start, Stop and Keep Doing

I rarely DO anything. It’s my biggest problem (some claim my biggest problem is my grating personality, but I’ll save that for another day). I love thinking and talking about things. I’m ambivalent about the doing part.

It’s really a problem for me and I struggle with it every single day.

I’ve found a few approaches that help me and I’ll pass them along in case you suffer from the same malady.

One thing I do, sometimes, is pick one thing – and it has to be only one thing – that I will accomplish on a particular day. It might, for instance, be drafting a particular document. I promise myself that I’ll get it done before I quit for the day. It sometimes works, but I often avoid starting on the task until about 4:30. The hours before 4:30 are generally filled with diversions, lunch and the unexpected. Then I work like crazy until it’s done.

If I actually get the one thing finished I declare victory and stop working.

Another approach I sometimes take is to pick one thing and start the day with it. Then I keep redirecting myself back to that thing as the days events (and my wandering attention) pull me away. I’ll start the day focused on the main event and, next thing I know, I’m booking a scuba diving vacation. I gently redirect myself to the task at hand. I try not to beat myself up for drifting off. I just get back to it and see how long i can last.

Another approach I’ve tried is using a timer. I bought a kitchen timer from Wal-Mart. I like to set it for 10 minutes and go crazy working like a maniac for those 10 minutes. When the timer goes off, I take a break. Just knowing that the beep is coming in a few minutes is often enough to keep me on task. It works unless i get distracted by playing with the settings on the timer.

When the project is bigger the just one part, i break it down into steps. I might turn the creation of an ebook into a 20 step project. This approach helps even when the project isn’t very big. The less I demand of myself, the more likely I am to deliver. If I turn a 60 minute speaking engagement into 15 parts (as I did for a recent ABA program) I’ve got 15 four-minute speeches to write. That seems easier for me and I actually got it done,

My final approach is to reward myself upon completion of the task. My rewards usually, and unfortunately, involve food items. Sometimes I’ll negotiate a deal with myself that involves one of these delicious desserts from the Asian market located near my house. That’s sometimes enough to get me to get it done.

It’s sad that I won’t just what I’m supposed to do. I’m probably not going to change I turned 49 on Sunday and I suppose I’m pretty much stuck being who I am. I’m going to have to rely on these tricks and techniques from here on out. They work for me, maybe they’ll work for you.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

5 Ways to Stop Thinking and Start Doing

Two things happened to me last Thursday that I want to tell you about.

First, I had the opportunity to hear a website marketing consultant pitch his company at a seminar. Someone asked him about Twitter. He explained that it was really good for things like tweeting “Raleigh Equitable Distribution Lawyer” and inserting a link to your website to improve your ranking on Google for that phrase. I was stunned, I thought this was one of the good guys.

A few hours later a lawyer from Texas, or his agent, spammed the forum on our website with a message about his firm and a link. It wasn’t a message intended to help the recipient, it was just spam. I’m guessing (hoping) it was done by some search engine optimization “expert” he hired and that he hadn’t done it himself. We deleted his post and let him know.

Both of these postings, the one on Twitter and the one on our forum, are spam. They are unwelcome and offensive. They do exactly the opposite of what is intended. They don’t bring you business, they repel business.

We live in a world where everyone knows and talks about everything. The last thing you want is to have your name associated with spammy tactics. Twitter is “word of mouth” on steroids. Don’t aggravate twitter users. It’s costly.

If you’re going to participate in a forum you should be generous and helpful. If you’re going to participate on Twitter you should do the same. We would never employ these spammy techniques in real life, we’d be embarrased. Don’t do them just because it’s possible. Do the right thing online and you’ll grow your practice. Do the wrong things and you’ll shoot yourself in the foot to the point where your foot falls right off.

Article from: Divorce Discourse -

Why You Shouldn’t Be a Spammer