Idea Garage Sale -- Follow Up
I've pretty much cleaned out my "idea closet" with my garage sale and I hope that everyone found something worth taking. Reader (and friend) Yvonne Divita added this comment to one of the garage sale posts:
This 'idea garage sale' is a winner. It deserves a blog of its own...with several authors...with encouragement for input...I see some marvelous things coming out of it. Your cookbook reference to generating ideas is another great way to get the mind thinking "out of the box"...let's find a way to start thinking "out of the book" because we too often rely on books to instruct us on how to do business. (as a writer it pains me to say that, but it's true.) So, what kind of "out of the book" ideas can we come up with? I'll start...first, get comfortable in your own space. You can't begin a business if you're still struggling to fit yourself into the space society tries to assign you. Create your own space, and fill it with your energy and your expectations. Watch how fast it fills up with useful 'stuff.'
Any interest out there?
Idea Garage Sale - Cookbooks
I love cookbooks, though I'm only a fair cook. The best things about cookbooks is they give you some great ideas of what to make for dinner -- leaving the execution of the recipe to you. Here are some of my "Idea Cookbooks" I've accumulated. I hope they help you cook up some tasty ideas of your own.
Idea Garage Sale - Building Materials for Building the Perfect Firm
Here are some "building materials" I've accumulated as I've worked on building my perfect firm. Some are extras, some were the wrong size and didn't fit, and some are just taking up extra space in my garage. I'd love to sell the whole truckload at once, but will consider any fair offer. Just one thing -- you have to come here and pick them up.
The Office
The Staff
Outsourcing
The Business
The Advertising
Idea Garage Sale - Unattributed Leftovers
Here are a bunch of ideas I've had lying around. I'm sure I've bought them from somewhere, but I can't remember where. If I've taken them (or stolen them) from you, I apologize for not giving you credit.
Weekly Free Time -- Give employees an hour of "quiet time" every week -- when the phones aren't answered and meetings aren't scheduled -- to think, read a book, or just relax.
Incorporate Design -- Hire a graphic design artist (with no legal portfolio) to review the format and design of every piece of mail and every type of document that goes out to customers. Also, find the best interior designer in your town and ask them for one hour of time to give you tips on making your office more inviting and less intimidating. Go to the most expensive and most popular stores and restaurants in your neighborhood. Look at how they are designed. Look at the people in them. These people are comfortable in those environments. If you want those types of people to be your clients, make your environment similar.
Commit to Clients, Send a Report Card-- Prepare a list of client commitments and stick to them. Include returning phone calls within a specified period of time. Send the commitments to clients with every bill. Offer discounts if you don't live up to any of your commitments. Give clients a small discount if they send back a "Report Card" with their payment. Make it look like the ones kids got in the fifties. Follow up with them on any grade they give below an "A."
The Monthly Status -- Get a boilerplate monthly status report saved in every client's file with their address, etc. Send it every month and tell them what happened on their case that month.
Find Spaces to Collaborate, Not Just to Meet -- Look for space in your office where you can have a comfortable conversation with a client, partner, or staff member. Having a white board or other brainstorming tool would be a big plus. Make it a fun place to think.
Create a Firm Master To-Do List -- This list isn't for client matters, but for firm matters. Make marketing and firm development high priorities. Make sure everyone has access to the list and place at least one item on the calendar each week to make sure it gets done.
Fund a Local "Genius Grant" -- Find the biggest problem in your community and have a competition to solve it. Involve the schools and retirement homes. Give a prize for the best solution. Make sure everyone knows your firm sponsored the competition. Set aside another part of the prize money to go toward funding the solution.
Start an Exclusive Client Club -- Come up with an unprecedented level of service and benefits (at a premium price) and offer it only to your best three customers. Tell them they can invite others to join the club, but they must "vouch" for the new prospect. Wait ten years, then retire.
Rewrite all of your Firm Documents -- Every week, pick one of your "standard" forms (like retainer agreement) and give it to a sixth grader. Ask them if they understand it. Then rewrite it from scratch.
Offer Gift Certificates -- Find some kind of work you do and prepare gift certificates. Send a notice to your clients telling them the certificates are available for the holidays. In an estate planning practice, encourage clients to give the certificates to young couples who've just married or had children and might need a simple will. The certificate could be for a will, or even a "free" consultation.
Open Ended Billing -- Send a bill with no amount on the bottom. Make sure you communicate all you've done for the client, then let them decide how much it was worth.
Open All Night -- Find employees who want to work second and third shifts and experiment with one or two days a month where the firm never closes. Advertise these days, and find out how many people who've never had time to meet with a lawyer come calling!
Find the Smartest People -- Ask everyone you know for the names of the smartest people they know. Invite those people to an exclusive dinner and offer to pay them for one hour each month of their advice -- on anything.
Give Books -- Go to your local school or library and donate several books on a topic that complements one of your primary practice area. For instance, if you do divorce work, give the school several books about how children can best deal with divorce; or give the local library several volumes on divorce for adults. Get your name in the front of each book and get your picture in the paper.
Garage Sale - GMail
Reader Steve Nipper offered up a G-Mail invite in the comments to a previous post. I've got a few setting around too. First five people to leave comments get 'em.
Idea Garage Sale - Day 1
For day one of my garage sale, I've collected some blog posts. Twenty-five cents each, or five for a dollar. If you want to buy them all, the price is negotiable.
The "Whole Enchilada" -- Marketing to Hispanics.
Colorful Details make copy more believable.
Five tips for effective growth.
A dozen habits of successful professionals.
Where are you most productive?
Is this how you listen to your clients?
That's it for today. Come back tomorrow for some more great deals!
Idea Garage Sale - Used Bookmarks, Cheap!
Bookmarks for sale. These bookmarks are gently used and are in fine working condition. I've grouped them as best I can. Make your best offer!
Billable Hour Remainders
ABA Commission on Billable Hours Report
The New Law Firm Economy -- Billable Hours and Professional Responsibility
Looking Beyond the Billable Hour
Step Away from the Billable Hour
The short, unhappy history of how lawyers bill their clients.
The Billable Hour: Putting a Wedge Between Client and Counsel
Toys for the Kids
Used Sports Equipment
Cool Things Defying Catagorization
Non-Legal Sites with Interesting Ideas for Lawyers
Technology Extras
Web Design Stuff
Training and Seminars
Cuban's Rules for Success
Mark Cuban writes about the twelve factors of success in his blog. Read the post for all twelve. My favorite is:
11. Pigs Get Fat, Hogs Get Slaughtered. This is one I got from my partner Todd Wagner. He is right on. Sometimes you have to go for the jugular, but more often than not, the biggest mistake people make are getting too greedy. Every good deal has a win win solution. There is nothing I hate more than someone who tries to squeeze every last penny out of the deal. They often raise the aggrevation level to the point where it’s not worth doing the deal. They also raise the dislike level to the point where even if a deal gets done, you look for ways to never do business with that person or company again.Business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.
If you are a lawyer reading this post, think about Cuban's advice in the context of your relationships with your clients. Do you really need to turn your copy machine into a profit center? Does every single minute of time spent thinking about a client's case need to show up on the bill? Several days ago a client complained to me about her previous attorney. She said that she would call the attorney to find out when the project he was working for her on would be done (it was already several weeks overdue), and she would get billed for the phone call! The $37.50 per call did not matter to the client financially, but she became so aggravated she not only switched lawyers, but tells everyone she knows about her experience.
Think Tank Tuesdays - Details
Think Tank Tuesday Participants: The roster is now closed. I'll be e-mailing everyone about the details, but if I've missed someone, let me know. Think Tank participant Zane Safrit at Conference Calls Unlimited is providing us a free toll-free number for the meeting along with his web-conferencing service.
I've tentatively scheduled the first telephone conference for Tuesday, September 14. We'll work out timing next week.
I'm new at this, but here are some of my ideas on how this whole thing will work. For the first meeting, when we're all on the line, everyone will have thirty seconds to give your elevator speech introducing yourself and telling us what you do. This is more of a creativity exercise than a draconian measure to keep the meeting moving.
We will have one big question every month, and each of you should be prepared to discuss the question as it pertains to you or your business. We'll take turns answering the month's "big question" and getting input from the others in the group. I'd like to allocate a given amount of time to each person's question, so nobody gets short-changed on their input from this fabulous group.
The first big question is: What one thing could I do to completely transform my business?
I'll send out a lot more details in the next week, but wanted to get everyone excited about the Think Tank. Some other issues I am still working on:
Recording the conference call so others could listen in if they missed it.
Scheduling more than one per month if the idea is as successful as I think it will be.
Inviting a "celebrity" guest to join us once in a while.
Starting an "invitation only" blog with multiple posting privileges to facilitate group communication between calls.
As you can tell, I'm really enthusiastic about this idea, and welcome your comments (public or private) about what you'd like to see. If you've missed out on the first roster for the Think Tank, e-mail me anyway and I'll do my best to squeeze you in or set up another one.
Think Tank Tuesdays
I've previously posted about my Innovation Tuesdays. I've renamed the group "Think Tank Tuesdays" and only have three more spots open for participants. We'll do a conference call at least one Tuesday per month, and I'm shooting for the first Tuedsay in September for the kick off. Some of the non-lawyer participants are Don the Idea Guy, Lori "Sales Process Diva" Richardson, and Evelyn Rodriquez. Get me an e-mail as soon as possible if you are interested.
Another Cool Idea
Not really sure how to make this work in the law biz, but here is an interesting idea from Kevin Salwen at Worthwhile:
There's a Brazilian steakhouse I like that could teach some serious lessons in as-needed customer service. When you sit down, you get a card (it looks like a coaster) on which one side is green and the other is red. When you want the waiters to bring more food, you leave the green side up. It says you are interested in interacting with them. When you're done -- read that, leave me alone please -- the red side faces up. If every restaurant had that, wouldn't meals be much more pleasant?
Responsible Innovation
Adrian Burstein has some thoughtful ideas on the human cost of innovation in a weblog article he has written on the Cheskin Fresh Perspectives blog. Though writing about the postal system, his thoughts ring true for the legal industry as well:
If I go to the counter in a post office and hand in a letter, they will rush me and stamp on it whatever the standard is. The result is a missed opportunity to be relevant beyond efficiency, and a negated privileged role in providing customers with a meaningful experience through imparting and promoting a culture of knowledge.But that’s not all. At a second layer, we need to understand that users aren’t only those who buy stamps or mail packages. The postal employees themselves are users of the postal system. They are the face of a system that has lost its charm. They are participants of an experience that nobody looks forward to, much less appreciate or see the value of spending an extra couple of minutes on it. This creates a vicious cycle that impoverishes the overall user experience for everyone.
This sounds so much like our business it is scary.
Barriers to Innovation
Thanks to Mike Docherty at Innovation.net for pointing me to this study (must sign up to read the whole thing) by Strategos measuring barriers to innovation across a wide variety of industries. The top five barriers to innovation:
Short term focus/ focus on operations (63%)
Lack of time, resources or staff (52%)
Lack of systematic innovation process (33%)
Leadership expects payoff sooner than is expected (31%)
Management incentives not structured to reward innovation (31%)
Does this sound familiar lawyers?
You can't innovate if you don't take time to focus on the future as well as the present. This is a problem I've been having myself. I have been so torn between completing our new business model and serving existing clients that I am running on fumes. I've just finished "The Now Habit" and am planning a week of "French Hours" beginning Saturday. I have several posts I'll get up before then, but then this blog will go silent for seven days. Promise me you won't forget me while I'm gone.
Rules for Entrepreneurs
Boy, I wish I'd asked Dave Pollard to contribute to my Five by Five - Entrepreneur Edition. On his How to Save the World Blog, Dave has this great post titled, "Entrepreneurialism and the New Economy." The long post is worth ten minutes of your time, but what I found most valuable were his rules for entrepreneurs to succeed in the "New Economy:"
1. Don't try to play in the big guys' sandbox. You may have a great idea for a new pre-moistened window-cleaning, eyeglass-cleaning wipe, but do you really think Proctor & Gamble will let you make any money at it? You have to find a need that the big guys, for whatever reason, can't fill. Take advantage of their lack of agility, their focus, their disinterest in niches and specialization, their inability to customize, their physical distance, to find needs that they wouldn't even think of trying to satisfy.2. Don't borrow money or give up equity. When the economic recession hits, or interest rates spike, those in debt, or with expensive equity, will fall like flies. Of course organically financed businesses are harder to get started, and they grow more slowly. But financial leverage is a double-edged sword. In bad times, it can kill you.
3. Avoid lawyers, and the need for lawyers. If you get into a legal fight to defend your intellectual property from a bigger guy, or because a bigger guy has sued you over your alleged infringement, you're going to lose. It may not be fair, but in court the most expensive team of lawyers almost always wins.
4. Be careful lying down with elephants. Many entrepreneurs find that the Business-to-Business niche is more lucrative, easier, or better suited to their competencies than a Business-to-Consumer business. Often that means your customers are much bigger than you. If you're careful, attentive, provide something unique and make a healthy margin with these customers, that can be a formula for great entrepreneurial success. But watch out if the elephant rolls over -- if it gets sold, or decides to change suppliers, or decides to squeeze suppliers, you could be squashed.
5. Do what you know. And know what you're doing. When times get tough, or new, disruptive innovations start creating waves in an industry, experts survice and dilettantes flounder. You must always be the best at what you're doing. If the idea of being in a particular business intrigues you but it's not in your area of competency, go work for someone else who is competent in it first. Then when you're an expert, go on your own.
6. Follow the money. The four big-opportunity industries noted above are going to explode because they are aligned with the needs of baby-boomers, who (by sheer numbers) have much of the disposable income in our society. Read books like Boom, Bust & Echo to find out who has the money, and then follow it -- find out what they're spending it on and why, and what they'll need next. This is especially true in a fragile economy, because the rich are the last to stop buying and the first to re-start.
7. Know your customer. Next to running out of cash, and making bad management decisions, not knowing your customer -- what they need and why they buy -- and not investing social capital in relationships with customers, is the biggest cause of entrepreneurial failure. The reasons why customers buy what they do, and don't buy what they don't, aren't always logical or even informed. You can't understand this from a distance -- surveys and studies of buying patterns won't tell you. You have to spend time with customers (real and prospective) and get inside their hearts and minds. These relationships also help recession-proof you, and, if you use them properly, they will provide most of the fodder you need for continuous innovation (rule #9 below).
8. Network with other entrepreneurs. The big guys network constantly with their suppliers, other corporate executives and even competitors. They leverage their contacts and, without the need for a LinkedIn or a Ryze, they know who to call for information and advice on anything that can happen that affects their business. They don't need to have all their expertise on staff or on retainer. Entrepreneurs, for some reason, seem to do this less (probably they're too busy trying to do everything themselves). Most entrepreneurs need to do it more, especially one-on-one.
9. Innovate. The big guys don't want to innovate (they think it's expensive and risky), they don't have to innovate (in today's economy it's easier for them to litigate, pre-emptively patent and buy out innovators than to develop anything radically new themselves), and they're no good at innovating (they're too big, too inflexible, and too risk-averse and cost-conscious). That's your competitive advantage as an entrepreneur. And innovation isn't just about products and services, and about pre-start-up activity, it's about every aspect of the business -- products, services, processes, distribution channels, technologies, organization, structure, strategy, everything -- and it must be continuous. There's a simple, intuitive process for doing it:
Now, I don't completely agree with number 3, but I think the rest is pretty sound advice for anyone running a business -- lawyers included.
How to be creative.
Hugh Macleod has an unbelievable post at his Gaping Void weblog, titled "How to be Creative." Hugh has 12 well-reasoned and perfectly explained rules for becoming (and staying) creative. This is a must read for anyone interested in creativity. The first rule is my favorite:
1. Ignore everybody.The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the biz card format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasn't I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest i.e. cutey-pie greeting cards or whatever?
You don't know if your idea is any good the moment it's created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There's a reason why feelings scare us.
And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. It's not that they deliberately want to be unhelpful. It's just they don't know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain.
Plus a big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they don't want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They like things the way they are, that's how they love you- the way you are, not the way you may become.
Ergo, they have no incentive to see you change. And they will be resistant to anything that catalyzes it. That's human nature. And you would do the same, if the shoe was on the other foot.
With business colleagues it's even worse. They're used to dealing with you in a certain way. They're used to having a certain level of control over the relationship. And they want whatever makes them more prosperous. Sure, they might prefer it if you prosper as well, but that's not their top priority.
If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less, or God forbid, THE MARKET needs them less, then they're going to resist your idea every chance they can.
Again, that's human nature.
GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS, THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED.
Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.
Each of the other eleven ideas is as good as -- or better than -- this one. Absoutely fantastic stuff.
Innovation Conference
I'll have some more specific news soon, but I'm working on a brainstorming and innovation conference in Chicago on April 3 -- the Sunday following Techshow. Attendance will be limited to around 30. If you have any interest, let me know. I'll post more details in the next few weeks.
Innovation Tuesdays
Lori Richardson a/k/a Sales Process Diva has this great idea she calls "Power Wednesdays" where she teams with other professionals to keep her focused on marketing her business.
Form a group of a few people to champion each other - here's how it works:
In the morning, your group all calls into a telephone bridge line and you do a quick "check-in" on how many calls you plan to make, what type of calls, and any other activity goals.
Mid-day, you all call back in and do another check-in to see how it is going; and have some virtual "championing" which will naturally fire everyone up - enthusiasm and success are contagious!
End of day - final check-in. How did your day go? Everyone says what they accomplished, what they learned, and what they will do next.
I like this idea so much, I'm going to start "Innovation Tuesdays." One Tuesday a month, I'll set up a conference call for readers of this blog to call in and share cool marketing and practice ideas. I'd like to limit the number of participants to ten or so, but if the demand is high enough, we can do multiple groups. We'll shoot for a Tuesday in August for the first one. Any interest????
Open All Night
Another great article I found on the HOW Design site. This one profiles a "Create-a-Thon" hosted by a design agency to help pro-bono clients. According to the RIGGS website:
CreateAThon® is an innovative way of handling your agency’s pro-bono work and an outstanding way to make a positive impact on your community. It is a 24-hour blitz of creative energy focused on benefiting local non-profit organizations. Here is a brief summary of how CreateAThon® works:* Your agency solicits applications from local 501(c)3 organizations.
* You select a group of projects based on recommended criteria.
* The number of projects accepted is based on the capabilities of the individual agency.
* These projects are then completed start to finish during a 24-hour period.
Here's the story from the ad agency that hosted one for the the Philadelphia/South Jersey area:
So on September 11, 2003, Hypno led CreateAThon with an elite crew of guest art directors, copywriters, account execs and lunatic friends helping needy organizations with $165,500 worth of pro-bono services. We used the article to recruit other like-minded creatives and businesses; photographers, printers and paper manufacturers all answered the call of duty.When word spread that Hypno was hosting CreateAThon, I started getting emails from people I'd never heard of volunteering to work with us. There was no shortage of talent, although there was a run on available desk space. And Hypno was flooded with requests from needy organizations that heard about the event through the nonprofit grapevine. Nonprofits had been hit hard by the economic slump and many desperately needed creative services.
Within 72 hours of the start of the event—from the first scribbled notes during client meetings to the final products—we saw fully realized posters, brochures, newspaper ads, flyers, postcards, logos, videos, Web sites and billboards. The work was fantastic, and clients were tearfully happy, not only because the creative work, printing and materials were free, but because the projects' quality was top-notch. An excellent printer, Chapel2000, donated printing and materials.
I'm trying to get my mind around a way this concept would work in the legal business. If you have any ideas, let me know.
Finding your Niche
Tom Asacker points to an article from the August 2004 issue of Inc. Magazine by Norm Brodsky:
Brodsky writes: "There are three myths about niches that can get in the way of building a successful business. First and foremost is the myth that you have to choose your niche before you start your company. Granted, it's sometimes possible to identify a niche in advance, but often you can't see it until you've actually gone out into the market and begun to sell." Having been there I can assure you that this is wise counsel from a street-wise entrepreneur. And it applies to an existing business as well. Don't assume - like Polaroid, Xerox, Kodak, et al - that your niche is niche-proof. Everyone is looking to grab a slice of your pie with innovative new products and services. So be smart. Stay tuned in to your audience's dreams, wants and pains and preempt your competition with your own bold, new offerings that improve people's lives.
Great advice. Have you looked at your niche lately?
Ergonomics for Lawyers
Saw this interesting survey in an article in my Ergonomics Today newsletter:
Want to know what makes an office worker more, or less, productive? According to a recent survey by Microsoft Hardware, 90 percent of workers believe their productivity is directly linked to their workstation design, and most would choose ergonomic tools to increase their efficiency over company-wide morale-building programs.
What struck me about it is just how little attention most lawyers pay to their own computer set up, much less that of their staffs. As my partner and I design our new offices (we are looking at new space soon), we are going to have small primary work offices with multiple meeting rooms to meet with clients. Because the attorney's actual office doesn't need to be a show place, we could do something like this or this instead.