Resolutions III: December 10

Do you use Linked In?  More and more of your current and prospective clients do.  If you use it, here’s a LinkedIn-flavored resolution for you:

1.  Update your profile.

2.  Connect with your contacts (the Outlook Plug-In works great!).

3.  Ask trusted contacts to endorse your work.

Taking a bit of my own medicine here, I’m asking anyone who’s in my network already (or who’d like to join) to endorse me.  Check out my LinkedIn profile in a month to see if I’ve been successful.

Resolutions III: December 9

Didn’t get your Christmas cards out on time?  No worries.  While I’m not sure if this is exactly a resolution or not, there is a tremendous opportunity to use your firm resolutions as a marketing tool. 

Once you’ve settled on five or so firm-wide, client-facing resolutions (not things like deploy a new SQL server, or charge more for copies and postage), send a New Year’s card to each client that reads something like this:

Happy New Year from ABC Firm.   While each New Year brings the promise of wealth and happiness, we know how quickly business resolutions made in January can fade by March.  We’d like to help you keep your 2007 business resolutions … and we’d like you to help us keep ours.

In 2007, we resolve to (add your 1–5 resolutions here):

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

How about you?  What do you resolve to do in 2007 to make your business more profitable, more successful and more fun?  Let us know on the card attached and drop it in the mail.  We will set up a time to meet with you (at no charge) and identify things we can do to help you keep your resolutions and grow your business in the next twelve months.  

One last thing:  We are serious about our resolutions and want you to help us keep them.  If you catch us failing to live up to any of ours, or if you see anything we haven’t resolved to do that you think we should, let us know.  We want to make your 2007 – and ours – the best year ever!

Resolutions III: December 8

Here’s an easy one.  Tomorrow, for an hour:

1.  Unplug your office from the internet.

2.  Send your phones to voicemail (and make sure the ringer is off, too).

3.  Have everyone in your office make a list of something, but don’t have them sign it.  Thinks like:

• The things I need most to make my job easier/better/more fun.
• The thing(s) our competitors do WAY better than we do.
• The thing(s) we do WAY better than our competitors.
• Our favorite clients.
• Our least favorite clients.
• The things that I’d change around here, if only I were boss.
• If given $1000, I’d buy ______ for the office.
• My/Our biggest challenge is …

4.  Every 10 minutes, put all the lists in a pile on a table, and have everyone pick another one. 

5.  After the end of the hour, share the lists with everyone.  Leave them somewhere they can be added to.

6.  At your staff meetings, discuss one list each week.

Now, go check your voicemail.

Resolutions III: December 7

Is one of your resolutions to get more business?  Here are some ways to do just that:

1.  Make a list of the one industry you serve best (or that you’d like to serve better). 

2.  Ask someone familiar with the industry what periodicals everyone reads. 

3.  Subscribe to (and read) those magazines.

4.  Leave them in your waiting room when you’re done.   

Extra Credit:

1.  Submit articles to the magazine(s) that demonstrate your legal expertise.

2.  Attend trade shows advertised in the magazines.  Make sure everyone you meet knows the only reason you are there is to learn more about the industry you serve.

3.  Host a quarterly or twice-yearly event highlighting industry trends for local industry members.  If there is some sort of continuing education requirment in the industry, get your event certified.

Extra, Extra Credit:

1.  Compile all of the important materials, books, magazines, etc. for the industry in your office.

2.  Call this an “Industry Lending Library” or something similar.

3.  Make sure everyone in the industry knows they can stop by and borrow what they need (and not have to subscribe to/buy the materials themselves).

4.  Write a “Best Of” Report for each conference you attend.  Mail it to each industry member in your community.  Or blog it.

Extra, Extra, Extra Credit:

1.  Send me $5,000 as soon as someone identifies you as an “Industry Expert.”  ;-) 

Resolutions III: December 6

Resolve to be the place your clients turn to for innovative ideas.  Here's just one way:

First, go to each of your business clients in the next 90 days and ask them this question (taken from this post by Kathy Sierra):  "What is the one thing that you are most afraid of that could put you out of business before the decade's over?"

Second, once all of your clients have answered the question, identify the three or four most common answers and find people who can help the clients with their perceived problems.  Invite clients (5-10 at a time) to meet with these people and brainstorm solutions.  Don't charge for these brainstorming sessions (you will identify enough new business out of them to justify the time).

Third, record the ideas, share them with all your clients, and help clients to implement them.

Finally, plan a hell of a party around New Year's in 2010 and celebrate with the clients who've survived the decade.

Resolutions III: December 5

Add this question to your client intake form: 

What is something that you want to accomplish but you need someone else’s help in order to make it happen?

From The Ripple Effect

Resolutions III: December 4

Niche is an amazing new St. Louis restaurant in the Benton Park neighborhood.  After making reservations several weeks ago, I went for the first time Saturday night.  It was fantastic!

The Menu has three main categories:  First Things First, On to Bigger Things, and Sweet Dreams (appetizers/salads, entrees, and desserts).  Though the items listed in each course have individual prices, the restaurant offers diners their choice from each for a flat $35.00.  Not surprisingly, almost everyone chooses the “three for thirty-five” option.

Taking a page from Niche’s menu, here’s the resolution for the day:  Build A Menu for Your Firm.

• Pick a practice area you are very familiar with, and divide the typical representation into three phases.  
• Under each phase, list the kinds of things that you would do for the average client (like initial meetings, fact gathering, pleading preparation, etc.) 
• Now, review old bills to get a sense of how much you really charge for each service, and come up with a price for each.
• Prepare a “Menu” modeled on the one from Niche.

Even if you don’t plan on using the menu, it will force you to think about the attractiveness of the flat rate price.  Still not sure?  Ask your former clients (who’ve previously utilized the services you’ve set forth on the menu) what they think –  and most importantly, what they’d have thought if you’d presented them with the menu before they hired you.

BONUS:  If you are going to adopt the menu pricing model, go to a good restaurant supply store and have your prices printed in actual menus! 

Oh, and one more thing:  while you are developing a menu, don’t forget the “Whine List.”  Make a list of all of the things the typical client complains about.  Try to address those complaints with the client at the beginning of the representation, not at the end.

Bon Appetit!

Resolutions III: December 3

Build an office gallery:

Ask your employees to bring in the artwork of their children/grandchildren/nephews/neices/etc. and hang it in your firm’s “Gallery.”  Every year, have an art show, where all the kids are invited (with parents, of course) to see their work.

Resolutions III: December 2

Find your five favorite clients.  Take them to dinner.  Don’t let them leave until they answer this question:  What can I do to get more clients like you?

Resolutions III: December 1

Build a 2007 Resolution Wall.

Find a blank wall in your office where everyone can post as many firm-related “resolutions” as they want on 5x8 inch Post-It Notes.*   

At the beginning of 2007, draw a line ( tape) down the middle of the wall.  Label one side “Someday” and the other side “Now.”  

Ask every staff member to pick JUST ONE resolution they personally commit to achieving and move that Post-It from the Someday side to the Now side.

Every week, review the resolutions and ask everyone for an update on their progress. 

Once a resolution is achieved, place a huge checkmark (or big gold star) on it, and move another over from the Someday side to the Now side.

Repeat as necessary all year long.

* If you are feeling particularly brave, ask your clients to add their resolutions for your firm to the wall, and keep them up-to-date on your firm’s progress.

It is Resolution Time Again! Call for Submissions.

Each of the past two Decembers, in 2004 and 2005, I have posted daily Resolutions for Lawyers.  It is a fun thing for me to do and helps me to revisit some of the cool things I’ve seen and written about that year.  December is here soon, and I thought I’d open it up to everyone this year. 

If you’ve got a great Resolution you’d like to share, you can add it in the comments of this post, or e-mail me (Matt@LexThink.com) and I’ll share as many as I can.

Thanks! 

Only Four Decks of Cards Left

I was going back over some old posts this morning, and found this one.  Seems there are only 209 days left in the year as I write this.  That’s only four decks of cards “worth” of days left of your original seven decks. 

What do you expect to accomplish before year’s end?  Even more importantly, what did you expect to get done by now?  If you are looking for ideas, I’d suggest reviewing my Resolutions for Lawyers series.

For your clients, maybe you could schedule a “mid-year meeting” (at no cost to them) and use the opportunity to ask your clients what they want to get done before the year is over?  Then use the decks of cards as a visual planning tool to help them accomplish their goals.

technorati tags: client+service, resolutions, lawyers

Why Blog?

Christopher Carfi pointed me to this essay by Chris Brogan titled Cavemen at the Fire that captures the essence of the “why” of blogging for so many of us:

But the truth is, I'm getting value. I get value in talking with you. I've met so many engaging people, and every time one of you risks delurking and sending me an email, I meet a new friend….  I feel that every day I post something new is another micro resume. I'm telling people out there what I stand for, how I think, what matters most to me. Some days, that's probably not going to land me a job. Other days, it's something that people might relate to.

A Great Motivational Tip

Jason Womack shares a tip he received when he asked the audience at a recent workshop for their productivity tips.  Jason asked, "How do you stay motivated when the project outcome is a long time off?"  The best tip:

Label the project in terms of what I will receive when I'm done. Make it one I "want to" complete.

The Weekly Reader

Here’s a great management idea I’d never heard before from The Window Manager himself:

One of my tasks when I worked at Texas Instruments was to do a "weekly". For those of you not familiar with this little management tool, this is a bulletized memo that lists the tasks you accomplished for the week, the tasks you are going to do the following week, and what your upcoming schedule looks like, particularly if you're traveling. It also might include short summaries of customer meetings or market data that was picked up in the field.

My manager collected the weeklies of everyone under him, picked the "best" bullet points, and sent a weekly to his manager. His manager collected the weeklies from HIS people, picked the best bullets, and sent a weekly to HIS manager, and so on up the chain. At twenty-two, I thought it was an accomplishment if one of "my bullets" made it into the VP's weekly since it had to percolate up three or four layers of weeklies to make it to that level.

If you work for (or by) yourself, do your “weekly” on Friday, put it in a drawer, and then review it on Monday.   However, instead of listing the tasks you accomplished, think a bit bigger.  List the things you are proud you accomplished, and things you have to do next week that will make you proud and/or happy when they are done.  If you are lucky enough to have a support group, share your weekly accomplishments with one another. 

Take a Minute and Save a Child

At BlawgThink, my friend Doug Sorocco told me something that, the more I think about it, is the single best thing that has happened because of my blog.  Last year, I posted this appeal from Doug, asking for help with a raffle for the Spina Bifida Association of America (SBAA), which Doug chairs.  Doug told me that someone clicked on the link though my site and donated $10,000 anonymously to the SBAA.

First, if that generous person is still reading this blog, THANK YOU! 

Second, in hopes that lightning may strike twice, I’m going to post this request from Doug he sent me today:

Hello friends! 

As many of you know, I am the Chairman of the Spina Bifida Association of America – a national non-profit organization whose mission it is to prevent the occurrence of spina bifida (i.e through education of the benefits of consuming folic acid prior to conception) and promotion of all those affected by spina bifida. 

Although spina bifida is the number one permanently disabling birth defect in the United States, research funding through the NIH is at a woefully inadequate level.  As a result, we as an organization have championed the Center for Disease Prevention’s (CDC) efforts to create a National Spina Bifida Program – a program that has been outstanding in its very limited time of existence and is used as a model by the CDC for public/non-profit cooperation.  The program’s funding is being threatened by cuts in the FY2007 budget.

I strongly support the program at the CDC and can personally vouch for the programs fiscal responsibility, effectiveness and meaning to the individuals living with spina bifida and the 60 million women of childbearing age in the United States.

Please take a few moments and click through the link below to send a message to your Congressional representatives that the National Spina Bifida Program at the CDC is also important to you.  It doesn’t take many responses to truly make a difference.

 It would also be helpful if you could forward this email to a couple of your friends and colleagues.

 Thank you so much for your assistance – it truly means a lot to me.

 Douglas

Here’s a link to the Action Alert from the Spina Bifida Association website, and here’s the link to send an e-mail to your Member of Congress.

Do your calendar and priorities match?

Mark at Manager Tools writes about an exercise he has all of his executive coaching clients do before he begins working with them:  He asks them to list their priorities and then looks at their calendars.  The result?

90% of the time they don’t match.

When I review with my clients what they said their priorities were, versus what their calendars proved they actually were, the primary emotion, once we fight through disbelief and dissembling, is embarrassment. The smart ones get something powerful from this: the disparity between what they know their jobs to be and what they spend their time doing is the primary source of their dissatisfaction in their role.

Such a simple, yet profound exercise.  Try it yourself and see if your calendar and priorites match?

Thanks to Lisa for the tip.

Lisa's Daily Practice

Lisa Haneberg is starting up her 2 Weeks 2 a Breakthrough coaching program again.  She requires her students to do this “Daily Practice” everyday:

Each day:
- Tell two people about your goal.
- Take two actions that support your goal.
- Make two requests that support your goal.

It is a bit late to include this in my resolution series, but think about how it could help you get off to a great 2006.

Resolutions for Leaders

Lisa Hanneberg offers a free e-book:  New Year’s Resolutions for Leaders.

And now back to our regular programming.

If you are just tuning in, I’ve completed the Resolutions for Lawyers, 2006 edition.  I backdated all of the posts to correspond with the appropriate day for the resolution.  You can check out all of the resolutions 2004 & 2005 here.