Resolutions III: December 29
Resolve to understand what you sell. This is pretty straightforward. Ask your clients what they are buying from you. If they answer “time,” then by all means continue to sell it. If they answer something else (and it will be something else), learn to sell that instead.
Just to get you started, here’s one of my favorite posts of 2006:
Having a difficult time “selling” your value as an advisor instead of a tecnician? Here’s an easy-to-understand way to communicate the differences between Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom, from the Across the Sound podcast (via Howard Kaplan):
Data is "the sun rises at 5:12 AM"
Information is "the sun rises from the East, at 5:12 AM"
Knowledge is "If you're lost in the woods without a compass, follow the direction of the sun to find your direction"
Finally, wisdom is "Don't get lost in the woods"
Resolutions III: December 28
Resolve to rethink your business cards. In August of 2005, I wrote about my new index card-sized business cards. Here are the cards I’m using now for realBIGthinking:
I rarely get a negative comment when I hand the card to someone, and the cards almost always begin an interesting conversation. And isn’t that what a business card is supposed to do?
Lawyers Appreciate ...
Last week Gerry Riskin asked me to write a post that begins with the words “Lawyers Appreciate” (the idea was originally conceived here). Here’s mine:
Lawyers Appreciate Gifts. Here are three things I’d like to (belatedly) give all my lawyer friends for the holidays:
1. A family who loves them.
2. A community who respects them.
3. Great clients who pay them.
And if I didn’t spend all my budget on those three things, I’d add four more:
4. One hour each day to dream about how they’d make their business better.
5. The courage to try the things they’ve thought up.
6. The wisdom to ignore those who say those things can’t be done.
7. Friends like Gerry to cheer them on.
Resolutions III: December 27
Another favorite tip: When your clients come to see you, resolve to help them see you.
Ever have clients come by your office who need to read documents? Get a load of this tip (for waiters and waitresses) from Tricks of the Trade:
Keep a pair of reading glasses at hand. At least once every few days you'll get a customer who forgot their glasses and are unable to read the menu. Produce your spare pair and a good tip is secure.
Reading glasses are cheap at Wal-Mart, Target, etc. Grab a few pairs and your clients will “see” what a great lawyer you are.
Resolutions III: December 26
Here is a really simple one. If you want to get more done (and you don’t dictate everything), resolve to type better. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to think of a cheaper and better way to improve office-wide productivity, than to get everyone typing faster.
Of course, if partners responding to their e-mails could get the response off in a “.10” instead of a “.20” clients would benefit as well.
Resolutions III: December 25
Resolve to tell your family and friends how much you love them.
Resolutions III: December 24
Resolve to become aware of news affecting your cients before they do.*
1. Using Google Blog Search or Google Alerts set up several searches for each of your clients. Use their names, industry, competitors’ names, products, etc.
2. Subscribe to the RSS feed for each search.
3. Notify your clients whenever you see something relevant to them or their industry.
Extra Credit:
4. If you use Google Reader as your RSS Aggregator, create a “tag” for each of your clients.
5. For each tag, Google Reader allows you to create a unique URL for that tag that you can share with your clients.
6. Give each of your clients their tag’s unique URL and everytime they open it in their browser, they’ll see everything you’ve “marked” for them to read.
* This post will be expanded into a longer how-to in January.
Resolutions III: December 22
Resolve to get less business.
Step One: Go through your client list and place a check next to every client who:
- you hate
- treats your staff poorly
- never pays on time
- always complains about everything – including your service
- is never happy with anything
- etc.
Step Two: Figure out how much of your income comes from these clients. Fire them. If too much income comes from clients you hate serving, find a different practice area or a different job.
Step Three: While you are at it, look at your calendar for the last year. How many things (like family outings, vacations, and your children’s activities) didn’t you get to do because you had to work? Add up the amount of money you made by missing these events.
Step Four: Add the amounts from Steps Two and Three. Increase your hourly rate (unless you already use value pricing) to make up for the business you are letting go.
Step Five: Explain your rate increase to clients by telling them you decided to work for fewer clients to deliver the remaining ones better service (and to remain sane).
Step Six: Deliver that better service to your remaining clients. Spend more time with your family. Be happier.
Resolutions III: December 21
Resolve to help your clients help each other.
Step One: In addition to your normal engagement agreement, develop a “Client Promotion Agreement” that your clients sign that permits you to discuss with others what they do (in a most generic sense) and allows you to introduce them to others who can help them/buy from them/sell to them/etc.*
Step Two: When asking them to sign the Client Promotion Agreement, explain to them that you take their privacy very seriously, but also believe in helping them and their business in any way that you can, and that you have many clients whom they might benefit from being introduced to.
Step Three: Get to know as much as you can about your clients’ non-legal needs. Try not to charge for these conversations (and do it at their place of business, if you can). Ask them questions like these:
What are the most common problems your customers have that you aren’t able to help them with?
What one thing could you do this year with someone’s help that would have the greatest impact on your business?
Step Four: Introduce them to others who can help them.
* Though you may not ethically need this agreement (or you could cover it in your engagement agreement) it is a good way to reinforce how much you care about them and a nice way to begin the rest of the conversation about how to help them.
Resolutions III: December 20
Resolve to ease the technology burden on your employees. Here’s how:
1. Ask everyone in your office to keep track of every computer application and web-based tool they use each week.
2. Have everyone rate each application/tool on “ease of use” on a scale of 1–5, with 5 being easiest.
3. Either get rid of the applications that scored a 1, 2 or 3, or invest in training to teach everyone how to use them.
17 Lawyer Tips: A Mini Manifesto
After writing 15 Client Tips: A Mini Manifesto, I figured that turnabout is fair play. Here are 17 for Lawyers:
1. Whenever your clients don’t understand what you are doing for them, they think about what you are doing to them.
2. Many of your clients remain your clients because it is a pain in the ass to find another laywer – not because they love you.
3. Every time your clients get your bill, they think about how beautiful your office is and about the nice car you drive. And they wonder if you are worth it.
4. If your office is a dump and you drive a wreck, they wonder about that too.
5. If your client doesn’t pay you, fire them. Don’t ignore them.
6. At least once a year, tell a client, “It’s on the house.”
7. Taking a client to play golf doesn’t show how good a lawyer you are. It shows how good a golfer you are.
8. Quit being a pompous, demanding jerk around the office. If you can’t keep good staff, you don’t deserve good clients.
9. Your clients will always know their business better than you do. They may even know the law better than you. Make sure to seek their advice before giving yours.
10. A lawyer charging extra for stamps and copies is like a car wash charging extra for water. Stop it now.
11. Your clients have wants. Your clients have needs. They often don’t know the difference.
12. Whenever you interrupt a client meeting to take an “important” call, your client thinks about hiring another lawyer.
13. Imagine a world where your clients knew each month how much their bill from you will be so they could plan for it. They do.
14. If you hate being a lawyer, be something else. You are smart. You’ll figure it out.
15. A bill is not communication. At least not the good kind.
16. When is the last time you called a client just to thank them for being your client? That’s what I thought.
17. People don’t tell lawyer jokes just because they are funny. They tell lawyer jokes because they think they are true. Spend your career proving them wrong.
Resolutions III: December 19
Today’s resolution is to do this exercise every week:
Write down your priorities. Now look at your calendar. Do the things you spend your time on mirror the things you think you should be doing? Probably not – and it could be the primary reason you are dissatisfied with what you do.
Either your priorities will change to match your daily routine, or vice versa.
I think this would be even more powerful if done office-wide, with this additional wrinkle:
In addition to comparing everyone’s priorities with their calendars, ask everyone in a supervisory role to list the priorities of those they supervise. Ask the supervised employees to list the priorities they think they are supposed to have. Compare and discuss.
Resolutions III: December 18
Distribute a monthly Postcard-Sized Newsletter from your firm.
Resolutions III: December 17
Here’s one of my favorite ideas from 2006: Have a Trade Your Headache Day in your office:
Unless you are among the small percentage of hyper-motivated and totally focused people out there in the world, you know you have at least one “headache” sitting in a pile on your desk or on your to-do list. It may be that project you keep putting off, that client you hate dealing with, or that phone call you just don’t want to make. No matter what it is, imagine how happy you’d be tomorrow if it weren’t your responsibility any longer.
Well, odds are your co-workers have similar “headaches” they face every day too. Here is a way to cope:
Every week (or month) get together with your co-workers and bring your number one headache with you. Identify it, and then trade it with one that someone else brought. Think of it like kind of a regular white elephant gift exchange. Just make sure the same headache doesn’t get traded over and over again.
Resolutions III: December 16
The first week of 2007, go buy seven decks of cards. (via Eric Maisel, and this post on Worthwhile):
Get seven decks of cards with similar backs. Lay out all seven decks on your living room rug, backs showing. This is a year of days (give or take). Let the magnitude of a year sink in. Experience this wonderful availability of time. (This is a powerful exercise.)
Carefully count the number of days between two widely-separated holidays, for instance New Year's Day and the Fourth of July. Envision starting a large project on that first holiday (today!) and completing it by the second.
Resolutions III: December 15
Read “The Yes Man” by Danny Wallace – a book about what happens when a guy says “yes” to literally everything for a year. Scott Ginsberg suggested I read this book about six months ago. I did, and since then I’ve recommended this book to more people than any other book I’ve ever read. It can be a real life changer.
Resolutions III: December 14
Here’s a simple resolution for you:
Each week, identify one client and send them a hand-written card thanking them for being your client.
Resolutions III: December 13
Has your accountant told you that you need to spend some money on office things before the end of the year? Try this:
Let’s say you have $20,000 and ten employees. Tell everyone that you have $10,000 to spend to make the office better. Ask each employee what one thing (costing from $1–10K) they’d buy the office to make it a better place to work for everyone. Put the suggestions up on the wall and let everyone discuss and vote for the winner. Then buy it.
Now, take the remaining $10,000 and divide it equally among your employees (including yourself). Don’t pay it to them. Instead, ask each how they’d spend their $1000 to make the office work better for them. Then buy it.
I think you’ll be amazed at what a morale booster this will be for your office. The amount doesn’t have to be $20k either. Your employees will be happy to know that you not only value their input on making your office a better place to work, you act upon it.
Resolutions III: December 12
Yesterday, I posted about a way to have more ideas by taking a walk with a small camera. Here’s how to get your entire organization into the habit:
Step One: Get your office a camera (even better, get everyone in your office a camera).
Step Two: Take turns choosing a particular object, thing, or shape of the week.
Step Three: Ask everyone to take pictures of the subject of the week.
Step Four: Upload all of the photos taken to a common location (like Flickr).
Step Five: Discuss the best photos at a weekly staff meeting.
Step Six. Pick the best photos each week, print them out, make the photographers “sign” them, and then frame them.
Step Seven: Throw out your store-bought “art” and hang up your new original artwork.
INNOVATION BONUS: Instead of choosing an object, thing, or shape, identify a challenge your office is facing. Ask your budding photographers to take pictures like before, but suggest they make each picture relate to the challenge (or its solution) in some way – no matter how tenuous the connection. At you weekly meeting, have everyone explain how/why their photos relate to either the challenge or the solution.
Resolutions III: December 11
My favorite quote I found in 2006 is from French philosopher Emile Chartier, who said, “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.” Following this advice, today’s resolution is to be less dangerous by having more ideas. Here’s one of my favorite ways:
Step One: Buy a (small) camera. This is the one I love.
Step Two: Go for a walk (don’t forget the camera).
Step Three: Take lots of pictures, focusing (pun intended) on a particular object, thing, or shape.
Step Four: Upload them to Picassa, Flickr, iPhoto, etc.
Step Five: After your walk, spend no more than 10 minutes writing down any random ideas rumbling around inside your head. For extra credit, write the ideas on the label or note section of your photo-organizing tool.
Step Six: Repeat daily.