Managing Partners, Report to the LAB
My friend Patrick McKenna has been working hard on a Leadership Advisory Board (LAB) for Managing Partner magazine. Though populated with large firm lawyers, the LAB is shaping up as a pretty amazing resource for managing partners for all sized law firms. Here's a description:
The LAB was formed as a resource to provide pragmatic advice to assist new managing partners with their critical burning issues and help them succeed. The LAB is comprised of the following distinguished current and former law firm leaders: Angelo Arcadipane (Dickstein Shapiro LLP); John Bouma (Snell & Wilmer LLP); Brian K. Burke (Baker & Daniels LLP); Ben F. Johnson, III (Alston & Bird LLP); John R. Sapp (Michael Best & Friedrich LLP); Keith B. Simmons (Bass Berry & Sims PLC); William J. Strickland (McGuire Woods LLP); Harry P. Trueheart, III (Nixon Peabody LLP); together with Patrick J. McKenna (Edge International).
Check it out, and keep on eye on Managing Partner Magazine for more.
LMA Senior Marketers' Program
I'm please to announce that I'll be helping out at the LMA Senior Marketers' Program: Thought Leadership Amidst Relentless Change. I'm going to be doing a new presentation, titled "The Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing," as well as facilitating several collaborative brainstorming sessions for the entire group. It takes place June 19 and 20 in Washington D.C., and is shaping up to be a pretty cool event. If you are interested (and an LMA Member), check it out.
My Upcoming Travel
I've got lots of stuff coming up for work and fun, and would love to meet some readers of this blog when I'm on the road. Here's where I'll be over the next several weeks:
Dallas, TX: April 23-25.
Orlando,FL: May 16-19.
Washington DC: June 18-22.
Also on the "tentative" horizon:
Herndon, VA
Irving, CA
Atlanta, GA
If you're in the neighborhood and would like to meet, drop me a line and we'll see if we can connect.
Matt
Charge $297 per hour and not $300.
Here's a fascinating article in Scientific American titled Why Things Cost $19.95 that discusses the psychological impact certain prices have over others. If you've always wondered why we see odd prices so often ($19.95 vs. $20.00), the article gives the answer. Two University of Florida marketing professors studied how consumers relate a ticketed price to the perceived wholesale "cost" of a good or service:
There were three scenarios involving different retail prices: onegroup of buyers was given a price of $5,000, another was given a priceof $4,988, and the third was told $5,012. When all the buyers wereasked to estimate the wholesale price, those with the $5,000 price tagin their head guessed much lower than those contemplating the moreprecise retail prices. That is, they moved farther away from the mentalanchor. What is more, those who started with the round number as theirmental anchor were much more likely to guess a wholesale price that wasalso in round numbers. The scientists ran this experiment again andagain with different scenarios and always got the same result.
Why would this happen? As Janiszewski and Uy explain in the Februaryissue of Psychological Science, people appear to create mentalmeasuring sticks that run in increments away from any opening bid, andthe size of the increments depends on the opening bid. That is, if wesee a $20 toaster, we might wonder whether it is worth $19 or $18 or$21; we are thinking in round numbers. But if the starting point is$19.95, the mental measuring stick would look different. We might stillthink it is wrongly priced, but in our minds we are thinking aboutnickels and dimes instead of dollars, so a fair comeback might be$19.75 or $19.50.
I'd really recommend you read the entire article, but the initial takeaway for me is this: If you want clients to believe your rate (or set price for a given service) is close to your actual cost, price in odd numbers.
Three Things Wrong? Move On!
Saw this tip about buying antiques on the Rules of Thumb Blog, and thought it applied even more to potential clients:
Don't buy a piece of antique furniture if you can find three things wrong with it.
So, if you've just finished your first interview with a potential client, and there are three (or more) things about that person or their case that don't seem right, take a pass. You'll be glad you did.
Bill before the 'moneymoon' is over.
The Urban Dictionary's Word of the Day today is Moneymoon, defined as:
The time after your purchase of a good or service and before 'buyer's remorse' happens. "The moneymoon is over, I realzie now that buying that boat was a waste of money."
Made me think of the number one rule of small business cash flow: Bill your clients before the moneymoon is over.
Pick up the phone!
Just a reminder to call your clients every week:
Each week, no matter the condition of the weather, the color ofEthan's mood ring, or the extra hours it will take to meet ourdeadlines, we call each of our clients. We check in, ask how they'redoing, and give them an update on the activities surrounding theirproject. We call every week throughout the project, and even two tothree weeks past the time we've delivered our work—all to make sure theclient doesn't have any last-minute needs, or has run into any problems.
That's how we roll. We care like that.
May I have your attention?
Watch this video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4&w=425&h=355]
Remember, what we look for is what we see. It is only when we open our eyes to see everything that we notice what should be obvious.
What are you looking for in your practice? Billable hours? Maybe you should look for something different. You might be surprised at what you'll find.
Are your customers, or your employees, always right?
For another worthwhile read this morning, check out the Top 5 Reasons Why "The Customer is Always Right" is Wrong from the Chief Happiness Officer Blog. Reason Number 4, it results in worse customer service:
[W]hen you put the employees first, they putthe customers first. Put employees first, and they will be happy atwork. Employees who are happy at work give better customer servicebecause:
- They care more about other people, including customers
- They have more energy
- They are happy, meaning they are more fun to talk to and interact with
- They are more motivated
On the other hand, when the company and management consistently sidewith customers instead of with employees, it sends a clear message that:
- Employees are not valued
- That treating employees fairly is not important
- That employees have no right to respect from customers
- That employees have to put up with everything from customers
When this attitude prevails, employees stop caring about service. Atthat point, real good service is almost impossible - the best customerscan hope for is fake good service. You know the kind I mean: courteouson the surface only.
Do you put your customers first, or your employees?
Need a Vacation?
Brad Feld has a great recap of the ways he takes time off to recharge, including a quarterly, week-long vacation and semi-regular weekend getaway:
Go Dark Weekend: When I find myself feeling burned out, Ido a go dark weekend. I turn off my computer and cell phone at 6pm onFriday night and don't turn it back on until 5am Monday morning. Icancel anything that is scheduled for the weekend and just do whateverI feel like doing. This is usually a once a quarter event;occasionally more frequently depending on how busy I am. I'mconsidering doing this around each of my marathon weekends also.
Anyone reading this feeling burned out? How about "going dark" this weekend and reconnecting with your kids?
Your Brain Rules!
Want to learn more about what's going on inside your own head? Check out Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School by John Medina. The site (linked to above) has lots of pretty cool, short videos explaining why our brains work the way they do. Working for XPLANE, I especially liked Rule # 10: Vision Trumps All Other Senses, and it contains this rule of thumb for presenters:
You'll get 3x better recall for visual information than for oral. And you'll get 6x better recall for information that's simultaneously oral and visual.
Here's why:
- We are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece ofinformation, and three days later you'll remember 10% of it. Add apicture and you'll remember 65%.
- Pictures beat text as well, in part because reading is soinefficient for us. Our brain sees words as lots of tiny pictures, andwe have to identify certain features in the letters to be able to readthem. That takes time.
- Why is vision such a big deal to us? Perhaps because it's how we'vealways apprehended major threats, food supplies and reproductiveopportunity.
- Toss your PowerPoint presentations. It’s text-based (nearly 40words per slide), with six hierarchical levels of chapters andsubheads—all words. Professionals everywhere need to know about theincredible inefficiency of text-based information and the incredibleeffects of images. Burn your current PowerPoint presentations and makenew ones.
Wow!
Got Anxious Clients?
Think about it. Every client who enters a lawyer's office is anxious. In fact, they'd probably prefer going to the dentist. That's why this article on How to Deal with Anxious People is important reading. It sets out some research, with some valuable tips for deciphering visual cues, that every lawyer should know. Here's why:
The more you talk over or at anxious people, the more pressure youput on their middle brain and the more they will close their minds towhat you are saying.
Alternatively, the more you talk to an anxious person -- or even better yet, with them -- the more you alleviate that pressure and the easier it is to access their upper brain and open their minds to you.Here's a critical point, though: the approach you may think you aretaking in a conversation with an anxious person may not be the approachthe other person perceives.
Also worth remembering when you are confronted with that big guy in the bar who accuses you of cheating at pool.
Size Matters
If you are still tooling around with a small computer monitor (or worse, your staff is), check out this post from the WSJ's Business Technology Blog. It is time to supersize:
Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly peopleperformed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers betweenspreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inchmonitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed thetasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people whoused the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however: Productivity droppedoff again when people used a 26-inch screen.
The Devil's In the Details
The New Yorker has created a series of 10 second animations for several of their cartoons. If you are a PowerPoint (ab)user, check out this one.
Let's ReThink LexThink
If you head over to the LexThink! site, you'll see it is "Under Construction." We'll have some more info soon after Techshow.
Notice What's Right Before Fixing What's Wrong
So often, we focus (obsess?) on fixing what's wrong with our selves, our families or our businesses. For a week, try to focus instead on what's right. Make a list of the three things that are the "right-est." Take your three things and do just one thing this week to make them even better. Challenge your family, friends, staff and even clients to do the same. You can always go back to worrying next week.
Heading to Techshow (For Just One Day)
I'm going to be swinging through Chicago this week, and figured I might as well stop by Techshow -- my favorite legal conference. I'm not speaking this year, and will thus be relegated to a free exhibit-hall pass (Tom, can you hook me up?) I'll be hanging around Wednesday and part of Thursday. I hope to see you there.
How to Run Your Law Firm Like a Startup ... or Not.
Jason Calcanis heads up Mahalo, a human-powered search engine. In this post, widely circulating around the tech/startup blogosphere, Jason gives 17 tips on saving money while running a startup that will (I didn't say should) surely resonate with some BigLaw managing partners. Some of his "really good" ideas (since toned down a bit in an update to the post):
- Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetingspolicy. Going out for food or ordering in takes at least 20-60 minutesmore than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings overlunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say fourdays a week is two hours a week... which is 100 hours a year. You getthe idea.
- Don'tbuy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a deskphone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and theircell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls onit, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least$500 a year per person... 50 people over three years? $75-100k
- Buyyour hardest working folks computers for home. If you have folks whoare willing to work an extra hour a day a week you should get them acomputer for home. Once you get to three hours of work a week from homeyou're at 150 hours a year and that's a no brainer. Invest in equipment*if* the person is a workaholic.
- Fire people who are not workaholics
... come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game. Don't work at a startup if you're not into it. Go work at the post office or stabucks if you're want balance in your life for realz. - Getan expensive, automatic espresso machine at the office. Going tostarbucks twice a day cost $4 each time, but more importantly it costs20 minutes. Buy a $3-5,000 Jura industrial,get the good beans, and supply the coffee room with soy, low fat, etc.50 people making one trip a day is 20 hours of wasted time for thecompany, and $150 in coffee costs for the employees. Makes no sense.
- Stock the fridge with sodas---same drill as above.
Sound like BigLaw to you? Well, except for the awesome coffee machine. That's not a cost like copies that you can pass on to clients.