The Perfect Law Firm Retreat: Introduction

Over at LexThink, I offer creative law firm retreat design and facilitation.  It is something I really love to do, and it is tremendously rewarding to work with a firm's lawyers as they collaborate and develop amazing ideas -- along with a plan to implement those ideas -- that will make their business better.
 
However, not every firm can afford to hire someone to design and facilitate their retreat or practice group meeting.  Starting this week, I'm going to be posting some of my thoughts on building the "Perfect Law Firm Retreat."  I'll include ideas, sample agendas and descriptions of exercises I've used to get people working (and thinking) together. 

I'll also include fun/crazy ideas for holding an "on-site" retreat (or even eliminating retreats all together) that will he help firms get most of the benefits of holding an off-site retreat without the costs.

I'd love your input, via comment, email or twitter (@mhomann).  Thanks!

So Easy a Lawyer Won't Do It?

"So easy a plumber can do it..." might not have the ring of Geico's caveman commercials, but when I saw this book excerpt on friend Phil Gerbyshak's blog from The Celebrity Experience, Insider Secrets to Delivering Red Carpet Customer Service, I knew I had to share it with you.

Author Donna Cutting tells a story about Hub Plumbing and Mechanical, a Boston-area plumbing company.  From the book:

Everyone in the company, including apprentices, has a business card. They give out slick folders, fun magnets, and dry erase boards. They've even been known to replace your toilet paper with a new roll bearing the Hub logo!

But John Wood knows something else, too. He knows that branding is not about the trucks, the carpets, or the toilet paper. It's about the service. If John and his team weren't consistent in the service they provide, the red trucks, the red uniforms, and the red carpets would simply be decoration. And if Hub Plumbing & Mechanical just relied on decor and didn't deliver the goods, it would not have grown from a one-man operation to a $1.5 million business with 11 employees in just six short years.

When you call Hub Plumbing, any time of the day or night, a live person answers the phone. (Once you have an appointment) you receive an email from your plumber. He tells you approximately when to expect him, what his specialties are, and all about his family and hobbies. As John says, "When people hire a plumber, their expectations are low. Our guys have personalities!

Did I mention the e-mail is in HTML format and a photo of your plumber is included?

The day of the visit, your plumber calls when he's on his way to the job. If he's running late, he will call in plenty of time to see if you want to wait or if you'd rather reschedule. Assuming the best, you would soon look out your window and see the bright red Hub Plumbing truck roll up to your house.

Once you have invited your plumber in, he puts plastic covers over his shoes to keep from marking up the carpet. And he lays down the red carpet with the Hub logo, and places his tools like surgical instruments on it. It's their Red Carpet Service.

Hub Plumbing took a look at things people said they'd disliked about plumbers:  showing up late, looking bad (plumber's crack, anyone?), overcharging and leaving a mess -- and changed everything.   

Lawyers, if you had to change everything about lawyers that clients hate, where would you start?

And if you want some motivation, take a look at Hub's Testimonial page.  Do your customers say the same things about you?

UPDATE:  Forgot to mention, HUB charges by the project, not the hour.

UPDATE 2:  Changed the title of the post and edited the content a bit.  Wasn't meaning to demean plumbers, just show how one plumbing company rethought their business to address (admittedly stereotypical) concerns people had about plumbers.  I wish lawyers (who can teach plumbers a thing or two about undeserved stereotypes) would do the same thing.

Five Reasons Lawyers Need a Digital Camera

Every lawyer needs a digital camera for their exclusive use.  I'm not talking about sharing one with the entire office, or using your camera phone or the one from home (when you remember to bring it).  I'm talking about a small, digital camera (like this one) you can keep in your pocket, briefcase or purse. 

I take mine everywhere.  Here are a few not-so-obvious reasons lawyers should, too:

1. To remember what your clients look like.  Go ahead, admit it.  When you look through your files at the end of each month (you do that, right?), you always have at least one client's name you can't put with a face.  How about the times you get a call from Bob Smith, and you can't remember just exactly who Bob is?  Every time you retain a new client, take their picture.  Upload it to your practice management/contact management program and print it out to put inside their file.  Even better, also put it in an album of past and current clients (like a yearbook) and you'll never be caught scratching your head wondering just who that person was you just bumped into at the supermarket.
2. To make sure you send your bills out on time.  Take a picture of something you want (a new car), or something you love that costs you money (like your children), and clip that photo on top of your stack of bills when you review them every month.  The picture will remind you just why you do what you do, and motivate you to get your bills out on time.
3. To make copies and turbocharge your whiteboard.  This tip alone could save you (or your clients) the cost of a camera in less than six months.  Sign up for a service like ScanR and send your photos of documents, business cards or whiteboards in and have them converted into .pdf files for free.  This can save you $1.00/page or more vs. paying for copying court files.
4. To help your clients find the courthouse.  Next time you head to the courthouse, take pictures of the parking lot, the entrance, and even the place you want your clients to meet you.  Send the pics along with your letter telling them about their hearing, and they'll be far more likely to be on time.
5. To capture the cool things you see.  There are always things we see that we wish we'd remember.  Take a picture.  What you'll find is you remember more things, and you'll also start to become a much better photographer.

Billboard-ize Your Next Presentation

Another great post from Presentation Zen on learning slide design from IKEA billboards.   The key takeaway:

Goodbillboards and other signage, must:

(1) get noticed,
(2) beread/understood,
(3) be remembered, and
(4) we hope an action is takenor one's thinking is influenced.

The first three in particular apply topresentation slides as well. I am not suggesting that you literallycopy the style of the signs outside an IKEA. But you can incorporatethe same principles for your displays used in your live talks thatdesigners use for billboards and other 'glance media.' 

Most peoplecould not care less about a billboard or the signs outside an IKEAstore, of course. But you're different. So you slow down and you payattention to "the design of it." You notice the elements such as color,size, shape, line, pattern, texture, emptiness, alignment, proximity,contrast, and so on.

You're really not that funny.

Trying to be funny in your client emails?  You are probably not succeeding. From Psychology Today:

[I]n a series of studies, participants were only able to accuratelycommunicate sarcasm and humor in barely half—56 percent—of the emailsthey sent. What's worse, most people had no idea that they weren'tmaking themselves understood....

The fact that we're usually very good at makingourselves understood is also what trips us up in the email domain."We're all so adept at processing nonverbal cues that we do it withoutthought, in a happy-go-lucky way." So much so, that we often don'trecognize ambiguous meanings, like in that dashed-off email that couldbe read two different ways."

Tips?  Reread your emails, aloud if possible, and listen closely for ambiguity.  For important emails, compose them, take a break, and come back and re-read before you hit send.

Via Guy:

Reactivate Past Clients

John Jantsch gives us Seven Tips to Dig Out from a Recession.  The one you should focus on today:

Reactivate past customers - Where did I put thatcustomer anyway, I know they are around here somewhere. Sad but true,sometimes we don’t bother to communicate with current customers unlessthey call with an order. By the time they have decided someone elseappreciates their business more, it’s too late. Reach out to lapsedcustomers and make them an apology, promise to never ignore them again,and make them a smoking hot deal to come back.

Conference Tips Revisited

Two years ago, I wrote The Conferencing Manifesto on my Real Big Thinking Blog.  I'm about to put that blog to bed (more on that in the near future), and wanted to repost some of my favorites.  Here are a few tips for conference goers:

Know Your Questions.  Seek Your Answers.  Never attend a conference without at least three questions you want answered.  Never leave until they have been.

Their Conference is Your Focus Group.  Want to measure the pulse of the marketplace?  Want feedback on your idea, product, or business model?  Go to a conference populated by your ideal customer.  Forget the sessions.  Hang out in the hallway.  And listen.  A lot.

Be Smart.  Be Helpful.  Then Be Quiet.  Other attendees may have come to the conference to meet people like you.  They may want and deserve your help (and you, theirs).  They didn’t come to hear your hour-long presentation.  Please understand the difference.

Paper Works Best.  Your ability to pay attention to conference speakers and attendees is inversely proportional to your ability to pay attention to the outside world.  Stow the laptop, turn off the BlackBerry, pull out the Moleskine, and start writing.  Oh, and if you can’t leave the real world behind for an hour or two, please don’t leave it at all.

Vendors Matter.  Vendors are like puppies.  They crave your attention.  Give it.  They know your industry and the other attendees better than you do.  Talk with them.  Learn from them.  Then take a few pens.

Blogging is not Participation.  We get it.  Your blog has tens/hundreds/thousands of readers who can’t wait to hear your take on the last speaker’s presentation and about how crappy the WiFi is.  Your “audience” will be there tomorrow.  Your fellow attendees will not.

The most important people at the conference are sitting next to you.   Think Tom Peters gives a rat’s ass about your new business strategy?  Is Seth Godin going to give you personalized marketing advice?  Of course not.  The people at any event who are most likely to have already faced your challenges (and maybe even solved them) aren’t the highly-paid keynoters, but rather your fellow attendees.  They are like you.  They can help you.  Ignore them at your peril.

Hop on the (VW) Bus and Market Your Practice

From Flickr member Jason B comes this great picture of Oklahoma City attorney Chad Moody's "marketing vehicle." 

Any personal injury lawyers out there using ambulances?  Here's one for cheap.

Twittering

I'm Twittering again, for the first time.  Follow me at @mhomann (is that redundant?) if you please.  More importantly, if you've got someone you think I should follow, tweet me and let me know.

Thanksgiving Cards: Another Reason

From my friend Jim Canterucci comes this comment to my post about Sending Thanksgiving Cards:

Matt, I couldn't agree more. We've been sending T-giving cards for at least 15 years. We actually get thank you notes for the cards. It's great to visit a large client office and see our cards displayed in many offices. We also get Christmas cards from people who likely wouldn't send otherwise. This is just one more connection.

Mood Ring + Brainstorm = Moodstream

You've got to check out Moodstream from Getty Images.  From the site:

Moodstream is a powerful brainstorming tool designed to help take you in inspiring, unexpected directions. Whether you want images, footage or audio, or just need a stream of fresh ideas, tweak the Moodstream sliders to bring a while new creative palette straight to you.

It is really hard to describe, but think of a constantly changing mixture of pictures, video and music that can be customized with sliders in the following ways: happy to sad, calm to lively, humorous to serious, nostalgic to contemporary and warm to cool.  Very neat stuff.  And of course you can purchase the images if you see something you like.

Boise Idea Market

If you are in the Boise, Idaho area on October 8th, I'm going to be facilitating an Idea Market from 6:00 to 9:30.  The Facebook Invite is here.  Cost is $20.00 to cover food and supplies.  Would love to see you there. 

Do your clients know you're thankful for their business?

It is roughly ten weeks until Thanksgiving.  Have you ordered your Thanksgiving cards yet?  Here's five reasons why you should:

1. Thanksgiving is a holiday about giving thanks.  Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to offer your clients a genuine "Thank you for being our client" greeting from the entire firm.  The holiday itself reinforces the message to your clients.  A win-win.
2. Thanksgiving cards are uncommon.  How many Thanksgiving cards did you get last year?  That's what I thought.  Your clients don't get them either.  That's why yours will stand out.  It is also why yours will be talked about.
3. Thanksgiving cards have a long shelf life.  Literally.  What do people do with holiday cards?  They display them.  If you send a Thanksgiving card, it will be likely be the first one up on the mantle, and will probably stay there, alone at first, until Christmas card season is done.
4. Thanksgiving isn't Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza.  Hate the minefield of picking the right not-too-religious "Happy Holiday" card?  Avoid it all together with a Thanksgiving card.
5. At Thanksgiving, there's still time for your clients to do end-of-year work.  This is perhaps the least-recognized, yet best reason to send Thanksgiving cards:  they'll generate more end-of-year business for you.  When you send a Christmas card, it is already too late for most clients to get more legal work done before the new year.  By the time the holiday rush is over, they've forgotten what they wanted you to do, and wait probably wait another year.  A Thanksgiving card can give them that subtle prompt when there's at least a month left before the rest of the holiday's hit, allowing you to close the year on a high note.

Building Banks with Generation-C

James Gardner at Bankervision has been thinking about "future-proofing" banks, and takes inspiration from Linux and Crowdsourcing:

We've been tracking a trend at the bank we call Generation-C, the generation that wants to Create. These are the people who write blogs, who mash up applications to create new ones, who contribute to forums and put themselves out there....

What might the power of crowds create if we let them loose on banking products and services?

Because if these Generation-C folk can create a better operating system for free than the folks at Redmond with billions to spend on R&D, what might fantastic things might Generation-C do for financial services?

Indeed.  I think the same goes for law practice.  What do you think?

Beep Beep

From Wikipedia, via Kottke:

The simple but strict rules for Road Runner cartoons.

1. 1. Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going "beep, beep".
2. No outside force can harm the Coyote -- only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products.
3. The Coyote could stop anytime -- IF he was not a fanatic. (Repeat: "Afanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim."-- George Santayana).
4. No dialogue ever, except "beep, beep".
5. Road Runner must stay on the road -- for no other reason than that he's a roadrunner.
6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters -- the southwest American desert.
7. All tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation.
8. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy.
9. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
10. The audience's sympathy must remain with the Coyote.

If Lawyers Didn't Exist

I know, the title of this post sounds like the beginning of another lawyer joke, but it comes from a very thought-provoking article from Indi Young on A List Apart titled Look at it Another Way.

Indi suggests several ways we can "step out of our problem-solving role." This is important because:

Whether we’re improving what we make, how we make it, or how we shareit, we normally take the perspective of the creator by default. Wecan’t help it. We’re drawn into decisions about all sorts of details.We love the minutia—solving problems, finding a way around alimitation. We don’t try to see past our own role in the process.

Instead of trying to improve our businesses (or our processes/outputs/etc.) from the inside, she suggests we drop our problem-solving role completely, forget about our business' existing limitations and become the person we serve.

Pretend you and your organization do not exist, and study what this person doeswith all the resources available in her life. For example, what does acitizen need from her town government? She needs a way to get from herhouse to the grocery store, the library, the post office, herworkplace, etc. These could be roads, bike paths, public transit, andsidewalks. She needs utilities like water and electricity to bedelivered to her property. She needs assurance that her property willbe defended from fire, protected from floods, and accessible during adisaster. She wants to feel safe from assault, whether by a human, ananimal, pollution, noise, or disease. This list goes on.

Like governments, lawyers (though some might argue) exist to fulfill a need. Here's a way to identify those needs: Think about your clients for a moment. But, as the article suggests, don't think of them as a “user” of the thing you provide.Instead, "think about how and why they accomplish what they want to get done."

So, who are your clients? What do they look like? Where do they live? What do they need? What do they want to get done?

Most importantly, what wakes them up at 2:00 am the morning before they call your office? Would they say it is because they wanted "estate planning" or because they want to make sure they can "take care of their family" when they die?

Put another way, if lawyers didn't exist, what unmet need would your clients have? And if you were the only one to recognize that unmet need (in a world without lawyers, remember), would you invent your firm as it exists today?

Would your client?

Would Steve Jobs?

Need Help with Pie Charts?

If you need some design inspiration (or just a humor break), check out GraphJam, a collection of charts and graphs that visually depict really important things.  Like this:

Start Clients Off Right With a "Starter Kit"

Mark Hollander shares a Patient Starter Kit from drug manufacturer Shire on his Group8020 blog (great company name, btw). The "Kit" consists of:

• 16 page, full color booklet with basic information about the disease state
• An interactive CD-ROM that plays on both Windows and Macs (thelatter representing a smart marketing decision. In the US, Applerepresents two thirds of all new computer sales)
• An ATM-like card to be used at local pharmacies for a free 30-day trial of the product
• Standard P.I. insert

According to Mark, "Theprocess of converting the “concerned and curious” to new customersbegins immediately. The right front page prominently displays aserialized card used for enrollment in the 30-Day trial."

Some other really cool things in the kit (for an ADHD drug):

• “Success Tracker” to chart and reinforce a child’s improvement in tasks that had previous proven difficult
• Recognition Certificate for the child - we’re assuming it works onthe principle of “accomplish so many things and your reward will be..”
• Household Organizer Chart - for both child and parent, bringing a little structure back into home life

Put aside what you think about how drug companies market for a moment, and think about this instead:

What would a New Client Starter Kit look like for your firm?

Would it have basic information about the area of law concerning theclient?

Would it contain links, scanned articles and documents (likequestionnaires and forms) on a CD-ROM that would work on both Macs andWindows PC's?

Would it contain photos of your office, including theoutside of your building and the parking lot, as well as pictures (andbios) of all your staff?

Would it contain a FAQ?

Would it be cool?

If you're looking for a project this month, perhaps building a New Client Starter Kit should make it onto your short list.

Line Up for Design Inspiration

Need a little design inspiration? Check out these results from a Smashing Magazine contest. The challenge? Design a horizontal line. It is a pretty basic challenge with pretty amazing results. The best part? They're all free for reuse.

Upcoming Events: Idea Market and Inter:PLAY

If you're in and around St. Louis, there are a few things I'm involved in you might like.

The first is an Idea Market on September 15th. We've taken off several months for the summer, and I'm itching to try some new things with the group. We've only room for 30, so sign up now if you'd like to come.

The second is the Inter:PLAY, the new St. Louis Interactive Festival. The St. Louis Bloggers Guild has put together some really cool panels, and I'm pleased to be participating on three of them:

The Small Business and Social Media – Friday 9/19 @ 4pm

How prominent is your business’s online profile? Is it necessary to build relationships with bloggers and others in social media? Learn just how important social media is to your business – along with how to save your advertising budget dollars, build a viral marketing campaign, increase word of mouth, and other “guerilla marketing” techniques. Featuring Marianne Richmond, David Gray, Matt Homann, and Madalyn Sklar; moderated by Melody Meiners.

The Emerging Ethics of Social Media – Saturday 9/20 @ 1pm

A roundtable discussion on the ethical questions surrounding the world of social media. Topics addressed may include: privacy of bloggers and those whom bloggers write about; truthfulness v. artistic license; email and comment etiquette; and more. Featuring Todd Jordan, Jaelithe Judy, moderated by Matt Homann.

Cyberbullying – Saturday 9/20 @ 2pm

An apropos topic in our state of Missouri - which became the first to outlaw “cyberbullying” with a controversial new law. This panel will host an open discussion on online safety and privacy issues that all internet users face. Explore ways to protect yourself and your family while still participating in online communities. Featuring Elizabeth Helfant, Matt Homann, Kim Dorsey, Dana Loesch; moderated by Lisa Bertrand.

And if you like music, Inter:PLAY is a part of the much larger PLAY:Stl, with 99 bands over 3 days (warning, link opens with music). Hope to see you there!