How to Get Prospective Clients Off the Dime to Hire You
My good friend Mike O’Horo at RainmakerVT (for Virtual Training), is truly one the masters of legal sales coaching. I’ve referred to his concept of “demand triggers” over the years in my own tips, and those of you who’ve worked with me (or him) know the question: what specific events trigger a prospective client to hire an attorney at a given time (as opposed to 6 months earlier or 6 months later). Understanding those triggers is key to articulating your unique value to prospects. In this post, Mike describes a powerful corollary: The Cost of Doing Nothing. He brilliantly explains why and how to help your prospect quantify the cost of his or her inaction.
No More Excuses for Not Scanning Your Documents
Those of you who were early on the legal blog train probably remember Ernie the Attorney. An early adopter of all things tech and entrepreneurial, Ernie Svenson’s most recent endeavor is the PaperlessChase, which is all about law practice productivity. In this post, he reviews and recommends the Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500. Bottom line is that if you or your staff have lots of docs to scan, you should get at least one of these amazing (and very affordable) devices. I can tell you from personal experience that my wife’s criminal defense and Title IX firm (www.duffylawct.com) uses it every day all day. If you’re not scanning docs into your practice management and/or doc management platform, now’s the time to start. If you’re using an older technology, now’s the time to upgrade.
How To Get Quoted and Featured in the Media
Why is it that some attorneys show up in the local and national press frequently while 99.9 percent of attorneys are never consulted or quoted in print or online publications that could bring them increased, positive visibility? The answer is not that they’re magically blessed by the journalistic Gods. The answer is that at some point they either decided to make themselves known to the news outlets and reporters covering their community and/or industries, or they were ready to answer a call when contacted because of some case or related news brought them to a writer’s attention. A decade ago, legal and financial journalist David Freedman published an excellent series of concise books called the GET GOOD PRESS Series for Lawyers. It explained step-by-step how to start and work the process. Unfortunately, it seems to be out of print. Fortunately, this terrific post from Attorney-At-Work condenses the steps into a single article that will get you on the road to Befriending Media Types for your mutual benefit.
Business Acronym of the Month: TL;DR
TL;DR = Too Long, Didn’t Read (or, alternatively), Too Long, Don’t Read. You know that feeling when you see what I call a “text block of death” — the immediate brain seize that says “I don’t have time to read this!” or the fast-rising sense of frustration that says “Get to the freakin’ point already!” As I teach in my upcoming CLE seminar Reverse the Curse of Email Overload, it’s in your enlightened self-interest to compose emails that make it easy for the recipient to give you the response you want and need. You don’t like it when you get those blocks of death with nary a line break. So don’t send them! Don’t give your reader the TL;DR excuse.
