“Get to Know Your Boss & Clients Better” & Other Tips for More Success
I’ve seen many of these 14 Ways to be Better at Your Job in 2013 work for my lawyer clients and friends in the last few years. Read the full Forbes article, add a client focus to several and adapt them to your law practice or career. These suggestions aren’t in any particular order and they may not sound new or be rocket science, but they work, especially when you do them appropriately and consistently.
- Anticipate your department’s [&/or client’s] needs.
- Get to know your boss [&/or client] better.
- Assume success.
- Study your [client’s] industry.
- Always come to the table with a solution.
- Find a mentor.
- Improve your communication skills.
- Work harder and smarter.
- Don’t overwork yourself.
- Volunteer to get involved with special projects, particularly those across business units.
- See the [client’s] big picture.
- Invest in continuous learning to stay on top of your game.
- Ask [your client] the right questions.
- Follow through on all tasks and commitments.
Jacquelyn Smith’s Forbes article includes other tips your parents probably told you and that are still true today: pay more attention to detail, stop complaining, become more of a team player and go above and beyond.
If you would like lawyer coaching to customize these suggestions into your job, please contact me.
Career & Life Management: “Have Fun” & a Few Other “Rules”
When I coached girls softball in a rec & ed league, I had a few favorite phrases. At the end of the season I included them on a certificate for each player. I called them Rules for Softball, Rules for Life.
As we end one year and start another, we might all get a little closer to living the life we intend by following these simple rules in our legal careers and other parts of our lives.
- Keep your eye on the ball.
- Swing like you mean it.
- Run hard through first base.
- Use two hands.
- Have fun.
Maybe these rules are second nature for you and what you really want to do is hit more curve balls or move from reliable utility player to a starting position, from income member to equity, from service partner to rainmaker. One of my newer clients started working with me to hone her deposition skills and style. The results are in the transcripts. A legal all star status may be in her future. What’s in yours?
Please contact me if you are ready for coaching to take your game to the next level.
Choose Something: Business Development Actions for the Last Week of December
If you lost your list, here are some very simple actions to take between December 26 and New Year’s Day:
1. Complete your LinkedIn profile, including a “headline” and “current position” title that describe your law practice area(s), and a “summary” so that readers know what you do as a lawyer and the kinds of clients you serve. Even as a non-techie type, you will have “search engine optimized” your profile a zillion percent more.
2. If you didn’t send out holiday cards this month, review your contacts list and clean it up. Or at least clean up 50 of your contacts!
3. Delegate #2 to your assistant while you identify 10 people from your contacts list with whom who you want to re-kindle or further a professional relationship starting in January.
These aren’t intellectually burdensome actions and they don’t take much time. Maybe your more creative ideas from earlier this year didn’t either. Choose one, choose something, and follow it through to completion. There is still time.
If you would like lawyer coaching to help you get more business in 2013, please contact me.
Three Practical Law Practice Management Questions
This week at lunch a very experienced, successful lawyer friend and I talked about his law practice and my lawyer coaching practice. He asked me three simple questions that law practice management articles frequently address. These questions aren’t just fodder for articles and experts – – they are important questions that successful practicing lawyers think about as well.
1. Are you charging enough? 2. Do you have room for more clients? 3. Do you have a marketing plan?
Being a lawyer coach and a former litigator with 19 years of discovery experience, I ask these as open ended questions: 1. How much more can you charge? 2. How many more clients do you want? 3. What is your marketing plan?
Write down your answers and start taking action on them. Worrying or planning without taking action won’t get you anywhere or anything.
If you would like coaching on these questions or others, please contact me.
Dressing for the Part – a Law School Dean’s Take on Job Interview Attire
Ignore the pink ties in the photo at left and take a look at Michigan Law School Dean of Admissions Sarah Zearfoss’s blog post on what lawyers and law students should wear for a law job interview. She unscientifically surveyed her contacts and adds her own comments as well.
Dean Zearfoss’s overarching point is that at the end of the day you won’t be noticed for your clothes, you will be noticed for your brains.
Or, as I like to point out to some people, you’ll be noticed for something else perhaps equally as compelling as brains to the interviewer – – like unique experience plus competence, competence plus an incredible work ethic or self starter attitude and confidence, entrepreneurial savy, etc.
If you are a lawyer or law student and would like coaching on your job search, including crafting a strategic job search plan, improving your resume and cover letters, informational interviews, networking, preparing for interviews, etc., please contact me.
Marketing Fundamentals – A Common Ah-Ha Moment for Lawyers
An ah-ha moment. These moments of clarity and wisdom produce action. Several lawyers I know have actually had exactly the same ah-ha moment. Because of some random, unsolicited comment, they suddenly realize that people they thought know what they do as a lawyer don’t actually know what they do as a lawyer. Even some other lawyers they know don’t actually know what they do and the kinds of clients they serve. It never occurred to them that these people don’t know. In fact, they were counting on these people knowing.
Although often disheartening, these moments of realization are also gifts. They shed light and produce purposeful action. Lawyers change how they describe what they do and for whom. They improve their marketing and their marketing results.
You can wait for such a moment or you can benefit from other lawyers’ moments and test how you are doing. You can start by asking questions of people you know, including other lawyers, to find out how effectively you are getting your message out there about what you do as a lawyer and the kinds of clients you serve. What DO they think you do and for whom?
If you would like coaching to make sure you are effectively communicating what you do and for whom, please contact me.
Informational Interviews & Expanding Your Network
Deafened by silence after you apply for law job after law job? Interested in making a change in your career path as a lawyer but without a clue as to where to start? Try using informational interviews to expand your network and your knowledge base.
Here is a useful, concise step by step article on the why’s and how to’s of informational interviewing by Jada Graves, a senior editor at US News & World Report. The key to the effectiveness of these interviews is making them about advice and information, not about getting hired.
Also, in addition to informational interviews, ask everyone you talk to if they can suggest the names of two other people with whom you might speak. At a minimum you will start new relationships and expand your network. And expanding your network is much more productive than simply asking someone if they know anyone who is hiring or if they know of any job openings. The responses you will get to those questions are likely to be something like no, but I’ll keep my ears open, or I’ll let you know if I do, or I’ll keep you in mind. Sound familiar?
If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got.
If you are ready for coaching to improve your job search, explore next steps in your career or enhance your current practice, please contact me.
Great Tips for New Associates Starting in Law Firms
Today I ran across Dennis Kennedy’s article, “Twenty Lessons for Lawyers Starting Their Careers“, on my way to look at something else. It rings so true, even 7 years after publication, that I encourage you to read the full article published in the ABA Law Practice Management’s Law Practice Today. I could write my own comments from my 20+ years experience but his are spot on.
An overview of Kennedy’s lessons for lawyers starting their careers as associates in law firms:
- Learn the culture.
- Start the search for a mentor.
- You get all the feedback you ask for.
- Write for the right audience.
- Learn the lines of gossip and be careful.
- The first 6 months will be physically exhausting.
- Be yourself – within reason.
- Attitude matters.
- Learn your place in the pecking order.
- Trivial-seeming projects are given to you for a reason.
- Make life a little easier for older attorneys.
- Don’t turn in rough drafts.
- Make the IT people your friends.
- Learn the best ways to get to talk with individual lawyers.
- Speaking at client meetings.
- Report back after a few hours.
- The two year rule.
- Think about Tom Peters’ resume rule.
- Keep developing networks.
- Get involved in the firm.
Read Kennedy’s full article and consider how you might use this advice as a new law firm associate.
If you would like personal coaching for a strong start in your legal career, please contact me.
Buzz Building for Lawyers, Part 2
Building Buzz About Your Legal Services:
Assess yourself and the competition. Is any other lawyer known as the “go to lawyer” for your same target market? How can you become known as the “go to lawyer” for that market? Who and what will help elevate you to that status? How can you develop that reputation and increase your visibility with that market? Where and when will you start? Is there buzz about any lawyer you know, regardless of his or her practice area? What creates that buzz? What does the buzz create?
- Your belief: You are an exceptional lawyer for small, ongoing businesses.
- Buzz Bits: Experienced, practical, responsive, helpful, understanding and creative in working with small businesses.
- Who & What Will Help Build Buzz: You, current & former clients, referral sources, family & friends, media relationships, lawyers who don’t do what you do, out of state lawyers including former classmates, mavens and connectors, as well as articles, use of social media, speaking engagements and a website all directed to reach and appeal to your target market.
- When: Insert the date you will start building buzz.
- How to Sustain Buzz: Create and use a weekly business development plan with daily elements to consistently and persistently build your name recognition, visibility and credibility with your target market. You can do this in person, via telephone, email, LinkedIn & other social media, through speaking engagements, articles, posts and your website – – all designed to appeal to and attract the interest of your target market, and by getting out into your target market in other ways, perhaps even as simple as just leaving your building for a cup of coffee or to run an errand.
How will you know when the buzz has started working? You will know when people start saying, “I keep seeing your name everywhere.” “Will you come and speak to our group?” “You are the first person who came to mind.” “You are the one everyone told me to call.” “I’m not sure if you do this but I keep hearing your name everywhere and I thought I’d ask you.” “You are everywhere.” “You are the only lawyer I know who does this.”
This buzz will lead to business.
Buzz Building for Lawyers, Part 1
Build a buzz and you will build a bigger book of business. And, no, I am not just referring to building a bigger medical marijuana defense practice. Being an excellent lawyer is not enough to build a book of business if no one knows what you do and for whom. Help other people realize and remember what you do by building a buzz. Assuming you have already identified your target market, you can start with this outline.
- What do you want build a buzz about – – what is the message you want people to receive?
- What are the key bits of buzz?
- Who & what will help build the buzz?
- When will you start?
- How will you sustain it?
Next time, examples of building a buzz about your legal services.