Are You Reading These Posts?
Life’s short. You’re busy. I sort through countless law marketing and business development blogs every day to find the post that will help you market your practice, plan for the future, stay ahead of trends, increase your value to clients, and more. So you don’t have to. Are you reading these posts?
Keeping up with the Joneses just got a little easier.
Altman Weil's "Law Firms in Transition Survey 2011," authored by Thomas Clay and Eric Seeger. Struggling to keep up with the Joneses? You're probably not alone. And thanks to Clay and Seeger, you now know exactly what the Joneses are doing. 240 US law firms with 50 or...
read moreToo busy to be productive? No you’re not.
Robert Pozen's "Managing Yourself: Extreme Productivity" in The Magazine at the Harvard Business Review. Yeah, I know, not everyone will carry a flashlight in her briefcase so she can read in a dimly lit taxi. Or shower, shave, and dress in 15 minutes, lay out his...
read moreLeaving your future to chance is never a good strategy.
Thom Singer's "Telling, Gelling, and Selling: Three Tips To More Business" on his blog Some Assembly Required. Communication, connecting, and closing. They're not just for people in sales. Singer's tips on telling a story, on creating meaningful relationships, on...
read moreAnother good example of what not to do.
Bill Sheridan's "Trouble's brewing on the horizon. Pay attention" at CPA Success. Written for accountants, this post is no less relevant for lawyers. And not only because it involves beer. The story of how Anheuser-Busch lost its place at the top of the heap, and what...
read moreThink you know your clients’ business? Your clients may not agree.
Rees Morrison's "How to help your law firms understand your business better" on his blog Law Department Management. We've featured Morrison's posts before. They provide valuable insight into what clients are thinking, what they are looking for, what they consider to...
read moreManaging a network isn’t all fun and games.
Sally Schmidt's "Creating a Game Plan for Your Contacts" in the ABA's May / June 2011 Law Practice Magazine. Don't let the title fool you. Managing a network of clients, referral sources and other influencers isn't a game, it's work. A lot of work. Serious work....
read moreSure you’re listening. But do you hear what your clients are saying?
Pam Woldow's "5 Key Takeaways from General Counsel Outside the US" on her blog At The Intersection. Ever wonder what keeps your clients up at night? Read this post, and you'll have a pretty good idea. Woldow surveyed more than 60 in-house lawyers on legal costs,...
read moreAll’s fair in love and war. Shouldn’t it be the same for legal fees?
Ed Wesemann's "Regain Control of Pricing: 7 Tactics for Law Firms" in the Fall 2010 edition of the Edge International Review. It's no secret that the pricing of legal services is one of the most significant challenges currently facing lawyers, law firms, and clients...
read moreFinding the islands of value in a sea of connections.
Valeria Maltoni's "You're Connected, Now What?" on her blog Conversation Agent. In today's world, where even those who claim not to use Twitter followers and Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections as metrics still do, it's easy to fall into the "more is better"...
read moreManaging for the future: what you need to know today.
Robert Denney's "What's Hot in the Legal Profession" at Law.com. More newspaper article than blog post, this piece warrants more than a quick glance as you skim the feeds in your reader. Read it for a comprehensive overview of the directions the legal profession is...
read moreStructure and deadlines. They’re not just for clients.
Dan Hull's "In Praise of Structure" from his blog "What About Clients?" This post nailed it so well -- the working style of this culture, of the BigLaw environment where I learned how to work -- that it reached out of my computer screen and slapped me in the face....
read moreSometimes the best professional development tool is a library card.
Frank Kimball's "A Book Shelf For Professional Success and Development: The First 34 You Should Read" at Ms. JD. Your summer reading list just got longer. In a good way. Kimball's list is a comprehensive guide to the things that a lawyer needs to know, whether she's a...
read moreNetworking 101: read this post.
Michelle Villalobos's "Biggest Tip For Effective Networking?" on her eponymous blog, Michelle Villalobos. Villalobos shares a useful set of networking tips -- from entrepreneurs, coaches, marketers, headhunters and a whole lot more -- in this post. 56 tips in fact....
read moreSorry Nike: sometimes “just do it” needs an instruction manual.
Carolyn Elefant's "Some Open Questions for Flat Fee Aficionados and Ethics Gurus" on her blog at MyShingle.com. Wherever you sit on the fixed-fees-v-billable-hours bus, you'll like this post. Because unlike many fixed-fee proponents, Elefant isn't content telling her...
read moreMaking your clients happy by asking them what they think.
Tom Kane's "Client Feedback Pointers" on his blog Legal Marketing Blog.com. Let's face it: everybody tells you to talk to your clients. But getting client feedback isn't easy. Not if you want to go beyond the standard "good job, good job" comments, that is. Kane's...
read moreCommitted to Excellence? Yeah, you and every other firm.
Ross Fishman's "The 20 Best Law Firm Tag Lines. Is your firm "Committed to Mediocrity TM"?" at Ross's Law Marketing Blog. Fishman's right: tag lines are hard. I'm not sure how much time, effort and money it took Apple to come up with "Think Different," though I'm...
read moreSorry Mr Sedaka: starting up is hard to do, too.
Heather Townsend's "Ten things you MUST do before starting a business" at The Efficiency Coach's Partnership Potential blog. This post is for lawyers thinking about striking it out on their own. And for those who have already started a firm. And those just beginning...
read moreEarning your stripes at 3:00 am: fixing client problems is the best business development tool ever.
Betsy Munnell's "What Do Blogging and Vegas Have in Common?? ....Building a Niche Law Practice in the Digital Age" on her blog. Marketing and business development weren't always about blog posts and tweets and Facebook pages. Back in the day, a lawyer did her best...
read moreTrying to get from here to there? It won’t be easy.
Adam Richardson's "Lessons from the Three Cups of Tea Controversy" on The Conversation at the Harvard Business Review. I generally try to avoid making connections of the "what folding my shirts in the all-night laundromat has taught me about running a law practice"...
read morePlease, people, let’s be civil. Everyone will have a chance to speak.
Peter Slattery's "The time-based billing debate is not a matter of good versus evil" in The Australian. Slattery is the managing partner of a five-office Australian firm, so you might expect that he'd be in favor of the old-school approach to billing clients. But what...
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