Law Firm Marketing

Beating Back the Time Bandits: How to Save An Hour Per Day

Time is your most valuable asset.  And it is perishable.  You will never again get back the ten minutes you spent figuring out how to install the toner on the copy machine.  That time is gone.

Everyone wants more time from you.  Your spouse wants you to spend more time with the kids.  Your paralegal and your associates want you to spend more time working with them.  Your partner wants you to spend more time billing.  Your client wants you to spend more time on his matter.

Everyone wants more of that precious asset but only a few are truly worthy.  Yet we do not treat our time as a perishable asset.  We treat it carelessly.  We give it away and we waste it on stupid inane tasks that are handled inefficiently.

Below is one technique – just one – that will help you save an hour per day.

Never, Ever Answer a Ringing Telephone

Taking an unscheduled telephone call from ANYONE is a horrible idea.  There are only three types of UNSCHEDULED calls you receive during your work day.  They are:

• Personal calls
• Calls related to a client matter (past, present or future)
• Calls from someone who wants to sell you something

In all of those cases, it is a bad idea for you to pick up the telephone.  Here’s why:

Personal calls should be handled on personal time.  If you are at work, work. Have a conversation with your spouse, kids, mother, whoever and explain to them the importance of momentum and productivity.  Then be proactive and call the people who are most likely to call you during your “personal” time (while driving, while having lunch, while taking a break from your work).

Taking unscheduled calls from a client or about a client’s matter is a disaster because you have no idea why the client is calling you or what the call is about.  It is far better to have an assistant take a detailed message from the client and ascertain the purpose of the call.  This way your assistant can schedule a telephone appointment to discuss the matter when you are prepared and have the client’s file in front of you.

Never, ever talk to a salesperson.  Have your assistant screen all sales calls.  If you have a legitimate need for the salesperson’s services, set up a telephone appointment to speak with that person.

Don’t have an assistant?  Get a voice mail transcription service.  I use Phonetag.  This service transcribes my voicemail messages and sends them to me as an email attachment.  You can then choose what you want to do with the call.

Here’s the bottom line on time management and this specific technique:  You must train people to do business on your terms.  Does that sound egotistical?

Think about it this way:  You are always operating from an agenda.  You can operate from your agenda or you can operate from someone else’s agenda.  It’s up to you.

Train the people who call you for personal reasons.  Train your clients.  Train your assistant.  And most importantly, train yourself.

The only person who can improve YOUR productivity is YOU.  Start today with this simple technique.

How To Double Your Productivity in 30 Days

All of us are plagued with too much work and too little time.  Many of us have experimented with various time management systems and various electronic scheduling programs that we hope will keep us focused and on track and help us improve our productivity.

In reality we all possess the tools we need to double (and in many cases even triple) our productivity.

The secret is focus.

I’m not taking about listen-to-your- wife-while-you-watch-the-basketball -game focus.  I’m talking about focus on one task and one task only to the point of excluding everything and everyone else.

And I’m talking about that kind of focus all the time.

But for most people, this is easier said than done.

Here’s how you can do it:

Step one:  Write down everything you have to do and everything that takes up your time and energy during the course of the week.  Make a big list.  On this list put everything you spend time working on and thinking about.

Then lump these activities into categories.  For example:  driving to and from meetings, research, preparing a talk, returning client phone calls, sifting and sorting email, networking,  drafting an agreement, etc.

Step two:  Select the five areas of focus that are the best possible use of your time.  Notice:  This step has a hidden step within it.  You must determine what your time is worth and decide what is the best possible use of your time.

Once you have selected the five things (or categories) that are the best possible use of your time, you can move on to step three.

Step three: Ruthlessly eliminate everything else from your life except the five things that are the best use of your time.  The idea is to delegate or otherwise permanently dispatch these things from your life.  Get rid of them completely.

Typical excuses:

Whenever I introduce this concept to my clients they always push back on certain items.  Email for example, is one of the biggest time wasters on the planet.  Here’s what I encourage you to do with email:

1). Never keep email open on your desktop while you are working.
2). Train your assistant or paralegal to sort your email.  Have her alert you to anything urgent, handle what she can handle and flag things that need your attention.
3). Schedule time to check and respond to email every day.  Select an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. 
4). If something in your email will need longer than 5 minutes of work, schedule time to handle it.  Actually put it on your calendar – as long as it is one of the five things you are focusing on.

Another area people complain about is the telephone.  Here is my solution for that problem:

Never take an inbound call.  Have all your calls go to voice mail.  Have the voice mail transcribed and emailed to your assistant or paralegal.  Have the assistant handle the issue or schedule time on your calendar for you to handle the issue later on (as long as it is one of your five areas of focus).

Attorney Time Management: How to Boost Your Productivity

It is difficult for most attorneys to make time for legal marketing.  In fact, one of the things that attorneys struggle with most is productivity improvement and time management. 

This stems from the belief that you must react to every stimulus in real time.  It is this belief that is one of the most limiting factors in the workday of any attorney.  You do not have to give your time and attention to every phone call, email or individual that pops into your life at random.  In fact, there is a more productive way to work.

This way of structuring your work became a staple for me a while back. At the time, I was a consultant with a major international research and consulting company and simultaneously attending Graduate School.  For me, time was indeed fleeting.

I knew I only had about 8 hours in any given day.  In case you do not believe the time budget, here is the breakdown:

• Six hours for sleep
• Three Hours for meals
• One hour total for commuting
• One hour total for personal hygiene
• One hour returning email messages (throughout the day)
• Two hours on phone calls throughout the day
• Two hours in meetings
• Eight hours of dedicated work time

Keep in mind that my time was never neatly allocated as I have described it above.  Those are aggregate totals of time scattered throughout the day and spent on the various activities (with the exception of sleep, which came in one block).

The way I organized my work in order to improve my productivity was by developing a system.  The system had three different aspects to it:

1). Bundle similar activities together
2). Control and dictate the time and pace of interactions with others
3). Say no to unproductive events and opportunities.

In order to understand how each these strategies work, you will need more detail but rest assured that if you think about structuring your workday in this fashion you will not only have more time to get your work done, you will also feel a giant sense of relief. 

I am going to provide you with the detail you need to develop this into a workable system over the next few weeks.  I will link each of the subsequent articles that describe my system to this one so that the entire narrative will be easy to follow.

Stay tuned.

If you master the use of your time you will also be more effective at legal marketing.

 

Finding Time for Legal Marketing: A Big Tip

There are a few key tips that can help you free up more of your time for legal marketing.  Some of these things may seem counterintuitive but they work.  Here’s one of them:

Never Answer a Ringing Phone

You read that correctly.  You should never, ever, answer a ringing telephone.  In fact, I recommend that you do not ever take any inbound calls.

Why?

Several reasons:

You are unprepared for the conversation.  This means that someone will catch you off guard.  It means you will probably need to do some research and call the person back.  That means double the amount of work for you and frustration for the person on the other end of the telephone.

It positions you poorly.  What does it say to people when you are able to answer your phone calls?  It says you are not busy. Or it says your time has no value. Or it says that you cannot afford an assistant.  No matter what it says, it is not flattering.

You cannot control the length of the call. All telephone calls should be scheduled.  Things that are scheduled have a start time and an end time.  When you schedule a call with someone, you have control of the start time and the end time.

It allows you to be the “good guy”. If someone is calling to try to ask you for free advice and you are like me and you do not give out free advice, you can have your assistant politely schedule an appointment and accept a consultation fee.

These are just a few of the reasons for not answering a ringing telephone.  If you give it some thought, I am certain you can come up with a few more. Stop answering the phone and free up more of your time for legal marketing,

Here are a few additional articles on this topic:

Commonsense Time Management for Attorneys

Time Management Secrets that Actually Work

Attorney Marketing and Time Management Go Hand-In-Hand

The Power of Procrastination

I have a confession.

I battle procrastination every single day.  It is terrible.  I constantly feel as though I am up against a deadline.  Actually, that is not correct.  I feel like I am up against a guy with a loaded gun pointed against my head…waiting to pull the trigger.

It is a constant pressure that drives me crazy.  I get frustrated and angry with myself when I wait until the last minute to do things.  I get upset at the people in my office for scheduling the appointments with the clients (like they knew I was going to wait until the last minute to get the work done).  I get depressed when it happens again and again because I feel helpless to stop it. I rarely miss a deadline but I ALWAYS feel uncomfortable.

Well, I used to feel uncomfortable and helpless…

My team and I have developed a system to help me beat this personal deficiency.  In fact, we have learned to use it to our advantage.  My hope is that if I share my little trick with you, you will be able to use it in your law firm. Don’t think of it as time management.  Think of it as activity management.

Here is what we have done:

First:  We set artificial deadlines on all projects.  These internal deadlines are designed to put pressure on me to feel the same pain of procrastination but feel it earlier than the true deadline.  This does not mean the project is completely finished and out the door earlier, it just means that it is STARTED earlier.  I have found that getting started is 90 percent of the problem.

Next:  My assistant asks me how much time is necessary to complete the project.  She then adds an additional 20 percent to my estimate and blocks time on my calendar for completion before the deadline.  (I always underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete a project).

By the way, a critical change in my business life was turning all my appointment scheduling over to someone else. Part of my problem is that I would never say NO to anyone and I would always be overscheduled.  Now I have view only access to my calendar.  I cannot schedule an appointment if I want to.  Everything goes through my assistant.

Finally:  I review my upcoming meetings with my office team one week prior.  It is a staff meeting to hold me accountable.  They do not critique my recommendations to the clients they just make sure I have the work done.

Key point:  We treat internal projects (like marketing initiatives) the same way we treat client projects.

I suspect many people have procrastination issues.  It is human nature.  This little procrastination prevention system has made me much more efficient and effective.  Is there a way you can create something similar in your law practice?

My Big Email Experiment

Can you just shut down your email?  If you do, will the world end?

Earlier this year I made a resolution only to check my email once a week.  Well, that turned out to be a disaster.  By the time I got to my inbox I had over 2,500 messages waiting for me.  My clients began calling and asking if I had passed away and my Blackberry became so overloaded it stopped counting the number of unopened messages in the mailbox.

This has to stop.

Most of the email messages I receive are not from clients.  They are from people who want something.  Usually they want something for nothing.  And they always want to waste my time.

Here’s what I am going to do about this:

I have set up an auto responder that will go out to everyone EXCEPT my clients.  It says that I do not check email any longer and it offers a website with my alternative contact information.

This will go into effect on the first of next month.

Some people may get angry but ultimately, my clients will receive better service.

I will let you know what happens.

Important Marketing Rule for Lawyers: Be On Time

Last week a lawyer invited me to lunch.  He wanted help with the marketing for his firm.  Since helping lawyers with marketing is what I do, and since I like eating lunch, I accepted the invitation.

I am a bit of a fanatic about appointments.  I tend to get everywhere early.  Fifteen minutes early is my standard but it is not unusual for me to get somewhere 30 minutes before the scheduled meeting time.  This is not just because of my obsessive personality.  I always allow extra time for traffic, the need to fill the car up with gas, a meteor crashing into my route to the meeting venue…you get the idea.

So when the day arrived for my lunch with this lawyer, I got to the restaurant about 20 minutes early.  This gave me some time to read the newspaper while I waited.  Not necessarily a bad thing.  When I completely finished reading the front section of the paper I looked up and noticed that I had been sitting in that same spot for about an hour.  This means that the lawyer was already 35 minutes late.

I folded up the paper and was about to leave when my lunch date arrived.  He offered no apology and when I confronted him with the fact that I had been waiting for half an hour he simply replied: “There was a lot of traffic.”

Needless to say, I did not accept this man as a client. Here’s why:

A lack of time integrity is an indication of an irresponsible person.  Being late is a sign that you do not take commitments seriously.  We set a specific time for the meeting.  Honor that commitment.  To account for the traffic, leave early.

If you do not respect my time, you will not respect the advice I give you.  How seriously can you take what I say when you don’t think I am important enough to show up on time?

People who are chronically late lack personal pride.  If you do not care about your image enough to be on time for a meeting, you obviously do not care enough to represent yourself well.  I certainly do not want to work with someone like that.

I realize many people will think this is harsh. I also realize many people will wonder what this has to do with lawyers marketing their law firms.  Unfortunately, the world is a harsh competitive place.  Since marketing for lawyers is all about helping them get the best clients, and time is an essential element of the execution of marketing tactics, a lack of time integrity kills the marketing process before it even begins.

If you think I should “give people a break” because “stuff happens” you are involved with the wrong guy.  My feeling is that smart people anticipate the stuff that is going to happen and they adjust.

Be on time.  It will help you get more clients.

Attorney Marketing and Time Management Go Hand-In-Hand

“I don’t have enough time” is a common reason given for the failure of many attorney marketing initiatives.  Although this is an idea held by many, it is simply not true.  Every attorney has time for marketing.  Let me type that statement again and add emphasis:  Every attorney has time for marketing.

Here are three ways you can make time for marketing and still be a practicing lawyer:

Set your Priorities Properly

Clients should always come first but the growth of your law firm should be a close second.  Here is a way to think about it:  Having more clients than you can handle at one time offers you choices.  You will have the opportunity to pick and choose your clients.  Executing a good attorney marketing plan is the ticket to freedom.

Do A Little Every Day

There are 24 hours in each day and you only need to use one or two of them for marketing.  Some of our clients set aside the first hour of each day for marketing.  Others use an hour right before bedtime to get some marketing work done.  This only happens because marketing is a priority for them.

Carve out a little time each day for the benefit of your law practice.  Dedicate yourself to your firm’s growth.

Reassess Your Value to the Market

Many attorneys don’t focus on marketing because they do not accurately assess their value to the market.  They feel (sometimes subconsciously) that they are not worthy of an abundant law practice full of high-quality clients.  This feeling prevents them for dedicating the time necessary to marketing.

Spend some time thinking about the value you provide to the community and to your clients.  Don’t other potential clients deserve your expertise?

When it comes to attorney marketing, saying you don’t have time is just an excuse.  It’s like saying you don’t have time to make money.

Get a Grip on Administrivia and Make More Money

Do you want to immediately give yourself a productivity boost?

The best way to do this is to remove the trivial administrative tasks that bog you down. I call these things ADMINISTRIVIA.

All of us tend to make things more difficult than they need to be. We use 200 words when 20 will do. We spend too much time analyzing minor issues. We work on mundane tasks that we can/should delegate to others. The administrivia in our firms is the biggest example of time wasted (or at least underutilized).

Here are three things you can do today to dramatically increase your productivity by eliminating administrivia:

One: Never Answer a Ringing Phone

This simple rule has quadrupled my personal productivity and it has (at least) doubled the productivity of my clients immediately upon implementation. In my firm we have a system for handling phone calls.

Here’s how it works:

My main phone number rings directly into voice mail. The voice mail is transcribed and automatically sent to my assistant. She reads the message and either handles it immediately or calls the party back for clarification. If she cannot resolve or dispose of the issue, she schedules a telephone appointment for the caller directly with me. The appointment has a start time and an end time (usually 15 minutes in length) and it has a mini-agenda. Once we resolve the issue, I’m off the phone.

Now you’re probably thinking that your clients have different expectations of you. That’s because you have conditioned them to think you are going to take their calls right away. You can change that perception by having a simple conversation.

It starts like this:

“Mr. Client, you are very important to me. In order to maximize our time together I want to make sure I prepare for every interaction I have with you. From now on, when you call me, I’m going to set aside some dedicated time for us to discuss your issue. Since we are both busy it may take a day or so to get this scheduled but we will both be more productive as a result.”

Second: Stop Checking Email

You really don’t need email. Business was conducted just fine for centuries without it. You especially don’t need to check email constantly. Your productivity will skyrocket when you begin ignoring that stupid inbox on your computer (or Blackberry, PDA, iPhone, etc.).

Here’s how you can conquer this seemingly impossible issue:

Keep your current email address but set up an out of office auto response that states you are no longer checking email. Tell everyone you work with that you are no longer accepting email. Tell them to email your assistant with important documents. Have your assistant schedule a call to review the document with the client/prospective client/opposing attorney. Have your assistant check your email once a day for anything important.

I’ll be the first to admit that I had a tough time with this initially. I used a step down method to get off email. I checked it three times a day at first. Then I moved to once a day, which was almost worse because stuff piled up. After that I went to once a week (at that point I just deleted everything because it was too much to keep up with). Now with my assistant keeping an eye out for important items, I never log into email unless she tells me there is something I need to handle.

Third: Have Someone Manage Your Calendar

There is nothing I do worse than schedule my own appointments. Honestly, I think I have a disability that prevents me from keeping an orderly calendar.

Having someone manage your schedule will make you more efficient and you will be much, much happier. This also helps alleviate the guilt you feel when you have to say NO to an unproductive meeting or event. Someone else says NO for you. It’s beautiful!

Time to Decide

There are about a million reasons not to implement these three changes.  After all, no NORMAL person does this, right?  Well what does NORMAL mean anyway?  Doesn’t NORMAL mean ‘just like everyone else’?

And what do the law firms run by EVERYONE ELSE look like?  Most of them are mediocre.  If you want to be just like everyone else and have a mediocre firm, ignore this article.

But your productivity will suffer if you don’t take charge of your interpersonal interaction.

If you think you can’t do this because you can’t trust your assistant, you need to get a new one (or go into therapy for your trust issues). If you can’t afford an assistant I’m afraid I can’t help you. Virtual assistants are available for $10/hr. and they can handle these tasks in about 10 hours a week. That’s $100. Give me a break.

This article is your call to action. Take control of your productivity immediately.

Time Management Secrets that Actually Work

One day last month I was on the phone with a client and he was going into great detail about his trouble managing his time.

He blamed email, voice mail and his cell phone for his problems.  He said that there were just too many ways to get in touch with him.

We implemented four simple steps that have transformed the way he does business. 

He has saved five hours a week (at minimum).

Here’s what he did:

1). He now responds, deletes or files every email when he reads it.  He only looks at an item one time.  He doesn’t “cherry pick” email messages – meaning he doesn’t go through the list and only respond to the easy ones.  He takes them one at a time and plows through them.

2). He eliminated voice mail.  His assistant fields and screens the calls and SCHEDULES a call back time for him.  This has been transformational because she will schedule calls in fifteen minute increments.  If a client needs something longer than that amount of time they are encouraged to book at telephone APPOINTMENT which is at least an hour in length.

3). He forwarded his cell phone to his assistant during normal business hours and rule 2 applies.  After 7PM and before 8AM he takes calls on his cell phone (for emergencies only).

The final tip is his little secret that he didn’t want me to post.

The biggest time savings came when the attorney switched from hourly billing to flat fees. 

Why?  Isn’t that counter-intuitive?

The truth is that people were trying to catch the attorney off guard with their phone calls (hoping they could get 15 minutes of free advice).  Once this need to try and “sneak a call in” went away, the frequency of the calls went down while the quality of the client interaction improved.

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