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BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR ™ - Making the Hours of Your
Life Worth More ™
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Issue # 12 - A Dozen Marketing Tips for the
Time-Starved Lawyer
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ARTICLE SUMMARY: Many lawyers believe they don't have time
to market themselves or hate their vision
of what this entails. This issue offers
tips to redefine marketing and
demonstrate its potential for allowing
greater control of your life and your
career. It will also describe an
approach to marketing that fits within
your time constraints and makes use of
your natural strengths and interests.
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Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D., Editor
Ellen is the founder of LawyersLifeCoach.com ™
Personal and Career Coaching for Lawyers Determined
to Achieve Professional Success AND
a Fulfilling Life
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OUR PERSPECTIVE
Most attorneys -- especially women -- live impossibly busy lives.
Finding a balance between work and life without sacrificing
professional success, deciding on the best practice area or
work setting, and making career transitions can be a daunting
task, even for the most gifted and accomplished lawyer.
Just as every person deserves the best possible legal
counsel, every attorney deserves professional, dedicated
support in accomplishing her most important goals.
You know how hard you've worked to get where you are --
you serve others, both personally and professionally.
You've earned the right to both career success and
a fulfilling life.
This newsletter is intended to help you create a
satisfying life -- within, or outside of -- legal practice.
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A Dozen Marketing Tips for the Time-Starved Lawyer
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because
you can do only a little. Do what you can.
Sidney Smith
Every man [sic] takes the limits of his field of vision
for the limits of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Many of the lawyers I coach feel stymied in their efforts
to successfully market their services. Some are blocked
by their perception of what marketing entails. They
see it as a succession of uncomfortable cold calls - and
as anything but professional. Most feel that it's simply
not possible to fulfill billable hour requirements, attend
to their families and also find time for marketing activities.
One of the interesting things about this situation is that
most of these attorneys actually have many opportunities to
market their services which don't require the burden of
substantial amounts of additional work. Marketing is so much
easier if you are aware of all the things you're already doing
that have the potential to promote your work, and all the
opportunities for marketing that occur in your day-to-day
interactions with others.
Here are 12 tips for the lawyer who knows s/he
needs to market but doesn't have the time:
1. Redefine Marketing
Marketing is developing a sense of yourself
and your strengths and communicating this to
others with the goal of helping them solve
a problem.
Many lawyers avoid marketing because they
define it as repugnant. Few attorneys go
into law in order to make cold calls or
push to close a sale.
Certainly cold calling may be one marketing
strategy you could choose. But there are many
ways to communicate your unique expertise and talent.
Stop telling yourself you have to be a
superstar to market. There is no one "right
way." Marketing is only effective if you do
it - and you're far more likely to do it if
your marketing activities fit comfortably
in your life.
2. Take Control
These days it's not realistic to say you
don't have time to market. Instead, consider
how you can best use the time you have to do
what must be done. Ask yourself, "If my life
depended on getting around this "reality,"
what would I do?"
Even more importantly - marketing is the best
way to implement your career plan and control
your life. Clarifying your vision of your
"perfect" client and developing a solid sense
of your strengths and the work you want to do
empowers you to further your own success.
Designing your career, developing a network
consistent with your goals, and acquiring a
client book are the pathways to real career
autonomy.
3. Choose the Right Strategy for Your Goals
Before they can hire you, prospective clients
must be aware of you and perceive you to have
the expertise they need. You can become more
visible and credible by writing articles for
publications read by your market, giving speeches
at their trade association meetings, sending
newsletters to targeted companies and hosting
seminars for industry leaders.
But credibility isn't enough to get you hired.
Direct contact is essential for building the
relationships you'll need to get hired.
Cold calling, warm calls, arranging an appointment,
sending a personal letter of introduction and meeting
for lunch or coffee are all ways of making contact.
But the single most important part of your
strategy is networking.
4. Networking Develops and Maintains Meaningful
Relationships
Networking is a sincere and consistent effort
to help others with the hope that they will,
in turn, help you. You can help people in
your network by providing them with information,
introductions, ideas, referrals, advice, emotional
support and free PR. Your hope is that they, in
turn, will reciprocate.
The most important skills in relationship
building are active listening and showing that
you understand the other person's situation
and experience. Women, in particular, usually
have finely honed these skills. It's useful to
remember that many marketing activities come
quite naturally to you.
5. Follow the "Rules of Romance"
Management consultant and author David Maister
encourages lawyers to approach prospects and clients
as people with whom you'd like to have a long-term
romantic relationship. Maister's rules are:
* communicate honestly
* listen and work to understand
* communicate frequently
* be supportive and understanding, not critical
* genuinely care about the relationship
* express appreciation
Maister emphasizes that the best way to achieve success
is to do work you feel passionate about and for people
about whom you care.
6. Planning is Essential
Without a plan, most lawyers won't market because
they view it as difficult or unpleasant. But
developing your own individual marketing plan enables
you to make optimal use of the time you have and to
avoid time wasters that don't fit with your priorities.
A marketing plan also allows you to stop thinking about
marketing as an overwhelming project and instead to
break it down into small action steps that you can
easily accomplish.
Many lawyers find that coaching enables them to
develop a realistic plan, break marketing activities
into manageable action steps and successfully follow
through.
7. Plan Marketing with Your Whole Life in Mind
In order to achieve career success without sacrificing
a fulfilling life, it's critical to design your career
by taking your whole life into account.
At least once a year, take the time to write out all
of your important life roles (as parent, partner,
child of aging parent, lawyer, friend, community
member, person who needs to nurture your health and
outside interests.) Ask yourself what you want to
accomplish in each of these roles during the coming
year. What do you have to do to accomplish these goals?
Refer to your life plan as you schedule your monthly,
weekly and daily planner.
8. Emphasize Activities that Fulfill Multiple Goals
Changing your concept of marketing can change your
feelings, attitudes and behavior. Once you've
redefined marketing, you can become aware of all of
the opportunities for marketing that were there all
along.
There are a multitude of activities that allow you to
be with your family and contribute to your community
while marketing your skills. What if you took your
children to a fund-raiser for a homeless shelter that
was sponsored by a company in your target niche?
Marketing is more of a mindset than the ability to
devote time to particular tasks. Once it becomes
a natural part of your daily activities, time becomes
less of an issue. You begin to realize that you have
opportunities to market in almost every context in
which you interact with people.
9. Balance and Flexibility are Crucial
When we allow work to consume our lives, we tend to
become myopic and ungenerous. A normally thoughtful,
considerate person can find herself being brusque,
not returning phone calls, or focusing only on business
matters when talking to a client who's just told you
that her mother is critically ill.
It's essential to maintain sufficient balance and
flexibility to behave like the caring person you really
are. Simply treat others the way you'd like to be
treated.
10. Leverage
A single work project can be recycled into a plethora
of marketing activities. Consider inviting a group
of clients to a presentation about the ways in which
your project is relevant to them. Submit an article
about the project to your niche's industry publication -
and make sure it's published in your firm's newsletter
as well. Contact organizations like Fulcrum and offer
to speak on the topic. You can make this the core of a
speech you deliver at other meetings your niche attends.
Leveraging is a way to get maximum usage out of the
work you're already doing. It's a great time saver.
11. Recognize the Resources You Already Have
To begin, make a list of all the people you used to
know, those you currently know, those who know you
and those you would like to know.
It's often the case that if you list all the people
connected with your network members, you'll find
a route to the people you want to meet - such as the
new corporate counsel of a major player in the
industry you represent.
To build and maintain relationships with selected
people in your network, you can sit on boards,
participate in volunteer activities, serve on industry
committees, and maintain regular contact through phone
calls, e-mail, and lunches. If a particular
relationship deepens, consider inviting that person
along with his or her family to your home.
12. Be Patient
Don't expect instant results from your marketing activities.
If you do, you'll get discouraged and give up too quickly.
Keep in mind that it takes a long time for marketing
activities to bear fruit. Right now you're just planting
seeds. Persistence and patience are key.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: A brief phone call is all you need
now to find out more about Ellen's
coaching. Call 212-461-2749 and
hear Ellen interviewed by a woman
lawyer and forensic psychologist.
You can learn about Ellen's coaching
practice and get a sense for what
virtual coaching is like, just
by listening to the recorded
interview. This is available 24
hours/day, seven days/week.
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BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR ™ is published monthly by
Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D., founder of LawyersLifeCoach.com.
She brings 20 years of experience assisting women
attorneys to her work in Lawyers Life Coach ™.
LawyersLifeCoach.com is a professional and personal
coaching firm specializing in working virtually (by
phone with email and fax backup) with women attorneys
interested in developing strategies to find greater
satisfaction in their careers within the law or
in exploring career alternatives for lawyers.
Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D. established Lawyerslifecoach.com
to coach busy lawyers who might benefit from the
insights gained from 20 years as a psychologist
combined with her experience and familiarity with
the legal profession.
Ellen holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
from the University of Rochester and is a managing
member of Metropolitan Behavioral Health Care, LLC.,
a multispecialty, multidisciplinary psychotherapy
practice in Washington, D.C. and suburban Maryland.
She is a member of the International Coach Federation
and a graduate of the Mentor Coach Program ™.
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NOTE: BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR ™ is intended
for informational and educational purposes only.
It is not a substitute for a personal consultation
with a mental health professional and should not
be construed as a form of, or substitute for,
counseling, psychotherapy, or other psychological
service.
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CONTACT INFORMATION
Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D.
LawyersLifeCoach.com
Phone: (301) 578-8686
email: Ellen@LawyersLifeCoach.com
Web: http://LawyersLifeCoach.com
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(c)Copyright 2000 Ellen Ostrow. All rights reserved.
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