Happy New Year! The turning over of the calendar is a popular time to get a fresh start. If you're like most Americans, you have vowed to get in shape, quit smoking, or spend more time with family and friends. But what management and marketing resolutions have you made? Below find some tips from our consultants to help you get started.

Harriett Greenbaum: At this time everyone should do an assessment when it comes to his or her marketing. First of all, what went well? These are things you want to continue doing. Secondly, what have you done that hasn't or won't bear fruit and is not worthwhile? Stop doing those things. A very important third is what have you not done or only done minimally that you feel you need to do to be successful in your marketing? Numbers one and three then become your marketing initiatives for the New Year.

Linda Hardenstein: Create business plans and goals that incorporate managing more effectively by identifying your strengths so you can delegate appropriately, be more productive, and have more balance in 2010.

Larry Kohn: Since the most important issue in rainmaking is confidence in the value you offer, one smart resolution is to improve the training program for the lawyers to whom you delegate. As they learn, you will increase your willingness to delegate. When that happens, you have more time for rainmaking and you will be more enthusiastic as you describe the capabilities of your support lawyers to your prospects.

Jeffrey Miiller: Get clear about your goals for 2010. In the past, you may have been vague when it came to planning for the future. You may not have set specific goals, other than to bring in more business.

This year, resolve to be more focused and efficient by writing a brief marketing plan with clear, obtainable goals for each of the following categories: new targets, referral sources, public speaking, client service, internal marketing, and articles. Use these examples to get started:

• New targets: Identify three new potential clients, introduce yourself, and add them to your database with a follow-up date and clear next step.
• Referral sources: Identify three new potential referral sources, introduce yourself, and add them to your database with a follow-up date and clear next step; every month, check in with one past referral source.
• Client service: Visit client X at his or her office and do a thirty-minute educational seminar for the staff; take client Y to lunch and conduct a casual satisfaction survey.
• Internal marketing: Every month, take at least one fellow partner outside of your practice group (a cross-selling opportunity) to lunch.
• Articles: Write and publish one article.

In essence, your 2010 marketing plan will be a checklist, keep you focused, and motivate you as you check off the goals you have accomplished. It's a simple resolution and one that you can get excited about.

Labels: management, marketing

by Lawrence M. Kohn

Earlier this month, we discussed reaching out to people as a way to weather tough economic times. Another way to generate business in the short term is to start a blog. Blogging is a technology that's new and exciting because it does a couple of important things.

First, blogging helps you condense an important topic into a couple of paragraphs, allowing you to communicate something important in a limited number of words. In addition to communicating something that might be important to a prospect, you're scripting sales dialogue. Writing a blog post clarifies your thinking about a particular issue that could be a need of people with whom you want to do business.

Then you send the blog out into cyberspace, and the world begins to get exposure to you. But that's only the beginning, because you should also send an email to everybody you know, saying, "I've started a blog. I invite you to take a look at it. I've made an entry. Please give me your comments."

The fact that the blog exists is a reason to reach out to people and communicate with them. Then you might begin a dialogue with people that you know or don't know about a particular issue, and we're seeing that turn into business in a relatively short period of time.

For more tips, check out our ABA Publishing Presents podcast "Business Development in Tough Economic Times."

Labels: marketing, rainmaking

by Lawrence M. Kohn

Last week, we discussed reaching out to people you already know as a way to drum up business during tough economic times. It's also important to reach out to people you may have fallen out of touch with.

Many of our clients are finding success in this area with social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Plaxo. By logging in and seeing whom you already know, these sites identify the people whom they know that you also might know but have forgotten about. For example, you might have gone to law school with someone whom you had a good relationship with but have allowed to slip through the cracks. You might be able to reconnect with him or her on a social networking site or by going through the roster of your alumni association.

Start really looking at these names, one name at a time, and asking yourself, "Is there a marketing opportunity here? Is there a way for me to reach out that I feel comfortable with?" In some cases you won't. It'll be too distant. But in other cases, you'll say, "Well, I'd love to talk to him or her!" Pick up the phone right then and there.

So many times, our clients have picked up the phone and called somebody they hadn't talked to for years who said, "I can't believe that you're calling me right now. I have a need for a lawyer in your state. Here's a problem I've got." Of course, we can't promise that that's going to happen, but it's happened so many times with clients of ours in the past that we feel comfortable in saying that the odds are good that you could pick up the phone and somebody might even need you right now.

For more tips, check out our ABA Publishing Presents podcast "Business Development in Tough Economic Times."

Labels: marketing, rainmaking

by Robert N. Kohn and Lawrence M. Kohn

Selling is always important, in good times and in bad. However, selling is particularly important during a recession because there's more competition pursuing less business: Clients are more cost conscious. They may be looking for lower-price firms. They may be sending out less work to their existing law firms. And to make matters more difficult, many lawyers who previously hadn't done as much marketing are now trying to do it more. So in order to compete, to get what work is out there, selling becomes more important.

One of the lessons learned from this recession, or any recession, is that selling always has to be a part of your practice. You should always be thinking about who your best contacts are and whom you should be communicating with so that when the recession comes to an end, you're going to be in a better position to take advantage of the recovery.

Think about the relationships you have today and the people you know right now. People often know more people than they're aware of. Now, if you've only been practicing law for a short time, maybe you don't know many people, but if you've been practicing law for several years, you've probably come into contact with many more people than you're even aware of. Go through your Rolodex and mailing list and start compiling a list of names of everybody you know who's in a position to help you because they either know somebody or they have needs themselves.

We're not suggesting that you would necessarily call everybody or reach out to everybody, but it's important to know who these people are. It takes a long time to build relationships with strangers, but with the people you've already met, the relationship process is further along. They're more likely to trust you; they're more likely to accept your call. So the very first step when you get started in marketing is to go after what we like to call "low-hanging fruit" -- the people who are most likely to help you today because they know you and because you feel comfortable reaching out to them.

So for a short-term, immediate benefit in tough economic times, look at whom you know and recapture the people you've allowed to slip away. And for the long haul, once you meet people, never let that happen again. Put those names into your database and stay in touch with people for the rest of your career.

For more tips, check out our ABA Publishing Presents podcast "Business Development in Tough Economic Times."

Labels: marketing, rainmaking

by Robert N. Kohn and Lawrence M. Kohn

When building your muscles, no pain means no gain,
But pain when you're selling might make you refrain.
So look for the reasons why you resist,
And you'll find solutions to help you persist.

The first step in overcoming your discomfort with selling is to become aware of your thoughts about selling. Pay attention to your "internal voice," which is your stream of consciousness. Everyone has an internal voice. You may not be aware of it all of the time, but it is always with you, and it profoundly influences your feelings and actions.

If you are uncomfortable with selling, then your internal voice becomes your "negative voice." You develop a pattern of dwelling on the reasons why you shouldn't sell.

Your negative voice tends to be habitual and automatic. It's like a knee-jerk reaction. Whenever you imagine yourself doing some selling-oriented activity, your negative voice argues, "I can't do that" or "I don't want to do that." You literally talk yourself out of selling.

We are not saying that your negative voice is always wrong. Sometimes your anti-selling beliefs are valid. For example, there may be a risk of being overly pushy with some of your prospects. If you follow up with a prospect incessantly, without offering value, there is the possibility of harming a relationship. So you want to acknowledge your negative voice.

But often your negative voice is prejudiced and incorrect. You jump to conclusions that may be based on unclear and erroneous assumptions. You focus only on the negative and ignore all of the safe and effective things that you could be doing.

So avoid the knee-jerk reaction of accepting your negative voice as fact. Instead, develop the habit of challenging your negative voice. When you do, you will probably find that many of your long-held convictions about selling are untrue.

We have had many clients who were extremely reluctant to sell. Many of them told us that a meeting with us was worse than a trip to the dentist. Every idea that we suggested would be instantly shot down. But as we helped them become aware of their anti-selling sentiments and find ways to comfortably overcome them, their attitudes became more positive. They became more accepting of selling ideas and more enthusiastic about business development. They developed a proactive selling attitude.

A wonderful thing happens when you develop a proactive selling attitude. You begin to notice selling opportunities that you didn't realize existed. Selling opportunities are often all around you. You may know people who can help you meet quality contacts. There are organizations that may be fun for you to join that could also bring you into contact with quality contacts.

There are many safe and effective ways to sell. When you consistently and constructively think about ways to improve your selling, you will alter your pattern of automatic negative thinking and open your mind to solutions.

For more marketing tips, check out our book Selling in Your Comfort Zone.

Labels: marketing, selling in your comfort zone

by Larry Kohn

Many lawyers have learned -- and rightly so -- that whatever success they've had up this point has come from serving their clients. As a result, they develop a pattern of serving the client, serving the client, serving the client. Nothing gets in the way of serving the client.

(That's not to in any way imply that you shouldn't serve the client. If anyone walks away from this blog thinking that we're advising that they shouldn't serve their clients, then they're misinterpreting the message. Yes, you must serve your client.)

But there's more to the rainmaker model than serving clients, and what we often see is that the desire to serve clients is so profound that people can't take five minutes -- literally five minutes -- away if there's something that they need to do for a client.

Lawyers need to come up with creative solutions to solve their clients' problems. The way they find creative solutions is by immersing themselves in the work. That means that whenever they have a free minute, it's in their best interest to immerse themselves in the work because that's what's going to help them find the more creative solution down the road.

If you really own this belief, if you're in this pattern of solving problems by being immersed, then there is no free time. Free time no longer exists because all free time needs to be invested in immersion in the clients' needs.

Now, that's an entrenched habit, and while it may be true that immersion in the clients' needs does result in creative solutions, if you believe that that's the way you must live in order to serve your clients, you never make time for rainmaking.

Let's face it: Clients die. Clients merge. Clients leave because a new decision maker chooses another lawyer over you. While there may be some friendship among clients, there is often very little loyalty, and it is unbelievably dangerous to allow your career to be dependent upon the whims of existing clients. So it's fundamental to any business to be diversified. It is remarkably dangerous and irresponsible for lawyers to depend on this pattern of client-servicing as the path to success.

Instead, set aside five minutes in the morning before the day really heats up. Once you're in that client-servicing mode, later in the day, it's very difficult to get out of it, and by the end of the day, you're tired, and when you're tired, you should be doing the things that you love doing, not the things that you're less inclined to do. For example, I don't try to balance my checkbook at the end of the day when I'm tired.

During those five minutes, first thing in the morning, review your targets and marketing plans. Then close the file and just go on about your day. What happens is these marketing targets and plans then begin to percolate and incubate. And then during the day, you begin to connect the dots. You'll be servicing one client and all of the sudden you'll hit on an idea for another. You begin to become aware of marketing opportunities that you would normally not be aware of had you not gotten grounded in marketing at the very start of the day.

Yes, serving your existing clients is important, but so is finding new clients. Don't let this entrenched habit get in the way of building your rainmaking machine.

Labels: marketing, rainmaking

Marketing: any effort involving the four P's:

• Price
• Product (or service) development
• Place -- location or method of interaction
• Promotion

Market: a group of buyers

Market segment: a specific portion of a market

Target: an individual who has the need, capacity, authority, and desirability

Prospect: a target who has expressed an interest in your product or service

Brand: the identity of a product or company

Image: the thoughts and feelings produced by a brand

Differentiation: any single distinguishing characteristic

Position: a target's perception of how a vendor compares to its competition

Public relations: any display of a brand, differentiation, or position

Crisis management: public relations intended to reverse a negative perception

Marketing communication: any sensory stimulation used to promote a product or service

Promotion: any technique designed to influence a buyer

Promotional mix: a strategic combination of promotions

Reach: the number of targets exposed to a marketing communication

Frequency: the number of times a target experiences a particular marketing communication

Features: the qualities of a product or service

Benefits: the positive results produced by a product or service

Impact: the experience produced by the use of a product or service

Demographics: the physical characteristics of a market

Psychographics: the mental and emotional characteristics that drive buying habits

Emotional spectrum: the variety of emotional experiences

Selling: communication with the intent to transact business

Closing: the activity of bringing the prospect from awareness to commitment

To download a copy of these terms and definitions, check out our "Kohn Marketing Glossary."

Labels: marketing

by Jan C. Gabrielson

No lawyer can effectively market to everyone. So step one in marketing your practice is to reduce your market to a manageable size. Decide what kind of clients you want. Then figure out how to bring them in.

Marketing a law practice directly to potential clients works for some lawyers and some kinds of practices but not for others. Advertising is expensive and can produce a deluge of calls from people whose cases you would not accept. Screening those inquiries takes time and energy. One way to avoid those problems is to direct your efforts to referral sources, rather than to potential clients themselves.

For a specialized practice, the highest-quality referrals tend to come from other lawyers. Just as we would ask our family physician for a referral to a specialist, sophisticated people who need a specialized lawyer are likely to ask for a referral from a lawyer they already know. Lawyers will refer cases to a specialist, confident that you know how to handle your kind of case and that you will not encroach on the referrer's continuing relationship with a valued client.

Professionals other than lawyers also refer good clients. Accountants, because of long-term relationships with their clients, often become trusted advisers whose clients ask them for referrals.

For more tips, check out our article on "Marketing Your Practice Part 1: How to the Get the Clients You Want."

Labels: marketing

by Robert N. Kohn and Lawrence M. Kohn

People who are good at selling were not born with some magical talent or personality. There is no such thing as a "selling gene." Rather, they think about selling all of the time, often because they enjoy it. If one strategy fails, they look for others. They make selling a fundamental focus. They consistently and constructively pay attention to selling.

You can see this principle illustrated in your own life. Think of some challenging activity that you enjoy. Consider how much you think about it.

For example, a lot of people we know enjoy the game of golf. They enjoy everything about it. They love getting out into the fresh air. They love the sensation of swinging and hitting the ball. They love hearing the unmistakable sound of the ball dropping into the cup. They enjoy the socializing that takes place during and after the game. And, because they love it so much, they look for opportunities to play. They seek out other people who enjoy the game.

If they make a few bad shots, they don't give up. They don't say, "Well, I missed that shot. I guess I'll quit." No, of course not. They practice more. They take lessons. They read books and watch videos. They buy new clubs.

People pay attention to things they enjoy and make time for them. By doing so, they are more likely to improve. This is what happens with selling. Once you identify something you enjoy about selling, you'll give it more attention and your skills will improve.

For more marketing tips, check out our book Selling in Your Comfort Zone.

Labels: marketing, selling in your comfort zone