Last week I wrote about how to avoid going out of business. If you missed it, you can read the full thing here.

A few lawyers wrote me back and said that they didn’t know what kind of massive action to take. So, I want to give you a little action plan to see results happen immediately.

If you are a decent speaker, it’s time for you to get on the phone and start telling everyone you know that you are available to come out and speak to their group.

If you are not seeing enough clients and do not have the money to do paid marketing, you must take control of the situation and get yourself out there and speaking. And don’t sit back and wait for the speaking engagements to show up or rely only on someone else to book them for you.

Do not just try one thing, see if it works, and then try another. Do everything. All at once.

When I was building my practice, I was on the phone constantly lining up speaking engagements. Eventually, I had someone else do that for me, but not in the beginning. In the beginning (when I didn’t have any money) I did it myself. After hours, before hours, during hours. I busted my butt to make sure I did what was necessary to get me in front of the people I needed to speak to about my services.

So, if you are struggling, ask yourself … am I doing everything I can to get myself out there speaking to as many people as possible for free? Am I on the phone in every free minute of my day with local groups in my community such as:

* Church groups
* Daycares
* Preschools
* Senior Centers
* Private Schools
* Public Schools
* Moms Groups
* CPA Groups
* Real Estate Agents Offices
* Title Officers
* Mortgage Brokers
* Chambers of Commerce
* Community Centers
* Rotary Clubs
* Business groups

I could go on and on.

There was even one time I went out to speak to a group of women (I think it was some sort of an alumni group), which consisted of 4 little old ladies who would get together for coffee on a monthly basis.

I would show up anywhere they would let me come and speak. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn’t.

But, here’s what I can tell you, the more I did, the more my phone rang and the more clients I got.

One of the Personal Family Lawyers who has been with me since 2007 just came back from taking a few months off to have her baby and she is booked all the way through April with 13 new client appointments in March and 21 speaking engagements between now and June. Why? Massive right action before she went out on leave to have her baby. You can do it too.

So if you are struggling, don’t just sit there and wait until you get pulled under the water hoping someone comes and rescues you; do something and do it now!

Next week I’m going to talk to you about the logistics of getting maximum results from your speaking engagements, but in the meantime, pick up the phone and get yourself booked in front of a group. We’ll pick up here next week.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been connecting with lawyers who are struggling mightily to make this law business thing work. Know anyone like that?

Fortunately, I also get to talk with a lot of lawyers whoare NOT struggling for clients. They’re struggling with  too much business and needing to get their systems caught up to the client flow (that’s the last frontier before really having it all).

And while I’ve got some guidance for those of you in that boat, today I want to focus on those of you struggling for more business because if you don’t have business, you’ll never get to phase 2 before you go out of business.

Now, I know a little about going out of business. I’ve watched lawyers do it more than once and one time, unfortunately, up close and personal, after the guy I sold my firm to couldn’t make a go of it and closed up shop.

So I know what will run your business into the ground faster than you can say “wait a minute, where did all my money go?”

And I can see the lawyers who are headed into the station of no more business as opposed to those headed to phase 2 and one major step closer to the lives they really want in which they are serving the clients they love without stress and not worrying about the day to day details of running their business.

So, what’s the difference?

Continue reading In Danger of Going Out of Business on Lawyerist.com

I’m writing to you today about how to deal with your email overwhelm because I have no doubt that it’s a problem that may be keeping you up at night (or at least in the office too long).

So, here’s what I recommend:

1. Set up a private gmail account and only give the email address out to your family members and closest friends. Do not sign up for any email newsletters, special offers or anything else with your new private gmail account.

2. Hand your public email account over to an assistant. If you have an assistant in house, give him/her the password
so that s/he can begin managing the account for you. If you don’t, this would be a perfect opportunity for you to start
working with a virtual assistant who can manage your email for you.

3. Give your assistant specific rules about how to handle your email. Here are some ideas that should get you
started:

• filter all newsletters into a special folder that you can review periodically (except of course the Law Business Revolution Weekly Briefing Memo, which you’ll always want to review as soon as it comes out each week )
• filter all listserve/forum emails into separate folders you can also review periodically.
• respond to all client emails the same way that phone calls would be handled – either schedule an appointment, pass the request on to the person who needs to handle it with a tickler to follow up and make sure it’s been handled, or send to your private email inbox to review. If sent to your inbox for review, make sure your email assistant schedules you time to review the item on your calendar.
• respond to all emails from opposing counsel or other colleagues in the same way – indicate message has been received and either schedule appointment for follow up or schedule you time to review and indicate the follow up that is necessary.

This should get you started and get you out of email overwhelm.

I’d love to hear what questions you have about managing your email and your law business. Let me know.