Don’t confuse “selling” with being slick, manipulative, overbearing or with any of the other attributes most people give to this much-maligned word.  Selling is simply helping someone to get something they already want or need. There is no pressure at all.

By Bob Burg

Many attorneys, because of arrogance or ignorance, are oblivious to the brand imagery that they personally project, assuming that a good impression comes automatically pre-packaged with the attorney title. Not so, counsel!

By Alf Nucifora

A national survey reports some surprising results about how women lawyers power their business development efforts. The keys to success: Invest time consistently each week; have the right attitude; and engage in the right types of activities. With an increased focus and these keys, all women lawyers can be successful rainmakers.

By Marcie L. Borgal Shunk and Catherine Alman MacDonagh

The best clients are those who seek you out because they have already heard of you. Thought leadership marketing shows you how to build your visibility and credibility by making yourself an indispensable resource to potential customers and existing clients.

By Steven Van Yoder

The success of my business development efforts have hinged on staying true to a common mission and surrounding myself with excellent attorneys who are focused on performing quality legal services and achieving high client satisfaction. 

By John C. Yates

If you are always hustling for new business, you are more likely to be in the right place at the right time when the new transaction arises and the client is in need of counsel.

Individual efforts as part of a team are much more effective than individual efforts alone.  In addition, we have an outstanding marketing group.

When you market, be yourself.  Market your good qualities.  Don’t try to be something you are not.  You have assets, use them, promote them.

Work all day, stay late at the office, go to lunch with prospective clients, sweat bullets preparing documentation, deliver a stellar product, perhaps get a thank-you or pat on the back. . . repeat.  Day after day, month after month, year after year. . .

No matter what type of attorney you are, you must ask yourself these questions: What is my product/service?  Who is my market? What are the best ways for me to make my product/service visible?  Like any other product or service, you must have a strong image.

By Dorothy Leeds 

It’s that time again—time to get clear about your personal and professional goals for the New Year. Here’s a quick, step-by-step model to help you do that. Getting the ink on paper is a first step in commitment.

Conventional wisdom leads us to believe that developing a plan for our education and career is a linear, logical process: Pick a goal, develop a plan and just do it.  As it turns out, the equation for a successful, satisfying career is measurably more complicated than that.

Attitudes we have unconsciously adopted from our culture and our profession suggest emotions are dark and disturbing—better kept in the basement and ignored. If we consider the purpose of emotions in evolution, we can understand how they can be quite useful to us as lawyers and more importantly as human beings.

By Jill Breslau

Today’s lifestyle is 100% about choice.  And we are making terrible choices. We’ve been told to work as hard as we can as long as we can.  Make hay while the sun shines!  Well the sun shines 24/7 now.  You can conceivably work 24/7, 365 or figure out another way to work and keep your physical and mental health.

When you are under too much stress your memory isn’t good, you are easily distracted, you become impulsive and your judgment is suboptimal. Now there’s a tool to help you detect your level of stress before it’s too late.

By Lyle Miller

Housing changes for a parent or older relative are precipitated by a hospital stay, an accident or illness.  If your parent is hospitalized, be prepared for no more than 24-hour notice of discharge.  24 hours after the exhaustion of hospital visits is no time to make a housing decision, especially a nursing home choice.

The “universal” and primary obstacle to many women’s success with rainmaking is that marketing is perceived to require exaggeration of one’s skills, shameless self-promotion and aggressiveness. It is also perceived as something that comes easily to men but is offensive to women.

Eric has earned the reputation of being a great “go-to” guy. He expects to get a partnership offer this year. Yet, just as the partnership offer looms in view, he finds himself very dissatisfied and wants to quit.  He wants to be “Play-Doh.”

Above all, be willing to work long and hard. With rare exception, the sine qua non of success is countless hours committed to the mission. There isn’t a free lunch on this score very often. And be lucky.

By W. Taylor Reveley, III

Many lawyers have eschewed marketing because its principles were not taught; hence the best marketing practices were misunderstood and finally scorned. The reality: there is faint hope that you will rise above the technical level of your profession unless you embrace, at minimum, the basics of the art and science of marketing.

A recent on-line survey reveals the essential role that professional, interpersonal relationships and work-life balance have in satisfying legal careers. 

These five quick financial planning strategies will save you money and make you money over the next 12 months and beyond. My experience is that when an attorney clearly understands where he is financially, he will implement meaningful changes.

According to consumer behavior experts, David Wolfe and Robert Snyder, the welfare of our entire economy depends on understanding that marketing’s mindset must change to accommodate the arrival of the New Customer Majority (people 40 and older) as “the most powerful force in the consumer marketplace today.”
Review by Lydia Morris Brown