I’m thrilled to once again present a session at the New York City Bar’s Small Law Firm Symposium, which will be held on November 7. This year I will be speaking about “Enhancing Your Online Presence to Grow Your Firm (and Your Brand) Without Breaking the Bank,” exploring how social media marketing and its accompanying content have made it easier (and more effective) than ever for firms of all sizes – especially small firms and solo practitioners – to gain a competitive edge in building relationships, which can lead to new business, new referrals and new connections. I’ll provide attendees with actionable tips, strategies and tactics on how to market themselves and their firms online without breaking the bank or sacrificing quality to have a real impact on enhancing their brands and leads. I’ll cover how to:

  • How to create a more compelling LinkedIn profile than your peers and competitors
  • How to generate new business and retain existing business using content/social media
  • Best practices for creating and distributing compelling content to engage with your most important target audiences
  • Secrets to effectively writing social posts that resonate with your clients and prospects.
  • How to use evergreen content, repurposed content, visuals and hashtags to enhance content marketing efforts
  • How to use analytics to measure and track results
  • How to use press mentions, speaking engagements and published articles to enhance your branding efforts

Learn more and register.

When it comes to content distribution and amplification, I really do get by with the help of my friends.

Many law firms (and their lawyers) invest considerable time writing great content, but are disappointed by the results. Either their thought leadership efforts don’t lead to new business, or they fail to garner media attention or the attention of clients/prospects.

This isn’t necessarily because the content is poorly written. Often it is simply because not enough of the right people, your target readers, have the chance to see the work. Fact is, we operate in a competitive and saturated market and simply getting someone to open your email and read your content is very difficult.

So, what can you do to stand out from your peers?

Bring in the special forces to take your content efforts to the next level. If you are at a small-or mid-size firm, like I am, with less content than Big Law competitors and a smaller in-house team, you definitely need JD Supra to support your efforts.  Continue Reading Why Your Firm Needs JD Supra to Extend the Reach of Your Content

Sometimes the small things right in front of us, by nature easy to do, are the smartest things to advance your marketing and business development efforts. Though these actions may seem small, they can be incredibly rewarding. Sometimes all it takes is picking up the phone or crafting a thoughtful email or just letting Google work for you.

Here are some easy, “low hanging fruit” ideas that can lead to success:  Continue Reading How Small Actions Can Yield Big Benefits In Your Marketing & Business Development Efforts

If you are a LinkedIn company page administrator, you now have a new tool available called LinkedIn Pages Employee Notifications to easily let your employees know when you’ve posted an update on your company’s page. Note – that this is rolling out to users and may not yet be available to you – so stay tuned! I just happened to realize I suddenly had it earlier this week, when a notification appeared on the company page I manage – LinkedIn often doesn’t announce when it makes enhancements nor does it happen at the and time for every user, which is why I wanted to write about it here ASAP.

You can track the effectiveness of your posts through your company page update analytics (which give you helpful information on update highlights, metrics and engagement). Learn more about update analytics here.

To notify your employees about a notification:

  1. Post an update on your company page. Here’s more on how to do that.
  2. Click the three little dots on the upper right hand side of the specific post. This will bring up a menu bar with options, and the last one is now “notify employees of post”
  3. Select “Notify employees of post” and you’ll be prompted with the below screen. When you say yes, those employees of your company who are on LinkedIn will be notified that your organization has shared a post with them through their notification updates.
  4. An admin can notify employees once every 7 days per update.

Why is this a good thing? Well, many employees miss your company posts because they are busy even if the firm has a process whereby it sends them by email each day, Sending them directly through LinkedIn is efficient and smart.

One caveat is that this new feature does not seem to work with third-party vendors (like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, etc.) – you have to be in LinkedIn in order to take advantage of it.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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As co-chair of the 2019 LMA Northeast Regional Conference, I was so excited when James Kane agreed to be our keynote speaker. I have had a huge professional crush on him for years. James is considered the leading researcher and authority on what makes someone truly loyal – to another person, to an organization or to a cause.

Many of us in the LMA were introduced to James – and impressed by him – when he was the keynote speaker at the 2013 LMA Annual Conference. I remember thinking to myself that if I was ever in the position to select a keynote speaker, it would be him.

Fast forward six years later, when I had that very opportunity, reached out to James and he said yes(!). Here’s a sneak peek of what he has planned for us at #LMANE19 – the icing on the cake is that we get an extra bonus session with him too after the keynote on “How to Use Loyalty to Retain Clients in Tough Times,” so make sure to stick around for that session on November 15!

Read the full Q&A with James: http://bit.ly/2mHicmY

And register for #LMANE19! http://bit.ly/2XZOMm1

Women can be so hard on each other in (and out of) the workplace doing things such as backstabbing, gossiping, purposely excluding someone from a meeting, taking credit for someone’s work or helping to push someone out of a job. Maybe you’ve been the target of some these behaviors at the hands of another woman at work. Please know that you aren’t alone.

I call this the dark side of working with women. I’ve been there too, and not just at work. This behavior can also rear its ugly head in your personal life. It’s deeply disturbing, and one of the worst parts is that it can be contagious, like a fast-spreading virus. What I mean by that is that one mean girl in a group can then serve as the “bad egg” and turn others against a target. And if you have ever been the target of mean girl behavior, the effects can be incredibly damaging on every aspect of your life – I don’t care how old you are, this behavior never gets easier to deal with.

Although outside of the office, women consider their girlfriends among their closest confidants, they aren’t always each other’s biggest supporters within the workplace. In fact, they can be each other’s worst nightmares and saboteurs, if they view each other as rivals.

Today there are Regina George-like characters in every industry, simply because there are more women in the workplace. Their catty behaviors such as gossiping, backstabbing and sabotaging can turn an otherwise pleasant workplace into a place of daily dread.

The silver lining is that while you will inevitably encounter mean girls throughout your career, learning how to manage them will make you stronger and more resilient. Dealing with someone like this enables you to emerge a more confident version of yourself.

Today, I am lucky enough to work in an environment free of mean girls (thank goodness!), but I do come into contact with them from time to time – just like we all do – and I carry with me the memories of working with some very toxic females, which have helped me develop a thicker skin, and learn how to navigate them – these are important skills to have throughout your career because you will inevitably encounter mean girls personally and professionally. I want to make it clear that are plenty of amazing, supportive women in the workforce, and I’ve been very lucky to work with a number of them. They aren’t threatened by other women, and instead they go above and beyond to help others succeed.

It’s important to remember that while you cannot can’t change someone else, you can change your own behavior, and this article will teach you how to do just that.  Continue Reading Effective Strategies for Dealing with Mean Girls at Work

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I’m excited to speak at the ARK Group’s Competitive Intelligence in the Modern Law Firm conference this Wednesday 9/25 in NYC with Amanda Loesch the CMO of Porzio Bromberg & Newman P.C.

We will be discussing, “How to Identify Your Firm’s Real Competitors and Use That Information to Your Advantage.” Amanda and I both have big law and mid-size law firm experience, which gives us diverse perspectives on CI and how to effectively use it to your advantage.

We hope you will join us for our session as well as the other stellar sessions and speakers throughout the day. The conference will be held at New York Law School.

Learn more and register.

A great benefit about marketing is that sometimes the lowest hanging fruit can yield major benefits with little effort. First thing’s first, what does “low-hanging fruit” mean? It is “a thing or person that can be won, obtained, or persuaded with little effort.” Since we spend so much time and effort on most of our marketing and business development strategies, it’s nice when we don’t have to work so hard on everything all the time! Sometimes all it takes is picking up the phone, or crafting a thoughtful email or just letting Google work for you.

  • For example, just being the one who responds to an email or call first (and thoughtfully) will make you the one who gets the piece of business. One of the lawyers with whom I work answered a query on a list serv for someone who was looking for a lawyer in her area. She wound up getting the piece of business.
  • Another lawyer just picked up the phone on a Friday afternoon while driving up to his summer house even though it was a number he didn’t recognize. He smartly had his work phone forwarded to his cell phone, which is something I highly recommend that you all do. The call was from a potential client who got this lawyer’s name from a mutual friend. He wound up getting the matter. On the flipside, I know a lawyer who waited a week to return a phone message from a new potential client. He did not get that piece of business, and the lesson there is do not wait a week to return a call from anyone and always check your messages!
  • One of the lawyers with whom I work spoke on a webinar and then took the time to answer some follow-up questions that were sent to her from a participant. She impressed him with her thoughtful replies and strategies, and he asked her to work on a matter as a result. So speaking engagements really do lead to new business, especially when you go the extra mile afterwards to do proactive follow-up. I’ve got many more examples like this and on the flipside of lawyers who ignored emails like this or thought it was too much work to reply.  Go the extra mile, take the time and you’ll set yourself apart.
  • Credentialing from outside organizations also helps especially when it comes to teaching CLE programs. For example, one of our lawyers received a phone call for a potential matter because his name came up as a speaker for a New York City bar event from two years ago during a Google search. This again underscores the power of Google and why you should speak at conferences and write articles, and post all of these activities to your web site bio for SEO purposes. Credentialing gives you authority. Ultimately he didn’t get the piece of business due to a conflict, but she became a referral source. This is a great example of how CLE programs can lead to referrals and new clients – demonstrating subject matter expertise by teaching is one of the strongest ways you can build your brand (and business).
  • LinkedIn is an easy way to keep your professional network “warm.” It takes little time and effort to use the platform to build your brand and generate leads. Here are some examples of little actions you could take to help you stay top of mind with your contacts and referrals.

– Did someone important in your network just announce they got a new job? Send them a note to congratulate them and ask them for lunch.

– Are you headed to an industry event or upcoming conference? (Or better yet, are you speaking at one?) Post it as a status update so you can find others in your network who are also attending.

– Did someone you admire write an article or publish a book that you enjoyed? Share a link to it along with why you recommend others read it. This will greatly strengthen your professional relationships.

– Did you discover something innovative or insightful in your field that would be of interest to your network? Write a quick post just as I am doing here. I drafted this in the notes section of my iPhone. Use what you have.

  • One final thought – I encourage you to also think outside the box in terms of how you bring in leads especially with so many online tools available today. One of the lawyers at my firm asked us to try out a Google Ads campaign to help him bring in new clients. It’s been successful so far in terms of leading to several new client matters. It’s a great example of the new ways in which we can generate leads. More than 3.5 billion Google searches are conducted each day, and that makes Google Ads worthwhile. Google AdWords is Google’s online advertising program, which enables you to create online ads to reach audiences that are interested in the products and services you offer. The AdWords platform runs on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, so you have to pay every time a visitor clicks your ad. You bid on words that make sense for your efforts and you have the ability to set a budget and monitor the performance of the campaign.

While an ad word campaign won’t work for every practice, it’s food for thought when you’re beating your head up against the wall on how to generate new business. This can be a very helpful tool for small/mid-size firms. Sometimes a paid ad is your best bet for driving traffic to (and conversions from) your site, but keep in mind that the legal industry is one of the most competitive and heavily saturated markets out there, so you need to invest to truly compete.

Now that we are in the fall, you only have a few months to make a real impact in your BD and marketing efforts before the year is over. Use every tool that you have wisely, and while you’ll have to be more proactive about some of them, there are those that will work for you behind the scenes with little to no effort, including those I’ve mentioned above. I hope these tips have given you some fruit (ha) for thought.

 

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LinkedIn enables you to quickly build and grow relationships, strengthen your brand, and stay top of mind with key individuals in your professional network regardless of where they live. The platform also gives you a treasure trove of valuable competitive intelligence, which can help you gain a serious advantage over your competitors.

Many of you have LinkedIn profiles but aren’t maximizing the platform because you’re busy, or you don’t know really how to use it or you just aren’t convinced that it’s worth your time. It is 100% worth your time, especially given that we have five generations in the workforce right now and clients are getting younger and are using social media more frequently.

To show you just how easy (and beneficial) it is to use, read my latest JD Supra article for quick and easy examples of actions you can take today to more meaningfully engage with your connections, strengthen your brand, position yourself as a subject matter expert and bring in leads.

Fo for the Extra Mile

I wanted to share a few thoughts for some little things you can do in your marketing efforts to go the extra mile and stand out from competitors.

When you’re at a conference, don’t just sit on your phone checking your email. Really detach from your day-to-day work and immerse yourself in the conference experience. Even better, write a key takeaways piece from what you learned and send it to clients. That’s how you can truly differentiate yourself from others.

Don’t forget to send lateral press releases and high-profile media mentions of your lawyers to the alumni publications of their alma maters. I’ve always built in alumni publications into my social/PR strategy and have had great success with it helping lawyers get back in touch with former classmates who have gone on to do great things (and become clients/referrals).

Be thoughtful with your clients, prospects and referral sources when it comes to the joyous and also on the flipside, tough times, they have in their personal lives. Send flowers, condolences, baby gifts, etc. Going the extra mile is just the right thing to do and will enable you to stand out from your competitors and be top of mind when they need a lawyer like you in the future.