Leadership

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Who doesn’t wish there was more time in the day? Do you ever feel like you aren’t giving 100% to anything because you just run out of time? Personally I just want some more quiet time to think and less time being chained responding to my email, which I could spend days doing.

It seems like we are being pulled in so many different directions that it’s difficult to keep track of, let alone stay on track of the multiple projects and to do’s we are constantly juggling in our professional and personal lives. (I admit that I sometimes lose the post-it notes that are supposed to help me manage my projects.) So when I saw an invite for an LMA event that would help me become a better project and time manager featuring leading recruiter and trainer Eva Wisnik, I immediately signed up for it (and made the time to attend it).

I also had the opportunity to interview Eva after the event to ask her for her top project and time management tips (thank you to my trusty producing partner Rob Kates for filming it). During the interview, we also talked about how to enhance our ability to manage the ever-increasing demands on our time and what trends Eva is seeing in the recruiting market today.

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I recently listened in to a Legal Marketing Association CMO and Small Firm/Solo Marketer webinar featuring the perspectives of three chief marketing officers on a variety of topics (many of them submitted by LMA members themselves), including staffing, hiring, delegating, maximizing time with firm leadership, and their best tips for setting yourself up to be a successful leader in your firm.

This is the kind of webinar that is helpful for legal marketers at all levels and at any size firm, but especially for someone like me who is also a CMO at a smaller firm. 

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I am thankful for each of you!

In our busy day-to-day lives, it’s easy to forget to take the time to be thankful for all that we have and all of those who helped us get there, but that is what the Thanksgiving holiday is all about, right? Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I wanted to reflect on some of the things for which I am most grateful over the past year. I encourage you to do the same – make a list of everything and everyone for which you are most thankful (you can do this for both your personal and professional lives). It can be really inspiring to take a step back and realize all of the wonderful bounty that you have in your life. Here are nine reasons why I’m thankful this year. Happy Thanksgiving!

I had the opportunity to interview my good friend Andy Laver who is about to take center stage as the co-chair of the 2019 LMA Conference, which will be held in Atlanta on April 8-10, 2019.

To say that Andy is active in LMA would be the understatement of the year. In fact, his list of LMA accomplishments and volunteer activities is quite impressive. Andy was the president of the LMA Metro Philadelphia Chapter in 2014, joined the LMA’s Governance Committee in 2015, served as co-chair of the 2nd Annual Philadelphia Conference in 2016, served on the 2017 LMA Annual Conference (Las Vegas) Advisory Committee and is currently serving as a co-chair of the LMA Governance Committee (ok, now I’m going to take a breath!). In addition, in 2018, Andy served as a co-host of the Facebook Live reporting team for the 2018 LMA Conference in New Orleans along with me (more on that in a bit), following an successful LMA Facebook Live launch at the 2017 Conference in Las Vegas. 

Speaking at a conference has many benefits – it helps you build your brand, establish yourself as a subject-matter expert, increase your professional network and open doors that can lead to new connections, jobs, referrals and so much more. Kara McKenna and I recently had the good fortune of serving as co-programming chairs of the 2018 #LMATech Midwest Conference, which was a great way for us to get to know each other better and also learn what makes a good and bad speaking submission.

We learned about innovations taking place within our industry and those legal marketers who are leading them. We also picked up some helpful skills on what makes a compelling speaking submission and the reverse of that – what does not.

After reading through more submissions than we can count at this point, we feel like we are in a position to give advice on how potential speakers can make themselves stand out from the pack. We put some tips together in an article for JD Supra “Want to Be Selected as a Conference Speaker? Here’s How to Increase Your Chances.”  

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I learned something really important at this year’s 2018 LMA Annual Conference: Successful people are not necessarily happy. But happy people are more likely to be successful.

The takeaway? You should really care about incorporating happiness into your life. Here’s why: In addition to being more successful in their careers, happy people are more productive in their jobs, experience better health and therefore live longer lives. They are also kinder, less hostile and more productive, and the list goes on. To me this seems like the most enthusiastic PSA for happiness in the history of PSAs.

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At the heart of this year’s Legal Marketing Association’s 2017 Southeast Conference was the importance of integrating the voice of the client in all marketing and business development efforts.

The message: firms that are successfully able to adopt the client-centric mindset and delight their clients will have a significant advantage over their competitors. 

It’s important to remember that the role of the client can be different things to different professionals. For example, if you are an in-house legal marketer, your clients are not only your traditional external clients, but also the lawyers at your firm, your colleagues in other administrative departments, your COO, etc. And if you are a business partner/service provider, anyone and everyone can potentially be a client or a referral source.

I was lucky enough to once again have the opportunity to speak at LMASE17 (more about that a bit later). A talented group of industry speakers provided attendees with actionable and innovative ideas under the conference’s theme of “mapping the future.” Here are some highlights: 

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I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak at the 2016 LMA Southeastern Chapter Conference last week. It was my first time attending this conference, and it was well worth the trip to Orlando as it was the perfect size to facilitate networking, collaboration and learning.

A talented group of industry speakers provided attendees with actionable and innovative ideas to inspire under the conference’s theme of “grow, innovate and succeed.” Some highlights included: