I recently had the opportunity to participate in an interview series with the Legal Marketing Association where they asked some of the speakers of the upcoming LMA19 conference to respond to questions on why they submitted to speak at the LMA Annual Conference, what they hope attendees will learn from their presentation, what they think are the keys for success for legal marketers today and which other sessions they are most excited to attend. Here are my responses. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in Atlanta on April 8-10, and I hope you will join me and Jennifer Carr for our deep-dive workshop session on April 10 at 1:30pm on “Beyond Branding: Aligning Social Media Strategy With Business Development Goals.” Learn more about the session

Many professionals want to step outside of their comfort zones and try different types of professional branding activities such as public speaking, article writing, taking a leadership role on a committee or joining a nonprofit board or starting a blog, but there’s something inside of them that holds them back from doing so.

Here’s what I say to those feelings of self-doubt and negativity (and what you should say too), “Yes you can, and you will!”

It’s not easy to tame our inner critic, but nothing in life that’s worth it ever is, right? We all have tons of self-doubts in our head that wreak havoc on our self-confidence. It’s so important to believe in yourself, in fact, your career depends on it.

A positive mindset goes a long way in determining whether your endeavors fail or succeed. Harsh self-reflections can be very damaging to your psyche and your career. To succeed you must consciously silence these negative thoughts, replace them with proactive thoughts and actions and generally just be kinder to yourself.

I used to be in this category of people who just didn’t believe in themselves and who were overly critical of themselves – let’s just say that I was not the most charismatic public speaker (in fact, I was terrible!) and I beat myself up over it watching videos of myself, critiquing my performance and asking others for feedback where I obsessed over the negative comments.

But I kept at it, I strove to improve what I could, I didn’t give up and I didn’t say no to future speaking engagements just because I had a few so-so experiences. And neither should you.

So what if your speaking engagement is only good not great or if your article just receives a lukewarm reception? You’ll learn from each of these and do better next time. After all, practice really does make perfect. If you work hard for the things you want, they will happen.

The next time you hear that negative voice in your head, I want you to promise to do the following: 

Mark your calendars for March 7 for a Legal Marketing Association webinar titled, “How to Build Your Personal Brand Using Social Media Tools Before, During and After #LMA19” with me, and good industry friends Roy Sexton and Andrew Laver on how to use the upcoming #LMA19 conference in Atlanta on April 8-10 to build and enhance YOUR personal brand using social media! We’ll provide actionable takeaways and ideas for marketers of all levels, including how to build your network before, during and after the conference, how to master the art of the “humblebrag,” how to become a thought leader and published author (even if you’re not a great writer) and how to use free online tools to add eye-catching visuals to your social posts (like the one I created in this blog post, which I used to promote the program on social media as well). Join us! 

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.”  

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend (and speak) at the LMA 2018 Annual Conference, which is THE largest annual meeting of legal marketing and business professionals in the industry.

If your experience was anything like mine, you learned a lot, you made many new valuable connections, you reconnected with industry friends, and you spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall talking to leading service providers about their products and technologies. You likely saw Mario Lopez and quite a few wrestlers in town for Wrestlemania in the common spaces at the Hyatt Regency, and you returned to the office with a ton of information to digest and ideas to implement, which is exciting but also quite overwhelming.