Today is my Bloggoversary!
One year ago today, I started this blog. It has been an incredible journey. Thanks for the company!
MoreSpace
I mentioned briefly that I’m involved in the MoreSpace project. Last week, we had to submit our proposals, and I have just under three weeks to get my first draft done. Here is my proposal, loosely titled “Building the Service-Centered Firm.” I welcome your comments.
Building the Service-Centered Firm
A bold proposal to bring customer service back to the professional service firm.
How can professional service providers become professional providers of service? In my essay, I’ll argue that lawyers (and other professionals such as accountants, architects, and designers) who have embraced hourly billing have based their entire business on a model that rewards inefficiency and is at odds with the best interests of the clients they serve. I will then offer one hundred (or thereabout) practical yet innovative ways these professionals can build their “perfect firm” by revamping their business model and putting their customers first.
I propose to organize my essay in the following “chapters.” In each chapter, I’ll have between five and fifteen tips, ideas, and action items for the readers to apply to their own businesses. I’m still roughing out the chapter descriptions, but this is what I have so far:
1. Learn to think for yourself. Lawyers, in particular, are paid to be innovative and creative, but only on their clients’ behalf. Professionals get so caught up in fixing their clients’ problems that they seldom apply that same creative energy on their own businesses.
2. So, what do you do? You can’t be everything to everybody. Satisfaction in any professional practice depends upon knowing what you do well and building your practice around your strengths.
3. It really is the billable hour, stupid. Until professionals learn how destructive hourly billing can be to our relationship with our clients we will never be able to take the leap and become superlative providers of professional service.
4. Fire your worst clients. This one seems like a no-brainer, but it is essential that you build your perfect firm around the clients you most want to serve. It is impossible to consistently deliver exceptional service unless you like the people you work for.
5. Identify your best clients. Just as you don’t pick out a box and then find a present to put in it, you can’t build a business based upon delivering superlative customer service until you identify that customer you want to serve.
The next five “chapters” will be the meat of my essay. I will give dozens of customer service ideas and strategies that fall mainly under these broad chapter titles:
6. Have something cool to sell.
7. Make sure your customers want it.
8. Give some of it away for free.
9. Make the rest of it simple to buy.
10. Don’t sell it to everybody.
Finally, my last chapter will be my thoughts on the future of professional services in this country – including the commoditization of law practice. I will suggest that those professionals who fail to embrace change now will be forced to do so, and on much poorer terms, in the near future.
Chicago, Blogwalk, and Bloggers as Starving Artists.
I just had an amazing weekend in Chicago. Dennis (the Dennis Kennedy Blog) Kennedy and I drove up together (while holding our combined law firm retreat) and beat the 18 inches of snow by about an hour. The purpose of our trip was to check out in person the Catalyst Ranch space where we are holding LexThink! Chicago and attend BlogWalk Chicago.
As excited as I was about LexThink before traveling to Chicago, after seeing Catalyst Ranch, I am even more enthused. Eva, the Catalyst Ranch owner showed us around, and words can’t describe how perfect the space fits our vision of LexThink.
The best part of the weekend, however, was BlogWalk Chicago. Dennis and I joined these amazing bloggers and visionaries for a day of free-ranging discussions using the same OpenSpace method we will be relying upon for LexThink. Here is the who’s who:
- Jack Vinson
- Lilia Efimova
- Jim McGee
- David Burn
- Steve Dembo
- AKMA
- Denham Grey
- Tom Sherman
- Al Delgado
- Stuart Henshall
- Mark Bernstein
- Shannon Clark
- Martin Geddes
- Phil Wolff
I’m still trying to collect my thoughts for a more detailed post, but one concept that really crystallized for me is that bloggers are the the new starving artists — we allow our passion for producing our product (the information in our blogs) to adversely impact our ability to rationally place a value upon it. In the room in Chicago, I was humbled to be in the company of big-thinking people who really “get” the way blogging can change the world. There must have been 500+ GREAT ideas thrown out by the collective. Many of the ideas could support a small business of ten employees for a year or more. Only a few of us, however, had made any money directly from blogging (and I’m not retiring anytime soon on my first Law.com revenue sharing check). What this means to me is that there is no better time to be a buyer of blogging talent — not for the blog per se, but for the incredible, inventive talented mind behind it (more on this later).
Why not ask the client?
As I said the other day, I’m in New York for LegalTech next week. I’m coming in Sunday the 30th and leaving on Wednesday. If you would like to get together, drop me a line.
I was looking at the list of presentations and found this gem:
Cost Recovery: How To Effectively Recover Client Costs:
As costs associated with Internet- and equipment-based client services continue to pile up for law firms, technology is keeping pace to help firms recoup these costs and prevent an adverse effect on profitability. Effective cost recovery systems must manage these billable charges - everything from Internet research to printer, fax, phone and copier activity - from the minute they're incurred all the way through billing and reimbursement. This session explores what law firms should look for when selecting a cost recovery system, with an emphasis on intuitive, easy-to-use hardware options, seamless integration with financial systems and elimination of administrative headaches.
In my firm, we don’t charge for copies, faxes, or phone calls. Maybe at this presentation, I’ll learn how to turn my normal overhead into thousands of dollars of profit. I’m sure my clients will love me for it — especially if I tell them I am using “intuitive” and “easy-to-use” hardware that “seamlessly integrates” with my financial systems and “eliminates my administrative headaches.”
LexThink! Chicago Invites on the Way!
Well, we’ve made our list and checked it twice and the first round of invitations to LexThink Chicago will go out in the next 24 hours. Dennis, Sherry and I have winnowed the list down from almost 200 candidates to the 50 or so who will receive invitations tomorrow morning.
Some important points:
1. There has been an incredible response to LexThink, and we were amazed at the number of people who requested invitations. Though we are not positive at this point, there is a real possibility of another LexThink later in the year.
2. The informal discussions we’ve had with people to gauge their interest have been very, very positive. We already have received preliminary commitments from a number of “A-Listers” from the worlds of technology, customer service, marketing, and law.
3. We will keep the cost for the first LexThink down under $200.00. This first conference is an experiment. We are not trying to profit, only prove that a mixture of incredibly smart and motivated people from varied backrounds can come together to build a better professional services firm.
4. We will ask everyone who gets an invitation to respond quickly with a “yes” or “no” so we can send invitations to people on the waiting list as soon as possible.
5. If you don’t get an invitation, even though you asked for one, don’t despair. We are going to include you in the LexThink community in a number of ways — including giving you access to the LexThink Blog/Wiki (now in development) and giving you a priority invitation to the next LexThink.
6. We are finalizing the “agenda” for the first LexThink, but are seriously considering using OpenSpace Technology as a framework for running the collaborative brainstorming sessions. There will be no long speeches, no boring presentations, and no PowerPoint!
Continue to watch this space for future information. See you in Chicago in April!
More Billable Hour Hell
I’ve been wanting to write something insightful about this article and the lessons lawyers should take from it, but I am totally swamped right now, so just go read it:
I’ll be back on Monday with some great new LexThink! news.
Quote of the Week
This one is mine:
I’d rather fail at something I love, than fail at something I hate.
LegalTech New York
I am going to be attending LegalTech New York later this month (arriving 1/30 and departing 2/2). If anyone is going to be at the conference, or would like to meet me for a cocktail or two, drop me a line.
Small Firm Lawyers Tsunami Fund!
Denise Howell posts about how big firms are contributing large sums of money to aid tsunami victims. What about the small firm lawyers? The small firm lawyers I know are among the most generous and giving people on this planet. I’d wager that most lawyers in small communities give a far greater percentage of their income (and time) to community and charitable organizations then do their big firm counterparts, although the big firms get all the press.
Today, I am issuing the Small Firm Tsunami Relief Fund challenge: I want to raise at least $100,000 for tsunami relief in the next three months — to be given to Save the Children — on behalf of small-firm lawyers everywhere.
As I often do, I’m posting this idea without thinking through all of the details. I’ll work on those this weekend, but here are some possibilities:
1. Get a company that serves solo and small firm lawyers to match all donations up to a certain level.
2. Call upon the solo and small firm sections of various national, state, and local bar associations to get the news out to their members.
3. Set up some sort of mechanism to accept the pledges and forward them on to Save the Children as a lump sum.
4. Partner with all of the blawggers out there who write for a small firm audience.
I know there are a lot of details to work out, and I welcome your comments and suggestions. I’d even suggest a conference call next week if anyone is serious about helping me with this. E-mail me at smallfirmlawyer@gmail.com and let’s make this happen!
Improving Customer Service
I came across this great article in Harvard Business School’s Working Knowldge newsletter titled Nail Customer Service. There are some really great examples of ways to address customer service bottlenecks, but my favorite part of the article is this: One copier company, for example, created what they called a "wall of washers." They saw that their product design engineers were specifying unique washers for each of their products. This caused huge problems in keeping local spare parts inventories, and resulted in big delays in repairs. To emphasize the point, one clever vice president had his staff collect every unique washer and paste them on a wall. There were over 1,000. The vice president brought the product design engineers to see the wall of washers. As a result, the engineers quickly began to redesign products to have a maximum number of common parts. The impact on service intervals, the time between when a customer calls and when the machine is fixed, was striking. And, inventory costs dropped through the floor. I suggest you try a similar exercise — especially you general practitioners out there. Take a pad of post it notes and write one of the legal services you offer on each one. Be as specific as possible. For example, don’t just write “Family Law,” but write “Dissolution of Marriage,” “Adoption,” “Child Custody,” etc. (alternatively, take each of your active cases and write its name on a note). Now, post the notes on the wall and step back and look at the number of notes you have. If you are overwhelmed, do something about it, and maybe you’ll find a similar positive impact upon your ability to serve your customers.
What will you say "no" to?
Sam Decker has this absolutely amazing list of things he resolves to say “no” to:
1. What strategies, initiatives and activities will you say no to?
2. What measurements will you not pay attention to?
3. What customers will you not target?
4. What people will you not keep?
5. What competitors will you not follow?
6. What will you remove from your web site?
7. What money will you not spend?
8. What meetings will you decline?
9. What trips will you not make?
10. What slides will you not create?
11. What will you not say?
12. What thoughts will you not entertain?
Read Sam’s entire post — especially the comments under each “resolution” — and resolve to not do some things yourself this year.
Quote of the Week
Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there. — Josh Billings (Thanks to Getting Things Done – The Broad View for the quote)
Tear apart your competition.
Another one from Sam Decker’s Blog (attributed to Martin Lindstrom):
Some years ago, an Australian takeout pizza place used the Internet in an attempt to boost sales. Traffic was slow. Hardly anyone visited the site. The need for an increase in traffic was urgent.
If traditional online media planning had been used, banners and links would have been purchased and the URL added to the shop's phone-book entry. It might even have invested in some traditional ads.
The pizza place went a different route. Instead of spreading money between off- and online ads, it spent the entire budget on radio. The spots were simple but extremely effective. So effective, the restaurant's increased business caused most of the local competition to shut down.
How'd it do it?
Instead of offering discounts or merely promoting its URL, the pizza place's radio ads asked listeners to tear out all the pizza-restaurant pages from their yellow pages and bring them in. In return for the pages, customers received a free pizza of their choice and a sticker with the restaurant's URL.
Legal Buzzword B.S.
Michael Cage, in his newly renamed Local Small Business Success S.T.A.K.S. Blog (Strategies, Tactics And Kick-Ass Systems, if you must know) suggests playing this Buzzword B.S. game:
When someone, especially a consultant who is trying to take your money, explains what they are going to do using a buzzword, tell them to explain it again. But without the buzzword. When I first started doing this, I added on: “…and do it in one sentence.” Problem was, they’d end up giving me a 97-word sentence. So, nowadays, I just ask the question and wait. … If they can’t clearly explain it in one sentence, they don’t know what they are talking about. And they get no money.
How would you respond if one of your clients started playing this game with you?
When a client demands hourly work.
In his Entrepreneur’s Blog, Scott Allen discusses using a retainer instead of just billing clients on an hourly basis. He includes this question and answer from a PR discussion list he belongs to:
Q: I have a new prospective client that wants to buy hourly rates instead of a retainer. What reasons would you give a client why a retainer is better for them and why hourly services are not a good option for them?
A: What's the problem? Give him your hourly rate along with the minimum number or hours he has to purchase -- in advance -- every month. (Answer comes from list member Rob Frankel)
More Space
In my Nice Things post, I hinted at an essay I was working on. Now, its official. I’m one of nine (soon to be ten) contributors to the More Space project. For my part, I’m contributing a 10,000 word essay on customer service and innovation in professional services firms. Here are the others involved:
Evelyn Rodriguez from Crossroad Dispatches
Rob May from Businesspundit
Johnnie Moore from johnniemoore.com
Curt Rosengren from Occupational Adventure
Jeremy Wright from Ensight.org
Andrea Learned from Learned on Women
Lisa Haneberg from Management Craft
Todd Sattersten from A Penny For...
Todd Sattersten is putting this all together. There will be a book, as well as on-line access to all of the essays. For more info, check out the blog. I’ll have more on my progress when I start making some.
Should I Charge Legalmatch for Advertising on my Blog?
In my agreement with Law.com, I'm not supposed to sell any other advertising on my blog. It seems a reasonable demand since they are paying me millions of dollars each month to be part of their Blog Network. You see, I think I may be violating my contract because Randy Wells, who became LegalMatch CEO when his predecessor was indicted, left two comments to posts (here and here) on my blog today. It seems to me that when you read the comments -- and I encourage you to do so -- you are getting a thinly-veiled advertisement for the LegalMatch service. Now, as David at Ethical Esq. tireless points out, I'm all about making money, but I really don't want to ruin a good relationship with my friends at Law.com. It would be far better, in my opinion, for Randy to pony up the big bucks, call the American Lawyer Media advertising department, and buy the huge honkin' ad on the right side of my blog instead of posting comments to two posts from several weeks ago that very few people read in the first place.
As for the breach of contract issue, I think I'll leave Wells' comments for now, but if you do go to LegalMatch, be sure to tell them I sent you. Maybe they'll think of me as one of their affilliates and I can get a referral fee. Oh, and if you are wondering, I did try to leave an "ad" for the [non]billable hour on the LegalMatch Blog, but they don't have comments enabled.
Vote Early, Vote Often
My write-in candidacy for Legal Affairs Magazine's "Top Twenty Legal Thinkers in America" award is picking up steam. I have a campaign manager on board and Evan has agreed to be my speech writer and to advise me on matters of tort reform. I've chosen Dennis to serve as my chief of staff. Heck, I've even got my head of the patent office on board.
I'd really like your vote. Vote for a practicing lawyer. Vote Homann!