By: Yuliya LaRoe, Confident Entrepreneur International
You are a professional. You are smart, driven, ambitious, and focused. And you don’t want just a career…
You want a GREAT legal career that gives you Influence, Independence and Control.
And you know that these days to grow and move your career forward it’s simply not enough to be a great lawyer, draft excellent briefs, and make outstanding arguments. You know that in order to develop a truly successful legal career you’ve got to be just as savvy in the “business” of law as you in the “practice” of it.
(Or at least I hope that you do…)
Now what exactly are you supposed to be doing? Networking? Writing blogs? Marketing yourself? And where? How often?
And most importantly, where will you find the time to do it all?
What if there was a way to easily incorporate all these activities into your daily schedule?
There is! Read on:
DO THIS DAILY
Read Industry News:
Read blogs, news, and forums and save relevant pieces to either use as ideas for future blog posts or to share with your clients, referral sources and colleagues.
A great app to use to make saving the information you find is Evernote and its Google Chrome extension called “Web Clipper,” which allows you to quickly and easily clip articles, text, and images right into your Evernote account.
Engage on LinkedIn:
Spend 5-10 minutes on LinkedIn, reviewing updates from your network, and leave brief comments.
Did someone change jobs or is celebrating a professional anniversary? Congratulate them. Do you like a blog post someone written? Tell them what you think.
The bottom line is share your feedback and let people know you care.
DO THIS WEEKLY
Networking: The Rule of 1-1-2-3
[1] Attend (At Least) One Networking Event:
After you schedule your networking events (see below under Monthly Planning), be sure to have at least one event per week planned. You want to increase your visibility and stay on “top of mind” for your colleagues, referral sources, and prospective clients.
[1] Do (At Least) One Face-to-Face Meeting:
Who should you be meeting with? Your clients, colleagues, mentors, referral sources, classmates, and new connections you made through networking. Sure there is phone and email but nothing replaces that personal connection you create when you meet with someone one on one.
[2] Make (At Least) Two Phone Calls:
Before you make the call plan out what you want to talk about. Don’t just call with that uninspiring: “Hey, I just called to say hello.”
Instead see if you can offer some useful information. Have they won an award recently, been promoted, or recognized for something? Then perhaps some congratulations are in order. Or you can call to ask for their advice or to pick their brain. Be creative and always think how you can add more value.
[3] Send (At Least) Three Emails:
A great way to stay in touch with people in your network is by sharing with them blogs or articles they will find interesting or events they may want to attend. One of my clients does this consistently with great success: every week she does quick research on the events that are happening in the city and then emails a few of her contacts with the information. Even if they already know about the event they always appreciate her thinking of them.
Creating:
Dedicate Up to Two Hours to Researching and Writing Your Next Blog:
No need to spend loads of time creating your new blog or article. All you need is a couple of hours every week to sort through your research (see DO THIS WEEKLY Read Industry News above), decide on a topic, and begin to write.
Spend 20 to 30 minutes at a time. If you are on the roll, great – keep going. If you have a writer’s block, spend the 20 minutes and if nothing comes, come back to it the next day. The goal is to pace yourself and be consistent.
Research and Prepare For Your Next Speaking Opportunity:
Speaking is one of the most powerful and effective ways to increase your visibility, raise your expert profile, impress the people in your network, and attract prospective clients. Personally I speak multiple times a month with great success.
Where should you speak? Search for opportunities online. First start by Googling. Check out events on LinkedIn. Connect with your local professional or industry organizations.
What should you be speaking about? Your goal is to always deliver value to your audience. You do that by speaking about something that will help them solve one of their immediate challenges, or offer insights, or educate them. Make sure that 85% of your presentation is focused on delivering value and no more than 15% is on self-promotion.
DO THIS MONTHLY
Planning:
Set Your Monthly Goals and Create an Action Plan:
We can all agree that in order to achieve something – like building your book of business – we must start with setting some business development goals for yourself.
What does the typical goal setting process looks like? For most us go-getters, it starts with writing out looooong to do lists. But that only gets you overworked and overwhelmed.
The best goal setting process starts not with writing out your to-do list, but with you developing a clear picture of your destination, your own definition of what success looks like to you. This picture must be based on what you want to achieve in all facets of your life – business, professional and personal.
Create Your Monthly Networking Events Schedule:
Once a month sit down and create a list of all the networking events in your area that you are interested in attending. Use your assistant (if you have one) to help you in this process. Then go through that list and calendar the ones that you are going to attend. Plan on at least one event per week.
Also you can use this research to connect with people by sharing yours finds (these networking opportunities) with them.
Develop Your Relationship Building Strategy:
Review your current network and get strategic about your relationships. Who is most important to your success? Who do you need to reconnect with? If you are not sure, click here check out how you can develop specific tactics and concrete action steps to cultivate strong, long lasting relationships with your key contacts.
Get Published:
Some people blog weekly, others blog or write a couple of times a month. I recommend to blog at least once a month.
Why blogging? This is a great way for you to stay connected with people by offering something of value to them – a piece of advice, an insight, a great case study or client success story.
Where can you publish? The most obvious place is on your own or your firm’s website. But don’t stop there. Find relevant publications that your idea prospective clients or referral sources read and get them published there. For example, the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Corporate Counsel Magazine, etc.
Speak:
Give a talk, teleclass or webinar once a month. This is going to take more planning and coordination, however, it’s the marketing activity that will generally have the biggest impact. Through speaking you’ll also grow your network, raise your expert profile, and generate leads to qualified prospective clients.
To your success ,
Yuliya
P.S. Want to share your tips, ideas, challenges or questions about marketing? I’d love to hear from you and will provide free coaching advice.
Also, if you think that someone you know might find this useful, share this article with them. Sharing IS caring!
About Yuliya LaRoe: After almost 10 years of practicing law as counsel for a number of Fortune 500 companies, Yuliya left corporate America and put her skills to the test as an entrepreneur. And in just 3 short years, Yuliya created a powerful business, career, and leadership development platform for other female attorneys.
Over the years, she refined her own signature systems, strategies and expertise to exclusively focus on supporting women lawyers to help them build successful legal practices while creating lives they love.
Yuliya’s prior years of experience working as a female lawyer in a large law firm allows her to relate to the female lawyer clients she serves in a direct and powerful way. Yuliya is frequently invited to speak in front of professional women groups and has been featured in Miami Herald, Work Awesome, Bloomberg Radio, and other media outlets.
For more information, please visit www.ConfidentEntrepreneur.com.