RJon Robins

If you were Dean of your Alma Mater, what would YOU put on the curriculm?

October 1, 2006 by RJon Robins

Matt Homman over at The [non] Billable Hour turned me onto this article about Yale’s business school experimenting with a new MBA curriculum:

The heart of the new first-year curriculum is a series of eight multidisciplinary courses, called Organizational Perspectives, that are structured around the organizational roles a manager must engage, motivate, and lead in order to solve problems — or make progress. These roles are both internal to the organization — the Innovator, the Operations Engine, the Employee, and Sourcing and Managing Funds (or CFO) — and external to the organization — the Investor, the Customer, the Competitor, and State and Society.

I think this is a great idea for law schools to consider. . . teach a curriculm based around the real-world experience of lawyers. In Canada students must spend a couple of weeks “articling” in a variety of different practice areas.

So, if you were Dean of your Alma Mater, what would YOU put on the curriculm? This is not a rhetorical question. I don’t want to color your opinions with my own. . . I’ll explain why later, but I’d appreciate any thoughts or suggestions from readers of this blog.

Can you begin a sentence with the words “and” or “but”?

September 28, 2006 by RJon Robins

Yes You Can!

Check it out: http://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2005/11/but_its_okay_an.html

Taking Your Time: Why You Shouldn’t Rush to Fire a “Bad” Employee

September 25, 2006 by RJon Robins

I know it sounds counter-intuitive NOT to fire a lawyer employee or a bad secretary, or any other bad employee for that matter. But if you ever hope to get control of your law firm – so you can finally have a life – you have to approach the problem in a deliberate and analytic way in terms of managing your law firm staff. You change one thing at a time. And if you’ve changed the secretary a couple of times already & the problem doesn’t improve, then the problem isn’t with the secretary so you look somewhere else! Most of the time the problem is in your systems, or lack thereof.

If there’s interest in this subject I’ll expound upon it.

My Lawyer “Wrote The Book” On This!

September 20, 2006 by RJon Robins

A lawyer recently what I thought about her idea of sending her elder law clients and their adult-children, home with a book about caring for one’s elderly parents. She said she pays around $11 per book and find that the children (who are often very influential in the decision-making-process) often refer to the book when asking follow-up questions after the Sales Call.

I suggested to her (and to you) that you you write your own book based on your own experiences with clients. You don’t have to rip-off anyone else’s material but if you find a book on a similar topic relevant to your practice area, and the basic structure works, you can use it as an outline and tell your own stories.

Use real-life examples of situations you have helped clients with.
Use real-life examples where you were not able to help clients because they came to you too late in order to illustate the point about thinking ahead.
Tell clients ahead of time all the things you wish they knew ahead of time before they come into your office.

And don’t be afraid to give clients enough info to help themselves if the problems they are bringing to you are simple enough. If you have a high-end practice, then those are probably not the kinds of problems you want to be working on anyway. And if you have a high-volume practice, the clients will hire you anyway, and with more confidence, when they appreciate just how much easier it is to pay you than try & do it theselves.

Send the book to the client or prospective client BEFORE they come to your office so that they are better informed, don’t waste your time or theirs asking basic questions you already addressed in the book, and already feel comfortable with you by the time they arrive at your office. Your Sales Calls will go much easier because rapport will have been established for you and conversion rates will improve dramatically. Plus, as an added bonus, your clients themselves will begin finding areas of work for you to help them with that you may not have discovered until much later in the process.

If you write a good book, or better-yet record the whole thing on CD for their convenience, you will soon also be able to increase your fees with little resistance.

Where to find 700 great new clients

September 13, 2006 by RJon Robins

As reported in the ABA Journal, an annual survey of corporate counsel contains leads for where a Proactive Rainmaker can find more than 700 great new clients. . .

It seems some 70 percent of corporate counsel surveyed—most from Fortune 1000 companies—were dissatisfied with their primary law firms. A little more than half of the corporate counsel reported they had replaced or demoted at least one of their primary law firms in the 18 months prior to the survey—largely without any more notice than a reduction in assignments.

The survey report, How Clients Hire, Fire and Spend: Landing the World’s Best Clients, attributed the decline to three key factors. The law firms:

Fail to keep up with clients’ changing needs.
Do not articulate the value they deliver.
Do not communicate well with clients.

The results show customer service in a corporate-client relationship is paramount, and it is “not just about returning phone calls,” says BTI president Michael B. Rynowecer. “The major components of client satisfaction are the ability to make legal expertise client-specific, to understand the client’s business, to go beyond what’s anticipated and to achieve the client’s goals.”

Does any of this sound familiar? It should be old-news to the Rainmakers who have listened to any of my programs, attended any of my teleseminars, or read some of my free weekly e-zine articles. Attract new clients to your law firm with PROBLEM SOLVING SELLING!

PROBLEM SOLVING SELLING!

Half of responding companies reported that they planned to try at least one new firm.

And that, says the President of BTI Consulting Group, the market research and management consulting firm that conducted the survey, “creates an opportunity for a new set of customer-driven, proactive, savvy, well-positioned, innovative law firms.”

If you are tempted to disregard this information because you think it doesn’t pertain to your small or even solo practice, you would be missing the point entirely!

Who to make sales calls on if you’re a family law atty. (advice applicable for non-family law attys too!)

September 12, 2006 by RJon Robins

A family law practitioner recently asked me “I don’t know what kind of sales calls are appropriate for potential divorce, custody, child support, termination of parental rights clients I might try without being
terminally tacky. I doubt any exist. I’d also risk soliciting business, which is unethical practice in [my state].”

After some back & forth I figured out that what she was really asking was “Who should I be making sales calls with?” not what kind of sales calls should you make.

The kind of sales calls that you should be making as a family law attorney are those which focus on identifying, analyzing and helping people to solve their problems. And the people with whom you could/should be conducting these Sales Calls include accountants, estate planners, family therapists, religious leaders in the community, real estate agents etc. All of these professionals have problems/opportunities you may be in a position to help them solve whenever they encounter a person who needs to find a divorce attorney, etc.

Subscribe now

Turn your phone
into a classroom!

Connect with our

Community

Read This

Manifesto

to Discover How to
Create REAL Profits