Your do less (well) blueprint

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Subject: Your do less (well) blueprint

Success Without Sacrifice

Practical, lawyer-tested strategies for sustainable success in law and life.

What does the phrase “hard work” bring forth for you, Friend?

Most people’s definition of hard work involves some version of more.

For example, when it comes to business development, we think we need to attend more networking events, do more follow-up, speak more, write more, and so on.

But if you look at rainmakers, that’s not really true.

Sure, they do plenty. But they aren’t the ones attending every cocktail hour, sitting on four different committees, writing at least 2 quarterly articles, and speaking at 4 conferences per year.

We think in terms of volume because it’s easy to understand and measure. Unfortunately, volume alone doesn't produce results.

You also need strategy. And not just any strategy, but the right strategy.

That’s why I like to say that success isn’t about doing more; It’s about doing less, well.

There’s only so much time in the day and a cap to doing more. At some point, more effort stops producing better results (it's a big part of why so many lawyers end up burned out - we are great at pushing ourselves and doing more).

So… How can you start doing less (well)?

PHASE 1

Define Your Target

When it comes to goal achievement (especially business goals), it's important to know where you’re going. So you can work backward from there.

Let’s go back to the business development example to showcase what I mean (and why this is so important).

When asked to put together a BD plan, most lawyers jump straight to all the “things” they will do (based on what they see working for other lawyers):

Join a professional association; attend monthly meetings.
Take 1-2 people to lunch weekly.
Attend at least 2 conferences per year.
Write an article every quarter.
Speak on panels regularly.

The problem?

One of the conferences turns out to be start-up heavy. Not your market. The other conference turned out to have a lot of great prospects, but after going to the first one, you weren't confident it would be relevant and showed up without a plan (wasting much of your time there).

Your articles were well received, but they were on topics identified by others and not truly relevant to what you do for your clients.

And after spending hours upon hours on panels, you realize none of them were designed in a way to help you sell your services.

So, of course, you start procrastinating. And making excuses why you "can't" or "don't have time" for anything else right now. This is how you end up with 9 months of zero BD activity.

Imagine instead asking the following questions BEFORE choosing your BD activities:

What type of clients do you want to represent?
What specific matters do you want to work on (and how)?
What will your perfect practice look like 3 years from now (percentages of type of work, team supporting you, your day-to-day activity, etc.)?
Where do your prospects hang out (online and in-person) and/or get their information?
What do your prospects want to know about?
What should your prospects know (that they don't realize they need to know)?

Notice how this gives you a clear picture of (1) where you want to go and (2) where to find your people and what to write/talk about.

PHASE TWO

Choose Your Strategies & Tasks

Choose your strategy first, then pick your tasks to accomplish the strategy.

A strategy is the big-picture what and why. It connects your activity to the vision you defined in Phase 1. The tasks are the individual actions you take that align with your strategy.

So…

Strategy: Create deep relationships with 5 relevant health tech connections.

Tasks:

Attend two health tech conferences this year.
Set up quarterly lunches with three GCs you met at last year's conference.

Strategy: Write regularly on LinkedIn about your 3 core pillars.

Task: Post weekly, rotating through each Pillar regularly.

When beginning, I recommend choosing just two strategies (one marketing, one networking). Take action. Create a habit. Be consistent. Get good at them. You can add on later.

Remember: This is about doing less, well.

When it comes to choosing your strategies:

1. Every strategy should connect back to your vision and goals.

Whatever strategies you choose, they must be designed to get you closer to the vision you have of your future successful practice (and the annual goals you've set for yourself to get you closer to that vision).

Get clear about how they will do that to ensure you're on the right track.

2. Choose strategies that align with your strengths, personality, and current circumstances.

Don’t force yourself to attend large conferences if you’re introverted. Instead, focus on small, targeted conversations at local industry events (that are smaller).

If speaking energizes you, choose it as a main marketing (and networking) strategy. But if you love to write (not speak), then pick writing as your main marketing strategy instead.

And take into account your time constraints. Do you have time to write a full article every month for an industry publication or just enough time for one short LinkedIn post per week?

Once you know your strategies, determine the tasks/activities you’ll do to implement them.

For example, if writing on LinkedIn to establish your brand is one of your strategies, you might choose to:

Publish one post every week, and
Spend one hour weekly on LinkedIn networking.

PHASE 3

Perform Quarterly & Annual Audits

Most lawyers build the plan, execute for a few months, and assume it's not working. Because they don’t measure the ROI from their efforts properly.

Don’t do that!

There are many ways in which to measure ROI. And before new clients walk in the door or revenues increase, you will need to measure the leading indicators.

How many conversations have you had with relevant connections?
Which relationships have deepened, how, and why?
What feedback have you received on your writing or speaking?

If you're taking action, there is something to be learned from it. Analyze what you're learning (about yourself, your audience, what speaks to your people, when an opening for "the ask" tends to occur, and so on).

And then, tweak your plan accordingly. But only after you've given yourself enough time to measure real progress.

If you've never done any marketing and started writing 2x per month 3 months ago, that's not enough time to know much. Be consistent. Have some patience.

And pay attention to what you're learning.

(Not sure how to measure your ROI? I covered this last season on Life & Law here.)

Achieving any goal (even building a profitable book of business) is rarely about doing the most. It’s about doing the right things, consistently.

XO,

Heather

P.S. Listen to today's Life & Law episode about Strategic Business Development for Lawyers to learn even more about how to do less, well, in your business development.

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A B O U T

H E A T H E R

Former BigLaw partner. Lawyer coach. Cancer survivor. Mom x2. Recovering overachiever.

I traded in my $2.5MM+ practice to help lawyers create the kind of success that doesn’t come at the cost of their well-being.

Learn more about me here.

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Subject: Your do less (well) blueprint