The Risk of Failure

The message of this video is a good one, so long as you don't concentrate on ULTIMATE failure. Watch it, then I'll explain.

Obviously, you can't start your solo practice with an attitude of "well, failure happens." But failures are going to happen along the way. Not just court losses, but maybe slow months, an inability to meet expenses, a lost client here and there, even failed professional relationships.

You have to slog through these setbacks, but you have to do more than that. You have to recognize the failures and spend time analyzing them so you can learn from them and adjust. That's something I don't think I did enough of, though I'm sure making up for it now!

Hat tip: Sheryl Schelin at The Inspired Solo.

Shifting from Marketing Mode to Working Mode is Tough!

I've been in such a fast-paced and time-consuming marketing mode lately that I'm finding it hard to get down to work with the new projects I pulled in during that time. I have enough work to keep me busy full time for about three weeks, but I'm only getting about 4 good hours of work in each day because I start each day with my marketing tasks: attend to the blog, write a post or two, read the day's decisions to look for article ideas, see what prospects I need to follow up with. It's time-consuming and I need to cut back on some of it so I can actually get some work done.

While I realize this intellectually, it's not all that easy to do. My marketing frenzy has been driven by my survival instinct. Like a shark has to move the the water constantly to survive, I have had to be marketing nearly full time. Now that I have actual work to compete with that, it's tough. When I sit down with my work, a part of my brain is gnawing at me, saying "Why aren't you marketing right now? Get out there!" It's as if I'm afraid that I'll start concentrating solely on the work and find out when I come up for air that there are no new projects in the pipeline.

So, how do I get over this uneasiness? I've got to remember that quality work is also a marketing tool, or so says The Greatest American Lawyer.  When I am immersed in an actual project, I'm just engaged in another form of marketing. I'll keep thinking that, anyway, and see if it makes it any easier. I hope so. I don't need the distraction while I'm working.

EVERYTHING is Secondary to Getting Clients

When you start to research how to open your practice, you're going to see advice on everything: technology, office space, library, setting your fees, etc. These things are all secondary to the FIRST thing you need to accomplish: getting clients.

If I were doing it all over again, I would rent the smallest, cheapest office I could, preferably on a month-to-month or short-term lease basis, put a phone, computer and printer/scanner copier in it (and locate the nearest Kinko's for those big copy jobs). The rest of my infrastructure could have been put in place as I went along.

I have a lovely office, but with only sporadic work, it's a little like being all dressed up with no place to go.

Don't Overcomplicate Your Marketing

One of the eerie things about reading self-help or advice materials is that in describing the "problem" they seek to address, their description of the person with the problem sounds exactly like me. It's as if the author had been following me around, watching my every move for the last six months.

It happened most recently when I read this post at Business Development, in which the author writes about how lawyers tend to complicate their marketing efforts by planning and analyzing them to death rather than just getting out there and doing it. Geez, that was almost painful to read.

But "getting out there and doing it," thank God, is something I have already willed myself to do. Fortunately, I had recognized this over-planning problem months ago and have already started correcting it. It's a problem related more generally to the problem of perfectionism, which makes one plan something to death before trying it. I'll have lots more to say about perfectionism in posts to come, I'm sure, for it has dogged me for quite a while.

But boy, did this over-planning ever screw me up for the first 18 months or so of my practice. As a result, I am way behind where I should be in results from marketing.

Here's what the post's author writes to help you overcome fears of giving a speech:

Fine, you probably won't win any prizes for style. Your speech may stink. Your conversations may be awkward. You may feel like an idiot. But you will learn more from actually trying and seeing what happens than you will from a hundred hours spent crafting The Perfect Newsletter. And you know what else? It will be far, far more effective than you suspect.

There's an old adage in sales that applies here. If you're a salesperson, and you meet a hundred prospects -- that is, stand in front of them, and talk to them, you will sell one-third of them, no matter how bad you are. They need what you have, and that's that. Another third will not buy what you are selling, no matter how great you are at communicating. They don't need it, and that's that. The third third, the swing vote, are the ones you can sway with skill. But if you see enough people, even if you have Tourette's Syndrome, you will make plenty of sales.

Ironically, speaking is the one thing of which I am pretty much fearless. That is, I have no generic fear of speaking in front of people. I don't have to use tricks like imagining them all in their underwear to make them less intimidating.

At any rate, my advice is the same: whatever marketing method you select first, just get out there and do it starting on day one. Make a simple plan, then execute it.