How to Have a Persuasive Handshake

First impressions are everything, including how you shake hands with another person. This short article will point you down the right road if you'd like your handshake to be its best.

Are Law Firms Spending Their Marketing Dollars on the Right Objective?

If over 90% of all new legal work comes from referral relationships, why don't law firms spend 90% of their marketing budget on growing their referral network?

Just a question.

Facebook is a Business Tool

I am on Facebook and quite happy to be there -- it serves me professionally and socially.

The other day I jumped into a conversation with several senior executives -- I'd overheard one of them state, "Facebook is not useful for business people. It's mostly for young folks..." I emphatically replied, "Facebook gives me back my village!"

Just to be straight up, I am not paid by Facebook nor do I know anyone that works there, but what I am finding there makes a lot of social sense.

I certainly Twitter, I'm on Linkedin, I blog (duh!) and have profile pages on a few other sites around the Internet, and the common thread among these is they are all confined to a narrow professional and/or personal niche. None of them show the "complete me".

On Facebook my social and professional life cross over and people can see a more complete picture of whom I am -- which I am happy for them to know.

Look at it this way; long ago when we lived in villages and small towns everyone knew everything about everyone. It did not matter what our profession was or what friends we had -- in a village there is no place to hide. Trust was built between people that could know all there is to know. I like that.

I want people to know all about me so that I can cross the bridge between knowing and trusting as quickly as possible. And on Facebook that bridge is being built. So I update, send out "what's on your mind" posts, join groups and participate in the activities of my village.

I would encourage every professional to get engaged and use the tools we are offered to get connected, be known, and be trusted. It WILL work for you!

Lawyers Need to Be on Linkedin!

Are you on Linkedin? For myself and many of the professionals in my circle this is an odd question -- of course I am there! It's the new, new white pages for professionals! But, still too often I have marketing conversations with lawyers around the topic of being listed on Linkedin and their response is, "I get email invites but I just push them to the trash bucket. I don't want to hassle with all that stuff."

What!?

OK, I kind of understand. Five years ago I was in the same place -- all these random emails coming in to connect with someone via Linkedin or similar site. It seemed like it WOULD become intrusive. Yet the opposite happened. It turned out that everyone is totally turning to the Internet to find out anything about whatever whenever.

No one opens a phone book first. We all jump on our computer and Goggle (or Bing for you Microsoft fans). Me, if I am looking for a person -- I surf to Linkedin first. If that person is not on Linkedin I have just learned a lot by finding nothing.

My advise to any lawyer not on Linkedin, get on or get lost (as in "invisible").

WJF Institute Has Great Client Teaming Ideas for Lawyers

Until I joined Allen Matkins I had only heard of "Flannery" business development training for lawyers -- in less than four weeks I am disciple.

After working through two phases of his training experience and meeting him yesterday (in Austin, TX) I will confess that he gets the BD struggle BIG TIME.

I have never directly endorsed any consultant and this time I think I will. Visit www.wjfinstitute.com. Bill teaches success.

The Vendor Client Relationship in the Real World