Attorney marketing can encompass a number of areas. You might have a media campaign; direct mail, educational marketing, PR, Internet or you might focus your legal marketing on building a referral network. Whatever your attorney marketing approaches, you can focus, assure and enhance your positive results with an effective weekly planning meeting and appropriate delegation.

If you start out attorney marketing without any sort of direction or plan, it is also likely you will be wasting money, right? In target shooting it is ready, aim, and then fire" so too with attorney marketing. Well, the trick is to continue this thinking throughout the marketing life of your firm. The need for focused lawyer marketing does not run out like a warranty. The marketplace, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your circumstances change over time and so should your legal marketing stance.

How To Do An Effective Weekly Planning Meeting

Each week, it is imperative that you sit down with yourself and some paper and get focused on your lawyer marketing. This is your time to think about the practice and where it is going, to consider your mission and goals and what you can do to make them real, and to take a good look at the status of your attorney marketing.

The meeting itself should be scheduled on your calendar as at least a thirty-minute block of time. You should have no interruptions and be able to hold the meeting each Friday towards the end of the day or perhaps early Monday morning. Out of this meeting, you will come up with a fully prioritized to do list as well as a clearer picture of where the practice stands and what you need to do to meet the long term goals of the firm, in your personal life, and in attorney marketing.

How to Make/Prioritize Your Empowering List

For the first part of your meeting pull out your firm mission and 1, 5, 10-year goals (if you have them if not do make them) and review them. Next put something on your weekly to do list that will further at least one of your firm one year goals (you can put more of course). Next, put down the items of all types that must (or it would be best if completed) get done during the upcoming week. Now, for each task, you need to rank it using the letters A, B, and C. To do this ranking A = important and must be done by a lawyer; B = less important and does not require a lawyer (although you personally might have to do it); C = not very important and does not require a lawyer (although you personally might have to do it).

Next, among the As, rank each item with either a 1, 2, or 3. The items marked with a 1 must be done within two days. The items marked with a 2 must be done in three to five days, and the items marked with a 3 can wait until next week if necessary. Do the same with the Bs and Cs.

For example, if you have some attorney marketing task that needs to be done by Monday, then you would mark it an A1. If you have a client that needs specific information from their file by Friday, you would probably mark it a B2 and delegate that to a paralegal. If you have an appointment with the doctor on Friday it would be a C3 since it does not require a lawyer but you need to do it although you could reschedule it if necessary.

Delegating Tasks

Delegate any tasks that are B or C level of importance if you possibly can. If you cant delegate it ask yourself why? No staff? Not enough staff? Not trained the staff? Staff not effective? Fix these issues so you can delegate. Create a form to use that you can give to each team member. Include the following information for each task:

• Todays date

• Due date for task

• What is to be done

• Who is responsible for this task

• Why the task is important

• How often to report to you on progress or status

• Further instructions

You should always keep your marketing goals in mind as you prioritize your list and delegate tasks. The success of your attorney marketing will grow as the skill and effectiveness of your managerial and entrepreneurial time and skills grow.

Henry Harlow

Trainer?Consultant?Coach in Business and Marketing Skills for Attorneys

Henry Harlow has worked with well over 500 attorneys (almost all in individual consultations by telephone.) Henry worked for 6 years in a nationally known training and development firm that works exclusively with attorneys improving their marketing and practice management systems.

Over 40 Years in Consulting, Training and Management:

Henry has over 40 years of experience doing consultation, training, management, marketing and administration for small businesses (owning several), professional service firms, hospitals, and major corporations. One of the small businesses that he built and sold was a psychotherapy practice with 6 locations seeing 400 to 500 clients weekly at the time of the sale.

He has managed marketing operations with ?marketing on a shoestring? budgets as well as marketing budgets over $1,000,000 annually. He has managed organizations with a few employees and organizations with over 70 employees.

Henry has been a consultant to Fortune 500 companies on personnel issues, organizational development and risk management issues. He is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and a licensed facilitator of Get Clients Now!

Academic Training and Licenses:

Henry?s academic training includes a bachelor?s degree with majors in psychology and business as well as a master?s degree in psychology. He is licensed as a psychotherapist with several national counseling certifications.

Interests:

Henry lives in Winter Park, Florida, which is a suburb of Orlando, Florida. Henry is married to Joanne Burger with no children by choice and one cat. His primary interests these days outside his relationship with Joanne are dining out, travel, current events, movies, recreational reading, microcredit in the third world, trading stocks, natural health care, and meditation. He works out 4 to 6 times each week to stay in shape.

Henry works from his home office providing training, consultation and coaching services that teach attorneys how to increase their revenues while they reduce their work hours.