Are You Making Any of These 10 Deadly Business Mistakes?

These traps/mistakes are common to many ADR entrepreneurs .

1. Getting Wedded To an Idea And Sticking With It Too Long.
Don't marry a single idea. Remember, ideas are the currency of entrepreneurs.
Play with many ideas and see which ones bring money and success.

2. No Marketing Plan.
A marketing plan creates the kind of attention you need to get in front of the right
types of people, companies, etc. It is what attracts people to you! There may be as
many as 25 ways to market your business at no or low cost. A good marketing plan
implemented effectively, efficiently, elegantly and consistently, will eliminate
the stress of so called "flying by the seat of your pants".

3. Not Knowing Your Customers.
Changes in your customers' preferences and your competitors' products and services can
leave you in the dust unless you get to know your customers well, what they want now and will likely want in the future, what their buying patterns are, and how you can be a
resource for them even if you don't have the right services for them now!

4. Ignoring Your Cash Position.
The world (aka customers) doesn't respond to even superior products in the timeframe
that you think they should. You'll need plenty of cash to sustain yourself in the meantime.

5. Ignoring Employees.
Motivating, coaching and managing your staff is probably one of your toughest challenges as an entrepreneur/business owner today! Without your patience, persistence and "people skills," your problems can multiply quickly. Morale, productivity AND PROFITS can easily be destroyed!

6. Confusing Likelihood With Reality.
The successful entrepreneur lives in a world of likelihood but spends money in the world of reality.

7. No Sales Plan.
Without a sales plan, there's no serious way to gage the financial growth and progress of
your business. You need a realistic map for where the sales will come from, how they'll
come and from whom.

8. Being a Lone Ranger.
You might be the key to everything BUT you cannot DO everything and grow at the same time.  Even modest success can overwhelm you unless you hire the right staff and delegate responsibility.

9. No Mastermind.
Get an advisory board or a mentor! Sounds crazy for a small operation? It's not! The board can be family members that you trust, or friends. Ask them to be your board of directors and review your business plans and results with them. Having someone to bounce ideas off and get an objective opinion is critical.

10. Giving Up.
Some of the most successful entrepreneurs failed several times before doing extremely well.  So, if you're failing, fail. And fail fast. And learn. And try again, with this new wisdom.

Do NOT give up. Yet, do not suffer, either.

If any of the above situations are stopping you from achieving your success, give me call or email me and I'll be happy to give you a 30 minute consultation for free.

Building Your Own Think Tank

I received a question recently from one of my readers in New Zealand. He asked, “I've heard the term "knowledge network." What does it mean, and how does it fit into my business networking efforts”?

Thanks John. This is a great question.

This is a tool that I have used in my own business development for years.  A “knowledge network” or its more formal cousin an “Advisory Board” can prove invaluable to business people in the resolution industry.

I’ll use my own Board as an example.

Just like you, I have to make decisions about growth strategies, internal systems, and much more. As is frequently the case with any complex project, anyone will begin NOT seeing it clearly after a while. Personally speaking, I was relatively young when I started my company. It was important to recognize that there were lots of business experiences that I hadn’t had yet, and many that I didn’t want to know about first hand. In order to gather the information I needed and avoid some of the inevitable pitfalls, I created an Advisory Board.

My own Board is comprised of business people who have created their own business
successes over the last 45 years. Most of them are entrepreneurs and only about half of them are in the resolution industry. My Board was designed to involve resolution professionals who understand ADR, my business, and my clients’ needs. All of my advisors are very successful in their own industries (e.g. oil & gas, fashion, construction, real estate, healthcare, entertainment etc.). Their commonalities are that they are all highly successful in their own rights.

Since I have clients all over the world, I intentionally invited Board members who live and work around the globe.  Each of them are kept up to date about my business strategies, subsequent growth, quandaries etc. I don’t seek advice from all of them on every situational need.  Most often, a particular need can be matched with a Board member who has the corresponding specific experience. There are times when many of us meet via conference call and many more times that single calls are made to single advisors.

The Board is informal and not paid for their advice – however we have referred work to each other and frequently provide introductions that have proven to be quite lucrative.

How can you build a Board of your own? Seek out those individuals in your area that are successful business people. They will provide you much needed advice and may become tremendous advocates of ADR. Also seek out some of the successful resolutionists in your area to serve as both ADR and business mentors. Explain your current position as well as your goals and endeavors. Go to them with specific questions and challenges that your practice is facing and listen carefully to their advice. My experience has been that the advice from my Advisory Board has been a treasure trove of information that no college degree could ever provide.

The Personal Touch

One of the most rewarding things about being an entrepreneur and a mediator is how you personally identify with your company. Since most of us are solo-practitioners we tend to feel tremendous pride in our practice creation. However, too frequently practitioners treat their practices in an officious and overformal way. Instead try treating your small business a little more warmth.

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I advocate that you never attempt to be something or someone you're not. Phonies don't fool many people for very long. Staying true to your nature almost always pays off in profits. You're not some multinational conglomerate or large bureaucracy. Take advantage of this fact and use the warm, friendly personality of your small business to your benefit. It has an endearing appeal that the 'big boys' would die to acquire, if they only could, and in fact an appeal that they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars feigning. So instead of putting on airs and pretending to be what you are not, put on a smile and get down-home friendly, figuratively speaking of course.

All the marketing dollars in the world cannot buy what you start out with, that friendly demeanor that comes with a new, small-scale entrepreneurial enterprise. Call it the corner store identity, or the 'mom and pop' atmosphere.

Call it anything you like, but take advantage of while you have it.

Begin capitalizing on your practice's small friendly nature, you can and should develop personal marketing habits, and make sure that you live by them, which also has the pleasant side effect of setting an example for your staff if you have one.

Remember that people do business with people they like.

The Words You Choose

Quick Tips:  When writing content for any promotional piece remember to use words that

1.     Have a Benefit Orientation

2.     Are Positive

3.     Are Active as Opposed to Passive

4.     Are Clear

5.     Are Brief

6.     Have a Visceral effect

Writing copy (or content) is all about persuading and motivating your reader.  In order to persuade and motivate your reader you will need to break the process of writing into two sections – the first is prior to writing and the second is while you’re writing.

Prior to writing you need to analyze your service.  First, analyze your practice from both your perspective and your potential client’s.  Find those qualities about your service that you think will be of greatest interest to your target market.  Second, think about your position in the market place.  How and why is your practice and service superior to the competition?  Third, what are the tastes of your readers?  Are they executives, teenagers, housewives, attorneys, governments, etc.?  Alter the “tone” of your message depending on the personality and of the reader.  And fourth, does the copy you have in mind fit with your entire marketing concept?

While you’re writing it’s imperative not to lose sight of the objective: to establish your practice as credible, authoritation, and appropriate via writing something of value to the reader.

Remember to use words that persuade and motivate. 

Here are seven things to keep in mind while writing.

1.     Don’t overstate with too many words like fabulous and extraordinary.  They will destroy your credibility.

2.     Be accurate and truthful.

3.     Be specific.  Vague approximations leave the reader unsatisfied.

4.     Be organized.  Your message should progress logically from headline to clincher.

5.     Write for easy reading.  The style should suit your reader, but some rules apply to all content writing.  Seek to write smooth, uncluttered, involving and persuasive content.

6.     Don’t offend the reader.  Be careful using humor.

7.     Revise and edit – revise and edit – revise and edit.

Writing is a great way to educate your prospective about the industry, the processes, and you and your practice in specific.  But the most important thing about writing to sell is that the information benefits the reader.  Time is valuable.   Asking a prospect to spend their time reading your article, brochure, website, social media post or any other piece is asking them to invest in your information.  Make it worth their effort.

Three Ways To Grow Your Practice (or How to Make More Money)

A confession: I have a reading disorder. A serious vice that requires between 2 and 5 books each week to be satiated.  I am a bookstore owner's fantasy and my library's least profit-producing cardholder.

On that note - while in my favorite bookstore, perusing the business section, I began to count the number of books that attempt to tell you how to grow your business.  I lost count, then lost interest. I have spent hundreds of dollars and euros to own a great number of these kinds of books,  and have read even more of them. If the book is any good, it will eventually get around telling you that the following 3 activities are key to growing any business.

1.Increase your caseload volume,

2.Increase your fees,

3.Increase the amount of repeat business.

Let me save you the time and money of buying or borrowing these books by explaining how each of these apply to resolutionists.

Point number one reads "Increase your caseload volume".

Clear and simple - promote your practice through networking, writing and speaking. These are the time and money-proven most effective strategies for a resolutionist.

On average a practice requires between 18 months and two years to build. Remember that to be successful, you must consider yourself a businessperson first and a mediator second. The same would hold true for any business. If you told me that because you're such a great cook you're going to open a restaurant, my first question would be "what do you know about running a culinary business?" You can't have the second (a mediation or arbitration practice) without the first (some business acumen).

Point number two reads "Increase your fees".

Again - pretty simple, but will depend on a couple of variables (and perhaps one mathematical formula).  If your background or current job is one in which you make money based on billable hours,  like a lawyer or consultant, then you will want to charge at least that same hourly rate.  Your time as a arbitrator / mediator is no less valuable than your time as a consultant or expert witness etc. It's simply a matter of cost opportunity. Your IQ does not diminish as soon as you stop into a mediation. Your time is valuable - put a value to it.

If you have a job that is a salaried position, that is not in the field of law, and you need to determine how much to charge - take the average fee charged by local attorneys within your same practice area. For instance, if you have worked for the State's Health and Welfare Department as a psychologist and are now building a practice with family as the focus, research the average hourly fees local family lawyers charge. If it is less than you make on an hourly basis - keep your current rate. Why on earth would you leave money on the table?

Or, if you just read the previous two paragraphs and are still unclear, try the following mathematical formula. You have to get paid for the work you do, or you will soon have to find some other way to make a living. Not only must you get paid, but you have to get paid enough. How do you know how to charge for your services so that you get paid enough? The economics of a mediation practice are so simple that they can be reduced to the following:

P= (H time B time R) minus C

Where:
H = total hours available
B = percent of those hours that are billable
R = hourly rate
C = costs

If you want to make more money you can lower your costs, increase the percentage of your time on paid work, or increase your rate. You can also work more hours - keeping in mind that as hourly-paid professionals we are all capped on how much our practices will earn unless we increase our rates. Why? Well there are only so many hours in a day dear reader. Once they've been billed out ... where can you go from there?

Point number three reads "Increase the amount of repeat business".

What's that you say ... just a beautiful theory? Wrong. They're more than just a theory, they're the reality for many of us. Referrals are out there. You only have to ask for them. Next time you find yourself in a networking situation, with someone for whom you've worked, or a friend or colleague who socializes or works within your target market, ask them for a referral. Ask them whom in their organization should you speak with about getting cases. Ask them if they know someone who could either directly benefit from your services or someone who could lead you in the right direction. You'll be amazed at the results if you just ask.

So there it is. Growth in a nutshell. My miniature course on "Success 101" and all you had to pay... was attention.

You’re Marketing Check Up

Time for your annual marketing check up. Use the short survey of Robert Middleton's
below to assess your practice development health. Give yourself from 1 to 5 points
on each statement. A perfect score is 125 points.

Positioning Solution. I have a clearly articulated solution statement for my business (Audio Logo) that tells that problems I solve and what solutions I provide my clients.

Target. I know who my clients are, where they are and what benefits and features they are looking for in my kind of service.

Benefits. I have outlined a number of specific client-centered benefits that my clients receive when they use my services.

Uniqueness. I have a Unique Competitive Advantage that explains why I am different than my competition and what that means to my clients.

Qualities. I am clear about the unique qualities I bring to my business and people know me for those qualities.

Packaging Identity. I have an attractive and appropriate "business identity package" with cards and letterhead printed with my own unique company identity.

Value. Everything that I offer my clients is presented as a value to the client. I always answer their question: "What's in it for me?"

Services - What You get. My services, what I do and how I do it, are clearly presented in a brochure, marketing package or web site. It's no mystery what you get.

Pricing and Proposals. I have a well-defined pricing strategy and proposal outline.

Personal Presentation. Everything about my business, including my personal presentation are presented in a way that truly represents who I am.

Promotion Relationship. Through all my promotional vehicles people get a sense of who I am and what my services are really about.

Referrals Systems. I have several ways to actively generate referrals from existing clients.  Referrals are one of my strongest sources of new clients.

Visibility Systems. I stay visible to my target market and expand my credibility through networking, social media and a web site.

Expertise. I communicate my expertise to my target market through speaking to groups and writing/publishing articles.

Keep-In-Touch Systems. I send information to clients and prospects on a regular basis through a newsletter, eZine, social media or other marketing.

Persuasion Focus. Whenever I speak to someone about my services and their needs, I am totally focused on what I can do for them - how I can help.

Needs. I am skilled at building rapport by learning the past and present situation of my prospects through a series of well-thought-out questions.

Objectives. I am skilled at motivating my clients to use my services by discovering
what future objectives are the most important to them.

Presentation. I have a well-structured and well-organized presentation designed to
inform my prospects about exactly how I can solve their problems and meet their objectives.

Recommendation. I am successful in asking for the business. I know what to say and do to win a prospect's commitment to my services.

Performance Communication. I understand that the key to successful client engagements is clear communication.  I work constantly at improving this skill.

Promises. I make clear, unambiguous promises for what I will deliver and what results clients can expect when I undertake an assignment or project. I keep my word.

Requests. I make crystal-clear requests of my clients so they know what I expect of them in a client engagement.

Extra Mile. I don't just offer good service. I do everything in my power to deliver service
that consistently exceeds clients' expectations.

Personal Performance. I stay motivated and true to my personal vision of my business. I get the things done not only for my clients but for myself to make my business successful.

Well..., how did you do? If you scored above 100 you're doing great - keep it up! If you
scored below 100 - you've some work ahead of you and if you scored below 50 - yikes - give me a call and I'll help you get on the road toward a healthy practice.

Are You Ready?

Are you ready to get business to come to you instead of having to spend your time drumming it up.  Odds are that you’re eager to get word-of-mouth and mind share marketing working for you.

But are you ready to do what it takes to get it?

To find out, complete this checklist and then stay tuned to the next six articles for a complete break-down of each component.  You might be surprised to find you’re not as ready as you think.  You might realize why you don’t yet have all the business you can enjoy.  And you’ll know what to do right away to get things going your direction.

Have you decided on a single thing you want to become well known for?

OR…

Are you still trying be everything to everyone?

Have you committed to spending all of your available time, money and energy into developing this one thing?

OR…

Are you dividing your time between numerous possibilities?

Have you developed your own niche that capitalizes on your background and expertise?

OR…

Are you doing what numerous other providers in your area are doing?

Can you clearly demonstrate why you’re the provider prospects should choose?

OR…

Are you just hoping that folks will believe enough in ADR to want to do business with you?

Do you have a long-term plan to reach your prospects and then maintain their attention to create mind share?

OR…

Are you marketing efforts sporadic and inconsistent?

Are you able to follow your plan with the consistency and frequency to attract the clients you’re interested in obtaining?

OR…

Do you let your marketing efforts wax and wane due to a lack of time or interest?

Unless you’re already exceptionally well positioned, getting business coming to you will take time.  How long it will take depends on how ready you are.  You might find that you’re ready immediately.  Conversely you might find that you have several weeks or months to get yourself and your practice in a position to begin attracting clients.  If you rush into trying to get business without positioning yourself solidly, you’ll just have to go back later and redevelop your practice into a better position.

Why not start now?  Check back next week for more.

If you need help with any of the above, just send me a message and together we’ll get you started on the right path.

Don’t Get Lost

Getting lost or overwhelmed by all the choices in social media platforms is easy to do.  It wasn't always this way.  Until the late 1990's marketing and promoting a practice was as easy buying space in newspapers and periodicals or on TV, and doing some smart networking to build trust and lasting relationships.  That was it.  That was the magic bullet.

But in today's market there's no such thing as a magic bullet.  Consumers are more savvy about who we are and what we do.  They know that there are many choices for resolution services.  Establishing trust and creating relationships with prospective clients is still a requirement.  In fact it's the primary asset that we're building.  And only connection, direct connection, does that.  Whatever platform you want to use is fine, as long as it leads to a direct connection with your primary, secondary, and / or tertiary target markets.  In that vein, I always recommend that you use the platform your target market is most comfortable using.  You may not like Facebook, but if that's where your clients are, you need to get really good at using Facebook.  If your clients love it you need to love it too.  The same goes for Twitter, Instagram, etc.

For most resolutionists, LinkedIn is the platform of choice.  Making best use of this platform is a great way to connect, establish credibility, authority, and availability.  Make best use of messages to invite people to connect, thank them for connecting, offering to be a resource for them, and providing them something of value will start the all-important dialogues to creating trust and building business.  If you have connected with previous clients, ask them to endorse you or write a recommendation - the best way to do this is provide an endorsement or recommendation to them first.  LinkedIn is a powerful library of articles - write and post one.  Is video your preference?  Record and post one.  Use LinkedIn to find groups and interact with them.  Comment on your connection's posts.  The key to LinkedIn is to connect and interact.

Regardless of your choice, log on to your social media platform profile and with a critical eye update your bio, update your photograph, make sure that your contact information is complete and correct.  Link to any other platforms and your website.  The goal is to make it easy for prospective clients to confirm your professionalism and contact you.

Being in many places is far less important than occupying one space extremely well.  Own that space and state it clearly eg: "I'm a blogger not a podcaster".  Be in that space in a way that other resolutionists without your tenacity have no way to occupying in the way you do. Do one thing and do it really well.

After all that, if you sincerely feel that you need to be on numerous platforms concurrently, that's fine too.  It can get overwhelming to manage all those accounts however.  You might want to simplify your life by using a social media management tool like Hootsuite.  The point is this ... don't get lost or overwhelmed by all the platforms and then not use any of them.

If you're not sure which platform is best for you, how to use your chosen platform(s), or simply don't want to become the social media master that your practice needs, give me call and I'll help you find the best solution or even help you manage your accounts.

I rather like the new normal.

I know that the last month or two have been strange for most us but hopefully we’re all settling into our new groove. 

One thing I like about this new world is the amount of effort if requires of me.  Last year in order for me to attend a conference I needed to register for the event, sometimes get a visa, book a flight and hotel, deal with airport security, figure out the public transportation from the airport … and on and on and on.  Until it was time to do it all in reverse.  It’s exhausting me just writing about it and I simply don’t have it in me to list the hundred other steps necessary.  But I don’t need to. You probably know them all too well.

In person meetings were a bit easier but only because the effort involved had become normalized.  Buy a car, maintain the car, or figure out how to public transportation, rent an office, furnish and maintain an office, wear a suit and heels, provide snacks and drinks, keep fresh flowers in lobby, set the date and time for us to meet, research and prepare for the meeting, confirm the date time, …. and on and on and on.  Again, I’m leaving out a bunch of steps and little tasks to large efforts.  But you know the drill. 

Now, I ask my clients to let me know the best date and time for me set up a Zoom call, I prepare for the meeting, confirm with them the date and time and send them the Zoom link, log on and get to work.  No heels or train stations necessary.  In fact this might just be the perfect answer for introvert who is cleverly disguised as an extrovert.

I hadn’t really though much about the first two scenarios.  They were just normal.  I didn’t measure the amount of time or energy either of them required because putting all that effort into working with clients was just what I did.  Part of the challenge of a worldwide shift is that all of us have to engage in new effort that we’re not used to. It’s nothing we asked for, and the old effort disappearing didn’t used to feel like much of a benefit.

But now? 

Although I do miss the first two versions of conferences and meetings, they were expensive, complicated and sometimes difficult processes.  This new normal has its own challenges for sure, but if new effort is required, we have the chance to do what we’ve always done in the resolution industry, which is figure out what works and to commit to it.

This is right in our wheelhouse.

How to Make Money from Pro-Bono Cases

Interested in how to transition your practice from non-paying to paying clients?

Pro-bono panels are where many ADR trainers suggest we go for our first mediations or arbitrations after we get certified.  They’re right to do that.  We need that real world experience to become the great neutrals we know we can be.  But unless you’re on the panel for purely philanthropic goals, building a business off that panel work may not be what you thought it would be.

Westernized consumer minds say ‘you get what you pay for’.  If mediators have an assigned monetary value of nothing – then the assumption is that we have no worth.  And that’s just wrong. Most consumers of free mediation or arbitration panels know otherwise too.  They know and understand the tremendous value we offer.  And they love the fact that we’re free.  Do we love that same fact?  Well that’s complicated.  Some of us love it because it’s our philanthropic choice.  Some of us love it because it’s where we hone our skills. Some of us love it because we THINK it will help us grow our private practices. Which are you?  If you’re in the philanthropic category read no further. This article is about building a practice. 

Let me use one of my clients, Phyllis, as the example.  She is an experienced attorney in downtown LA with a practice specialty that easily transfers into the world of ADR. After she received her certification as a mediator she received the same advice that most of us do.  Volunteer on the local court panel they said.  You’ll get lots of experience they said.  You’ll build your practice they said.  So Phyllis volunteered.  A lot.  And her trainer was right about the first two of those three things.  But not the last one. 

In a first consultation with her I asked for her volunteer stats.  Here they are:

5 cases per month for two years or 120 cases

3 hours free for each case or 360 hours mediating

2 hours admin for each case or 240 hours of admin

2 hours of commute / parking for each case or 240 hours

            Total of 840 hours

Phyllis charges $300 per hour in her private practice.

Her ‘practice development’ through the court panel has cost her $252,000 over two years!!!

How many paying cases has she directly received for her ‘volunteer’ efforts?  The answer is 5.  FIVE!!!  Is it worth it?  To me that’s not tough math.  The answer is a resounding no.  Spending the equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars over the course of two years to get 5 paying clients?

Nope.  No way.  Not worth it.

Of course she did have the opportunity to gain experience and give back to her community but that’s some extraordinarily expensive experience and I can think of lots of ways that I’d rather donate a quarter of a million dollars to deserving individuals. The truly painful aspect of all her efforts on the panel … she still paid good marketing money to promote her private practice.  She invested in a website, business cards, membership dues etc.  She writes, speaks, and trains her primary target market contacts. In those same two years of promoting her practice she spent $11,800 on more traditional marketing methods.  For that very reasonable investment she obtained 172 new and fully paying clients. Now that’s good math.  

If we did the same cost analysis for your practice what would it look like?

So the big question is what should you do?  I’m not suggesting that you forego volunteering on a panel if that’s where your heart’s at.  But let’s get real.  Volunteer for a predetermined period of time. Get the experience you need.  Make the most of the contacts you get from the panel, then move on.  And what if you don’t have $11,800 to invest in your marketing and have no other choice but parlay those pro-bono cases into paying clients?  Read on.

ð       Keep a separate calendar for pay vs. non-pay cases giving paying clients priority status for your time. Lack of preparation on your clients’ part does not constitute an emergency on your part. Limit the number of cases or hours you volunteer each month.  Don’t allow non-paying clients to bully your schedule.

ð       Determine in advance how many pro-bono cases you need to hear to elevate your skills. When you reach that magical number – stop.  Leave the panel and spend your valuable time, money, and brain power on promoting your private practice.  

ð    Dealing with the repeat ‘offenders’ or abusers of your and the courts generosity? Just mediate them.  Let them know that you’re sincerely flattered by their confidence in your skills. However, you mediate for a living and would appreciate them hiring you privately.  If they really want you – they’ll pay for you.  If they don’t want to pay – refer them back to the panel list and let them chose another pro-bono neutral.  Be sure that you check with the panel about this practice. You don’t want to find yourself in conflict with the panel rules or administrators.

ð    Selling before you mediate.

o   Be professional, considerate, be consumer oriented.

o   Offer something the other neutrals in your region or specialty don’t offer

ð    Selling while you’re mediating.

o   Remember that everyone in the room is your client.  

o   Wait until after the mediation is completed (settled or not) to give your business card and promote your private practice.

o   Whether the hearing is held in private office spaces or a court annex, be sure you make potential clients as comfortable as is possible.  It’s the little things that matter.  High quality coffees, snacks that keep dietary needs in mind, plenty of Kleenex, the ability to order in food or a list of local restaurants within walking distance, clean bathrooms, etc.  Pamper them where possible.

ð   Selling after the mediation.

o   Follow up after a settlement with a thank you letter (yes a real card)

o   Follow up after a settlement with a client survey

o   Follow up after a non-settlement with continued communication and support – offering mediation continuation (for pay)

o   Follow up with primary marketing tools like networking, writing, speaking, and training. Essentially – keep in touch with them until you’ve said the right thing at the right time to the right person.

Phyllis' choice to stay on the court panel regardless of how much she got from it or how much it cost her was a subsequent question. Her answer .... it's just what neutrals do.   Let's change that and volunteer wisely.

Volunteering can be a great way to gain experience, lighten the load on your local court docket, help people who really need help, and meet turn potential clients into prospective clients and then into paying clients.  But don’t let volunteering distract you from doing what you know you need to do – build your practice. Be a businessperson first.  Be a business person who happens to specialize in ADR, but be a smart businessperson.  For as much time as you network inside ADR associations, double that time networking with your primary target market.  Keep up on what’s happening in the ADR industry, but primarily keep up with what’s happening in your target market’s industry. Read about communication and ADR, but most importantly read business and marketing books. 

And as always, if you have any questions or concerns about building your ADR practice, contact me and together we’ll find the solution that helps you reach and surpass your goals and endeavors.

The Best Way for Mediators and Arbitrators to Communicate With Clients During the Coronavirus Crisis

Let’s be honest, it’s been a tough few weeks for everyone as we navigate a new normal amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

Personally, I hope that most of us are practicing social distancing by staying inside, canceling plans, and avoiding crowded spaces. Some of us (me) are on federally mandated lockdown status. 

Professionally, I hope that most of us are working from home.  Depending on where you live you might be faced with an indefinite timeline of when you’ll be returning to your office.

During this time, there are many questions that arise around how you should move forward—do you continue marketing as normal? Should you address the situation at hand? Do you communicate the measures your practice is taking as a business or are you feeling like it’s insensitive to market your practice right now?

It can all be a bit overwhelming. 

As mediators and arbitrators we talk a lot about having empathy—for each other, for our community, and for our clients. As you contemplate the best way to communicate with your clients and as we collectively navigate this crisis, I’ve put together a few notes on displaying empathy during this time and how to effectively and appropriately get your message across.

Communicating practice updates

There are many reasons you might have to send clients critical information.  The primary reason will probably be that your neutral services are available online. But it’s important that you’re considerate in how often you’re relaying these kinds of messages, what information you choose to share, and the manner in which you communicate your messages.

Everyone is being flooded with a vast amount of information and people are probably receiving more emails than usual from businesses that they may not hear from on a regular basis. 

The goal of your email should be to provide helpful information to clients. If you’re simply saying that you and your staff are being extra careful in hand-washing, for example, maybe it’s something you can skip. 

On the other hand, if you have important practice updates such as your office remaining open despite so many others closing, or being able to hear all your cases on line with a platform like Zoom, or that you’re not in your office to receive traditional mail on a daily basis, or that your phones have been forwarded and business call can proceed as usual, it’s probably a good idea to share those updates with your clients. 

If you’ve been mandated to close or have chosen to close your office, I know that it’s not easy to do.  But communicating the decision with your clients shows you’re doing your part to encourage social distancing and shows your practice’s dedication to social responsibility.  

Communicating this information directly to your clients has multiple advantages. First, it ensures that they are up-to-date on the best way to continue their casework with you. 

Communicating your reasoning for a temporary closures also ensures clients know where you stand on important issues. While the short-term implications are not ideal, the decision also creates a level of trust. Long-term, your practice will be one of the first places previous and prospective clients think to go the next time they need a mediator or arbitrator (whether online or, eventually, in person).

Again, this is a time of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety for people, some of whom have been personally affected by the coronavirus or have loved ones that are at high-risk. This means that we all need to be sensitive with the language we choose to use in any marketing materials.

What you don’t want to do is be seen as taking advantage of a crisis or using it as a way to push sales. It’s imperative that you’re careful to match your tone to the current climate without being glib or impertinent. 

Spread a little cheer

When it comes to building deep, long-lasting relationships with your customers, even in the best of times but especially in the worst of times, it’s important to show empathy for what your customers may be dealing with personally, professionally, and as a global citizen.

But when so much of the content we’re consuming is heavy, dark, and sometimes downright depressing, people are also welcoming happy distractions to get their minds off the news cycles. 

If it’s appropriate, find little ways to amuse your customers.  Word of warning about using humor, only use it if it makes sense for your brand, and be sure that you strike a balance between lighthearted and compassionate.

Be honest and just ask clients what they need from you and your practice

Possibly the best way to communicate with your present and perspective clients? Ask them exactly what they want and how they want to hear from you. 

Nobody has all the answers as to how you should be talking to your clients during these unprecedented times. Additionally, the way in which people will want to hear from you will likely differ—some clients may have a less-is-more attitude, while others will want frequent updates and communications.  So just ask.  Your attention and sensitivity to their needs in these strange days will go a long way.

Navigating an ever-changing situation

Just because ‘all the other mediators’ are doing things a certain way doesn’t mean you have to do the same. The best advice I can share as you adjust your strategies in the face of such unprecedented uncertainty is to stay true to who you are.

Be as genuine, empathetic, and transparent as possible with your clients to continue nurturing the relationships you’ve already built and to foster the new ones that will grow as a result of how you operate your business and respond during this time.

There’s no official guide on how to communicate with your clients, what information is the most important, or how often you should send an update because what’s best for one practice might not be right for another. Many more changes are likely to unfold in the coming weeks, which means smart business owners and marketers will need to constantly adapt to the current situation and adjust marketing, practice, and communication strategies as needed.  

While it can be a difficult course to navigate, this situation is just like the processes you offer.  It’s about constantly learning, adapting, and listening to your clients and letting them provide the insights you need to move forward in the best possible way. You’ve got this.

You’re Just 3 Easy Steps to Becoming the Go-To ADR Professional

In order to build up your reputation and create more visibility, it’s imperative to know and understand your prospective clients. If you do you will be able to craft messages that resonate and that create the necessary dialogue for true engagement.

One of the most common mistakes I see mediators and arbitrators make on their websites and social media platforms is that they focus on themselves rather than their clients.   This is an easy fix.   

1.     Make a list of the prospective clients that want to reach and the best way(s) to reach out to them.  They might like face-to-face networking, direct email, social media contact, videos, podcasts, etc.  In what medium(s) will your messages be most effective and efficient?  Wherever they congregate, in whatever way --- you need to be there.  Expecting clients to come to you is unreasonable. 

2.     Next you need to make it clear that you truly understand what your clients’ issues are.  Make a list of their primary, secondary and tertiary concerns, issues, or problems.  Next to each line item write up a short explanation of how each can be addressed and potentially resolved when they hire you. 

3.  Utilizing the list of concerns and the possible solutions verify your assumptions when you have the face-to-face opportunities with your prospective clients.  They’ll tell you if you’ve got it right or need to refine your ideas.  With a newly refined list of problems and solutions, write articles, record video or podcast messages, create a training, or provide a speech in which you address each scenario.  Using client-preferred mediums you’ll see a very positive cumulative effect of your efforts over a relatively short amount of time. 

If you need help with any of these 3 activities, please don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll help you design the right system to help you reach your goals.

5 Ways to Make Your Practice Stand Out

The marketplace for ADR services is far more competitive now than when I first opened my own business in a tiny office in Santa Monica, CA more than 25 years ago.  Personally, I like it that way.  I enjoy competition and find that it drives me to do better.  Board games, sports, puzzle solving, and entrepreneurship have always been fun to me.  I also think it’s good for our industry.  Having an open marketplace and healthy competition means that our clients have access to many truly great providers. But with more and more professionals entering the resolution industry it’s now more important than ever before that you make your services and your practice stand head and shoulders above the rest.   

Below are 5 ways in which you can make your mediation practice stand out.

1.     Take a look at your perceived competition.  What does their website look like?  What services do they offer, what fees do they charge, what is their specific niche, how engaged are they with clients and prospective clients (do they note their articles, networking, speaking, and training)?  On what social media platforms do they post?  Note also what they post, how often, and what kind of feedback they get.  

Remember that you’ll want to strike a balance between being your sincere self and offering your practice information in a format that your clients most appreciate.  For example if your clients really love Facebook then you need to love it too.  Love it more than your competition does and you’ll make headway. 

2.     Make a list of those things you have in common and those things that set you apart now or could set you apart with a little tweaking.  Maybe it’s going to be your customer service, making best use of your background or experience, or perhaps leveraging your understanding of another culture or language.

Note the things your competition does really well and do them even better.  Also note those things that you think they do poorly and make sure that you let potential clients know that you do it better.

If you decide to differentiate on fees make sure that your practice is different because you have a better understanding of how your clients want to be charged.  For example are they a frugal group that wants to pay by the hour and have each activity explained and charged separately?  Maybe your clients are more sensitive to an ‘all included’ fee schedule and just want to pay by the day and know that everything they need is covered by that fee. 

3.     Be more service oriented.  How can you offer different or better experience than your colleagues? How can you make your services more appealing to your clients?  Maybe it’s a pre-conference video chat to make sure that everyone is comfortable, or you give them a video, book, or workbook, to help them understand the process.  Maybe your practice is family oriented and you offer a play room full of toys for the children of your clients. It might be that your clients want to pay with a credit card so that they can accrue miles.  Perhaps your clients are tech savvy and want to manage their time and case via online calendaring, document sharing platforms, etc. If so, be sure that your practice is tech savvy for them.  Other clients will want to know that your practice makes efforts to be ‘green’.  The point is, making things not only the best but the easiest for your clients to use your service is one of the best ways to set your practice apart from the others.

4.     Mediators and arbitrators only get hired when prospective clients know us, like us, and trust us.  Connecting with people on a personal yet professional level will build stronger relationships.  Keeping in touch with past clients, not just for marketing, but for relationship building is important since they’re your primary source of referrals.  Reaching out and meeting new people who are within your primary, secondary, or tertiary target markets (or their gatekeepers).  Make a list of the associations or organizations to which your potential clients belong and decide which of those groups has the best fit for your goals.  Then, get involved.  Attend events and actively network, write articles for them, speak to them, train them, volunteer for their board of directors.  Get involved and be a resource.

5.     This one is easy and obvious – do a good job.  Our clients aren’t delusional enough to think that we can assist in resolution for every case that we hear.  But they definitely know when we’re giving them our all or just phoning it in. Keep up to date on what’s happening within the ADR industry (like the current demand for Online Dispute Resolution). 

Being able to give our clients the best service we can means that we need to pay attention to the growth and wellbeing of our practices and but just as important we also need to take care of ourselves as humans.  Be well rested, get some exercise, eat healthfully, and find activities that feed your passions. 

10 Easy Tips on How to Grow Your Mediation or Arbitration Practice

1. As much as your practice is about you, it’s completely about your clients.  Who are your ideal clients?  What do they do for living, which associations or organizations do they belong to, how much money do they make, what kind of process do they prefer, etc.  Understanding the psychographics of your clients will help you make decisions about marketing, convening, serving, and following up.  

2. Identify in what form(s) your clients prefer to communicate with you.  Knowing which medium they prefer; reading an article written by you, attending a seminar at which you are a speaker, participating in a training you offer, engaging with you on social media platforms, or networking face to face.  Understand how to connect with clients and prospective clients helps you to initiate and maintain a dialogue with an appropriate message that lets them understand you have the right experience and are speaking their language.

3. Use the previous two points to determine how you’ll reach out to clients and prospective clients, what to say to them, how often to say it and via what medium.   You might find that an audio/video file you’ve recorded on Zoom and posted across your podcast and social media accounts is adequate.  You might also have prospective clients that become paying clients when your message is received via several points of connectivity over time (most often the case). 

4. Have the right mindset.  Remember always that you are an entrepreneur building an ADR business and not a mediator or arbitrator trying to build a practice.  This isn’t a word game, it’s a mindset.  Entrepreneurs read business and marketing books, they listen to business and marketing podcasts, seminars, webinars, and more.  This mindset is the number one common denominator amongst my most successful clients. 

5. Whether you’re focusing on individuals, firms, or businesses, you need to create a database of both your current clients and your prospective clients.  The goal of your database is not only to note a contact’s address, phone, email, and name, but also to note how you’re connected with that contact, any notes that you’d like to record, calendaring future points of connection, and linking with contacts on social media. 

6. Most of my clients greatly benefit from putting together a communication calendar that sets out the dates of all your points and platforms of connection and in what way or what content you’ll be connecting.  Create a six month calendar in Excel, Google, Outlook, or on recipe cards that you keep taped to your monitor.  It doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that you have an actionable plan, and you follow that plan daily.

7. With a critical eye, open your website (yes, you really must have a private website) and your profiles on social media.  Check to be sure that your contact information is up to date and complete, that your bio is current, photos engaging, and that each is linked to the other.  Clients don’t usually hire a mediator or arbitrator based solely on a website or social media profile, but they do look for social proof that they’re inclination to hire you is substantiated by your online presence.   

8. Give some thought to your work environment.  If you have a physical office for hearing cases, be sure that it is clean, appropriate, comfortable, and that your clients can be made to feel like honored guests.  Think about the amenities like validating parking, your ability to serve any special dietary needs of clients, accessibility, local support businesses like nearby coffee shops, copy shops etc.  How can you make your clients’ experience better?  If you’re working online – getting your video skills up to par and beyond is an imperative.  For 10 Essentials for Looking and Doing Your Best in ODR click here:  https://www.howtomarketmymediationpractice.com/blog-1/10-essentials-for-looking-and-doing-your-best-in-video-conference-calls

9. Since mediators and arbitrators are hired primarily because someone knows us, likes us, and trusts us, a main source of new business for many practices is existing clients. You need to leverage your existing relationships through referrals, recommendations, and testimonials.  What others say about is far more important than what you have to say about yourself. 

10. Follow up and say thank you.  We love our clients.  Make sure they know it.  Send a handwritten thank you card.  Send an email via Survey Monkey or other similar platform and find out what your clients loved, liked, or loathed about working with you.  Pay attention to what they say about their experience and work to eliminate any negatives.  Be sure to give them a prompt to provide a testimonial (which you’ll use in point 9 above) and let them know that you appreciate referrals. 

10 Essentials for Looking and Doing Your Best in Video Conference Calls

With so many of us in the legal and resolution industries now working from home offices I thought this would be the perfect time to help you put your best face forward on all the video conference calls and ODR hearings that you’ll be conducting.

Here are some quick tips to help you make the most of your video conferences and prepare you for your close up.

1. Light the way

Lights and angles are just as important for video calls as they are for professional photo shoots. You may not be particularly interested in the way you look when you Skype with a co-worker you’ve known for years, but when you to talk to a client or new colleague the situation is completely different.

If you think of yourself as a half-way decent smartphone photographer, then you know all about the importance of lighting. It makes the difference between a great image or a bad one, and it’s easier to figure out than you think. How we light our face affects our appearance on camera — dark and dull won’t make the best impression. The best lighting setup will use a combination of natural and artificial lighting.

As a general rule, avoid fluorescent lights, which can cast unflattering shadows. Avoid overhead lights, too, as they can create dark under eye shadows. For enhanced lighting, use natural or soft light sources.

Place your primary light source behind your camera. This way, the light and the camera point in the same direction. You could also use two light sources behind the camera, one on the right side, one on the left.

Natural Light for Backlighting

Do your best to allow natural light into the space you will be using. This will create the foundation for a natural looking image versus one that is obviously artificially lit. Just make sure the natural light is not shining directly towards the camera, or at your face where it may make you squint.

Fill in with Soft Side Lighting

You will need a few lamps and soft white light bulbs. These are your basic bulbs that have a white finish on the glass.

Set one lamp to the left, and another one to the right of your laptop or pc. This, along with your supplemental natural light will usually do the trick to maintain even lighting. Placing the lamps a good distance from your face will help to avoid a shiny spot on your forehead.

Adjust your Webcam Brightness and Contrast

By adjusting the image settings for your webcam, you will be able to fine-tune brightness, exposure and contrast. You can do this within the software that came with your webcam. If you’re using a built-in camera, you may need additional webcam settings software to control these settings.

2. Choose a neutral background

Location is everything, even when it comes to a video conference call or meeting. Think of choosing the right location as the equivalent of giving a firm handshake when you meet someone in person. It sets the tone and gives an overall first impression. There are three basic principles to remember.

The background of your video conference will say a lot about you to the other person. It’s best to keep it neutral, uncluttered, and professional. It will be the first impression that the person gets, and you want them pay attention to you — not anything or anyone else.

Whether you are at home or in a formal office, make sure your background is uncluttered and professional. Less is more. In other words, you may be fond of all those family pictures hanging on the wall but the person on the other side of the camera may find them distracting. The same goes for anything that can make you look unprofessional -- clutter, clothes, piles of boxes, and food and beverages.

Sit at your desk and take a selfie or a screenshot of what others see in your background. Remove objects on your desk or on your wall that may detract from your company’s brand. Consider designating one wall as your company wall. Invest in the color and image of that wall and keep it consistent, even if your clients know you’re a solo operation, they don’t need to be reminded that you’re working from home.

Places with a lot of foot traffic, or where your children (and pets!) can easily come and interrupt you are not ideal locations for video conferencing. Even if you’re able to quickly recover from interruption, you risk derailing the conversation or losing your audience entirely.

Location: Make sure it’s as quiet as possible.

Yes, you should try to avoid the obvious ones like barking dogs and blaring TVs, but even if you think you’re somewhere quiet, it’s amazing how many unpredictable noises can pop up. While we’ve learned to tune out most of this background noise in person, they can still derail a video conference call. Maybe it’s an air conditioning unit turning on, the buzzing of a fan close to your microphone, a washing machine beeping, a cell phone ringing, or the sound of text messages coming through. 

Echo can also be a huge distraction. If you really like a certain room, but need to eliminate sound reverberation, adding some furniture, fabric curtains, and carpet (or other sound dampening materials) may help to absorb some of the echoes.

Echo may also come from the interference caused by input and output devices such as a microphone and a speaker that are too close together. Be sure to test the sound way ahead of your webcam appearance!

Location: Find an Appropriate Camera Angle

As for the angle, the camera should be placed at your eye level. If you are using a laptop, place something beneath it to raise it until your eyes are at the same level as the camera lens.

The angle of your camera can have a significant impact on the way you look online. We recommend having an external webcam because it gives you more control over the position and angle. If you are using a built-in camera, you can always adjust your position in relation to it.

The camera should capture your face and part of your upper body, with the camera being aligned with your eyes. When talking, you should always look at the camera (not the screen), so it feels like you’re having eye contact with the other person.

If the camera is in much lower than your eyes, it will make your body and face look much more prominent. Also, you’ll have to look down to make eye contact, which brings a whole superiority/inferiority dynamic to the video call.

Positioning the camera much higher can give you similar issues. To make sure you look better on video calls, just put your camera on eye level.

3. Dress your best

Even if only your face and shoulders are in the frame, you should dress professionally from head to toe. Avoid patterns, stripes and plaids. Don’t wear a hat. Put flattering, solid colors near your face and make sure to check your teeth, hair and makeup. Avoid jewelry that may be distracting or make disruptive sounds every time you move.  There are four best practices to keep in mind when you are considering what to wear during a video conference:

• Pattern: no stripes, checks, polka dots or other patterns or noticeable textures.

• Color: try to wear neutral tones, as bright colors, metallics, and fluorescents may not translate well on camera.

• Contrast: make sure there’s some definition between your face, your background and your clothing.

• Shape: make sure it fits well of course, but more importantly, check how it looks with your lighting setup.

4. Keep your notes nearby

If you need to look at some notes during your call, jot them down on a piece of paper and tape them next to your camera. This will help you stay on track in case your get nervous. Memorize as many points as possible and keep a notepad and pen handy to make some notes with as little visual disruption as possible.  I find it easiest to have my notes on my iPad just in front of my laptop.  The other participants can’t see it and I can read my bulleted notes without having to move my whole head downward and losing eye contact for too long.  Which brings us to number 5.

5.  Maintain good eye contact

You’re sure to look like a novice if you don’t look directly into the camera or at least at the face of the person. Resist looking at yourself in the small frame in the corner of your screen. Look directly into the camera or at the face of the person you’re interacting with. Resist looking at yourself in the small frame at the corner of your video call screen and avoid distractions elsewhere in the room. As a reminder to maintain eye contact, it may help to put something above your webcam – like a sticker or colored note, for example.

6.  Sit up Straight 

Make sure your total upper body — not just your face — is visible in the camera area. To provide you with some comfort, keep in mind the caller on the other side only sees you from the waist up. Also, fidgeting or moving around too much will definitely distract the person you’re talking too. So, if you want the focus to be on you and on what you have to say, try keeping yourself centered in the image without moving a lot.

7. Get the best audio visual

If you do a lot of video conferences, consider investing in an external webcam with high definition capabilities. Depending on your surroundings, you may want to use a headset or earbuds during your call. However, a video chat without headphones looks more natural. Poor audio quality can quickly reduce the effectiveness of a video call, often leading to miscommunication. First, be articulate. Make sure you speak clearly and slowly.

8.  Don’t forget to be yourself

We’re well past video conferencing being solely used for quarterly board meetings with our executive team — it has transformed into a daily way of communicating face to face. Just like texting, talking on the phone or walking over to your colleague’s desk and chatting in person, the video conferencing experience is about what’s being discussed. So don’t fret when it comes to getting on camera — just be yourself!

9.  Use common courtesy

Because video collaboration is just like an in-person interaction, it is important to use the same courtesy you would use if you were in the same room. This includes paying attention to the speaker, minimizing multitasking and refraining from interrupting. Though this may seem obvious, good manners can take you far when building business relationships.

10.  Do a Dry Run Video Call to Test Your Setup

Prior to the video conference, test your video meeting setup to make sure everything is ready to go. 

Testing: Internet Speed

Having the right internet speed or bandwidth is important for successful video conferencing. You can test your speed using Speedtest.net. According to the FCC, you need between 1.5 – 6 Mbps for HD video conferencing.

Testing: Microphone

The microphone can be easy to forget until you’re on the call being told “we can’t hear you,” which get your video conference off to a rocky start. Get one of your friends to help you test the audio by completing a dry run of the video conference between two different computers or devices to make sure everything is in working order. 

Testing: Sound, Feedback and Background Noise

While you’re doing your dry run, ask your friend to listen for background noise including any buzzing or hissing. Decide if you will use headphones or not, and if not, make sure that your friend doesn’t hear feedback from your speakers when they are speaking on the call. On that note, you may want to confirm your speaker volume before getting on the call. 

You might remember the humorous video of the children who interrupted their dad, Robert Kelly, during his live interview with the BBC News. If you have animals or children running around in the house, close (and maybe even lock) your office door and let your family know you are on a conference call. This will help avoid unpleasant or embarrassing situations.

Even if you feel nervous about video conferencing, remember that practice makes perfect. Once you get the hang of being in front of the camera, you will have mastered yet another invaluable business skill.

If for some reason something should go technically or situationally wrong, it is always ok to acknowledge it. Challenges may unexpectedly arise as they did with Professor Kelly, but all you need to do is address the issue, acknowledge it briefly, and keep the audience focused on the message you’re trying to deliver.

We hope these tips help you look better on video calls, they’ve sure helped us around here. Just like any other live activity, video calls require a bit of practice. So, if something doesn’t go quite right the first time, keep at it. It will definitely get better!

CONVENING AND MARKETING

Whether you convene your cases yourself, have an assistant make the necessary contacts or belong to a professional tribunal – don’t kid yourself; convening and marketing go hand in hand. 

How your conduct yourself on the phone and in writing, how you answer the parties’ questions, the way in which you collect information, and whether or not you can get reluctant parties to come to the table – it’s all marketing and customer service.  One of the key ingredients is moving a potential case into the active mediation process.  This frequently proves to be one of the greatest challenges for providers.  It can be most difficult when the parties are unrepresented or involved in a highly emotional dispute.

Since Marketing Resolution is always in search of resources to assist providers in strengthening their skills both as mediators and arbitrators as well as powerful marketers, we’d like to direct you to https://joyceodidison.com/books/ where Mrs. Joyce Odidison offers seminars and workshops that will help you and your clients to prepare for mediation as well as a fantastic workbook (and many other books) for you and your clients.  Her site claims that the Pre-Mediation Workbook will increase your rate of successful mediation by approximately 90%.  The Pre-Mediation Workbook offers over 40 mediation preparedness tips and tools, will help you move potential cases from the convening process to the mediation process, transform high conflict into powerful bargaining and negotiating opportunities, reduce caucusing, gain tools to explore and deal with suppressed anger, and apply strategies to curb any power imbalance before mediation.

As marketing goes, it doesn’t get much better than Mrs. Odidison’s Pre-Mediation Workbook to help you move potential cases from convening into the hearing room.

***If you have a resource, tool, tip or technique that you’d like to share with our industry, drop us a line, send us a sample, or email a link and we’ll convey the information to our colleagues.

4 Steps to Optimize Your Marketing For A New Decade

Welcome to a new decade!  With the start of 2020 now is a good time to take a look at your marketing and practice development efforts from past years and analyze your performance. You might find that your practice has grown or may need a change of direction. Now is good time to review your processes and services to determine any modifications you need to make for effective results.

Put a solid program together with clear goals and objectives.

This is important! We all get caught up in what we’re working on and overwhelmed with everyday tasks. It’s imperative to get your ideas on paper in front of you so you can map out a marketing and business building scenario. Take a little time to jot down your priorities.

Define Your Goals

What do you want to achieve in 2020? Define your purpose based on the answer to this question. Compare these goals to last year’s and see if anything has changed.

Your goals might simply be to gain more clients.  But you can also include goals like reaching out to your connections on social media at least once a week, updating your office management processes, researching and utilizing new technology or apps to make working with your practice easier, connecting with previous clients, starting a blog, cleaning up your database, updating your website, refreshing your profile on social media, subscribing to marketing, practice development, and entrepreneurship podcasts, attending more seminars/webinars, or more.

Review Your Target Markets

Marketplaces can change.  Sometime slowly, sometimes quickly. Keep a close focus on your primary and secondary target markets.  Has anything changed?  Are they starting to prefer on-line resolution platforms, have they become more sophisticated in their use of social media, have their gatekeepers remained the same or changed?  Also note what has remained the same since last year.  Are your clients still primarily concerned with quality over price?  Do they still value traditional face to face connection more than social media? 

Now is the right time to re-evaluate who your clients are, what they want, and how they want it.

Analyze Your Competition

Check up on your competition and see what they’re keeping the same as well as what they’re introducing into their practice.  What makes your competitors successful? What strengths help them stand out?  And most importantly, how can you set yourself apart from your competition?

Organize and Prioritize Your Marketing Initiatives

Now that you’ve defined your goals, you’re ready for the more creative part of your yearly planning.

Set a date to achieve all of your goals and objectives so you can start your course of action. Break the year into quarters. Don’t let these tasks intimidate you; you’re not wasting your time. On the contrary!

Think about how you’re going to execute all of the above. The imperative tasks that need to be done away should obviously be at the top of the list.  But the smaller things can easily be peppered throughout your calendar so that they don’t ignored.  Remember, it’s the cumulative effect of all the big and little things together that will make the difference. 

The New Year brings change and soul-searching for improvement, especially when it comes to marketing and building your practice. Now’s the time to preview the year ahead and make the necessary adjustments for the best performance of your business initiatives.

Your practice is constantly evolving so it needs to be constantly monitored and updated. A new decade is a good excuse to re-energize your marketing efforts with a fresh new start.  If you have any questions, concerns or requests about how to best go about marketing and building your practice, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Natalie Armstrong-Motin | Executive Director

Marketing Resolution | Phoenix, Arizona & Normandy France

Coaching | Consulting | Campaigning since 1995

Natalie@HowToMarketMyMediationPractice.com | www.twitter.com/MarketingADR www.HowToMarketMyMediationPractice.com  | www.linkedin.com/in/marketingresolution www.facebook.com/HowToMarketMyMediationPractice |  +33 (0)6 42 92 28 24