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When I wrote my first blog post on February 26, 2009, I could hardly have imagined where we’d be 14 years later. It would be fun to try to predict, and maybe I’d have gotten some of it right, but I try not to guess at the future.

One of the things I suspect we’d all have gotten right in some form is ChatGPT. I have been loathe to try it for many reasons – I’m not a technophobe, as you can all imagine, nor am I someone who advocates for lawyers to run and try the next big thing. Though, for those of you who have clients who may be using it or dipping their toe in the water, you know I will suggest you get to know it intimately for the usual legal reasons.…

Continue Reading Happy 14th Anniversary to Zen & The Art of Legal Networking!

Bad news everyone.

There’s no magic bullet when it comes to LinkedIn. Or, for that matter, any business development or marketing tool.

There’s only strategy and hard work.

Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

Are there instances where you’ll connect with someone and they’ll immediately buy your services or you’ll write a post and it will go viral? Absolutely! That’s down to luck (and sometimes, strategy and hard work behind the scenes). But it’s not because there’s some trick to it all. You’re not going to suddenly “figure it all out” and have one tool be doing all the work for you and bringing you lots and lots of clients. It doesn’t work like that. …
Continue Reading LinkedIn for Lawyers: There’s no Magic Bullet

There is a lot of advice out there on how to use LinkedIn and why you should use LinkedIn and what’s useful about LinkedIn – have I used “LinkedIn” enough in this sentence yet?

I’ll begin at the beginning with a little story and without naming any names. About 15 years ago, when I was a wee baby and before LinkedIn was at all popular with lawyers, I gave a presentation to about 200 of my clients, extolling the benefits of the platform and why it was going to be the “next big thing.” At that time, it was nowhere near as useful as it is today because it lacked engagement, but I could really see the benefits. One of our very senior attorneys tapped me on the shoulder in the middle of my speech and in a stage whisper, told me that no one cared about what I was saying, and I needed to cut the rest of the LinkedIn stuff out because I was running too long. It was by far one of the most mortifying moments of my career. …
Continue Reading LinkedIn: Three Actually Helpful Tips

Last week, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with LexBlog’s Bob Ambrogi on “This Week in Legal Blogging,” their new Facebook Live interview series. Bob and I discussed the ILN, running a legal network during a pandemic, and the eleven years that I’ve spent blogging here on Zen (how did that happen??). Two of his questions touched on tips for bloggers who were either getting started in legal blogging, or looking to focus or amplify their efforts, so I wanted to share them here with you! These are my six tips for legal bloggers: …
Continue Reading Six Tips for Legal Bloggers

Among my most popular posts last year were those dedicated to talking about LinkedIn, which tells me that it continues to be the tool that resonates most in the legal industry. I know that it’s in part because it’s become such a robust and useful platform, but I also suspect that it’s in part because some of us are still hoping that there’s a silver bullet out there when it comes to networking and relationship building. I hate to tell you – there isn’t. Even when you’re using social media, which can supersize your efforts, you still need to have goals, develop a plan, and invest time and effort in order for it to pay off for you. …
Continue Reading 5 Quick Tips to Leverage Your Use of LinkedIn in the New Year

Daily, we interact with lots of people – this happens in person, at our offices, in the coffee shop, at our kids’ sporting events or art classes. It happens online, through our group chats, text messages with friends, Facebook shares, LinkedIn comments, etc. We interact so much and so frequently, that we’ve reached a real saturation point with these interactions, and even with our professional messages, we can see a lack of care that a lot of us are giving to the details over the tools and the shiny new thing. Instead, we’re just blindly producing more and more and more and more, adding more noise (as Adrian Lurssen would say). 

If you’re sure that YOU are producing things of value, and not just more noise, ask someone in your circle if they can remember the last thing you shared on LinkedIn, or the last article you wrote. If they can’t, chances are, you’re not producing anything memorable. You’re not creating connection in your relationships. …
Continue Reading Building Relationships: Connection Through Storytelling

Content marketing is a tool in your arsenal for building effective business relationships.

But like any tool, it’s not going to be useful to you if you don’t use it efficiently. In the past, you could get away with producing *something* and getting the attention of a client or potential client, because you were the only one writing or talking about it. But today, content is so ubiquitous, that if you’re not standing out, you risk being relegates to background noise. …
Continue Reading Better Business Relationships Start with Better Content Marketing

We know and are comfortable with the idea that the legal industry is a business of relationships. Lawyers do good work, their clients talk about it (hopefully) and that brings them other clients. That’s the basic principle behind the standard “word of mouth” reputation.

But with the introduction of technology, and in particular, social media, the way that we form first impressions of people and build the relationships that lead to referrals has changed. It’s not simply about doing good work anymore – it’s about whether your online reputation matches your offline reputation, and meeting people where they are. Let’s look at two pieces of this, referrals and first impressions.

Referrals

As someone who espouses social media, something that I hear fairly often is “But am I really going to get BUSINESS from using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc?”…
Continue Reading Technology has Changed How We Build Relationships. Lawyers, are you Ready?

Recently, Greentarget and Zeughauser Group released their annual results for the 2019 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey. I had the chance to chat with Greentarget President and Founding Partner, John Corey, about the results, which had some actionable findings for lawyers and law firms, as well as a few surprises.

First, the report – Corey notes that they work to take it somewhere new each year, and their six months of hard work are obvious. In addition to the report’s results this year, you also get access to some excellent thought leadership pieces that expand on the ideas revealed by the data. The data itself examines three categories of respondents – general counsel, the C-suite, and law firm CMOs, which gives a full and interesting picture of what your firm clients are looking for at various levels, and whether your firm may be correctly addressing these needs. …
Continue Reading Lawyers: What’s the One Thing that Makes Clients Care About Your Content?