Breaking the Formidable Into the Manageable

This post originally appeared in Susan Kostal's Legal Marketing Bits & Bites Newsletter. Sign up for more content here.

As I’m editing Attorney At Work’s social media e-book this month, I’m reminded of the formidable distance between what we could be doing and what’s realistically doable. This applies to producing content and professional engagement on social media, but also to so many things in our lives: taxes, dealing with walk-in closets, the back of the fridge.

"I dare say an electronic book is quite the rage these days."

My list is pretty lengthy.

Before I sat down to work on it, the project seemed intimidating. Similarly, a “Do Now” list can put some of us off a task entirely. So break it down into the manageable. You don’t need to start with a weekly blog post or a monthly newsletter. Commit to writing for your firm’s blog quarterly. Still daunting? Ok, start smaller. Set up a meeting with the firm partner in charge of marketing or your CMO and discuss where you should focus your efforts. According to Greentarget, 91% of in-house counsel rated an attorney’s articles and speeches as very to somewhat important when making evaluations of whom to hire, and 77% rated relevant blog posts as such. Of note, only 67% rated peer-reviewed rankings and directories as very to somewhat important. What does this mean? You can’t rely on what others say about you; you have to get out there and speak on your own behalf. Building a body of published expertise can’t be an also-ran. It is vital to business development. Reverse engineer what it will take to get it accomplished. And don’t wait for a lull in work to start. That’s what’s known as procrastination.