Face it. Financial bottom lines are affected by the fact we live in a world that judges a book by its cover. Pretty singers sell more records, court cases rank higher in the news if the person is attractive, and politicians are elected based on their image as much any other factor.Looking at your own industry, don’t you have to fight the public’s perceptions? We see it on TV and in movies every day. More often than not, young lawyers, paralegals, and others just starting out in the profession are portrayed as cheap, petty, low-rent, and usually called “ambulance chasers.”It’s not right, but this issue of image is one that you have to live with and learn to work with.Let’s cut to the bottom line which is this: In today’s business climate, everyone should realize that a professional image is crucial to reputation and everyone could stand to improve theirs to some degree or other. It’s what you need to do to keep your individual firms alive. Therefore, let’s cover some opportunities for improvement using the acronym A.L.I.V.E.:Appearance – Your physical persona and the way present yourself.Letterhead – The level of professionalism demonstrated in your printed marketing materials.Information – Accuracy and honesty; the keys to presenting the data gathered during a case.Voice – How you communicate to everyone you’re associated with.Education – The continual improvement to your professional knowledge base.Appearance: People base a large percentage of their first impression on your appearance. When a client meets you for the first time, they’re sizing up your credibility, your ability as a legal professional, and deciding just how well you might conduct yourself in public. As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a good first impression, so let’s look at a few pointers.Always dress in a professional manner. For men and women both, the attire should be “business professional,” which for men means suit and tie whenever possible, and for the ladies, business suits, nice skirt and blouse, or dresses. If you look unkempt or “second rate” the client will wonder how you’ll represent them while working their case.A close cousin to dress is personal grooming. Simply put, make sure your hair, facial hair, hands, nails, and teeth are all clean and well kept. By the way, how’s your breath? Always keep some mints handy.Another key opportunity to exhibit a professional image is in court. Make your trial presentations well-organized and polished works of art. You’ll notice down in our bio box we have a link to a free ebook that will help you create a very professional trial notebook.Letterhead: In some cases, the first contact someone may have with you might be one of your business cards. For our purposes though, “letterhead” refers to any printed material (paper or electronic) anyone outside your office might see.Business cards are a must. Make them distinctive, but with minimal content. Let your website or brochure carry the heavy content.On business cards, stationery, and your website stay away from trite, cliché, or negative icons such as someone running after an ambulance. In your web address, phone numbers, or email addresses, stay away from negative phrases like “[email protected].” These might seem cute, but to many potential clients, they’re a turnoff.For stationery, choose quality paper and have your letterhead and envelopes, as well as your contracts, professionally produced by the same people who do your business cards. Make sure their color themes match. Your local print shop or office supply store should have everything you need. If there’s any one place you want to spend a little money, this is near the top of the list.Stay away from blank notepads and manila folders. They’ll both get too messy too soon and not only will that make you look unprofessional and disorganized, but blank notepads make you look unprepared, and lost or disorganized notes lead to inaccurate reports and invoices. Invest a little time and/or money into buying or developing a comprehensive set of forms or an organizer system to use while assembling your case.Information: In the legal business, the glass is neither half full nor half empty. It’s 50%. And, unless you know what’s in it, don’t speculate. “Just the facts Ma’am.” One of the biggest opportunities for a good impression, and naturally the most important, is the timely delivery of honest, accurate, information. Nothing will kill your image, reputation, and livelihood, like incomplete, inaccurate, biased, or late case work. Likewise, an inaccurate invoice can cost you by being either too low or too high.Rule one is, always has been, and always will be, “Use a good case management system.” Make sure everyone working for you uses the same system, and that your standards of accuracy start at the beginning, and continues through the whole case and through any follow-up you may ever have with that client. Then treat all of your other clients the same way.Use nice presentation folders for all your reports; even the “small dollar” ones. Each client is important to you from a marketing standpoint and therefore deserves to be treated with respect. Putting your work product on better stationery, in a well-organized format, and in an attractive presentation folder will provide a greater perceived value to your client. These people have probably paid a hefty sum for your service and a more professional report will help assure them that it was money well spent.Voice: Voice is a general term used to describe not only the actual verbal communication you have with your clients and others, but the “tone” your business has with those it deals with.When you answer the phone, do so cheerfully and actually smile. You can tell when someone’s not happy to be on the phone and so can others. This phone call might be your first contact with the next big client, so make it count.If you can’t personally answer every call, the next best thing is to have a receptionist or answering service. A person is always better than voice mail. Go with what you can afford, but since the phone call is one of your opportunities for a first impression, anyone answering the phone should be trained to be courteous, cheerful, informative, and as professional as possible.Education and intelligence are just as necessary as a cheerful hello. You want people to know that you are every bit as qualified and capable as they could hope for. Therefore, when speaking with people, speak clearly, and choose your words carefully. They don’t have to be big words, but they do have to make sense, and grammar is important.The written word should follow the same rule. Make sure your business cards, letterhead, brochures, reports, invoices, and all other written documents use correct spelling and proper grammar. Though your client may be enamoured enough with your abilities as a legal professional to overlook a minor grammatical error, you never know who else of importance might see your report or correspondence.Education: Here we continue where your writing skills leave off and cover the actual knowledge or skill base upon which your legal expertise is founded. Experience is the best teacher, but classroom education can certainly help keep you informed and up to date. Also, the fact that you are continually updating your expertise is impressive to most potential clients.Many states require continuing education. If your state does, you should publish this fact in your firm’s literature. If your state does not require CEU, you should still take it upon yourself to keep your own training updated and make that fact a prominent component of your marketing materials.Join professional organizations where possible. Many of them will offer various classes and training programs and the benefits of networking are considerable.Keep your library stocked. Many people learn as much from books and videos as they do in a classroom setting.As you attend some of these educational functions, take the opportunity to look around you and either further your own education on this issue of appearance by studying your colleagues, or help improve the way they represent you by helping educate them as to the benefits of a more professional image.
Spin-Written and Regurgitated Articles – Is it the End of Them?
To start up the right way here, I want to specify that I am not saying that I have always written perfect articles, but I can’t thank EzineArticles enough for their decision on not to accept spin-written, regurgitated, empty content, you name it… articles anymore.I guess this is a good time for article marketers to understand that they will not go very far with short, regurgitated and pure sales page articles that they are sometimes displaying. As a matter of fact, if those marketers really understood what article marketing is all about they would have never have written such articles in the first place.As an internet marketer why are you writing articles?As an internet marketer, affiliate marketer or article marketer, which ever name you want to be called, you should write articles to have people recognizing you as an expert, as a source of good value that they can refer to and even refer others. This is not only the best way, but lastingly the ONLY way to build real targeted traffic to your site.Have you ever thought about the readers?Readers are not stupid, and they can tell when they are reading an empty spam article that is only meant to sell them. As a matter of fact, such articles might be a warning sign for them that the product and the person selling it cannot be trusted. As an internet marketer, this is the last impression you want to give to your potential customers.Do you know how your articles get picked by publishers?The kind of articles that EzineArticles will be rejecting from now on, are not the kind or articles that will ever get picked up by publishers anyway. So, here is another reason why you should not write thin, non-original reused content articles. The kind of articles that publishers are looking for to publish on their sites are original, informative, or educational articles that their readers will take advantage from and come back to for more. When your articles are picked up by publishers it increases your potential of the article views tremendously as well as backlinks. As an affiliate marketer, you should always want to write well enough to have your articles picked up by publishers.Want to make article marketing fun and exhilarating?Look for ideas and tips within your niche that could improve the knowledge of your readers. Write educational articles that answer common questions that a large amount of people have. When people see the value of your articles they will come back for more. As they do, they will certainly check your product out and even send you referrals. This will happen only if you write original, rich and educational articles.
Effective Resume that Works in Canada
WHAT SHOULD MY RESUME IDEALLY LOOK LIKE, FOR A JOB IN CANADA?A question that I am asked very frequently by New Immigrants, when I meet them for an Interview. I do advise them on this issue; however the following components need to be addressed. This MUST be done before one starts applying for employment in Canada.Generally a resume MUST HAVE the following: CONTACT DETAILS: This includes the name of the applicant, address, phone numbers and email address. Please drop the PHOTOGRAPH, as it is definitely not required. Furthermore, there is no need at all to mention your Age, Marital Status and your Residency, Country of Origin and religion. There are laws governing these issues in Canada and hence they may not be the basis, on which any individual may be discriminated against in terms of employment.Clarity of an Objective at the beginning of a resume can certainly help in inducing the Reader to continue reading. Eg -Looking for an opportunity in the area of Financial Analysis and Planning, within an Organization that is value driven and customer oriented ORLooking for a Supervisory position in Sales, within the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry. Here is an executive summary of the individuals experience and skills. Eg – Controllership experience of over 10 years in ManufacturingDesignated Accounting and Finance professional Excellent leadership and interpersonal skills Managed large groups of staff ranging from 5 – 15 Have been exposed to Public Company Reporting for over 5 years Proficient in the usage of computers and various softwares WORK EXPERIENCE: A Chronological submission of employers worked with in your work life, beginning with the Most Current one. Important components to note here are – the name of the employer, tenure of employment with month/year, title of position and brief of the company worked in. Then you may describe the role you performed. Eg. -General Manager Jan 200 – Aug 2006 A Manufacturing Organization with Revenues – $100 million and 2000 employees Role Description ACHIEVEMENTS: Do not misinterpret this as a role addition or activity performed. This is a specific mention of an Accomplishment, where you have done more than required and gone that extra mile. Eg -Managed to bring down the month end closing days from 5 to 3 OR Successfully implemented a Costing system that resulted in an annual savings of $2 million across the companyListing of your degrees, certifications and so on. Please list the most current one first with details like – Degree obtained, year of certification, Institution that certified you and location. Eg -CA – ICAO – 2004 B.Com – University of Waterloo – 2000 SOFTWARE SKILLS: This is a comprehensive listing of the various softwares that you are proficient in like SAP, Lawson, Great Plains, Excel, Access, and ACCPAC.PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS/VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES: This is not a must have for resumes, however cannot harm you in anyway. You may want to mention your involvement in a ROTARY CLUB for example, in addition to your association with CICA, ICAO, etc.Overall, a resume that has all or most of the above mentioned components stands a better chance of getting its owner an Interview than a resume that doesn’t.