About rod burkert

So, does your website speak the right lingo? You know how you want to feel when you land on someone’s website. Do you think your audience feels that way when they land on yours? I hope our last conversation spurred you to take another look.

On to this week. It’s true that I continue to get most of my leads from social media (LinkedIn). I believe a good part of the reason is because I have learned its do’s and don’ts. But while you can knock on the door with social media, a newsletter (or blog) gets you inside. Here’s why.

And if you’re new here, welcome aboard. This is what we do!

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The 2019/2020 BVR Firm Economics and Best Practices Guide is finished. And as an advisor for BVR on this project, I saw the amount of effort that went into the publication. If you participated in the survey you already received the free Executive Summary. The full Guide is now available in PDF, and the print version will ship in early March. You can get more details here.

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The case for social media

Let me say this right up front. Social media can be incredibly efficient. And relative to 1:1 meetings, which can be incredibly effective, the case for social media is simple. It allows us to:

• Provide evidence of our credibility
• While sharing glimpses of our personality
• To hundreds or thousands of leads and prospects
• Simultaneously
• In less time
• At less cost

Further, scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite mean you don’t have to be sitting at your computer when you send out valuable posts to your audience … making social media usage even more frictionless.

But I have become warier as more stories come out about why social media itself is exploitive and how the companies that run the various platforms have a business model based on selling our privacy and data for profit. (We are not the customer; we are the product.) That is why you won’t find me on Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram. And I am only on Twitter to get practice development ideas from sources that I can transfer to a BVFLS setting.

Why newsletters are better

I have put my stock in weekly newsletters. So while the social media updates I post are meant to be short and sweet and get me noticed, my long-form newsletters allow me to build credibility with the people who recently subscribed but are still getting to know me and to increase validation with the people who are long-time readers.

Here are some other advantages newsletters have over social media:

#1 – We pay a fair price for the email software. That allows the email service provider to make enough money in that business model so they don’t have to sell our data.

#2 – We own our email list data. Want to change email service providers? We can export our subscribers’ information and import it to another service. Try porting your Facebook fans or Twitter followers to another platform. Can’t do that because each platform owns and controls the data.

#3 – We control the reach of our email list. When we send out an email, it will reach every one of our subscribers. Social media platforms can (and do) throttle our reach and charge us to “boost” our posts to the audience we built.

#4 – Email service providers don’t track our every move on the internet or target us with ads about products and services we Googled a day ago.

#5 – Emails don’t go away if we don’t check our inboxes for a few hours. We can read them later – easily – because they are “there.” But how many of us scroll through our social media feeds to see who posted what while we were gone?

#6 – Email metrics are better. Open rates let us see what percentage of audience read at least some of our message. Social media “Likes” don’t require us to read anything.

#7 – Social media is designed to be addictive. In fact, it counts on it. Email is designed with “mission accomplished” in mind.

#8 – Don’t want to receive any more emails from a sender? Hit the unsubscribe button … done. Want to stop someone from showing up in your social media feed … the companies make it purposely hard to do (it’s like trying to exit a casino).

At the end of the day, email has been around for 30 years, and I don’t see it going away. And attaching a newsletter to an email is the surest way I know to get your best content read and build your authority with an interested and invested audience.

So what

Social media is valuable.
But my usage is transparent … it is the gateway drug to my newsletter.

In real life

Craig Mod wrote this in an article for WIRED magazine:
We simply cannot trust the social networks, or any centralized commercial platform. Email is definitely not ideal, but it is: decentralized, reliable, and not going anywhere—and more and more, those feel like quasi-magical properties.

Reading that can help

Are you a digital sharecropper?

Newsletter or Blog: which is better for you?

Cheers!

 

 

 

Action Items

– If you like what I write about, tell a colleague.

– If something resonates and you want to reach out directly, email me.

– If you think we share common interests, connect with me on LinkedIn.

– If you want a sense of how well your practice is working for you, take this Practice Self Assessment.

I hope you found our last conversation about newsletter writing tips to be useful. While doing good work for the current clients you serve is important, your potential clients need a way to find you and understand your perspective. Writing a newsletter is one way to remove the barrier between just doing good work and communicating the kind of good work you do.

On to this week. What is the lingo that your website should speak? The word “lingo” is my homage to a book by Jeffrey Shaw I recently read of the same name … the subtitle being, discover your ideal customer’s secret language and make your business irresistible. Does your website do that for your firm? Does it speak the lingo that attracts the clients you want?

And if you’re new here, welcome aboard. This is what we do!

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One thing I found last week: Your Clients Pay You to be Effective, Not Efficient … a LinkedIn article by Tim Williams who reminds us to be overly obsessed with delivering the results (the ends), not doing the work (the means).

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If you believe your website is not the lead generating/prospect converting tool it could be perhaps there is a reason. Because if you’re not getting the results you want, it may be that your website is not speaking to the right people. Or you’re not saying the right things to the right people via your website.

So … in this context lingo is your clients’ secret language. It’s the words and phrases and jargon they use to describe their operations, services, and issues. And building a website around your clients’ secret language is one key to landing more clients of the same variety.

So … how do you know if your website speaks, or speaks to, your clients’ lingo? How do you get the attention of the specific clients you want to reach within seconds of them arriving on your website? How does your website show them that you are the best (only) person to serve their immediate needs?

Instead of me suggesting what you must do or should consider, let me perform one of my favorite coaching exercises with you: put yourself in a potential client’s shoes. When you are looking for a specific professional service and you land on a firm’s website …

#1 – Do you feel like you are in the right place?

Does the look/feel/style of the website resonate with you? Does the website create some kind of connection … an emotional familiarity, if you will?

#2 – Does the website speak to you?

Does the website use the words and phrases and jargon that say the firm behind this site understands you … your operations, services, and issues?

#3 – Do you see your problem?

Does the site have testimonials or case studies that you self-identify with? Are the language triggers in #2 written in a way that makes you feel the firm is in your head? That they “get” you? Because you are wired with a need to “see” the problem before you will seek a solution.

#4 – Do you see your solution?

Does the website present a clear roadmap showing you the benefits of working with the firm, how (what options) to work with the firm, and what will be the outcome of you working with the firm?

Got it? Cool.
Now you know how you want to feel when you land on a website. Do you think the kind of clients you want feel that way when they land on your website?

So what

To speak the lingo of the clients you want to work with, you need to know how they think, what attracts them, and what makes them feel as if they belong. And the best way to do that is to serve one particular kind of client.

Because if your website speaks to everyone, it speaks to no one. Because clients don’t want to feel targeted by you, they want to be drawn to you.

And that’s why generic, we-do-everything websites don’t work. Because a website can’t possibly speak, or speak to every client’s lingo … just to the clients you want to work with.

In real life

Speaking the right lingo doesn’t just relate to your website. It should be part and parcel of all of your Authority-driven communication efforts, whatever form they take.

Reading that can help

LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible by Jeffrey Shaw.

How Do You Know If It’s Time to Update Your Firm’s Website?

Is Your Website Missing Any of These 3 Critical Features?

The #1 Thing BVFLS Clients Look for on Your Website

Tips for Getting Your Audience to Stay on Your Website Longer by John Jantsch.

Cheers!

 

 

 

Action Items

– If you like what I write about, tell a colleague.

– If something resonates and you want to reach out directly, email me.

– If you think we share common interests, connect with me on LinkedIn.

– If you want a sense of how well your practice is working for you, take this Practice Self Assessment.

Continued greetings from Palm Springs … 4 weeks of hibernation down, 5 weeks to go before we start traveling again.

Based on the emails I got about last week’s conversation, several readers changed their smartphone’s hotspot name to something that relates back to them. Sometimes it really is the simple things. And a clarification … when your hotspot is turned on people can see the name of it but can’t join it without the password.

On to this week. You get more work by being known as an Authority in/for something. One way to build Authority is by creating content that communicates your BVFLS perspective to your audience. One of the easiest ways to communicate content is with a newsletter. Here are four tips I’ve learned that will make sure your newsletter is successful.

And if you’re new here, welcome aboard. This is what we do!

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Back in the day, I was fortunate to reserve two domain names that – surprisingly – were not taken: StandardOfValue (.com and .net) and PremiseOfValue (.com). Either one is perfect for a BV website or newsletter/blog name. Email me if you are interested in acquiring.

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This is my 186^th newsletter. As the Farmers Insurance guy says: I’ve seen a thing or two, so I know a thing or two. Here are four tips that will make your newsletter be all of the practice development tool it can be.

#1 – Target the right audience.

This is simple … the readers you should write for are those you most want to hire you. That doesn’t mean ALL attorneys or ALL business owners … just the ones you can deliver ridiculous amounts of value to in your practice area or industry niche.

My newsletter is targeted to an audience of 1-3 person BVFLS firms because I am that kind of firm, and I know the opportunities and challenges these practitioners face. And they can unilaterally implement the ideas I write about without the need for a partners’ meeting.

#2 – Make your content relevant.

You know a great deal about your specialty, but not all of it may align with why clients hire you in the first place. To choose newsletter topics that will attract clients, identify the most common reasons they decide to work with you. Then, tie in your ideal clients’ highest priority issues with your newsletter content.

My newsletter focuses on one over-arching theme (helping overwhelmed BVFLS practitioners focus on practice development), and I share real-world experiences from my practice to make my content more tangible. I also provide “So what” and “In real life” headings so you can grasp the relevance of what I write about and see how/where it fits in with your practice.

#3 – Write often enough.

This is not as simple … how often does your audience want or need to hear from you? In turn, this can be driven by how much (long) you write. Part of the reason Seth Godin can blog every day is that most of his posts are very short. But if you write 3,000 words every time out of the gate, people aren’t going to want to hear from you as often.

My newsletter comes out weekly because I felt any more would be intrusive and any less would result in a loss of traction for the ideas I want to communicate. And from my “Greetings” introduction to my “Reading that can help” closing, I strive for 900 to 1,100 words.

#4 – Write well.

Writing quality will have a substantial impact on the success of your newsletter. No one wants to wade through long-ass paragraphs, run-on sentences, and sloppy grammar. You can hone your writing skills by reading a book on the subject, taking a class, or hiring an editor to polish your pieces, any of which will provide carryover benefits to your report writing.

My newsletter has its own voice and, thus, its own writing style … nothing like what I write in a valuation report. Still, I use Grammarly to go beyond Word’s spell and grammar checking tool to find punctuation, word choice, and style mistakes in my writing. And I took classes with a writing coach.

So what

Why only 4 things. Because everything else you read about putting together a great newsletter will fit under one of these headings … things like catchy titles, editorial calendars, self-promotion, when to send, tracking metrics, etc.

Master my four tips and the rest will take care of itself.

In real life

At the end of the day, recognize that a study by the US Department of Labor Statistics says the average person spends only 19 minutes reading every day – and that is reading of all types. (Also, most of that reading occurs on a mobile device, bringing new meaning to the term “fine print.”)

Therefore, a text-only newsletter will only get you so far, which is why you will want to expand into other mediums like voice and video.

Reading that can help

How to Write an Email Newsletter in 13 Simple Steps, which includes a fantastic infographic, “Anatomy of a Newsletter.”

How To Write Email Newsletters That People Actually Want To Read, with great imitable examples from some of the most widely read ones, like Tim Ferriss’ “5 Bullet Friday.”

Newsletter or Blog: which is better for you?, because it depends on what you want to accomplish with it.

Cheers!

 

 

 

Action Items

– If you like what I write about, tell a colleague.

– If something resonates and you want to reach out directly, email me.

– If you think we share common interests, connect with me on LinkedIn.

– If you want a sense of how well your practice is working for you, take this Practice Self Assessment.

I hope our last conversation caused you to reduce or remove the number of BVLFS services you say you can do from your website. Because no one believes we can do it all. And a long list of services pigeonholes us into the role of a service provider who sells commoditized products rather than an expert who solves problems in a way that prospects might not even be aware of.

On to this week. Many times, I think we think too hard about what it takes to attract new clients. Before we try the hard stuff, look around and see what some simpler things might be to telegraph who you are and what you do. The anecdote below floored me.

And if you’re new here, welcome aboard. This is what we do!

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One thing I found last week: The Healthiest People In The World Don’t Go To The Gym from QZ.com. This is something out of the norm for me to share, but I believe there is an important lesson here. If you don’t have time to get to a gym, do you have time to just move? 

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Hotspots. The ubiquitous name we give to physical locations or devices (like a smartphone or tablet) that use Wi-Fi technology to gain Internet access.

Quick. What is the name of your device’s hotspot?

Above is the name I gave my iPhone hotspot after I read the story below. Before that, it was something highbrow like Rod’s iPhone (and Rod’s iPad Pro), which was probably the name I gave the device during the original set up process.

Peter Shankman is a person I follow on Twitter. He’s a pretty bright guy.

Remember the video I posted a few weeks ago … How to Create a HARO-ing experience and Get Free PR for Your Firm or Personal Brand? Peter Shankman created HARO and later sold it for a tidy sum.

Peter estimates his hotspot has generated over $50,000 in revenue after he renamed it to @petershankman, the handle he uses on all of his social media accounts. Here is an excerpt about his hotspot’s latest triumph.

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On Friday, I was on an Amtrak Acela, headed from Boston back to NYC. I was working on my laptop, rocking out to a remix of Toto’s “Africa,” when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I looked up, and it was the former president of K’NEX Toys. He followed me on social media, and sure enough, when he boarded the train, he’d sat down and turned on his laptop. While looking for the Amtrak WiFi signal, he saw my hotspot’s name. He looked around, and now we were networking.

This has happened before – countless times. And yes, I’ve gotten several speaking engagements that began with someone noticing my WiFi hotspot name. All from my simple act of renaming my hotspot to something that relates back to me.

In the end, that’s the key: Everyone thinks that change has to be this massive thing – when in fact, almost all the success that anyone will ever have comes from tiny little things – just doing one thing slightly different than everyone else.

Remember: The bar is set so ridiculously low, that most people just show up, do the bare minimum, and go home.

Doing the slightest bit more than the bare minimum can have a MASSIVELY beneficial difference in your life. 

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So what

Peter Shankman is a pretty famous guy.
So this hack will only work for famous people, right?
I am choosing to believe that I am not a famous guy … yet.
And no one is going to notice a hotspot named Rod’s iPhone.
Who knows who might be motivated to learn who/what is behind one named BurkertValuationAdvisors.

Your hotspot name is broadcast to everyone around you when you are using it … in waiting rooms, coffee shops, Acela trains, RV parks. Why not take advantage of that?!

Change your phone’s hotspot name to something that relates back to you.
– Make it the name you use on your social media accounts … @RodBurkert.
– Your email address … Rod@RodBurkert.com.
– Your firm name … BurkertValuationAdvisors.

Because sometimes – perhaps many times – it’s the little things that get us noticed and make us famous.

Reading that can help

From Google, How to Change the Personal Hotspot Name in iOS:

1. Open the Settings menu.
2. Scroll down and select the General option.
3. Tap the About button at the top of the screen.
4. Tap the Name button at the top of the next screen.
5. Tap the small “x” button to the right of the current Name, enter a new Name, then tap the blue Done button on the keyboard.

Presto! You’ve renamed your iPhone or iPad hot spot to something valuable … your or your firm’s identity. I checked and there are comparable instructions for Android devices.

Cheers!

 

 

 

Action Items

– If you like what I write about, tell a colleague.

– If something resonates and you want to reach out directly, email me.

– If you think we share common interests, connect with me on LinkedIn.

– If you want a sense of how well your practice is working for you, take this Practice Self Assessment.