I just returned home last night from our very first ACCELERATE! Live Workshops and Conference in Las Vegas and I’m thrilled to report that it was a smashing success!

It was an exhausting and thoroughly enjoyable week.

A heartfelt thank you to all of our delegates who sensed the trust and safeness of our entire group and really “put it out there” to grow and learn, and for their enthusiastic particpation, making it a wonderfully powerful interactive event.

And of course, a warm thank you goes out to all of our trainers and speakers, who provided us with thought-provoking, interactive content, and truly awesome resources we can use to move our business to the next level.

A few weeks ago I broke my left elbow.  ”Good thing you’re not left-handed” my doctor said with a chuckle.  Well, I am left-handed so that’s a big help.  Now what?

As a true solo practitioner I had a brief moment of panic – how am I going to work with my arm in a sling?  Now, I realize I’m not laying tile or playing the violin for a living but losing the use of my dominant hand for two weeks really slowed me down.  I found myself in a situation where I could have easily turned to an assistant, if I had one, or even to a virtual assistant, if they could just SEE my desk and what needed to be done.

It occurred to me at this point that having my procedures written down would have been a big help.  Something as simple as sending a fee agreement could have easily been handled by someone other than me, if only I could explain how.

That epiphany was followed by another – if I had been out of commission for longer than two weeks, could my business have survived without me?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Certainly not if I didn’t have my systems written down for someone else to follow in my absence.

We all have our systems – how to bill customers, doing collections, following up on service, contacting potential customers, etc.  But are they written down where someone else could follow them and execute the same thing without you hovering over them?

Putting your systems in writing serves several purposes.  First, it allows you to delegate tasks you shouldn’t be handling so that you can focus your energy on your core product or service.  Ronda Henderson of Service Point said of business owners getting mired in administrative tasks, “any activity tied directly to revenue or relationships should be handled by the business owner.  Everything else should be delegated.”  Second, it empowers your employees because they aren’t just winging it and hoping they do it correctly. Third, it prevents you from becoming a micro-manager.  Finally, and possibly most importantly, the process of reducing even your most mundane tasks to writing forces you to carefully review your methods where you may even find room for improvement.

I just posted an article about what you should do if you’re ever sued.  One of the many reasons every business needs a lawyer is to deal with a lawsuit when, not if, it happens.  If you’re in business long enough, you will be sued.  It’s unfortunate, but as a business owner you must be prepared. 

Many business owners believe a lawyer is only necessary in the event of a lawsuit.  In fact, a lawyer can help keep you from getting sued.  Now, I understand that most people think lawyers love lawsuits because that’s where we make the real money.  While that may be true, I prefer to keep my clients out of court if at all possible because going to court is always a losing proposition, for everyone except maybe the lawyers.  Even if you win, you’ve paid a lawyer a bunch of money to represent you.  Even if you get your attorney’s fees awarded, it might be impossible to collect them.  Most of all, attention better devoted to your business has been diverted for months or even years to a lawsuit.

So how can a lawyer keep you from being sued?  Boy, where do I start?  By reviewing your contracts, by writing owners’ agreements, by being kept in the loop about your business relationships, by consulting with you on hiring and firing employees, by mediating disputes before they get out of hand, and by being an integral part of your management team.  We are trained to look at everything with what-can-go-wrong x-ray vision that reveals things most business owners never think about.  This allows us to see holes in agreements, weaknesses in processes, and relationships that are headed south in time to fix them.

Make it a point to meet with a business lawyer soon.  At the very least, find out the ways in which they could help keep your business out of trouble.  Your peace of mind is worth it.

Join Candy & Lanel and they share the ins and out of having the best live or virtual conference experience.  This presentation is a must-attend for anyone attending their first live or virtual conference and a great refresher and excitement builder for veteran conference attendees.

Get the most out of your conference investment — Only $9.95.  (Special coupon code for ACCELERATE! Attendees – check your email for details.)

Registration information can be found here:  http://valeague.com/training-camp/

Open up the yellow pages to the “lawyers” section.  Pretty thick, huh?  We used to joke here in Las Vegas that the lawyers section was even thicker than the adult escort section, which topped 150 pages at one point.  In this sea of names and faces, how do you choose the right lawyer for your business?

Let’s start with firm size.  I’ve heard many business owners complain that they can never get their lawyer on the phone.  Nine times out of ten, these business owners have hired big firms.  It may be that the lawyer is overwhelmed with work, or that the business owner isn’t one of the “big fish” clients, but whatever the reason, the client is unhappy.  It’s time to decide what’s important to you – branding or client service.

If it’s important to you to say, “my lawyer is with [insert giant intimidating firm name here],” by all means, hire the big firm.  But if you want to be able to get your lawyer on the phone and not be passed off to an associate or paralegal, a smaller firm may be the way to go.

It seems to me that smaller companies in many industries are enjoying a resurgence of customer support.  As I said, many clients are unhappy with big law firms.  We’ve all seen the mass exodus from big banks in favor of community banks.  Client service is climbing higher and higher on the list of priorities and the larger companies who never cared much about client service are now feeling the pinch.

Let’s move on to credentials.  If you’ve decided to go with a big law firm, you can stop reading.  Big law firms have enough lawyers running around that there’s bound to be someone with the necessary credentials to handle your issue.  If you’ve decided a small firm is the way to go, the lawyer’s credentials should be your next consideration.

Lawyers and doctors are historically horrible business people.  Their professions are so specialized that finding a lawyer or a doctor who also has a mind for business is like finding a needle in a haystack.   It’s important to choose a lawyer who understands how to run a business.  These days, many business lawyers have set themselves apart from the pack by earning an MBA or by operating businesses aside from their law firms.  Finding a lawyer who has experience with your specific business is ideal, but a lawyer with at least some business knowledge is crucial.

Once you’ve found a business lawyer with actual real-world business experience, the next consideration is accessibility.  Running a business involves daily decision making and you want to be able to consult with your lawyer on decisions that could impact the business legally.  Will your lawyer be available when these decisions have to be made?  Will they be able to work quickly enough so that you can make an informed decision and move on?

Now let’s talk personality.  Business lawyers do the most good when they’re in regular contact with their clients.  As a client, you’re not likely to keep in contact with your lawyer if he or she is a jerk, and this lack of contact can be detrimental to your business.  The attorney/client relationship is just that, a relationship.  Make sure your lawyer is someone you like.

Finally, price.  You had price at the top of your list, didn’t you?  Well, price is definitely a consideration, but it should be at the bottom.  You certainly need to find a lawyer you can afford, but a lawyer can save you money in the long run.  It’s true.  We’re like insurance policies.  You may not want to shell out the premium now, but it can get very expensive very quickly if there’s trouble down the road.

Ideally, you should look for a lawyer willing to get creative with their billing.  This is not to say find a lawyer who will work for peanuts, but many of us business lawyers have abandoned the traditional retainer/hourly rate model in favor of more business-friendly billing structures.  Flat fees and membership programs may enable you to have a qualified, accessible, personable business lawyer at a price you can afford.

How many of us keep track of charts that monitor everything we do in our business? Many, if not all of us. While monitoring charts is very important; you don’t want it to change mission. Don’t let it get in the way of who you are and what you want to offer in your business. Seth Godin has a great blog on this very topic. You can read it below:

The Grateful Dead and the Top 40

I wonder if Jerry ever got jealous of acts that were able to put songs on the radio. (The Dead had exactly one hit record…)

I hope not. Jerry was in a different business. Sure, he played music. Elton John also plays music. But they were in different businesses, performing for different audiences, generating revenue in different ways, creating different sorts of art.

In a world filled with metrics and bestseller lists, it’s easy to decide that everyone is your competitor and easier still to worry about your rank. Worry all you want, but if it gets in the way of your art or starts changing your mission, it’s probably a mistake.

It used to be that the non-customers, passers-by and quiet critics of your venture were totally invisible to you. They drove by, or muttered under their breath or simply went to someone else. Now, all is visible. Just because you’re vividly aware of your shortcomings in market share doesn’t mean it’s important.

The next time you have a choice between chasing the charts (whichever charts you keep track of) and doing the work your customers crave, do the work instead.

Like this post? Visit Kristi’s Virtual Regeneration blog, to read more…

If you have a toothache, you’re probably not going to go see your dermatologist.  If you have back pain, a dentist probably isn’t the person to see.  It’s the same thing with professionals involved in your business.

I recently met with a business owner who poised to take drastic and destructive steps – dissolving his protective entities to file paperwork that wouldn’t serve his business at all – on the misguided advice of his bookkeeper.

I always encourage my clients and my fellow attorneys to delegate to others the tasks that might not be the highest and best use of their time.  For example, I *can* do my own bookkeeping, but it takes me a long time and I’m not great at it.  So, I hired a bookkeeper.  Now she handles a necessary task that isn’t my forte and I’m freed up to go do something I *am* good at – like advising clients NOT to take legal and tax advice from a bookkeeper.

Sometimes you don’t know the professional is screwing up until it’s too late.  However, this particular client had ignored a few red flags, such as other professionals telling him he needed to fire his bookkeeper.

If a professional involved in your business is activating your spidey sense, pay attention and double check their work with a disinterested professional.  If your bookkeeper is making you uneasy, fork over the dough to get an independent audit of your books.  If your attorney is bothering you, schedule a consultation with another attorney and see if the advice even remotely relates.  Granted, we professionals may have differences of opinion as to how someone can structure or operate his or her business, but there are some undeniable truths that can’t be ignored.

In the online world, there is only one currency that is worth anything: traffic. The most successful websites are built on huge amounts of traffic, and the most profitable products sell because of the never-ending flow of traffic to their sales and merchant pages. Much like businesses pay premium rent for a high foot-traffic location, many online businesses pay a premium, both in effort and in operating costs, for an online position that helps generate extra traffic.

But there is more to traffic generation than just getting a good starting position and waiting for visitors to arrive. Generating website traffic requires ongoing attention and never-ending effort, and many marketers simply can’t afford to invest the time required to build their traffic manually. In the endless hustle to generate more traffic, some smart marketers have found optimizations, one of which is the “linkbait” article. Be sure to check out my Website SEO Services, which includes ideas for creating linkbait in your marketing campaigns.

Linkbait articles are named as they are for good reason — they attract links from almost all the major online sources. From social bookmarking websites to top social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook, linkbait articles spread like crazy and do not go down without generating hundreds of links.

If you are tired of hustling and grinding to generate links to your websites, a linkbait article could be the traffic and SEO resource that you need. For quick, marketer-friendly traffic generation, it is difficult to look past them. These four tips will help you write effective, link-generating, and traffic pushing linkbaits without ever having to think twice about them.

1) Use a “Top X” style title.

Click-through rates increase significantly when your title includes both a number and a ranking. Online readers are lazy, and for good reason. The average PC monitor zaps huge amounts of energy from readers, and titles that favor “lazy” readers – top X lists, quick reads, and light content – all end up getting more attention than reader-heavy essays. Make your articles light, simple, and reader-friendly with a “Top X” style title.

2) Write on hot topics.

Readers love current topics. Fads may die out quickly, but for short-term traffic they are completely unbeatable. Monitor Google News, Yahoo, and other top online news websites for coming trends, fads, and media events, and keep your writer’s pen ready. A single well-timed article can often be the difference between a huge traffic wave and a small trickle.

Keep reading for more great tips on Andrea’s blog…

I recently attended one of my favorite networking events, the CEO-CFO Group.  The room is filled largely by other people who serve the same clients I do and every time I enter the room, I hug and shake hands with a bunch of people with whom I’ve developed relationships over the course of the last year and a half.   As I stood chatting with someone I hadn’t seen in a few weeks, I was buzzed by a BCC – a business card collector.  This woman worked for a national bank, was a new face at the lunch as far as I could tell, and clearly wanted only to trade cards with people.  She didn’t even bother to introduce herself and find out my name.  It was just, “here’s my card, can I have one of yours?”

Now in this particular group, that behavior stood out because the rest of the people in the room understand true networking is not about being a BCC.  It’s about building relationships.  There were easily 50 people in the room and I came out with maybe three business cards.  That’s not to say the meeting was a waste.  Far from it.  I reconnected with people I don’t usually see other than at that meeting and they introduced me to a few new people.  It’s not about the quantity of cards you collect, it’s about the quality of the relationships you build.

The next time you attend a networking event, change your mindset.  Don’t just try to collect as many cards as possible and immediately add everyone to your mailing list.  Set a goal to meet three people, at most, with whom you have more than a 10-second conversation.  Ask them what kinds of clients they serve and ask what types of people they want to meet.  If their business complements yours in any way, meet them for coffee later in the week.

True quality networking takes time.  Don’t expect to attend an event, give your 30-second spiel, and come away with six new clients.  Take the time to get to know people, learn about their businesses, and the relationships will grow.  Out of those relationships, referrals will come.  Trust me, I’m a lawyer.  And if you don’t trust me, check out this article from WomenEntrepreneur.com that backs me up: I’m at a Networking Event, Now What?

And check out this article from The Onion, “89 Percent of Networking Nonconsensual” for a good laugh.