January 2010

Like most women, I’m a sucker for a gift with purchase (GWP) at a makeup counter. I never met a GWP offer I could refuse, so I try to steer clear of the mall when I know they’re being offered. Tom’s been shopping with me so many times that if I forget to ask for my GWP, he’ll often pipe in before we close the transaction with “is there a gift with that?”

I have a great sales rep, Lisa, who I’ve known for a long time. Once, she tried to sell me a new product which I refused. To my surprise, when I got home that very product was in my bag! That’s right, the actual product, not the small sample of it. She’d even tucked in a note telling me she was sure I would love it. I had no choice but to experience it and now I’m a believer. That free gift turned out not to be free at all because I love this product so much I’ll probably be buying it for the rest of my life or its life.

This same marketing strategy works for your legal nurse consulting business too. You should be educating your attorney-clients about every one of the 32 CLNC^® services you offer. If they’re stuck on using the same 3-5 CLNC^® services, gift them, and I don’t just mean a small sample. Go ahead and do that whole set of requests for production, (not just 5 examples of what you are able to do). Remember not to bill them for it, but remember the small note that reminds them that this time it’s a gift. And this is a gift that should bring you a huge return. If you do it well, the attorney will be hooked and expecting it (for your regular fee of course) on the next case and every case thereafter.

I am certain that if Lisa had never given me the product, I would never have tried it. She is smart enough to know that sometimes even a sample is not good enough. I had to fully experience the product to fully appreciate it. One of those tiny two-use samples wouldn’t have converted me like having the full-blown experience.

If you believe strongly in what you have to offer, you’ll find a way to get a CLNC^® GWP into the hands of your attorney-clients. Create and deliver your CLNC^® GWP today. Warning – if your attorney-clients like it too much, you may not have time for your own shopping anymore.

Success Is Inside!

The other day Tom and I went to purchase a new mattress. We thought it was time for a change and that a rainy afternoon was a good time to start looking. We’d already done our homework so we knew what we wanted. The first store we went into, the sole salesperson reluctantly left his seat at the counter only after we struggled in from the rain, shook off and folded our umbrellas. It was still two hours before closing according to the sign on the door, so I wondered if he figured we weren’t serious shoppers, although who else would be out in a hard rain? He answered our questions, let us roam about the store unattended and didn’t really try to sell us anything.

We left and drove about three blocks to the next store. Even before we had the umbrellas wrapped up a young salesperson named Tiffany walked up and introduced herself. She asked what we were looking for and patiently heard us out. After helping us with the mattress set, she inquired about other products we might be interested in as well as any concerns we might have. She complimented us on our choice, told us why it was different from similar sets and spent a lot of time with us without exerting any pressure tactics.

She was so good that before we left the store, we’d not only laid on almost every mattress they had, we’d also tried out all their recliners and added one of those to our growing list. I had to draw the line when I heard her telling Tom that they made a matching cup and snack holder for the recliner. When we made our final purchase she checked the store’s inventory and told us that while the recliner could be delivered the next day it would be a week before she could arrange delivery of the mattress set. She offered to send over the floor model along with a complimentary set of sheets to let us sleep on it as a test until ours could be delivered. We walked out of the store the proud new owners of not only a mattress but also a new recliner, a reading lamp and some other accessories, a not inconsiderable sale for a rainy afternoon.

On our scheduled delivery date, Tiffany arrived at our house just after the delivery truck. She supervised the load-in and helped set up everything. After the delivery crew left Tiffany stayed to orient us to everything and to go over our invoice to show us what had been delivered and what was still outstanding. The next day she called to see how we’d slept and if we had any questions or needed any adjustments. She also updated us on the delivery date for our mattress.

I was struck not just by how good her service was, but by how far she went above what I would have considered normal or even great customer service. How often do you walk into a store and have to struggle to capture the attention of a salesperson or even pry them off their cell phone to work with you? Here was a woman who not only took charge of the sale from the minute we walked in the store, but did everything she could to make our experience a memorable one.

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, do you do the same for your attorney-clients and prospects?

• Do you offer a seamless experience from the time you meet them, up to and after you deliver your work product?
• Do you offer additional CLNC^® services that will benefit the case?
• Do you assess whether you can provide something more (such as articles on the topic) to the attorney right away, and before you deliver your final work product?
• Have you followed up to see if the attorney-client has all the information that she needs and to answer any questions she has after reading your legal nurse consulting work product?

Next time you find yourself working with an attorney-client or -prospect, ask yourself whether or not you’re delivering “Tiffany-quality” service.

Okay my CLNC^® amigos, I’m going to try something never done before in the history of my Tuesday Tech Tips. No, it’s not going to be something anatomically impossible, instead I’m going to actively solicit the opinions of all my readers (hope you’re here today, Mom) on the Windows 7 operating system.

I want to hear from the following groups of CLNC^® consultants, nurses and/or geeks:

• People who upgraded to Windows 7 from XP on an existing machine.
• People who upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista (tell me your Vista version) on an existing machine.
• People who upgraded from 32-bit to 64-bit systems (you know who you are) at the same time as one of the above.
• People who bought a new machine with Windows 7 preinstalled.

I want to know how the upgrades went and whether you think it was worth it. Tell me what you think about the new operating system and, whether or not, in your learned opinion, it is or isn’t a better version than XP or Vista. Be honest in expressing what you think, tell me how you’re using it and whether it’s making a difference in your legal nurse consulting business.

There are a few rules:

1. No profanity.
2. Comments must contain at least five words of more than four letters each and those words must be in the Oxford English Dictionary (abridged).

Comments may not consist solely of symbols (like in the comic strips – #!*@# OSX).

3. Anonymous comments will be allowed but, to keep the level of discourse civil, comments with names will be given preference in posting.
   
   As far as I know, Bill Gates isn’t reading my Tuesday Tech Tips (he should) so you shouldn’t have to worry about him hunting you down and wiping your system if you say something he wouldn’t want to hear.
4. Mac users will be allowed to submit an opinion which will be fairly reviewed, then ignored prior to being deleted.
5. You must have used your own copy of Windows 7. I don’t want to hear that the second cousin of a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant subcontractor you work with has a friend who’s dating someone whose roommate tried it in a kiosk at the mall.
6. If you’re willing, you can also let me know what kind of computer you’re running it on (laptop or desktop) and any details (processor speed, RAM, etc.) you want to share.
7. If in doubt about your response, see Rule #1 again.

Here’s your chance to help the rest of the legal nurse consulting community make their own upgrade decisions about Windows 7. If you have any great user tips you want to share, this is the time to do that too.

I personally know three CLNC^® consultants who have Windows 7 so I’m expecting to hear from each of you.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Have you ever attended a social event or a networking function where you knew no one? Were you “out there,” introducing yourself and getting acquainted? Or were you a “wallflower” stuck like ivy against the wall in need of a bolder soul to drag you into the crowd?

Tom and I just got back from an event where we didn’t know anyone, except for the hostess. But there were definitely plenty of people worth knowing. At first, we kept ourselves stuck behind the protection of good food, good wine and the good company of each other. But let’s face it, we could have stayed in the comfort of our own home and enjoyed that without venturing to downtown Houston on a rainy night.

Simultaneously we looked at each other and knew it was time to move out from our protective shell and start meeting people. We couldn’t wait for people to come to us. We started with people who were standing alone and then moved on to groups large and small. Small talk was easy. We’d ask a person what they thought of whatever they were eating and then it was easy to move the conversation to what they did, their connection to the hostess, etc. We met some very interesting people (bankers, local television broadcasters, people who worked for Houston’s Metro, women entrepreneurs and a few attorneys too) and when it was time to leave we left satisfied that we not only enjoyed the event but made the most of it.

Believe it or not, boldly introducing myself doesn’t always come naturally. But I keep in mind that contrary to the Cinderella stories that occasionally make the news, most wallflowers never get “discovered.” Had Cinderella arrived at the ball on foot and wearing her sooty rags, it’s unlikely the prince would have given her a second look. Instead, six white horses delivered her to the castle in a golden carriage. She made a grand entrance in her ritzy new ball gown and spectacular slippers. However, if like me, you don’t have a golden carriage or white horses at your disposal, you’ll need to find other ways to make that good impression and avoid being a wallflower.

To raise your Certified Legal Nurse Consultant business to the next level, don’t waste a single networking opportunity being a wallflower. Your legal nurse consulting business will grow in direct proportion to the impact you make wherever you go but you’ll have to be the one to make that impact.

Try and talk with everyone and introduce yourself with a firm handshake. Remember, just about everyone at any event you attend will know an attorney or someone who knows an attorney. If you’re not sure what to say, always ask the person something about themselves. Most people leap on that topic. You can also ask how they are enjoying themselves. I have found these questions to be the easiest ways to get a conversation started.

Try using these tips the next time you find yourself at an event with a bunch of strangers and you won’t need your ritzy ball gown or even spectacular glass slippers but you might be able to eventually afford a golden carriage or other transportation of your dreams.

Success Is Inside!

As registered nurses, we were trained to give and to take care of others. But to successfully manage your legal nurse consulting business you must also be a strong negotiator, willing to ask for what you want and what you need. As nurses, you’re not trained to negotiate, but luckily, you’re born negotiators even though you don’t necessarily think about it that way. You negotiate with patients about taking their meds. You negotiate with doctors to assure the appropriate medical orders are written for the patient. You negotiate with hospital administrators for safe staffing and delegation. You are always negotiating as a nurse and usually it’s for the benefit of someone other than yourself, although you also negotiate with the cafeteria to keep the food from killing you and you negotiate your way through shifts with issues that would make lesser mortals weep.

When you walk into an interview with an attorney, you’ll be using your negotiation skills on behalf of yourself and your legal nurse consulting business.

Attorneys are masters at negotiation, so these inside strategies I’ve learned through 28 years of business negotiation will give you the confidence and the know-how to negotiate with the best of the best.

1. Ask for everything you want at the beginning of the negotiation. Don’t add on as you go along. It makes you seem unfair and looks like you’re just pushing the envelope to get more. For example, if you tell an attorney your fee is $125/hr and his reply is “That’s very reasonable,” you can’t jump in and say, “I really want $150/hr.”
   
   Be prepared and think through what is really important to you and your legal nurse consulting business before you sit down to negotiate. Have your list of what points you need and what points you’re willing to give up. Some people do keep score and being able to track what you really need will help you determine your negotiating success.
2. Ask for more than you think you can get and don’t jump too fast to say “yes” to the first offer someone makes; even if you think it’s fair. Assess the situation and the person making the offer. Use and trust your strength of intuitive vision to diagnose how far you can go. This is not being greedy, this is being a strong negotiator. And you’d be surprised at what offer could be around the corner. It’s yours for the taking if you only ask for it.
   
   I recently mentored a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant on a toxic tort case involving 40 plaintiffs. The attorney firmly told her that instead of her hourly fee, he would pay her a flat rate for each of the 40 cases because he felt there would be a lot of “cut and paste” from one case to another.
   
   The CLNC^® consultant was convinced that she would lose this large project unless she agreed to the attorney’s terms. My advice was to stand firm on her hourly fee because she had no way of knowing before the reviews which cases would be simple, and which would be complex. Locking herself into a flat fee per case could cost her. Even though the plaintiffs all shared the same toxic exposure, they each were sure to have different medical histories (some more complex than others) which could influence causation. Not to mention the variation in the volume of medical records to sort through. The attorney would still benefit from any efficiencies she gained as she worked on the cases even with an hourly billing structure. Likewise, she would not risk losing money on the deal. The CLNC^® consultant stood firm on her fee structure, and as I predicted, the attorney agreed to her hourly rate.
   
   You must be willing to walk away from a deal, especially when that deal is not favorable to you. If you don’t like the deal with one attorney, remember there are over 1,180,000 more waiting for you to call.
3. Do not get emotional during negotiations. Appear detached even if you’re not. I negotiated a contract with a guy who was very emotional. Every time he took off on a point, I’d let him vent and then ask him what he didn’t like about that point. I calmly listened to his concerns and nicely pointed out how the contract supported both parties. As the negotiation went on and his rants slowly ran out, his blood pressure (and my anxiety level) came down. I conceded a number of little points because I knew he was keeping score and would have to win. I stuck to my guns on the important ones. Those points that I needed to win or at least couldn’t bend on, I blamed on my attorney, saying “I’d really like to do this but my attorney feels it’s necessary that I….” This took the pressure off me and helped to end what could have been a line of arguments. We hammered out a deal that was fair to both of us. Know in advance the points that you must win and what you can give up.
4. Don’t assume your bargaining power is weak just because your business is smaller or that you need the deal more than the other party. Negotiating can be challenging when faced with the perception of uneven power positions, but weakness is one thing you can’t allow the other side to see. I have rewritten entire contracts sent to me from companies way bigger than mine who claim they can only use their contract with no changes. But I prevailed and they used mine!
   
   Go in knowing and believing in what you have to bring to the business relationship. Even if you believe the attorney-prospect holds the power card, don’t underestimate your unique selling position and how it benefits the attorney-prospect. It’s your job to educate the attorney about how you can make a positive difference in the outcome of his cases.
5. Never say anything off the record – “Just between you and me, I want ‘X’ but I’ll settle for ‘Y.’” In negotiations everything is on the record and if you say that, more than likely you will end up with “Y” or even less than “Y.”
   
6. Never let the other party bully you or treat you in a paternalistic manner. I’ve worked with plenty of attorneys, met some very tough negotiators and seen many different negotiation styles at work. Surprisingly, it was a non-attorney who negotiated like a pit bull. Realizing what I was up against, I took a long walk and role-played with Tom. Role-playing helped me to anticipate every possible objection and get myself into a Zen-like state. When it came time to negotiate for real, I was centered and ready for him and we reached a win-win. If I’d gone head-to-head with him, like two pit bulls, instead of handling it as I did, the negotiations would have failed.

Use these 5 strategies the next time you are negotiating with an attorney.

Success Is Inside!

Congratulations to Stephanie Crawford, RN, BSN, CLNC for successfully using videoconferencing with her attorney-clients. She shared with me, “Even though I have a fondness for settling down with my records, a mug of coffee and wearing sweatpants… I wore my black suit for my first videoconference. It was a milestone accomplishment to step up to the big league lawyers and meet this attorney via webcam.”

Here are some tips for doing your own legal nurse consulting videoconferences with attorney-clients.

• First of all, to videoconference successfully, you’ll need to have a webcam. Make sure the webcam you use has a high-quality picture with a good microphone built-in. Prices are pretty low so this might be a good time to buy a new webcam. If you’re stuck on using an older, microphone-less webcam, you can purchase a separate microphone. Avoid the headset/boom-mike look unless you really want to look like a telephone operator or someone from NASA. Many Apple laptops come with a built-in camera and microphone so you won’t need to buy any additional gear to start videoconferencing.
• Be sure your hardware – that means your computer, Internet connection and especially your webcam – are all in working condition. Then check that the volume and picture settings are correct. My personal webcam has a motion detector that can track movements in a limited area (people on the other end of the videoconference said the constant motion made them queasy). It will also move to pick up anyone who walks into view of the webcam. I find this to be distracting and have disabled it. Now the picture is stable.
• Be sure that both you and the attorney(s) are using compatible software. Skype is an easy to use, and free, program that allows videoconferencing over just about any Internet connection. It’s fairly intuitive when it comes to setting up and connecting with other Skype users. There are other programs out there that you can research using Google.
• Dress professionally and be dressed from head-to-toe. One of Tom’s treasured Dilbert cartoons shows an unshaven, unshowered Dilbert videoconferencing while wearing a bathrobe. He’s holding a Dilbert finger-puppet in front of the camera. In reality you can’t predict whether you’ll be standing up, retrieving a legal nurse consulting document or doing something else that may expose more of you to the videoconference than you expected. You don’t want to forget and accidentally show your attorney-client that you’ve got on Sponge Bob pajama bottoms under your suit jacket. You may walk through the webcam’s range too so dump the fuzzy pink slippers (they’re a fire hazard anyway). The newer webcams can pick up and broadcast an amazing amount of detail with complete clarity so check your teeth for broccoli before you fire up the conference.
• Clear your background and clean up your legal nurse consulting office. Whatever is shown in the background of your webcam’s picture reinforces your image as a professional. You may need to temporarily move your computer to a different room and even shuffle some furniture around.
• Cut down on possible distractions. Move your cell phone and land-line telephone handsets to another room (to avoid ringing) and consider putting a sign on your doorbell asking visitors to knock. If you have your email program running in the background be sure to silence any sounds that indicate the arrival of new email.
• Send any visuals in advance. If you’re going to be showing exhibits, demonstrative evidence or your CLNC^® work product to the attorney, remember that these may be difficult to see over a webcam. Consider sending them before hand in .pdf format (so your attorney-client can easily open them without worrying about document format compatibilities).
• Prepare a list of bullet-points or write out a script you wish to follow during the videoconference. Keep it handy and even consider posting it behind your webcam so that you can see it without looking away from the camera.
• Address the webcam, not the picture of the attorney on your screen, otherwise you’ll appear to be looking down.
• Practice videoconferencing with other Certified Legal Nurse Consultants and ask for their feedback before you take it to the big time with your attorney-clients. You may need to learn to sit up straight, address the camera directly and avoid unnecessary movements. Think of it as good training for your first expert witness experience.

Finally, remember to have fun. Be yourself and let your personality come through. Videoconferencing can add another dimension to your legal nurse consulting business if you let it and, if you’re prepared and ready for it.

Success Is Inside!

One of you (curse you Red Baron!) called me on the fact that in a past blog, I talked about putting your computer (but not your spouse) to sleep to save money (and boot-up time) and be greener than your neighbor, but just two weeks ago I blogged about memory leaks and the need to turn your computer (but not your spouse) off to speed it up. Well, in the spirit of transparency and compatibility, I’d just like to say “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Saving money and fast computing can be compatible. Yes, I still recommend either the use of software or tweaking of your power settings to put your computer to sleep at night. If you’re compulsive, you can even set it to go to sleep after a couple of hours of non-use. I’ve got Vickie’s computer set to sleep after two hours. It’s a power-saving feature (that’s also a security feature). Every time she comes out of a long meeting, she’s got to push the power button on the front of her computer to bring it out of hibernation and reestablish her network connections. This only takes a couple of seconds (really more than a couple) but for a busy CEO, those seconds add up. Think about it, all that time you spend waiting each day can turn into billable hours by the end of the year but there’s that darn memory leak thing that happens to real computers (but obviously not Macs – just kidding).

So what’s a busy CLNC^® consultant to do – sleep or not? Well, follow my lead and set your computer to save money when not in use by setting it to sleep at night. Keep in mind that you’ll still need to reboot the darn thing every couple of days to wipe out those pesky memory leaks. Reboot it while you’re on a bathroom break (you deserve one).

This is one way we can be green, save time and still keep our computers running fast.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Earlier this month, the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR) published an article based on advice from the Society of Breast Imaging (SBI) and American College of Radiology (ACR) which contradicted the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (PSTF) and stated that annual mammograms should indeed begin at age 40 and even earlier if you’re at risk. Unlike the PSTF’s earlier recommendations, the SBI/ACR based its recommendations on several different trials and studies.

It’s good to see that medical professionals are recommending what women have known for years and what is just good, common sense – if you are 40+, go get yourself a mammogram and get one annually.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share whether you agree or not.