Interview

Sometimes we get so caught up in marketing to prospective clients that we forget one of the most lucrative marketing sources – our existing clients. Focusing your marketing efforts on your existing and prior clients will often yield a much higher return on your efforts than prospecting for new clients.

It takes time and effort to create a business relationship with a stranger. Creating and mailing your marketing packets, making phone calls, scheduling and attending interviews and doing the follow-up can swallow precious time you could be devoting to working on cases.

New Certified Legal Nurse Consultants will have to market to new attorneys, but even experienced legal nurse consultants sometimes forget to go back to those existing clients to ask for new business. We’re in a relationship business and I like to think of relationships with attorney-clients as long term. Once you’ve invested the marketing time and money to create a relationship, it is nothing short of criminal to abandon it.

If you’re serious about your CLNC^® business, it’s time to sit down and mark out an action plan for creating new business from old attorney-clients. They already know you so you can easily glide past the gatekeeper. Assuming you provided the excellent work product attorneys expect from CLNC^® consultants, the attorney should be happy to take your call.

Set a time to get together with the attorney. If the attorney is too busy for lunch, try a morning meeting and bring coffee and bagels. When you meet, remember your positioning strategies and your interview techniques. Focus the meeting on the attorney-client. Ask what kind of cases they’ve been working, what’s coming up and what their needs are.

Remind them you have a wide range of CLNC^® skills and offer to help in any way you can. Mention the fact that you belong to an association of more than 6,000 Certified Legal Nurse Consultants whom you can call on to quickly answer any question they may have. Be flexible and think on your feet. Every attorney has different needs and you might be surprised at the niches you have yet to fill (and may not have even thought of).

If the attorney is too busy to meet with you, send a handwritten note and attach an article they may find interesting, something on standards of care, changes in hospital policies (not your own) or let them know about non-reimbursement for “never events.”

Remind yourself that you already know this attorney so you’re not asking a favor, you’re not trying to establish a new relationship – you’re just retying the connection and seeing how you can help. Time spent remarketing will be rewarding for the attorney-client as well as for you.

Off to climb the right CLNC^® tree!

Success is Inside!

In 1982 nurses weren’t starting businesses in droves. And the term legal nurse consultant didn’t yet exist. What possibly made me think I could do something no other nurse had done before? That’s Promise 5 – believing as a nurse I really could do anything. Believing you can do it is 90 percent of the win.

I still remember vividly my first interview with an attorney. I was sitting in the attorney’s office to promote my brand new legal nurse consulting business. He was sitting behind a big desk and I was so nervous my legs were shaking and I worried that if I had to stand suddenly I might faint. What got me through that first interview was remembering who I was – a registered nurse.

I thought if that attorney was in a hospital gown with his backside showing I would have no problem introducing myself and inserting a Foley catheter. During my 27 years of owning Vickie Milazzo Institute, I always remember I’m an RN whenever I hesitate to go for what I want.

We Are Nurses and We Can Do Anything!^® How many of you handle emergencies as easily as making the bed? How many of you make split second decisions that are the difference between life and death for your patients? And how many of you do so in the middle of the night when there are no doctors to be found (and even if they were – they’d just get in your way)? If we can do all that, for sure we can do something as straightforward as talk to an attorney and analyze a medical record.

Any time you’re not grabbing the opportunity, tell yourself, “I am a nurse and I can do anything!” Believe and you will achieve all that you desire for your CLNC^® business.

Promise big and promise now!

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share what you will do to believe you can achieve it.

I’m in New York City for Easter and just got back from strolling down Fifth Avenue (Tom held my credit card) in one of the most fashionable cities in the world.

New Yorkers have it all together. They are serious about their business and they’re not afraid to prove it in the way they dress. No matter what they are wearing, they know how to package it into one congruent statement. And nobody knows how to dress up “basic black” like a New Yorker. They dress for “Success in the City” more often than “Sex in the City;” which is exactly what you have to do when you walk into an attorney’s office for a legal nurse consulting interview. I recommend that new Certified Legal Nurse Consultants hire an image consultant. New or experienced, I mean it, you need one, you’ll have to trust me on this one. So did I when I started my legal nurse consulting business 27 years ago (even though I didn’t know it at the time).

A typical nurse, I knew how to wear scrubs, but little else. One year for Christmas I asked my mom for a $50 painting I coveted so I’d have something to hang on the wall of my new one-bedroom condo. Her response was, “You need a dress, not a $50 painting.” But being the loving person she was, I got the painting and mom got a big hug. When I had my first attorney interview, I wasn’t ready to “dress for success,” but that painting sure looked great hanging on my living room wall. Fortunately for me, the attorney wasn’t (and still isn’t) the best dresser either. The dressiest things I owned were my “church clothes,” a purple sweater and grey skirt my mom had gotten me for my birthday (two months after that Christmas). Lucky for me the attorney saw what I could do for him, not what I was wearing, and hired me to work on my first medical malpractice case. I got started both on the case and on learning how to dress the part to maneuver through the attorney’s world.

I did manage to avoid the Minnie Mouse look popular at the time, but some of my suits were a little stiff and serious. Through a “friend of a friend” I met an image consultant who quickly set me straight and pulled me together (but not without a struggle). She taught me a valuable lesson. No matter how competent we are, what we wear and how we wear it speaks loudly about what people will expect from us. We may be able to deliver a high quality work product (or save a life), but if the purse doesn’t blend, the shoes are a little scuffy and if the hair’s ten years out of style – you can count on the attorney focusing on the lowest common denominator, not your 15 years of nursing experience and terrific communication skills. We nurses are pretty lenient and tend to judge other nurses first by how we’ve secured all our tools to our scrubs, then by our competencies. Attorneys hire people they perceive to already be successful. You have seconds to influence that first impression and those scrubs or purple sweater just won’t do it. Nordstrom’s and other stores offer free image consults. Take advantage of them, you’ll appreciate it later. Your best thinking got you here – their best thinking can get you out of those scrubs.

If you’ve still no clue what I’m talking about, take a trip to New York City, stroll Fifth Avenue and take a good look at what people are wearing. Just leave your credit card at home.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share your 5th-Avenue-style tips for your CLNC^® business.

A lot is being said now about the newest form of laptops – the netbook. Laptops were originally designed to be semi-lightweight, portable computers that a legal nurse consultant could easily carry from home to the medical library, to work, to wherever. Soon form was forgotten and notebooks became larger, more powerful and screens became wider. Before long, laptops were “desktop” replacements and almost as heavy to carry.

My old Compaq laptop had such a small form factor that I could easily open it on an airplane and work even if the hospital administrator slacker in front of me decided to crank his seat all the way back and sleep on the flight from Poughkeepsie to Sioux City. My new Dell hardly fits on the seat tray and Vickie has to belt my elbows to my waistline before I can type. Sure I’m envious of your Apple^® MacBook^®, but I can’t wait to see you try and open it up while seated next to me in steerage.

Netbooks and mini-notebooks are the backlash. These are tiny laptops usually weighing under three pounds with 10-inch screens, Windows^® XP and Microsoft^® Works (Linux and OpenOffice, if you’re daring), a relatively small hard drive, 80 GB or so, or a 40GB SSD (solid state drive), 1GB of RAM and a 1.6-GHz Intel Atom processor. They are priced at just over $400. That sounds like a pretty good deal – but is it? Sure, it is a computer but they’re not designed to be used by a hard-working, multi-tasking Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. These are designed with one purpose in mind – portability.

They’re great if all you want to do is surf the web. You can do research for your legal nurse consulting business, stay in touch with your attorney-clients via email and maybe do a little word processing (such as drafting that report at the library or taking notes while interviewing a potential plaintiff). Do not, however, expect much performance from one of these. They’re better than trying to surf the Internet on a smart phone, but don’t try to edit photos, include graphics in a report or render a report into a PDF. Netbooks generally do those tasks – but you’ll spend a long time watching the onscreen hourglass. And, if you’ve got big hands or thick fingers, the tiny keyboard will make you crazy. You may also need to consider an external CD/DVD drive if you plan on installing software other than what’s preinstalled.

But, you can tuck the netbook in a backpack or purse and travel fast and loose. We have an old Fujitsu P-series Lifebook (yeah – it’s old and slow) that’s about the same size and weight as a netbook that we carry on vacation. With my Verizon Wireless Internet card or the hotel’s wireless, it keeps me on the Web, in the know and weighs a little over three pounds (and it’s paid for).

If you’re considering a netbook purchase, here’s some basic specs:

• Windows^® XP.
• 80-120 GB hard drive (not solid state) running at 5,400 rpm or higher.
• 1-1.5 GB of RAM.
• Largest keyboard supplied by that maker (92% is great!)
• Built in Wi-Fi card (802.11b/g) and an 10/100 Fast Ethernet jack.
• 6-cell battery, if you’ll be traveling or using your netbook away from your office.
• Built-in speakers.
• VGA-out so you can plug in an external monitor at home.
• Two or more USB inputs/jacks (one for your USB hub at home).
• Microsoft^® Works with the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack.
• Norton or MacAfee Internet security software.

If you have money for just one computer this year – buy yourself a full-fledged notebook as a desktop replacement and skip the netbook. Then get yourself a dock and all the other stuff discussed in my earlier Tuesday Tech Tip Extend Yourself with a Hub, published December 23, 2008. You’ll have a better experience and get more out of it.

If you have the money and the need to buy yourself a $400 convenience – consider a netbook. It’s a convenience you won’t regret.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Vickie,

I went to my first interview yesterday with a products liability attorney. He was so interested in my CLNC^® services that he asked me to present to a group of 20 products liability attorneys in the area. Do I charge for this presentation? I don’t think I should since he is basically presenting me to 20 other attorneys.

What legal nurse consulting topic should I present and how long should it to be?

I thought I might take some time on life care planning because the attorney was very interested in this topic and didn’t even know what a “life care planner” was. I also thought I would choose a common injury or issue that they come across. I asked the attorney specifically if there was something he wanted me to cover. He stated, “What we covered today and anything else you can think of.” It’s all up to me. I don’t want to bomb!

Jessica M., CLNC

Hi Jessica,

Congratulations on your interview! What an incredible marketing opportunity to present your CLNC^® services to a group of attorneys. I love it when the room is full of them. Do not charge for this presentation – look at it as an opportunity to market your CLNC^® services quickly and simultaneously to 20 attorneys face-to-face. Presentations like this give you instant credibility and are a powerful way to gain attorneys’ trust. It’s one of the fastest ways to become known as an authority in your field.

Take along plenty of business cards and brochures to hand out and remember to get each attorney’s business card. Do personal introductions before the presentation – it’s a huge mistake to ask them to introduce themselves in a round-robin manner – they already know who they are. They’re there to learn who and what you are.

Ask the attorney how much time you will have for your presentation so you can prepare appropriately and stay within the time allotted. Highlight your CLNC^® services and give quick examples relevant to products liability cases. Include a variety of products and injuries. Only speak about life care planning if you are an expert on it. You want the attorneys to see you as instantly credible, so stick to what you know and know well. Discuss the benefits to the attorneys and also emphasize the pain of their not hiring you on their medical-related cases. Save time for questions at the end. Afterwards attempt to set up personal interviews with each attorney. Get’em while they’re hot.

To prepare your presentation:

a. Identify the topic you would like to speak about.
b. Create a speech that includes an opening, body and close.
c. Prepare the presentation, practice it and time it beforehand.
d. Develop a handout that includes your contact information (take 20+).
e. Do not sell on the platform.

Congratulations on taking this step to expand your CLNC^® business through presentations to attorneys.

Success Is Inside!

Vickie

I just hung up from mentoring a new Certified Legal Nurse Consultant regarding a med-surg case. After listening to her ramble aimlessly about the case for three minutes, I politely stopped her and said, “I would really like to help you solve your issue, but would you please describe the issue?” After a few more attempts at rambling and a lot more nudging by me to keep her focused, she finally got to the heart of the matter, and we dealt with it easily and swiftly.

As we were about to wrap up, she confessed that she still found it uncomfortable and often unsuccessful to talk to attorneys about her legal nurse consulting role. I immediately realized the source of her problem. I had just lived it! It was her rambling method of communication.

Those of you who know me, know that I tell it like it is. I firmly but nicely shared that I had a direct insight into her communication challenge just from our brief conversation. Attorneys are crazy busy. They’re working for a living. They’re not like patients who lay around in bed with lots of time to spare waiting for the next visit from their favorite nurse, happy for any company other than a bad reality show.

When you are talking to an attorney, you have to focus, focus and focus some more. You cannot go into an interview or meeting with an attorney being unprepared or misdirected. Once you lose the attorney, you lose the opportunity. There’s no place like an attorney’s office to prove the truth of the old saying, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

The fastest way to lose the attorney is to appear unprepared. Practice your presentation before you give it. Try it on a spouse – if you can keep their attention, you’ll probably be able to keep an attorney’s.

Preparation and focus are the keys to successfully communicating and to feeling comfortable about any communication you are about to engage in.

And remember, if you can say it in five words/minutes, try doing it in three words/minutes instead.

Success Is Inside!