office

People often compliment me and tell me what a great memory I have. While my memory’s respectable, what’s even better is my note-taking prowess. That’s my real secret. I am a voracious note taker in every business situation.

One executive at Vickie Milazzo Institute boils it down to, “The person with the best notes wins.” With that thought in mind, I not only always have a legal pad and pen handy, but also a stack of sticky notes, even in the most informal of meetings. They serve as my external memory, one that doesn’t get erased by sleep, an office crisis or a box of hot glazed donuts.

Have you noticed that as a society we are becoming less skilled at listening? As a legal nurse consultant you can’t afford to be or risk becoming a poor listener.

When you’re talking with an attorney, they must be the center of your attention and you should appear smart and “all in” the conversation. Think about the last time you were talking to someone who was looking past you over your shoulder, checking her Blackberry or appeared to be day-dreaming. Remember how you felt? That’s exactly how the attorney-client will feel – unimportant – if you appear to not be “all in.” You also risk missing a key communication, such as an important issue on your medical-malpractice (or personal injury…) case or worse yet, a deadline. Just like taking notes during the CLNC^® Certification Program increased your exam score, taking notes when you are speaking to your attorney-client will dramatically improve the points you score with that attorney.

Whenever you are in your attorney-client’s office, pull out your Mont Blanc pen (or “be like Vic and buy a Bic”) and your notepad (legal size of course) and take notes as you discuss the case or a future assignment.

If you switch conversations to a different case, switch to a different page. You might be killing an extra leaf on a tree or slaying a forest, but it’s a lot simpler and ultimately more efficient to have only notes for one case per page. That way when you get to your office, you can just file your notes with the corresponding case without having to rewrite a single note.

The more you practice note-taking, the more natural it becomes and soon you can talk, maintain eye contact, smile and take notes all at the same time. The same people in my office who see me take notes all day, every day in every meeting or hallway conversation, are the same people who credit me with a great memory. The notes have become invisible and all they remember is that somehow, day after day, I remember everything we discussed.

Note-taking is a powerful business tool for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. Start today.

Success Is Inside!

Let’s face it. Connectivity is king. The more we complain about getting away from things, the more we need to be connected whenever we get away. BlackBerries^® and iPhones^® have made being on the road a little more bearable. But we do need more than just email when we’re out of the office. Sure, those lucky legal nurse consultants who are iPhone users can surf the web, watch YouTube and listen to music, but for the legal nurse consulting “crackberry” users out there – we need the Internet and we need it fast!

What’s a business owner to do? Until recently, laptop owners were forced to limit ourselves to email and if we needed to communicate via a document, we had to boot up and head to Starbucks^®, camp out in the hotel lobby or line up for signal leakage outside the walls of the airline lounges. We’d go anywhere to find a free (or unsecured) wireless network, to get and stay connected. Even worse, in hotels we’re forced to pay high prices for unstable wired or wireless connections. So, what choice do we have? Not much more than to get up and shout, “I’m mad as can be and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

Well now you don’t have to feel like roadkill on the information superhighway. Today can be your independence day as a CLNC consultant! Head on down to the nearest Verizon wireless store and buy a PC5750 wireless PC card or, to your AT&T store and buy a Sierra Wireless AirCard 881. These slick little Type II cards slide into a PCMCIA slot on your computer (USB models are available and work with MAC and PC) and, once activated, connect you to the Internet at a genuine broadband access rate of speed.

I’ve had a Verizon card for over a year now and it’s worked just about everywhere. I’ve checked email while on the van transfer from the airport, while on the runway (before they shut the cabin door) and even in traffic in the Big Apple (I wasn’t driving). It will free you from the vagaries of hotel wireless. And, best of all, in just about any area where you can get a cell signal, you can get on the Internet.

I recently test-drove the AT&T card and found its connectivity was less than perfect, but they’ve apparently upgraded their 3G network.

One caveat though, is that you have to watch your data transfer. Like many of the broadband providers will soon be doing, both AT&T and Verizon mobile networks have placed a cap on how much data you can transfer (stuff you can download) before you run into an overage charge. Verizon alone offers a low-end service of 50MB of transfer for $40/month and both AT&T and Verizon offer a mega-user service of 5GB of transfer (1,200 songs or 10 hours of video) for $60/month. Both services used to be unlimited but, no longer. Apparently they didn’t realize that people thought unlimited really meant unlimited. My guess is they’ll have to let you access an online meter so you can track how much data transfer you have left before going into overage charges.

Find out which provider has the better coverage in the areas you’ll be likely to use and then set yourself free! The cards can be pricey (there’s a rebate) and service isn’t cheap for a new Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, but if you’re a seasoned road warrior, one of these PC cards may be for you. Try playing one off against the other – remember what I say in my contracts lecture – “Everything is negotiable except your fee.”

There’s a bonus. If it works well at home, and you’re a one-computer CLNC^® business, you may even consider ditching your home broadband service.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

We all have goals of saving money. Do you want to learn a great way to save over $400 in 2009? Save yourself the expense of a dedicated fax line. If you don’t use your fax machine that often, or if you send more faxes than you receive, you can buy a cheap Duplex Wall Jack Adapter ($2.51 on Amazon.com) and plug your phone and fax machine into that adapter.

With the adapter, both your home or office phone and fax machine are on the same line. Next, set your fax machine to “Manual” and call the phone company and cancel the old dedicated line. On the manual setting you can send faxes at any time and the fax won’t answer when your attorney-clients call, your regular answering machine will. If you need to receive a fax, you can activate the fax – but you have to be there to switch it on, which may be inconvenient.

If you want to keep the full functionality of the fax machine, add a Command Communications Comswitch 5500 3-Port Phone/Fax Modem Line Sharing Device ($50.24 from Amazon.com) between the wall and your phone and your fax machine. This neat little device senses the type of incoming call (probably from the fax screech) and directs it to the appropriate device.

You’re probably spending $38/month or better on your dedicated fax line so this system will pay for itself in 2 months!

Now that you’re saving money hand over fist start planning on your next equipment purchase: A Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 ($399 on Amazon.com). This scanner is the size of a Barbie^® Lunch Box and it’s fast. Feed your papers in like a fax. It quickly and easily scans both sides of a document directly to a specific application such as Word^® or Excel^® or, into a searchable PDF for easy filing, emailing or other communication. There’s even one for Mac users!

Now you can start scanning your reports, medical records and other paperwork and clean out those filing cabinets. It also comes with a full version of Adobe^® Acrobat^® which lets you edit your documents after scanning.

Tsukiji Fish Market

This sure beats faxing and is great when you’re sending contracts or other reports to an attorney and don’t want to provide them with the native Word^® document.

See you next Tuesday!

Tom