Making the most of LinkedIn in 2009

LinkedIn is one of the premier online networking sites for business professionals worldwide. Chances are you’re already on LinkedIn and have begun to build your connections there.

But there’s something more you need to do beyond building an excellent profile and inviting people to connect. You should maintain your LinkedIn account with a few bi-monthly tasks to keep your profile fresh, protect the connections and recommendations you’ve gathered there, and maximize your LinkedIn account.

5 easy bi-monthly LinkedIn maintenance tasks

1. Make sure your profile is up to date. Even a month or two of a business activity can make your LinkedIn profile a bit out of date. Get in the habit of reviewing your profile every couple of months to make sure it’s the best reflection it can be of what you offer.
2. Export your contacts. Things happen. On rare occasions, LinkedIn’s been known to remove someone’s profile. So get in the habit of preserving the contact information you’ve taken the time to build with these easy steps: 1. Click on Contacts. 2. Scroll to bottom of screen and click on Export Connections. 3. Fill in the required items and click Export. If you don’t want to actually add the connections to your address book immediately, click Save in the pop-up screen and file in a folder for safekeeping. Done!
3. Export your profile. Do this for the same reason as exporting your contacts. 1. Click on Profile. 2. Click on the Adobe PDF icon (presently in the right column). 3. Save your profile (which will include your recommendations) to your desired folder using the pop-up screen. Done.
4. Request recommendations. Consider clients who’ve been well served by you in the last couple of months, then approach them for a LinkedIn recommendation if they’re on LinkedIn too. 1. Click on Profile > Recommendations. 2. Click on the Request Recommendations tab and fill in the blanks. And while you’re at it, why not leave a recommendation for someone who recently served you exceptionally well?
5. Add one new action make better use of LinkedIn. As with all social networking, you get out of it what you put into it. Just accruing connections will only get you so far. One new action every couple of months is easy to add to your marketing tasks without undue demand on your time. For good ideas, start with Five Ways LinkedIn Can Help Advance Your Career and Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MediatorTech.com.

The best of making mediation your day job 2008

When people ask me the best thing that comes from writing a book, I tell them this: Making Mediation Your Day Job gave me the gift of meeting so many of my ADR colleagues, people like you whose paths I may not have crossed without the book. I’ve treasured each and every one of those path crossings.

The book also brought many of you here for the first time, to my mediation practice-building and management blog. 2008 opened with the publication of my book in January, and I’ll close it with a brief retrospective of some of my best posts for each month since then. (And for those of you who don’t yet own a copy of the book, there’s a special announcement at the bottom!)

Thanks for your visits, your emails, your support for my book, your good questions, and your friendship, everyone.

The best of 2008

1. January: 10 must-have tech tools for the wired mediator in 2008
2. February: Small business marketing experts share their top secrets
3. March: Tech in the mediation room: Colorado divorce resolutions
4. April: How to make ADR marketing part of your routine
5. May: How and why to comment on blogs
6. June: Twitter 101 for mediators
7. July: Are you selling the shovel or the hole?
8. August: Your website isn’t about you, it’s about them
9. September: Mediation in the mainstream: how to make it a successful innovation
10. October: How to keep hackers out of your email
11. November: 6 good reasons mediation marketers should skip the brochure
12. December: 2 critical questions your mediation marketing must answer

Odds and ends

I’ve got a small stack of hardcover and softcover copies of my book, left over from book signings I’ve done around the U.S. this year. I’d like the closet shelf back, so until they’re gone, I’m offering the book with free shipping. You can snag your own copies by visiting the Making Mediation Your Day Job book purchase page.

Happy new year,

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MediatorTech.com.

10 qualities to expect in a graphic designer

Choosing a great designer for your business logo or stationery is like choosing a Clementine in December. The Clementine can look sweet and delicious, but until you peel off the rind, you don’t know if you’ve got a winner or a dried up piece of fruit even your dog doesn’t want.

I got a winner with David Airey, my logo and stationery designer. So I trust David’s list of 10 things to expect from any good designer and hope you’ll benefit from his smarts and experience. Be sure to read his full post to get more details on each of the ten:

1. A strong portfolio
2. Excellent communication skills
3. Attention to detail
4. Great customer service
5. Trustworthiness
6. Good time management
7. Positive references
8. Flexibility
9. An informative website
10. Common courtesy

How do you know if the person you’re considering meets these standards with excellence?

Search their site for information about work they’ve done for other clients. Then, in addition to contacting the references they offer, contact one or two other clients. Ask them to comment on some of the qualities that are harder to discern from the website or initial phone conversations alone – like items 2, 4, 5 and 6.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MediatorTech.com.

Mediator Tech gets a new name

There aren’t a lot of benefits of being without power or phone for 8 days in a New England winter. But the ice storm of 2008 did give me the chance to think a lot while we went about the business of keeping house and pets warm, water available, cooking simple, and batteries and generator gasoline in stock.

The result of that think time is a decision I’ve been considering for several months. And so I’m here to announce that Mediator Tech has been renamed Making Mediation Your Day Job.

I’ve made the change for five primary reasons:

1. It syncs with the title of my book, minimizing confusion for those who land here as a result of the book.
2. It more accurately reflects the content of the website, which is about more than technology for mediators.
3. It reflects the evolution of this site from its inception in 2005.
4. It informs new ADR visitors and readers that there’s something here for them even if they’re not interested in technology.
5. It gives me the latitude to continue to grow this site organically as I broaden my own writing about the intersection of mediation, marketing, technology and development of the field.

For the time being, the URL will remain MediatorTech.com. At some point, I’ll probably move the site over to the MakingMediationYourDayJob.com domain, which presently just redirects visitors to MediatorTech.com. But that won’t happen anytime soon and so, if you’re a subscriber, there’s nothing you need to do.

What? You’re not a subscriber yet? You can remedy that, you know, and I hope you will.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MediatorTech.com.

Mediation a top career for 2009, with one caveat

U.S. News and World Report has named mediation one of the best careers for 2009, commenting about its potential even in an economic downturn. And while tooting mediation’s horn, they also offer a dose of realism to go with the ranking.

Says U.S. News in Best Careers 2009: Mediator,

“The problem is that there are more mediators than there are mediation jobs. In part, this is because the barriers to entry are so low—most mediators are required only to complete a 30-to-40-hour training course.
 
The oversupply means that most mediators do not earn a middle-class income for one to five years. And even to do that, a mediator must embrace marketing by establishing a niche—disputes among postal workers, people of different races, parents and teens, or even participants in the online world “Second Life.” Until mediators develop a reputation, they must schmooze with potential referral sources, write articles or give talks on mediation, perhaps blog or create a YouTube video, and certainly find well-connected champions willing to recommend them. Ironically, success may be more likely in a slow economy as people and businesses seek lower-cost alternatives to attorneys to solve their disputes.
 
If you have the gift for establishing trust, generating creative solutions, calming angry disputants, and staying calm amid ambiguity and dissembling, and are willing and able to market yourself, mediation can be a win-win career (emphasis added) for both you and your clients.”

Hat tip to Nan Starr for forwarding me the link.

And hat tips to all of you who wondered about my silence here and checked in with me. The ice storm that devastated southern New Hampshire and left 430,000 without power or phone in sub-zero weather smacked us around, too. We’re still without power a week later and count the little daily blessings that are our neighbors, our electrician, our plumber, our friends, and our community. And a special nod to all those power line workers who left their daily lives in other states to come help us. Happy holidays to you all.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MediatorTech.com.

2 critical questions your mediation marketing must answer

Before any client hires you, they’re asking themselves two critical questions:

Is mediation (substitute other conflict resolution services you offer if needed) relevant to my problem?

Why should I hire this mediator instead of someone else?

Can you answer those two questions right now, clearly and concisely, and without mediator jargon? Your answers need to be at the foundation of your marketing efforts and without superb answers, your marketing will be weak.

Is mediation relevant?

It’s so easy to say yes to this when you sit in the mediator’s chair. But the public doesn’t have the clarity you have about mediation and a mediator’s impartiality.

This one takes work – elbow grease by every single mediator who wants to thrive in business and do good in the world. And to start blogging, or podcasting, or Twittering without knowing the answer is one of the reasons so many social media marketing forays go nowhere. An ad exec interviewed a couple of weeks ago for the New York Times article Multiscreen Mad Men put it this way:

“…we do have a ton of different new media and new ways to use them. But before we get there, I would suggest that first, you take a step backward and ask yourself, How do I make my brand relevant? Overalls are a staple of Americana, a cultural icon. The question is, How can you make overalls relevant to people today, and how can you use these different media channels to accomplish that?”

Why should I hire you?

Again, an easy answer from the mediator’s perspective and a whole lot less clear from the other side of the table. In fact, you may take this so for granted that you’re not spelling it out clearly enough for your prospective clients. They need it spelled out because they don’t have the experience, knowledge and understanding of mediation’s power that you do.

The Marketing Experiments Blog explains why things like taglines and brand statements often miss the mark:

“The statement ‘My Life Is Beautiful’ makes a catchy tagline, but it’s not what we consider a true value proposition. Why not? Because it doesn’t answer this question: ‘If I’m your ideal prospect, why should I buy from you instead of anyone else?’ Answer that with ‘My life is beautiful’ and you’ll clearly see the disconnect.”

Answering questions like the two above is the foundation of everything you do in your marketing. Sounds like a perfect time for a ramp-up and renewal retreat!

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MediatorTech.com.

Trade your shoebox full of receipts for Shoeboxed

With the annual tax return ritual in the U.S. just a few months away now (gah!), it seems the right time to review Shoeboxed, a new receipt-management service.

If you tend to gather receipts in large piles, or aren’t a fan of scanning them (or do and then find it difficult to organize the scanned documents), Shoeboxed may be particularly helpful to you. It presents itself as the alternative to those two approaches.

Shoeboxed works like this:

1. You create an account via their website.
2. You mail Shoeboxed your printed receipts and email them your digital receipts.
3. They scan into digital format and categorize them.
4. You go online to sort by vendor name, date or amount.
5. You export your receipts to Excel, Quicken, PDF, or CSV if you wish.
6. You can download copies of any receipts you need for IRS, store returns, proof of purchase, etc.

View the 5-minute Shoeboxed demo video for more information (same page has customer testimonials and screenshots of the website interface you’d use).

It does seem Shoeboxed has tried to be thoughtful about security and privacy, including how they minimize who sees your receipts and how they maintain online security. Shoeboxed pricing plans run from free to $49.95/month U.S., depending on usage needs.

My sense of Shoeboxed is that it’s well thought through and the interface is designed for ease of use. But I can’t help but wonder what happens if the young guys who founded it move on to something else? I suppose you can download a comprehensive digital file for safe-keeping.

If you’ve tried Shoeboxed, I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. And by the way, I’m not a Shoeboxed affiliate nor do I gain if you try it.

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