On the Job: Managing a Department of One?

Lawyers tend to embrace the solitary work style. Marketing professionals, on the other hand, can feel overworked and isolated if they have solo responsibility for shepherding a firm's marketing program. When you are a department of one, how do you manage to get your firm's work done and still preserve your sanity and sense of balance?

Set Expectations You Can Achieve

The fundamental step is to only accept the responsibilities that you can reasonably accomplish. Yet, within this simple method is a very complex matrix of information. What are your strengths and capacities, your life and work goals? What are the legitimate needs of the firm? What are the most important tasks for marketing now and in the future? What are the partners willing to let you do? What is the competitive environment? What can the firm afford?

We've looked, in previous columns, at the role of a good job description and it remains essential in mapping out a workable level of performance expectation. Gaining the understanding and visible support of influential partners is another key. This political work can be enhanced by a strong administrative structure, where you are assured that the management and economic resources of the firm will confirm your principles and priorities if they are challenged.

Practice Good Time Management

You can find any number of systems, from Steven Covey to Day Timers, with which to manage your time. Each has its benefits and limitations. However, solo marketing practitioners must rigorously divide and sub-divide their attention and commitments, in order to avoid assignment gridlock. Take a seminar or two and find a system that makes sense for you and then devote yourself to it. Know and record the tasks ahead of you and agree to new ones with clear understanding of how they fit into your existing workload.

Accept, as well, that the best time manager must remain flexible enough to attend to the episodic attention spans of firms and attorneys. Never commit 100% of your days to pre-scheduled activities. Protect a portion of every day for thinking time or quiet time to accelerate your productivity. Contain call backs and e-mail replies to certain periods when your concentration is less focused. Use five-minute breaks to your advantage, several times a day, to walk away from your chaotic office or interrupt an intense period of activity. Be sociable and willing to join others for social events to decompress.

Develop A Problem-Solving Peer Network

One of the chief drawbacks for the solo marketer is that your closest problem solving advisors are mainly lawyers. To avoid being consistently constrained by their wary attitude, develop an informal group of problem solving peers, both in the law business and, more generally, in professional service marketing. These might be lunch buddies, members of local non-profit interest groups (Legal Marketing Association, American Marketing Association, Ad Club, etc.), freelancers or online communities (as on http://www.lawmarketing.biz/ and http://www.lmalistserv.org/). With a small, interested and willing group of problem solvers available, no issue or situation will stump you for a ready solution.

Implementation ' well ' that could be a concern. While a little effort goes a long way toward recruiting and maintaining a resource for free advice, multiplying man (or woman) hours is another thing altogether. Building an outside network of vendors will provide you with a quick command of ready resources when a great idea exceeds your personal capacity to get it done.

After all, there are only 24 hours in a day and you're just one person.

Russell Lawson is on the job in Richmond, VA, as a consultant to law firm marketing partners and staff, and edits the Jobs page on lawmarketing.com. Reach him at 804-240-8862.

Lawyers tend to embrace the solitary work style. Marketing professionals, on the other hand, can feel overworked and isolated if they have solo responsibility for shepherding a firm's marketing program. When you are a department of one, how do you manage to get your firm's work done and still preserve your sanity and sense of balance?

Set Expectations You Can Achieve

The fundamental step is to only accept the responsibilities that you can reasonably accomplish. Yet, within this simple method is a very complex matrix of information. What are your strengths and capacities, your life and work goals? What are the legitimate needs of the firm? What are the most important tasks for marketing now and in the future? What are the partners willing to let you do? What is the competitive environment? What can the firm afford?

We've looked, in previous columns, at the role of a good job description and it remains essential in mapping out a workable level of performance expectation. Gaining the understanding and visible support of influential partners is another key. This political work can be enhanced by a strong administrative structure, where you are assured that the management and economic resources of the firm will confirm your principles and priorities if they are challenged.

Practice Good Time Management

You can find any number of systems, from Steven Covey to Day Timers, with which to manage your time. Each has its benefits and limitations. However, solo marketing practitioners must rigorously divide and sub-divide their attention and commitments, in order to avoid assignment gridlock. Take a seminar or two and find a system that makes sense for you and then devote yourself to it. Know and record the tasks ahead of you and agree to new ones with clear understanding of how they fit into your existing workload.

Accept, as well, that the best time manager must remain flexible enough to attend to the episodic attention spans of firms and attorneys. Never commit 100% of your days to pre-scheduled activities. Protect a portion of every day for thinking time or quiet time to accelerate your productivity. Contain call backs and e-mail replies to certain periods when your concentration is less focused. Use five-minute breaks to your advantage, several times a day, to walk away from your chaotic office or interrupt an intense period of activity. Be sociable and willing to join others for social events to decompress.

Develop A Problem-Solving Peer Network

One of the chief drawbacks for the solo marketer is that your closest problem solving advisors are mainly lawyers. To avoid being consistently constrained by their wary attitude, develop an informal group of problem solving peers, both in the law business and, more generally, in professional service marketing. These might be lunch buddies, members of local non-profit interest groups (Legal Marketing Association, American Marketing Association, Ad Club, etc.), freelancers or online communities (as on http://www.lawmarketing.biz/ and http://www.lmalistserv.org/). With a small, interested and willing group of problem solvers available, no issue or situation will stump you for a ready solution.

Implementation ' well ' that could be a concern. While a little effort goes a long way toward recruiting and maintaining a resource for free advice, multiplying man (or woman) hours is another thing altogether. Building an outside network of vendors will provide you with a quick command of ready resources when a great idea exceeds your personal capacity to get it done.

After all, there are only 24 hours in a day and you're just one person.

Russell Lawson is on the job in Richmond, VA, as a consultant to law firm marketing partners and staff, and edits the Jobs page on lawmarketing.com. Reach him at 804-240-8862.