The recent Charleston, S.C. conference of the Legal Marketing Association’s Southeast Region which I attended with colleague and veteran legal marketer Carol Todd Thomas, was an intellectual as well as a gastronomic feast. (It’s incredible how many terrific restaurants Charleston supports in its compact historic district.)
I’m still digesting much of what I learned at the conference, but one highlight was a provocative presentation by Allen Fuqua, chief marketing officer of Winstead, who was part of a panel discussion titled “Put Down the Fire Hose and Think Strategically.”
Although framed in the context of a busy law firm marketer, Allen’s advice is applicable to a much broader group — serial multitaskers. His advice: Stop doing things that don’t matter. And the corollary: Not everything worth doing is worth doing well.
No one is completely in control of the work he or she has to do, but we can control how much effort we allocate to the projects that threaten to overwhelm us. If there are some unimportant tasks that can’t be ignored or delegated away, we don’t have to make matters worse by performing them to the same high standards we apply to our most important work; instead, perform them just well enough (and quickly) and then move on to higher value activities.
So, where should we be spending our time? According to Allen, focus on projects with high potential value to your firm, but only those where excellent execution determines the quality of the result. Execution is within our control.
One of my clients told me that out of the very large universe of emails and snail mail she receives, our e‐mail newsletter is one of three or four that she thinks is important, and that she takes time to read.
Food For Thought from the Legal Marketing Association’s Southeast Regional Conference
I’m still digesting much of what I learned at the conference, but one highlight was a provocative presentation by Allen Fuqua, chief marketing officer of Winstead, who was part of a panel discussion titled “Put Down the Fire Hose and Think Strategically.”
Although framed in the context of a busy law firm marketer, Allen’s advice is applicable to a much broader group — serial multitaskers. His advice: Stop doing things that don’t matter. And the corollary: Not everything worth doing is worth doing well.
No one is completely in control of the work he or she has to do, but we can control how much effort we allocate to the projects that threaten to overwhelm us. If there are some unimportant tasks that can’t be ignored or delegated away, we don’t have to make matters worse by performing them to the same high standards we apply to our most important work; instead, perform them just well enough (and quickly) and then move on to higher value activities.
So, where should we be spending our time? According to Allen, focus on projects with high potential value to your firm, but only those where excellent execution determines the quality of the result. Execution is within our control.