My publisher has let me know that Making Mediation Your Day Job is selling well enough that they want to issue a second edition and market it more broadly. Yippee!

They’ll also put out a Kindle edition, something several of you have requested.

So today I’ve been working through the publisher’s proofs for the next edition and I found myself pausing here:

Many mediators work from the assumption and belief that the parties know best what will work for them and can sort out their dispute if we, the mediators, can help clear the debris out of their way. If you’re a mediator who works from this orientation, then you help people explore, uncover, consider, and reflect. You come to them as a guide instead of as an expert who knows what they should do and how they should do it. That’s the spirit with which I will work with you over the course of this book. Just as when I mediate, I will attempt to clear away debris, reframe the problems you’re trying to solve with your marketing, raise questions for your consideration, and help guide you in your own thinking.

I paused because I’ve heard from a lot of you that the book has helped clear out debris. And yet I know from others of you I work with as a business coach that there’s still stuff that gets in the way that isn’t addressed in the book. So, a quick question, if you wouldn’t mind taking 1 minute of your time. It’s anonymous, so I’ll get only your answer:

[This poll is now closed. Thanks for your contribution!]

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Geoff Sharp is closing his blog, mediator blah…blah.

I’m sad for us, but happy for him, because his choice is about spending more time on other projects and with those he loves. I’ve never met Geoff in person but consider him a friend, and he’s one of the originals in the little ADR blog squad made up by those of us who blogged before it was hip.

I bet he’d appreciate some well-wishes via the comments on his last, good-bye post: blah…blah…bows out.

Geoff, please stop in and say hello now and then. The ADR blogosphere will be less without you.

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Since Making Mediation Your Day Job came out, a lot of you have asked for a place to discuss the book, discuss mediation careers, and talk about creating thriving ADR businesses. I heard you, loud and clear.

So, I’ve just created a new Facebook group, Making Mediation Your Day Job. Join me there to do things like:

• Ask your practice-building, mediation business and mediation career questions.
• Discuss the book and flesh out sections you’d like more information about.
• Leave a testimonial about the book (thanks in advance!).
• Meet, network, and talk with other ADR professionals who want to jumpstart the use of ADR around the world.

Come on over for a visit to my new Facebook group, leave a comment, ask a question, answer the question I just posted there.

Know of other great Facebook ADR groups? Share them in the comments!

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

“A summer of statistics and fun!”

Now. I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of humans would not agree that “fun” and “statistics” should be used in the same sentence. Let alone with an exclamation point at the end.

Yet, that’s exactly what the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (affectionately known as ICPSR by its devotees) did in a brochure for its summer program in advanced quantitative research methods.

That’s because ICPSR has absolute clarity about its target market. It’s not you and me (and I even taught research methods when I was prof in a mediation master’s program). ICPSR knows its target market is social science professors and advanced Ph.D. students. It’s people like my political scientist husband, who does believe that courses with titles like Logit and Probit Analysis and Maximum Likelihood Estimation for Generalized Linear Models are fun.

ICPSR, knowing its market very clearly, spoke directly to that market. And when my husband got that brochure, he sat down and read it in detail from cover to cover.

ICPSR didn’t care that you and I would toss that brochure in recycling pretty damn fast. It cared about the people it knew would read it and sign up. Just like my husband, who’s going back for his fourth or fifth gig in Ann Arbor. He’ll come home with another t-shirt that only stats geeks would get, like the one in his drawer that reads, “I’ve spent my whole life worrying about heteroscadasticity.”

That’s your goal, too, in your mediation marketing – to know your target market so clearly and so well you can create information that’s compelling enough they can’t wait to digest it.

ABA Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division Newsletter

On another note, my thanks to Katherine Mikkelson, author of Teams in Government Law Offices: How to Build a Better Team, published in the Summer 2009 issue of the above newsletter. Katherine tapped me as a resource for the article and was kind enough to quote me as well.

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook…and one troubling trend. It generally looks something along these lines:

Bye for a while, Tweeps! We’re going to Venice for two weeks for much-needed R&R.

Argh! Just stop that sort of thing right now!

Right around the time I’m reading that from you or someone else I follow, I figure the local and not-so-local thieves are, too. The local ones who’ll take advantage of your absence by “taking care” of your home for you.

And the distant ones who’ll use the opportunity to hack your site or your accounts when you’re not looking, as they did to my logo designer David Airey a while back.

Please stop announcing your away-from-home plans on the world wide web. It is the worldwide web, after 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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Re-organizing my digital resource files for mediators reminded me it’s time to make sure newer Making Mediation Your Day Job readers know about them. Here are some marketing resources, many of them digital audio, for your listening and reading pleasure – my compliments:

How to Market a Mediation Practice
An hour-long interview of me by Cole Silver for his raindancing expert audio series

Building Buzz with Blogs
A five-part teleseminar Diane Levin and I recorded a couple of years ago to help mediators learn how to get started with blogging (this one is available to you only if you own my book)

Target Markets for Mediators
Five very brief audio lessons to help you identify your ideal target market

ADR in the 21st Century
Copy of a handout Diane Levin and I prepared for a New England ACR workshop we lead, filled with resources we use in our own practices

Tools I Use
My updated page showing the dozen or so tech tools I most frequently use to run my business

Enjoy,

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

One theory behind interest-based bargaining is that parties to a conflict are more likely to agree to a solution that meets one or more of their most important interests. If you’re one of the millions who’ve read William Ury’s work, you know this well, and you know his defintion of interests: The intangible motivations that lead people to take positions – needs, desires, concerns, fears, and aspirations.

I used to remind my mediation grad students that if parties keep saying no to proposed solutions, the solutions either don’t meet an important interest or they don’t see that the solutions do. So it’s pretty pointless (and stepping over the mediator line in a lot of professionals’ books) to convince or manipulate them into agreement in these circumstances and so much more effective to look for solutions that do meet their interests or work to understand where they see the disconnect between the solution and their important interests.

Any of you who’ve read my book know I make the case for using interests to guide our marketing work in much the same way as they guide the work of many mediators. So, the concept above works for your market, too: People are more likely to agree to a service that helps them meet one or more of their most important interests.

In The 5 Things People Really Buy Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch makes the case,

“…No matter if you sell heating and cooling services, legal services, hand painted greeting cards, or consulting, at the end of the day, your customers all buy some variation of the same five things.

So you better make sure you show them how you and your products and solutions are going to:

1. Make them more money
2. Save them more time
3. Allow them to avoid the frustration of doing stuff they don’t like (like wasting time and money)
4. Help them save or not lose money today and in future
5. Help them feel better about themselves

Copy these five points and refer to them often as you develop your marketing and sales pitches.”

So, mediators, the work we do speaks very directly to interests 3, 4 and 5 and you could probably make the case for interest 2 as well. I see a lot of mediation marketing that addresses #4 (ok, in all honesty, I see it ad nauseam).

I think mediators are missing the boat by failing to address #3 and #5 in how we talk about what we do. What do you think?

A quick announcement

Those of you who also read my Conflict Zen blog already know I’ve started a new writing project, The Year 20 Reboot. I’m celebrating year 20 of my marriage this year and my husband and I have a launched a bit of a joint marital experiment for the next 12 months. Something mediators might have an interest in. If I’ve intrigued you, read more about it here.

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

One mediator is known for his wacky ties. Another is a former judge known far and wide for being so obnoxious parties settle in order to get away from him. A third is known for her impatience.

All of these are mediators Dr. Randy Lowry describes to illustrate market differentiation in Mediate.com’s DVD, Get Busy, Get Paid: How to Develop a Financially Successful Mediation Practice. And while the ways these mediators are differentiated probably aren’t the ways you’d choose to differentiate yourself, they’re excellent examples of the distinctions markets see.

I had a chance to view this video last week and recommend it for a whole host of reasons. It covers important topics like target markets, market niches and market differentiation in a straightforward, thoughtful way. It challenges you to put the work into understanding what you have to offer. And Lowry sets the stage well for successful practice-building with his practice development pyramid. From the bottom of the pyramid up he describes the phases most mediators go through:

• Phase 1: Become a trained mediator – the foundation for everything else on the pyramid
• Phase 2: Practice through volunteering – building your skills and your credibility
• Phase 3: Part-time practice – you’re getting paid, but not able to support yourself yet
• Phase 4: Part-time practice – starting to get case momentum, realize it’s time to decide whether or not to commit to making mediation your day job
• Phase 5: Full-time practice – able to make a reasonable living as a mediator
• Phase 6: A premier practice – booked months out, people will wait to get on your schedule, you can be selective about the cases you will accept

I particularly appreciate that Lowry emphasizes the importance of good skill and professional credibility as critical for success, good marketing skill or not. At one point in the video he shares this quip from a judge in Atlanta: “You can give a sparrow a certificate saying he’s a peacock. But the peacock knows the difference.”

And I was thrilled to see Lowry describe the value of using interests (over positions) in selling, much as I do in my book. When I watched him describing this, I thought to myself, this man is a kindred spirit.

Randy Lowry has an engaging, humble and entertaining style that ensures the video stays watchable and interesting throughout. I met Randy at the Southeastern Mediators Summit last December and he has a demeanor on video that mirrors his natural warmth and easygoing professionalism off camera. He balances lecture with exercises, and peppers his talk with numerous memorable stories that drive the points home.

The Get Busy, Get Paid DVD and digital course manual is well worth the reasonable $49 US, particularly if you like to absorb information and then figure out how to apply it to your own circumstances. Just one small word of caution, though, if you own a Mac: I tried two different versions of the DVD in three different relatively new MacBooks and they wouldn’t play. Once I got my hands on my husband’s brand new Windows machine, a Dell XPS, I was able to view the video without any problem.

A special thanks to Jim Melamed, who kindly provided me with a copy of the DVD so I could review it here.

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

When I was writing my book, I ran across a really apropos quote about the act of writing: “Everyone says they want to write a book, but what they really mean is that they want to have written a book.”

So I can’t help but ask: Are you a mediator who wants to build a successful ADR business? Or one who wants to have built one?

I think the mediators in the first group are the ones who can be truly successful. The ones in the latter group are those who go to ADR conferences and whine about how hard it is out there – and don’t really want to prove themselves wrong.

By the way, if you know the original source of that quote, I’d love to know it and credit them.

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Thanks to Nancy Hudgins, I had the opportunity to speak with members of the Association for Dispute Resolution of Northern California a few days ago. If you were in the group, thanks for your active participation and terrific questions!

Nancy kindly told the group about my article in the current issue of ACResolution: No Need to Be a Geek: Leveraging Today’s Internet to Market Your ADR Practice. If you’re an ACR member or know someone who is, I hope you’ll read the entire issue, which is focused on marketing.

I promised links to past articles that echo our discussion. Here they are:

• Mediation target markets and market niches: not the same
• How a narrow target audience broadens chances for success
• Marketing mediation from your strengths
• 2 critical questions your mediation marketing must answer
• Mediation in the mainstream: 5 successful strategies for spreading innovation
• Your ADR marketing strategy: Avoiding the opt and dropped trap

Best to you,

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 MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.