By Kristina Schneider, Practice-Building & Marketing Specialist There’s no denying that what we are all experiencing right now is certainly uncharted territory and unlike anything any of us have ever gone through. And, while the news reports and uncertainty that we may be surrounded by right now may create a lot of stress and concern, what I will say is that I do think that there’s a lot of silver linings and positive lessons to be learned from all of this right now. Here are just a few things that I think this whole COVID-19 crisis has brought to light (at…
Top 6 Strategies for Managing Interruptions in the Workplace
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant Check out these startling statistics about interruptions in the workplace! According to a study conducted by University of California, Irvine, people spend an average of 11 minutes on a project before they are interrupted and it takes them on average 25 minutes to get back to the point they were at before a distraction. According to the same study, employees that work in shared workspace (like cubicles) are interrupted 29% more often than people in private offices. According to the Journal of Experimental Psychology, even after just a 2.8-second interruption, studies showed…
Top 10 Year-End Practice-Building & Marketing Ideas of 2019
By Kristina Schneider, Practice-Building & Marketing Specialist As we head into the final 2 months of 2019, you may be wondering where all the time went and what can you do in these final two months to really help your practice end the year with a BANG! I’ve put together what I consider to be the Top 10 Year-End Practice-Building and Marketing Ideas for 2019 so that you can end this year on a productive, positive note and head into 2020 with some momentum! IDEA #1: Clean up your database. Now is a great time to take a look at…
Oh *%@! You Messed Up! Now What?
By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant We have all been there at some point in our lives, whether in the workplace, school, at home, anywhere. You make a mistake of some kind. It happens. You’re human. It’s bound to happen. However, how to handle the mistake that you made is very different for a lot of people. What might seem like common sense for some people, isn’t always for others. Here are some tips for how to handle making a mistake. The intention is for mistakes made in the workplace, but these tips can be used really anywhere in life. STEP…
How to Write a Proper Business Letter
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant Writing a business letter seems somewhat common knowledge or perhaps common sense to most people; however, it’s sometimes shocking to see how many administrative staff members – – even those with a college education – – are completely incapable of writing business letters. In this article, we will walk you through each step on how to properly write a business letter so that you can quickly and easily write correspondence on behalf of or for your boss without too much editing. Company Letterhead The first step to writing business letters is to…
6 Tips for Handling Difficult Clients
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant Difficult clients are inevitable no matter what business you are in and no matter how great your customer service is. With the estate and financial planning business, clients can be very emotional. Clients may be stressed about the kinds of decisions they are required to make while getting their affairs in order, especially if they may be grieving the loss of a loved one. They are investing time, money and their personal feelings into the entire process, so it is no wonder that you will experience a wide range of emotions. Anything…
The #1 Step Towards a Happier, Healthier YOU!
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant The office is busy. Life is busy. Things get crazy and hectic. Some days and weeks are worse than others. You have probably felt at one point or another that there was far too much to do and not enough time to do it. This can create a great deal of stress and anxiety on anyone, regardless of whether you’re an estate planning professional (such as an estate planning attorney, CPA, financial advisor, life insurance or trust officer) or you’re a part of the ever-important team of support staff. Despite this, it…
Did Law School Fail You?
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant Graduating law school is quite an accomplishment for anyone. But, with the growing popularity of becoming a lawyer, there’s an over-saturation of graduates and simply not enough lawyering jobs to employ those coming out of law school. Burdened by thousands of dollars of school loan debt and a desire to put to use the countless hours of hard work they put into it, many lawyers have been (or will be) forced to start up their own practice, whether they wanted to or not. And this is where most people are going to…
The Top 8 Staff Training Tips for Estate Planning Law Firms – PART 2
Download the Full Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant In continuation of the December 2015 issue… Law Firm Staff Training Tip #5: Have the Staff Member Create a Detailed Procedures Manual. Another important part of the staff member training is to have the staff member that is being trained be the one to create a detailed procedures manual out of the training that he or she received. Not only will it be helpful to have them write out the procedures manual in a detailed and very thorough format that would allow him or her to pick up the manual…
The Top 8 Staff Training Tips for Estate Planning Law Firms – PART 1
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant Having worked with so many estate planning attorneys and support staff members, time and time again, I have seen that one of the major breakdowns in firm systems comes with the lack of proper job training. Things start to slip through the cracks and while one or two details won’t make or break the success of your firm, the compound effect of multiple staff members not trained right and doing their job duties as originally intended will become one of the biggest challenges for any brilliant estate planning attorney trying to manage…