1. Reassess and Prioritize Spending
When income drops, revisit your budget immediately. List out all current expenses and prioritize essentials like housing, food, utilities, and insurance. Cut or pause non-essential subscriptions, entertainment, and dining out.

2. Communicate with Creditors
If you’re struggling with loans or bills, reach out to lenders. Many offer hardship programs, reduced interest rates, or deferment options during tough times. Communication can prevent credit damage and reduce stress.

3. Explore Assistance Programs
Government programs, nonprofits, and community organizations can provide temporary support with food, rent, medical care, and job placement. Don’t hesitate to use these safety nets if needed.

4. Find Additional Income Streams
Consider side gigs, freelance work, or selling unused household items. Even modest supplemental income can ease the burden and help cover essential expenses during a crisis.

5. Focus on Needs Over Wants
Distinguish between necessary and luxury expenses. While it’s okay to spend a little on joy, focus primarily on survival and stability. This mindset shift helps families weather difficult periods without spiraling into debt.

6. Lean on Emergency Funds Wisely
If you have an emergency fund, use it strategically. Withdraw only what’s necessary and continue to track your expenses carefully. If you don’t have one, make saving a priority once your situation stabilizes.

7. Mental and Emotional Resilience
Financial struggles can take a toll on mental health. Encourage open conversations among family members and seek emotional support or counseling if needed. Financial resilience often begins with emotional clarity.

8. Plan for the Future
Once the storm passes, use the experience to build stronger financial habits. Replenish savings, reduce debt, and revisit long-term goals with a renewed commitment to financial preparedness.

2. Teach Through Allowances
Give children a small, consistent allowance and teach them how to divide it:

Save: for bigger goals or emergencies.

Spend: for small purchases they enjoy.

Give: for charity or community support.

This builds budgeting habits and the value of delayed gratification.

3. Set Family Goals Together
Set shared goals like saving for a vacation or a big holiday gift. Create a visual savings tracker (a chart or jar) that kids can help update. This fosters a team mindset around money and encourages patience and planning.

4. Lead by Example
Children learn more from what you do than what you say. Practicing restraint, saving regularly, and discussing purchases openly will instill good habits naturally.

5. Shop Smart as a Family
Involve children in shopping decisions. Let them compare prices, check for discounts, or work within a set budget. This helps them understand real-world financial trade-offs.

6. Introduce Basic Banking
Open a savings account for your child and help them track interest growth and deposits. As they get older, introduce concepts like checking accounts, credit, and budgeting apps designed for teens.

7. Celebrate Milestones
When a savings goal is met, celebrate as a family. It reinforces positive financial behavior and makes budgeting feel rewarding rather than limiting.

Fixed expenses: rent/mortgage, insurance, loan payments.

Variable expenses: groceries, utilities, transportation.

Discretionary expenses: dining out, entertainment, vacations.

Using budgeting tools or spreadsheets can help visualize where money goes each month and highlight areas for improvement.

2. Set Clear Financial Goals
A budget without goals can feel restrictive. To keep the family motivated, define short-term and long-term financial goals. Examples include saving for a vacation, building an emergency fund, paying off credit cards, or funding a child’s education. Goals provide direction and help prioritize spending.

3. Create and Stick to a Realistic Budget
Use the 50/30/20 rule as a basic guideline:

50% of income for needs

30% for wants

20% for savings and debt repayment

Each family’s situation is unique, so adapt this model accordingly. Be honest about your lifestyle and adjust discretionary spending to meet savings goals.

4. Plan for Emergencies
Unexpected expenses like medical emergencies, car repairs, or job loss can disrupt finances. Having an emergency fund with at least 3-6 months of living expenses provides a safety net and peace of mind.

5. Review and Adjust Monthly
Family needs change over time. Review your budget monthly to ensure it reflects current income, expenses, and goals. Be flexible and make adjustments when necessary whether it’s cutting back on dining out or increasing savings contributions after a raise.

6. Use Technology
Several apps and tools, such as Mint, YNAB (You Need a Budget), or GoodBudget, make it easier to track spending, set limits, and monitor progress. These tools offer insights that manual budgeting may miss.

7. Communicate and Collaborate
Effective budgeting is a team effort. Regular family discussions about money help everyone stay on the same page. Involving your spouse and even children can foster a responsible financial mindset throughout the household.

Natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods

Fires or gas leaks

Medical emergencies

Power outages

Civil unrest or pandemics

By assessing these risks, you can create tailored responses for each.

2. Create a Family Emergency Plan
Your emergency plan should include:

Meeting places: One near your home and another outside your neighborhood

Escape routes: Plan two ways out of every room

Contact list: Include family, friends, and emergency services

Emergency contacts outside your area: Useful if local lines are down

Ensure every family member, including children, understands the plan.

3. Assemble an Emergency Kit
A well-stocked emergency kit is essential. Include:

Non-perishable food (3-day supply per person)

Water (1 gallon per person per day for 3 days)

Flashlights, extra batteries

First-aid supplies

Essential medications

Blankets and clothes

Portable phone chargers

Important documents in waterproof containers

Cash

Update your kit every 6 months and check expiration dates.

4. Include Pets in Your Plan
Don’t forget pets. Prepare extra food, water, leashes, and vet records. Many shelters do not accept pets, so identify pet-friendly hotels or shelters in advance.

5. Secure Important Documents
Keep copies of birth certificates, insurance policies, medical records, and financial documents in a waterproof and fireproof container. Digitize where possible and store backups on a secure cloud service.

6. Practice Makes Prepared
Conduct family drills regularly. Practice fire escapes, emergency exits, and communication protocols. This builds confidence and ensures everyone remembers their roles during real emergencies.

7. Stay Informed
Sign up for local emergency alerts. Use weather apps, radio, or NOAA alerts to stay up to date. Knowing about an impending disaster early gives you precious time to act.

Job loss

Major medical bills

Unexpected travel for family crises

Major car or home repairs

Natural disasters disrupting income

Understanding these scenarios helps shape how much and what kind of support you’ll need.

2. Build an Emergency Fund
A good rule of thumb is to save 3–6 months’ worth of living expenses. Start small if needed:

Set a goal of $500 or $1,000 initially

Automate savings through direct deposit

Use a high-yield savings account for accessibility and interest growth

3. Review Insurance Coverage
Insurance is your first financial shield. Regularly check:

Health insurance: Does it cover emergency procedures and hospitalization?

Homeowners/renters insurance: Are natural disasters like floods included?

Auto insurance: Ensure adequate liability and collision coverage

Life insurance: Especially important for families with dependents

4. Eliminate or Reduce Debt
Debt adds pressure during emergencies. Focus on:

Paying off high-interest credit cards

Consolidating loans if it reduces monthly payments

Avoiding new debt unless absolutely necessary

Being debt-light gives you more flexibility during a crisis.

5. Create a Crisis Budget
Have a bare-bones budget ready—one that trims non-essentials and prioritizes:

Housing and utilities

Groceries

Transportation

Minimum debt payments
Use this budget if your income drops or stops.

6. Keep Documents and Passwords Safe
Keep a secure file—physical or digital—with:

Bank account details

Insurance policies

Loan documents

Contact numbers
Use password managers to protect your digital accounts.

7. Know Your Resources
Research support programs ahead of time:

Government aid (e.g., unemployment benefits, SNAP)

Community support (food banks, charities)

Employer emergency funds

Being aware of these resources helps you act quickly when needed.

2. Develop a Mental Health Emergency Plan
Your plan should include:

Contact information for therapists or support hotlines

A list of coping strategies (breathing techniques, journaling, etc.)

A self-care routine to maintain even in chaos

Medications, if you or a family member relies on them

3. Talk Openly With Your Family
Children and elderly family members can feel the strain of emergencies more deeply. Keep communication honest but age-appropriate. Reassure them, encourage questions, and involve them in planning.

4. Limit Media Exposure
In an emergency, too much news can heighten fear. Stay informed but avoid obsessive scrolling. Choose reliable sources and take breaks to focus on positive or normal routines.

5. Maintain Routines Where Possible
Routines provide comfort and structure. Try to keep consistent meal times, bedtime routines, and daily tasks. This stability helps reduce anxiety, especially in children.

6. Stay Connected Socially
Isolation worsens stress. Call or video chat with friends, check in on neighbors, or join support groups. Staying socially connected offers emotional strength and practical help.

7. Practice Grounding Techniques
Grounding helps when anxiety spikes. Simple practices include:

4-7-8 breathing

The 5-4-3-2-1 sensory technique

Mindfulness meditation

Guided visualization

Regular practice builds resilience before emergencies happen.

8. Know When to Seek Help
Mental health is just as important as physical health. Seek professional help if:

You’re unable to function day-to-day

You experience panic attacks or prolonged depression

You turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms (e.g., substance abuse)

There’s no shame in asking for help it’s a sign of strength.

As a writer for the New York Times website at About.com, I am privileged to write business advice and tutorials for real estate professionals. I find that there is still a lot of misunderstanding about the best ways to use the Internet to market their clients’ listings. Too many real estate agents and brokers spend too much money on print media, while neglecting the much richer environment and greater capabilities presented by the Web.

Back in 2005, selling a home was easy, fast, and usually profitable. Get a real estate professional to throw it into the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), run some ads, and go to closing. Some home sellers even enjoyed bidding competition for their homes. Those were certainly “the good old days” of real estate.

Contrasting today’s markets, we have double and triple the “days on market” in most areas, with homes languishing on the market unless aggressive price-slashing is implemented. And, that’s for normal homes at and around the median prices in most areas of the country. It is a tough market for those homes, but it’s even tougher for “special” homes. These homes could be special solely due to location, size and price. Others are homes on high value land with special development challenges and unique architecture. There is so much greater potential in the Web marketing of these homes than many real estate professionals recognize. Or, if they do recognize it, they still do not take advantage of it.

Whatever the challenges, real estate brokerage and getting a home sold is all about “marketing,” not salesmanship. What’s the difference? Marketing is a planned activity that uses advertising and media to get the product in front of as many interested prospects as possible. It’s about doing a great job of presenting the product, and getting that prospect to respond. Advertising is used to get the word out, but marketing is the plan and structure of the campaign, as well as the selection of the media in which it will be run.

How It’s Been Done

There have been a whole lot of real estate brokers and agents doing the very same things for many years. And, most of them are still doing the very same things over and over again. Remember the definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

• Put the property into the MLS (Multiple Listing Service).
• Put some ads in the local newspaper real estate section, maybe some in color, others B&W. Almost all will have a single photo of the property.
• Put an ad in the local “Homes” magazine; again with one photo, sometimes two or three if a larger ad is purchased.
• In the last few years: put the property up on the broker’s website on a page titled “Our Listings” or “Featured Listings.”
• Wait for the phone to ring.

Let’s talk about the print media advertising for a moment. While there’s still a place for print, especially for old style image advertising, the format can’t compete with the Web. Whether a daily or a weekly newspaper, the ads placed will achieve maximum exposure to the subscriber base of the paper only on the days it runs. If it’s a Saturday and Sunday placement, like many real estate ads, those two days garner the most eyeballs, but it’s over to a great extent when the next day’s paper comes out. Looking back to find a home in last weekend’s paper might involve getting it back from the bottom of the birdcage. Also, the only way a home buyer might see a home ad is to scan ALL of them. It’s not an efficient search process, and is more about convenience and having nothing else to do over morning coffee.

Wait, aren’t those full color homes magazines a lot better? Well, they’re more colorful. But, they’re not any easier to search, as they are laid out by brokerage advertiser, not home characteristics, and rarely by location. My experience with placing ads in those magazines was a deadline for placement almost two months in advance of publication. No changes were allowed after that deadline. So, the material the target prospect sees there is a couple of months old before they ever come across it. And, they must go get that publication, as it’s rarely delivered to their home. Again, it’s more about something nice to read while they’re doing something else or waiting for the dentist. By way of contrast, the Internet home listing can be up and running in hours, and changes can be made at any time.

What about the demographics for readers of newspapers? While they’ll happily tell you that they have maybe 178,000 subscribers, you really need to get the other characteristics of the readers. First, rule out any prospects too young to buy a home. Then, out come the ones with incomes below the necessary number to be able to afford the home you’re selling. Next go those who only read the “funnies” or the “sports” sections. Finally, throw out the majority of the remaining readers, as they’re not in the market for a home. That big number rapidly shrinks to a few thousand eyeballs, and that’s two-per-prospect.

If you have a very old stack of newspapers, or some of those old homes magazines going back a few years, compare one of each from five years ago to issues running today. The new ones will be a lot thinner, with fewer ads and less color. Budgets are being cut by real estate companies, and print advertising is suffering. Why? Because it really doesn’t work as well as the Web, and costs much more. Too many brokers are afraid to tell their sellers the truth, so they keep running ads because that’s what their sellers think will sell their home. It’s not that it can’t work, but it’s far less efficient than the Internet, and far more people are using the Web for home shopping. The truly advanced real estate practitioner will put most or all of their listing and marketing efforts into Web placement, syndication, and innovative ways to present their listings via images and video.

While many will tout their website and the nice rendition of their seller’s listings there, that’s pretty much all they’re doing. How many Web searchers actually find those listings on those local sites, and specifically the home that’s right for them? Not many. While it’s a fact that print is less effective than the Web in marketing a home now, there aren’t that many real estate brokerages that have managed a fully functional transition to the new real estate marketing world on the Web. They’ve cut their print budgets, but haven’t figured out how to do effective Web marketing of their sellers’ homes.

The New World of Real Estate Marketing

It’s easy to say that print doesn’t work as well anymore, but the homeowner who wants their property to sell needs to understand what does work, and their Realtor needs to explain it to them. Let’s look at some statistics from the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), and their annual survey of home buyers and sellers. These statements are from actual buyers and sellers of homes in the survey period.

• In 2008, 87% of all buyers used the Internet to search for homes, with 33% of all buyers saying it was their first step. Only 3% looked in their newspaper first, and less than half even looked there at all.
• In 2009, the group using the Web increased to 90%. 36% made it their first step. Users of print media declined by another 7%.
• In 2009, 77% of all home buyers found the Internet the most useful resource, second only to a real estate agent. Home books, magazines and newspapers were rated the bottom three resources important to them. This was below yard signs, open houses, television, and billboards.

These statistics leave no doubt about how home buyers are locating homes that meet their needs and desires. With the vast majority of buyers using the Web, it becomes a matter of developing a marketing strategy that uses the Internet effectively, and gets a home in front of as many prospects as possible. Some quick points illustrating the power of the Web for home sales include:

• One resource states that more than 266 million people use the Internet in North America alone.
• There are a number of large websites dedicated to real estate and home searches. Realtor.com alone accounts for between 6 and 8 million unique visitors every month.
• Other sites, such as Zillow.com and Trulia.com are gaining ground on Realtor.com and have many millions of page views every day.
• All of these sites bring targeted visitors. The site visitors are there because they have an immediate interest in buying or selling a home, mostly buying.
• The biggest advantage: If your home fits the criteria of a buyer, they’ll find it easily using the searches at sites like these. Using keywords and search boxes for major features, getting to the homes that best meet their needs is fast and easy. You just can’t do that with print media, and they’ll drop that homes magazine when their turn comes up at the dentist.

I’ve worked in a consulting role with real estate professionals to help them to develop their Web presence and incorporate the established and developing best practices for marketing home listings in this dynamic medium.

Advantages of Web Home Marketing

While the numbers show clearly that people are using the Web to locate homes to buy, there are vast differences in the quality of the homes’ presentations:

• Images are in full color, and can be thumbnail links to high resolution larger images to really present the property at its very best.
• Text descriptions can be as long as necessary, not limited by budget or ad size as in print media. Along with images, a great marketing description can generate that email or phone call from the prospect.
• Floor plans and land plats can be presented, a very rare thing indeed in print media.
• Video is a tool that doesn’t even apply to print, but is very valuable in home marketing on the Web. While it doesn’t apply to every home, a video slide show or full motion video can get the attention of a buyer and result in a sale.
• Syndication – This is a huge advantage to the home seller. Using a syndication tool and service, the real estate broker who is aggressively marketing their sellers’ homes will be able to have their home listed on dozens of the largest sites on the Web. And, it will happen in a few days, not weeks or months. And, unlike the paper at the bottom of the birdcage, the listings are available 24/7, 365 days of the year.

All a homeowner must do to fully realize the major advantages of the Web over traditional and old-fashioned marketing is to put themselves into the buyer’s shoes. If you were searching tomorrow for a home, perhaps a waterfront or view home in a high demand area, what would you like to see, and how would you like to find information?

• Wouldn’t you want to quickly access home listings, but be able to “drill down” to those that meet your price range and criteria?
• Would video or multiple full color and high resolution images be much more useful to you than a print ad with a single photo in newspaper print resolution?
• Wouldn’t you rather find complete textual descriptive and property information instead of a few bullets and a “call us” number? This means all of the property details.

There’s simply no contest. The new world of real estate marketing is firmly entrenched on the Internet, and while print still has its place, it’s only in specific instances and limited applications.

Work With A Broker Who Understands and Uses The Web

When you sit down with a real estate professional to discuss listing your home, make sure that you’re not listening to the old “show and tell” with copies of newspaper ads and homes magazine pages in a scrapbook. What you want is a frank discussion of what works and how the full power of the Internet will be focused on marketing your home.

It’s really quite simple in one respect. Print is ineffective, and the Web will sell your home. While the first half of that statement is true across the board, the second half is only true if you’re working with someone who understands Web marketing and listing syndication. The brokerage that shows you how your home will be richly presented online, with images, charts, drawings, documents and anything else that a buyer would want to see, is the brokerage you want to work with.

So, you want to start a fitness routine but don’t know where to begin. Two years ago I was in my early forties I was unemployed and 40 pounds overweight. I had had enough and decided that I was taking my life back. Today I have dropped the weight and have completely turned my life around.

How? Let me tell you.
Fitness is a triangle that consists of weight lifting, cardio (running, walking swimming etc) and last, but not least, nutrition. Let’s take a look at each one individually.

Weight Lifting
A lot of people go to the gym and concentrate on their biceps even though the bicep is a relatively small and useless muscle compared to the other muscle groups. The mistake that these people are making is that they are not doing compound exercises. Compound exercises are exercises that work more than one muscle group at the same time. The Bench Press works the triceps and the pectorals. The dead lift works the back and the legs. There are two big benefits of compound exercises over the other. First by working larger muscle groups you will increase your resting metabolism rate. You will burn more calories even when you are not working out. Also, because you are working on larger muscle groups you will be building more muscle and, the more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn.

Cardio
A lot of people spend countless hours on the treadmill or the stairmaster or any one of a number of cardio machines. You don’t have to. While running miles and miles burns calories doing ten 100 meter dashes actually raises your metabolism so that, again, you will be burning calories even when you are not working out.

Nutrition
This is often the most overlooked area of fitness. But, it is actually the first place you should start and, in many ways, the easiest. The good news is that I am not going to recommend that you go on a diet – ever. Diets are designed to fail because they work by starving your body of something it needs to function. When the diet is over you gorge yourself on the thing you have just taught yourself to crave. The first step toward better nutrition is to steer clear of processed foods and eat the foods we were meant to eat: fresh vegetables, nuts and fruit; lean beef, chicken and fish. My wife lost 40-50 pounds in a year just be eliminating soda from her diet.

The other trick to nutrition is to graze like a gazelle and not gorge like a lion. If you eat four to six small meals a day rather than 3 large meals, again, you will raise your rate of metabolism so that you will be burning more calories.

Whether you are new to online marketing, or whether you are on your fifth successful website, it is important to stay abreast of helpful Internet marketing tips. Every week – even every day – brings new technologies and new opportunities for you to take control of your niche. And if you aren’t paying attention to what’s working, you can be sure that your top competition is. You want to dominate your niche, so here are five tips that can help you keep your edge.

1. Before you go live, put together a plan to promote your website and to design and develop your online presence.

The temptation to go live as soon as possible is a very compelling one because the sooner your site is up, the sooner you can get traffic… and the sooner you can get income. However, a far better strategy is to make sure that your website complements a comprehensive marketing plan. Every page that you put up – landing pages, home pages, checkout pages – needs to be designed to maximize traffic and ease of use for the consumer.

Take a tip from Google’s mission: focus on making negotiating your website simple and user-friendly. Sending your user to laser targeted landing pages based on their searches, instead of the home page, is just one way to make your website stand out from the competition.

2. Use affiliates and associates to dominate your niche.

Your website doesn’t have to be the only one working for you. One of the most successful Internet marketing tips coming into vogue involves finding people to set up affiliate and/or associate websites that send traffic your way. You can set up a PPC (pay-per-click) payment system for your organization, so they get value when they earn it, by sending customers who come to you and buy. The more sites you have funneling traffic in your direction, the more value you will get for your Internet investment.

3. Use Search Engine Optimization techniques to get your page ranked highly in search results.

Use keyword analysis tools like AdWords to see what keywords will get the most hits for you. You can even buy sponsored results on Google and other search engines to get preferred placement once users do search for your keywords. This is one of the most crucial Internet marketing tips out there – because it’s rare for users to even go to page two of search results. You want your site to be at the top when people search for what you have.

4. Put together a solid opt-in email marketing system.

Don’t give your special deals away without making sure that your customer email addresses are real and belong to people who are interested in your product. Setting up a double opt-in system that makes users click on a link in their in-boxes to verify the addresses is an Internet marketing tip that will keep you from sending e-mails to invalid addresses.

Most marketers don’t do this because they just want a large list… bigger is not always better when it comes to a list. 100 highly targeted leads who truly want to learn about what you have to offer are worth far more than 1000 junk leads.

5. Compose and publish web press releases.

Why not be your own press agent? There’s no reason why you can’t e-blast your presence out there for everyone to see. Obviously, if you’re going to take advantage of this Internet marketing strategy, you want to have a newsworthy event. For example, launches of websites and individual products are worth putting out a fresh release.

Use these Internet marketing tips to take your website to the next level!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I give you the State of the Union for Lawyer Video.

“My fellow attorneys,

The state of affairs for lawyers who create video to market themselves stinks. Truly awful. Video quality has improved but content has gone down the drain. Four years ago the only type of lawyer videos that video companies created were “Look at me!” videos. Those videos simply were one intro video that did nothing more than say “Come to me because I’m great.”

Fast forward to the present day and lawyers have made leaps and bounds. Now, many attorneys have gone beyond the bounds of “Ooo, pick me because I’m great” type of videos, to ones that actually inform. However, the information that most attorneys are putting out are not what online viewers want or care about. It’s true.

Lawyers still focus on the number of views that each video gets. Video companies sell their services and convince lawyers that their video metrics program is top shelf and can also predict which videos will get viewers to call. Nonsense.

The reality is that metrics don’t matter at all. Really, they don’t. I have written repeatedly that video metrics are not worth your time to invest in or learn about. The ONLY thing that matters with your online videos is whether your viewer picks up the phone to call you for an appointment. That’s it. That’s your goal. If your videos are not accomplishing that, you have big problems. The reason that most lawyer video does not work is that most videos fail to provoke a viewer to take action.

In all likelihood you’ve spent a lot of time and money creating video, either on your own or with a video production company. Have you tracked your return on your investment? That is something definitely worth calculating. You must know at all times what your ROI is.

Let’s say you spent $10,000 on 5 videos. The production team spent all day in your office and each video, after editing, came to about 1 minute to 1:30 mins. The cost per video in this instance is $2,000. The production company might say to you “If you get only one case from a video, the fee you get will have paid not only for that one video, but for all five of your videos.” That sure sounds like a line from the yellow pages rep who would visit my office on a yearly basis. She made it sound so convincing when she came in to renew my yellow pages ad that I had a hard time saying no.

For me, I recouped my yellow pages investments, but just barely. Calls were few and far between. I was on page 9 of 11 full page ads. By the time someone got to my ad, they had already been rejected by eight other lawyers.

The video production companies who help lawyers create video have changed their way of creating video. They’ve moved on from creating a single “intro” video that cost $5,000-$10,000 just a few years ago, to creating multiple videos for around that same price. I’ve seen some wedding videographers knock the price down to $2,500 for 7-10 videos. I always ask those wedding guys if they know who the lawyers’ ideal client is? They don’t and that’s a big problem. They tell me they create broadcast-quality video. I believe them. But that’s only half of the equation.

The other, more crucial part is content. It’s knowing how to get the videos found in the search engines using white label strategies that are proven and tested. It’s not just about creating good technically proficient videos. It’s getting the videos recognized; getting a viewer to have enough curiosity and interest to click on your title; getting them to watch your video in its entirety and most importantly, getting that viewer to call or email you after watching that video. If your video production company can’t show you, using proven tactics that they have the know-how to do this, then you’re paying for something that will look pretty but be nothing more than watching your money evaporate into the internet ether.

Let’s turn now to the other side of the coin; attorneys who create video on their own. There are lawyers who think they can master this video thing all by themselves. Some can, but most have not yet been able to do that. Some lawyers don’t want to spend the money to shoot video with an experienced video production company. Instead, they want to do it all themselves.

Those are the type of lawyers who would rather climb up a ladder to fix a leaking roof instead of calling a roofing expert. That lawyer will try to fix their broken watch by buying a do-it-yourself fixing book about watches. When the electrical system in the house breaks, that lawyer would rather spend a week learning how to fix the problem himself instead of hiring a certified and qualified professional electrician. This lawyer is the type of person who, when his car breaks down, eagerly spends two weeks fixing his car in his driveway and walking to work, instead of spending the money to bring it into a mechanic and get it done in one day.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great when someone has the ability, desire and time to learn to do things on their own. However, really smart attorneys and business owners realize that the way to make tons of money is to leverage their time with other people’s expertise. Here’s what I mean. If you are a transactional attorney and you bill at $400 per hour, and it will take you 2 days to edit two hours of video, the amount you could earn doing legal work would be conservatively $6,000. Is it worth it to you to spend that time editing your own video instead of earning $6,000?

It’s always a time/cost trade-off. What if you could hire a video editor to edit those two hours of video for only $1,000? Would that be a more cost-effective and economical use of your time? I should think so.

I know there are lawyers out there who think they can become a videographer using their iPhone4, their Flip camera or their Kodak Zi8 and that’s great. There are also lawyers out there who think they can become video editors using iMovie or Sony Vegas or Final Cut Express, and that’s great too. Then there are still others who believe they can become video distributors and publishers. Good for you. But wait…aren’t you still a practicing attorney? How do you have the time to do all that and more? Are you going to be using your skill to create a side-business or are you just going to keep all this information to yourself for your own benefit?

Most lawyers just want to practice law. They don’t want to get involved in marketing or video marketing. Rather, they want someone to do it all for them, and that’s good too.

So, Mr. or Mrs. Lawyer, where do you stand?

Are you closer to the lawyers who want to do it all themselves, or are you a little closer to the lawyers who want experienced and tested video production experts to do all the video work for them?

2011 will be a great year for those lawyers who implement their decisions to change. Video marketing should be done smarter, with more knowledge, information and content. Content will rule in 2011. If you lack content and a compelling reason to call you, you will revert back to the startup days of internet marketing. Make this year your most successful one ever.

To your success!”

Gerry