Consumer bankruptcy lawyers all know Morgan King and his Bankruptcy Academy.  For years, Morgan has honed his knowledge of discharging taxes in bankruptcy - and his studies have paid off.  Morgan’s not only one of the smartest tax/bankruptcy guys out there, but he’s an incredible teacher.  If you’ve heard him speak at the NACBA conferences you already know what I’m talking about.

I hate taxes - but in Morgan’s hands, even this subject becomes compelling.

Morgan is holding his newest program, Discharging Taxes Under the Reform Act of 2005, on September 19-20, 2008 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Livermore, California. Even if you can’t make it, Morgan’s making the seminar available via a live webcast.

As a pesonal favor to the readers of this blog, Morgan has agreed to allow my guests to attend - in-person or online - at a special discounted rate of 15% off the advertised rate.  But this offer is good only for readers of this blog, and won’t be honored if you come from any other source.

So sit at the feet of a true master and learn all about Discharging Taxes Under The Report Act of 2005.

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Sure, your consumer bankruptcy practice is probably chugging along nicely these days - foreclosures are up, the economy is in the tank, jobless numbers are piling up. So break out the bubbly, things are looking up for bankruptcy lawyers!

But wait a minute . . . are you growing your practice relative to your competition? Has your market share grown over the past few months, or are you still getting your piece of the pie?

Business marketing blog After the Launch pointed me to a recent story by Michael Port that serves to highlight what you need to do.

A blind man is sitting on the steps of a building. By sit feet sits a hat and a sign that reads, “I am blind, please help.” The hat is empty save for a few stray nickels and dimes.

A marketer happens across the scene and stops to watch for a few minutes. Noticing the constant stream of people rushing past without stopping in front of the blind man, he silently (and without permission) picks up the sign and rewrites it. Then, still silent, he walks off.

That afternoon the marketer returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins.

The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had rewritten his sign and wanted to know what he had written on it.

The marketer responded, “Nothing that was not true. I just wrote the message a little differently.” He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read: Today is Spring and I cannot see it.

The message is clear - you need to do something new, something different, in order to shake up your practice. Often we don’t do that for fear of losing what market share we have, but that’s a mistake - it denies us the ability to continue to evolve as consumer bankruptcy lawyers, to grow beyond the confines of our current limits.

You need to change your strategy if you want to get more from your practice. If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.

Don’t be paralyzed with fear, take the opportunity. You’ll be glad you did.

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I have a client who loves to send email in HTML format. “It’s nicer to look at,” he claims defiantly. We’ve had this argument for about a year, with me begging him to send his messages in plain text and he digging in his heels.

I’m so happy to report that I AM RIGHT. I’m happy not because I get to do the, “I told you so,” dance but because he’s such a good litigator that I have secretly been doubting myself for quite some time.

The Email Experience Council, the email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) - the folks who know pretty much everything about marketing- released “Retail Email Rendering Benchmark Study.” The 41-page study examines the email design practices of 104 top online retailers and examines their performance in what is called “an images-off email environment,” which is pretty-speak for “plain text.” It also includes the results of a survey of 472 marketers regarding rendering issues, conducted in conjunction with SubscriberMail, the sponsor of this study.

The study found that 23% of retailers send emails that are completely unintelligible when images are blocked. Of the 77% that sent intelligible emails, there were significant variations in clarity based on their use of HTML text and alt tags. Only 42% of retailers designed emails that were a good mix of HTML text and images, and only 63% of retailers used alt tags on their images adequately or extensively. A marketer’s use of HTML text and alt tags are major determinants of the intelligibility of their emails.

So what does this mean for you? It means that if you send email in HTML format then only about 75% of the recipients will be able to read it. But this begs a deeper question - of the people who COULD read the email, how many will actually do so? Will recipients see the bright colors of the HTML message and simply delete it, thinking it’s just another piece of junk email that clogs up our boxes on a regular basis?

Thanks to BeRelevant! for the information.

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This has nothing to do with marketing or managing a consumer bankruptcy law practice. Or does it?

This video made me stop for a few minutes and consider my interpersonal skills. I think we all suffer from lapses from time to time - and the key is to always be aware of how our actions impact others.

You want to tell me this has nothing to do with the way you market your practice, the way your prospects see you? Think again.

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So here I am in glorious Los Angeles, sitting outside of Starbucks and thinking about my weekend. I’m here for the annual conference for the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, meeting friends old and new. Some of you who read this site have come up to me to let me know you’re ot there, and for that I am grateful.

You see, it’s not easy being out here in the ether without feedback. We bloggers speak our mind and try to effect some level of change - or education - in the hopes that there’s someone out there. So if you’re out there, please speak up - it makes my job a lot easier.

But that’s not all I have to say today. The NACBA conference is always most useful to me not for the sessions (though they’re fun) but for the education that I receive and can pass along to people in the halls (such as they are - our hotel this weekend is pretty much all outdoors). For every tidbit that I pass along, I learn something.

This is part of marketing, this informal learning that goes back and forth during conferences. Meetings lead to business ideas and new combinations, business models and collaboration. We are all connected with one another, and treating your colleagues as partner is an important facet of growth. It lets me serve my clients better, and hopefully does the same for the people with whom I speak.

So the next time you’ve got a chance to talk to a colleague, do it. You’ll learn something, teach something, and walk away a better lawyer - and a better person.

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