Southern California Arbitration Mediation and Conflict Resolution : Settle it Now Dispute Resolution Services : Serving Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Century City : Settle It Now Negotiation Blog

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks (1)

Making enough money doing what you love to do? No?

Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker, Doctor, Lawyer, Native American Chief, here's the book you must buy and read immediately -- Making Mediation Your Day Job: How to Market Your ADR Business Using Mediation Principles You Already Know

First, Mediation Earth Mother, Scholar and Entrepreneur, Diane Levin's review:

Shakespeare once wrote, "This above all: to thine own self be true." These words, written 400 years ago, resonate today. They do so especially for the many professional mediators who cringe at the very thought of marketing -- with its associations with shameless self-promotion, glad-handing, and cold-calling. For many mediators, marketing just feels wrong.

Now, at long last, there's a guidebook that achieves something no other mediation marketing resource has done. It helps mediators do the impossible: become more effective marketers and remain true to themselves and their work. Dr. Tammy Lenski, a mediator and mediation marketing coach who has run her own successful practice since 1997, has created Making Mediation Your Day Job, the definitive resource for mediators who want a realistic, practical blueprint for marketing their practice.

The clue to Dr. Lenski's formula for success is in the second half of the title of the book: How to Market Your ADR Business Using Mediation Principles You Already Know. She asks readers, "Would you enjoy marketing more if your primary aim isn't selling and self-promotion? I'm betting most of you would say yes." Like the skilled practitioner she is, she reframes, inviting readers to see marketing anew, "as dialogue or as a learning conversation", something mediators already know how to do, and do well.

Using humor, anecdotes, and real-life examples drawn from her clients, her students, and her own experience, Dr. Lenski encourages her readers to step outside their comfort zone and draw upon the professional skills they already have to build opportunities. She also offers sensible productivity tips, business planning advice, and useful exercises that help mediators master marketing.

What also distinguishes this work from the numerous resources available now on mediation marketing is its emphasis on professional integrity -- on honoring the profession through a commitment to mediation excellence. Dr. Lenski reminds readers that it's not just good marketing that matters; mediators also have a duty to uphold standards of excellence and develop their professional skills. She wisely observes, "In the end, it's the quality of the work you deliver that's going to help keep the clients coming."

More than a book, Making Mediation Your Day Job functions like an honest conversation with a wise and caring friend. Dr. Lenski writes as someone who has been there and understands where and why any of us get stuck when it comes to marketing. She's there to nudge us forward, with encouragement and straight talk. Making Mediation Your Day Job offers authentic, real-world advice for mediators who want to use marketing to take their practice to the next level -- and all the while stay true to themselves and their work.

And mine -- both of which can be found on amazon.com where you'll be purchasing Dr. Lenski's book today, yes?

I just finished consuming Making Mediation Your Day Job: How to Market Your ADR Business Using Mediation Principles You Already Know.

When I say "consuming," I'm talking about the way we exhaust our appetites over a Thanksgiving dinner plate -- eager, greedy and far too quickly -- before pausing to wonder where the turkey, potatoes, gravy, green beans and yams could possibly have gone.

Teacher, trainer, and mediator, Tammy Lenski is less than candid when she says this book is about marketing our ADR Business. This book is about locating and achieving our dreams. But Dr. Lenski doesn't stop there. She goes on to provide practial advice about making our living by living our dreams.

Why such effusive praise for a short book on marketing a mediation practice? Because it's not a "how to" but a "why" and a "what," with workshop questions to help us fill in the gaping holes of our lives.

This book does what no other career or marketing guide I've ever read even seeks to accomplish. It inspires and guides. It suggests reaching for the stars with our feet firmly planted on the ground. It asks us to look inside our very own hearts; to assess our strengths and weaknesses; and, to measure the width and depth and breadth of our desires. Then it gives us the action plan we've all been waiting for. The one that helps us make ME, INC. our day job.

It would be unfair -- selfish even -- to recommend this book only to mediators. Why would we withhold this practical wisdom from the aspiring lawyers, chefs and novelists in the world? Why would we deny the entrepreneurs and financial wizards; the actors and the politicians of the benefits of Dr. Lenski's ground-breaking work? It wouldn't be nice; it wouldn't be fair; it wouldn't be right.

And in this I do not exaggerate even a little.