FROM THE EDITOR
23 Ways to "Jazz It Up" at the 2005 NACLNC® Conference
by Vickie L. Milazzo, RN, MSN, JD
I'm jazzed to be coming together with all the CLNC®s March 11-13 for the 2005 NACLNC® Conference. Here's how you can jazz up your entire conference experience as you visit my hometown, New Orleans:
BEFORE the Conference
Come relaxed and rested and with an open mind. This city is much more fun when you’re rested, and you’ll learn so much more if you leave your stress behind.
Pack energy bars, raw nuts and other healthy snacks to maintain your energy. Hurricanes and frozen daiquiris wear off quickly.
Bring plenty of business cards. You’ve got 1,200 new CLNC® friends to meet.
Arrive a day early and enjoy the city (but not too much – you’ll still need energy for the conference). These are some of my favorites:
Treat yourself to coffee and beignets at Café du Monde, a New Orleans tradition.
Enjoy a muffaletta at Central Grocery. This is the original – don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Ask for Larry or Frank and tell him my dad, Sal Milazzo, and I both say hello.
Stroll down Bourbon Street and Royal – Bourbon Street is great people watching at night, but Royal is real New Orleans and is a must during the day.
Take a streetcar ride down St. Charles Avenue. This is a scenic and beautiful ride. If you hear someone yelling "STELLA!" just wave.
Embark on a haunted tour of the French Quarter or one of the amazing cemeteries, if you’re really brave.
The best muffuletta in New Orleans is worth a trip to Central Grocery. Save room in your carry-on so you can take some olive salad home.
DURING the Conference
Be innovative in how you think of every experience at the conference.
Tune In to the Beat and Focus on Why You’re Here
Turn off your cell phone, pager, chiming watch and any other stress-producer you’ve brought with you. This is not only a courtesy to your fellow CLNC®s, but also a courtesy to yourself, honoring all you’ve invested to be here.
Limit checking your email and voicemail or calling home to just once a day. If I can go without email, you can too.
Assemble Jam Sessions to Spice Up Your CLNC® Network
Eat lunch each day with three CLNC®s you don’t know. With all the good food in this city, this will really be fun!
Meet and get to know two new CLNC®s at each break. Sell your expertise to each other. You are each other’s best resources for future CLNC® subcontractors and experts.
Connect with two CLNC®s and mastermind together at the end of the day. Each of you will process and apply information differently. By coming together, you’ll take home new strategies you wouldn’t think of alone. Avoid the temptation to critique speakers and focus only on positive take-aways. Positive energy is mandatory for effective masterminding. Pat O’Brien’s has a great outdoor patio for this type of thinking.
Get in the Learning Groove
Don’t miss a session. A single idea can increase your profitability 1%, 5%, 10%.
At each session write down one action step you will take (and I don’t mean on Bourbon Street).
Commit to learn one thing from each speaker. I recently attended a seminar where only 5% of the information was interesting or fresh. But the ideas I got from that 5% could help my company grow as much as 10%. Because I was committed to learning, my mind was ready to work when the "good stuff" was presented. And it wasn’t presented all at once, but an idea here and new thought there. The key – I was ready to grab each idea when it came my way.
Open your mind and play with the information presented to create your own new ideas. My goal when I sit in on a session is to come up with ideas that are even better than any I get from the speaker. This mindset will help you create a unique CLNC® business – not a look-alike imitation of someone else’s.
Be Easy in the Big Easy
Manage your emotions. If you allow yourself to get frustrated about anything – an airport delay or the person sitting next to you – you’re the only one who will suffer. Loosen up a little. If your plane is late, browse around the airport bookstore. If you aren’t content with your seating partner, sit next to someone else in the next session or get up and move. Remember, "there’s no crying at the NACLNC® Conference."
Exercise daily – even for only 20 minutes. Get outside the hotel for a walk. Go right out into the French Quarter or power walk down to the casino (just to look around, of course).
Indulge in a massage or the Jacuzzi®. Treat yourself to a fun memory – maybe some Mardi Gras beads or a mask.
When it’s time to laissez les bon temps rouler, remember your CLNC® Wear so everyone will know to carry you back to the right hotel!
AFTER the Conference
Stay a day later to relax and to absorb and use what you have learned. Don’t just jump back into your busy CLNC® practice. If you haven’t seen the city – now’s the time.
Take home one new CLNC® service and share it with every attorney-client.
Reconnect with your clients by sending a CLNC® note card to let them know you’ve attended this conference to better serve them.
Send a news release to your community newspaper announcing your completion of this advanced Certified Legal Nurse ConsultantCM training and renewal of your CLNC® Certification.
Commit now to review your course syllabus text and all the meaningful notes you took and listen to the audio CDs one week, one month, six months and one year after the conference. This repetition is what helps you to integrate and implement the principles and strategies successfully. With each review you will hear the information in a new way because you’ll be more experienced. Each time you listen, you’ll generate even better ideas. After each review create three NEW action steps and implement them swiftly.
See You in New Orleans,
Vickie L. Milazzo, RN, MSN, JD
P.S. Don’t leave home without this article. The payoff will be astonishing.
P.P.S. If someone in the French Quarter wants to bet you that they know where you got your shoes, tell them "on my feet" and save yourself $10.
BEST PRACTICES FOR MARKETING
Public Speaking and Writing Create Endless
CLNC® Networking Opportunities
by Lawrence H. Frace, RN, CLNC
When I think of networking, Vickie Milazzo’s three-foot networking rule comes immediately to mind: Let everyone who comes within three feet of you know you’re a CLNC® and hand them a business card.
Although this time-proven strategy is effective, I’ve found that it is not my cup of tea. Believe it or not, I’m a bit shy and for whatever reason many times I don’t have business cards with me. Then how do I network? And why would this three-foot-rule abuser be writing about networking in the first place?
To me, marketing of any kind creates networking opportunities and, for sure, networking is marketing. In essence the two cannot be separated. I believe effective networking should accomplish four things:
Effective networking should enable you to increase your CLNC® business.
It should help keep you connected to the legal and CLNC® communities.
It should be fun and rejuvenating.
It should make the networker (that’s you) feel good about yourself, while making you memorable to the person you are networking with or marketing to.
Speaking and Writing Are Group Networking at Its Best
I have found that one of the most effective ways to accomplish those four networking goals is to speak in public. "Oh, no," you’re probably thinking, "not public speaking, anything but that!" Once you put your fear of public speaking on the back burner, you’ll be surprised how enjoyable and rewarding this networking strategy can be.
Every CLNC® has information to share about our profession, our services and the legal issues affecting our patients. That means EVERY CLNC® is a potential speaker.
You might start by speaking to fellow nurses about legal aspects of nursing care. Give a short in-service program at your local hospital or long term care facility. You’ll be amazed how fast the word travels that you are a CLNC®, and isn’t that what networking is all about – letting others know what you do and what you have to offer? That heathcare facility where you give an in-service for nurses also has a risk management department. You might win a legal nurse consulting assignment as a result of sharing your knowledge with the staff.
Think about it a moment: Networking one-on-one or networking with groups of people – which do you think will spread your marketing message faster? Of course, one-on-one networking has its place and is important, but imagine how the word about your CLNC® practice will spread if you speak to groups of people.
This leads me to another avenue of networking: writing. "Writing?" you say. "I’m no writer." Well, neither am I. However, here I am writing to share my thoughts on this topic with you – and networking with you at the same time.
I combine speaking and writing to network with attorneys. How? With these two strategies:
I send out quarterly newsletters.
I also send out audiotapes about the services I provide. A brochure and cover letter might quickly find their way into the attorney’s round file. But an audiotape? "Hmmm, what’s this?" the curious attorney wonders. Imagine getting your list of services into the EAR of your attorney-prospect.
As you can see, I think of networking as sharing information by either the spoken or written word, in person or through other means. To me it’s all the same – letting others know what you have to offer, and at the same time collecting valuable resources to use in the future.
Continue the Formula of "Ask and Submit"
What I consider to be my run-of-the-mill story was posted on the Institute’s website and featured in one of these biweekly Ezines. I also have given brief talks at the Institute’s live programs. As a result, I’ve networked with an incredible number of CLNC®s. I have developed quite a list of potential CLNC® subcontractors.
Believe me, I do not consider myself either a speaker or a writer, but as a networker, I’m guilty as charged. We all have the opportunity to speak and to write, so take advantage of these two ways to share your nursing and CLNC® experience with others. You’ll find out, as I did, that networking becomes a valuable and cherished part of your marketing strategy.
If you’re passionate about legal nurse consulting, speaking and writing will come naturally. Just take a MOMENT to put your knowledge and experience down on paper or into a short presentation. But remember, you must ask to speak and you must submit your writing. If you wait to be invited, most likely the opportunity will not come along.
The NACLNC® Conference Is Prime Networking Territory
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t include how important it is to network at professional conferences. The best single event for networking is the NACLNC® Annual Conference. Imagine, more than 1,200 CLNC®s all at one event. I’ll be there, I’ll have plenty of my business cards handy and I’ll try my best to live by the three-foot rule. Wow, the more I think of it, that three-foot rule isn’t so hard to follow after all.
Ode to the CLNC® Speakers
If you think you are nervous, you are.
If you think you can’t speak, you won’t.
If you’d like to speak, but think you can’t,
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.
Public speaking’s a battle for most.
I know ’tis true for this nurse man.
But sooner or later the nurse who speaks well,
Is the nurse who thinks she can.
– Larry Frace, RN, CLNC
Lawrence H. Frace, RN, CLNC is an independent CLNC® with 28 years of nursing experience. He is the founder of Spectrum Medical-Legal Consulting in central New Jersey and specializes in medical malpractice cases.
