What was your career path?
How can I get into the mediation field?
Can someone with my background become a mediator?
How do I know if I’d be a good mediator?
What mediation certificate and grad programs do you recommend?
What mediation trainers do you recommend?
How do I get certified?
How much should I charge / how much do you charge?
I bought and read your book. Can you give me some feedback and advice?

What was your career path?

I began mediating when I was a dean of students and faculty member at a private women’s college, as a necessary part of my work. I’d earned an undergrad degree in world literature (Middlebury College) and master’s and doctoral degrees in higher ed leadership (The University of Vermont). My dissertation work focused on human behavior change.

As I started to get more requests for help from other sectors of the campus and the president, then from other institutions, I realized I had a knack for conflict resolution and decided to take a course in mediation. That basic mediation course ultimately led to me resigning what was by then a vice presidency, enrolling full-time in a year-long, 500-hour post-bac certificate in mediation and conflict management, and using that year also to begin building my private practice.

I launched my full-time private practice in 1997 and later became a core faculty member and curriculum designer in Woodbury College’s nationally recognized graduate program in Mediation & Applied Conflict Studies. I have guest-lectured on mediation, negotiation, conflict resolution and mediation marketing at other institutions, including UMass Boston’s doctoral program in higher education, a non-credit course for UConn, and, in spring 2010, Lipscomb University.

How can I get into the mediation field?

• Get really good training. Skip the trainers that primarily teach via lecture and demo — mediation isn’t a spectator sport. When you see a good mediator at work it looks simple. That’s because they’re good. It’s an entirely different story to have something useful come out of your own mouth in the heat of the moment. Choose trainers who have been and remain successful practitioners, and who teach with roleplays and real engagement. If you have to travel a bit to get better training, go as far as you need to and your wallet will allow. Poorly prepared mediators drag the entire field down.
• Get more than 40 hours. A lot more. I’m unapologetic in my belief that really good mediators need more than a workweek of instruction. I’ve taught and trained mediators from every imaginable background for over a decade and few can mediate their way out of a cardboard box in 40 hours or less. That includes you, too, attorneys. They don’t call it basic mediation for nothing.
• Stop relying on panels and rosters to build a practice. I wrote a lot more about this in my book, so I’ll leave it this way here: Rosters pay pathetically and don’t have nearly the number of cases needed to sustain all the mediators who want a piece of the pie. Rosters are a lazy marketer’s crutch (gee, I must have been in a particularly snarky mood when I wrote this section).
• Start thinking of yourself as a businessperson as well as a mediator. You’ll need to be both to make a living at it unless you’re a trust fund baby.
• Look for under-served markets and places where there’s demand for people with good human relations, conflict engagement and problem-solving skills. Stop selling a single process and start unbundling and rebundling your skills in new ways. I say much more about this in the book, too.

Can someone with my background become a mediator?

Yes. How do I know this globally, without knowing your particular background? Because I’ve trained thousands of mediators at the basic, advanced and master’s level and I’ve seen terrific mediators who started professional life as horse trainers, realtors, anesthesiologists, builders, teachers and moms. I’ve seen terrific mediators whose profession of origin was counselor and attorney; I’ve seen some truly awful mediators who hail from those two professions, too.

While the flooding of attorneys into the mediation field is signaling to the public that the most common or acceptable background for a mediator is a legal degree, neither of those is true. It’s not about what you did before and in some cases, what you did before will blind you to what you don’t know or don’t do well yet.

How do I know if I’d be a good mediator?

Sometimes co-workers, family and friends will help wake you to your potential skill as conflict resolutionary. I think the best way is to take a basic mediation course, particularly the kind I describe below, and then ask your instructor for honest feedback. If you’re taking a course from a credible instructor, and not one whose primary drive is to get you to enroll in more trainings, then this will be helpful, objective feedback. If you’ve got good potential, happy day! If you stink at it, yes, that’ll be painful to hear, but less painful than investing thousands of dollars and three years of your life to find out others aren’t captivated by your skill.

Mediators, like people in other fields, come in all temperaments and with myriad different talents.

What mediation certificate and grad programs do you recommend?

I can comment on two programs with which I am familiar. I am sure there are other fine programs out there but I’ll restrict my opinions to those with which I have direct experience as a professor or guest. Both offer both certificates and master’s programs.

• Champlain College’s Woodbury Institute (formerly Woodbury College)
• Lipscomb University’s Institute for Conflict Management.

For a list of some other program out there, check out Mediate.com’s Academic Program list.

What mediation trainers do you recommend?

You mean other than the trainings I offer periodically? If you’d like to know each time I announce a training, I recommend you subscribe to my blog. If you want a basic mediation training and don’t want to wait ’til I offer one, either tell me you want one now, dammit or head to Woodbury’s Basic Mediation Workshop — they do a top-notch one and I occasionally still co-teach it.

How do I get certified?

Here’s a post I wrote on mediator certification. I was feeling particularly New York blunt that day.

How much should I charge / how much do you charge?

Here’s a post I wrote about setting your mediation fee, with a link to help you calculate your overhead costs if you’re new to private practice or haven’t yet had the chance to tally those.

What I charge isn’t going to help you determine what you charge because I’ve been in the field successfully for quite a while and probably don’t have the same market you do. Sorry, telling you would just be feeding your voyeurism.

I bought and read your book. Can you give me some feedback on my business/marketing/service idea/plan/problem?

It’s always a treat to hear from folks who’ve read my book and are working to bring their passion for ADR to fruition as a business. And therein lies my dilemma, as I wish I had the time to reply in detail to each of you who so kindly takes the time to write because I want good mediators to get more work. But I have to decline because I can’t offer free consulting help or I’d be doing this 40 hours a week. Thanks for understanding.

Best to you,

• The American Bar Association is sponsoring a mediation video contest to find the best 3-minute demonstration of mediation process and benefits. If you’ve got some creativity, they’ve got $1,000 to part with.
• Mediate.com reached a major milestone this week, with publication of its 300th free newsletter. Here’s the article celebrating the milestone and offering up some interesting readership stats and resources. We’re all the better for Jim’s and John’s fine work.
• I anticipate re-opening the Marketing School for Mediators, my self-paced online soup-to-nuts course, for new enrollees around Thanksgiving time. I’ll offer slots first to folks on the notification list.
• The new edition of Making Mediation Your Day Job will be released in December or January. In addition to wider international distribution, there will also be a Kindle edition. Here’s a sneak peak of the new cover from my publisher’s design department.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

These are the questions they’re asking themselves as they rummage about on the ‘net:

• Does she know her stuff?
• Can I trust him to get it done right?
• Why should I hire her instead of the mediator down the street?
• How can he help my clients and/or me?
• What would working with her be like?
• Does he offer something that I believe is a compelling solution to my problem?

For many mediators, these are the answers you’re providing online and off:

• Images of suits at boardroom tables, the scales of justice, handshakes, doves.
• FAQs about mediation, with the same answers as many other mediator websites.
• A photo of yourself in front of your legal library’s bookshelves, perhaps with your attorney colleagues around you.
• A boardroom like all others.
• An introductory session like all others.
• Print materials that are professional but generally boring and indistinguishable from the ADR provider next door.

Collectively, these answers are ineffective in a world where “cookie cutter” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Why Differentiation Matters

If you’re already established and bringing in all the clients you want, you’re not reading this article. You already had a toehold before competition got tough or you had such an entre into your market that you could be mediating from the moon and people would still seek you out. I’m not writing this for you.

I’m writing it for the other 95% of mediators out there.

To stand out to your prospective clients, you need to be remarkable, not average. You need to convey your fit with their specific needs, not be interchangeable with other commercial providers. You need to convey that your practice is vibrant and in demand, not boring or tired.

What does it take to stand out, to be remarkable, to be unique in what you do and/or how you do it?

Here are five actions you can take in the next 60 days to build a differentiated platform for your practice. Some are concrete actions, and some are reflective work. You’ll need to do both, because each feeds the other.

You’ll notice none of them involve building or re-building your website. That comes later because the outcomes of the exercises will guide website design, function and content.

1. Stop Running From Your Current Job

To market effectively, you need to be running toward your dream, not just away from your nightmare. Running from your present situation supplies only the desire to get away – to almost anything that will give you some relief. That’s not a great foundation for marketing, which benefits greatly from genuine passion.

When mediators tell me they want to build a private practice or prove the mettle of a mediation division within a firm, I always ask: Why ADR? With painful frequency the answer is some version of, I’m disillusioned/unhappy/tired of what I’m doing now.

I live for the days mediators say to me, I’m so excited about the potential that ADR offers that I can’t stand waiting another day for my market to see that too.

Action 1: Figure whether you’re running primarily away or toward. Be nakedly honest with yourself. If you’re running away, all is not lost. Your task is to get very clear on what you would love to run toward – paint a picture in detail, figuratively or literally. Maybe it is commercial ADR. Maybe it’s piloting commercial jets.

2. Take Off the Mask

Differentiation is, in no small part, about risk. The risk to be who you really are and show that face to your market. It’s the risk to set yourself apart in a remarkable way, instead of blending in with the crowd. And in the mediation world, it sure is a growing crowd.

When it comes time to write marketing copy, build or re-build your website, and put yourself in front of your market, you want no cognitive dissonance between who you really are and who they see, or between who they see and what your marketing says about you. You want consonance and differentiation, in tandem.

Action 2: Who are you, really? If you could relax and let your good quirks shine through, what would people see? If you took off the professional mask you think you have to wear and let your market see you in your glory, what would they see? When you’re most happy, who are you and how do you act?

3. Pick Up the Paintbrush

This is about getting very clear on your market. Your market is not everyone, even though everyone has disputes. Repeat after me: My market is not everyone. When you market to everyone, the old saying goes, you market to no one.

Your market is looking for glimpses of themselves in your marketing. They’ll look ‘til they find the person who’ll give it to them, or they’ll walk away and find another way to resolve their dispute.

Be the commercial mediator for the construction trade. Or NASCAR fans who own mid-sized businesses. Or tech startups in Silicon Valley. You can add more markets later if you wish, but understand this: Narrowing your market usually means more business, not less, because your reputation as the go-to person in that market creates word-of-mouth momentum.

Action 3: Paint a picture of the people in your market, using words or images. What do they do? Where do they live and/or work? What do they spend money on? How do they dress? Where do they hang out? What do they do in their spare time? What kinds of values do they hold deeply? What causes do they support? Do you like them as humans (please say yes or pick a different market – it’ll show)?

4. Write a Classified Ad

You’ve heard of the elevator pitch. This is like that but you get fewer words. Your market is busy, overwhelmed by information, and wants you to cut to the chase.

If you were to write a classified ad for your market, telling them who you’re seeking and conveying a few important tidbits about the real you, what would you write? Here’s an example to get you started:

Conflict makeover artist seeks high-achieving mediators who want to transform their reactions to conflict. Whiners need not apply; this is strictly for internal-locus-of-control ADR providers who want to boost their own and their clients’ success. Are you a conflict junkie or conflict doormat? Tammy will teach you how to transform your reactions in conflict and be the mediator you know you can be.

Action 4: You have 75 words max. Write the ad. It’s not about using it; it’s about the clarity you’ll get from the act of writing and limiting your verbiage.

5. Take Your Market to Lunch

Market research matters, and I suspect very few ADR providers actually do it. Market research helps you answer necessary questions like:

1. How many people are there in my chosen market?
2. Who is my competition and how do I stand apart from them?
3. How do they solve problems now?
4. Would my market buy what I’m selling? If not, why not, and how would that change the services I offer?

The Internet, the Yellow Pages, your local library, and your local Small Business Development Center (sponsored by the SBA) can help with the first two questions. But there’s no substitute for talking to people in your market if you want to answer the last two.

Those last are two of the most important answers you need. And the questions most of you will skip. Too much trouble? Afraid of the answers and the implications for your dream? Too vague about your target market to know how to find them? Too uncomfortable approaching them?

All legitimate fears and discomforts. But here’s the rub: If you don’t do your research, you’re building a business based on a hunch. That’s a pretty expensive hunch, and one that hasn’t paid handsomely for most mediators.

Action 5: Invite five people in your target market to lunch together. If you know your market really well, you’ll know the kind of place they’ll enjoy eating. The trade is this: They get a fabulous, fun, extended lunch with no obligations beyond that, and you get to be a sponge with lots of questions. Be sure you get answers to numbers 3 and 4 above. After the first lunch, rinse and repeat.

The Return on Your Investment

When I look at mediators who make it in the current business and ADR environment and those who don’t, the differentiation is clear.

• Those with clarity about their market shine.
• Those with clarity about what differentiates them are remarkable – and their markets notice, too.
• Those who set aside their fears and reach out to their market for the unvarnished truth learn what will work and not work. Then they translate that information into practice.
• Those who set a solid foundation by working through the hard questions have the best marketing materials, websites, and advertising.

If you take all five of the actions I’m recommending, you’ll spend eight hours over 60 days. That’s one hour per week. If you’re running toward your passion instead of away from your disillusionment, you can find that one hour and it will pay satisfying dividends.

This article was originally printed in the ACR Commercial Section Newsletter, September 2009.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

There are times I do use PowerPoint, but I’m judicious about it and always keep Garr Reynolds’ wisdom in my mind. And the following tongue-in-cheek wisdom, too. It’s an oldie but goodie. Enjoy the chuckle!

[Can't view the embedded video in your email? Click here to view it online.]

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

I promised the audience some follow-up links based on our conversation about marketing mediation, and thought I’d share them with everyone.

Articles related to my keynote comments

• Marketing mediation from your strengths
• How a narrow target audience broadens chances for success
• Mediation in the mainstream: 5 successful strategies for spreading innovation
• Your ADR marketing strategy: Avoiding the opt and dropped trap
• All aflitter about twitter: Answers to your social media questions

Getting the most out of MakingMediationYourDayJob.com

• Subscribe to receive future articles automatically (no charge)
• Find past articles that are most relevant to you

I also promised you all a link to my self-paced, online course for mediators and other ADR professionals: The Marketing School for Mediators. As I mentioned, I’m closing new enrollments (for now) after this weekend, so if you’re interested, this is the time to take action.

Thanks for having me with you today and my very best to you,

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

In my remarks I promised to post links to the applications I recommend for using social media effectively.

Twitter and Facebook Applications

These applications help you participate in Twitter and/or Facebook from an application on your desktop or iPhone, and, particularly in the case of Twitter, make using the site far easier.

Seesmic – one app for using both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously, both PC and Mac
Tweetie – simple, streamlined Twitter app for the Mac and iPhone
TweetDeck – another crowd favorite for Twitter, both PC and Mac
Birdfeed – simple, powerful Twitter app for the iPhone

Do you have questions you didn’t get a chance to ask during the panel presentation? Use the comment box to ask away! (If you’re reading this in your email, click on the article title to go directly to the page; comment box is near the bottom

Many thanks to Jeff for organizing and moderating our merry band, and to my colleagues for their wisdom and sharing.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

If you’re new to my blog and aren’t yet familiar with Google Voice, check out my past article Super-charge mediation client customer service with Google Voice.

And since that article, Google has announced that you don’t need a new number to use GV; you can use your existing mobile (but not landline) number if you wish. Here’s the announcement with the details: Google Voice with your existing number.

Want one of the three invites? Leave a comment on the blog (click here if you’re reading this in email, then scroll down to the comment form) and let me know why you’re interested in it. Sorry other visitors and readers, this one’s for my fellow mediators only.

Cheers,

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

I use it to keep up with friends, colleagues and acquaintances. I use it to discover cool new things in the world. And I use it to help my business.

I try to strike a fair balance between the three uses because I don’t want to become overly promotional and I value the connection that comes with letting people know who I am and not just what I do.

When I open Twitter via an app on my Mac or my iPhone, and I’ve got business on my mind, I think this way:

1. Use Twitter to find the people who care about your message. Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo said it best in a recent New York Times article, “Twitter reverses the notion of the group. Instead of creating the group you want, you send it and the group self-assembles.”
2. Use Twitter to test your ideas. Brazen Careerist reminds us that tweeting ideas not only forces you to have 140-character clarity but also lets you tap your followers to find out what resonates.
3. Use Twitter to dream out loud. Tim Tyrell-Smith calls it PublicDreaming™ and suggests it’s a good way to give your ideas the sunlight they need to grow.
4. Use Twitter to get questions answered. Wondering what experience others have had with a laptop you’re about to buy? Want to find a piece of software that’ll do a specific task? Want to know if there’s an online store with a great deal running on office equipment? Tweet your questions to the world and get back an array of ideas, opinions and resources.
5. Use Twitter to build connections that could blossom into business later. Instead of using Twitter as a one-way advertising tool, think of it as a way to foster easy, low-risk conversation with folks interested in your message and ideas.

Have additional ways you use Twitter as part of your ADR practice-building strategy? Let me know in the comments.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

The brainchild of Jeff Thompson, one of my favorite bloggers and a guy with a pretty compelling bio, the event brings together five major ADR bloggers to discuss our tips and strategies, the tools we use, how blogging has helped us, and to take your questions.

Here’s the skinny and where to find more information:

Who

• Jeff Thompson, moderator and instigator of all this, EnjoyMediation and the Centre for Peace & Social Justice
• Diane Levin, The Mediation Channel
• Victoria Pynchon, Settle It Now
• John Ford, editor, Mediate.com
• And yours truly

What

We’ll be discussing blogging, social media, online communication tools, and other web technology for building, extending, managing, serving clients, and yes, having fun in our work.

When

Friday, October 30
2:30pm – 3:30pm Eastern time

Where

It’ll all be streamed online, live. I hope to be able to post the recording of it here later, but encourage you to help us have some fun and good learning by joining us live online.

How

Participant space is limited, so sign up soon by emailing Jeff at mediator.jeff@gmail.com.

For more information

• The original announcement on Jeff Thompson’s blog, Enjoy Mediation
• The ODR Week Program (scroll down to Real-Time and Other Content)

Hope you can join us!

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Many of the articles I wrote three or five years ago are still relevant to practice-building today, but if you’re a recent reader, those articles aren’t front and center for you.

So I’ve reorganized the article archives. You can now find articles that are most relevant to your specific interests in three ways:

• By topic (e.g., practice management, mediation marketing, online marketing, mediation careers)
• By tool type (e.g., scheduling, invoicing, social media, websites)
• By month and title

Check out the new article archives page. What do you think (let me know in the comments)?

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.