Are You an Advocate? You’d Better Be.
Are you an advocate? If you want success, no matter what it is you do, the answer is a resounding yes. The definition of advocate is one who speaks in support of something. If you don’t know how to speak in support of your ideas, your business, your team or yourself, you will never realize your potential.
If you’re a leader, you advocate for your culture and your team. You’re a real estate professional? Every day you advocate for your clients. If you’re in marketing, advocating is key. When you’re in customer experience, you’re advocating for your product. Negotiating a deal or a raise? If you don’t advocate, you’re leaving something on the table. No matter what you do–the more you embrace advocacy and do it well, the better off you will be.
Lawyers are known by many names (not all of them nice). Attorney, litigator, counselor (which my psychology degree allows me to embrace) and advocate. And the tools we trial lawyers use to advocate for our clients at trial are transferable. You can use the tools of a trial lawyer to win–more sales, more attention, more loyalty and more engagement.
In my book, The Elegant Warrior-How to Win Life’s Trials Without Losing Yourself, I go through many of those tools and how you can use them to advocate in your life. You can use the tools I use to pick a jury to choose employees. When you need to support a pitch, collect evidence the way I do to support my case. And questions–they are an advocate’s secret weapon. We use them to learn, to challenge, to build a case and to knock one down. Objections, persuasion, credibility and conflict resolution are all the tools of a trial lawyer that you can use as you advocate your way to success. Go beyond storytelling and start advocating.
If you’ve never considered yourself an advocate, start now. Look at the ways trial lawyers advocate for their clients and do the same for yourself. Use your voice.Ask questions, master objections, use evidence and build credibility. Become your own best advocate. No one can do it better than you.
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