As lawyers, we advise our clients on how to keep their assets safe from lawsuits. And yet so many of us are like the cobblers kids who wear no shoes and have not set up our own business in the right way to protect our own personal assets.

When I first opened the doors of my law firm, I asked around about whether I should incorporate my business and the universal response I got from other lawyers (!) was that there was no real benefit because I would be on the hook for my malpractice whether I was incorporated or not. I asked my CPA and she told me there was no real tax benefit, so I didn’t incorporate.

Unfortunately, what I later came to learn is that this is TERRIBLE advice.

Everyone who runs a small business should put a shield between their business activities and their personal assets, especially lawyers.

Sure, your business entity won’t protect your personal assets from any potential malpractice claims. But, your business entity will absolutely protect you from any claims by employees or independent contractors, claims against you as a result of actions taken by your employees or independent contractors, claims against you as a result of injuries on your property, etc.

Then, once you get your business entity set up with the right corporate form based on your state laws, be sure you maintain the entity and don’t make the mistake many business owners make of thinking all you need is to file with the State and get a tax ID number from the IRS.

You need resolutions, annual meetings, updated annual meeting minutes, and to ensure you maintain all of your business bank accounts totally separately from your personal accounts.

Get yourself a credit card in the name of your business and never pay for anything personal with that card. 

Be sure to absolutely record any contributions of capital you make into your corporation so that when you sell your business down the road you’ll pay less capital gains tax. And, you are building your law firm to sell one day, right?

Last, be sure not to inadvertently subject yourself to personal liability by either 1) signing legal documents personally and not as the President or CEO of your business entity or 2) signing legal documents, like a property or equipment lease, that have a personal guarantee included that you could potentially have negotiated out of, if only you’d read the document.

It’s pretty funny that I’m writing this article for lawyers, but like all business owners it’s very easy to get caught up in working in our business that we make poor decisions when it comes to setting up our business in the right way.

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

Are you sick of working 15 hour days? I’ll show you how to STOP once and for all! 

As attorneys, we are all pretty much type-A perfectionists with control issues, right?

While that personality has pushed us to excel, it is a HUGE liability when transferred into our businesses if we want a work/life balance that our families can live with.

Why? Well, those personality traits translate into an inability to let go of those things that we could delegate or outsource.

As a result, we end up spending most of our time working outside of our Creative Genius. Your Creative Genius is that thing you love to do, that you are really great at doing, and that provides the most value to your world. You may have more than one Creative Genius, but very rarely will you have more than a handful of things that meet all three of these criteria.

As a lawyer, there are many, many, many things you can do, but that doesn’t mean you should be doing them. From here on out, I want you to focus your energy on narrowing down a little more every day until eventually you are only doing those things that you identify as your Creative Genius.

I remember a medical malpractice lawyer jokingly said one time, “I can do anything if I read it in a book. I’m pretty confident I can do brain surgery if I had a text book in front of me”. 

And while he may very well be smart enough to learn brain surgery from a book-the result would be FAR worse than the medical malpractice cases he sees on a daily basis!

All joking aside, you probably don’t even realize where you are compromising on your Creative Genius-but I promise that if you take the time to identify this and make daily small changes, you will add more hours to the day and far more happiness to your life. When you identify your Creative Genius and work more towards doing only that, you can stop struggling because you’ll be free to focus your energy on those activities that bring the highest return on investment to your business and your life.

So let’s get into the two basic steps for identifying your Creative Genius. 

1. Notice What Comes Naturally

Many of us look for things that are challenging and hard to tackle because it makes us feel “more accomplished” or that much smarter. I did this myself by taking tax classes with Martin Ginsburg in law school just because he was known as the toughest professor and I got a charge from the
challenge and being good at what was hard. But I didn’t love it. And it was only after joining the tax group at my first job out of law school that I realized what a mistake I had made.

So rather than doing what’s hard, take an inventory of the things in your business that just come naturally to you. 

For example, maybe it takes you hours to draft a letter or legal document when you sit down in front of a computer-but you could get up and give a speech with just a few moments notice! 

Or maybe you are on the opposite side of the coin.

Everything you want to say to your prospects comes out so much easier on paper than it does from your mouth. 

Maybe you are fantastic at managing the business, making tough decisions and running a team– but you just aren’t that great in front of clients. Conversely, perhaps you LOVE meeting with clients, but you hate running your business.

Here’s the great news about all of this … it’s all okay. Whoever you are is perfect.

2. Accept Who You Are and Outsource the Rest

So many of us have a subconscious belief “if it’s easy, it must not be good.” But, this is a lie! It’s a lie that’s keeping us from experiencing the best of what life has to offer. Life can be easy.

Begin to write down everything you love to do, that comes easily to you, that provides value to your business.

The truth is that if you don’t like running your business, you don’t have to. If you don’t love speaking publicly, you don’t have to. If you don’t like engaging clients, you don’t have to. If you don’t like drafting legal documents, you don’t have to.

I can hear you now. You’re thinking “OK, Alexis, how DO you expect me to run my business if I’m not doing these things? Magic?”

Well, kind of! As you focus more and more on your Creative Genius, you can find others to handle everything else.

That’s the power of outsourcing.

3. Let Go and Trust

Now, this is the most difficult part for lawyers. To successfully outsource, you’ve got to let go of some control and trust. If you really want to stop working 15-18 hours a day, you must embrace this step with everything you have. It will be your biggest barrier. But, when you breakthrough it, what you find on the other side is the freedom and peace you want from your business.

Understand, there will be mistakes made. There will be balls dropped. But, these experiences will be learning opportunities for the people you are outsourcing to and as long as you turn them into opportunities to teach and not opportunities for blame, the people who you are outsourcing to will become your saviors.

Pick one thing and get started. Because remember, you can always make more money– but you can’t make more time. 

So if you want to go on vacation, take a day off to just play with the kids, or run a business that truly brings you joy, make it a priority operate in your Creative Genius and outsource everything else on your plate!

I put together a 21 page manual on outsourcing called Outsourcing: The KEY to Running Your Million Dollar Law Practice While Working Less Than 40 Hours a Week”.for the Get a Life Conference.

If you’d like to get your hands on it, simply email Support@FamilyWealthMatter.com with Outsource Manual in the subject line.

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

Two weeks ago , I introduced you to the first of three ways to build additional streams of revenue into your law firm and covered why it’s so critical for the financial success of your business to do this.

Today, we’re talking about how you can be providing additional services across several practice areas to increase your attractiveness to a broader market without coming across as a jack of all trades and master of none.

Most lawyers who are doing this completely and totally wrong. I don’t want you to be, so let’s begin by talking about what I mean by providing additional services.

The way most lawyers do this is to take any kind of matter that walks in the door because they are desperate for business.

Do not do this. Being a generalist is death for your business because you will not be able to systematize your business if you don’t narrow your specialty, you will not be able to effectively market and you will not be seen as a trusted resource.

Instead, focus in on the person you want to reach and then become the trusted advisor to that person.  It’s far, far, far easier and less expensive to provide additional lucrative services to your existing clients than to find new clients.

So, let’s say you have decided you are going to become known as the Probate Genius like Kevin Roy. He’s niching his marketing to finding probate cases in his community. That’s great, but once a family comes to him for probate services and he develops a relationship with them, it would be a huge waste of his marketing dollars and his energy if he did not have additional legal services in different practice areas to offer these clients.

What we teach our Personal Family Lawyers is to become THE trusted advisor to their clients and to train their clients to come to them before making any legal or financial decisions for their business or their family.

In fact, the Personal Family Lawyers put their clients on a membership program and their clients pay for the privilege of calling their lawyer for additional guidance!

Now, I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, but I don’t know how to do any practice areas other than my own and don’t want to learn new practice areas.

Of course you don’t!  And, the good news is you don’t have to.

What you can do is create co-counsel relationships with lawyers you trust in your community who provide complementary services.

Here’s an example:

Perhaps, you are a business lawyer and don’t want to add estate planning services to your menu (although I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t!), but let’s just say you don’t.  In that case, you could do one of two things:

1.  You could find an estate planning lawyer in your community who will take your clients on a referral basis and pay you a referral fee (15-25% is a normal range)

OR

2.  You could learn how to counsel your business clients about basic estate planning matters and then find an experienced estate planning lawyer in your community to handle the back office work associated with the estate plans you counsel, like drafting documents, transferring assets, etc.  

In my office, though I was an experienced estate planning lawyer and had handled many, many ultra high net worth cases when I was in a big law firm, once I was in my own law firm, I actually co-counseled on all of my high net worth/asset protection matters because I wasn’t doing enough of them in my own firm to trust I wouldn’t miss anything important.

The benefit for my clients was that I was their legal concierge, their trusted advisor, the person they turned to whenever a legal issue came up and I’d either handle it for them (if it was within my practice area) or find the very best resource for them, whether it was a personal injury, a divorce, an asset protection case, charitable planning, or any other legal matter.  

I’d then either refer them out and receive a referral fee (or pass on the referral fee to the client if they were on my membership program) or if it was a matter closely related to my practiced, I’d co-counsel and receive part of the fee for my counseling.

No matter what practice are you are in, you can become your client’s trusted legal advisor.

Do it today!

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been sharing with you some ways to add multiple streams of revenue to your core business.

The first two ways focused around providing enhanced services to your existing law firm clients.

This third way is totally unique and has nothing to do with your existing clients.

The third way to add multiple streams of revenue to your business is to package the knowledge, expertise, systems, tools and other resources you’ve created as you’ve built your law firm into programs for other lawyers who would love to pay you to learn your shortcuts.

This is a model you’ve seen at least from the outside from anyone you are currently learning from about how to run your practice more effectively.

You might wonder why I’d mention this to you because it could put you in direct competition with me.

I just don’t view the world that way.

In fact, I help many of the lawyers I’m coaching cultivate there own unique talents and gifts by leveraging their expertise.

Kevin Roy, the probate genius. Evan Farr with his TrustPlus system. Kirsten Izatt with Special Needs Planning. Nancy Cavey with Social Securty Disability Planning. Rjon Robins in law firm management. And more …

Each of these lawyers is coaching with me to learn how to leverage their specialized knowledge into at least one additional stream of revenue for their law firm.

It’s my pleasure to guide them to their highest potential.

If you love to teach and you have specialized knowledge you’ve gained over the years of running your business, don’t be afraid to share it.

Package it, put a pricetag on it and offer it to the world. It could change your life!

Oh and speaking of guiding lawyers to pursue their passion, one of my Personal Family Lawyers Kimberley Fonner has decided to leave the law to pursue her passion. She wrote the email below to her colleagues at Wealth Counsel and I thought I’d share it here with you because it was just so kind:

Dear WealthCounsel Friends,

This was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make but my heart told me I had to do it and so I am: I’m closing my practice and getting out of the legal field, effective this month.

As much as I’ve enjoyed being a lawyer for the past 12 years, my passion really lies elsewhere and so, I am leaving the law to pursue the career of my dreams: working everyday with and in support of animals.

I’d like to thank Wealth Counsel and all of you wonderful WC members for your generous mentoring, support and advice over the last 2 years. You all have been quite wonderful and have contributed greatly to my ability to serve estate planning clients in very high-quality ways.

I would also like to publicly thank former Wealth Counsel Member, Alexis Martin Neely because I think she has been misunderstood by many other lawyers within our community.

She’s given me so much this past year and I want to pay that forward by expressing my review of her practice offerings.

I myself joined her Personal Family Lawyer Program at one of the worst times of my life – right after the sudden, unexpected death of my father.

Knowing of my personal loss and struggles with it, Alexis truly cared about me. She was always sensitive and supportive in our interactions, and also offered me a living example of how to make the practice of law more human, way more fun and therefore a lot more meaningful.

Alexis taught me to think outside the box and energized and inspired me. She has been a wonderful role model for me, and I can attest to the fact that she really does practice what she preaches.

What I have also appreciated a TON about the PFL program is it’s plug-and-play nature. That was perfect for me who was starting out as a true solo after more than a decade in the big -firm world. IMHO, it’s optimal for people who either want to re energize their existing practice, or for lawyers who are new to the estate planning field and want a blueprint to structure their practice the right way from the beginning.

All of the systems I received as a Personal Family Lawyer, from done-for-you marketing, to client engagement, to client retention to office management, were simply outstanding, I mean REALLY fantastic and value-adding stuff for my office.

Here is the bottom line from my experience as a PFL: Alexis Martin Neely and her PFL program deliver on all of her promises and then some. She is the real deal. And she really does care.

In fact, Alexis has actually encouraged me to follow my heart and live my passion…even though that meant leaving the law and her program in the process.

If your passion is being an estate planning attorney, Alexis’ PFL program will transform your practice (and therefore your life), and I can recommend it enthusiastically. Thank you all again so much, WC community, for all the support you’ve given me over the past years! It’s meant more than I can really say.

My very best wishes to all of you,
Kimberley.

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

This week’s Briefing Memorandum covers why the economy excuse doesn’t fly with me and it shouldn’t with you either.  

If you find yourself playing the economy card, recognize it as the cop out it is because if your prospect wants what you are offering badly enough, they’ll find a way to pay for it.  

It’s your job to make them want it bad.

Day after day, struggling lawyers contact me complaining about how the economy is affecting their business. 

When I ask them to describe their business to me, I’m not surprised they are struggling.

They are surprised though when I tell them it’s not the economy. It’s them.  

How do I know this?

Because I’m standing in an arena full of 15,000 people who despite the economy found the money to get to this concert.  

Parking alone was as much as $50. A beer, $12. Tacos, $10. Tickets at face value $100 each. Many people pulled up in limos. Dave wanted to be here so badly, he paid $350 a ticket and so did the people sitting next to us.  

These people can afford your services, you just have to make em want it.  

So what are you doing to do that? How are you differentiating yourself from the online, do it yourself,virtual legal service providers?

What kind of an EXPERIENCE are you creating for your clients?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ve got a gift for you that will clear up your confusion and SHOW you exactly how to create a totally unique experience for your prospects that will make them excited to come and see you and want to find a way to pay for your services.  

All you have to do to get this video gift that will show you just what to do in your office is sign up for my Personal Family Lawyer call. Do it here: http://budurl.com/cuvg

On the call, you’ll hear how to make your prospects want you and only you.  

It’s not the economy.

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

Nearly 8 years ago, I was an associate in a big law firm and very unhappy. I told myself there must be something wrong with me to be so unhappy.

The firm was the best in Los Angeles. I was representing people like Warren Buffet and companies like Universal Studios.

I was making a nice 6-figure paycheck. More than I had ever made in my life.

I was 27 years old. How could I not be overjoyed?

But, I wasn’t.

One day, I heard a woman speak at a networking event. She spoke about branding, but that’s not what I heard.

I heard her talk about how she had created life on her terms. A life she loved. Her work was aligned with her purpose. She got to spend as much time as she wanted to with her children. And, she was making a great living.

I wanted that life. Yet, I felt so far from it.

Driving downtown everyday pushing paper for people who barely appreciated what I was doing. Leaving my daughter and husband. Not really feeling as if I was making a difference in anyone’s life.

I got her book, combing it for her secrets. Inside, I saw she referenced a coach she worked with.

I had considered coaching before, but had poo-poo’d it. “I don’t need a coach, I’m a lawyer.” “I’m too smart for a coach.” “I can’t afford it anyway.”

These were the thoughts that ran through my head whenever I thought of working with a coach.

Until it hit me that I had to do something. I may have been smarter than the girl who was speaking from the stage that day, but she was a heck of a lot happier. I wanted what she had.

So, I hired this coach despite all the mind chatter saying I was nuts.

And the first things she asked me was “when’s the last time you went to the dentist?” “What about getting a haircut?”  “When’s the last time you did that?”  “A pedicure?” “When’s the last time you had one of those?”

To each one of her questions, my answer was “it’s been a really long time. Why are you asking me this? I thought you were supposed to be getting me happy in my work.”

What I didn’t realize then, but I do now is that it’s all connected. If you aren’t taking care of yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually, you’re likely to be unhappy in your work no matter what you are doing. And of course that’ll be reflected in your bank account and your family relationships.

So, start there. In next week’s Law Business Revolution Briefing Memorandum, I’ll share with you how taking care of myself actually tangibly and literally saved my life.

#####

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my business right from the beginning was settling for less than I deserve and as a result of that settling, guess what I got?

Frustration. Burn-out. Overwhelm.

I bet you can relate.  But, what you might not know is that there is something you can do about it.

This Law Business Revolution weekly briefing memorandum will show you exactly how to experience the life and business of your dreams, by not settling!

The first place for you to start is to honestly look at WHERE you are settling for less.

The likely places for you to start looking are with your clients and your team.  It might be your office space. 

Take an honest, good hard look.

Are you taking on clients that are not your ideal clients? For that matter, do you even know who your ideal clients are? What about team members?  Does every person on your team feel like they are the best fit? Or are you creating jobs to fit your team members?

While you are at it, look around your office space.  Your work space.  Is it all you want it to be or do you see things that are not the way you want them to be?  Is your space the way you want your clients to experience you?

It’s very, very likely that you’ve now identified some places that you are settling for less in your business. (By the way, this exact same process works in your life too!)

So now what?

Now that you are aware of where you have been settling,  write down the areas where you have been settling and what exactly and specifically it would look like if you were NOT settling.

For example, you might write:

I’ve been settling with my receptionist. If I wasn’t settling, my receptionist would answer my phone with a smile on her face every single time and she would say “welcome to [name of law firm] this is [name] how can I assist you?” When clients walk in the door, she would immediately greet them
with a smile, an offer of a beverage and guide them to a comfortable space.

Great!  Do this as many times as are necessary.

What this process will do for you is give you clarity and focus about what you DO want.  That’s the first step to receiving what you want in your life and no longer settling.

Now, your job is to begin to let go of what you’ve been settling for in favor of what you want and deserve in your life and your business.

This, of course, is the difficult part.  All sorts of fear will come up that makes you believe that you can’t really get what you want and it’s better to settle for something than end up with nothing.

This thought/fear is blocking the life/business you deserve.

Now that you are aware of it, you can breakthrough it.  I’d love to hear how it goes for you!

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

In this week’s Law Business Revolution weekly briefing memorandum, I’m kicking off a series of messages about how you can leverage your business into multiple streams of revenue, some of them even passive.

Back in the boom time of a few years ago, there was a lot of talk about using real estate to build multiple, passive streams of revenue.

It was pretty easy to get caught up in the hype as real estate prices were going up-up-up.

I decided to invest in some real estate and I nearly lost my shirt. We were fortunate in that we were able to sell at break even right before the big crash in the market.

It could have been really ugly.

I was lured in by the idea of a no-effort return on my dollars.

The reality was not so much like that.

I didn’t know anything about real estate. And while I invested with a real estate agent who was successfully flipping and fixing properties all over town, I was not focused enough to keep an eye on what he was doing and there was a lot he did that I would have done differently.

It probably would have been a-ok if the market kept going up, but in a bear market, you cannot make sloppy mistakes!

It’s the same for your business.

What worked out okay over the past few years, may not work anymore. You’ve got to get into overdrive if you want to survive in a recession economy!

The good news is that if you do, you’ll be in the minority and will do far more than just survive, you’ll thrive.

So, what does that mean? And, how do you do it?

One way is to build multiple streams of revenue into your law business. Not by investing in risky real estate ventures or uncertain stock speculation, but by leveraging your existing core business assets.

We’ll talk a lot more about this over the next several weeks because there are some right ways to do it and some wrong ways to do it.

For now, know this, understand that there are basically three models for leveraging your core business into multiple streams of revenue:

1. Provide a broad range of services to bring in new clients.

2. Offer your existing clients additional services that are complimentary with other services you’ve already provided.

3. Teach other business owners how to do something you do that is specialized or unique.

Most lawyers are doing #1, but not only doing it the wrong way, but doing it in such a way that it actually dilutes their effectiveness.

Very few lawyers are doing #2 and even fewer are doing #3.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing how you can do all three of these things effectively to create multiple streams of revenue in your law firm.

Power to the People (and Your Dream Law Business!)

Alexis

Image courtesy of Flickr

About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a legal marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and manage productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .

This week’s Law Business Revolution weekly briefing memorandum is about something far too few service professionals do a very good job of and that’s asking for feedback.

I suspect, for the most part, it’s because they are afraid of what they might hear.

But, asking for feedback is the best way to learn what is working and what’s not.

You can guess and you can test, but the least expensive and fastest way is to ask your prospects and your clients.

At my law firm, we always sent a survey out to our clients within two weeks of the completion of their planning.

Most of the time we got back very kind responses.

Sometimes, I heard complaints. And, thank goodness I did because had I not asked, those unhappy people would have kept their thoughts to their own inner circle of friendship, which would have meant I couldn’t course correct and my reputation in the community would have been chipped away.

Each time you ask and get any sort of feedback at all, be grateful because it’s a great opportunity for you to do what you need to do to keep serving your clients in the best way possible.

So, I can’t write a briefing memorandum like this and then not ask, right?!?

How are we doing? What would you love to see more of? What would you love to see less of?

I’m all ears. Simply comment and I’ll get your message. I won’t be able to respond to each message I receive personally, but I will read each one of them.

Image courtesy of Flickr

The Law Business Secrets e-newsletter is getting out to you a day late because I was traveling yesterday to Scottsdale and I’m at the Phoenician Resort where I’m meeting with my new mentor, Alexandria Brown.

This year I will invest more than 6 figures in business coaching. Yep, you read that right, more than $100,000 this year.

And this is not the first year.

I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaching over the past 8 years.

It all started with my first coach, Mariette.

I almost didn’t hire her because I couldn’t fathom spending the money on myself. Let alone the time I’d need to take each week to work with her.

This was back when I was still at the big law firm and very rarely spent money on myself.

My kids, yes. My husband, yes.

But, not me.

Thank goodness I did though because what Mariette helped me discover is that my unwillingness to invest in myself was keeping me trapped right where I was, unhappily working for someone else.

I might still be there had I not hired a coach to help me see where I was stuck.

I hired my next coach when I was ready to leave the big law firm and open my own office.

I wanted someone who would be there to guide me through the whole process of setting up my office and my systems.

So, I hired a well known coach whose name you would know if I said it, but I won’t because I don’t have great things to say about that experience.

He was a traditionalist in every sense of the word.

When I discussed some of my radical ideas for how I wanted to build and run my law firm, he told me I’d fail, that I should do things the traditional way, the way things were always done.

When I told him I didn’t want to continue coaching with him, he told me I was making a huge mistake, that I didn’t know what I was doing and needed his advice to do things the
right way.

Ick.

Since then, I’ve always had a coach or mentor, often more than one.

Each one has taken me to a new level of business and personal success and happiness.

If you are not working with a mentor or a coach, you should be.

Whether it’s me or someone else, if you want more out of your life and your business than you are experiencing right now, a mentor will help you get there.

If you aren’t sure how to choose in a mentor/coach, here’s what you should look for:

1. Someone who is positive and uplifting and inspires you to stretch outside your comfort zone and go beyond your limits.

2. Someone who has done what you want to do and gone where you want to go and can save you from expensive mistakes.

3. Someone who will encourage your independence by giving fully and not holding back the secrets so you are dependent on him or her forever.

Finding the right mentor will change everything for you. It sure did for me.

If you are nervous about finding the money to invest, consider that you are your very best investment and the investment you make will pay dividends every day for the rest of your life.

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About the Law Business Revolution

The Law Business Revolution is a law firm marketing and training organization focused on helping attorneys attract quality clients, start and grow productive law firms, systematize their businesses and ultimately help lawyers attain more time and greater resources than ever before.

Training through the Law Business Revolution includes (but is not limited to), private and group coaching led by professionals that surpassed the 7-figure mark in their own firms and businesses, client engagement strategies, client attraction strategies, educational, relationship-based marketing techniques designed to get results, lead generation training, campaigns for consumers, referrals and prospects and systematizing a firm to run on autopilot.

Licensed attorneys are welcome to download over $22,500 of free practice building resources courtesy of the Law Business Revolution at http://www.lawbusinessrevolution.com .