One of the single most important things you can learn how to do as a business owner is how to bounce back from failures.

How you handle failure is the key to whether you will succeed. Here’s how some of the most successful people of all time have handled what would have stopped most of us dead in our tracks.

* Thomas Edison failed 10,000(!) times before finally inventing the light bulb

* Henry Ford started many businesses and ended up completely broke FIVE times before he founded Ford Motor Company

* Harland Sanders and his famous Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe was rejected 1,009 times before he finally heard a yes.

* Oprah Winfrey was fired and rejected as a TV reporter.  Her bosses called her “unfit for TV.”

* R.H. Macy started SEVEN failed businesses before his department store Macy’s became a huge global success.

Maybe you too are experiencing failure at this very moment.  Maybe you’re drowning in a sea of debt and can’t fathom how you and your firm can possibly come out alive.

Maybe you feel like a failure as a parent…or a husband or a wife because your law firm steals all of your time and forces you to neglect the things or people you love the most.

Perhaps you’ve lost a string of cases that’s shattered your self-confidence and you’re now questioning your ability in the legal field all together.

To you I say: Don’t give up!

Each of these failures is a stepping stone to your ultimate success.  Instead, see them as tests to see how serious you really are about succeeding in business and life.

Here are the things that help me bounce back and get back on the horse each time I fall off:

1. Find the lesson. Every failure is merely an opportunity to learn how to do better next time.  When you see failure that way, you discover that not only is failure not something to be afraid of, but something to embrace because it brings you one step closer to what you need to learn to get where you want to go.

2.  Don’t blame. Blame blocks your lesson.  Instead, if you take 100% personal responsibility for your part of every failure, you can learn the lessons you need to turn the failure into a huge success.

3.  Move out of why and into what. Many of us spend our time WHYning constantly.  Oh why me, why did this happen. Why, why, why, why, why????  Why doesn’t matter.  All that matters is what.  Accept the reality of whatever did happen and now ask yourself WHAT you are going to do to turn it around into the greatest opportunity of your life.

4.  Ask for help. Sometimes it’s hard to see the lessons in our own failures.  Emotion can get in the way.  So ask for help from someone who cares about you and is not emotionally invested in your outcome.  Even if you are a solo lawyer, that doesn’t mean you have to do it all alone.

If you want the support of an amazing group of lawyers who will help you turn every failure into the greatest opportunity for success, consider becoming a PFL.  I held a no-charge call on February 16th where I gave all the details of the program and opened the doors for our open enrollment happening this week. If you missed the call, you can download the replay here and still get your application in before tomorrow’s deadline.

The PFL program isn’t for everyone.  If what we offer doesn’t fit with your practice area or simply isn’t a business model you’d like to implement, keep searching until you find the one that is.  You really can have a life and business that you love being a lawyer and serving your clients in  a way that really matters.

Image courtesy of Flickr

Every now and then, I like to move away from teaching about the legal marketing/ law practice aspects of running a small or solo law firm and dive into something that’s rarely talked about in the legal field…which is your mindset.

Because here’s the truth, I can give you all the legal marketing and practice management tips in the world, but if your head isn’t in the right place, you’ll find a way to sabotage your efforts.

Conversely, you can be the worst marketer or business person, but if you have the right mindset, you’ll eventually find success.

Today, I want to talk about DRIVE and how it relates to the success of your life/business right now.

Take a moment and consider the following:

1. What drives me?

2. What is my purpose for being a lawyer?

3. What is my purpose in life?

4. Am I happy?

5. Why did I go to law school?

6. Am I making a difference in the world?

These can be hard questions to look at….especially in times of economic hardship. You may feel driven on pure survival. And you may find yourself enduring gruesome hours and complete misery all in the name of making money.

You may even be compromising your time and sanity by taking legal work that you don’t WANT or LIKE to do-just to get by.

Ultimately though, these actions don’t lead to more money. They lead to burnout, bitterness, depression, addictions and in extreme cases, suicide (which is sadly on the rise for lawyers these days).

There comes a point at which if you’re going to succeed in the business of law….and in the business of life, you need to get very clear on what drives you, why you wanted to practice law in the first place and whether you are really living the life you want.

I recently had a call with Dan Pink, the New York Times best-selling author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, where we discussed this issue as it relates specifically to lawyers and the legal field.

What you may not know about Dan is that he’s got a JD from Yale. But, he never used his law degree to practice because he realized early on that his “drive” and motivation was not to be a lawyer.

Going to law school was, for him, just the next logical step for a bright kid with a top-notch college degree and a lack of clarity about what else to do.

And there’s many lawyers out there who went to law school for the same reason and are now incredibly unhappy in the actual practice of law…..not because they aren’t smart….but they aren’t aligned with that which drives them. (This may even be you.)

Dan also acknowledged there’s another group of lawyers….lawyers like me who went to law school with the DRIVE and purpose to really help people. If that’s you, you’re driven by the idea of making a real difference in the world and using the power of your law degree to some chief and definite aim.

And there’s many of us in this group who have lost sight of that drive. We take jobs in law firms that keep us stuck in the transactional rut or we get so desperate running a small or solo law firm that we take clients and cases that leave us miserable in practice.

If that’s you-I completely understand. I was there. It’s exactly what motivated me to leave the safety of my six-figure paycheck and set out to build my own law firm. And it’s also what motivated me to master the skills and create the systems I now teach in the Personal Family Lawyer Program.

I wanted to make a real difference in my client’s lives and I knew the old, broken business model just didn’t leave enough room for that. Not if I wanted to also enjoy my personal life.

Yes it was scary…..yes there were moments when I questioned my own sanity leaving the big check and investing hundreds of thousands of dollars reinventing the business model….but I had to get aligned with what drives me or face years of unhappiness and little quality time with my kids.

What I can tell you is that when I made the decision to get aligned with what was really important to me in life and my practice, the money, freedom and success ultimately followed.

So take a moment today and think about what drives you.

Why did you go to law school and are you living that desire?  A great start is downloading the call I did with Dan Pink and force yourself to identify any disconnect in your own life. I’ll show you how to work through it in the weeks to come.

The results of our 2009 legal marketing/ law practice survey are in and the responses are sadly indicative of our industry as a whole.

According to the results, you are frustrated and tired of begging for business and struggling to turn a profit in your small and solo firms.  The statistics show 23% of lawyers surveyed made under $50,000 last year, while 40% of lawyers surveyed felt “very dissatisfied” with the amount they made in 2009.

A large majority also expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of time they wasted on tire kickers, price shoppers and clients who refused to pay their full fee…and quite frankly, what you know you are worth.

That’s a hard pill to swallow, especially after spending up to six figures on your law degree.

The most unfortunate part, however, is how many of these lawyers did do the right things in marketing their practices last year.   99% of lawyers surveyed tried at least one form of advanced marketing (if not many forms) and still failed to see consistent results or good ROI from their efforts.  As you can imagine, these attorneys were off the chart when it came to feeling “very dissatisfied” with their marketing efforts and practice as a whole.

But, here’s the important thing for you to know … the lawyers who felt “very satisfied” with their marketing, practices and income last year all had one thing in common:

They were not just relying on one source of business; instead, they had an automated marketing system to consistently market using a diverse set of strategies without fail-even (especially!) when times got tough.

A good client attraction strategy is like having a diversified investment portfolio.  When one sector bombs, your stock in an unrelated sector shields you from huge loss.  The same holds true with your marketing.  You want to have an integrated and coordinated marketing system set up so that if one source temporarily dries up, it doesn’t affect you.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Wow, that’s got to be expensive …I can barely afford to run a nice big ad in the yellow pages, let alone do all this marketing you’re talking about”.  The good news though is that some of the best strategies are low-cost or even no-cost provided you put in the time to set up the system to begin with.

The great news about a system though is that once it’s set up, it’s good to go and will produce consistent, reliable and predictable results for you on an ongoing basis.

So, what does an integrated, coordinated, automated system look like?

I laid it out in detail on this call I hosted.  Listen to it here .

And if you are ready to get your integrated, coordinated, automated system in place for 2010 and beyond, join us for our 2-day virtual event . It will change everything for you. I guarantee it.

Corporations spend billions each year developing creative advertising and marketing campaigns to attract more clients.   They realize creativity is the key to standing out in a saturated marketplace.  So, how do they stand out?  The key is in creativity.  Making their product, marketing materials and physical space “unique” and different on multiple sensory levels.

The good news is you don’t have to spend billions to do this in your own law business.

And yet most lawyers are stuck looking the same as everyone else. Why?

Because most of us:

1. Are analytical/left-brain thinkers who have a hard time jumping into our right-brain/creative side (creativity really is hard for some people); and

2.  Assume everything must be “professional” to earn the respect of a prospect, leaving very little room for creativity and innovation.

Lawyer type of professional is a thing of the past. Today, people associate that old kind of “professional” image with a non-responsive, scary lawyer who takes their money and won’t return phone calls or the attorney who will bill for every email, phone call or correspondence that crosses her desk.

Being creatively professional, on the other hand, helps remove the defenses and stereotypes people have when hiring a lawyer and overcomes the presumption that you’re just like all the other lawyers in town.

With that said, here are the top three ways where a bit of creativity and right-brain thinking can go a long way in attracting clients to your law firm:

1.  Web copy:  If your web copy reads like a CV or a text book, time to hit the delete button and juice up your creative writing skills.  Use your website to tell the story of who you are, why you are different and why your area of law matters so much.  You can even get creative with your writing style! Throw in some bullet points, contractions and folksy language if that’s how you speak.  Use those creative juices to prove you aren’t the stuffy lawyer prospects expect you to be.

2.  Firm Story:  Your firm story (the story you relay to clients about why you practice law, how your business came to be and what makes you different from other lawyers) should be about true life events and epiphanies that are relevant to the person you are speaking with, not a biography of your most notable accomplishments and awards.  Here you’ll creatively use your experiences outside the law to connect to prospects on a much deeper and more meaningful level.  Did you grow up in foster care and now practice family law or estate planning as a result? Integrate that into your firm story!  Did you live through a bankruptcy and now practice business law to help other entrepreneurs avoid the same plight?  Include that too!  The more outside-the-box your story is, the more likely it will stick with your prospects and make an impact.

3.  Your office space:  If you haven’t watched my video on setting up your office space in a way that’s creative, outside the box and prime to attract more clients, do so now by clicking here. Your office says so much about you and plays a huge role in attracting the right type of clients to your firm.  Therefore, you’ll want to get the décor and ambiance just right so your first impression with a prospect won’t be the last.  You can do this even if you use a virtual office space.  Create a basket that you bring in before each client meeting that personalizes the space.

And as always, be sure to email alexis@lawbusinessrevolution.com with your success stories or questions on getting creative in the marketing of your law firm.  Creativity is the key to your client attraction strategy in 2010 so jump out of that left-brain thinking and get started!

I’ve talked a lot about systematizing your processes so you can set your client expectations and turn them into raving fans.  But it’s possible that I haven’t explained precisely why raving fans are the key to your business freedom.  Having raving fans isn’t simply an ego boost (though it does feel good), it makes a huge difference to your bottom line and ultimately the time you have to put into your business.

Here’s a few of the reasons you want raving fans:

1. They insist that all their friends and family use your services.  This saves you huge marketing time, energy and money.

2. They will butt into the conversations of a strangers asking for legal advice to say they must contact you, and only you, because of their incredible experience.  This kind of a referral makes engaging the client a piece of cake for you.

3. They become walking advertisements for months or even YEARS down the road-giving you a greater marketing ROI than any magazine ad or direct response marketing campaign could ever touch.  Plus, they are more likely to use more of your future services, which means more bottom line revenue for your business.

Today, it’s about high-concept, high-touch, relationship-based service.  It’s what’s bringing in the clients and keeps them so they stay, pay and refer.  And that means more happiness for you.

You already know times are tight and that means the same old, same old is simply not going to do it. People have lots of choices among lawyers and will not spend their hard earned money on just anyone.  Revamping your client service process to create a high-concept, high-touch experience without much additional expense will put you light years ahead of the competition struggling to figure out what this shift means-and how to operate under it in their business.

Think about this for a moment.

What do people think of when they think about lawyers?  Non-responsive, dodging phone calls and foot-dragging. They come into the relationship expecting to have to stay on your tail and call your office every couple days to check on their progress. They expect you to treat them poorly.  It’s sad, isn’t it?

Imagine their surprise then when your firm treats them completely differently. Now, you are proactively communicating with your clients. You’re still giving red-carpet treatment-even after you’ve won their business and cashed the check.

That is what creates a raving fan for life of your firm-not to mention, a raving fan who will call you whenever she needs a “trusted advisor” down the road.

So now that you know WHY client service systems (aka the automated process of how things are handled after a client says yes and gives you a check) is so important, I invite you to learn HOW to set up a client service system that works by joining me for a preview call on Thursday, November 19^th at 3 EST / 12 pm PST during which I’ll lay out my Client Service System and what you can learn from it.

I’ll be sending you the registration link on Monday, so be sure to block this date on your calendar and we’ll discuss this in more detail next week!

PS. Here’s an example of what happens when you create raving fans. They send you unsolicited testimonials like this one:

“This past Monday, the day after I listened to the CDs over the weekend, I had a couple of client meetings that resulted in $3k of additional revenue b/c I asked 4 “$1,000 questions” and got yes answers on 3 of them.  So the system paid for itself the day I started using some of the ideas – Pretty cool!”

-Pete Sisson – Boise, Idaho

Before I share with you my 3 simple steps to kickstart your creativity without making the trek to  Burning Man, let me quickly make the case for why you must infuse your business with your creative juices.

In the new “experience” economy, your prospects are not simply looking for a lawyer, they are looking for an experience.

They want to feel special. They want to feel as if they’ve gotten something unique and different. And you want to provide that to them because it’s what justifies your higher fees and makes you unshoppable.

Who doesn’t want that? (If you don’t want clients lined up eager to pay you higher fees than the rest of the lawyers in your community, don’t worry about creativity – you can continue to provide the same old, same old, no problem.)

Do these three things in the next week and see what happens:

1. Take a walk.

If you are more of an indoor person, take a walk in nature. Focus your attention during your walk  on how everything works together and supports everything else effortlessly.

If you love the outdoors and spend a lot of time outisde already, take a walk inside at your local mall and consider how you would change things around to make the shopping experience more enjoyable.

Journal your observations.

2. Ask some questions.

Pick three people in your community who provide a service and ask them what their biggest business challenge is and then spend 30 minutes or so brainstorming ways they can solve their challenge.

These can be people you don’t speak with regularly or even know very well. Let them know you are working on a project to increase your creativity and are offering your time without asking for anything in return. A natural side benefit of this step could be making a great connection with another professional in your community.

Get outside your comfort zone here and connect with at least one business owner completely outside of your realm of business, such as a plumber or a carpet cleaner.

3. Move your body.

As lawyers, we spend a lot more time in our heads than other people. This can drain creativity more than anything else.

Go dancing, do yoga, play softball or football or hockey. Just get out there and do something that gets the blood flowing. You’ll be amazed at how a little body moving stimulates your creative juices.

You, your clients and your business deserve it!

In most of us, there exists a Type-A overachiever who would work 24 hours a day fighting on behalf of our clients, if we let that part of us take over. We like to win, we like to be the best and we are willing to sacrifice to make that happen. It’s what got us through law school, after all. At least that’s the case for me.

But somewhere along the way, I woke up and realized this is the one life I’ve got (at least that I’ll remember) and I’d better make it a great one or I’m going to look back years from now and be full of regret.

Apparently, that wake-up call hasn’t come for Scott Greenfield, a criminal defense lawyer in NY, who calls those of us who want more out of life the “Slackoisie” because apparently we are slackers if we want to have a life and a law firm.

Before I rebut the substance of Scott’s argument, I’ve got to take a minute to comment about Scott’s statement that I am full of disgustingly sweet goo and utterly devoid of substance. I LOVE it. Thank you, Scott.

I love being sweet and, as for the utterly devoid of substance … well, I don’t pull this out there very often, but I DID graduate first in my class from Georgetown Law and worked at Munger, Tolles & Olson for three years before starting my own firm. I DID build my law firm into a 7-figure law firm in only three years by creating a brand new business model and I DID sell that law firm and I DO now help hundreds of lawyers around the United States become the lawyers they’ve always wanted to be and love their business again while enjoying work/life balance.

So, you can say what you want about me, but maybe come up with something better than utterly devoid of substance.

The fact of the matter is that guys like Scott Greenfield are stuck in an old paradigm. A paradigm based on a broken business model. Yes, under the old paradigm, work/life balance is NOT possible. I discovered this myself working first for a big law firm and then after starting my own firm and building it the way the “successful” lawyers told me I should and realizing it was going to stick me with insane hours and not really make a difference in my clients’ lives.

Unfortunately, outdated lawyers who want to justify their misery must resort to name calling of anyone who longs for something more and knows that it’s possible to have it all without compromising client well-being. They whine that instead of embodying “professionalism, responsibility and duty,” the desire for work- life balance is nothing more than a quest for “the magic bullet that will enable[you] to achieve success in the absence of inconvenient effort.”

Lawyers are under more stress than ever, many turning to drugs and alcohol to deal with it. While it’s true there is no magic bullet to success, it can happen much more quickly and easily than Greenfield and his brethren would like you to believe. It’s going to take you a huge amount of effort, but you are going to put in the effort one way or another, so why not put it in bucking the norm and creating something new and unique that will allow you to have it all and take great care of your clients while you do it.

At the end of the day it comes down to this: Clients are far better served by a lawyer who uses technology to the max, has learned how to systematize their practice, and utilizes a team to support her clients than by a lawyer who stuck in the old, broken model. And, yes, it’s quite likely this lawyer will be found on Twitter and be enjoying a very nice work/life balance.

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 .

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 .