As usual when lawyers talk about things like this, I was surprised to hear how many lawyers are answering their own phone when they are in the office or having calls directly transferred to them.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised though because I used to do it too when I was first in practice and didn’t know any better.

I felt overwhelmed by all there was to do in the early years of my business (even when i didn’t have a whole lot of clients) and yet when the phone rang, I lunged for it like a teenage girl waiting for her suitor to call.  (It could be a client or even better, a prospect!)

Little did I realize how answering my own phone was the worst thing I could possibly do.

It’s counter-intuitive in a way.  I thought I HAD to answer my phone to be a responsive lawyer.  In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. Make these small changes and watch your life (and bank account) improve, dramatically.

1. Have Your Phone Answered With a Smile By Someone Other Than You

Whatever you do, do not let your phone be answered by someone barking “law offices” into the phone upon pick up.  Make sure whoever answers is smiling when they do.

If you have to use voicemail, make your voicemail smile.  Add something quirky or different. So that you come across as a different kind of lawyer right off the bat.  Unless you enjoy being stereotyped in the same bucket as all the other lawyers.

Call Ruby and Total Attorneys both have great services.  (And if you mention I sent you, each of them will likely give you a free test out period.)  I believe Total Attorneys can even schedule appointment for you, which is really important because as you will see below, you want all your phone calls to be scheduled.

2.  Never Take an Unscheduled Call (Except In Case of Emergency)

When you allow the phone to interrupt you and your day even for a few minutes of the time, you will often find yourself at the end of the day wondering why it feels as if you did not get anything done. (a Microsoft study indicated that it can take as much as 15 minutes to get back on task after an interruption and then it often takes longer to get the task completed.  Add up those 15 minutes and you can lose a whole lot of day.)

So, set yourself up so that everything is scheduled. Use time blocking and hire a scheduling assistant to schedule your calls.  Or, if you are more of the virtual type use TimeDriver, Genbook, or BookFresh.

3. Do Better Work & Get More Love

When you stop allowing your phone to interrupt you throughout the day, you are going to get so much more work done and be far more productive.  That means your family is going to be giving you a lot more love because you are going to be home in time for dinner.

Plus, your prospects are going to love you a whole lot more because you are going to be more in demand than if they can get you on the phone right when they call. When’s the last time you got your surgeon on the phone when you called with a question before surgery?

And, your clients are going to love you because you are going to establish right from the first meeting that the reason you don’t take unscheduled calls is because when you are focused on their matter, you are focused and doing great work for them and refuse to be interrupted. When you DO get on the phone, you’ll always be on time (no more annoying phone tag!) and prepared for the call.  You’ll become the responsive lawyer everyone loves.

Finally, you’ll be doing better work.  And ultimately, that’s what it’s all about.

So stop answering your phone and feel the love.

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There’s one major place small firm and solo attorneys get hung up that will keep you running a practice instead of owning a business –and that’s investing in the support staff you need to take some of the heavy administrative and marketing burdens off your plate.

I hear so many excuses from lawyers who desperately need help but sabotage themselves with “I can’t afford it” or “I can’t trust anyone else to do the work” or “It’s easier to just do it myself or “I don’t have space for an assistant” thinking.

If you don’t make the investment in key support staff to assist you in the operations of your firm, you’ll never grow beyond your current earning capacity and you won’t be able to serve your clients as well as you possibly could.

At the same time, you don’t want to get into a situation where you have too much support, which will result in bloated overhead and you keeping very little of your money.

These days, I do as much as possible with virtual support instead of having people in-house.  And in my best years in the law firm it was the same.

My worst years from an emotional perspective were when I had 7 staff members and a $70,000 per month overhead.  Talk about stress!

Fortunately, the following year after that one, I figured out how to keep my revenue the same with only three full time employees and outsourcing the rest.

So, how do you know if you have too much, too little or just the right amount?

For one week do the following:

1. Write down every single thing you do on a daily basis as it relates to your business.   Track your time down to minute and be sure to include seemingly minute tasks such as, “called the courier and arranged pick up of my court documents” to “ordered coffee for the office”.  Have every person on your team do the same.

2.  At the end of the week, circle everything on your list that could have been done by someone else.  And closely examine what your team members were doing.

3.  Make adjustments once you see how your time and your team are really operating.  It can be hard to see what’s really going on, but it’s always worth it.  Add up the number of hours you spent on the items you circles in step 2 and calculate how much more revenue you could have brought in if you had spent that time in revenue generating (or marketing) activities instead.

Once you see what’s really going on, you can make decisions with knowledge instead of remaining in the dark about your business.

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Some lawyers handled his business matters, one allegedly drafted a will in 2002, some lawyers worked on his criminal “dream team” during the molestation case, while others took care of his civil matters that surfaced almost daily as he feel deeper into debt.

Yet, as of this writing, it appears no one bothered to step out their traditional “lawyer” box to put all the pieces together and make sure his kids and money were truly protected should something happen to him.

And even if a Will does turn up, what’s important for you to know about all of this is that this happens every single day. Parents die unexpectedly or find themselves unable to care for their kids and there is no documentation to ensure the children end up in the care of people the parents’ would have wanted and that their money gets handled in the way the parents would want.

Every time it happens, it’s an absolutely unnecessary tragedy and this is a great wake up call for all of us as lawyers to understand that we are there to guide our clients holistically, regardless of what they’ve contacted us for.

No matter what type of law you practice  – criminal defense, bankruptcy, divorce, employment, business – if you have clients who have children and assets (which of course you do), you need to take a minute and say, “Hey, this is going to seem kind of off topic, but I ask this of all my clients because it’s so often overlooked, have you named legal guardians for your kids, in writing?  If not, I can help you with that.”

THAT is how a five minute conversation will make you someone’s lawyer for life.  That is how you make sure your client is truly taken care of–and THAT is how you change the world.

I don’t care if you refer them to a local estate planning attorney you have a relationship with, a Personal Family Lawyer or send them to our free site, http://www.kidsprotectionplan.com, but you need to do something instead of letting your clients try to figure out things on their own.

It’s time for us to stop letting families fall through the cracks because our industry has become so specialized.  Take a minute and explain to your clients that whether they have $1 or $10 million dollars, as long as they have a child, they need legal planning to protect their family.

If nothing else, you’ll sleep better at night knowing you tried.

PS. Make sure you check out GASSPO as your surfing the web this holiday weekend. It’s a member-only site that has incredible business growth and personal development strategies, resources, opportunities and support from peers, mentors and experts (which happens to include yours truly!) I have arranged a special $100 discount off the GASPPO membership fee just for my personal contacts. If you choose to become a GASPPO member, you must use this coupon code link with the code affgasspo to get the special discount. The discount is valid for 7 DAYS ONLY and will no longer be available after July 7th. Enjoy!

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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 .

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