What Price Would You Pay to Be Completely Free?
Imagine a world where you were completely free of any financial concern. You would wake up every day and not have to worry about paying the mortgage or rent. You wouldn’t have to worry about car payments. You wouldn’t have to be concerned with those pesky credit card bills that multiply like rabbits in heat.
Suspend your disbelief for a minute and think about what it would feel like to have all of those worries taken away.
It is this feeling, it is this hope, and it is this dream that motivates most entrepreneurs to start a business. An entrepreneur understands that the road ahead of him may be rocky at times. But in spite of the knowledge that a challenging path lay ahead, this sense of freedom helps the entrepreneur press forward. This feeling of a liberated destiny is so powerful that it propels the entrepreneur forward into the lion’s den of risk at breakneck speed. Freedom looms on the horizon – full speed ahead.
Most attorneys focus on the law and not on the dream of freedom associated with building a law practice. The attorney spends years and years learning how to think critically. They learn how to analyze problems and break them down into manageable parts. Attorneys spend the early years of their career assessing risk and then they graduate to giving advice to clients on avoiding it. They have a sense that something may be ahead but the picture is so uncertain that it is difficult for them to visualize a path toward freedom.
So how does an attorney leverage the training, skill and knowledge he has acquired and still embrace the entrepreneurial spirit that is necessary to build a practice that creates financial freedom?
There are three steps an attorney must take to make the transition from practitioner of law to entrepreneur.
First: Run Your Business Like a Business
You work in the field of law to make money. You may have other motivation or a higher sense of purpose but job one is bringing home the bacon. If a business loses site of this fact they are destine for terrible consequences.
In order to make sure you make a profit, you must choose your work and your clients carefully. Good businesses select good clients. This is critically important when it comes to developing a law firm (especially a solo or small practice). Clients will command a good deal of your time and expertise and they should pay well to avail themselves of your resources.
In an entrepreneurial business, like a law firm, cash is king. Get paid in advance. Put in place excellent cash management practices. Complete monthly financial statements- even in the early days. This is a habit that will serve you well as your firm grows.
Only spend money on things that can be measured. Challenge yourself to find a return on investment from each outlay of cash, no matter how small. Even some of the seemingly intangible expenses should contribute to your financial well-being. If it doesn’t pay off, don’t invest in it.
Second: Spend 80% of Your Time (or more) Developing Business
If you truly desire financial freedom you must become an expert at business development. You need to be able to find new clients and deepen your client relationships. This is the single most important aspect of your business. If you have no clients, it does not matter if your are a great attorney.
It is no coincidence that the richest attorneys are the attorneys who are experts at business development. They find a niche and then they dominate their market. It is a simple idea but it takes savvy to pull it off.
No activity in a law firm has a higher value than business development.
Remember that any problem that you can write a check to solve, is not really a problem at all.
Third: Hire the Best to Handle the Rest
If you are adept at originating client work and deepening relationships, you will be able to afford the best and the brightest lawyers to work with your clients. Hire smart people. Compensate them well and get out of their way.
Create standards and practices that you team can follow. Develop processes and procedures that work. Teach these processes to the people that you hire. Have everything documented so that there is little guesswork necessary.
Set up foolproof systems to keep in touch with your clients. Make sure that you never stop the communication process. Every month you do not keep in touch with a client you run the risk of losing that client to someone else for their next matter. If you lose touch with them for 10 months or more, you can expect to lose them forever. Frequency of contact increases trust.
Not-So-Common-Sense
It might seem like following this process is commonsense. It really isn’t. Most attorneys hang a shingle on their wall, join the local chamber of commerce, and push their way into meeting new people they hope will become clients. This works for a handful of people. Then they live off of the referrals they receive from those clients for years and years – sometimes forever. And some of those attorneys live a comfortable life.
But those are the folks who have forgotten about the dream they once had. They have forgotten about the dream of having no bills to pay and the freedom to come and go as they please. They have forgotten about the promise of a destiny they control.
The dream of freedom is closer than you think. If you embrace and cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit in your law firm you will make more money while you pursue your goals in life.
The question you must ask yourself is:
“Am I willing to take the risk?”
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