Posts in category: Uncategorized

Monday, September 29, 2014 - 4:00p-5:00p EST

Join us on Monday, September 29th at 4:00 EDT, where Dave will be providing a legal update to our membership regarding the recent decisions that have come down on the Aplin case and the Peterson case. Please be sure to join us as Dave discusses the impact of these cases on current planning.

Just as we each need to create and declare our goals for personal growth, our teams need to create and declare common goals for the continued growth of our practice. We see firsthand over and over again…this is the common denominator for those making their revenue goals and those that are not. The difference is a growth path for team and attorney alike.

Every team needs time to step away from the daily tasks that we perform in our effort to create a great experience for our clients. Have you ever thought to yourself “What a luxury it would be to have T-I-M-E!!” … time to brainstorm with each other about what’s not working and what’s working … time to focus on the practice and really, actively plan for your future … time to set realistic goals and put in writing an action plan that includes who is doing what, by when, and how to carve it out in their weekly calendar. All with the reality that if we stick to this plan and hold each other accountable to it by checking in during our weekly team meeting, we can actually bring the goals to fruition …

The LWP™ Tri-Annual Practice Enhancement Retreat offers you exactly what you’ve been dreaming about … T-I-M-E … an entire afternoon dedicated to your team and your practice … with a working plan to get you started and coaches available for when you get stuck. Imagine having time for your entire team to work ON the practice rather than IN the practice … imagine the possibilities. No need to imagine, because you can make the possibilities into probabilities and arrive at the office with a workable plan for creating the reality.

That is time well-spent … That is a Team Retreat.

To take part in the half day “Intentional Retreats: How to get you to where you want to go” contact Marci Otts at motts@lawyerswithpurpose.com to reserve your seat. All registration closes September 29th, 2014.

I have been told that the job hunting process can become mundane and can leave you feeling defeated and hopeless on most days. The “process” begins with turning on the TV to watch the TODAY show, brewing a fresh cup of joe and clicking on all your bookmark tabs: Monster, Craigslist, Indeed, local listings, etc.

You begin to browse the latest listings and can recite the standard ad posting word for word. I have been told it gets to the point that you don’t even read the ad any longer, as the average “bookkeeper” ad doesn’t tend to deviate much. There isn’t much creativity or uniqueness in a standard position. You get called in for the interview, and you pass with flying colors. You review the job description at the interview and scan through it with lightning speed. “Yay, blah, yep, standard. Got it. So where is the part about hours, vacation and holidays?”

At LWP we spent years and years with a communication expert to help us carefully craft the job descriptions and organization charts our members use to create their own versions, all in the spirit of “who's doing what to reach the goal” in their business. Last week I was on an LWP implementation call with a new team member serving in the role of the relationship and community outreach coordinator. The attorney requested that I go through her job description line item by line item with her, comparing it to the system for her job side by side to make certain she understood where in the system she could fulfill each responsibility. He wanted to make certain she understood how to carry out each of the actions within the job description, which we had carefully tweaked to make specific to his needs.

Since she has been in the marketing industry for a decade, I knew I had my work cut out for me. After 17 years of this, I’ve learned that the veteran employees can often be the most inflexible. She understands the power of nurturing relationships and showing up as a “GO Giver” everywhere you go. She truly was a superstar when it came to talking the talk. But when we broke down the job description and its implications for her day-to-day activities, she quickly became quiet. Her chiming in and interrupting with what she did at the last job plainly came to a standstill. We were meeting via Skype, but I could still see her entire body language shift. “Tammi, I want to check in,” I said. “I am noticing you leaned back from the screen. Your hands are no longer flopping with excitement. Your bubbly persona is in dire need of fix-o-flat. What’s up?”

“This isn’t what I signed up for. I am a marketer; this is all follow-up work,” Tammi scarcely peeped out. I could hear the fear of the possibility that the very words that left her lips may have just produced her walking papers. “Tammi, did you not read the job description before you took the job?” “I glanced at it,” she replied. “But I thought it was like every other job, boilerplate.” The direction of the conversation took a 2mm shift. We talked about how not following up with your prospects and customers is the same as filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain! I always tell my attorneys, you’re better off staying home than wasting your time making contacts if someone on your team isn’t putting in the time (and heart) on the follow-up.

A study done by The Association of Sales Executives revealed that 81% of all sales happen on or after the fifth touch. And I have actually seen it much higher in the personal services industry (which we are); it is usually more like nine touches. This is especially true when you don’t have a fancy retail marketing budget, meaning your firm’s branding is probably all over the place. Solopreneurs sadly lose too much business because of one reason and one reason only – lack of follow-up. We discussed how the follow-up is NOT grunt work. It’s not admin work. It is enrollment. It is where you get to marry all your marketing genius and integrate it over and over again. If you shift your mind from a place of “task” to a place of “marketing” you will see how this IS not only your job, but the most important part of your job. She got it.

We created ways to make the follow-up creative, with personal connection and tracking and measuring. We made a game of it in a way where we would know when we reached the goal. “This is not what I signed up for” is what we hear from people, but usually only when it’s too far gone. Take the time to go through your team’s job description with your system of how to do what they are supposed to do. You will be surprised that most people don’t spend the time going through this piece, and it’s crucial to getting your team properly up to speed and trained. And the act of doing it with them is essential. The biggest piece that is getting glossed over is usually a mainline to why you may be struggling with lead generation, lead conversion and/or consistent cash flow.

If you're an estate planning attorney and want to learn more about Lawyers With Purpose check out the agenda for our Practice With Purpose Program from October 20nd-22nd in Phoenix, Arizona.  We still have a few seats left so register today to make sure you reserve your spot!

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

I’m a stickler (PITA – aka "Pain In The A–") about providing a time and place for “conversations” in the workplace. I am all for connection, team building, sharing personal victories and working through where you are stuck in your life. I feel I am by nature a heart-centered person. I spend most of my free time on the yoga mat, hiking, camping or spending time with my dear friends and family. I’m all about connection and conversation. My Language of Appreciation is Quality Time and I lead with WHOO on the Strength Finder 2.0. However, I have strong convictions around limiting “conversation” during dedicated meeting and reporting times.

I’ve heard rumblings of the team saying, “She cuts me off mid- sentence sometimes,” or “She gets irritated easily during department meetings when we XXXXX.” When my director of operations shared some of this feedback with me recently while measuring the effectiveness of our department meetings, none of it surprised me. I feel exactly what they are feeling. I lead my department meetings like a boardroom meeting, always anchoring to the agenda and standards, story-stopping and data-seeking. I always hold the team members’ feet to the fire around consistent tracking, measuring and reporting versus stories about what it all does or doesn’t say.

Weekly team meetings, quarterly internal team retreats, unscheduled water cooler meet-ups, impromptu phone calls, team building events, etc. – ALL of these are excellent places for conversation and connection. But if you're allowing your weekly department meetings to be a place for coffee klatching, you will quickly find people dreading meetings because they are ineffective, and possibly useless. People thrive on structure and accountability. (And yes, you must hold separate department meetings even if you are a team of 1.5. HINT: Revisit The E-Myth.)

“How are things going? What’s occurred since our last call?”  That is how I started the monthly CCI call with a firm this past week. The attorney: “I’m not getting my reporting and have no idea what is working, what’s not working and where we stand with conversion rates right now. I know we are really, really busy, but I’m uncertain if any of this business is connected to revenue. I don’t know what is going on day in, day out because I am behind closed doors counseling, solving or convincing people of why we are worth our fees.” The client services coordinator instantly became defensive and spouted all the reasons why the reporting is or isn't occurring from her perspective. I really didn’t matter at that point; we were having a conversation about what we thought and felt was the state of the business. The reports weren’t doing the talking.

The attorney was really trying to communicate one simple thing with the story-stopping and desperate plea for consistent reporting. Business owners need (not necessarily want) the consistency of weekly meetings that are led and run by someone else. Every business owner needs weekly reporting and tracking so we know if we are shooting in the dark or aiming true north. Business owners are typically secretly walking around scared to death that today is the day “the other shoe will drop.”

You undeniably must create time and space in your workplace for conversation and connection. But if your weekly department meetings lack the unrelenting standards of a boardroom meeting and are instead weighed down with casual conversations, you can guarantee you're crushing your future revenue.

To learn more on how to effectively run your weekly department meetings, contact mhall@lawyerswithpurpose.com. 

Have you registered for our Practice With Purpose Program yet?  If you want to learn more about Lawyers With Purpose, register today and spend 2.5 day with us learning all you need to know about Asset Protection, Medicaid & VA.  Click here, check out the agenda, and register today!  

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

This week I was involved in a discussion between a 90-day-into-the-job Client Services Director, and the attorney/business owner.   The attorney voiced his deep frustration that the new CSC was not keeping the Five Key Focusers.  The CSC felt she had been tossed into the deep end of the pool with very little training, had inherited an extremely disorganized office from the departed and disgruntled CSC, and had worked hard to bring order to the firm, while simultaneously learning the processes and mastering the tools.

Both of them were tired, discouraged and felt unheard and under-appreciated. 

Does this sound familiar to you?

The interesting thing, from my perspective, is that they were both right.

I’ve been the tired and discouraged CSC, trying to find time to get everything done that needed to be done, with constant interruptions.   So I could totally relate to her story.

On the other hand, I understand what keeps the attorney from sleeping at night …

Let me tell you a true story …

Years back, my husband’s friend’s wife took the family checkbook and went shopping.  She was young (and perhaps a blonde – I never asked) and did not fully understand the concept of a checking account.  She thought that as long as she had checks, she could just write them.  She actually had no idea that you actually had to have money in the bank to cover the checks.  True story, I promise!

She wanted to surprise her husband by sprucing up their home, and “purchased” new carpet, flooring, drapes and decorative items. 

By the time her husband discovered what she had done, not only had she written out checks, but she had not documented the amounts nor identified to whom she had written the checks.   She simply wrote checks until she ran out.  It was a few days before her husband knew anything about her “surprise” so when he found out; it was too late to stop payments and cancel purchases, etc.

Back in the days before you could just log into your bank account online Peter, the friend, had no way to know his actual balance, nor to control or plan for the consequences.  It was a total mess and, as I understand it, seriously stressed their relationship for quite a while.

Am I trying to say that the CSC acted in the same way as this newlywed?  Not at all!  But she didn’t realize that by not capturing critical business data her boss, the attorney, feels that he has no way to do damage control or to ensure that her salary check will clear the bank at the end of the month.  He needs to know who is calling the firm, how they heard about the firm, and see the birds-eye view of what is going on with prospects, conversions and cash flow.  He must be able to depend upon her capturing this information, because he himself is not in a position to do so.  She is the only one in a position to be able to document this information, and if he cannot rely upon her attention to detail it will send him into a panic mode.

Which is exactly what happened!

In so many areas of life we tend to pay attention and care for urgent matters, too often at the expense of critical matters.  Yes, it’s urgent that the phones be answered.  It’s urgent that prospects receive quality and painstaking care.  It’s urgent that documents get drafted and clients get scheduled … but it is CRITICAL that the business side of the firm is tended and cared for.

If your firm is not documenting through the Five Key Focusers, or some other means, and you would like more information on how to take control and sleep better contact me at ncatale@lawyerswithpurpose.com.

If you aren't a Lawyers With Purpose member, but want to experience first-hand what we have to offer, join us October 20-22nd in Phoenix, AZ, for our Practice With Purpose Program.  Just click the link to review the agenda chalk full of all you need to know to run an efficient and effective estate/elder law practice.  

Nedra Catale – Coaching, Consulting & Implementation, Lawyers With Purpose