RJon Robins

The so-called “competition”

January 22, 2012 by RJon Robins

You’ve seen it over & over & over again… A “new” lawyer comes onto the scene and just kicks-butt…

And all the more “experienced” lawyers, arguably even “better” lawyers are standing-around scratching their heads wondering How This Is Possible?

They make the mistake of thinking that being a better lawyer is the only factor in building a better law firm. They make this mistake becaue they substitute preference for reality. Ayn Rand says “We can evade reality, but we cannot avoid the consequences of evading reality”.

Sadly for too many of those more experienced “better” lawyers, they do what lawyers do, instead of doing what entrepreneurs do.

Instead of studying what the new lawyer is doing differently, devising an experiment and testing for results, those other lawyers huddle-up with their backs to the outside world and commence the excuse-making, criticism and ridicule.

Which is just fine by us since they make it only that-much-easier when they choose to turn their backs on how we do what we do instead of learning from us.

This goes for lawyers in the “virtual” world on blogs, discussion forums, and list-serves too.

There REALLY IS Plenty Of Business Out There

It surprises a lot of people when I encourage lawyers from our various coaching groups to reach-out to their “competition”. Because, the fact of the matter is there’s plenty-enough business to keep everyone very, very busy.

But most lawyers would rather stand-around wishing for days-gone-by than get into the game today. And no, this is not a euphemism for engaging in sleazy or unethical marketing. “Days gone by” means the days when they weren’t so sure of themselves that they weren’t open to new ideas and willing and able to learn.

The fact of the matter is that any lawyer who tells you he or she doesn’t actively market his or her law firm anymore, is either:

a.) Lying; or

b.) Broke.

Marketing is part of the business of running a successful law firm.

You can’t have a whole without all of the parts. And having a successful law firm with plenty-enough business to give you the option to say “no thank you” when a bad client comes-along with a bad case, is a big contributing factor to WHY happy lawyers make more money.

Likewise, having “proper” law firm management policies, systems & procedures in-place is what protects you from costly & debilitating a/r, too-many nights at the office putting out administrative fires, and how you avoid doing the sort of work you went to law school specifically to AVOID having to do on a daily-basis in your life.

Good News: The world works according to some reassuringly-predictable set of rules.

When you drop a glass on a hard surface you’re not surprised that it breaks.

When you touch a hot surface with your bare hand, you’re not surprised that it hurts.

And you know the different effects to expect if you give a plant the nutrients, care and attention it needs to blossom vs. if you just keep taking, taking, taking from it each season.

Yet there are lawyers who do their best to evade these realities of how the world really works.

They want to get something from their law firm, from their clients, from their staff, etc. without giving their law firm, their clients or their staff what they need.

Law firms need to be properly managed.

Clients need to be properly marketed to, sold and serviced.

Staff need to have clearly documented policies, systems & procedures, not just the standard throw-away “employee manual”.

But what did they teach any of us in law school about the BUSINESS of managing, marketing, selling, supervising, or accounting for our finances either while we’re’ on the subject? (rhetorical question)

At this point you either disagree with my basic premise in which case you should probably unsubsribe from this ezine list and move to some sort of socialist regime where your ideas about how the world should work might help you make new friends.

Or else you may be feeling excited, and even inspired, if also a bit scared and intimidated too.

Because you have never formally learned how to how to start, market, manage, etc. a successful law firm, did you?

That’s where I come in.

I have helped literally thousands of entrepreneurial lawyers and my company runs three different programs to help my fellow lawyers.

HERE is a link to a web page where you can read about the three different programs we run.

Then decide for yourself which these programs best-describes the current state of your law firm or legal career.

And if you’re truly-ready to make a change for the better, you’ll see how to schedule an interview to speak with me so we can decide-together if one of our programs may be a good fit for you.

Regardless of what you decide to do, please make sure it’s a decision and not an abdication of your power to decide.

Best,

~ RJON

p.s. Here’s a photo taken of some of our Happy Lawyers who traveled to Miami last weekend to attend our quarterly members-only meeting.

This quarter we happen to be focused on how to build processes & systems to trigger more repeat & referral business from former & curent clients so that you can enjoy more predictable and sustainable positive cash flow.

p.p.s. Here’s a page where you can see video testimonials from some of these and many other of our Members and lawyers who have attended & participated in our programs in recent years.

Fear

January 8, 2012 by RJon Robins

Fear

It’s what screws things up for most lawyers who aren’t as happy with their law firms or their lives as they could be.

And fear has an ugly way of growing into frustration, resentment, defensiveness, anger and worst-of-all the twin-devils: Justification & Compromise.

I say “happy lawyers make more money”. So what happens to lawyers who make compromises with themselves and then turn their skills of advocacy in-ward on themselves to justify their compromises?

For one thing, they eventually become angry.

They also don’t make nearly as much money as they could.

That is to say, all things being equal, an unhappy lawyer could be a much more profitable lawyer if only he or she took the steps that would result in him or her being a happier lawyer.

What makes most lawyers happy?

Is it a temporary bump in cash-flow?

Or a victory in court on behalf of a third party whose case, cause or matter doesn’t really matter that much to you?

What about a nice stiff drink or some other “vice” like gossip or criticism of people whose own happiness shouldn’t affect you one bit, but inexplicably it still does!?!?

No, what makes lawyers happy is when we get to do what we love to do on cases, causes or matters or for people whose outcome resonates for us.

And what enables a lawyer to engage in these activities which make us happy?

Proper, professional and reliable “real world” law firm management. Which such management includes marketing, sales, financial controls. And policies, systems & procedures that work to protect us from all the b.s. we don’t like to do.

Because law school didn’t teach us anything about the business of running a law firm, did it?

Now, when I say “happy lawyers make more money” you can now recognize that it’s the law firm management that causes us to have the option of doing what makes us happy. It makes the law firm more profitable too.

So why did I write “fear” in the subject line of this email?

Because fear, more than anything else is what prevents far-too-many lawyers from taking the steps that lead to being a happier lawyer with a more profitable law firm.

But it’s not fear of failure that gets in the way.

Of course that’s the “accepted” and the politically-correct explanation that all our friends and family and bar officials and CLE directors and everyone else is prepared to undertand and accept.

No-one challenges us on it when we give them these types of explanations for why we don’t do the things that must be done to find out just how great our law firms and our lives could be:

“I’m afraid if violating bar rules”

“I’m afraid of losing money”

“I’m afraid of getting a bar grievance filed against me”

BULL SHIT!

You might as well add, “I’m afraid of being eatten by a crocodile” to the list because, afterall, being eatten by a crocodile is universally-accepted as a bad thing.

But what do any of these fears have to do with building a more successful law firm that enables you to explore your true potential?

I’ve been at this for more than 10 years now. I have had the unique opportunity and the privlege of working with thousands of lawyers. And I myself have had my struggles with my own fears too, both as a lawyer and an entrepreneur.

So I can tell you with a high-degree of authority that the fear that holds most lawyers back from doing what must be done to be happier and consequently more profitable lawyers is NOT the “fear of failure” .

It’s actually fear of success.

I’m going to let that sit with you for awhile.

And when you’re ready to talk-about, doing-something about it, you can decide for yourself which description resonates most with where you are today with your law firm or in your legal career and then schedule a call to speak with me at www.HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com

Be sure you take the right lesson

January 6, 2012 by RJon Robins

I saw a tweet recently that said: “An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.” (http://bit.ly/zNI3lV)

It reminded me of a story I heard about a hunter who was living in a hut in Africa and one day he goes out and sees a lion bringing food to feed a hugry tiger. The hunter is so impressed with this evidence of the world being a bountiful and plentiful place that he decides to stop going out to hunt every day. Because if God will cause the lion to feed the tiger surely God will take care of the hunter too.

So one day the hunter finally starves to death and when he gets his audience before God he asks “I saw you show me your love for the tiger by the lion’s act of kindness. Why didn’t you show kindness on me too?”

And God says “You learned from the tiger, you were supposed to learn from the lion”.

Is it tragic that there are people all over the world who live in water-deprived areas? No doubt. But does that mean those of us who are fortunate-enough to live in the US should deprive ourselves or should world-leaders focus on making clean water more accessible to everyone on the planet? I think this is a better approach.

Law firm marketing lesson: take your example from happy lawyers who have successful law firms, stay-away from tigers.

My family thinks it should be easy to start a successful law firm

January 1, 2012 by RJon Robins

On December 28th I shared an email I received from a lawyer who recently joined one of our coaching programs. I’ve pasted last week’s email down below in case you missed it.

As you may recall, the lawyer was asking for help communicating with his family because apparently, they think that learning how to start, market & manage a successful law firm should be “easy”.

So I just thought you might appreciate some of the responses of support this lawyer has been getting from fellow members on our private members-only discussion forum:

…no offense to your family, but you can tell them from someone with experience, it’s about as easy as standing on your head, drinking a glass of water and singing the national anthem. Well, not really – but you get the point. It takes a dedication and desire most don’t have. Good for you for being willing to try!——That’s why most won’t try and many of those who do aren’t successful. Negative attitude. RJon is right – don’t buy it. Keep the faith, work hard and even more importantly, work smart. RJon and his fellow coaches are good advisors. Keep the faith and happy new year!

In case you missed-it, here’s the original email I sent yesterday which contains the lawyer’s original question to me and my response…

I had a great email almost-ready to send to you today about the last 7 seats remaining for the mastermind.

But then I received this email from a lawyer who recently enrolled in my “How To START A Successful Law Firm” business development, management & coaching program.

I think this lawyer’s email DEMONSTRATES the need for the mastermind so well and that his demonstration of honesty and sincerity and the personal courage in this lawyer’s email to me, is so important.

And so I decided to share it with you below instead of what I had originally planned to send.

I hope you appreciate it as much as I do

~ RJON

Subject: RE: Start a law firm program

Actually, I do have a question. My family thinks starting a law practice is easy, which has led to some “heated” discussions over the last few months.

Does the course material cover this aspect of starting a practice?

————->

My response is only slightly-edited to protect this lawyer’s identity:

Hi Jxxxx,

What a great question. I’m going to post it on the discussion forum along with my answer to you below. I will NOT attribute the question to you unless you decide to take credit for it on the forum when you see it.

OK, so I mean no disrespect to your family with the following observations.

I’m guessing the members of your family fall into One Of Two Different Categories:

1.) They have started some sort of small business or a service business from the ground-up, built it into a successful business which serves their financial, personal and professional needs and they have since forgotten how hard it was to do; or else

2.) They have not started any kind of a business from scratch and built it into a successful business which serves their financial, personal and their professional needs too and so they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Bruce Lee (the famous karate guy – he was also a brilliant and a very successful entrepreneur) had a saying:

“To know and not to do is not to know.”

In other words, unless you’ve built a successful professional services business, you can know all you want about it, but you still aren’t going to know what you’re talking about until you’ve actually done it.

A third category:

There is a third category which is much more insidious and difficult to deal with. Those are the people who are dishonest with themselves about their own experiences and accomplishments.

Fear, Shame & Cruelty

Some people have so much fear, shame and/or ego wrapped-up in their accomplishments that they’re afraid to admit even to themselves that they aren’t nearly as successful as their self-image dictates they portray themselves to be.

These tend to be the people who cannot admit to mistakes.

Which ironically, being so-afraid of making a mistake that a person cannot even admit to it, is usually what keeps those types of people from asking questions, learning-from their mistakes and getting better so that they can have the courage to make more mistakes without a full-blown ego-implosion.

Because it’s the mistakes we make and how we respond to them that signal growth.

It can be very difficult to spot these people because they tend to have A LOT vested in their self-image. And in some cases they may be so-deep in denial that they really do believe what they’re saying. So you can sometimes get a downright cruel reaction from them when you get too close to the truth they’re desperately afraid of.

About the only way to spot them is to look at their accomplishments.

Because accomplishments are real and everything else is just a story about why there aren’t any accomplishments.

Happy Lawyers Really Do Make More Money

Remember, the definition of “success” we agreed makes sense: A law firm that serves your financial, your personal AND your professional needs.

Not just two out of three. And the thing is, they’re YOUR needs not anyone else’s needs.

So usually the best thing to do is keep your plans and your actions to yourself until you feel your own accomplishments are meeting your own needs and then you don’t really care what other people think.

Does this answer your question?

What I don’t want you to do is go and try to justify anything to anyone.

Because anyone who doesn’t know or has forgotten what it really takes to build a successful business isn’t equipped to understand most of what you’d think would justify your investment in yourself.

And anyone who knows better but they’re just f’ing with you for their own ego/amusement isn’t going to let you out of the corner and give up their game no matter what you say, so what’s the point?

RJON

p.s. I forgot if we talked about the mastermind. If your family is really “in your head” about this the mastermind could help. At the very least, attending the live quarterly meeting will expose you to a bunch of lawyers who have earned the right to have an opinion about how hard it is to start a successful law firm.

The meeting this quarter is here in Miami January 14-15^th and then the mastermind takes place the evening of the 15^th – the afternoon of the 17^th.

————>

. . . and then what followed was a set of instructions for this lawyer to let my staff know s/he’s coming to the meeting in Miami.

Which, by the way all of our Members get to attend these live quarterly meetings at no charge because “membership has its privileges” as the old AMEX commercials used to say.

If you’re serious about being a happy lawyer and enjoying all the benefits that flow from having a successful law firm then the thing for you to do is read more about your community and the services we provide for lawyers like you. You’ll get the information and the tools that you need to build a successful law firm that you AND your family will be proud of.

~ RJON

Thoughts on Staffing a Successful Law Firm

November 30, 2011 by RJon Robins

Thoughts on Staffing a Successful Law Firm

There are several different business models for building a successful law firm. Most of them require some level of legal staff be hired, trained, managed motivated and measured for law firm productivity & profitability.

To say “well I just won’t have staff” is like saying you’re going to lock yourself in a jail cell and then throw the key through the bars to where you cannot reach it. Even if you change your mind.

Having great staff can be a blessing.

Having less-than-great staff can be a torture.

Because dealing with staff brings-up all kinds of emotions. And of course it doesn’t help, the fact that as lawyers, we have precious little formal training when it comes to how to make a profit on law firm staff.

We recently had to terminate a member of our staff.

It was all my fault that we hired her in the first place!

We hired fast and we were slow to fire her. We hired her for all the wrong reasons and we fired her only after the right reasons became so obvious I could no longer avoid the facts.

We kept her around for at least 6 weeks too-long for all of the wrong reasons. Most of those reasons can be boiled-down to how we FELT about the situation; Rather than what we KNEW about the situation.

Fortunately, in the end, she made that last part a bit easier for us but I’ll write more about that another time.

BUT YOU KNOW ME!

Whenever I make a mistake I like to analyze it. So that I can learn from it. Because it’s impossible to grow a sucessful law firm without making mistakes, and you better get used to making alot of them too if you want your law firm to be extraordinary!

Good news is most mistakes won’t kill you.

Everyone who has ever build a successful law firm has made a ton of mistakes along the way.

And you can grow your law firm much faster and make much more profit while you grow it, if you will learn from your mistakes.

Better yet, learn how to learn from the mistakes of others who have come before you!

So here’s a note I wrote to myself, to remind myself about what I learned when I analyzed why this person was the WRONG person to hire in the first place:

1- Lack of Urgency: She doesn’t really plan her time. She might plan her time for a day, but she doesn’t think in time of the week, month or project. So she doesn’t have an appropiate sense or urgency for what must get accomplished in a day. Because she doesn’t “get it” that there is a ton more that has to get accomplished the next day.

In other words if you have a month to get three things done, then you can let them slide from one day to the next and it’s not a big deal -vs- you have three things that you are currently aware of that need to get done.

But you are also aware that along the way you are going to discover three hundred more things. Because that’s the way everything in life works. There are always more things that will have to get done that will become clear tomorrow.

That’s why you have to attack those three things that you see today and clear your decks so that when things get busy tomorrow you don’t have those three things still hanging around.

2- Lack of Clarity: She doesn’t get specific information from people. Without specific information everything is loosy goosy and you can’t make a plan. For example “this afternoon”. You can’t act with urgency, and you can’t hold other responsible for acting responsible for acting with urgency if don’t have specific information to hold them accountable by. “this afternoon” vs. 3pm EST this afternoon.

3- Lack of Focus: It’s difficult to recognize when the other person is or is not acting with urgency and with the benefit of a clear focus when you yourself are not focused. Problems require intense focus. Without intense focused you leave a problem unsolved. And at the end of the day you still have the same problem. So you can spend your whole day working and working and working but if you don’t pull out the weed by its roots then the minute you turn-around the problem starts growing back. Because the problem really never went away, never got fixed, never got solved.

4- Lack of “Face Time”: The principal purpose of having someone on staff is to leverage your own time, talents & abilities. That means every member of your staff must be able to get things done for you. Not because you don’t know how to, but because you must be focused instead on other things.

It’s difficult for staff to infect other people with your enthusiasm, sense of urgency, clarity and focus by reading their website, exchanging emails with them and sometimes even the telephone isn’t enough.

Sometimes the only way to help someone help you is by seeing them in person (a vendor, a client, opposing counsel, even a J.A., etc.) Second is by speaking to them by telephone. And your last choice if you want your staff to be very productive for you is to let them settle for doing everything by email.

5- Living Too Much at the Surface of Things. The solution is never at the surface.

It takes work to get beneath the surface to where the real problem and the real solution always lay. Unfortunately too many people with an employee mentality, a nine to five mentality, a time clock mentality are mostly concerned about what do they “have to do”. In other words I rather do less unless you obligate me to have to do more.

Also unfortunately, this mentality has become endemic in part of the institutional knowledge of many organizations with older more experienced employees passing down their complancency techniques to new employees.

For example: employees who’s first reaction has been trained into them “no”, why not, why we can’t, why is not our job and why it cannot be done. These are too often the surface of so-called “customer service”.

Your urgency, clarity and focus is what propels you to go beyond the surface instead of accepting these kinds of explanations as an excuse to stop digging for the root of the problem. And consequently the root of the solution too. It’s uncommon to find anything really worthwhile at the surface of anything.

So at the end of the day, it’s MY business. And it exists to serve MY life. So it has to be MY fault when I hire the wrong person.

It’s too easy a cop-out to say “oh well, she is just terrible”. Because the truth of the matter is that she’d probably not be so terrible in a job that is a better fit for her talents, skills, experience and interests.

Lesson: Hire even slower. Fire even faster. Be on the look-out more carefully for the above criteria.

Have a happy Sunday!

RJON

p.s. On December 16th we’re going to have a live teleseminar.

There is absolutely no charge to participate. But I am going to limit attendance to 100 participants to ensure you get plenty of time to ask any and all of your questions.

The topic of the teleseminar will be to talk about whether or not it may make sense for YOU to submit an application to enroll in one of our coaching programs for 2012.

I’m going to be on the call and I’ve invited several lawyers who are in our coaching programs to join me to answer all of your questions, concerns, hopes, dreams, ambitions etc.

Keep an eye-out on December 9th for the invitations to r.s.v.p.

www.HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com/Testimonials

The power of your big intentions

November 22, 2011 by RJon Robins

Tomorrow you're going to wake-up, get dressed, eat some breakfast and walk into your law firm full of big intentions.

I know you have big intentions because you're reading this email right now. Why else would you have subscribed to my ezine if you didn't have big intentions for your law firm, for your career and for your life, right?

But then something is going to happen: You're going to encounter people without big intentions. In fact two things are going to happen. The other is that they're going to encounter you.

How you choose to respond or react or ignore or try to learn something from the way those people without big intentions…that's all up to you.

How they respond, react or ignite upon encountering you is pretty much out of your control. But if you're not prepared for their reactions you could get distracted.

Case in point. I was rececently treated in a way that I would describe as “unfair”. The details really aren't important.

What IS important for purposes of our conversation is that at first I had an emotional reaction. But then I remembered my own goals and my own big intentions. And by comparison, what the other person said about me is really of no significance…unless I let it throw me off my game.

That's why I am so emphatic about setting realistic goals for your law firm.

Because when you attack each week armed with goals and plans and it's all fueled by your big intentions, when people without big intentions in their lives, when they get defensive and when they react because they feel threatened by your plans and by what you are doing in your life, it won't distract you as much. I'm still working on “not at all”

Here's a five minute video on on how to set goals that will protect you from the small intentions of others.

Watch this video right now, do the exercise and then tell me if you don't have a more productive day tomorrow, and the next day and the next day and the day after that too!

~ RJON

p.s. IN case you know anyone who can benefit from this, we're opening a new “How To START A Successful Law Firm” coaching group pretty soon. 9 of the 24 spots are already taken. I'm going to organize a Q & A conference call so keep your eye-out for that announcement coming soon.

p.p.s. Watch that video & do the exercise!

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