I wanted to share an interesting conversation a member of my staff recently had.

Someone called to ask about our Discovery Day and to schedule an appointment, and spoke to Eric from my team.

According to Eric, the first thing out of this prospect’s mouth was that he had to know how much he gets to work with me directly.

Basically, he’s asking Eric, “How many of RJon’s hours do I buy with my membership?”

This comes up from time to time, and it’s a fundamental misunderstanding that lots of struggling law firm owners have, and it holds them back greatly.

They’re stuck in the time for money trap.

You see, I stopped selling hours a long time ago.

They say that “time is money”, but isn’t the opposite true?

Why would you trade your precious finite time- once it’s gone it’s gone!- for money, which you can essentially make again and again?

In reality, we want to make enough money so that we can have more of the one thing we can never get back- our time.

When you trade your time for money, you are inherently putting a limit on how much money you can make, because there’s only so much of your time you can sell.

There are only 24 hours in a day, and you have to sleep for 8 of them. Of the 16 that are left, figure 4-6 of them are devoted to things like commuting, cooking, eating, taking care of yourself, relaxing, and spending time with the people who are important to you.

So that’s it. 10-12 hours is all you have to sell per day.

So whatever your time is worth- $20, $50, $200, $500 per hour- it will always be limited by your finite amount of time.

Want more money? It’ll cost you that which you have the least of- your time!

It comes down to implementing systems.

Systems run your business, and people manage systems.

So in order to implement effective systems, you need to build a TEAM.

THIS is what we teach you. The stuff you NEED.

Listen, don’t feel bad.

They never taught you any of this in law school.

You learned how to be an effective lawyer, you didn’t learn how to be an effective business owner.

You learned the process of adjudication in the United States as it pertains to civil matters, you didn’t learn sales and lead generation.

You learned the nature of enforceable promises and rules for determining appropriate remedies pertaining to contract law, you didn’t learn how to set up an infrastructure that runs without you so that you can maybe take a vacation with your family or unexpectedly get the flu.

THAT’S what we consider to be success at How to Manage a Small Law Firm.

The ability to step away for any amount of time and have your business not keep making money for you.

That’s a grown-up firm. That’s the foundation of a legacy.

And that’s what freedom looks like.