10 Vital Lessons You Probably Forgot About

Last week, I had the honor of speaking at the Maximum Lawyer Conference.

It's always a blast to get asked to speak, and even cooler when it's to a group like this (aka my people - growth minded law firm owners who are chill. No one brags about who ordered the biggest steak or cares if you flew first class or not).

So this guy comes up to our LegalEase booth, and gives me the best endorsement I have ever heard for us.

"I came to this conference, and told myself I wasn't going to speak to a single marketing person...I was going to skip ALL of them...but you all seem fun, so let's chat."

And to be honest, leads are great...but it's something else when an ideal potential client GETS you at your core. We are fun.

That looks like us in Hawaiian shirts giving out High Noons instead of suits (or the suit jacket over a t-shirt look, that seems to be common in the industry).

And hey, maybe it doesn't turn out, but still...he got us AND liked us enough to chat among a handful of other great options.

If you missed out on the conference, I'm not going to rehash it, just come next year!  But I did get some great time to sit, think, and pick the brain of some of the best and smartest legal minds across the country.  And my takeaway was this - focus more.  Do less.  But do the RIGHT things.

So I present to you - a list where you will learn nothing, BUT remember the MOST important things.

AKA The 10 Most Important Things you Forgot (in no particular order)

1) There are only 2 ways to grow a business - sell MORE to your clients, or sell to MORE clients

That's it, everything else is window dressing and honestly, the more you know which one is better for your ideal client, the better you can serve them

For me, I would rather sell more to my people then find more people (bonus, I also think this helps us provide better client service because we are focused on keeping you and even growing your spend with us, instead of just having a specific churn rate - e.g. the % of y'all are okay losing every month as we get more new clients)

2) We are all going to die

This was weirdly a consistent theme during the conference, but it's true.  So stop wasting time on stupid shit.  Focus on what moves the needle, so you have more time/money/freedom/etc to focus on what truly matters to you.  It might be that $$$ REALLY matters to you, but it's probably that $$$ gives you options to do what you want.

I think about this a lot (see previous newsletter about one of my thinking strategies) and look...in a weird way, this is super liberating right?

Just like no one remembers that one kid who threw up in 2nd grade that one time...everything passes.

So I am a big fan of making money, but using that money to buy time - time to spend with friends, family and yourself - instead of being chained to the desk in your office for 80 hours a week.

3) No one WANTS to give you Money

Clients want a problem to go away, an issue to not be an issue, their life to go back to normal, etc.

Keeping that in mind as you make all your other decisions will really help (especially on your intake process).  So much of legal sales is just making it easy on the client and getting out of your own way before they find a reason to go with another firm.

4) Nothing will EVER be perfect

This is one of those mantra things that you have to keep reminding yourself about sometimes.  But like #2...it's liberating.  You don't need to read that newsletter 1,000 times before it goes out.  If there's a spelling mistake - fuck it.  Honestly, if you had a potential client call up who said "on page blah blah blah of your website you said trail, but I think you meant trial so I am going to hire someone else," would you be disappointed?  Like if that's standard, you probably DON'T want to work with them.

I want to balance this with letting good get in the way of great.  You need the mindset of constant growth (personally, professionally, etc) but that's why realizing it's never perfect is great.  You can always do it better, and you SHOULD do it better the next time

That's why clients love it when you tell them you've handled cases like this 10,000 times.  It's like going to the doctor, I don't want to get diagnosed with Jordan disease...I want the thing the doctor can do in her sleep that ends with me being fine.

5) If you don't know where you WANT to get, you have no idea if you're going to get there

I talk about this from the standpoint of punching in an address on your GPS (or Apple carplay), but it's the same for you firm.

For so long I just wanted MORE - more cases, more $$$, more, more more and I got it

Only it was more problems, more headaches, and more debt.

So really figure out the vision of your firm - what do you want it to look like: size wise, work wise, structure wise, and then make decisions that get you closer to that.

6) What Worked Yesterday, Might Not Work Today

This is a good corollary to "but it works for Jane Doe down the street"

It's really about your ideal client, and your firm brand and merging those two things together.  Billboards are great, WHEN you have the infrastructure in place to support them.  Ads are great, when you REALLY get the message that your ideal client cares about.  Webinars are awesome, WHEN you are really good at doing them, and get them in front of the right clients who don't want to get back to in person meetings (and free steak).

So you have to keep iterating (having ideas, trying them, tweaking them, etc) - aka see #4

7) You Need Money to Stay Open

I had the pleasure of happing to catch Marco Brown on a connection flight to the conference, and we got to chat about kids, burgers, guns, etc.  It was a blast, but to be fair, NOTHING he said to me since will be more impactful that his presentation in 2021 on Rule #1 being to get paid.

I don't care if you want to do pro bono or low bono work as much as possible, getting paid by your other clients will allow you that ability.

I don't care how much you BELIEVE in the work, the power company, your landlord, Clio, etc...they care about getting paid.

You can't help anyone if you're burned out.  You REALLY can't help anyone if you're closed.  So prioritize getting paid.  You can always cut a client a break on your terms when they really need it (but it's easier to do that when everyone else is paying their bills).

8) It's ALL Your Fault

I talk about this a lot too, so I will not belabor it too much.  But even when it's someone else's fault, you hired them, you trained them (or didn't), you assigned this to them, whatever it is.  And again, it being your fault is liberating because it gives you control to fix it.

9) Nothing gets Done if you Don't Make TIME for it to be Done

Calendar it if you want it accomplished. Or, Jordan hack, keep a to-do list, but calendar 2 or so hours a week to focus on the to go list and then prioritize the stuff.

Ideas are worth nothing (Thanks Tyson Mutrux for that reminder as well), but it's 100% true.  You need stuff done to see the success.

10) People are Different

This sort of touches on 3. 4, 6, etc but seriously.

You're different from other firm owners, I am different from other legal marketing people, your clients are different from your non-clients and from each other.

So as a company you need to balance having systems, processes, and automation with accommodating differences among people.  And look, this doesn't mean you bend over backwards for everyone, in fact, it means you should intentionally try to weed people out who aren't good fits (e.g. if you JUST want $$$, and don't care about time, you probably should unsubscribe from my stuff and go follow some of the marketing bros - there's nothing wrong with thinking that way, that's just not the audience I want. I want to be okay relenting.  I want to be okay being open and vulnerable and failing publicly, etc)

But for clients that are very close to IDEAL fits, you need to make some accommodations. This might be physical - if you're a PI firm, you might get some clients who are blind or went blind due to the accident and if you're email heavy...well...

Or it might not be, maybe Mr. Smith needs a little extra help with the computer.  Maybe Ms. Doe needs an extra reminder here and there.  Maybe the Johnsons don't work on Thursdays so that's the best day to get in touch with them, etc.

So there we go - hopefully you learned nothing with this newsletter but found it to be one of the most valuable of them all.

What did I miss that you would add?  What's your #11?

Until next week, have a wonderful weekend!

Until Next Friday

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