Maximizing Your Time: The Power of Delegation and Expertise

When my firm first rolled out Lawmatics, our CRM system, I spent about 100 hours learning it, writing the emails, and building the system out. During that time, my marketing director also went through it and did a TON of work on this project.

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Why? Because I was too cheap to hire someone to do it.

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And although I now run a company with 5 team members doing this, and we have built these CRM systems out for a ton of firms across the country, it was still stupid.

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Why? Because there were better uses of MY time (or my marketing director's time).

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Will this whole newsletter be rhetorical questions?  No.

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Why?  Because no one wants that.

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And sure...we aren't alone in wasting time instead of spending money. I see SO many lawyers posting and asking HOW they can do something. What tips do we have for them to accomplish their goal themselves?

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But this is fundamentally the wrong question.

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It's not about HOW I can do this. It's about WHO can do this the way it should be done.

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This is EXACTLY the point Dan Sullivan makes in his book (shocking name incoming, I know) Who, Not How. But seriously, he's so right, and I want to belabor this point as much as I can.

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The Argument Against Learning New Skills

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Yes, I try to learn a new skill every few weeks: Rubik's Cube, Lock Picking, and Origami Cranes - I am not talking about fun skills. I am talking about business skills.

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Let's say my billable rate was $300. Let's say my Marketing Director's rate was $150. So I wasted $30,000 for me and $15,000 for him, having us learn the program to do what we needed. So that was $45,000 when I didn't want to hire someone for $5000-$15,000 to do it.

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AND

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I am not a copywriter (I don't even play one on TV).

I am not a graphic designer (trust me, I don't even joke about that one)

Heck...at that time, I wasn't even a marketer, nor did I know much about KPIs or sales strategies.

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So I spent three times as much to get something worse, with less brain power behind it.

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YIKES.

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What to Do Instead?

Make a list of the things you HAVE to do (trust accounting? supervision of non-lawyers? legal advice? major trials?)

Make a list of the things you ENJOY doing (content creation? networking? being the visionary for your firm? throwing parties?)

And only do those things! Then, get rid of EVERYTHING else to someone else.

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Bonus, you then also figure out which skills you need to know/learn/be better at/excel at for ONLY those things. Don't worry about learning the rest.  Unless it's something you think would be fun to know.  

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I am biased, but some marketing knowledge is helpful, some rules on hiring/firing are helpful to know,  maybe how to run better meetings, grow a leadership team, retire to a beach, and have fun while your firm runs itself might be SOUGHT after skills.

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But that might be it for you.

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So then...read THOSE books. Buy THOSE courses. Listen to THOSE podcasts, do your firm required work, and otherwise enjoy your life.

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What About Everything Else?

Hire Great Staff

Bring in Experts

Outsource It

Use some Tech

VAs

Some other ideas you have that I did not mention

Let's break those down.

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Hire Great Staff

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When I first opened my firm, I thought if I could clone myself, my firm would be AMAZING. Now, that would be my fucking nightmare. So instead, I found people with skills I do not have (patience, attention to detail, caring phone voices), put them into the right spots, and empowered them to make their jobs better, our systems stronger, etc.

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This can be anything from "we address too many envelopes. Can we get a stamp with our address on it?" to "our KPIs show that we get a 90% consult booking rate within seven days of them calling. Can we move all our reach outs up a few days and see if we can get people booked faster?" to "So and so left a review and mentioned NOT ME by name."

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If you REALLY want tips on hiring, check out Molly McGrath and her podcast and really everything she does. 

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But for me to just confirm a bunch of what she says - I REALLY prefer to hire people with the right culture fit for our office and the right soft skills, and I don't care about experience almost at all. For someone with experience, it's probably not doing things OUR way, and if they're amazing, why are they moving jobs?

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Bring in Experts

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Again, IMMENSELY BIASED. A lot of firms hire us to be their fractional CMO, and I think we do a great job, but even if you don't hire us, look at where some specific skills can be used.

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You PROBABLY don't have enough work to need a FULL-TIME website person. But you would probably benefit from an expert at a higher hourly rate for a few hours versus just bringing it in-house and having a paralegal update your blog and whatnot.

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Same for copywriters on a new project.

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And EOS Implementer.

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And a business lawyer for your employment contracts.

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The list goes on.

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Outsource It

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What things can you just assign to another company and KNOW they are handled? There are a lot of examples here. My favorite one here is answering the phone. You don't even need to have EVERY call picked up. But overflow calls/nights and weekends/during a trial push/while your staff member is dealing with an emergency... all times when they are WELL worth the $$$.

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This could also apply to medical record request companies, headhunters, payroll and accounting like Chelsea (tag Chelsea Williams here), and many more.

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(bold this and make it a title)  Use some Tech

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I write about this a TON here. Automation and what to automate and such so I will not hammer this point too much again.

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VAs

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This one I am writing about next week, so come back then for it because I want to address this from a work standpoint AND an office culture standpoint (so we will cover remote work too)

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Some other ideas you have that I should have mentioned

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This is not an exhaustive list, even if this article is too long (I kid, I kid, I hope).

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If you got this far and have a task that you still need help with to get off of your plate, let me know, and I will work you through it 1 on 1. 

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Until next week!!!! May you get to hang out in the miniature Mos Eisley Cantina knock-off in the Quantum Realm with Bill Murray.

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Until Next Friday, have a wonderful week and we will see you back here for the article on remote work and VAs.

Until Next Friday

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