The 2 Most Important Traits in Being a Successful Business Owner
People are overwhelmed when first starting out opening a new business, whether it be a law firm or any other type of business. They’ve been told that they need to think about having a business plan, marketing plan, budget plan, employee hiring plan and so on. But when you boil it down, there are only 2 traits that define a successful business owner – Drive and Courage.
With enough drive and determination you can learn all there is to know about how to build a business, how to market, how to manage employees and so on. People with drive will read and continue to learn what they don’t know. They don’t need an MBA degree in order to succeed because their drive will push them forward.
With courage a successful business owner will take that first fearful step in setting up shop, finding financing straight out of school or even financing on a shoestring budget. Courage will force them to admit their mistakes and take a different direction when things don’t turn out right. Courage will push them forward when it all seems hopeless.
Drive and courage are two things no business school or MBA program can teach you. Business school can teach you the nuts and bolts of being an entrepreneur but they cannot teach you the heart of becoming an entrepreneur. How do you know if you can succeed at a new business venture? Ask yourself if you have the drive and courage to achieve it. If you do, every thing else is simply a derivative of those 2 traits.
Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy
How to get what you want
via frkncngz
You want (need) more business. You’ve never had enough business. You have to do something different from what you’re doing now because obviously, it’s not working.
Lesson: Stop doing more of what you’ve been doing that hasn’t worked to help you reach your goals.
The Psychology of Those Who Succeed
I read a great post from Brett Steenbarger on his blog called “The psychology of those who win“. He studies stock traders and he makes them better traders. What he noticed when he gave his talks and presentations is when he offered to speak to his attendees at no charge after the meeting, rarely do people call him up and take him up on the offer. He concludes that those who win are those that reach towards higher grounds and takes advantage of opportunities.
I’ve been invited to speak at a lot of events lately on topics such as “Taking your law firm marketing to the next level” and “How to increase your law office efficiency”. I’ve been happy to speak at these events and share what I know and learned about marketing and what I’ve contributed. Like Mr. Steenbarger, I typically tell the attendees that I’ll speak with them at no charge. Just give me a call. I’ve been asked why I do this because won’t other’s marketing efforts take away from my business? Well, no.
I’ve gotten some calls and emails from each of my events but in comparison to the total number of people attending the events and conferences, it is a very small percentage. So what’s the lesson? How do you become successful?
Most people know what to do in terms of marketing and being successful in a law firm – it’s drive and determination and hard work. It’s that simple. Those who win or succeed are those that grab hold of opportunities to speak to presenters and actually follow through with marketing.
Choices
via Minimal
Will a Law Firm Associate Do a Better Job For You Than a Solo?
* Guest post by Jonas Jacobson, member of SOS. Visit Jonas’ website at http://jonasjacobson.com/
Here’s a better question: who would you rather have work on your case? The partner who owns a law firm? Or an associate who works for the partner?
Nine times out of ten, I would, personally, choose the partner. After all, if the partner owns the firm, he is invested in the success of his business. He will go to great lengths to prove to you how successful he can be for you. The partner profits most if his firm succeeds, and fails if it does not.
An associate may work hard, and may be bright – but her focus will always be on impressing the partner. Your matter, to the extent it is important to the partner, will likely be very important to the associate, but it will not be the engine that drives the associate’s work, most likely.
After all, consider: associates are often directed to do many different tasks by law firm partners, and must therefore prioritize (and here’s the important point) what might be most important to the partner.
Consider for a moment why large law firms recruit out of our nation’s elite colleges and universities. Sure those schools are prestigious, and sure, there is a great likelihood that the smartest students, who ideally will become the smartest lawyers, will enroll. That doesn’t get to the real core issue of why they are hired, however.
They are hired because there are no guarantees as to how passionate an associate might be. The closest thing a hiring law firm has to a guarantee on an associates future passion for the firm and the law is prestige. “She ought to care because she went to Harvard.” Prestige is a kind of proxy for passion.
And while, to a point, there are arguments that can be made about success in law school being indicia of success as a lawyer, those arguments are only good to a point. Why? Because success in the law is directly correlated to the amount of work an attorney puts into a matter.
Well, hard work and the facts the client gives the attorney to work with.
Given equally valid arguments, the more time a litigator spends on a matter, the more likely she is to be succesful at trial. There is always more precedent out there, after all. Likewise, the more time your estate attorney spends with you, reviewing your plans, the more sensible an estate plan you are likely to have.
Thus for me, a solo attorney makes a great deal of sense. As a client, I want someone who will work extremely hard for me, and who will care about impressing me. I want someone who is beholden to me, and not some third party. At the end of the day, your lawyer should be someone you like, and trust, and if you go with a solo, you know who your lawyer is.
How to price your work
Great advice for how to value your legal services. via GreyScaleGorilla
**Update: This appeared in the MBA Lawyers e-Journal: Tip of the Week on 11/19/2009
A large part of administrative costs in law firms is devoted to tracking billables, securing and account for retainers, chasing after late account receivables and calculating how much to charge which client. I’ve avoided all this overhead of time and money by charging simply a fixed price for each client and having them pay up front―all of it.
I never negotiate my fee down because when you show your clients that you can work for cheap, then what you’re telling them is that your original price was unreasonable―that you can’t be trusted the first time. You’re also telling them that they shouldn’t value your work as much because you don’t value your work as much.
Do lots of pro bono work and do even more full price work. But never work for anything in between.
This tip is courtesy of Gabriel Cheong, attorney at law, owner of Infinity Law Group.
Taking chances
Taking a chance at being a solo practitioner is frightening. I can tell you that after being in practice for 2 years, I’m still frightened – of failure, of not being able to generate revenue, of losing my mind. Mind you, I’m not saying I live in a constant state of fear and panic, but every once in a while, if I stop long enough and pull myself away from my practice long enough to look around, I do get scared. But it’s OK because those are my fears and I own them.
When I graduated law school and was looking for a job (before I was sworn in), I interviewed with a small, 3-person, family law firm. During the interview process with the owner, she told me that she would help me learn family law and supervise me. I appreciated that. Then she told me that in her opinion, anyone who’s in practice less than 5-years has no idea what they’re doing and would be committing malpractice if not for a supervising attorney (like her holiness). That, I did not appreciate. It was not only condescending, but it was instilling fear. Like I said before, I get scared sometimes about my practice imploding but those are my fears. Don’t ever let someone else’s fear become your own.
“What do you say to takin’ chances
What do you say to jumpin’ off the edge
Never knowin’ if there’s solid ground below
Or hand to hold; Or hell to pay
What do you say?”
– Celine Dion “Taking Chances”
The Lost Generation
Business Week had a very interesting piece titled The Lost Generation. It basically says that people who graduate nowadays and cannot find a job is at a significant disadvantage to peers who graduated and was employed. This sounds obvious. But what the article goes on to say is that over the course of these two people’s lives, the one without a job currently will never be able to make up the grounds that his employed counterpart will achieve.
The same theory also works for investing in a retirement plan for example. Starting to save for retirement when you’re 20 as oppose to when you’re 30 is not only a 10 year difference. It is actually a 10 year compounded difference because of interest.
So what does this mean to current or recently graduated law school student? It means that you cannot afford to sit idly by waiting for a job or someone else to give you an opportunity. The longer you sit and wait, the more you’re losing exponentially.
In this type of economy, even if you finally decide not to do it, you should think about starting out solo because as I always say, if other people won’t open doors for you, you need to make some new ones. Is solo practice for everyone? No. But anyone can do it. It doesn’t take a Harvard MBA or a trust fund baby to get a practice going.
If you’re a recent graduate in Massachusetts, come join our monthly meetings and meet other lawyers who started their practice straight out of law school.