RJon Robins

If you've been reading my emails, watching my videos or if you've been otherwise in my orbit for any length-of-time you've no doubt come to expect some “straight-talk”.

I don't beat around the bush.  I don't believe in allowing people to deceive themselves.  Self-honesty is the most important of all.  Because if you can't be – or won't be honest with yourself then what hope do you have for dealing with the real world?

So here's the pattern.  You've probably seen it a hundred times before with your own clients too…

1.) Where are you now Mr./Ms. Client?  (Answer: screwed)

2.) Where do you want to be in the future Mr./Ms. Client?  (Answer: in a better place).

3.) Why are you screwed and not on your way to a better place? (Answer: because I don't know how.)

4.) What's going to happen if you don't learn how?  (Answer: things will go from bad to worse – because after all, there is no such thing in the real world as “status quo”)

At which point you think the coast is clear to offer a solution to help the prospective client go from being screwed, detour around an even worse place and get safely on-course to the better place they profess to desire.

Not So Fast!

You forgot to take “safety” into account.  That is the insidious way the human mind equates what's familiar with what's safe. 

Even if what's familiar is pretty terrible.  And by all logical expectations likely to get worse.  Untenable situations tend to get worse not better if left-alone.  You already KNOW that. 

So then, why do so many untenable situations get left-alone for so long by otherwise intelligent people?

If you're seeing a pattern of prospective clients who don't hire you even though where they are now is bad, even though they have no way to make things better on their own and even though they acknowledge that things are likely to get worse not better without your help…

…if you're seeing this pattern the thing to do is probably to install some “pre-screening” into your marketing to educate prospective clients so they come to you in a better state of mind and prepared to let-go of what is familiar when offered the opportunity to replace that with something better.

Happy Monday,

~ RJON

p.s. If YOU are not where you want to be in terms of the financial, personal and/or the professional performance of your law firm and you're emotionally-prepared to consider letting-go of what's familiar in order to replace it with something materially-better then I invite you to schedule an appointment to speak with me this week or next.  After that my schedule is pretty full the following two weeks.

www.HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com/Appointment

 

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.

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… Wednesday December 28, 2011 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  From: XX <jxxxxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com> </jxxxxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com> Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 11:01:11 -0500 To: Alejandra Leibovich <alex@howtomanageasmalllawfirm.com> 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 14-15th and then the mastermind takes place the evening of the 15th – the afternoon of the 17th. ————>  . . . 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 privleges” 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 go to  https://www.howtomanageasmalllawfirm.com/mastermind/ and schedule an admission-interview before we run out of space around the mastermind table, and you run out of time (whichever comes first) -AND- If you know from experience that it’s not so easy to try & start a SUCCESSFUL law firm (vs. one that just gets-by) -or if you’d prefer to just take our word for it and talk about enrolling in the next “How To START A Successful Law Firm” business-development, rainmaker-training and management coaching program you can visit www.HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com and click on whichever program seems to best fit your current situation.    ~ RJON