RJon Robins

Most Lawyers Are Wrong About What It Takes To Have A Successful Law Firm

June 17, 2009 by RJon Robins

Sorry if this comes as a “surprise” to you. But it’s true. And in case you don’t know him, Dan Kennedy has “only” sold something like $50,000,000 of professional services; So you may want to take what he has to say seriously, I know I do.

WARNING!! The
Majority In Your Business Or Profession Are Wrong About Most (If Not
ALL) Of Their Beliefs About How To Be Successful In That Business Or
Profession — 95% Of Them Earn A Great Deal Less Than 5% Do. – Dan Kennedy

The GOOD NEWS is that “what it takes” is NOT more work. And it’s NOT harder work. Instead your small law firm will respond surprisingly well and surprisingly quickly if you will STOP doing the wrong things and start doing the right law firm marketing and law firm management things. In fact if you will just stop doing the wrong things you’ll see improvements pretty fast too!

Here’s an easy one to stop doing “wrong”. Stop spending so much time in the office. That’s right, if you want to make more money, get out of the office at a reasonable hour most nights. And get out of the office for a little “mini-vacation” to recharge your batteries at least once every other week. How to take one of these mini-vacations and the benefits of doing so are addressed and even demonstrated for you in several videos throughout this blog so I won’t elaborate here.

Twitter Success Story – PR leads

June 15, 2009 by RJon Robins

I’ve gotten quite a few emails & DM tweets lately about whether or not Twitter is a worthwhile marketing tool for a small law firm. My answer is YES. And if you follow my friend Laura Roeder’s advice it should only take you about 20 minutes a day.

So here’s a case study to demonstrate how it works. . . We met a local artist on a local Twitter group a couple of weeks ago (@MyLifeAndArt). Then we met her for lunch. Turns out she’s an accomplished Emergency Room Doctor, turned PR executive turned Artist/Entertainer who is now in hot pursuit of her passion. And get this. . . she’s making more money, working fewer hours on her own schedule and Having More Fun!
But wait, there’s more! We thought we were just going to take a little break to meet a cool local artist. But the conversation quickly reached a whole new level with a bunch of business and referrals going back & forth.
Plus we came home with a cool little gift which you can see in the 3:45 minute video below:

Don’t forget to sign-up for my FREE Ezine. We’re about to re-launch with some really great new content and features so you won’t want to miss it!

Letting go of your middle-class beliefs

June 11, 2009 by RJon Robins

I read alot of Steve’s stuff. He is not a lawyer but I find many of his concepts to be very applicable to our industry. See Exhibit “A” below & ponder. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory so no extra comments from me:

“If you want to become wealthy, let go of your middle-class beliefs that say money is about ego or greed. World-class wealth gives you control of your time and the luxury of doing what you want, when you want. Middle-class earners are slaves to money and are forced to undersell their time. Rich people have options and choices. It’s not about ego or greed. It’s about hating the idea of spending your life as a slave subservient to the demands of others, and subsequently finding a way to exchange a product or service for the exact amount of wealth you need to buy your freedom.”

–Steve Siebold

. . . and remember, Happy Lawyers Make More Money!

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Law firms make easy pickings for embezzlers

June 8, 2009 by RJon Robins

Leigh Jones over at NLJ usually gets it right. But this time I have to take exception to an article with the same title as this blog post. And I’ll link to it below but first I want to explain my misgivings.

The fact of the matter is that law firms of all sizes (but especially small firms) have been victims of embezzlement for at least the ten years I have been at the business of law firm management. This is NOT a growing trend. The only thing the economy has done is squeeze cash flow so tight for some law firms that they can no longer hide the problem or sweep it under the rug when an unsupervised employee walks away with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The second thing I feel it is my responsibility to call to your attention, my loyal readers and Members is that you don’t need a forensic accountant to prevent or discover embezzlement. Forensic investigators don’t prevent, they only discover. And all you have to do to discover is pay attention to the six key numbers that I have been standing up here on my soap box ranting about for the past oh, 9 years or so.

You watch those numbers and you are no more likely to miss embezzlement than you are to run out of gas in your car if you’re keeping an eye on the gas gauge.
While we’re on the subject, as any forensic investigator will tell you, the best way to avoid embezzlement in the first place is to demonstrate to employees that you are in fact watching the numbers.

As I have recently shared in this very blog and in Twitter @RJonRobins I myself was a victim of embezzlement. But because I watch my numbers my (former) employee only made off with under $500 before he was caught, the password changed, account closed and his butt kicked-out.

Of course I could have taken more drastic measures to prevent the fraud in the first place, but that would have been a poor use of my time & hamstrung me from being able to delegate certain tasks that are not the highest & best use of my time.

Employees don’t usually just steal a hundred thousand dollars all at once. No, they start by stealing a little. They don’t get caught because you’re not watching the numbers and so they go back for more. This is how it has happened in 99% of all law firm embezzlement cases.

If you’re interested in learning more, post a comment or email MJ@HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com and let her know you vote for the next teleseminar to be about Fraud Prevention For Small Law Firms and we’ll get it on the calendar.

Want to know more? Go to www.HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com and register for the FREE ezine.

How to profit from pissed-off clients

May 4, 2009 by RJon Robins

Ed Poll recently made a post over at www.lawbizblog.com entitled “What do you do with a client complaint?” that's really worth reading.

It inspired me to make the following comment. . .

Complaints can be a blessing for a law firm looking to boost revenues and the “Fun Factor” for attorneys & staff alike.

Give me a client who is either a raving fan or one that's hopping
mad any day before you fill my book of business with those who are
merely “satisfied”. Satisfied clients are like a slow spreading disease
that presents no symptoms until one day it just up & kills you.

Raving fans tell you all the things you're doing right so you can
play to your strengths. Pissed-off clients, if you have the courage to
engage them as Ed suggests, will tell you what you have to do in order
to turn them into raving fans.

Great point, Ed!

RJON ROBINS

How Small Law Firms Can Profit By Helping Larger Law Firms

April 27, 2009 by RJon Robins

Caroline Elefant over at My Shingle recently posted a discussion about small law firms “joint venturing” with larger firms to help the larger firms get more business in RFP contests, etc. The title of her post is “Could You Be A Front For A Firm?”

Here are some tips to keep in mind if you’re in a small firm and
you’re thinking about “cooperating” with a larger firm as Caroline
described above.

First of all it may give you some confidence to know that small and
minority law firms have actually been “cooperating” with larger firms
for a long time. There is no such thing as a “full service” firm. They
ALL have gaps. I once helped a small franchise specialty shop with deep
roots in the restaurant industry joint venture with a 50 lawyer firm to
go after and win an RFP from a major national restaurant franchise that
paid for my client’s kids’ college tuition with all the fees the
relationship generated.

Second of all, you can help eliminate alot of client confusion if
the larger firm will give you your own email extension that forwards to
you and your own extension on their pbx phone system. This gives
clients a HUGE sense of comfort.

Third, be sure you take the time to document not only the terms but
schedule an hour with the larger firm’s Administrator to work out the
mechanics of how the relationship is actually going to operate. For
example, will you be able to schedule use of the firm’s conference room
for client meetings? Will they assign you a cost code for the copy
machines,etc. and will the big firm’s copy room support you? Usually
it’s just a matter of asking to leverage their economy of scale and
they’re happy to accommodate us.

Don’t be afraid to bring RFP’s to a larger firm and suggest
cooperation. And don’t wait until they have an RFP to go over there and
suggest how you may fit into their strategy. 8 times out of 10 I find
the larger firms are very receptive to this “Integrated Of Counsel”
type of relationship with smaller firms with interesting niche
practices.

p.s. Don’t forget to sign-up for my upcoming FREE teleseminar entitled “How To Double The Revenue Of Your Small Law Firm And Play Golf Every Friday”

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