Accelerate Your Firm's Growth By Getting Out of The Way
There can be many reasons why a law firm owner will struggle financially and work 60-80 hours per week. The biggest one by far is because the average law firm owner is doing too many things to the extent of becoming counter-productive.
Operating a law firm is not a one-man show. You could be the most talented and effective leader, but that doesn’t matter when you can’t leverage your billable hours. Hiring people is an ideal option if you’re striving to increase your revenue or expand your law firm. How can you tell if it’s the right time to hire employees and determine which positions to fill?
In this episode, Moshe lays out why the progress of your law firm remains static. Then, as aspiring law firm owners, you’ll learn the essence of effective task delegation to free your time from non-billable work. Start paving your law firm’s path to success by hiring the right people at the right time.
If you want to know more about hiring as an effective strategy to grow your law firm, then this episode is for you.
Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode
- Discover how you can expand your law firm.
- Learn what steps you can reduce on non-billable work hours as a law firm owner.
- Find out when to hire the right people and increase your revenue.
Resources
- Book a coaching session and watch your law firm transform in 12 to 18 months.
- Episode 282 - Reducing Your Workload with Fractional Executive Assistants with Valerie Trapunsky
- The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
- Capture more leads, reduce interruptions, and improve profits with Smith.ai
- Grow your business with ChatterBoss
- Delegate your way to freedom with Get Staffed Up
- streamlined.legal
- The 2019 Clio Law Trends Report
- Slack
Episode Highlights
Holding On to Tasks is Detrimental to Your Business
- Juggling all tasks at once can impede business growth.
- Step out of the role of a “technician” and work your way into the role of a business owner.
Moshe: “Even before you get to the question of ‘who,’ there is the question of, ‘Have I already created efficiencies with what I do?’ ‘Have I already created efficiencies with the systems that I’m using in place that hiring somebody is the next right step?’”
- Nothing gets done when you’re overwhelmed with smaller tasks.
- Constant interruptions will disrupt your workflow and cause inefficiency in work management.
Stuck on Being “Busy”
Moshe: “Now, [there are] two reasons why somebody would be stuck here. Reason number one is they feel like they can’t afford to hire somebody. Reason number two is they don’t know [whom] to hire. In other words — which position to fill.”
- You can contract services or get fractional work if you don’t want to go straight to hiring somebody.
- A phone left ringing can easily cause a lack of success. Listen to the episode if you want to learn the reports and statistics on this matter.
- Missed calls are a huge liability to your marketing budget.
- The simple act of following up can help remind them why your law firm will get the job done.
Advantages of a Virtual Receptionist
- You can prevent missed calls by outsourcing virtual receptionists.
- There should always be a live person answering your calls 24/7.
- Opening your services for 24 hours is an advantage to get more clients. This lets them know solutions are available whenever they need one.
Virtual Assistants over In-person Assistants
- It is difficult to search for in-person assistants who are willing to be in the office for five hours.
- You can find a virtual assistant who can work from home for 10 hours.
- You can train a virtual assistant according to your firm’s specific needs.
- VAs are also more cost-effective.
Moshe: “If you can figure out how to maximize 40 hours of a VA who’s not in your office, then we can start to talk about bringing somebody in, then you’re ready to hand stuff off to somebody in person in your office.”
Why Lawyers Who Own Law Firms Should Hire Attorneys
- When you hire an attorney for your law firm, your revenue goes up because of the billable hours they can make.
Moshe: “It’s a struggle because you don’t have the capacity. You can’t provide enough legal services to make the math work. No matter how hard you work, you’re always going to be just collecting a paycheck until you bring on another attorney and let them be your pipeline.”
- As a business owner, the problem lies in the inability to transform leads into clients and ultimately serve these clients.
- Choosing to go solo means that you have to accept the reality. You are the maximum amount of revenue for your law firm.
- Hiring an attorney means covering the cost by stretching yourself financially as they get started.
- The next step is filling up their hours to raise the revenue of your firm.
Lack of Clients
Moshe: “The reason you don’t have any clients is because you don’t have an attorney to give to them. The reason you don’t have clients is because you are the bottleneck.”
- Poor performance in non-billable tasks creates situations that prevent you from getting clients.
- When you stretch yourself too thin, the mental and emotional blocks can cripple the success of your law firm.
The Ladder of Expertise
- Hire the least expensive person to solve the fractional and non-billable tasks.
- Continue to hire and maximize your bandwidth to do more billable work.
- Always start hiring from the bottom up.
Moshe: “If you hire an attorney and you’re not ready to [hire their] own assistant, you’re not ready.”
How Does a Successful Law Firm Look?
- Not charging enough for your services can hinder you from increasing your revenue.
- Tune in to the full episode to listen to Moshe’s tips on attaining an appreciable profit margin while breaking down the expenses of your law firm.
Moshe: “You do it by very quickly putting some people in place and start delegating. Start delegating the crap out of your law firm. Get everything off your plate.”
Final Takeaways
Moshe: ”But if you want to unlock the true key to your success, both financially and as well as time independence, it’s going to require that you recognize that you’re in the business of selling hours.”
- Find the gaps in your law firm.
- Hire people who can solve or compensate for the different tasks that don’t fall under your responsibility as a business owner.
- Hire an attorney once you have legal work for the first 90 days.
- Then, fill their pipeline with billable tasks.
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Author
Moshe Amsel
Author
Moshe Amsel the host of the Profit with Law podcast is not an attorney. As the owner of a successful accounting firm DreamBuilder Financial and Law Firm Growth coaching organization Profit with Law, Moshe has proven that there are better and different ways for a law firm to do business and be successful.
