The Anatomy of Flat Fee Pricing
Now that you want to give flat fee billing a shot, how do you go about putting it into place in your firm and determining the prices?
Here’s a few pointers before we get into the details:
- Flat fee doesn’t mean you need a set price for the entire process. You can set a price for each step of the process. You can also do a mix of flat fee and hourly billing if that’s necessary for your area of practice.Â
- If it’s a task that you are unsure how many hours it will take, like court appearances, then you can take the average of how long they usually take and make that the flat fee.
- Whether you choose hourly or flat fee, you have to decide in the beginning and then stick with that for the rest of the case.
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Pricing
In the beginning, it’s good to compare your price to your hourly rate and how long everything is taking. Now take that number and increase it by 25%.
You want some breathing room because your data may be based off of bills where you cut hours to make it look more rea...
The Death of The Billable Hour
Hourly Billing vs Flat Fee Billing
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Hourly Billing Pros and Cons
Pros:
- There’s a direct correlation to the firm’s costs.
- It’s easy to tell if the billers are earning their worth.
Cons:
- You lose clients -
- They find someone cheaper.
- Open ended price tag - people are risk averse.
- You’re putting the value on your time rather than the service. With flat fee billing you are placing the value on the end result.Â
- It creates friction between your firm and the client. It’s hard to confront your client for more money. When you prepare the bill, you may take off some of the hours spent on different things because you’re worried about your client questioning it.
- Causes accounts receivable problems. Many firms aren’t good at replenishing their retainers and don’t have a system in place for doing so. You also have to spend time chasing after your clients until they pay you. This also will cause friction with your client.
- Increases risk of malpractice suits. When you don’t...
Generating Referrals Without Asking with Stacey Brown Randall
Defining Referrals
A true referral is when a prospective client comes to you with two things other prospects don’t have:
- Personal connection. Somebody they trust (a referral source) makes the connection to you for them.
- Identified need. They already know their need, so they’re coming to you already in buying mentality.
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Referral Sources
There are four types of referral sources:
- Clients. Clients are a great source, but depending on the area of practice you’re in, that may not be an option.Â
- Centers of influence. They can be other lawyers in your practice area. If you for example, are a criminal attorney and then decide to only handle sexual assault cases, then other criminal attorneys can refer those cases to you since you’re the expert in that field. Centers of influence can also be professionals related to your practice area. For example, if you’re a tax attorney, then you can have accountants refer their clients to you.Â
- Friends and family
- Strangers
The fir...
Imagine Your Future Self
What is it that You want?
Picture your life down the road in 10-20 years from now. Where do you see yourself in life? Where do you see your firm? What do you want to have accomplished by then?
Without knowing where you’re going, you’ll have a tough time making decisions and you’ll end up making ones that contradict each other. When you know where you’re heading, that vision will make your decisions clearer.
Take the time to clear your head and really envision where you want to end up in life.Â
Do you want:
- To be a public figure?
- To be behind the scenes?
- To change the world with your time or money?
- To spend time with your kids?
- To just sit back, relax and reap the benefits of your work?
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When you do this exercise for your firm, you can take it one step further.
- Take a sheet of paper
- Draw a line across the top and another across the bottom to create a header and footer
- Envision your firm in the future and decide what you want your annual revenue to be
- Take that n...
Being a Parent and a Law Firm Owner
Are there really enough hours in the day to do what we have to do?
Between work, household chores, family (especially kids), grocery shopping and so on, there just never seems to be enough time.
The truth is there is enough time, it’s just a matter of what we can do to maximize that time.
The key to that is outsourcing in your home and firm.
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Outsourcing in Your Firm
- First and foremost, don’t forget to DAD all the processes in your firm.
Can you delete it, automate it or delegate it? - If you insist on doing everything or most things, you end up being the bottleneck in your firm.
Utilize all the resources out there, starting from the cheapest to the more expensive. You should only be doing the work that you can’t DAD. - Position yourself on the outside of your firm. This way you can oversee everything that’s going on and be there to guide your employees.
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Outsourcing in Your Home
- You can hire a cleaning lady to take care of the household chores.
- You can pay for a grocery d...
You Can't Hit A Target Without One
Setting goals is one of the most powerful tools that when used properly will get your firm moving in the right direction.
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Goal Setting
 The best way to set goals is to do quarterly ones. You can do yearly goals as well to get a bigger picture, but a lot can happen in a year. So, it’s best to have a seperate goal for each quarter and at the end of each one you can adjust the next quarterly goal.
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S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Specific - It needs to be clear what you’re trying to achieve.
Measurable - You need to have a metric that you can use to see when you’ve achieved your goal.
Attainable - It has to be possible to achieve. Don’t choose a goal that will set you up for failure.
Relevant - It needs to be a goal that makes sense with what you’re trying to achieve.
Timely - There needs to be an end point that will motivate you to reach your goal.
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Point of a Goal
 The purpose of a goal is not to hit it, but to aim for it. That will give you direction, without setting a goal that is too sm...
WhyWhy Leaders Do What They Do: The Why, What, and How
The Secret to Successful Leaders and Businesses
The key is in how you communicate.
Everyone knows what they do and many know how, but few know why. The why is what speaks to people.
“People don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it” - Simon Sinek
When you tell people what you do and how you do it, they’re not inspired, they’re not driven to buy your product or use your service. However, when you tell them why you do what you do and then you give the what and how, they will be more likely to get on board with you.
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“The Golden Circle” Model
Most people communicate from the outside in (what, how, why). However, the inspiring and successful leaders communicate from the inside out (why, how, what).
The “why” is what makes people and companies successful.
“The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” - Simon Sinek explains.
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Our Biology
The human brain (modern humans' homo sa...
Crushing Law Firm Chaos with Allison Williams
Time
Time is so precious to us, but are we doing everything we can to maximize it?
We can maximize our time in two ways:
- Strategy
- Mindset
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Maximizing Time Through Strategy
- Your best asset is your calendar. Schedule everything into your calendar. Of course meetings and events go on the calendar, but the regular day to day work needs to go on there as well. Otherwise the time we thought we had gets drowned in the interruptions and random things that usually come up. Make a time for everything. Decide on a time that you’re available to talk and tell your employees that you can answer questions between this and this time. By doing that, you can answer everyone’s questions and not have to deal with interruptions for the rest of the day.
- Take an inventory of how you spend your time. If you are aware of how long you spend on each task, you can then see if that time is being used correctly. If you time how long you use your email throughout the day, you may find out you’re sp...
It Takes a Dream to Succeed
We’re all here because of our dreams. We dreamed of doing better, it’s why we became entrepreneurs.Â
The question is, have you dreamed properly? If we dream properly then our chances of succeeding are significantly higher.
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The Dreaming Recipe
1. Take 15 minutes to sit by yourself and close your eyes. Once your mind has
calmed down think about
- What will make you happy?
- What would you like to achieve?
- What things do you want to have?
- What experiences do you want?
- How do you want to spend your time?
- How do you want to spend your money?
Once you have the answers to these questions, put them together to form your dream.
2. Now you need to envision yourself achieving your dream.
- What does it feel like?
- What does it look like?
If possible experience the moment.Â
For example, if it’s a specific car you want, go take that car for a test drive. Savor the feeling of driving that car. Pay attention to the feel of the leather seats and the new car
Smell.
3. Make a reminder...
Profit First Step-by-Step
In episode 16 we learned the basics of the Profit First system of Mike Michaleowicz and now we will do a Profit First method deep dive helping business owners to do a mindet shift with how they are managing their total income. With these steps from the profit first formula, you’ll learn how to manage your money to create a healthy profitable business as a business owner.
One Time Setup
 When you first start this specific type of money management, there are three steps to setting up the Profit First system and you only have to do it once.
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Step #1
Set up five accounts.
You and/or your accountant will most likely have some resistance to this. You may be worried about:
-
Cost
-
Paperwork
-
Excess Bookkeeping
Don’t worry about the cost because there are different ways you can get the fees waived.
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Some banks don’t have fees
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Some will waive the fees if you have a certain amount in the account
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Some will waive the fees if you use multiple services from
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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.
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