The Power of Experience: Learn to Build Your Firm From Someone Who’s Been In Your Shoes!
There’s no substitute for Experience. Think about it:
Would you hire someone who’s never driven a car to teach you to drive?
Or hire someone who’s never played the piano to teach you how to tinkle the ivories?
Of course you wouldn’t! Why?
Because they can’t teach you what they don’t know.
When you want to learn HOW to do something well- you turn to someone who has: “Been there and Done that.”
When it comes to building a successful law firm– look for mentors who have been in your shoes.
Look for people who know what it takes to try a case- who understand what it’s like to practice law and build a law firm at the same time.
Look for someone who “gets” what a good case looks like and understands the dynamics of paying associates- who appreciates what if feels like when associates walk out with your inventory- and can show you how to protect against it-
Look for someone who really understands the unique requirements of the practice of law- as well as the unique challenges and relevant ethical constraints existing in both marketing and managing a law firm.
This kind of understanding is only derived when someone has “been there, done that, and- done it well.”
Now I’m not saying you can’t learn marketing tactics from a non-lawyer marketer- of course you can.
But the deal is- as with any thing you want to do in life- the best way to learn and grow is to draw upon the experiences of others who have blazed the trail before you and can give you the advice- the strategies, the short cuts and the wisdom that only comes from experience.
Building a multi-million-dollar law firm isn’t easy- but it can be done- I know, because I’ve “been there, and done that.”
I built two 7-figure law firms from the ground up, so I understand the unique challenges, frustrations, and the learning curve involved in building a law firm from scratch.
Law School teaches us the law- but it doesn’t teach us how to build a law firm. And anyone who tells you a law firm is like any other business, just doesn’t know what they are talking about.
I ‘ve been right there in your shoes- trying cases all day and trying to figure out how to grow my law firm at the same time.
And even if you’ve figured out how to make the phone ring and aren’t struggling for new cases, there are a litany of new management and scaling challenges that arise- and many are unique to the practice of law.
When I was first building my law firms, there really weren’t many opportunities to spend time with more experienced attorneys who had “been there, done that
and who were willing to take the time to share their inside secrets or experience.
I didn’t have a mentor- or group of experienced attorneys who were willing to “open their books” or take the time to spell out what I needed to do next to grow my firm or differentiate myself from the other law firms in my area.
There weren’t any attorney groups I could join that would give me the inside scoop on when and how to leverage TV advertising- or digital advertising…
And certainly no one who had built a strong and consistent Referral network that was generating increases of 50% or more in sign-ups.
Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way- through trial and error.
Some things I tried worked like gangbusters while other strategies were failures. But here’s the key- I learned what to do and just as importantly- what not to do. I had to learn it the hard way-