Evaluating Your Fail Safe Tips Score in the First Two Business Areas
As I said last week we have now reached the end of the section about the second of five things that make up every business in the world. You will remember that those five (5) things are as follows:
1. Clients or customers;
2. Administration;
3. Getting the work done or the product sold;
4. Billing; and
5. Collecting.
In previous articles regarding “clients or customers” and “administration,” I asked you the question: “How well is your office implementing these tried and true tips on law office marketing, management and economics?”
I also told you that each week after reading the column, that you should assign yourself five points for each “tip” that you are utilizing on a day-to-day basis. I then asked you to keep a running total of your score. Now it is time to total up your total score, and see how well you are doing!
Go ahead, add them up.
Now that you have totaled up your points, make up your own list of those things that you are doing in your office regarding “administration” and “fail-safe tips” that we have not discussed. If any of the things that you are actually doing in your own office we haven’t discussed is a tried and true activity for administrative procedures, assign yourself five points for each additional item that you are doing with your own administration.
If you have any additional administrative “tips” that are tried and true, assign yourself five points, and please send them to me so that I can incorporate them into an article that can discuss these other administrative ideas, other than the ones that have been talked about in my articles so far.
I am sure your “tips” are as creative and imaginative as the ones that I have discussed in these articles, and that other lawyers would like to hear about them as well. Just as we have been doing in these articles, “share the wealth,” and collectively we can make the practice of law better, more fun and more rewarding both financially and personally.
Now that you have kept track of your score, total it up and see where you are compared to the chart below. You now need to ask yourself the question: “Now that I know where I am at , what do I do about it?”
Points: 90-100: On the Cutting Edge
80-90: Getting There
70-80: Coasting
60-70: Need of Help
50-60: Inert
Under 50: In the Stone Ages
In an earlier article I talked about how these lists can be used not only to do an audit of your firm, but they can be used at weekly or monthly firm meetings for the purposes of orientation to be sure that everyone understands what you are doing and why you are doing it, or as a list of tasks to be implemented in order to make your firm thrive.
Additionally, these topics can be used as agenda items for firm retreats and to stimulate conversations about what lawyers do, and in particular, about what your firm does with regard to activities that will make the firm thrive.
If you scored: “On the Cutting Edge,” I am going to ask you to be a guest columnist in the near future. As I told you previously, I am reminded of a comment that I made recently to some people when I asked the question what is law firm “Nirvana?” The answer was: “when those who are not anal, become as anal as those who are anal.” There is no substitute for paying attention to the details in any business.
If you scored: “Getting There,” you should be proud of your efforts, and should figure out a way to keep up the good work and see what other tips you might be able to add to your office to make your practice thrive.
If you scored: “Coasting,” you are probably comfortable for now. What you need to understand is that anybody who is out there who is trying to get ahead is not being just “comfortable.” You really need to create a set of circumstances where you force people to operate somewhat outside their “comfort zones.”
Allow your staff and yourself to stretch. Make the effort to try to get clients, keep them and make them happy. Once you have the client, handle their matter efficiently and economically. Remember, the competition out there never sleeps. If you snooze you lose.
If your scored: “In Need of Help,” I hope that these tips will put you squarely on the path to beginning to make progress towards having a more thriving law firm that will give you great satisfaction both financially and personally.
If you are not doing very many of these things, start now! “He who hesitates is lost,” bye, bye!
If you scored: “Inert,” your firm and your practice may be dying a slow death. It is like “Chinese water torture,” one drip at a time is going out of your practice, eventually you will be out of business, death will just be torturously slow in coming. Others will celebrate at your funeral. The competition just got less!
If you scored “In the Stone Ages,” you may want to think about another career.
The one constant in life is change! You may remember the story of a relative of mine who was a doctor and whose practice changed so dramatically that he had to become an institutional physician.
I commented on the fact that there were not many of those kinds of positions open for lawyers. Additionally, I talked about the book “Who moved my Cheese” and the characters of Sniff and Scurry. If indeed, the one constant in life is change, then all of us are going to have to continually sniff out that change and scurry after ways to deal with the change in our law practices.
If we work smarter instead of harder, we will be constantly trying to determine what is changing in the practice of law and in our own practice. We will be constantly striving to implement organizational systems into our practices that allows us to keep up, at least somewhat, with the constant change.
If the goal is to handle client matters more effectively, efficiently and economically, and at the same time try to improve our lives both financially and personally, we must embrace the changes and constantly look for ways to deliver legal services to our clients cheaper, better, faster! Having a plan for law office marketing, management and economics is the key to dealing with change.
Several phrases come to mind that I think drive this home in a dramatic way:
1. Make a Plan, work your plan;
2. Establish a baseline and then you can change, knowing all along were you started, where you have been and project where you are going; and
3 . Get started! Do something, do anything, even if it is not perfect, get started!
Feel free to use these tips on administrative procedures any way you would like. The only request I make is that if you ever come up with a “tip” that you think will be helpful in this administrative regard, pass it along to me.
I promise that I will promptly evaluate your tip, and if I think it will work, I will immediately implement it into my practice, and pass it along to everyone who I can.
I am sure that after having read all these “tips” you will not be surprised that I espoused the following philosophy with regard to sharing this information which bears repeating: if you are alive, be enthusiastic! If you live in a community, make it better! If you are involved in a profession such as the profession of law, get involved, give back!
When it comes to making the profession of law the best it can be for clients and lawyers, I am reminded of another saying that I use quite often: “If you are not part of the solution, you are the problem!”
Next week we are going to start talking about the next area in the five things that it takes to make every business thrive: “getting the work done.”
I can almost hear the collective “are you kidding?” because you are probably asking how could that possibly be of any interest? I have taught a lot of seminars in this area and have set up a lot of procedures that make the “work flow process” much easier in my practice.
I think you will find the “tips” in this area of “getting the work done,” very interesting, and hopefully, I can present them in such a fashion that makes the articles fun to read and the “tips” easy to implement.
Remember, the whole concept here is to give you ideas for implementing tried and true “tips” on law office marketing, management and economics. The whole purpose of all of this is to make your life more fulfilling both financially and personally. It’s a fun continuing autobiographical adventure for me! Come on along as we start to take on the next area that makes up every business, and together we can make our practices thrive and be happier doing it! “Getting the work done” can be fun!
Talk to you next week!
Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.