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More and more clients believe legal services in general, and estate planning services in particular, are just commodities.
They’re being told that it doesn’t matter where they get their bundle of paper. That whether the documents are from the Smith Firm or the Jones Firm or LegalZoom, the outcome will be the same.
And you really can’t blame them. They have no way of judging who’s good and who’s not so good any more than you or I can judge whether our heart surgeon is any better than his colleague in the next suite over.
But here’s what you and I do know. We know that you’re different from the Smith Firm and the Jones Firm. And we know that you’re vastly different from LegalZoom. If you want to avoid the commodity trap, you need to differentiate yourself and your services.
Here’s how:
Develop a process unique to your firm that takes care of clients from the moment they first retain you through the end of your relationship; ideally, the relationship will last a lifetime.
Communicate this multiple-step process in a client-friendly way. For example:
The Six Step Client Legacy Wealth Planning System
- Family Legacy Consultation and Roadmap
- Family Legacy Plan Design
- Family Legacy Plan Development
- Family Legacy Plan Execution and Delivery
- Family Legacy Plan Asset Transfer and Funding
- Family Legacy Lifetime Communication and Updates
This communicates clearly to the client: Wow! That’s a lot of work, and it means that you’re there with them from beginning to end. A prospective client has no way of comparing a generic, bare bones living trust to this six-step process you have to offer them – and quite honestly, that’s because there is no comparison.
This process also launches your relationship with a new client, which puts your firm head and shoulders above those competing on the basis of commodities. There’s no relationship you can establish with a transaction where you hand someone a paper with some ink on it and show them where to sign. Having a process is the way out of the commodity trap – for you and your clients.
Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
Attorneys often tell me about how great their employees are and how long they’ve been with their firm. In my experience, this can be both good news and bad news.
The Good News
It’s always good to have excellent employees. They do good work, they’re a pleasure to be around, and they tend to increase your bottom line. It’s every boss’s dream, and every boss wishes for an office full of excellent employees.
The Bad News
But here’s the problem with excellent employees: if you’re dependent on a person to run your business, you’re vulnerable. Great employees get sick. They move away. They make lifestyle changes. All these things can result in job changes that leave bosses in a bind, so your firm is what we call “people dependent.”
The Solution
Happily, you can have great employees without making your firm’s success dependent on those employees’ life choices. You do this by making your business dependent on systems rather than on people.
You accomplish this by establishing a firm-wide organizational chart, which Sandy discussed in one of his recent blogs. You also implement what we call position contracts for each function within your law firm. A position contract is a detailed description of what each person does in the firm. This is an ongoing, updated process so that if one of your employees leaves, there’s a system to follow.
Even with an organizational chart and position contracts in place, hiring excellent employees is still top priority. However, when your law firm is systems-dependent rather than people-dependent, there’s order and predictability, even when you lose a great employee.
Robert Armstrong
President and Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
How do you build lasting relationships with your clients and make sure they don’t see you as just the provider of an ink-on-paper commodity?
One way to do this is to keep in regular communication, with routine “touches” throughout the year. At the Academy, we find that it’s ideal to make contact with clients twelve times per year. It would be a little odd for your estate planning attorney to call you every month or to send you an email, like clockwork, every few weeks. However, there are a variety of ways to provide value to your clients and remain in regular contact with them. Things like:
- Newsletters, both paper and electronic
- Estate Plan Review Invitations
- Client Appreciation Events
A number of our Member firms also have a Client Advisory Board. They invite 6 to 10 loyal clients into the office every quarter to get feedback and to find out what additional services those clients would like the firm to provide.
Using strategies like these to stay in touch with your clients sets the stage for you to have lifetime and even multigenerational clients. Eventually, you’ll meet the children of your existing clients and have the opportunity to win their trust and loyalty. Before long, they will be clients as well.
You want to be viewed as the trusted advisor for the entire family. By remaining in contact through valuable information that is of interest to them, you continue to nurture the relationship as well as be visible and relevant. Make sure you do everything possible to be the sounding board and problem solver most are looking to rely upon.
In your experience, what are the most effective ways to keep in touch with your clients?
Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
A funny thing happens when you really start marketing your law firm. Suddenly, there are a lot more people coming in for initial consultations, and they don’t automatically hire you. They’re sizing you up and interviewing you.
Two Ears, One Mouth
It’s at this point that we as estate planning attorneys might want to heed the words of Greek philosopher Epictetus, who said, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
Perhaps more than other people, lawyers like to hear themselves talk and it’s a problem when the lawyer talks more than the client in an initial consult. Yet that’s what usually happens. We’re so used to being the “answer man or woman” that it requires a whole new skill to stifle ourselves long enough to really hear about the client’s needs.
The Secret
The secret to converting a prospect into a client is to use the initial consult to show off your skills as a great counselor. You cannot – I repeat cannot– effectively counsel someone until you understand what their problems, concerns, and issues are.
We’ve found that attorneys tend to have trouble converting prospects to clients because of how they handle client meetings. Doing things like talking too much, talking about things that are really of no interest to the clients, and not asking great questions are ways to guarantee your first meeting will also be your last.
Know What to Listen For
Just as important as asking great questions is listening carefully to the answers. That’s how you find out where the problems and issues are and delve into them. Learn what the impact is if those issues aren’t handled in a timely manner. What are your clients’ fears and concerns? How important is it for them to handle their issues right now? Where do these issues rank on their priority list?
Your job is to help families make decisions that are in their best interests. Discussing things in this manner gets results because it leaves clients feeling like you really heard them and like you really understand what matters to them.
Try this approach and you’ll become a trusted advisor, and you’ll have a client for life.
Robert Armstrong
President & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
Did you know that there are only three ways to expand your business? Here they are, in a nutshell:
- Have your existing clients buy new services
- Increase the fees your clients pay
If you want your firm to grow, you need to be doing all three. And you should have a system in place for each of them, rather than engaging in a few random marketing activities here and there.
What kinds of systems am I talking about? Systems for:
- Acquiring referrals from centers of influence
- Acquiring referrals from existing clients
- Going directly to the marketplace to seek new clients
- Making efficient, intelligent use of the internet to find new clients
- Attracting new clients through image building public awareness and PR efforts
- Positioning clients for additional services they may need
- Positioning the value of your services for increased fees
The tool that will enable you to organize and implement these systems is what we call a Marketing Calendar. This is your law firm marketing blueprint for the year.
Consistent growth is not automatic, and marketing is not an innate skill for most attorneys. It’s something we need to learn about and keep learning about. As the heads of our firms, we need to be the ones leading the charge when it comes to marketing. A good place to start is by deciding which of the three areas you want to focus on, which systems you want to use, and getting started on that detailed Marketing Calendar.
Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
What usually happens when an employee gives you their two weeks’ notice? If your firm is like a lot of others, by the time you find someone to replace your departing employee, there are only a few days left. The rush is on for the departing employee to impart years of information to the new hire, and the results usually aren’t very good. There’s no real consistency. You suffer, your employees suffer, and, worst of all, your clients suffer.
If your firm is to be your unique creation, it has to have a unique way of doing things – one that sets it apart from all the other estate planning law firms in town. This is one area where so many law firms are lacking, and systems are the key to fixing the problem.
Having systems in every area of your practice is central to your success. A system is really a roadmap that lets your employees know how your firm does things. So, what kinds of systems do you need, and what do you use them for?
Simply put, if you do something more than once, you should have a written system in place for it. You take every single area of your practice, break it down into its component tasks, and spell out the specific way it is done in your firm. Not only does this ensure that your clients are served consistently and effectively, it also ensures that your firm’s unique personality is injected into every client interaction.
Putting systems in place – and using them effectively – benefits you, your employees, and your clients. It ensures that your employees are clear on your expectations, and it gives them the chance to meet and exceed those expectations. It allows your clients to get to know the stellar experience they can expect every time they interact with someone from your firm. And it allows you to be confident in the work your firm produces, the office environment you’re cultivating, and the reputation you’re creating in your community.
Robert Armstrong
President & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
Here’s a practical and powerful exercise you can do that will help you accomplish your goals for your law firm and know exactly who is responsible for every task! It involves making a unique organizational chart that is created by looking at what needs to get done before you determine who in your law firm will do it. Function takes precedence over personalities.
This is how to do it:
You’re the leader of your organization, so your name goes on top. Underneath that, you list each broad category of functions that needs to be handled within your law firm – much like a large business is divided into departments. Each category is further divided into smaller programs, with a box under that for each distinct task involved in running every program.
For instance, you might have categories for Lead Generation, Lead Conversion, Fulfillment (doing the actual work), Finance, and Management. Under each category, you’ll list the programs needed to implement that category, with each program further subdivided into distinct tasks. There will be a box for each category and for each program and for each task. Everything that needs to get accomplished has a box.
As you go through this process, you’ll add a name to each box, giving someone in your organization responsibility for that category, program, or task. At first, you’ll notice that your name will be plugged into a lot of boxes. As your firm grows and expands, and as you train more employees, their names will fill in the boxes and replace yours.
There’s a certain magic that happens when you go through this process and actually put the organizational chart on paper. Doing this allows you to see the pieces of your firm almost like they’re on a chess board – you can literally move the pieces around strategically to figure out how to best implement each idea and task within your firm.
This exercise will give you a feeling of control you may never have experienced before. Try it – you’ll see what I mean.
For those of you who have already done this for your own firms, how has it helped you achieve your initial vision for your practice?
Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
Your legal expertise is apparent, but what about your business acumen? Do you have time to crunch twenty-five complex financial ratios, and then search the internet for comparison numbers to contextualize your own?
One of the foundations of working on your business rather than in it is your ability to use your firm’s financial and human resources effectively, efficiently, and fairly. Any entrepreneur, in any field, would jump at the chance to discover industry-specific financial benchmarks for the optimal relationship between overhead and revenue, or revenue and number of employees, or gross revenue and owner’s comp. Consultants may be available to run these numbers for you, for a nice fee, and they may or may not be able to give you current information about how your allocation of resources stacks up against that of other, thriving legal practices.
Members of the Academy submit these financials annually and at a close-door session at every Spring Summit, these same Members share information able their financials with each other. If you’re not a Member, you still have the opportunity to have us review your financial statistics against our benchmarks for owner’s compensation, revenue per person on the payroll, revenue per attorney in the firm, and cases per employee, among other valuable ratios. To find out how you too can adjust one or more of your financial numbers and get out of the office and onto the golf course while your revenue skyrockets, contact us about Membership today via email at info@aaepa.com or by phone at 1-800-846-1555.
Jennifer Price
Director, Member Services
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
Every year, the co-founders of the Academy share a year-end message to the Membership. To me, it is always a breath of fresh air and I thought that our many blog subscribers might enjoy it as well.
Happy New Year!
Jennifer Price
ON YOUR MARK, GET SET… STOP!
We’ve all heard the first part of this phrase before. In fact, young children can even finish it when prompted. However, as we end 2011 and get ready for the new year, we invite you to take a moment and STOP! That’s right, STOP. Take some quiet time and reflect on the past 12 months. Sure, we’ve all heard we should review our goals, failures and triumphs, but what does that really mean? Well, we believe there are some critical elements you’ll want to look at as you get ready for 2012.
Last year we mentioned three things we think are crucial to your sustainable success: Influence, Action and Resolve. Now is a perfect time to evaluate and reflect on these values.
How did you influence others and what or who influenced you? Who did you hang out with? Did you replace any of those naysayers and pessimists who have brought you down or tried to kill your dreams? What books, magazines, TV shows, movies and radio stations did you allow into your life? Did they uplift and inspire you or were you surrounded by a bubble of negativity? As long as we’re looking at influence, what impact did you have on others? Were you an example of the virtues you look for in others? Did you keep your word, arrive at appointments on time and create a transformational experience that changed people’s lives? We encourage Members to think about how you fulfill your leadership role to those around you—family, friends, staff, clients and prospects. This can make a world of difference for everyone in your universe. Remember, peoples’ views and attitudes are contagious, and you’re in the perfect position to profoundly impact many different groups. We encourage you to take on this leadership role and use it wisely.
Next, look at your actions. In the past year, did you take deliberate action to further your goals? In the Academy Peak Performer program, we stress daily action steps in pursuit of your goals, and it is always coupled with accountability. We require Peak Members to report to us and the group daily on their progress. We’ve found that without publicly declaring your goals, finding an accountability partner and actively building structures in your life you have little chance of success. So we ask you, who is holding you accountable for your actions? In many respects the entrepreneur’s life is a lonely one with no natural checks and balances other than the indifferent marketplace.
We believe the foundation of action is integrity. No, not integrity in a moral sense, but integrity as a precursor to workability. Just like a ship has “water tight integrity” to insure the vessel stays afloat, did you demonstrate integrity by honoring your word, doing what you said you would do? We all have a funny way of distorting reality to get us off the hook. It’s often been said that we judge ourselves on our intentions, but others judge us on our actions. Look back on your actions this past year and identify those areas where you substituted your intentions for solid, real action. In many ways our lives resemble a defendant standing before the judge who pleads “guilty with an explanation.” I intended to do that, but… (fill in the excuse of your choice).
But none of it matters if your resolve is not there. Remember, if it was easy everyone would build a successful business. Expect the challenges because they are surely coming. Remain disciplined as you face the inevitable problems which confront all business owners. Be willing to go that extra lonely mile that most never walk. It can incorporate everything from taking the time to strategically plan your year to the extra effort involved in improving your skills as a counselor, manager and leader.
However, as we stressed this year everything becomes easier and is enhanced when you know your WHY. Why do you do what you do? When you strip away the money and the status, what really lights you up every day? When you identify it, we’re sure it will energize you, sustain you and provide the impetus to seize the opportunities in your marketplace. With a clear vision of your firm, you can move confidently into 2012 and you will not be alone. You will be surrounded by the care and support of the Academy and your colleagues around the country. It reminds us of the wonderful quote by Basil King, “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”
We continue to marvel at the collective success of Academy Members and remain humbled by our affiliation with such an amazing group! On behalf of the entire Academy team, we wish you a great holiday season and a prosperous New Year!
ON YOUR MARK, GET SET… GO!
To your success,
Robert and Sandy
Robert Armstrong and Sanford M. Fisch
Co-Founders of The American Academy & Co-Authors of The E-Myth Attorney
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
Sanford Fisch recently blogged about finding your primary aim: creating a detailed picture of the lifestyle you want, encompassing your work and personal life as well as your involvement in the community. Once you’ve painted this vivid portrait of your ideal life, how do you bring it into being?
The next step is finding your firm’s strategic objective; in other words, creating a picture of the business you want to have that will generate the net revenue to support your ideal life. Not a daydream or a pipe dream – a detailed picture complete with milestones for accomplishing clearly defined goals. Where to begin?
Decide on your practice area. Will you focus on estate planning? What types of estate planning – basic, intermediate, or advanced? Will you include elder law, asset protection planning, pet planning, or lgbt planning? What about the myriad other areas of focus now in demand by estate planning clients?
Assign a number to the amount of revenue you want to generate. Think about what geographic area you’ll cover. Will you have one office? Will you have a satellite office? What will your offices look like, inside and out? How many employees will you have?
How will clients find out about your practice? How will they feel when they walk into your office? When they interact with you and your employees? What will your law firm’s relationship be with the people and other businesses in your community?
Take time to think in detailed terms about what your firm will look and feel like. By the time you’re finished, you should have a rich and detailed portrait of the law firm you want to bring to life. Then, you’ll be ready for the next step – mapping out an organizational strategy for your business. We’ll cover that in a future blog!
Robert Armstrong
President and Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
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