Law Firm Mentor is a business coaching service for solo and small law firm attorneys. We help you grow your revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. The Crushing Chaos podcast will feature successful solos and companies that help us become/remain successful in business, discussing the tools and strategies needed to crush chaos in business and make more money.
A lot of times, we’re told that the way to grow a business is by growing your revenue or cutting your expenses. And while those are both key components, there are ways to generate greater health for your business by increasing the amount on the bottom line - in ways we’re not taught to think about.
My guest today is someone who thinks and focuses her practice on helping small law firms scale their businesses using sound financial policies. Her name is Danielle Hendon, and she is the founder and CEO of 4 Corners CFO, LLC. With more than a decade of experience working in corporate finance and accounting, and a passion for people that rivals her love of numbers, Danielle brings the benefit of big business financial analysis to entrepreneurs on a scale that fits both their company AND their budget.
In this episode, we discuss:
Contacts - Social Media
Danielle Hendon Website: https://4cornerscfo.com/
Snip-Its
00:14:48 (36 Seconds)
So there's a couple of different types of profit margin, one being that net profit margin, which just like we talked about earlier, net income is going to drive your net profit margin. That is, after all the expenses, you want that number to be 10 to 15%. That's the ideal range for a business to run a net profit. And that gives you what you need to put back into the business to continue to grow and scale the way that you want to. The gross profit margin that I mentioned just a minute ago is going to be your revenue minus the costs that go into providing that Revenue service.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
I'm a huge proponent of welcoming guests who don’t just sell a service but are tailored to the small law firm experience.
And as a recovering attorney, speaker, and Founder and Chief Podcast Strategist of LawPods — Robert Ingalls fits the mold.
Having worked with premier law firms including McGuire Woods, Blank Rome and The Law Offices of John T. Orcutt, LawPods helps busy attorneys create world-class podcast content that boosts SEO, builds relationships and drives revenue.
In this episode we discuss:
Contacts – Social Media
Website: https://www.lawpods.com
robert@lawpods.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lawpods
Instagram: www.instagram.com/lawpods
About Robert Ingalls
Robert Ingalls is a recovering attorney, professional speaker and the founder of LawPods, one of the first podcast production agencies for law firms. At LawPods, Robert and his team help some of the premier law firms in the world launch and grow branded podcasts that build relationships and drive revenue.
Robert's path to Podcast Producer to the Am Law 100 was anything but direct. For years he battles anxiety from the pressure, long hours and constant conflict of a litigation career. When he was finally ready to throw in the towel, he had no idea what to do next. With no business/marketing background and only a love for podcasts he discovered while creating a podcast for his law firm, Robert decided to see if lawyers would pay him to help them launch podcasts. With very few takers in the early days, Robert spent two years in a corporate banking gig, grinding nights and weekends to finally bring LawPods to life.
Snip-Its
00:19:36 (36 Seconds)
So you referenced earlier this, this idea of using the podcast in different places and you just hearken back to it. So when someone is kind of thinking through a podcast as a portion of their marketing plan, right, they're going to have the podcast as kind of the pillar content, and then that content is going to go out to different places. How do you take it and alter it so it fits different platforms so you know where it's going to get the most bang for your buck? Like where is it in the line of, of, of a, I guess, nurturing from point of initial awareness to the point of sale where you're really getting your most bang for your buck.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
This is one of those topics that comes straight from the well of what I do here at Law Firm Mentor; coaching lawyers on how to look at things from a different perspective.
Oftentimes, it’s a little tweak in the way we approach something that can bring traction.
Other times, we have to do something grandiose; something far different than what we were doing before. Because the most power tends to come when we are being ourselves and doing what we already know — just a little bit differently — that can make a dramatic change.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:08:36 (30 Seconds)
But growing doesn't mean growing your body count. Growing can mean growing your revenue. It can mean growing your free time. It can mean growing both. Usually, for lawyers, it is growing both. It can mean growing your reach, right? You could be taking on clients all across the United States, even all across the world, depending on what you do for a living. So growing just means that you want more of something than you currently have. And that is a very real human instinct.
Heather Moulder is a lawyer leadership and business coach, and she helps lawyers ditch stress, overthinking and imposter syndrome.
You’re probably thinking, “My goodness, that’s a lot,” but… it really isn’t.
It’s about learning how to manage your mind and emotions, and create a successful pathway toward the life you desire.
As a former big law partner, public speaker and host of the Life and Law podcast, Heather helps lawyers to become happily successful in law - and in life.
And today, she joins me to talk about mindset blocks; how to manage your mind and a way to think about what you’re doing in a way that eliminates stress.
In this episode we discuss:
Heather's Contact:
Snip-Its
00:31:11 (34 Seconds)
"And I, and I ask myself, okay, what can I do? What do I want to do? How do I choose, how do I choose to believe, you know, in moving forward in this moment? Do I, do I know I can handle it if the worst happens? Yes. I may not know all the answers, but I'll figure it out. I figured stuff out like this before. I mean, there are ways you can approach it. That massively take that stress down. And so it's not that you, I guess 100% ditch stress, but you kind of do because you view it so differently that it doesn't impact you in the same way in such a negative way."
We are joined today by entrepreneur, attorney, C.E.O, and innovator Matt Spiegel. Matt is an attorney, founder, and CEO of Lawmatics. Matt shares how a bar grievance filed against him is what led to founding Lawmatics. Matt also shares why automation is necessary for your law firm's growth and providing star treatment for your clients. This is a great episode you don't want to miss.
In this episode we discuss:
About Matt Spiegel:
Matt Spiegel is an attorney and serial entrepreneur in the legal-tech space. He is Founder and CEO of Lawmatics, the #1 automation platform for law firms, offering legal client intake, CRM, marketing automation, billing, and much more, all in one easy-to-use software. With Lawmatics, law firms streamline their operations, impress clients, and win more business. Prior to Lawmatics, Matt worked as a criminal defense attorney for six years and founded MyCase, a legal practice management software company that has grown into one of the most widely used cloud-based law practice management systems. It was then acquired by AppFolio in 2012, where he remained as a General Manager for three more years.
In 2015, Spiegel founded ExpoGuru, an event marketing management software. Later in 2015 he became the CEO of Cammy, a global consumer tech company with headquarters in Sydney, Australia. In 2017, he decided that it was the right time to go back in the legal software industry with Lawmatics.
He is a golf enthusiast and passionate about making an impact on advancing the practice of law. He can't wait to continue reaching audiences in all consumer-driven practice areas; legal professionals wanting to build and scale a profitable law firm!
Contacts – Social Media
Matt Spiegel’s Contact:Matt@lawmatics.com
www.lawmatics.com
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:07:57 (32 Seconds)
But, but the catalyst was, it was actually, to be honest with you, Allison, it was a bar complaint. I got a bar complaint and it was like it was stupid. It wasn't like, that I was a bad lawyer. It wasn't that, you know, I got a bad outcome or that I was malpractice or ineffective assistance of counsel or anything. It was quite literally, I didn't call you back quick off. It was attorney-client communication. And so then I went down. That which was the number was that it was the number one complaint in 2009, and it's still the number one complaint. And it's, it's ridiculous and actually embarrassing that that is still the number one issue that we have as lawyers
A lot of business owners have misconceptions around lines of credit and debt. Credit and debit are a necessary part of growing a business. Once debt has been accumulated, it is important to create a system to repay your debt. I will be going over all the ins and outs of taking accumulating debt to grow your business in this episode.
In today's episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:06:56 (32 Seconds)
Now, increasing the line of credit gives you a benefit of decreasing your income to debt ratio, right? So if I have a card and it has a 9000 credit limit and I have spent $3,000, I've used 33% of my credit. However, if I get them to increase that credit limit to 10,000, my credit utilization rate goes down to only 30%. So I've done nothing other than secure more credit, but that will typically trigger an increase in my FICO score, my credit score.
When it comes time to find a commercial rental for your office space, many lawyers are overlooking key strategies in their negotiation. In today's episode I will teach you the seven most overlooked strategies in order to prepare you for your next negotiation as well as get you the best deal and space for your business to grow.
In today's episode:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:11:41 (25 Seconds)
When you think about coming into a space, the landlord doesn't just have a vested interest in renting the space today, he or she is creating a relationship with you as the business owner, and professionals, professional practices tend to be one of the most stable lessees, less orders lessees, less orders, tenants, we tend to be really great tenants, right? We don't throw large parties, we don't do a lot of damage, we obviously want to keep the space looking professional. And so when a landlord is looking to create a relationship with a business owner, we are desirable, know that going in. Not only are we desirable because of our status as professionals, because we don't just have legal responsibilities under our lease, we have professional responsibilities as licensed attorneys.
There is a myth in business that managing your expenses means simply cutting costs. On today's episode, I will dispel that myth and teach you how to create a money system for your money coming in and going out so you can continue to grow your business.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:12:25 (36 Seconds)
The way that we create financial freedom through a business, through a law firm, is we create more money. And more importantly, we create an understanding of money in a way that we can produce it when we need it, as we need it. Instead of, I'm going to live like a pauper today so that eventually I will have enough to stop working, right? That's kind of the middle-class mindset that says save for a rainy day and save for retirement, and then one day you'll be able to stop working. Well, here's the thing. I don't want to have a poultry existence today so that I can have a somewhat less poultry existence tomorrow.
In today's market, in order to recruit new and retain existing employees, offering a flexible work environment is a great way. When your employees have flexibility in their schedule to achieve a work life balance they are happier and more productive. In today's episode I am going to teach you how to create systems for you to implement flexibility into your work environment.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:07:59 (32 Seconds)
Well, when I started adding people and I had that same general attitude, right, you give to me, I give to you, this is a relationship. I want you to be happy. I want your life to fit with your work and share that ethos pretty freely with people. We had one paralegal that just didn't work that way. This person would ask to come in late or leave early, and by this time I had gotten very clear guidance from an employment attorney that we needed to be keeping time records. So we were maintaining time records
The goal of marketing is to keep your message content clear and consistent across all platforms. Regardless if you outsource your marketing, having an in-house marketing team is important in order to achieve your goals and receive your return on investment. In this episode, I will give you three reasons why you want to invest in an in-house marketing team.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:11:01 (38 Seconds)
Now, this doesn't mean that if you have different people in your company marketing, that you all have to copy and paste each other's style. We do want you to be authentic in your marketing, but even as you are working toward authenticity, your goal is to make sure that there is consistency of your message and that when you are communicating in different places, that that data, if it is multipurpose, if you're cross-marketing, what you put on, what you what you say in a public speaking engagement to what you put in your newsletter or on your blog, you want to make sure that what people are consuming says we say the same thing, even if we say it in different ways because we are about this value.
If You Are Reading This, Then SEO Is NOT A Hoax.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:04:53 (38 Seconds)
And the more information that there is on your website, the easier it is for the search engine to say, yes, this is exactly what the searching party is looking for when this person's content comes into our awareness. So the more content that a person has generated over a course of time, the more likely that they are to show up when they are doing things like altering keywords on their website, because they already have authority. They already have a reputation, if you will, with Google, or Bing, or whatever search engine that says this is a reputable source that is highly connected with the service that people are searching for.
Associate bonus compensation is vital in retaining top talent at your law firm and motivating your employees. In order to create a bonus incentive plan, however, you need to have an answer to three specific questions:
In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:16:57 (36 Seconds)
As your company grows, you might not want to differentiate the types of benefits that you give from person to person, but you might, right? You might want to have a structured bonus plan whereby people get to elect at the beginning of the year what bonus they're going to be pursuing. You can build out your entire budget around if a person hits a budget, a goal so that they are entitled to bonus compensation that it's already paid for by virtue of you starting at the beginning of the year, setting aside the funds that are going to be necessary for that. But the worst thing that you can do is presuppose that the only thing people care about is money.
Associate bonus compensation is vital in retaining top talent at your law firm and motivating your employees. In order to create a bonus incentive plan, however, you need to have an answer to three specific questions:
In this episode, we discuss:
Allison C. Williams, Esq. Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
LFM Podcast: Necessity of Growth
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2021/03/16/the-necessity-of-growth
Snip-Its
00:16:57 (36 Seconds)
As your company grows, you might not want to differentiate the types of benefits that you give from person to person, but you might, right? You might want to have a structured bonus plan whereby people get to elect at the beginning of the year what bonus they're going to be pursuing. You can build out your entire budget around if a person hits a budget, a goal so that they are entitled to bonus compensation that it's already paid for by virtue of you starting at the beginning of the year, setting aside the funds that are going to be necessary for that. But the worst thing that you can do is presuppose that the only thing people care about is money.
Onboarding is necessary, but it is one of the things most people do not want to do. Learning the basics of onboarding can be the difference between hiring someone who works out miraculously or hiring someone who can’t get the job done. These five key strategies will help you onboard your star performer.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:14:54 (34 Seconds)
It's really important that they get into the habit of taking your words and translating it into their words. And then the final strategy ultimately is going to show you why that's so critically important as a part of further reinforcing what they've learned. But for purposes of number four, super important that you emphasize and require that notes be taken and that you make sure that you check in periodically to make sure that those notes are really the person's reiteration of key points and not the person's kind of brain dump if you will, or recording of what you've had to say.
Let’s chat about integrating your marketing, and more specifically, connecting your front end and your back end. As the owner of the company, you can never truly be hands-off to the success of your business. You need to be able to connect what is going on for their end with what is going on for your end. That way if there's a problem, you can troubleshoot it effectively.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Steph Tuss is an extraordinary woman who took advantage of every opportunity she was given because she was able to live by the mantra, “just say yes.” She has a vast knowledge of business even though she didn’t come from an entrepreneurial background, and didn’t even major in business courses. Yet, she is now the CEO of a hugely successful company, Life Is Now, Inc.
In this episode we discuss:
Being able and open to experience whatever you need to experience knowing that whatever happens, you're going to be okay.
The importance of beginning with a framework to face difficult conversations.
About Steph Tuss:
Steph Tuss is the CEO of the multimillion-dollar global coaching company Life Is Now, Inc, helping thousands of entrepreneurs, experts and self-employed professionals gain the confidence and find the right mindset to increase their revenue, turning their endeavors into seven- and eight-figure ventures.
Prior to her work with Life Is Now, Steph was a school teacher turned entrepreneur, who built and sold her first business by the age of 33.
She has a passion for helping others create their vision mixed with the nuts and bolts of solid business strategy.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
There are many benefits to having a bookkeeper and using automation in your business. They save you time, money and energy that can be put back into your lawfrim. How will you know when it is time to hire a bookkeeper?
In this episode we discuss:
How doing your own bookkeeping is taking time, money, and energy that could be going into your law firm.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Book: Simple Numbers Big Profits! By Greg Crabtree
Snip-Its
00:11:49 (35 Seconds)
The more we fear things that seem to be harming us, the more action we take to secure them to, to resolve those issues. And the problem with that is that as we are looking to resolve those issues, because we are in a state of fear, we are oftentimes making knee-jerk reactions, knee-jerk responses today without a long-term plan. We are deciding in a state of lack a lack mindset rather than an abundance mindset. So we are restricting, we are limiting, we are forcing rather than allowing and fostering and supporting.
When we are talking about role description, we are actually talking about role differentiation. What are the key differences between a task list and a job description?
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
00:10:33 (34 Seconds)
Now, for a lot of lawyers, there is resistance around even asking the question of what's not being done, because we fear that if something's not being done, that means that I'm putting my business at risk, I'm putting my license at risk, I'm committing malpractice, I'm going to have clients that are upset. And those are not the gaps that we're talking about. I mean, obviously, if you are servicing legal clients, you have to do so ethically. You have to meet the requirements of serving the client
School is out for a lot of you that are parents and for a lot of people, the warm months are the time of the year where they like to get away. They like to lawyer at the beach, they like to do a lot of things that will support overall mental health, but of course, rejuvenation so that they can be their best selves. So, of course, we want to make sure that you are planning your law firm in a way that allows you to be able to not just take time off and to have your teams take time off, but to do that in a way that does not take your profits. I want to give you three strategies today as to how you can do that, how you can plan for a successful summer, knowing that you're going to meet your numbers, knowing that you're going to hit your targets, but also making sure that you are ahead of the curve for the fall ahead.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact info
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Snip-Its
00:12:29 (28 Seconds)
But when you think about where work is coming in and when you are going to be at your most busy, that might be at a time where people really want to go on vacation. So how do you accommodate that? Well, what you have to do is you have to plan for staggering of time that people are going to be taking time out of the office so that sometimes we are hard-hitting, heavy charging, working hard, and other times we are off and we are truly off. Now, what I mean by that is I'm a big proponent of allowing people to take vacation and encouraging them to do so without interruption from an office.
A virtual community is about how we stay connected as people, despite the fact that we're not physically working with each other. What's important is how to master your work communications in a way that builds a strong collective culture in your law firm, even when it's virtual or a hybrid of brick and mortar and virtual.
In this episode we discuss:
Contacts – Social Media
Facebook, Linkden, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube
Snip-Its
00:09:22 (38 Seconds)
Remember, we learned about llamas through talking to this employee, right? So like, there's little things that you don't really think matter. And they might seem kind of like, why does that why, why take additional time for that? But it really does create cohesion between people. They feel closer to each other, actually, when they are intentional about communicating with each other, and communicating about something positive sets the tone so that over the course of time, everyone's message has gotten increasingly more positive and everyone has gotten more excited about the things that we are learning about each other and sharing with each other through that channel.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
We set business goals at the beginning of the year with every intention of meeting them. But life can get messy and this year things got VERY messy. In today’s episode I am going to teach you three strategies you can use to get your business back on track. These are concrete strategies that you can not only use right away but you can work on RIGHT NOW as I outline them for you.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:17:21 (47 Seconds)
Almost instinctually, we go to the mindset of if something is happening in the external world, we have no choice but to accept the ramifications of that in our law firm. And many times that is not true. Many times we are making choices that have adverse consequences for our business and if we were to make a different choice, the consequence would be different. And so you have to start thinking about what exactly is the cause of the current circumstance that you're experiencing in your business, whether it's an uptick or a downward slide in business. Where did that come from and what are all the pieces that contributed to that so that you can start making different choices to change the outcome that you're experiencing.
00:35:57 (43 Seconds)
There are ways for you to keep the standard the same in terms of production, but allow for some modification of what will actually be produced, meaning if I don't have the work to give to a client, I could give the work into a marketing initiative or I could give the work into a system for the firm, or I could give the work into, you know, pouring into the cultural morale, depending on how high your standards are. Ultimately, that will dictate whether or not your standards should be modified. But if there's a modification, the modification should be a revamping of your structure and it ought to have very clearly defined parameters around it. It should not be simply a wholesale walking away from the standards that you created.
00:41:31 (19 Seconds)
But your goal is to be fully educated and to make decisions that are best for your business based on your business metrics and separating your emotional connection to those decisions from the analysis. And this is where taking stock of yourself and why you are doing what you were doing is very important.
There's a great skill set that comes with being a people person who knows how to make connections, who knows how to drive engagement, and get people interested in your message. Vanity Marketing, however, is done by those who go into a networking opportunity as an experience of being social and making friends instead of finding a way to get business in the door.
In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:08:55 (25 Seconds)
You want to be the person that's proactively taking the bull by the horns and inviting that prospect or that prospective referral relationship partner out for some type of contact. Right. That and buy out, by the way, I don't mean you don't necessarily have to go out. You can invite them to a Zoom meeting, you can invite them to coffee. You could just stop by their office. Right. But you want to have a planned event where you two are going to be intentional about discussing business.
Whether you are a big firm, a solo practice, or something in between - you need process and structure. Today I chat with Steve Fretzin about how he helps his clients by understanding their personalities and leverages that to create processes and structures that give them the best chance to succeed in efficiency. No one has to be terrified of winging it, or feeling like they are flying by the seat of their pants with a proper structure in place. In this episode we discuss:
Steve Fretzin Podcast: Be That Lawyer
Books:
Legal Business Development Isn't Rocket Science
Sales Free Selling
Legal Business Development
Website URL: https://fretzin.com
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
The major problem with delegation is that you have to develop a rhythm for how you delegate, the same way that you develop a rhythm for how you pay your bills or a rhythm for how you hire your staff or how you market your law firm. If you just kind of pinch-hit and do it here and there, you get pinch-hit results.
In this episode we discuss:
SEE THE FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW
Allison Williams: [00:00:05] Hi, everybody. It's Allison Williams here, your host of The Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast. Law Firm Mentor is a business coaching service for solo and small law firm attorneys. We help you to grow your revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money.
Allison Williams: [00:00:26] Welcome, my dear Steve Fretzin to the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast.
Steven Fretzin: [00:00:31] Hey, Alison, how are you doing?
Allison Williams: [00:00:32] Hey, I'm doing well. You know, I'm excited to have you on. We've had you on before. Every once in a while, you get a really great guest. We have a great conversation and a lot of value to the audience. So you're definitely one of those people I wanted to have come back, but even after I made the decision I was going to invite you back, I saw that once again. You're at it in this, in this author biz that you're in. And I wanted to talk to you specifically about your book, because I know that it is starting to get a lot of buzz in the legal industry.
Steven Fretzin: [00:01:03] Yeah, it was a, it was a blast to do. And I got a really big kick-off even without doing like a book launch party, which I would normally do. Non-covid I got a really big international bestseller status in four countries and I was just so excited about it. And it's six years of work into this book, so really thrilled about it and I appreciate you having me back.
Allison Williams: [00:01:24] Yeah. So congratulations on the international bestseller status. For those that are watching us on YouTube, you can actually see the title of the book over Steve's right, right Shoulder. But for those of you that are listening on the podcast platforms, the name of the book is Legal Business Development Isn't Rocket Science 250 plus easy and actionable ways to grow your book of business in less time and with greater results. So I know that was a, that was a mouthful, but it tells you everything you need to know about why this is going to be such a great resource for those of you that really want to expand your legal career and generate more business. So let's talk about the book and let's start first by giving some people that have not been introduced to you before or have not heard you on this podcast before. Learn a little bit about you. Right? The fact that you are not a lawyer, but you play one on TV, I think is remarkable because you blend right in with us. But tell us about you, Steve.
Steven Fretzin: [00:02:20] Yeah, so I'm someone who got pulled into the legal industry in 2008, never realizing or even considering that lawyers needed help with business development. My father is a retired attorney now, but he always, as a solo, had plenty of business, plenty of work, he made plenty of money. There was all, he was the total package, not having to network, not having to do. It just was natural that relationships would happen for him. So he didn't really have to think about it. He never wrote a plan. He never considered time management or any delegation skills or anything that we're teaching lawyers on a daily basis just wasn't a part of his makeup in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. And so I got pulled into this in 2008, working with an individual attorney in the real estate space. And what he loved about working with me is that I actually Teach Sales Free Selling, which is one, which is the name of my first book. I love to work with lawyers to teach them, you don't have to pitch, you don't have to convince, you don't have to sell. It's all about relationships. It's all about being consultative and understanding and walking people through a buying decision to see essentially if it's a fit.
Steven Fretzin: [00:03:26] So one lawyer turned into two, two and a three, then a firm, then another, and it just took off. And within about a year and a half to two years, Allison, I looked at my numbers. I was like, Wait a second. I think 80% of my total business this year are attorneys. And I didn't even oh my God. So I had been teaching lawyers about specialization and all that. I said, you know, maybe I need to practice what I preach a little. So I pushed my chips in, changed my name from a very salesy name. Sales Results Inc Which lawyers go you to Frets and Inc, which they were like, okay, that's just his name. We're used to that, right? So that's how I got going in. Even recently, I've adapted even more where I've, I've stopped working with law firms a couple of years ago. I only work with highly motivated and ambitious individual attorneys at all levels and all practice areas. And I also run peer advisory groups to help them win their successful to maintain and continue to develop even after they've become a great, be that lawyer type of lawyer.
Allison Williams: [00:04:25] Yeah. Well, since you mentioned be that lawyer, for those of you that don't know, Steve has an amazing podcast affectionately known as Be That Lawyer. And so a lot of your work actually does stem from some of the major concepts that I always learn about as a, as an avid follower of your podcast. So talk to us a little bit about the podcast and then we're going to shift back into the book. So I really want to get some of those, those meaty topics covered in your book talked about today.
Steven Fretzin: [00:04:52] Yeah. So the show, you know, jeez, you know, it's one of those situations I think you can you can understand where I'm coming from or I wish I had started at five years ago, not two years ago, but we're coming up on 200 episodes at the end of this month. And I'm doing two a week right now. And the reason is, is I keep meeting so many amazing people like you, Allison, and others that have so much to share and so much to give to the legal community that it allows me to get to three or four takeaways from every single show because I'm drilling down similar to you to get to the, the nuts and bolts tactical stuff. How does, how does this actually work? So it could be anything from time management to health and wellness to marketing, branding, and of course, business development, networking, and developing that book, that almighty book of business, which we all know is so important. So that's the podcast and I just love doing it similar to like you and I just we enjoy it. We enjoy meeting people, we enjoy interviewing people, and having these fun conversations. And sure enough, if we can get sort of like to the middle of that onion from peeling away some layers, it ends up being a really interesting show with lots, again, takeaways for the audience.
Allison Williams: [00:06:01] Yeah, yeah. So and you are such a great interviewer, Steve. I had the pleasure of not just being on your podcast, but also you did a celebration for Women's History Month and you brought together an amazing panel. And we talked about a lot of different topics relative to business development in the law. And I just I wanted to make a special nod to you for that program because I don't think a lot of people really refine the art of being a good interviewer, and I think that you really excel at that exceptionally.
Steven Fretzin: [00:06:29] I appreciate that. And it's funny because if I'm going to do a 200 episode special and if you go back and listen and I've done this a couple of times to like the first ten or 20 episodes, they're very different than the last 20 or even the last 100 because as you know, it's, it's one of these skills that you have to keep refining. You have to keep considering how am I getting more out of the guest? How am I getting so I might ask someone to explain something to me and then I'll say, Hey, do you have a specific example of how you did that? And then they talk about how they worked with the client to get a result. Well, that's going to resonate with people more than just an explanation of something. So that's the kind of stuff that Howard Stern and Oprah and some of the best interviewers on the planet do. And I, and I'm just trying to emulate what I'm, what I what I'm hearing from others, and what I'm what I know will resonate with my audience.
Allison Williams: [00:07:21] Yeah, well, we definitely want people to check that out because we have I have had the pleasure recently of some of my clients saying, oh, yeah, you know, you have gotten better at this. And I say, God, well, how bad was I? And said, Well, it wasn't that it was bad, but it has gotten better. And so I love getting that feedback and I know that it's something that it's kind of the universal experience of people that do what they love and love what they do and really lean into it. So let's now shift back to the book because, you know, when when you think about the idea of a legal business development book, I am sure lawyers have thoughts about what that means, what that could be. But why don't you kind of in a nutshell encapsulate for us, what does the book offer to someone who wants to learn about legal business development and why is it a resource that you recommend that people check out.
Steven Fretzin: [00:08:09] I would say in the most important part of the book is that you can read it cover to cover, but it's not a book you have to read cover to cover if you're in a solo practice and it's really important for you to get out in network, well then there's some chapters on networking and you can just read those chapters as a starting point to kind of start get your skills together, your mind together, your plan together as it relates to networking, best practices. And what I do when I write, and I write articles for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, I write for impact lawyers out of, out of the UK and stuff like that is I try to write in a very simple tactical, here's what you do, here's what you say. And it's not that I have all the answers, but it's evolved over time where I'm, I'm getting feedback from clients, what's working, what's not, what I do, what that's working, and what's not. So that when I put together an article or a book or a chapter, it's going to, it's going to be something that people don't just, Oh, that was a great idea but I don't know how to execute on that. No, no. Here's what you do and here's what you say. And just do what I'm saying and tweak it for your own personality, tweak it for your own practice area, whatever you want to do. But I try to write in that, in that type of here's three bullet points that you can follow, and here's the actual quote of what you would ask or say so that it's going to hit home for the people that read it.
Allison Williams: [00:09:30] And so when you say 250 plus examples, I mean that, that is a lot. So you're calling this information where, where are these examples or these strategies coming from?
Steven Fretzin: [00:09:42] So what I try to do, and this is in every chapter, but most chapters I try to pull from an experience in my life. So this one isn't in the book, but I'll give it is because it's such an easy one for me to pick on. I'm dealing with a teenager at home. All right? And I was a teenager and I was difficult. And guess what? I'm getting it back. It's coming back to me now. So my teenagers up here, moody and Dad, come on, I want to talk about it. And then he's down here where he's like, Hey, you want to hang out and want to do this? And then the other. I don't necessarily always know what teenager I'm going to get from day to day, from hour to hour. So I'm like, Where's the support group for this? So I decided, you know what? I had like an experience with him recently where I was like, You know what? I'm just at the end of my wits. Here I am. Teaching lawyers, building $1000 plus an hour how to build a successful law practice.
Steven Fretzin: [00:10:30] They're listening to every word I have to say. They're at the edge of their seats, but my teenager thinks I'm a moron. My teenager thinks that everything I say is just the dumbest thing, one after the other. So it's like, All right, there's an article here and there are some takeaways here from this so that I think the article is like, are lawyers really just moody teenagers? And then, of course they're not, but I make a goof about it, and then I give like, here are some things that we need to consider as it relates to how to how to do legal business development and keep a straight mind about it. So then I'll break it down and give some bullet points on that, on that topic. So it could be fishing, it could be a sport I'm playing, being competitive. It could be swinging a golf club. It could you know, there's all different ways to create content. And I just try to use my own life experience as a way to make it a little more interesting for the reader.
Allison Williams: [00:11:19] Well, and I think that that's just really the key point there, right? Because as soon as you say teenager, you know, you heard me sigh childfree by choice and revolves around the idea that teenagers are not something I ever experience intentionally. But as, as somebody who is a father, and a business person, and somebody who works with lawyers, you know, you have a lot of, of your unique personality that comes through in what you read and what you write and what you say. And I think that bringing that to the legal marketplace, it's just going to make for an entertaining read. And if not just the immense value that, of course, I know you bring from your years of experience doing this.
Steven Fretzin: [00:11:58] Yeah, I mean, think about business development for lawyers. So they're not taught in law school. They're generally not taught at the law firm level. And you know this because you're in that you're in the space that it's a learned skill. But then the question is how many attorneys are interested in learning the skill or putting time into this skill? 5% of the population, maybe. So this is a book that if you're going to learn business development and you're interested in business development, you need a place to start or you need a place to kind of like, I'm doing it, but I want to just kind of check how I'm doing and see if there are maybe some additional ways to do things better or more efficiently, etc. Well, that's what I'm doing. I'm not giving ideas that aren't going to move the needle. I mean, I'm working with attorneys, you know, 8 to 10 hours a day, every day, five days a week. So I'm in the weeds with the lawyers. It's just a matter of, of what can, what can we all keep improving? We all need to keep improving. And so why not learn from someone who's been in the, in the in that, you know, in the weeds with attorneys as long as I have. And see if there's nuggets that you can pull out of it that, that you can use that are going to improve your game or make it more fun or interesting to do business development. Not such a drug, such drudgery.
Allison Williams: [00:13:08] Yeah. Well, so I love that you put the phrase put fun together with business development, because I don't think that most people, when they hear that, especially most attorneys, are going to think of fun and business development. But that's really your approach to it. So talk to us about when you say you're kind of been in the weeds with the lawyers, you know, you've been in the struggle with us. What are some of the things that lawyers really struggle with that you help with? And how do you help them to ultimately over overcome those struggles so that they can get to the success that they desire?
Steven Fretzin: [00:13:40] Yeah. So what I do is I sit down with an attorney that I meet through a presentation, through referral, through whatever, and I always do like a 30 to 40 minute evaluation. And it's interesting to go through these evaluations every week, multiple times, and hear the same things over and over again. So I'll give you the top three and then if we can go from there. But number one, poor time management, they're not really they never learn time and so again, learn skill time management to learn skill. I am the perfect example because I'm a feather on the wind. I am the least organized person you would have met 15, 16 years ago. And it took really learning and dedicating time and energy. And now I don't have an open email. At the end of the day, everything's been been handled. There's no paper on my desk. Everything's done through my remarkable two, through Dropbox, through whatever. So organization is something that's number one on the list. Number two is how are they spending their time doing business development? And in most cases, it's not being done in the most efficient way. They're not in the right place with the right people. They're out spinning their wheels, presenting all over. They're networking haphazardly. There's no plan in place of how to go after low-hanging fruit, how to go after where the business is. So I say this to attorneys all the time. You realize there's a table right in front of you with a pile of money on it, and you're walking around it all day and they go, What? I go, Yeah. Like all the business you ever need and will ever need is right in front of you and you're not taking it. They go, Well, why? Well, okay, so you have 250 clients that think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread and you're not asking them for introductions to people they know to get new business. Well, I'm not comfortable with that. Well, there you go. There you go. So where's the gap? Well, the gap. Is the lack of process and lack of language to make it comfortable, to make it easy. So that's where we're in the weeds, that's where we're working every day, and most importantly, getting in front of decision-makers and, and having a process to walk them through a buying decision. So most lawyers call it a pitch meeting. Hey, we're going on a pitch meeting. Right. And I hate it. I hate pitch, I hate convince. I hate sell. I'm very anti-sell. My first book is Sales Free Selling. Why? Because I'm teaching lawyers, you don't have to go out and be a salesman. All right? You can do it through relationships, consultative, questioning. You can do it through empathy, listening, and most importantly, qualifying. They go qualifying. What do you mean? Well, you're presenting and giving solutions to people that aren't qualified and they go, What do you mean? I go, Well, they're not the right decision maker. They're not committed to sign up with you. If, if they, if they, even if they wanted to and they don't have any money to pay you, but yet you're spending a year chasing after this person that's never going to work with you. So how quickly can we figure out that someone's real or not is a huge part of where lawyers spin their wheels and spend their time inefficiently.
Allison Williams: [00:16:32] Yeah. So a lot, a lot there that you just shared with us. And the thing that I think that of all that you just describe that really resonated with me is the idea that it sounds like just having a system and an approach to doing things can take away the stress of the unknown, right? It can give you a certain level of you might not immediately feel comfortable, but it can at least give you the bravery to get out there and do it. Scared, right?
Steven Fretzin: [00:16:57] Yeah. Yeah.
Allison Williams: [00:16:58] And then the other piece of it is having someone like you to actually not just hold them accountable, but to actually guide them through what to say, where to go, how to be, what to, what not to overlook. Because, you know, there are so many things in this that are self-evident when you're looking from the outside in. But, you know, when you are in the center, right, when you're the epicenter of your own life, you oftentimes can't see what you're missing. So we just go right past it without help.
Steven Fretzin: [00:17:24] And it's interesting because I'm not only working with lawyers in every practice area, but I'm working with the most extroverted lampshade on the head at the party fund lawyers. And what are they lacking? Well, they're lacking process and structure, similar to what I was lacking because I was that person. So I need to bring them into process and structure so they can leverage their personality and their energy in a way that's going to be efficient with their time. Now, on the other side of it, I work with some of the most introverted like IP attorneys and people that don't want to go anywhere, do anything. They don't want to be in front of anybody. But they also recognize that the key to freedom and success and control in a career, whether you're at a big firm or a solo, is having more of your own business, selecting your clients and having that. And so they love the fact that I'm giving them the structure, the language, the process to follow because they are scared and terrified of winging it and failing, or they've already tried winging it and failed. And now it's like, well, why bother? Well, so the structure works for everyone that's willing to put the time in to learn it and execute on it, internalize it. It's all there. They just have to have they have to draw a line. I mean, literally, I need people to kind of convince me that they're going to work with me. It's not just about me saying convincing them to work. They need to convince me that they're going to put the time in and they're going to follow the structure to get the results. Because if they're not, then I don't have the time to spend with them or want to spend with them because I'm only as good as my players, right Allison? That's what it comes down to. We need to find the right players. That's how we win.
Allison Williams: [00:18:57] Yeah. And it sounds like no matter what type of lawyer you are, no matter what type of personality you have, whether you are an introvert, extrovert, and I would dare say andover, right, those folks in the middle that kind of go both ways. You know, there's a strategy for you and it really just takes finding someone who has the dedication and the talent to be able to guide you to the right strategy for who you are.
Steven Fretzin: [00:19:16] Yeah. And the best part is and I don't if you find this too, I work with the best, smartest, most enjoyable attorneys that exist. Now, why is that? Well, think about who wants to learn. Think about who wants to achieve. Think about who can get their ego in a place where they can take advice and they can take coaching. Those aren't the crazy people at the law firms that everyone's afraid of. Right. These are people that are humble, and open, and modest, and interested in developing, and that makes them the best people for me. I just every day I get to enjoy my job and enjoy my career helping these attorneys take it to the next level. So it's just like I wake up every morning just excited to go to work.
Allison Williams: [00:19:59] Yeah, well, I think that that is really the difference between someone who chooses a path where you chose lawyers. Right. So it's one thing to be a lawyer and to experience the different shades of our personalities and the different types of lawyers that there are. But for somebody who's on the outside, right, you start to experience what it is to work with lawyers and you start to see the complexity and the wide diversity of people that we are. The same way you find in every other profession and you chose to stick around. So I think, yeah.
Steven Fretzin: [00:20:27] I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere. So, you know, my my legacy is, look, I'm only a one man band. I'm not going to work with more than maybe 30 lawyers in a year for my main like coaching and training program. However, when I as I go through this industry and as I eventually leave the industry and when I'm 100 years old or whatever it's going to be, I want there to be a legacy. And the legacy is that I'm helping lawyers all over the world figure out something that they were denied in law school and they were denied at the law firm level. And that is a proper education and proper motivation to build the future and the life that they dreamed about when they went to law school. And it isn't always happening. As you know, for most lawyers, they're not always happy. They're in there, in, you know, in the crap dealing with multiple partners, yelling at them, and forcing work on them. They're in a bad culture environment. I mean, the great resignation is obviously helping to kind of weed, weed out the bad firms or weed out the, the egomaniacs that no one wants to work for anymore. Happiness has come to the forefront and I want to be a part of that future.
Allison Williams: [00:21:35] Yeah, well, you're absolutely taking the right steps to let people know who you are, how you are, and what immense value that you add. I mean, I have I've exposed quite a few of our audience, obviously have have heard you on our previous podcast. You were somebody that got a lot of favorable ratings and I got a lot of very good feedback from the show before. And of course, I know that you offer immense, immense value in the books that you read that you write. So, Steve, thank you so much for being on. Thank you for sharing with us about your book, Legal Business Development. I want everyone that's listening to check that out. It's a great resource. And Steve, I would like you to let everyone know if they are interested in learning more about you, not just the array of your library, but also how they could work with you to please let them know where they can find you.
Steven Fretzin: [00:22:21] Yeah. So the easiest way is, is one of two places. One is my website, which is essentially my last name. So Fretzin and F, R, E, T, Z, I, N dot com. And that's going to give you the information on my programs, videos of my clients talking about the programs I run and how they kind of viewed it from before they joined and after they went through it. And then, of course, I'm a big LinkedIn guy, so if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, just type in Steve Fretzin on LinkedIn and give me a little message saying you heard me on The Crushing Chaos in Allison show and that would be fantastic and happy to connect with lawyers all over the world and I do and again, then then you're able to see all my content real-time.
Allison Williams: [00:22:59] Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Steve Fretzin. You have always been a friend of the show and a great guest. And once again, we, we delivered on our great promise to offer you to the world. Everyone, all of Steve's information is going to be in the show notes, so please do check that out. You are watching The Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast. I'm Allison Williams. Everyone have a wonderful rest of your day.
Allison Williams: [00:23:28] Thank you for tuning in to the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast. To learn more about today's show and take advantage of the resources mentioned, check out our show notes. And if you enjoy today's episode, take a moment to follow the podcast wherever you get your podcast and leave us a rating and review. This helps us to reach even more law firm owners from around the country who want to crush chaos in business and make more money. I'm Allison Williams, your Law Firm Mentor everyone. Have a great day.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME:
Email really does require a level of maintenance and I wanted to share the rules that I actually created around email, the email inbox, and why I constantly struggle with email. In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Meeting Billable Hours Training
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:20:36 (38 Seconds)
So we talked about email management as a strategy, and then I asked the person, How are you currently dealing with email? And the person told me, Well, every morning I get up, I wake up at 6 a.m., go to the bathroom, come back, lay in the bed for another 10 minutes and during that time period, I am usually checking social media, checking my email, checking my calendar for the day, kind of kickstarting the day. And so they've already taken in ten, 12 to 15 communications that have come in since they left the office the night before. And they're absorbing all of the problems of the day before they even get out of bed in the morning.
What are the things that you have to work on in order to get to a place where you are magnetic on stage, where you draw people in, and where you’re able to cultivate either referral relationships or new clients from being in front of people? I have three major strategies for you…
In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:07:09 (33 Seconds)
But because I didn't have society's definition of a family, I didn't feel entitled to a house. So honestly, I was kind of waiting for me to just magically arrive at a family and there's a whole host of reasons why that's not happening, either, which we're not going to talk about today. But I said, finally, you know, I can't delay making the best financial decision for myself because I don't have the appearance of the family that society says I'm supposed to have in order to buy my house. So I just went out and said, Yeah, now's the time, and I decided what I wanted and I ultimately bought a house.
Are you making the most out of your network? Make sure that every opportunity, every speaking engagement, every networking event, every referral partnership is one that can produce a snowball effect of opportunity. This episode will include three things that you have to do in order to ensure that your activity and your marketing events are never one and done. In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:07:28 (34 Seconds)
So that means you should never, never, never, never go to a marketing event, marketing event of any sort with the idea that it is going to be done when it's done, it's not done until you have the next one scheduled. So again, never one and done. You always have to be thinking when I'm leaving this event, what is my next opportunity? Who is the next person that I'm going to speak to? Who is the next potential client I'm going to have a connection with? Who is the next stage I am going to visit? Right. Where am I going to find my next opportunity? Marketing should be snowballing.
What would life look like if we added two zeros to our personal income? I want you to go with me on a journey to contemplate that for a moment. If you are a law firm owner and you have ever contemplated the idea of adding more money into your business and more money into your personal income, I'm sure you've thought about having more, right? That's kind of the first place that we all start. I don't like what I have because I want more. In other words, if I have X more dollars - I’d be happy. Fine. How do we get there? In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:02:58 (31 Seconds)
So we were taking this yacht trip and we were looking out at all of the celebrity homes that are right on the water with their own individual yachts in each slip. And I just thought, Wow, this is really inspiration for what we want to create. Some people are really moved by the idea of having $100 million house other people, not so much. But whatever your vision is, ultimately, at some point we had to think about where these people started before they acquired the multimillion-dollar residence.
Shifting culture takes time. It's not as simple as kind of going in, firing everybody and starting over again because, frankly, most of us can't afford to do that. So, how do you shift the culture? Here’s what to do, and, especially, what NOT to do. In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:04:18 (40 Seconds)
You have to induce people to follow your rules. Right. Just simply saying, hey, I know we've been doing it this way for the past five years, but now new rule. And hope that they simply follow the new rule. Some people will, right. Some people by virtue of you stopping and having a conversation with them, it's going to jar them into a new course of behavior. But for most people, the vast majority of people are creatures of habit, right? So they have been pretty automatically engaging in behavior in a certain way, not because they wanted to do something to you or even for you, but because they fell into a modus operandi. To change that, it is going to take some time.
What do you do when it’s a tight market, but you need people now? Here’s what it comes down to: you have to be more aggressive about going after talent. How do you do that? Get Off Your Ass and get into action. In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
To request a link to the Law Firm Hiring in a Tight Market Webinar, email info@lawfirmmentor.net
Register for the next webinar – Law Firm Interviewing 101 – May 26th at 10 AM ET
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_EhtMmRCQQi6SDW1a9w1Kyg?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=213035137&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_0HTPISyysAF98hfjCPjJJo5a4c-mPqUuiueRAXeCtUl7aUXk_DPfIk7_XtL6YBQx9rLI40cQ7xy_NTH1XoARFZED8oX4QAk5Vje0bV3SSs67k2Cg&utm_content=213035137&utm_source=hs_email
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:04:58 (40 Seconds)
And one of the things that you should do in your careers page is not just describe the job, right? You don't want to just take the ad that you would post on Indeed or on Craigslist and put it on to your website. You want to go really, really deep into your ideal employee avatar, right? Who is that person that is perfect for the role, perfect for your culture? And how does that person fit with the rest of the team, i.e. you want to introduce that person to the rest of the team and the easiest way to do that is on the website so you can do things on your careers page, like embed links to other pages of the website so that you can draw someone's eye to things that really matter.
In this episode, we cover a topic fueled by a question posed to me recently by one of our clients here at Law Firm Mentor. The question was, should I be taking calls from prospective new clients on nights and weekends? I always love when this topic comes up because there are a lot of strong opinions out there about the right way to build a law firm and whether or not you should be taking calls during hours that are not your typical business hours. I want to give you both of the competing views on it and then a framework for making that decision for yourself. In this episode, we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:16:02 (30 Seconds)
When making that choice, you have to say what is most important to me as a value proposition if what's most important to you is your goal. Whatever your goal is, right? Your goal could be to have a $5 million law firm in five years; your goal could be to have $200,000 of personal income; your goal could be to set up a savings plan that affords you to save a certain amount of money for your children's education. Whatever your goal is, the goal is not to judge your goal. But you do need to be clear on what that goal is. And then think about the timeframe that you're going to want to achieve that goal.
In this episode, we speak with Elizabeth Miller, MBA, Independent Law Firm Administrator and Best Selling Author of “From Lawyer to Law Firm-How to Manage a Successful Law Business”. Liz is the Owner and Founder of Managing the Business of Practicing Law(R), which helps solo, small and mid-size law firms handle administrative matters, including billing time, collection procedures and a host of other business functions. In this episode we discuss:
and much, MUCH more!
Guest Bio:
Elizabeth Miller. MBA is an independent law firm administrator and best-selling co-author of “From Lawyer to Law Firm - How to Manage a Successful Law Business”. Her book was published on May 11, 2017 and was #4 on the best seller list by May 23, 2017.
Elizabeth Miller has been working with the legal profession for over 40 years. She started her career in NYC as a paralegal and relocated to Tampa, Florida with her husband in 1985. After working a few years as a paralegal, she opened a paralegal business contracting paralegal work with attorneys, especially trial attorneys.
In 1994 she transitioned her career into law office administration when one of her clients from her paralegal business needed an on-staff office manager. She subsequently earned her Bachelor’s Degree from Eckerd College in 2007, with a major in business administration and a minor in finance. She earned her 4 year degree in 2 years and 4 months with no prior college credit while working full-time and taking care of her disabled husband. She immediately pursued in an MBA with a specialty in finance which she earned in June 2009.
She continued working as a law firm administrator for several years, before opening her business named after her bestseller - From Lawyer to Law Firm. Since December 2015, Liz has been working as an independent law firm administrator for solo, small and a few medium-sized firms on a retainer basis providing them with the administrative services they need but cannot afford to pay a full-time on-staff administrator to handle. This includes everything from vetting, hiring, staff management, performance reviews, systematizing processes, billing, collections, trust account management and reconciliation in accordance with Bar guidelines, financial analysis, and management of cash flow, including annual and monthly budgeting, client development and marketing among other duties.
Guest Contact Info:
Email – liz.managementconsultant@gmail.com
Website – https:// www.fromlawyertolawfirm.com
Telephone – 813-340-9569
To learn more about From Lawyer to Law Firm, visit Liz’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lawfirmadmin/
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Allison Contact Info:
To check out the FREE training on law firm collections hosted by Law Firm Mentor, download the video training here: https://williams-law-group.lpages.co/collections/
When to sign a long-term contract, and when not to? Society enters into long-term contracts all the time. But we rarely recognize that it could very easily span a period of time where we might change our position. Yet, somehow, we don't feel that we are somehow being taken advantage of by having a long-term contract.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:22:40 (34 Seconds)
So once you get to a year or longer and you put the categorization of the contract into that long-term status, the question is why? Well, if a company provides you with a glossed-over kind of half-assed reasoning as to why they want a long-term contract, oh, we think it's in your best interest, or we can't really start to get any results until seven or eight months in. That is going to be a red flag, right? Because that company is really giving you their justification, kind of turned around for you.
How do you grow with a contract attorney? There are times when you need help with your workload. You can actually monetize getting help with the work if you get some initial help from a contract attorney! By doing so, you can dial in some of your delegation systems, so more revenue comes in the door faster.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:16:07 (33 Seconds)
So one thing that we talk about a lot here at Law Firm Mentor is systematizing your legal work, ensuring that you have a range of appropriate time parameters around how long it takes for work to be delivered. Because if you have an hourly-based system, you want to be able to project out how many hours it is going to take so you can project your revenue. And if you have a flat fee-based system, you want to ensure that you are not spending more on the labor to produce the work within a flat fee than would be appropriate based on the fee that you're charging.
I'm a big proponent of investing in the right marketing strategy, and including having a digital marketing company on your team at some point. But, if you build your law firm solely through one marketing avenue and focus on-page strategies, or you're throwing your money behind SEO/ pay per click marketing, you are going to be far more vulnerable when there are economic changes. In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Lawfirmmentor.net
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:10:33(35Seconds)
The indecision that a lot of people persevere in oftentimes comes from the fact that there is somuch information that people believe that they have to go out and seek 15 different pieces ofinformation in orderto consume it all and create a strategy for themselves. And that oftentimescomes from the fact that dealing with the problem feels like a much bigger burden than simplyallowing the inertia to continue. So you have to give a pattern interrupt of that inertia by invitingpeople to have a conversation with you, by asking them to do something about their problem.
Do you get the money and then hire the person? Or do I hire the person to make the money? Choose the former.
Hiring the person to make the money is not just going to support your economic needs in the present, it is also going to fuel the growth of your law firm if you adopt this method. See people as profit in your business and you will have a much better business because you will not be working more than you desire to work in your law firm, and you can have the best of both worlds regarding time and money.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:07:38 (30 Seconds)
And the question became, how do I staff up when I'm only making, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars? Not even. Right. I got to I still got to support myself. I still have to support my kids. I still have a lifestyle to maintain and people cost money. Right. That's the first thought that everyone has. People cost money. So I acquainted her with the people produce profit mindset. And the first thing that we did was come up with a profit plan for how she was going to be able to increase her income, not just her revenue, her income.
Are you supposed to market your associate?
Many have expressed concerns about marketing other lawyers because it takes time to market and there is a risk the lawyer could eventually leave with all of their clients. In the grand scheme though, while it does exist, the risk is nowhere near as omnipresent as people believe. Here’s why…
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:04:20 (27 Seconds)
So for a lot of lawyers that have that fear that they are going to be producing their next best competitor by virtue of training and developing and cultivating a rainmaking attorney in their law firm, they very much are short-sighted in this belief. They are oftentimes catastrophizing and not really looking at the essence of the employee. And by the way, you can have lawyers that have not yet learned how to be rainmakers who very much have that entrepreneurial spirit.
What happens when you are faced with fear and high anxiety?
Attorneys are used to being highly powered and powerful and empowered and in control. So when something happens in their sphere of experience that feels a bit out of control, they try to just push it down or push it to the side or ignore it. So I find that this is a group because they have a lot of their esteem based on their skills and how they show up in the world. They oftentimes feel very, very insecure about even admitting to insecurity.
Let’s discuss a better way to approach these triggers…
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Ingela Onstad is a Performance Anxiety Coach for performing artists and professionals who are in the public eye.
Her coaching business, Courageous Artistry, supports high-performing individuals in their quest to perform at the top of their abilities when in front of the public by working on skills to target voice, body, anxiety management, and mindset.
Ms. Onstad is a board-certified coach, a licensed psychotherapist, and a professional opera singer who has enjoyed a varied international career in opera, concert work, and contemporary music. In addition to her coaching, she maintains an active performing career.
Guest Contact Info:
www.courageousartistry.com.
Facebook: Courageous Artistry
Instagram: @Courageous Artistry
Tik-Tok: Courageous Artistry
LinkedIn: Ingela Onstead
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Allison Contact Info:
Podcast: Intake Training Strategies
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2022/04/01/intake-training-strategies
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:30:39 (37 Seconds)
We fear that if we're not seen as hardworking or that we're not in our desk as long as other people take a lunch break forbid that we will be judged, that we will no longer be successful, that we won't be welcomed into the group. It's so important for us humans, whether we like this or not. It's very important from a biological level to be embedded within community. And this hearkens back to our earliest days in evolution of survival, and we were running with smaller groups or tribes, and had we been kicked out from our group or our tribe that we were with, that could have meant death for us.
What is your worth to this world? I want to give you a five-step process for how to shift your own thoughts around how someone else may be defining your worth and how to segregate what their feelings are of your worth from your feelings of your worth. In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Podcast: Intake Training Strategies
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2022/04/01/intake-training-strategies
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:22:54 (39 Seconds)
If your coach does not believe in you, you need a new coach. Because frankly, if you could on your own set low expectations and achieve on your own the use of product of those low expectations. Why do you need someone else in your, in your ear that you're paying to help keep you at your low expectations? You don't need help to do that, you can do bad by yourself. So it's really important that you not ask other people that you're not involved, other people in your story. Unless they expect more of you than you expect of yourself.
When you offer premium pricing in your law firm, are you including the basics that everyone has come to expect? Raising your prices can elevate you in a whole host of ways. When you raise your prices, there are some people that will simply say, that's not for me, I can't afford it. They will have a belief system that says it's a waste for me to spend a certain amount of money on this product or service.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Podcast: Intake Training Strategies
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2022/04/01/intake-training-strategies
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:17:51 (38 Seconds)
So when I don't receive value, when the value that I am anticipating does not come to me and someone says, Oh yeah, we're going to require you to pay for that, even though at this point I do believe free coffee in a lobby at a hotel is industry standard. You are going to have a perceptual disconnect, right? You're going to give an experience to your, to your client that says we value you except with something that is small and minor and less of an inconvenience and cost to us. We're going to pass it along to you for our own benefit.
Is it odd to always feel like yourself? Absolutely not. While many people do not like the word selling, it is time to reframe our conversation around the word “selling”. I want you to think about this as a purely loving act, something that you're doing for another person. This is going to be the way in which we make money and opportunity moves. You are selling your value to someone who desperately needs it - so sell it to them!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Text Retreat to know more about the upcoming one.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:14:16 (36 Seconds)
At a legal conference I attended where someone said, you know, always be billing was kind of the mindset of the law firm where she worked. That's why she didn't work there anymore. And, and when we asked the question, Well, what does always be billing mean in terms of just every time you sit down, you should, you know, be billing the file, but that doesn't seem problematic. She said, no, no, no. There was breathing for billing or billing for breathing, right? If you're breathing in the vicinity of the file, you should be billing somewhere. If you're breathing in the vicinity of the file, you should be billing somewhere. And you know, obviously, that doesn't comport with my values or, or frankly, the rules of professional conduct in any jurisdiction that I'm aware of.
I've seen commentary on social media lately where people are presupposing that they deserve the best in terms of acquiring employees and resentment about the fact that they're getting what they feel to be less than what they deserve. When there's any type of distress in the marketplace is- there's almost always an inherent lack of mindset that goes into that level of business development. But if the problem around you is lacking, the solution is abundance.
When there's not enough, how do you create more than enough? Tune in and I’ll show you!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
The Four Agreements book - by Don Miguel Ruiz
Text CONNECT at 908 292 3524
https://lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist/
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
Are you saying to your team, I want you here in business casual and then you're showing up looking raggedy? You know, think about that. Think about how you are showing up for your clients. Are your clients getting the best version of you? Are your clients getting the version of you that that's prim and proper? Are, are your clients getting the version of you, that’s smart and tenacious, that's zealous, that's engaged, or are you kind of half assing it or phoning it in? Right? Are you, are you just kind of doing the minimum to get people in the door?
So there's a whole lot that goes into the idea of honoring commitments. Your commitments are not just your commitments to, to agreements that you make, but it's also to really the agreement that you make with yourself as to who you're going to be in this world and what you're going to achieve in this world, how much you're going to accomplish, how many people you're going to help. What is the impact you're going to create, right? When we think about that, when we think about am I creating the impact that I want to in this world? Then it becomes a lot easier for you to say to another person, you made a commitment that you were going to show up in this office in a certain way.
Sometimes there are instances when we need to understand the authority we yield in our business as it relates to clients. But how do we use those communication strategies to manage your clients more effectively?
I'm going to share the top three ways that a proactive attorney can use communication and effectively manage communication in order to get to a better attorney-client relationship. In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm by 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Facebook: Law Firm Mentor Movement
Law Firm Mentor LLC
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:15:24 (29 Seconds)
And I know a lot of lawyers don't understand pricing strategies, don't understand how to make every hire a profitable hire. And so they're afraid that when they had when they hire someone, they're going to run out of money to pay them because they're going to be hiring for convenience rather than hiring for profit. And that is a very realistic truth. You must get to the point where you are hiring for a profit, not just hiring because it feels good, but if you structure it in the right way and this is literally a 15-minute conversation.
Lawyers need an awareness of the different ways that you can integrate your whole self into the business of law. Today my guest is Allyson Scammell, a master intuitive business coach, a psychic medium, and an energy healer. Let’s discuss amplifying your spiritual gifts, activating your big soul mission, and releasing the energy box tethering you down.
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Allyson Scammell is a master intuitive business coach, psychic medium, and energy healer. Her mission is to help soul-guided leaders, influencers, and entrepreneurs get sold out with soul clients by amplifying their spiritual gifts, activating their big soul mission, and releasing the energy blocks tethering them down.
Across the world, Allyson has helped thousands of leaders and
lightworkers to earn more, serve more, and grow spiritually along the way using the Soul Prosperity Pathway - a proven 5-part framework to help soul-guided entrepreneurs create soul client alchemy.
Allyson is the founder of the Soul Guide Academy and well versed in the complexity of discovering one’s soul mission. Using her genuinely unique perspective of the world, she shares priceless wisdom and insight regularly on Soul Guide Radio, a podcast for soul-guided influencers ready to unlock massive soul-aligned success.
Guest Contact Info:
Company name: Allyson Scammell International, LLC
Website URL: www.allysonscammell.com
Email: hello@allysonscammell.com
Phone number: +31(63)886-2142
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soulguidecircle/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allysonscammell/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allysonscammell/
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts - Social Media
LFM Client Avatar Worksheet: https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/avatar
https://AllysonScammell.com
Download the free meditation: https://allysonscammell.com/meditation/
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:25:19 (32 Seconds)
But I tell people all the time being in business is about solving problems. If you're not solving a problem in your business, you're either abdicating or ignoring it or your business is dying because you aren't creating new problems. So we're always in a state of solving problems, and when we are in that state, we have to enjoy the process of solving the problems. But we can't get there when we're in that stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, you know, foggy kind of energy. We really do have to learn the joy and then live the joy through all of the journey.
When we hire someone, we need to train them to fit our system - what is the best way to make sure they are at the level we need them to be? There are five different components of your intake training. Additionally, you need to listen to your intake professional to ensure that they are ultimately getting the job done. In this episode we discuss:
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:21:48 (40 Seconds)
And at some point in time when you as the owner of your firm, handoff to an office administrator, or a lead paralegal, or a managing attorney, or whomever else is going to be overseeing this particular part of your law firm, it's really important that they recognize the incentive that's there for really mastering the pitch. And here's the thing mastering the pitch is only a part of the process. If you don't get to urgency, if you don't ask the right questions and you don't set up your sales conversation in the right way, then when it is time for you to pitch, that pitch is not going to be aligned with the urgency point for that particular prospect.
Contacts - Social Media
LawFirmMentor.net/Intake-Mastery
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Lawyers, despite their best efforts, do disappoint. But how do you handle that disappointment as it relates to your business? Disappointment can push us into reaction mode, and by failing to delegate the people who are supposed to handle certain tasks because we don't trust them, we are capping our ability to grow. We are restricting ourselves from the next iteration of our business, which requires that we perform at our highest level all the time. And we don't get there when we are holding on to things that are frankly below our pay grade.
In this episode we discuss:
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:31:11 (24 Seconds)
I want to allow my mind to just kind of sit with all the opportunities right now. And when you allow yourself to acknowledge the right and wrong of a situation, you develop empathy. Frankly, for other people, that tends to lessen the feeling of disappointment when you allow yourself to process your emotions, process the grief of loss that you feel that you didn't get what you wanted in a moment, but you are going to move forward from that by doing the third thing, which is seeking opportunity.
Contacts - Social Media
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Being decisive is easy, right? Absolutely not, and it takes a lot of effort to decide what is best for you and for your company. Let’s chat about why being decisive is so important, and the framework for actually how to be truly decisive. We must recognize that the power is in the decision because decision is what moves things forward in life, always. In this episode we discuss:
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00: 01: 21 (30 Seconds)
So the first thing is recognizing that the power is in the decision because a decision is what moves things forward in life, always, right? We, we don't, we don't get the goals accomplished that we have set for ourselves without making a choice. We don't create the relationship that we desire, we don't create the business that we desire, we don't make the money that we require, we don't move ourselves forward in life until we decide to do something.
Contacts - Social Media
Crushing Chaos Master Class Register Here: https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
How to be Decisive Podcast - https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2021/08/20/how-to-be-decisive
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
How do we define success in our business? There are many different ways through all the different coaching programs I have studied that help define success. But, the way that I coach our clients here at Law Firm Mentor, is to use this process intentionally to create what you desire faster, easier, and better.
In this episode we discuss:
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:10:33 (30 Seconds)
So we know that the difficulty comes when we go back and forth, right, we know that when we are wishy-washy, when we are not decisive, when we have not made up our mind, when we have told someone yes, but in our mind we've said, Yeah, but I'm still thinking about it, you know? Yeah, I want to. But my mom, my dog, my, my, my dog, groomers, best friends, ex-girlfriends, ex-lover has something to say about it, and I think I just need to lean on that a little bit more or to that today is not the right time, right? It's not the right time, it's not the right moment.
Contacts - Social Media
Crushing Chaos Master Class Register Here: https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
How to be Decisive Podcast - https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2021/08/20/how-to-be-decisive
Power Hour - LFM Movement Group on Facebook every Monday morning.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
What is the value of creating a virtual space that is just yours? What if, instead of relying on other people’s platforms to reach prospective clients, you made your own? Don’t rely on someone else’s infrastructure to grow. Here’s how: In this episode we discuss:
My favorite excerpt from the episode:
TIME: 00:11:37 (36 Seconds)
So it's super important that by virtue of knowing what it is that you desire, that you can put something out that is going to increase the likelihood of a sale or a series of sales, and you have far more control over that when you are on your own platform, then when you are on someone else's platform, because oftentimes when people invite you onto their platform, it is because they want your audience to follow you over to their platform and then they want your audience to take action on their offer, right? Not your offer.
Contacts - Social Media
Crushing Chaos Master Class Register Here: https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
https://meetup.com
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
What are the KPIs we need to hit for our business? Today’s episode is a small overview of the presentation I shared at the ABA Tech Show in early March. In that talk, I discussed how we need to think about different questions we ask to optimize our business. We often dive into solving problems without creating a comprehensive list of items we really have to master. As such, we often fix marginal problems while leaving greater problems, which present much greater opportunities for business growth, on the table. Let’s find the right solution to the problems which are facing your business. In This Episode We Discuss:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:11:17 (38 Seconds)
Well, almost invariably we want you to first start with what is causing the most friction in the business because where you have the greatest amount of friction is typically going to be where your time, your energy, your effort, and your stamina is going. And we don't want you exhausting yourself on today's problem because you're spinning around it rather than just going ahead and solving it. However, a very close second, especially for people who say I've got problems everywhere and I don't know where to start. We tell you you should start where the money is, because the more money you make, the faster in your law firm, the easier you're going to be able to buy yourself solutions.
Contacts - Social Media
Crushing Chaos Master Class Register Here: https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Many of you think that you can’t sell a law firm because it is so reliant on talent. But the reality is that successful law firms continue to provide amazing value.
Let’s discuss the concept of enterprise goodwill and the repeatable processes that will make your business ready to sell.
In This Episode We Discuss:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:01:46 (35 Seconds)
So there's personal reputation, which is your personal goodwill, i.e. that someone would pay value to have you think about personal goodwill being what you bank upon when you change law firms. So if you're working at John Doe's Law Firm and you want to go to Susie's Smith Law Firm, when you interview with Susie Smith, you're going to be selling yourself right. The person becomes the entity value. When you are selling a law firm, your reputation may be a part of the ultimate value that's being purchased.
Contacts - Social Media
Text us Retreat at 908 292 3524
Crushing Chaos Master Class Register Here: https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
There’s nothing more important than consistency in your marketing, and when it comes down to it, that’s just not something that we as lawyers enjoy. Today I’m going to show you how you can use batching techniques to keep your content production quick and consistent.
Let’s discuss 3 key strategies for easily batching your content and creating a marketing bank for your business.
In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:01:28 (34 Seconds)
Now, there are some of you who enjoy marketing, but even as you enjoy it, you know that there are other things. Or at least you perceive that there are other things that are pulling at you as more important. So we need to make sure that when you are thinking about your law firm marketing strategy, you are approaching it from the perspective of creating the outcome that you desire, not simply marketing because you enjoy marketing and not simply choosing to market when it's convenient, but really making a process around your marketing.
Contacts - Social Media
Text us Marketing at 908 292 3524
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Lawyers need an awareness of the different ways that you can integrate your whole self into the business of law. Today my guest is Allyson Scammell, a master intuitive business coach, a psychic medium, and an energy healer. Let’s discuss amplifying your spiritual gifts, activating your big soul mission, and releasing the energy box tethering you down.
In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:25:19 (32 Seconds)
But I tell people all the time being in business is about solving problems. If you're not solving a problem in your business, you're either abdicating or ignoring it or your business is dying because you aren't creating new problems. So we're always in a state of solving problems, and when we are in that state, we have to enjoy the process of solving the problems. But we can't get there when we're in that stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, you know, foggy kind of energy. We really do have to learn the joy and then live the joy through all of the journey.
Guest Bio:
Allyson Scammell is a master intuitive business coach, psychic medium, and energy healer. Her mission is to help soul-guided leaders, influencers, and entrepreneurs get sold out with soul clients by amplifying their spiritual gifts, activating their big soul mission, and releasing the energy blocks tethering them down.
Across the world, Allyson has helped thousands of leaders and lightworkers to earn more, serve more, and grow spiritually along the way using the Soul Prosperity Pathway - a proven 5-part framework to help soul-guided entrepreneurs create soul client alchemy.
Allyson is the founder of the Soul Guide Academy and is well versed in the complexity of discovering one’s soul mission. Using her genuinely unique perspective of the world, she shares priceless wisdom and insight regularly on Soul Guide Radio, a podcast for soul-guided influencers ready to unlock massive soul-aligned success.
Guest Contact Info:
Company name: Allyson Scammell International, LLC
Website URL: www.allysonscammell.com
Email: hello@allysonscammell.com
Phone number: +31(63)886-2142
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soulguidecircle/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allysonscammell/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allysonscammell/
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Contacts - Social Media
LFM Client Avatar Worksheet: https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/avatar
https://AllysonScammell.com
Download the free meditation: https://allysonscammell.com/meditation/
What is a multiplier? (And I’m not talking about math) I mean someone who attracts talent, liberates employees to do their best to make decisions and a leader who invests in human capital. I want you to think about how you engage with other people on your team. Let’s discuss how your leadership qualities either contribute to or detract from your team's ability to excel and become their best selves.
In This Episode We Discuss:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
00:23:44 (41 Seconds)
The public criticism comes in the form of things like publicly rolling your eyes when someone says something, or if someone asks you a question that you think is a stupid question or you're tired that you have to answer it over again because you've already had this conversation with them and you kind of give the heavy sigh the, all right. This is what the answer is, right? Even though you're not directly criticizing the person, your actions, your words, your body posture, all of that communicates that you are not pleased with the person who's communicating with you.
Book: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman
Register for our FREE Masterclass: https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Text us CONNECT at 908 292 3524
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Many people are struggling with how to create and sustain a positive culture in a virtual law firm. Today I want to give you some clear strategies you can use to create and sustain an intentional culture within your firm that will thrive within a virtual business. Let’s discuss how you can nurture effective communication and become a better leader. In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:20:00 (32 Seconds)
What daily connects are, is you should, we've talked about having defined communication strategies and policies in your law firm, you need to have defined time for people to stop and talk about their work. So that delegation is not something that happens kind of on the fly when I'm running from thing to thing and I got to get it off my desk. But instead, you stop and you have meetings with your team to delegate work. You have time where you are meeting with people in the office to talk about big-picture strategy in your department.
Contacts - Social Media
Text us CONNECT - 908 292 3524
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Have you ever felt ineffective and burnt out? It can be difficult for anyone, and lawyers especially, to wrap our minds around the difference between burnout and stress. And it can be incredibly tricky to find a solution to either when we receive so much praise for how much stress and work we can take on. It is our job to take on part of the client's burden.
Let’s discuss how to frame the job of being a lawyer in a positive manner so that you can stay effective.
In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:07:04 (32 Seconds)
I knew that I was experiencing burnout in my law practice many years ago when a client called me and we had a scheduled call, but she called me and we ended up talking about pick up and drop off. I'm a family law attorney, pick up and drop off of her child and where the location was going to be. And I handled the matter and spoke with the client, but I remember getting off the phone and thinking, who gives a shit? And that was a very unfeeling, unkind thought that I had.
Contacts - Social Media
Text us CONNECT - 908 292 3524
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Do you deserve your success? When we first heard of imposter syndrome, it was associated with the overachieving woman who joined the workforce when it was a hostile environment for women. But, if we extrapolate out the issue, we find that today, this issue affects both men and women equally and is very common in lawyers. So, let’s discuss the characteristics that could be stemming from your imposter syndrome and how you can overcome them. In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:35:44 (35 Seconds)
And so oftentimes what's underneath the surface of people that can't see that, is this idea of luck. And what I tell people is there's no luck in business, right? I know that. I know that people like to hold on to the idea that some of us just get lucky. No, I didn't get lucky. I worked hard. But it isn't even that I just worked hard it's that I worked hard at the right things. That's really the key, the formula, right? It's working hard at the right things, and it's not landing at success. It's not arriving at success or happening upon success.
Contacts - Social Media
Weekly LIVE Show every Thursday at Noon in Law Firm Mentor Movement on Facebook and Law Firm Mentor Movement on LinkedIn.
How to Be Decisive Podcast
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2021/08/20/how-to-be-decisive
Manifesting like a Motherf**ker Podcast https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2021/09/24/manifesting-like-a-motherfker
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Do you want to invite in more work? Welcome back to part three of Law Firm KPIs where I’ll show you how to improve the ways you serve your clients. Here are three straightforward methods to optimize how you expand your work. In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:23:18 (33 Seconds)
So sometimes the way that we would involve a client was simply to tell them, You know, this is what my plan is for court. Are you on board with that? And the client says I'd rather pay you to spend time with me, talk me through, etc. Or even there's got to be some compromise. I don't want to just be seen, greeted, and then have you disappear. You can actually start to finagle some, some better results there.
Contacts - Social Media
The Crushing Chaos Master Class-
To sign up and get more information about our Legal Sales for Lawyers and Non-Lawyers Online Course Text SALES at 908 292 3524.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Are you really doing the work? Welcome back to part two of Law Firm KPIs, where I'll show you how tracking your metrics will optimize and automate your business. To ensure that you are moving a case from start to finish as efficiently and profitably as possible. In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:23:18 (33 Seconds)
What a lot of people do, however, is they completely disregard that metric altogether, and they simply go with gut and they say, Well, right now I feel really busy. Sometimes feeling really busy is as a result of being really mentally disorganized and having a lot of thoughts running through your head and a lot of obligations that you don't have effectively managed on a calendar or a task management system or a CRM. And so you're in somewhat of an inner chaos that now makes you feel that you are overloaded on work. And it's times like that that people will go out and hire.
Contacts - Social Media
Book: Simple Numbers by Greg Crabtree
To sign up and get more information about our Legal Sales for Lawyers and Non-Lawyers Online Course Text SALES at 908 292 3524.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Do you want to break free of the revenue rollercoaster that holds back so many law firms? It's a challenging task for those of us who are concerned about the quality of care we can provide for our clients and employees—often neglecting many things that would make the business and everyone's experience with it much better. Here are three categories of KPIs that will help you overcome just that!
In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:24:26 (33 Seconds)
Well, people fail to show up for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's about how comfortable they are with the person on the phone. Sometimes it's about the fact that they paid or did not pay for the consult. Ding, ding ding. By the way, if you are giving away free consultations, I urge you to stop. I know that there are a couple of practice areas where you are by statute, required to, or by industry, you feel compelled to. However, you tend to get a much higher show-up rate on people that are paying to actually come to the Consult.
Contacts - Social Media
Our website: www.lawfirmmentor.net
To sign up and get more information about our Legal Sales for Lawyers and Non-Lawyers Online Course Text SALES at 908 292 3524.
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Text Retreat to know more about the upcoming retreat.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
LinkedIn is a golden opportunity for lawyers seeking to uplevel your clientele. Today I'm going to show you that LinkedIn is not just somewhere to find a job or public speaking gigs. You can find clients there, but the way that most lawyers use LinkedIn is counterproductive. Let's discuss some strategies to uplevel your social media performance.
In this episode we discussed:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:12:15 (31 Seconds)
Now, I highly recommend results marketing no matter what right? A client, a prospect is going to be much more excited by reading that you were, that you have one more than a dozen trials with verdicts over a million dollars. That's much more impressive than we've represented hundreds of people with great results, right? The more specific the outcome and the more desirable the outcome, the more clarity that a person has that your outcome is also the same as their desired outcome.
Social MediaRegister for the Immediate Cash Injection Webinar on February 10, 2022!
https://bit.ly/LFM-CashNow
Video Marketing: The Dawn of Lead Generation Podcast:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2020/05/12/video-marketing-the-dawn-of-lead-generation
Simon Sinek TED Talk: Start with the Why.
Simon Sinek TED Talk: Find your Why.
Text MARKETING at 908 292 3524 to sign up for the Online Accelerator Course.
Contact Me:
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Text Retreat to know more about the upcoming one.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist/
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
There are a lot of misconceptions that people have about owning a law firm as a business because they focus on just doing well in their practice. The lawyering part you know already, but owning a law firm and knowing the cold hard truths of what it takes to be successful takes an entirely new perspective. Many people will give you the wrong advice because they don't want to shock you with reality, but not me. In this episode, I want to talk about the cold hard truths of being the owner of a law firm and the journey of transcending the business to become the CEO you envision. In this episode we discuss:
Social Media
www.LawFirmMentor.net
Contact Me:
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Text Retreat to know more about the upcoming one.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Owning a business is chaos (I’ve been there). As a CEO without a full team or the resources to build one, the work can just seem to pile up. Let’s chat about my 4-quadrant system that will put your work into the right context so you can get more done, and find a team that connects with you. In this episode I discuss:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:30:23 (31 Seconds)
I'm a big proponent of cleaning off our desk at the end of the week so that all that stuff that's accumulated can go into the categorization, and do so in a way that gives you a release of the stress of, Oh my God, look at all this stuff on my desk. But, assuming that you didn't even get to it, the category D stuff is probably not going to blow up, even if you didn't look at it, right? The category A stuff is the stuff you always want to be, you know, insight and in mind. Right? You don't want to be stressed over it, but you do want to be aware of it.
Social Media
www.LawFirmMentor.net
Contact Me:
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Text Retreat to know more about the upcoming one.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
You have probably heard the saying, “the best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago. The second best time is today.” There is so much truth in this proverb and it applies perfectly to how we handle delays, and negative mindsets in our law firm. Let’s chat about how you can approach problem-solving in your business. In this episode I discuss:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:08:16 (34 Seconds)
So if you start creating rules that you don't enforce, the next thing that happens is people learn from you. Ah, when she says there's a new rule, it really is a conditional rule. It's a rule that exists if I feel like following it, or it's a rule that exists if there's no exigent circumstance or it's a rule that exists, but I can override it if something really important comes up. So the delay in your choice to address that problem has allowed those seeds of miseducation to seep into your team.
Social Media
How to Be Decisive Podcast:
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2021/08/20/how-to-be-decisive
The Seven Strategies to Achieve Rapid Growth in Your Law
Firm in 2022.
https://fb.me/e/4Seq24lvW
Contact Me:
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Text Retreat to know more about the upcoming one.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University. In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining, and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications, and money management in law firms.
Don't think you have a sales job? Think again. You are ALWAYS selling. You're selling yourself to your clients, your employees, and everyone else around you all the time. Let's chat about how to leverage this mindset to maximize your benefit.
In this episode I discuss:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode:
TIME: 00:14:16 (36 Seconds)
At a legal conference I attended where someone said, you know, always be billing was kind of the mindset of the law firm where she worked. That's why she didn't work there anymore. And, and when we asked the question, Well, what does always be billing mean in terms of just every time you sit down, you should, you know, be billing the file, but that doesn't seem problematic. She said, no, no, no. There was breathing for billing or billing for breathing, right? If you're breathing in the vicinity of the file, you should be billing somewhere. If you're breathing in the vicinity of the file, you should be billing somewhere. And you know, obviously, that doesn't comport with my values or, or frankly, the rules of professional conduct in any jurisdiction that I'm aware of.
Contact Me:
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Text Retreat to know more about the upcoming one.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
What do you do when you hire a person that does not fit your needs? Don’t fret - it happens! Let’s figure out how to fix it and review actions you can take to avoid this pitfall in the future.
In this episode I discuss:
My Favorite Excerpt From The Episode
TIME: 00:14:54 (41 Seconds)
Debriefing is not from a place of beating yourself up. It's not about making you wrong or making them wrong. It's simply asking the question Why did this person work well here? Why did this person not work well here? And sometimes those answers are going to be self-evident, right? Sometimes there were some huge red flags that you saw that you just chose to ignore because you were desperate. But a lot of times there are things that you didn't even know that you needed until that person came into your company and you saw, Oh yes, we absolutely have to have someone who has X. And when a person does not have X, that person is not going to be effective for us in the business.
Book To Reference:
The Four Agreements
by: Don Miguel Ruiz
Contact Me:
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Text Retreat to know more about the upcoming one.
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Do you have problems maintaining a positive culture in a rapidly growing company? Unfortunately, there can be a lot of dysfunction in a business that expands quickly, especially in situations where the owner is not physically present with the team.
In this week's episode of the Law Firm Mentor Podcast, I want to give you some positive cultural idioms that you can use to structure your business. Allowing you to work from anywhere at any time and still give your employees their lane.
It's an incredible thing to embolden and empower your team, and by the end of this episode, you'll see how you can even have them performing above and beyond their expectations. Let's eliminate these problems before you feel the need to abandon ship.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
The LFM Scorecard
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wz5xhyu7awogpet/Culture%20Score%20Card.docx?dl=0
Webinar on January 13th - Seven Strategies to Achieve Rapid Growth in Your Law Firm in 2022: https://bit.ly/LFM-7Strategies
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 31:09 (36 Seconds)
And if you want to be away from your office, whether it's not working or working, you have to create an environment where you as the leader, if you're still going to own the entity and be anything more than a silent shareholder, you as the leader have to be intentional about leadership. So that means while you are off somewhere, you need to have someone on somewhere in your business, and if you're not going to have someone on somewhere, you have to be strategic about placing yourself in different places in order to make sure that your presence is felt.
The beautiful thing is that with a new year, we get new opportunities to change the way that we're looking at the world, change what we are doing to bring about new opportunities in the world. I wanted to share with you some of the things that we have coming up here at Law Firm Mentor that is going to help you to do just that. Actually, look at your business differently and create better results than you have already created for yourself.
So our first webinar of the year is going to be on Thursday, January 13th, and you're going to find that webinar information in the show notes. You can click on the link to it in our show notes, but it is Seven strategies to Achieve Rapid Growth in your Law Firm in 2022.
You have heard me say before, more money, more free time, right? More money comes from marketing and sales, the more free time comes from people and systems. So here at Law Firm Mentor, we help lawyers with marketing, sales, people, and systems. In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
The Crushing Chaos Podcast: Why your Facebook Ads may not be working.
https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2021/08/13/why-your-facebook-ads-may-not-be-working
The Crushing Chaos Podcast: How to Be Decisive. https://www.lawfirmmentor.net/podcast/2021/08/20/how-to-be-decisive
Video: How Law Firm Mentor DOUBLED in One Year. https://youtu.be/GQ52LiDuxt4
Webinar on January 27th - Seven Strategies to Achieve Rapid Growth in Your Law Firm in 2022: https://bit.ly/LFM-7Strategies
Text Us at 908 292 3524
Book a Session with our Growth Strategists
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 09: 21 (33 Seconds)
So teaching is something that I naturally feel I have a gift for. I've been told I have a gift for it and it's something that I personally enjoy. So I want to fill my life, fill my business, fill my time with things that I enjoy, and I also want to be able to use the information that I have, the information that helps lawyers in my own community, my existing clients, as well as lawyers who find Law Firm Mentor and say, Yeah, I want some of that. I want you to have the ability to consume the content in a way that I think is going to be most powerful and effective for you to implement.
I've seen commentary on social media lately where people are presupposing that they deserve the best in terms of acquiring employees and resentment about the fact that they're getting what they feel to be less than what they deserve.
When there's any type of distress in the marketplace is- there's almost always an inherent lack mindset that goes into that level of business development. But if the problem around you is lack, the solution is abundance.
When there's not enough, how do you create more than enough? Tune in and I’ll show you!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
The Four Agreements book - by Don Miguel Ruiz
Text CONNECT at 908 292 3524
https://lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist/
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 09: 35 (36 Seconds)
Are you saying to your team, I want you here in business casual and then you're showing up looking raggedy? You know, think about that. Think about how you are showing up for your clients. Are your clients getting the best version of you? Are your clients getting the version of you that that's prim and proper? Are, are your clients getting the version of you, that’s smart and tenacious, that's zealous, that's engaged, or are you kind of half assing it or phoning it in? Right? Are you, are you just kind of doing the minimum to get people in the door?
00:17:43 (38 Seconds)
So there's a whole lot that goes into the idea of honoring commitments. Your commitments are not just your commitments to, to agreements that you make, but it's also to really the agreement that you make with yourself as to who you're going to be in this world and what you're going to achieve in this world, how much you're going to accomplish, how many people you're going to help. What is the impact you're going to create, right? When we think about that, when we think about am I creating the impact that I want to in this world? Then it becomes a lot easier for you to say to another person, you made a commitment that you were going to show up in this office in a certain way.
Who does what in your law firm? There are many different roles in law firms, and I think most people conceptually understand the distinction between a lawyer and a paralegal and a legal assistant and a file clerk.
There are three categories of behavior required in every law firm, finders, minders and grinders. I’m sure you’ve heard of these before, but I wanted to give a perceptual frame for them that might be a little different than what you've heard before.
It’s so important as a solo law firm owner that you divorce yourself from at least some of these roles.
Tune in to learn how!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
MasterClass December 8th
Text CONNECT at 908 292 3524
https://lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist/
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 19: 02 (38 Seconds)
So I remember I recently had a conversation. Very good friend of mine decided that she was going to phase out of practicing law in the way that she is. She doesn't, she no longer has her law firm open, and we had a lot of conversations about what she wanted to do with it. Did she want to sell it? Did you just want to close it? Like, what? What is the process? And so just kind of being alongside her as she was going through that process, I learned a lot about valuation of law firms. Now, as a matrimonial attorney and family law attorney for many years, I of course knew about valuations of businesses and periodically we would have a client who owned a law firm.
With the holiday season quickly approaching, we here at the Law Firm Mentor have been very busy preparing for a new year! Enjoy this Replay of one of my most favorite, thought provoking episodes.
I have seen quite a bit of commentary in the Law Firm Mentor movement about hiring lately and mental blocks to hiring. I feel many develop those mental blocks to hiring because of the problems that they encounter with employees once they are on-board. So, today I wanted to give you a framework for thinking about the failure of your employees.
We know that getting the wrong people in in the first place is almost always going to ensure that you won't be successful with your employees. But do you have someone who you can remediate or do you need to start the process over again? This framework will help you remove all of the guesswork and make a clear plan.
Tune in!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Please note this recording references the Crushing Chaos Masterclass the week of May 10th. 00:20:12
Need a link to the next set of classes December 6-14, 2021 https://lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:16:16 (48 Seconds)
Don't take it personally that they're not complying with the rule, because when you go into your feelings and make it about how you're being disrespected or how you're not getting what you desire or how you have told this person over and over again and the person's not doing it, when you start making those stories real in your mind, what tends to happen is you shut down in your problem solving ability and you stop looking for what is the real reason and start assuming that your thoughts about the situation are the real reason why the employee is not complying. So that means you could very easily sternly punish or ultimately terminate someone who is not complying for reasons that could easily have been ameliorated if you had been willing to be open to have a conversation.
00:18:12 (43 Seconds)
They haven't learned from you that the way you want it done is non-negotiable. So I don't say this to mean that you need to have a stern corrective conversation where you get your finger out and stick it at them and say this is non-negotiable because I'm the boss. I'm talking about an error of how we systematize. OK, so what is really, really important when we talk about employees is that there be a cultural imperative for how we do things. Even if you have not set that tone, had that conversation reorganized activity around that conversation, your employees are still picking up from the ether how things are happening in this business.
How do you do all of the work that is mounting on your desk when you don't have a full team or lack the resources to be able to assemble a team?
Many lawyers often say to themselves, “I have too much and I'm not yet at the place where I can hire.” Almost invariably that's the wrong assumption, but that's the belief system at that moment.
So I wanted to share with you all a four-quadrant system that I created that helps people to understand how to put their work in the proper context while they have too much work to do.
Tune in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
www.LawFirmMentor.net
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 30: 23 (31 Seconds)
I'm a big proponent of cleaning off our desk at the end of the week so that all that stuff that's accumulated can go into the categorization, and do so in a way that gives you a release of the stress of, Oh my God, look at all this stuff on my desk. But, assuming that you didn't even get to it, the category D stuff is probably not going to blow up, even if you didn't look at it, right? The category A stuff is the stuff you always want to be, you know, in sight and in mind. Right? You don't want to be stressed over it, but you do want to be aware of it.
In today’s episode I talk about law firm scholarships. Recently, I remember seeing a post where someone raised the question about how to create a law firm scholarship. This individual had seen a lot about them and thought, “Hey, this seems like a really cool idea, and I want to help our local high school community.” So, in essence this scholarship would be a philanthropic tool used to help this person’s small town. I loved that idea!
I’d like to share with that person and then ultimately share with you guys some of the thoughts around these scholarships and how to use them for the greatest good in your law firm.
Tune in to learn more about creating impactful law firm scholarships!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
www.LawFirmMentor.net
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 08: 45 (36 Seconds)
Now, unfortunately, higher education is notoriously bad at promoting all the different available options or scholarships for students. In fact, I remember at one point in time I was helping my cousin. She's now a young woman in her late 20s, but I remember I was helping her to apply to go to college. And one of the things that was astounding to me was the fact that there was an entire service dedicated to helping high school students learn what scholarships were available. And I said, well, wouldn't we get that information when she gets into the different colleges? And the answer was yes and no.
Today I am talking about crushing the chaos in your client communications. I want to direct your attention to the idea of automating as many of your client communications as possible. I realize that automating client communications can be a cringe-worthy topic for many lawyers. There is a belief system that says, “Hey, I can't automate communications! There's a relationship component that's really where those increased referrals come from.”
Yes, client communication gives you an opportunity to be a rock star, but lawyers are learning that there's a differentiation that comes from having a really solid communications process for your clients.
Tune in to find out exactly what the difference is.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
www.LawFirmMentor.net
Client Avatar Podcast – Who Are Your Clients? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l7MI7JUL_4
How To Deal with Difficult Clients Podcast – Keep Your Difficult Clients?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx8kqWXE3cI
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 21: 27 (31 Seconds)
You know, whatever it is that you do, I want you to be thinking about your communications with your client as a way of doing three things. One, helping them to feel so supported by the level of education, information, guidance, and support you're offering that you're offering something in excess of what is minimally required by your retainer agreement. OK? You should always be looking to overdeliver for the value you're charging a client. Second, think about it as a way to generate more work from the existing client, right?
In today’s episode, I’m talking about firing your family from your law firm. I know I have talked about the need for us to really have very clear boundaries with those that we employ so that we can get optimal performance out of our team, and how that is particularly necessary when you have family members in your law firm. Today, I want to expound upon that a little bit because I know that there are several people out there who started off their law firm not having a whole lot of revenue, not having a whole lot of clients. As a result, they had their spouse, or another family member, come into their law firm to provide some much-needed assistance.
I don't want to say that working with family never works. There is definitely a positive element to having family members in your law firm. But I want to talk about, in particular, the challenge of firing your family because so many people I know are contemplating that, and/or have already gone down that road- and there have been ripple effects.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
www.LawFirmMentor.net
https://lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist/
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 03:00 (48 Seconds)
The reality is, if your mom screws something up, it is going to be more challenging for another employee who might be inclined normally to come to you as the saving grace and say, Hey boss, I wanted to let you know that the new girl in aisle four has just messed up X, Y, Z. She's probably not going to say that if the new girl is your mom right, or if it is, if the relationship is the other way around. If you have had mom here for years and someone comes in, that person is going to have a different attitude toward your relatives than they might have toward just any other employee. And this doesn't have to be inherently bad, but it tends to be... not universal. But it tends to be that when somebody comes into a workplace, they are always looking for the hierarchy, right?
In today’s episode I talk about law firm retreats. For me, this is a fun topic because I love talking about what we can do to up-level our law firms.
Even though I spend a lot of time talking about solving the problems of our law firms, I know that there are plenty of people who listen to this podcast and already have a fully systematized law firm. These firms aren’t necessarily perfect or running at top speed, but they’re established enough for law firm owners to feel comfortable enough to begin planning how to take their firms to the next level.
I've been asked recently how to create a law firm retreat, who should be involved, and how to make it a great experience. So, that's what I'll cover today.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
www.LawFirmMentor.net
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 09: 44 (38 Seconds)
But one of the challenges that we encountered as of March of 2020 when we could no longer have live retreats at least immediately, we were legally barred from having live retreats. Now there's some logistical challenges with us having live retreats is that we had to move ourselves on to having a virtual experience. And a lot of people, after they started using Zoom for the first time, a lot of lawyers were not using Zoom, except for the occasional meeting here or there, but they certainly didn't live on Zoom. It became a real struggle to try to tell someone that you're going to have a good experience when you sit on a virtual platform for hours, and hours, and hours on end.
This episode is dedicated to the topic of success. It was originally recorded and published in May 2021, so if you’re new to my podcast, I’m bringing this one back just for you.
Several of us as solo and small law firm attorneys want success, and we all have these grandiose thoughts about what success looks like. But then, we see people that we perceive to be successful who are not living that for themselves. Instead, they are working 80-90 hours a week. They're exhausted, moody, or may even have health problems. They may have just a negative disposition about life. We begin to think that you can’t experience both success and freedom.
Sometimes we're pursuing success and sometimes we're pursuing rest and relaxation, as if those two things run counter to each other. But I want to give you a framework today to actually see success very differently so that you'll be able to create success easier, faster and with more ease along the path.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
https://lawfirmmentor.net/speak-with-a-growth-strategist/
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:02:45 (49 Seconds)
So what does it mean to get to that easy way of creating success? Well, this is going to sound really, really, really offensive. So please promise me that you're going to stick around for a couple of minutes after I say this. Don't tune me out right away. But the easiest way to create success is simply to create the vision. Now, whenever I tell lawyers that all you have to do is envision what your success will look like, I get a lot of eye rolls, I get a lot of tuning out. I get kind of the blank stare. So I want to tell you what I mean by that, and why it's so important that that's where we start.
00:09:13 (36 Seconds)
You start creating all of the excuses, all of the rationalizations as to why you can't have what you want before you actually seek what you want. So it's important that you actually seek what you want first and hold firm to that vision and let your energy go behind what you want so that that's what expands in your life. OK, after you've created the vision, the next thing is, the part that's not so sexy is creating the plan. You have to plan the eventuality that you're going to have this life.
Today we are sharing a previously recorded episode that is just as timely as it was when it was first recorded. In it I wanted to talk about the need for growth and how it ties into the subject of intake.
You want more clients and more money, which means you need to grow.
However, growth is often destabilizing.
How can you and your law firm successfully work through the ‘growing pains’? Stay tuned to find out!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Allison references that the scheduler will be in the show notes to reach out and schedule time to speak with a member of our team.
https://go.oncehub.com/LawFirmMentor
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:43:44 Allison Williams (50 Seconds)
The fifth reason why growth is a necessity in business is that most entrepreneurs do not burn out from doing more. They burn out from accomplishing less. Ok, hear me when I say this, I'm going to say it again, because I think it's one of the most profound things that you can come to terms with as a law firm owner. Most entrepreneurs don't burn out from doing more. They burn out from accomplishing less. Ok, think about that for a moment. It's not really that we are tired, that we are kind of chasing our tails, if you will. A lot of people don't mind putting in the work if they're getting somewhere. It's that emotionally deflating feeling of putting in the work year over year over year without having that return on the investment of your time, that you're putting in, and what you're getting out is a few pennies more.
Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Melissa Houston, chartered professional accountant, a CPA, a financial strategist for CEOs, columnist for Forbes.com, and the host of the Business Society Podcast.
Melissa helps successful business owners increase their profit margins without having to increase revenue so that they keep more money in their pocket while increasing their personal wealth.
As business owners, we have to be very mindful of getting the information that we need from a source that we trust, but also in a way that we are able to use it. We're expected to be badass in business the way that we are badass in law. But the reality is finance is an entire industry and none of us should feel bad about ourselves because we don't know what we don't know, right?
Melissa Houston is a reliable source to inform, tune in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Melissa Houston is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA). a Financial Strategist for CEOs, a columnist at Forbes.com, and the host of The Business Society podcast. Melissa helps successful business owners increase their profit margins without having to increase revenue so that they keep more money in their pocket while increasing their personal wealth.
Melissa has over 20 years of business experience with large and small
corporations, government, and not-for-profit industries while specializing in Internal Controls, corporate accounting, budgets, financial reporting, corporate & personal tax, audit, and SR&ED. Melissa enjoys helping business owners build their businesses by increasing their financial management skills. Your numbers are telling you a story - make sure you are listening to it.
Melissa's passion is helping business owners go from 6-figure to 7-figure businesses and achieving their personal financial dreams.
When Melissa isn't helping entrepreneurs become better CEO's of their business, she can be found at the cottage with her husband Jamie, two teen children, and three dogs.
Contact info:
Five-Step Roadmap to Biz Finance Freedom is available on the Website
Website: www.melissahoustoncpa.com
Forbes Contributions: www.forbes.com/sites/melissahouston/ ?sh=4de028d25ee8
Email: info@)melissahoustoncpa.com
Twitter: /melissahcpa
Facebook: /melissa.houston.1420354
lnstagram: /melissahoustoncpa/
Linkedln: /melissahcpa
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 20: 14 (30. Seconds)
And I especially see it with my clients that are lawyers as well is that when they come to me, there's a lot of shame and a lot of, you know, just feeling bad about themselves because they're like, I'm such a smart person. How do I not understand how to manage my money, right? And it's not that you're not smart. It's because, you know, your life centered around becoming a lawyer. I'm pretty sure nobody taught you how to run a business when you're trying to study for the bar exam, right?
Is it October already? Seeing as the holidays are quickly approaching, it seemed appropriate to replay an episode from December 2020.
This episode is one that I think you're going to get plenty of value out of because even though the topic is sabbatical, and you may or may not have even thought about the possibility, let alone the desire of taking a sabbatical.
Freedom to be able to take a sabbatical implicates a lot of different moving pieces in a law firm. I want to go over some of the key things that you have to do in order to achieve that sabbatical so that whether you want to have one for yourself or not, you can step freely away from your business for an extended amount of time knowing that the business will still run without you.
In this episode we discuss:
Contemplating the possibility of being able to take time away from your law firm.
A list of specific things you absolutely need in place to be able to have your firm run without you and continue to generate income.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:39:43
Now, if you personally are struggling with taking time away from your law firm and you really want to get to a place where you can even just take an extended vacation more than a week away, you have to get these things lined up. And there's a very specific way that you can do this that does not involve stress or agita. It involves directing your attention to different activity than those that you're currently doing. Because at the end of the day, we are the product of our choices. You don't like the result you have in your law firm, you can make a different choice and we can help you do that.
In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with John Hinson of Spotlight Branding. We had a really great conversation about marketing, but not from your usual perspective.
I think a lot of times when we, as law firm owners, want to solve a problem, we literally want to press a button and poof our marketing works, or we want to hire someone that we can just hand them a check and say, here, you go do the marketing thing while I go practice law - and that's how my business will grow. But John actually teaches and promotes a way of being more strategic with your marketing, fixing things that are kinks in your funnel.
I can’t wait for you to apply some of these gems to your own business! Stay tuned!
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
John Hinson is an author, podcast host, and Marketing Manager at Spotlight Branding and has spent the last several years helping law firms grow by maximizing their referrals and attracting the right kind of clients. He is the host of The Law Firm Marketing Minute and Center Stage, two popular podcasts dedicated to helping lawyers and other white-collar professionals overcome marketing and business development challenges that they face while running their own firm.
He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and small business owners build marketing systems and internal processes that help their businesses run smoothly and achieve their growth goals.
John received his Master’s degree from East Carolina University. In his free time, he has written and published more than 15 books on lesser known historical events and built a website documenting over 200 waterfalls along the Appalachian Mountains.
Contact info:
John Hinson - SpotlightBranding.com/solo – Free Resources
Website URL: www.spotlightbranding.com
Email: john@spotlightbranding.com
Phone Number: 17046432238
Facebook url: https://www.facebook.com/spotlightbranding
Twitter Username: @SpotlightLawyer
LinkedIn url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2379244/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPWwPRr0bqxZgflPgkgcebg
Instagram username: @SpotlightLawyer
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:17:59 (43 Seconds)
John Hinson: And just, it makes it so that people understand, OK, this you're the lawyer for the job. This is what you cover. This is how you can help. And we've seen that just doing that, that simple little strategy right there. You know, our clients come back to us. Every email they send out multiple requests for new business or repeat business or referrals or anything like that every single month.
Allison Williams: Yeah. Well, I think what you're saying right here is just pure gold because I think a lot of lawyers don't start the process of content marketing because they think, OK, great. Now I have to sit down and download my brain and write a legal treatise, and they want to put five thousand details in. And I always say less is more here, right? You're not, you're not speaking to a judge, you're speaking to a person who just needs to know that you know what you're talking about.
In today’s episode I’m talking about law firm PTSD - which can be defined as that very tricky, undiagnosed mental health disorder that is seen when we are dealing with a new employee who's come into our company and is still suffering the effects of their residuals from their previous employer.
Now I know a lot of you have had experiences where you bring in a new employee and you're really excited to work with them as soon as they come in. But pretty soon in the process, you start to see some pretty unnerving behaviors, right? You start to see that the person is really jumpy or highly defensive, or the person seems to be terrified of doing anything without asking 15 different ways if they're doing the right thing.
I want you to consider that there are a lot of things that can cause that level of distress in a person. We're going to talk about what some of those are. But for the most part, I want you to just give yourselves the gift of saying that how these people move in the world, what their experience is when they first come into your business is something that you can respond to in a way that gives them a better experience and increases the likelihood that they will stay with you as an employee.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Book The Four Agreements- Don Miguel Ruiz
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 15: 30 (38 Seconds)
Well, the one thing you would never want to do is to break that person's spirit, if you will, by becoming Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? You don't want to be one person all day, every day, and then as soon as that one person is tired of it and frustrated with whatever the employee did, you snap and you become someone else. Because that lack of consistency is going to say to them that the problem is much worse than they believed it to be, that whatever they have going on, they're now at greater risk.
In today’s episode I’m asking you all “who are your clients”?
I've gotten a lot of questions recently about how to serve clients, take care of oneself and family, while creating financial wealth? It's almost like the idea of helping people who are poor is so foreign to the legal profession that people who want to do that work also assume that what comes along with the legal profession is affluence, abundance, financial success. It's not true, but that's the perception.
This leads to the thought that, “if I do anything outside of what's customarily done in the legal profession, if I go outside of serving the rich, I really can't make myself money,” and that is absolutely false.
Tune in and I’ll explain why.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
LawFirmMentor.net/Avatar
LawFirmMentor.net/Masterclass
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 22: 02 (36 Seconds)
I wanted the person to see how the belief system was not a healthy one. Right. So we talked about self-interest in the fact that all people are driven to help other people out of self-motivation, right? Even when you are genuinely thinking about other people as you are standing at the soup kitchen or as you are leaving an extra-generous tip or as you are dropping off clothes to the Goodwill right. You're doing that for someone else, but do not believe that you are not also doing it for yourself.
As we continue coming off of the high of our one-hundredth episode, today I’m bringing you a throwback to one of our most popular episodes.
This episode is entitled “It Has to Be Me and Other Myths in Law Firms”. This is definitely one of my favorite episodes, and obviously you guys share the same sentiment because this is our most downloaded episode!
I think this episode continues to get more traction because the message really resonates with lawyers that believe that they started off in business with the mindset of ‘it has to be me, I have to be the smartest, I have to be the most capable, I have to be the most diligent, the most on top of things’. And then at some point, most importantly, in that evolution of growing from practice owner to business owner, the law firm owner recognizes that in order to create a sustainable business that isn't built on the back of the owner, it really does require expertise beyond the owner.
Enjoy this flashback and let us know if any of your favorite myths were busted in today’s episode!
In this episode we discuss:
Adjusting your belief system about who is supposed to do what in your law firm.
Clients hiring you as the lawyer versus hiring the law firm.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:15:42 - About 50 Seconds
OK, what I said to her was this, I believe lawyer that you believe this, that people come for you, and I believe that many people do come to a law firm for you. But I also believe that because you believe this, that you structure your business in a certain way. You communicate about your law firm in a certain way. Your marketing messages are characterized in this certain way. You speak to your clients about their cases in a certain way. You hire people to facilitate work in your law firm with this certain way in mind. Listen, people want what they want, until you show them that there is something better for them to want. So here's an example of that.
00:15:45 – About 57 Seconds
If you have a desire for something greater than yourself and you are driven toward that ego gratifying activity, that's what makes brilliant trial lawyers. Right? I don't know any of them that do it for their health or do it for... Some of them do it for the contribution, but right there, there's also a very real ego component that goes along with it. So you have that desire to create. And as you create in your business and as you create in your profession, your ego is stroked. Ok. The ego stroking that comes from being the lawyer is a certain amount. It is a much bigger ego stroke to have a large entity of other people who are also exceptional, doing things alongside you, and only have that opportunity because you created what you created.
Having just come off of the high of our 100th episode, I thought it would be fun to share a quick throwback to our very first episode.
I want you to recognize that we have always been committed to bringing you top quality information and strategies that you can use in your law firm right now to grow from a solopreneur to a company that ultimately can run without you.
My very first episode was really a raw, uncut version of me, unfiltered with one of my favorite people in the world who owns Blue Shark Digital, which is a marketing company specific to lawyers created by a very successful lawyer - Mr. Seth Price.
I hope you enjoy taking this trip down memory lane with me!
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
An accomplished attorney and transformational thought leader, Seth Price is a founding partner and the business backbone of Price Benowitz LLP as well as the founder and CEO of BluShark Digital. Seth took a two-person law firm and scaled to 36 lawyers in less than a decade. Now Seth has taken the same digital power that built the firm to create a best in class digital agency focused on the legal sector in BluShark Digital.
Seth has been a frequent lecturer and moderator at some of the largest and most influential law
conferences in the United States, speaking on the tools and strategies law firms can use to align their
business development with changing consumer habits. He has spoken on topics including but not limited
to, how to build a firm, ethics, best practices for firm operations, search engine optimization (SEO), and
digital marketing as a whole.
Contact info:
Email – Seth@BluSharkDigital.com
Website – https://blusharkdigital.com/
To learn more about Blu Shark Digital, like/follow/share at https://www.facebook.com/blusharkdigital/
For a Free Consultation with Seth’s Team, call (202) 871-1554
To speak directly with Seth, call his cell phone at (347) 661-9999
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
[00:02:56] And I also knew that he would give top quality information, not only because his marketing company services my law firm, but in particular because the information that I find he shares is easily digestible. It's something that you can use even before you hire your own digital marketing company if your budget is not yet at that place where you're ready to hire one. And I also feel that he's very relatable because like me, he has also gone through the process of using the strategies that he teaches in his own business. So there's a little bit more authenticity tried and tested truth to what he's sharing because he's done it before.
Today is our 100th podcast episode! I am so excited about this milestone and I wanted to mark this occasion by talking about manifestation.
Unfortunately for so many people, what stops them from making real strides and scalable growth in a law firm is the fact that they are often mired down in decisions.
There's so many things coming at you, so when your energy, your time, your attention, your focus is stratified over a lot of different activities, it is really challenging to not fall prey to decision fatigue.
Recently, I talked about how to be decisive. I wanted to share with you a prime example of what being decisive means, and how critically important and valuable this life-changing skill is.
Thank you to all our listeners for being with us on this amazing journey. I hope you enjoy this 100th episode!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
What If It’s Possible? Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor Podcast
https://lawfirmmentor.net/2021/06/25/what-if-its-possible/
How To Be Decisive? Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor Podcast
https://lawfirmmentor.net/2021/08/20/how-to-be-decisive/
Four Transplants and a Microphone Podcast
https://player.fm/series/4-transplants-and-a-microphone
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:07:09 (33 Seconds)
But because I didn't have society's definition of a family, I didn't feel entitled to a house. So honestly, I was kind of waiting for me to just magically arrive at a family and there's a whole host of reasons why that's not happening, either, which we're not going to talk about today. But I said, finally, you know, I can't delay making the best financial decision for myself because I don't have the appearance of the family that society says I'm supposed to have in order to buy my house. So I just went out and said, Yeah, now's the time, and I decided what I wanted and I ultimately bought a house.
In today’s episode, I talk about a recent weather event that we experienced. Hurricane Ida ravaged New Orleans. Our thoughts and our prayers are with Louisiana and everyone that was affected in the South. But Hurricane Ida also made its way up to the East Coast.
As a result of massive change in our climate, we have seen a significant uptick in weather events across the country. When Hurricane Ida became Tropical Storm Ida and hit New Jersey, many people that I am personally connected to were adversely affected.
So, I wanted to record this episode to really talk about some of the higher-level strategic thoughts that a CEO of a law firm should really have in their mind for these types of events. Stay tuned for more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Send a screenshot from the review to this phone number: 908 292 3524
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 15: 25 (34 Seconds)
Because again, as a leader, like as, as a person, of course, you want to know that they're OK because you care about them as a person, but as a leader, you want to make sure that they are OK to ensure that, that they are really functioning the way that you want them to function, right? So this is not so that this is not a situation where someone is not expressing that they're not OK. And then you're thinking, OK, everything's hunky-dory and we're going to go back to business as usual and then that person just can't perform.
Today I talk about one of my favorite topics, Your Budget is NOT your Bible. Now, I know the title alone may be triggering for some people. So, I'm going to explain to you what I mean by this topic. I'm also going to give a shout out to all of our financial people out there in the world that keep us financially stable through budgeting and sound financial decision-making - no matter whether we are investing it or whether we are saving it.
Oftentimes, not universally, financial people tend to be somewhat of an anomaly in terms of the financial evolution and growth of a law firm. And that's not because financial people don't know how to manage money, but because they often think inside the box.
Tune in to see how I can shift your perspective!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Textphone number: 908 292 3524
How to Be Decisive – The Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor Podcast
https://lawfirmmentor.net/2021/08/20/how-to-be-decisive/
Moshe Amsel - The Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor Podcast
https://lawfirmmentor.net/2021/01/12/crushing-the-challenge-of-change-in-the-legal-industry-with-moshe-amsel/
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 07: 24 (32 Seconds)
But I do want you to consider that you need to have a financial plan as a part of your business so that you can make decisions in the future. One of the things that we talked about in a recent podcast episode, we talked about the idea of how to become decisive. And one of the real challenges with being decisive is lack of information. Right? So if you don't know what information is going to educate your decision and you don't know the information that you need to know, and typically information comes at you and you don't have a way of categorizing that in your mind.
In today's episode, I’m talking about letting others fail. This is my favorite topic, actually, of all the things that we talk about involving people- the idea of training and cultivating a culture of people that know how to do things without you. It's such a challenging topic for most law firm owners, current/former clients, and even for people that have approached me online.
Many believe there's no freedom in owning a law firm because there's so much stress and agita that's involved in actually having people work for you. Countless law firm owners decide they don't want to grow because in the past their employees did not perform the way that they wanted. As a result, they have made up their minds that there is no way for them to have a law firm that runs without them because they always either get the wrong employee, or they just don't know how to train and manage and cultivate high performance in their teams.
I have solutions for you, stay tuned!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Textphone number: 908 292 3524
Podcast: Parenting Your Baby Lawyers. https://lawfirmmentor.net/2021/08/31/parenting-your-baby-lawyers/
Snippets
00:01:42 (38 seconds)
Now, I know a lot of people are triggered by the idea of failure, and a lot of times we associate failure as a personal failing, meaning there's something wrong about me, either I'm wrong or I'm not good enough or there's something about me that is broken that led to this failure, even when all circumstances outside of yourself are pointing to your just not having mastered the different strategies that are involved in whatever it was that you failed at. But we take it personally when we fail and then as a result, we embed in our DNA a mindset that says failure is bad. Failure is wrong.
Today’s episode is dedicated to the topic of efficiency. Now, before you tune out and say, “Oh, my God, she talks about Crushing Chaos all the time! Do we really have to go there again?”I'm not going to go there on my own.
I brought in a special guest who is a productivity coach. I learned about the role of a Productivity Coach some time ago. When Mridu, our special guest, approached me and we talked about her coming on the show, I was really intrigued by her particular perspective! Stay tuned because she has a simple and easy framework that we're going to end the show with!
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Ready to get control of all your demands? Then you need Mridu Parikh on speed dial.
Mridu (Mri-thu) is The Stress Squasher. As a productivity coach, speaker, and founder of Life Is Organized, she has taught thousands of women business owners simple ways to wake up with a plan… take control of their distractions… and drop overwhelm with ease. Results include a 300% increase in billable time, 10 hours a week saved on emails, and multiple pant sizes shed through new routines.
Mridu is the author of the Amazon bestseller, Accomplish It, and the host of the Productivity on Purpose podcast. Her techniques on mastering tasks and habits have been featured in The Huffington Post, US News & World Report, and Real Simple, as well as her own column in The Tennessean.
When she’s not wrangling a list or schedule, you can usually find this former professional organizer turned productivity pro with her two teens and one husband in Nashville enjoying a Malbec. Get Mridu’s FREE resources on beating distractions, procrastination, and stress - www.lifeisorganized.com/resources
Contact info:
Company name: Life Is Organized
Website URL: www.lifeisorganized.com
Email: mridu@lifeisorganized.com
Phone number: 19176995495
Facebook url: https://www.facebook.com/LifeIsOrganized
Twitter Username: lifeisorganized
LinkedIn url: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mridu-parikh/
Instagram username: lifeisorganizsed
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
(00.10:38) (55 seconds)
Allison Williams:
And, you know, when you, when you start talking about the idea of training your brain, I think that's one of the things we talk about a lot when we start going into thought work and the fact that our thoughts are something that we can control. And I don't think a lot of people realize that. So we kind of go into that it must be this way because I thought that way before not realizing that we actually have control over that.
Mridu Parikh:
Absolutely. Now, I think if there was one takeaway, I would say for all entrepreneurs is we have fallen into this, this belief that, that we have no control. Right? That we live in a world that we're always on the receiving end, where we’re always reacting. And the truth is, you have the ability to retrain yourself. And when you do, your perception in your industry, in your business, by your clients, by your family members is going to be so much more empowered and strong and positive when you are in control, right? Like both at work and at home.
Today I’m talking about buying attorney awards. Many of us are familiar with some of the big organizations that give out “awards” to attorneys. We know about Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers of America, and the growing cottage industry around different types of awards. Some awards can be bought while others cannot.
So, I’ve decided to give you some frame of reference for thinking about attorney awards and whether or not it's worth your investment to get them. If you do choose to get them, I'll show you how you can use them effectively in your business.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Youtube video: Should you buy yourself an award?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qApbIOJg_Vw
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 03: 10 (36 Seconds)
Now, what's interesting about it is that the criteria for selection are usually very vague. It's usually like you have to have been nominated by someone in your community and you have to have the trial skills or the verdicts or the settlements or the reputation in the community or something like that that would justify you being chosen. And my very best friend, as she was in a partnership with two older gentlemen, both of whom are now deceased, and she shared with me that both of them had actually gotten the awards after they had died.
In this episode I talk about constant feedback. Constant feedback refers to being in a state of giving people your perspective on how they are doing on an ongoing basis.
A few of you may remember when I requested your feedback in an episode called “Pivot The Annual Review”. In that episode I remember explaining that when you give the annual review, the annual review is a reciprocal process - You are reviewing your employee, and your employee is reviewing you- and how that should not be your only time to give them feedback. An employee should not be hearing for the first time in an annual review that their performance is less than satisfactory in some critical area. But then one might ask, "well, then how frequently should I be giving negative feedback? Do I meet with them once a month or do I pull them aside once a quarter? How do I do this?"
Tune in to find out what I recommend!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 12: 29 (31 Seconds)
And one of the areas where it's really challenging for business owners not to take things personally is when we have to give negative feedback. Because most of us don't like inflicting pain for a living. Even our most aggressive litigators, Right? We might have a kill... Kill the opponent type of attitude when we're in the courtroom. We're going for the jugular. Most of us don't want to bring that back to our office.
In this episode, I’m going to be talking about parenting your baby lawyers. Yes, I know that the term "Baby Lawyers” can be considered controversial, even offensive to some new lawyers. And if you are offended by that term, please know that I use the term, not with any level of condescension.
A baby lawyer simply means the individual does not yet have the knowledge, skill, or context that a seasoned practitioner naturally acquires over years of practicing law. There's a lot that goes into lawyering! Part of the reason why I think the term baby lawyer is so accurate is that if you think about the lifespan of an infant, when you give birth or when you or your spouse gives birth to a child, a new infant comes into your household and that child is being developed, cultivated, it's soaking up everything that you have to give him or her so that they can become a member of society.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 09: 02 (46 Seconds)
I'm not a big proponent of kind of drowning the baby on the first day or letting the baby sit in the corner sheltered in a bubble for years before you start giving them things to do. There needs to be a balance there. But what tends to happen is that the lawyer who owns the law firm, and has hired on the baby lawyer, starts to get triggered by the baby lawyer being, frankly, a baby. So what do I mean by that? What I mean is that when we hire people for our businesses, there is often a significant fear that the person we hired is not going to be good enough, not going to do justice for our clients, not going to get good results, not going to make us look good.
In this episode, we're going to talk about when your bills are paid. Yes, you read that correctly. What do you do when all of your bills are paid and you have a comfortable life? How do you keep yourself motivated?
This topic is actually coming up because I've talked to a couple of lawyers recently who have been interested in joining the Law Firm Mentor community. We are always looking for the right type of client for this community but, there is a certain type of solo and small law firm attorney we're looking for. In essence, it includes people who are looking to grow their businesses. There can be several end goals achieved when you are looking to grow your business, but in order to get there having a solid growth strategy is key.
In this episode we discuss:
Keeping yourself motivated when money isn’t the main goal.
Struggling to push yourself to achieve economic goals.
Precepts about the idea of being financially satiated.
How it is healthy to have multiple streams of motivation.
The difference between extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
LAW FIRM MENTOR MOVEMENT FREE GROUP ON FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/groups/LawFirmMentorMovement
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 01: 52 (38 Seconds)
So the first thing I always ask people when I have a growth strategy call with them is what is it that you want? And if the first thing that comes up is I want to triple the number of people that I serve or I want to be able to open offices in the central and southern part of my state because I want to have a much bigger reach and a greater impact. Those things are just as valid as I want to make an extra five hundred thousand dollars this year. I want to put an extra million dollars in my pocket. I want to dramatically increase my retirement investments, right? So everybody has a slightly different purpose and a slightly different aim. And that's OK.
Today I’m going to talk about how to tap into inspiration. I wanted to cover this topic because I know many people are wondering “Is this all there is?”. There is confusion about where we stand in life and a lot of that really does derive from a lack of inspiration. Therefore, I am going to give you three strategies for how to tap into your inspiration - because at the heart of your inspiration you will find your purpose in life.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
The Crush Chaos Podcast- What if it’s Possible?
https://buff.ly/3deiido
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:20:14 (32 seconds)
We start to pull back and we start to pull away and so a lot of that is inconsistent. I'm all in, I can't believe this is wonderful, and then, oh, wait. I'm falling back and we see the fall back as that it's a sign that we shouldn't be doing it in the first place or that it is a sign that we weren't capable enough in the first place and what it really is, is that it is a sign that you are exactly where you should be, right. When you are in your happy, in your zone, moving forward, making advancements, that's where you are designed to be, right.
In today's episode, we're going to talk about the importance of being decisive. More than a few of our guests recognize the power of decision, but I think many lawyers struggle with knowing how to be decisive. Therefore, I’d like to provide a framework to help you to learn how to be decisive in your day-to-day lives.
In this episode we discuss:
The importance of being decisive.
A three-step process for creating a framework for being decisive in your life.
Considering who you are and what fits you when making a decision.
How to prevent the problem of information overload.
Accepting the possibility of being wrong when decision making.
The educational value of making a wrong decision.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00: 01: 21 (30 Seconds)
So the first thing is recognizing that the power is in the decision because a decision is what moves things forward in life, always, right? We, we don't, we don't get the goals accomplished that we have set for ourselves without making a choice. We don't create the relationship that we desire, we don't create the business that we desire, we don't make the money that we require, we don't move ourselves forward in life until we decide to do something.
Description:
Today we're going to talk about work without you. The idea that you don't have to be the focal point at the work of your business may be a hard concept for some lawyers to grasp.
You may love lawyering so much that you might want to stay in the actual doing of the work. However, there are many lawyers that possess the desire to have more for themselves. That desire often leads to wanting more than just day-to-day practice of law. Wanting more than day-to-day practice of law evolves into a management role, which then leads to something else that may not include you working in your law firm at all.
So today, I want to share some strategies that will help you to get out of doing the work in your law firm so that you can actually create a business that does not require you.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Choosing your Practice Management Software Podcast
https://buff.ly/3wz3bSx
Snippets
00: 40 (42 Seconds)
It's all about the idea that you don't have to be the focal point at the work of your business and I know a lot of lawyers struggle with that concept. They think that because they are the one that started the business and you started as a practicing lawyer, that your role, your highest and best use is as a lawyer. And for some of you, that may be what you want to create, right? You might love lawyering so much that you might want to stay in the actual doing of the work. But for a lot of lawyers, there is a desire to not just have more for themselves. That's often why they left someone else's law firm and started on their own. Or they knew they never wanted to work for someone, so they hung a shingle right out of law school.
In this episode, I talk about why your Facebook ads may not be working anymore. I’ve had a lot of questions about Facebook ads lately, because in our community in particular, we are a proponent of both online and offline strategies for growing your law firm. Many people have an audience on Facebook already - either because they started a page when they first opened their law firm, or because they're just familiar there so they have other lawyer contacts who referred them cases from having met them on social media. It's a comfortable place to get started and a lot of people are asking “How do I decide what is ‘good spend’, a good investment of time, energy, and resources, on Facebook?”
Tune in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
How to choose your online marketing provider
https://lawfirmmentor.net/online-marketing-companies/
https://bit.ly/LFM-SEOvet
Snippets
00: 02:15 (26 Seconds)
So, I wanted to share with you some, some new developments, new-ish, the marketing world has been dealing with it for a little bit of time now, that may have impacted the success of your Facebook ads so that you show a little bit of grace to your providers if they are not delivering the same types of results, the same cost per click, the same cost per-lead that they were able to deliver even this time last year.
In this episode, I talk about annual reviews. This topic might be cringy to many people because the idea reminds lawyers of sitting down to be evaluated or critiqued. While that is undoubtedly the customary way of doing an annual review, I want to give you a framework for actually thinking about annual reviews differently.
Law firm owners are not only trying to create the right culture and create sustainability in business, but they are also trying to create a value proposition for retaining promising talents. And a big part of employee retention is about meeting the needs of employees and the firm's needs contemporaneously.
Tune in to today's episode to learn more.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contacts
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Free resource: https://lawfirmmentor.net/getting-prospects-to-yes/
Snip-Its
32:32 (26 sec)
I don't want you to think about that as a loss, like, oh my God. I just found out that my employees are not happy. They don't want to do what we're practicing here. I'm going to lose this person even though this person is good at what they do. Because the reality is, if someone is not satisfied in the work that they do, they're a risk. They're a risk to the quality that they will bring to your law firm. They're a risk to the clients that they will serve. They're a risk to you. And that's the last thing that you want, right? You want to free that person, not fire that person.
In this episode, I cover the topic of dealing with data overwhelm. Many people struggle with being productive and not being overwhelmed. However, when the business starts to grow, the very first experience many law firm owners experience is a feeling of overwhelm.
Data overwhelm feeling occurs when firm owners have to fit too many work tasks and detail in a confined schedule. The surface never goes away even when they tack on more hours and work more on their jobs.
Tune in to today’s episode to learn more about strategies that law firm owners can employ to deal with data overwhelm.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison’s Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00: 04:05 (45 Seconds)
OK, so the thing that we have to be thinking about is that when we have too much information in our mind and our mind is kind of bouncing around from thought to thought, activity to activity, plan to plan. Our mind gets tired, but also our emotions get tired. So we start to not have enough energy at the end of the day, not because we were out doing backbreaking work, it might have been sitting at a desk all day but if your mind was overextended and thus it was expending energy all day, every day for the purpose of getting you to a place, of working through whatever is in your mind. Then what tends to happen is there's stress that builds up from having all of those things on your list of things to do.
In this episode, I talk about creating a virtual community for your law firm. Many individuals have made adaptations to go virtual during the pandemic. This fact proposes various positive benefits for law firm owners.
Virtual communities present how we stay connected as people, although we're not physically working with each other. Many lawyers are interested in the idea of creating virtual law firms. Therefore, it's essential for law firm owners to learn how to master their work communications in a way that builds a solid collective culture in their businesses, even when it's virtual or a hybrid of office and virtual.
Tune in to today's episode to find out!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison’s Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:09:22 (38 Seconds)
Remember, we learned about llamas through talking to this employee, right? So like, there's little things that you don't really think matter. And they might seem kind of like, why does that why, why take additional time for that? But it really does create cohesion between people. They feel closer to each other, actually, when they are intentional about communicating with each other, and communicating about something positive sets the tone so that over the course of time, everyone's message has gotten increasingly more positive and everyone has gotten more excited about the things that we are learning about each other and sharing with each other through that channel.
In this episode, I talk about creating a virtual community for your law firm. Many individuals have made adaptations to go virtual during the pandemic. This fact proposes various positive benefits for law firm owners.
Virtual communities present how we stay connected as people, although we're not physically working with each other. Many lawyers are interested in the idea of creating virtual law firms. Therefore, it's essential for law firm owners to learn how to master their work communications in a way that builds a solid collective culture in their businesses, even when it's virtual or a hybrid of office and virtual.
Tune in to today's episode to find out!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison’s Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:09:22 (38 Seconds)
Remember, we learned about llamas through talking to this employee, right? So like, there's little things that you don't really think matter. And they might seem kind of like, why does that why, why take additional time for that? But it really does create cohesion between people. They feel closer to each other, actually, when they are intentional about communicating with each other, and communicating about something positive sets the tone so that over the course of time, everyone's message has gotten increasingly more positive and everyone has gotten more excited about the things that we are learning about each other and sharing with each other through that channel.
In today’s episode, I talk about leaving one's ego at the courthouse. It is an essential topic for law firm owners who desire to expand their business. Many lawyers decide to become solo law firm owners due to the poor management from their previous law firm.
Therefore, I'm excited to share exclusive insight into the difference between being an adversarial lawyer and a managerial role in a law firm. There is a different personality, a different set of skills and a different set of communication strategies that you're going to use as a litigator versus a manager. The same principle could apply to transactional attorneys.
A positive work environment can help to maximize your profit by having highly engaged and highly successful employees on your team.
Tune in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison’s Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:03:57 (50 Seconds)
There are a lot of people that flee bad bosses and not just bad bosses, but they flee the type of bossing, the type of managing that they receive in the majority of law firms. Because so many lawyers haven't learned the strategy. they just kind of stay in the tepid experience of managing from the perspective of just a lighter version of the adversarial posture that they have outside the office. Or worse, there are some lawyers that recognize that they have to be highly adversarial when they're dealing with adverse parties outside of the office. And so when they come to the office, they just kind of become these weak shrimps if you will. Kind of like roll over and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. I'm not having any more difficult conversations. I have to do that all day, every day. I don't want to do that when I get to the office.
In this episode, I talk about meetings that matter. Many lawyers are anti-meetings, including my past-self. I wasn't too fond of the idea of having meetings unless they were necessary. I firmly believed that a meeting was a waste of time and productivity.
However, in the present, I see meetings as opportunities for teams to collaborate, preventing future issues in businesses. It doesn't mean that you will need to have a meeting anytime your team wants to communicate something.
Tune in to today's episode to find out how you can have high productivity meetings that can help you sustain the business's forward movement and avoid potential chaos.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison’s Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:05:37 (31 Seconds)
People who are members of the team can be just as strong an incentive, if not an even stronger incentive for a person to stay, than whatever lack of management, skill and prowess that you may have at this time as you're growing and learning. So there are three strategies I want to give you. Three meetings that you need to have in order to make sure that you are preventing problems in the future and at the same time cohesively building your office culture.
00:14:34 (27 Seconds)
Problem solving together without blame. Right. So this is very, very important. Typically, when you bring the whole firm together, you do not want to start asking questions of people who screwed up the such and such. And how is this going to get better in the future? You want problem solving to be from a place of how are we all going to be in this together? Right. How are we going to make this better? How are we going to solve this issue? And typically, these would be issues where there isn't an identifiable problem person. Right?
In this episode, I cover the topic of whether or not some personalities are too fragile to work in a law firm. In other words, I want to help you hire employees with suitable personalities for your organization. After my conversation with a client who raised an issue about a particularly sensitive employee in their law firm, this topic came to me.
I describe various types of personalities that I often see in a law firm as Employee Avatars. The big issue here is how to train your employees effectively while allowing them to be their best selves in your law firm.
Tune in to today’s episode to find out more.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison’s Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:14:59 (36 Seconds)
So when you see that behavior, you recognize those strains deep, deep inside you and you say, I would have loved to have someone show me grace when I was scattered. I would have loved to have somebody understand when I was in a bad mood. But you weren't allowed that. And so first, because you're not consciously aware of this, I should have noted that earlier, when we see these behaviors and we see them as reflected in ourselves, we oftentimes are not seeing that at a conscious level. We're seeing that at a subconscious level. So we oftentimes are not aware that this is a behavior that we have within us that's actually triggering us in the first place.
In this episode, I share a conversation with an extraordinary guest, Joey Vitale. Joey is a trademark attorney, and he’s also known as the brand legitimizer for online entrepreneurs, emerging thought leaders and creators. His approach to systematize a law firm is unique and highly valuable to learn from. He successfully cut down the client work to five hours a month or less.
We cover several topics in this episode, including lawyer mental health, business systemization, and Joey's great lessons along his journey from a litigating attorney to a business owner.
Tune in to find out!
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Joey Vitale is a trademark attorney (also known as a “brand legitimizer”) for online entrepreneurs, emerging thought leaders, and course creators. With his law firm and his courses, Joey helps online business owners call legal dibs on their brand name and signature methods so they never have to worry about losing their brand overnight. Joey has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and has spoken all over the country to help business owners stay safe and thriving.
Company name: Indie Law
Website: www.indielaw.com
Email: joey@indielaw.com
Phone number: +13143301470
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joeycvitale
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeycvitale/
Twitter Username: @joeycvitale
Instagram username: @joeycvitale
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:27:27 (56 Seconds)
Joey Vitale: But it's so much more to me than just like I value time because that gives me time back. I really do think that the. And I heard someone say this, especially in a law firm setting, the the more your law firm depends on you, the less your law firm is worth. Yeah.
Allison Williams: Yeah, absolutely,
Joey Vitale: And I have really taken that to heart because it's it's not just bragging rights about, oh, I only work this much for my business. It's no, this is a really good sign that my business is in good shape. If I can if I can step away from it, if certain people in my team can step away from it for weeks at a time and everything is still running.
Allison Williams: Yeah. And the interesting thing about that is that the fact that we talk about CEOs and when we talk about CEOs in the context of a law firm, I think a lot of lawyers think of that is, I'm the head manager. They don't, they don't really distinguish that. There's a layer on top of being a manager, like a true CEO is not managing. A true CEO is leading.
In this episode, I introduce the guidance on choosing suitable practice management software for law firm owners. Technology affords us privileges, and we want to use it effectively. But many lawyers get so overwhelmed when choosing a practice management software due to their personal preference and a large quantity of available software in the market. They often encounter loss of income, time and frustration.
Tune in to learn more about the process of choosing effective practice management software for law firm owners.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:19:10 (51 Seconds)
Most small firms have a multitude of different software, and sometimes the assumption is that you just don't know all the things that your software can do. But the reality is, even when you know what they can do, sometimes you just don't like it. Right? You love everything about the software except the task management or you love everything about the software except the financial accounting side. It's OK to find a good enough solution, and with software, almost invariably the solutions will be good enough. There are some people that will say, Oh yeah, I love everything about this piece of software. It does everything that I need. I have no questions. I have no needs outside of this. But typically, when a person says that, that is an indication that they have less sophistication and knowledge about all the things that are possible with all the software that they could be looking into.
In this episode, I cover the topic of advancing your law firm through acquiring a partner. Many law firm owners start solo. Their goal is to own their law firm, chart a path, and be the one in control. However, when the business grows to the point where firm owners want to either expand the business by adding a partner or step up a partner.
Tune in to today’s episode to learn about the reality of partnership and considerations that firm owners must have to add partners to their firm successfully.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:27:54 (31 Seconds)
…Before we consider reducing to writing the criteria that we have for partnership, we want to make sure that we build in a subjective component so that no one ends up feeling that they are absolutely entitled to be a partner when they meet certain criteria, and that when we check the box of those criteria that they are presumed to be entitled to be made partner because we know that oftentimes our desires change or circumstances change and we don't want anyone to be left with that negative feeling.
In today’s episode, I cover the topic of adding a new practice area to your law firm. Covid-19 had various impacts on law firms, both positive and negative. Many legal professions were in retraction. However, many legal firms exploded in growth as a result of the legal ramification of quarantine. So a significant number of lawyers are contemplating seizing upon those opportunities by adding different practice areas, but they simply don’t know where to start.
Tune in and find out about three criteria that law firm owners need to consider before adding a new practice area!
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Reference:
The Science of Getting Rich (Wallace D. Wattles, 2016)
Snip-Its
00:16:46 (38 Seconds)
There are some highly, highly entrepreneurial lawyers out there that are on a wing and a prayer will bring in a person, bring in a department and make it work. Right. So I'm not saying that it can't happen, but what tends to happen is if you don't know the practice area and the metrics and the numbers, you're often relying upon this new person and whatever their skill set is and whatever their knowledge base is in order to get you there. And so if talking to the person yields you numbers that don't make sense or don't leave you enough profit to really be able to monetize and grow the department, then what ends up happening is you bring in struggle to your business.
00:22:54 (30 Seconds)
But when you're adding a new practice area, just by way of summary, we always want to make sure that unless it's your passion and you've got plenty of time and money, that you're not the one doing the work, that you're going to add a rising star to your practice in order to get that work done. And most importantly, that you're going to have conversations with people about joining your firm, talking about money first so you don't waste your time, you don't waste their time. And ultimately, you can get to a place of saying this is a viable solution before you start getting into the weeds of what it looks like.
In this episode, I cover the topic of giving free legal advice. I’m sure we all have received the felicitation that we roll our eyes at but somehow feel compelled to address. This request can come in many different forms from various sources. It could be from an old friend who is hardly keeping in touch with you or even from family members.
We all know the frustration that arises when the question occurs since we are put into a position where we have to choose: either risk harming a relationship if we decline to answer, or we decide to accept and bear with the feeling of resentful ourselves. So today, I’d love to share four response strategies to the free legal advice request.
Tune in and find out how you can respond when people ask you to lawyer for free!
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snip-Its
00:21:18 (24 Seconds PLUS 29 Seconds)
When you bastardize your service and you reduce your value to nothing more than something that can easily be given away at any given time without any level of investment from another person, you're not just saying to the person to whom you give the free legal advice that it's not worth much, that you're not worth much, but you're telling the universe you're not worth much. …….
00:22:16 So our goal is to get you into a place where you can with firmness, with confidence, with a level of certainty that defies any level of question mark in your mind, say to any person who asks, you know, I give legal advice for a living. That is how I make my earnings. If you would like to come back to my office for a consultation, I'm more than happy to engage in that type of business transaction with you in my office.
Today’s episode is all about TikTok, one of those social media platforms that have become ever-elusive and popular. A lot of us have been enjoying it, especially since quarantine. However, many lawyers have been asking the question of whether TikTok is the right platform for them. It might seem inappropriate for many of us, who consider ourselves a little bit older, a little bit wiser, maybe even a little bit conservative regarding how we present ourselves to the world.
However, since TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms out there, I think we would be remiss if we didn't consider whether or not it can benefit us from a marketing perspective in our law firms. So I want to give you today four things to think about as to why it might be something that you want to get into.
Tune in and find out more!
In this episode, we discuss:
Why you might consider getting into TikTok.
The accelerated pace of change created by the pandemic and the proliferation of video.
Allison's Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/video-marketing-the-dawn-of-lead-generation/id1497474051?i=1000474306488
https://videosocials.net/
Snip-Its
00:09:23 (46 Seconds)
But the more that you can start to proliferate your digital imprint with information, the more you can get yourself out there to be consumed by other people without spending money for that, the greater likelihood that when you do start spending money, the marketers will be able to drive people to your website and to be able to make you more well known in the digital space by virtue of what you have already created. Right. So they're actually going to market something. They're not just marketing you, the human, you, the lawyer, but they're going to market what you have already started to create. So with places like TikTok, you are at an advantage in that you can start where a lot of law firms are probably too afraid to go at this point.
Today’s episode is all about TikTok, one of those social media platforms that have become ever-elusive and popular. A lot of us have been enjoying it, especially since quarantine. However, many lawyers have been asking the question of whether TikTok is the right platform for them. It might seem inappropriate for many of us, who consider ourselves a little bit older, a little bit wiser, maybe even a little bit conservative regarding how we present ourselves to the world. However, since TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms out there, I think we would be remiss if we didn't consider whether or not it can benefit us from a marketing perspective in our law firms. So I want to give you today four things to think about as to why it might be something that you want to get into.
Tune in and find out more!
In this episode, we discuss:
Why you might consider getting into TikTok.
The accelerated pace of change created by the pandemic and the proliferation of video.
Allison's Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contacts – Social Media
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/video-marketing-the-dawn-of-lead-generation/id1497474051?i=1000474306488
https://videosocials.net/
Snip-Its
00:09:23 (46 Seconds)
But the more that you can start to proliferate your digital imprint with information, the more you can get yourself out there to be consumed by other people without spending money for that, the greater likelihood that when you do start spending money, the marketers will be able to drive people to your website and to be able to make you more well known in the digital space by virtue of what you have already created. Right. So they're actually going to market something. They're not just marketing you, the human, you, the lawyer, but they're going to market what you have already started to create. So with places like TikTok, you are at an advantage in that you can start where a lot of law firms are probably too afraid to go at this point.
This week, I'm going to talk about a question of what stops people from stepping into the changes that they know they need to make. Many of us don't even try as we are so mired in the notion that we haven't figured out how, that we fear that we're going to start and that we're going to fail. The fear of failure is a genuine human fear. But it also is a fear that is disproportionately found in success-oriented people.
"What If It's Possible?" - tune in now to find out how to overcome the fear of failure!
In this episode, we discuss:
Allison’s Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets:
00:21:41
OK, now that's my particular story. We all have a story. We all at some point went through some iteration of that story in order to get where we are right now. But here's the thing. The beautiful thing about being a lawyer and starting a law firm is that if you have the balls to start a law firm, you have the balls to grow it into something amazing. So I want you to ask yourself the question. What if it's possible for me? And then I'm going to answer the question for you.
When I talk about ethics, I am talking about not just the existence of ethics, but the fact that lawyers hide behind their ethics as a means of staying small. We all know who those people are. There are those skeptical lawyers out there with an assumptive belief that other lawyers who are finding success are doing something wrong and inappropriate, rather than ask themselves the hard question of, if it's working for you, could it work for me too?
A lot of times lawyers hide behind their ethics and this episode is dedicated to the topic of stop hiding behind your ethics.
There are several ways that this happens, tune in now to hear them!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:21:59 (47 Seconds)
Because whenever we default to something not being allowed instead of asking ourselves how we get to it being permissible, how we get to the way we can do this so it is permissible, so it is ethical. When we allow ourselves to stop with a knee jerk reaction of something being an instinctual no for us. When we live in the instinctual no, we cut off the opportunities to make our lives better. We cut off the opportunities to grow as a business and as a person. We cut off the opportunities to create more economic abundance, more freedom of time, more pleasure in the work we do, to serve different and better clients in order to be better lawyers that ultimately will be better for society.
Jennifer Katrulya, is a Partner at Citrin Cooperman and is considered a pioneer of the outsourced/virtual CFO, advisory, and accounting services space. She is credited with helping hundreds of companies in all phases of growth implement best practices and position themselves for profitable and successful ROI at exit. Jennifer is a nationally recognized strategic and operations advisor for high-growth technology, service-based, and healthcare companies who are committed to choosing to achieve results over making excuses. In today's episode, Jenifer talks about exit strategy for law firms that the owners do not want to own anymore, whether that’s because they want to retire or they want to sell the firm and recoup all of that value that they put in by building their highly systematized law firm. Even if you are at the start of your journey of owning a business, it is important to plan what you need to do in order to maximise your economic value so that when you leave, you don’t leave with nothing.
Tune in for a lot of interesting stories, strategic planning and exit strategy tips for the firm owners that you can implement right away.
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Jennifer Katrulya has spent the last 20+ years helping clients create and execute the strategic and operational plans needed to scale quickly, secure funding, provide critical reporting and communications to company stakeholders, increase market share, and position for a successful exit. Also nationally recognized as a “pioneer” and thought leader in the areas of outsourced accounting and technology services, Jennifer helps companies leverage Citrin Cooperman’s rapidly growing BPO services group of exceptional controllers, bookkeepers, and technology specialists. The team at Citrin Cooperman takes on the day-to-day accounting functions for clients, allowing them to focus on growing the company.
Jennifer has often been called a “power connector,” based on her proven track record of bringing the right people and companies together to help drive business growth and success, both in specific business deals and in the formation of winning strategic alliances. Her experience ranges from bringing early-stage companies and funding sources together, to connecting C-Level executives in Fortune 500 companies.
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Guest contact information:
Snippets
00:18:14 (53 Seconds)
Allison: Yeah. So if we're looking at trying to find the buyer, you know, one of the things that you have to talk about with potential sources, potential purchasers, is how you have maximized the value. So if you're working with a law firm client and they really want to maximize the value of their law firm, where do you tell them to start?
Jennifer: First, I want to document it. So we actually work to create a pitch. This is, this is what we do. This is our team. This is how we handle each of the best practice areas of our firm. It makes us an ironclad business to purchase and a really secure and successful purchase you as a buyer could make. And it's making sure that you can then again have meetings with and date the potential buyer of your firm, do your presentation. Make sure that in ongoing relationships, you have to just be polished and bring your A game to each of those relationships and make them super excited.
Today we're going to talk about keeping difficult clients. This is probably somewhat outside of the normal thought process, because a lot of people talk about firing the difficult client and keeping your sanity.
I certainly am a proponent of defining what constitutes what you will and won't accept from your clients, but I do think that there is often not enough attention paid to the aspect of keeping difficult clients. That is something that can actually make you more successful in business and in life.
Tune in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Episode 47 with Elise Buie: https://buff.ly/3jIJRxD
Snippets
00:23:33 (33 Seconds)
Now, there are definitely times where you should let people go when they are a high risk for grievance or malpractice. But that doesn't mean that if somebody is difficult, your first and only instinct should be to let them go because there's opportunity with your difficult people in your growth, as a leader, as a person, with your standing in the challenge to make more. And if you have that as a backdrop and you understand that, then helping your clients with a reframe and with planning ahead becomes a lot easier.
On this episode I talk about the undesirable of letting people go. I don’t go into all the logistics of how to let people go, because one of the things that I always recommend is that you need to have an employment lawyer on your team of advisers for your law firm.
Lawyers are not cheap. But here's the thing, even if you just start a relationship with an employment lawyer where they're not on retainer, per say, but they give you some initial guidance about what to do to get yourself structured and get yourself consistently implementing procedures that are going to reduce risk. It takes so much stress out of the process of making the decision to let someone go in a way that reduces risk.
Tune in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:04:22 (42 Seconds)
And I put myself through so much torture trying to hold on to someone because I cared more about the way that I was going to feel about myself when I let this person go, then I cared about what was ultimately best for my business. So I rationalized not terminating someone. And I know that I'm not alone in engaging in that behavior because I hear it from you guys all the time that you don't like to fire people. You see it as a personal failure when you have to, and as a result, you don't elect to. So the very first thing, the very first mindset strategy we're going to talk about when we talk about successful termination is that bad employees fire themselves.
This episode is about one of my favorite topics, which is money. Money is such a wonderful gift that we have that we can create in our businesses. We as business owners don't fully appreciate all that money opens us up to. One of the things that recently spurred me to record this podcast was that I was watching an exchange on Facebook. I was in a Facebook group, and the question was posed, how do you compensate associates? And there were probably 70 or so responses on the thread by the time I saw it. Of those 70, there had to be at least 50 different ways of attorney compensation. I always hate to see those questions to some degree, because, when you cherry pick, this is how I compensate a particular person. There's a lot that's left out of that discussion, including things such as how you compensate other people in your office.
Tune in to hear my thoughts on this and more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:20:31 (73 Seconds)
OK, so the more that we focus on bringing money into not just our possession but into a systematic way of consistently generating predictable recurring revenue in our business, the less stress we have. Right. If I know I'm going to have a thousand dollars next week, I can make plans with that thousand dollars. If I know I'm going to have fifty thousand dollars next week, I can make plans for that fifty thousand dollars. If I have no idea whether it's going to be a one thousand dollar week or a fifty thousand dollar week, all that I can do is hope and pray and opt not to spend money and make sure I have as much available credit as possible while I'm biting my fingernails, praying for the fifty thousand dollar week. And that over time creates emotional, physical, psychological and intellectual stress that erodes your energy, your creativity and your ability to show up as your best self for your clients. You are a better lawyer when you are reducing stress in your life in all areas. And money is one of those great, great stress reducers.
00:17:32 (45 Seconds)
So one of the things that you have to think about with buying better talent is what are you buying? Right. You're not just buying more legal work, you're buying contribution toward your culture. And if you are designing a law firm in a way that is sustainable, you need people who can deal with ethical challenges and who can deal with challenging clients and who can deal with emotionally laden problems in a way that someone with 10 years of life experience from adulthood or from from when they became a practicing attorney really doesn't have. So in other words, there's a place for all of it. But you get to actually afford that talent when you have the money generated in your business in order to create it.
I know a lot of people have struggled with the idea of growing in a business, not so much because they personally don't want to grow or see the benefits of it, but because they know it's going to cause interpersonal issues either in their romantic relationship or in their friendships.
So I wanted to talk to you about that topic and share some strategies that you can use to have success both professionally and personally. I also share a little story about what prompted my personal interaction with this topic so that you know that this is something that most people will encounter on their journey to growing the law firm of their desires.
Tune in now!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:15:33 (51 Seconds)
So that's the first thing that you have to understand conceptually. And when you talk to people outside of your immediate world, if you if you talk to your spouse, your friends, your business colleagues, your employees, when you start talking about the ways that money is not a finite resource that is depleted by spending it, but rather is increased by investing it, when you start to move your mindset into the thinking of earning capacity rather than the paycheck, that's where the foundation of everything that you need to do, in order to create a sustainably high quality, profitable business that can run without you. That then becomes the educational piece that is typically missing.
In this episode we're going to talk about employees. I have seen so much commentary in the Law Firm Mentor Movement about hiring lately and mental blocks to hiring. I think a lot of people develop mental blocks to hiring because of the problems they encounter with employees once they are on board.
So I wanted to give you a framework for thinking about the failure of your employees, the people that you have brought in that have been what you consider to be nightmares.
I talk through some of the things that will correlate with an employee failing so that when you think about once somebody is in your office, once you've hired them, do you have someone who you can remediate or do you need to start the process over again? A lot of people have a hard time firing, not necessarily even because of how distasteful or uncomfortable it is to fire someone, but because they are so uncertain about whether they're making the right decision that they perseverate over all of the things that they could have done, should have done, would have done, would have liked to do in the, in the role of managing that employee.
Tune in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
https://lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:16:16 (48 Seconds)
Don't take it personally that they're not complying with the rule, because when you go into your feelings and make it about how you're being disrespected or how you're not getting what you desire or how you have told this person over and over again and the person's not doing it, when you start making those stories real in your mind, what tends to happen is you shut down in your problem solving ability and you stop looking for what is the real reason and start assuming that your thoughts about the situation are the real reason why the employee is not complying. So that means you could very easily sternly punish or ultimately terminate someone who is not complying for reasons that could easily have been ameliorated if you had been willing to be open to have a conversation.
00:18:12 (43 Seconds)
They haven't learned from you that the way you want it done is non-negotiable. So I don't say this to mean that you need to have a stern corrective conversation where you get your finger out and stick it at them and say this is non-negotiable because I'm the boss. I'm talking about an error of how we systematize. OK, so what is really, really important when we talk about employees is that there be a cultural imperative for how we do things. Even if you have not set that tone, had that conversation reorganized activity around that conversation, your employees are still picking up from the ether how things are happening in this business.
We all want success. We visualize the life that we'll have when we are making enough money and are spending ample amounts of free time, whether it's on a beach or at our kids school or just relaxing. We all have these grandiose thoughts about what success looks like. Then we see people we perceive to be successful who are not living that for themselves. They are working 80 hours a week. They're exhausted. They may have health problems. We think we can either be a great parent or successful, creating these binary choices around the idea that we can only have so much of a good thing. What we really desire is antithetical to what we truly want for ourselves.
Sometimes we're pursuing success and sometimes we're pursuing rest and relaxation, as if those two things run counter to each other. Today, however, I want to give you a framework to actually see success very differently so that you'll be able to create success easier, faster and with more ease along the path.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:02:45 (49 Seconds)
So what does it mean to get to that easy way of creating success? Well, this is going to sound really, really, really offensive. So please promise me that you're going to stick around for a couple of minutes after I say this. Don't tune me out right away. But the easiest way to create success is simply to create the vision. Now, whenever I tell lawyers that all you have to do is envision what your success will look like, I get a lot of eye rolls, I get a lot of tuning out. I get kind of the blank stare. So I want to tell you what I mean by that, and why it's so important that that's where we start.
00:09:13 (36 Seconds)
You start creating all of the excuses, all of the rationalizations as to why you can't have what you want before you actually seek what you want. So it's important that you actually seek what you want first and hold firm to that vision and let your energy go behind what you want so that that's what expands in your life. OK, after you've created the vision, the next thing is, the part that's not so sexy is creating the plan. You have to plan the eventuality that you're going to have this life.
A lot of us have had compelling events in our lives that have caused us to become the people that we are today. Sometimes those stories are replete with positive, exciting, really engaging stories. Other times they are downright scary. Things that we don't like to talk about. There are also aspects of our story that we know could inspire someone, but we're just not ready yet to go full throttle and market our story. Some people believe that you are exploiting your tragedy or your family by virtue of disclosing things that could very much be your drivers for success.
This episode is dedicated to the topic of marketing your story. I give you an example from my personal life, because this is something that I personally had to grapple with. I ultimately made the decision not to use my story to market my law firm, but not so much because I am now resistant to doing that. I've kind of gotten to a place where I'm actually very much at peace with my story.
There's five strategies I want you to consider before you decide whether or not you're going to market your story and how.
Tune in now!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:18:35 (37 seconds)
So you want to make sure that you're not just picking a story, i.e. I had something happen and now X, without that causal link in between. Because it's often the causal link that is the most powerful part of your story. That's the part of your story where people say, huh. Oh, wow, I didn't know that. OK, so that part of your story that really gets people to understand, because something happened, now you're in this place. That is oftentimes where people will draw the greatest connectivity to you because they went through something similar.
Description:
This week's episode is dedicated to the topic of branding the ‘we’. What do I mean by branding the we? When entrepreneurial lawyers first hire an attorney, they often encounter the problem of having their clients actually want to work with the attorney. Your clients come to you because they know, like and trust you. They don’t want your associate doing the work. It has to be you.
Oftentimes the first hire that the lawyer makes in the law firm of their associate attorney is someone younger, typically at the start of their career. A client who is accustomed to a certain level of expertise, knowledge and a level of comfort with you, then ‘handed off’ to someone who does not have the same finesse, is not going to be happy. So I’m going to talk about a strategy to avoid that happening, starting with some of the ways that you can prevent that, even before the client gets to your office.
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:03:24 (47 Seconds)
So what then happens is the client having had a certain level of expertise, a certain level of knowledge, a certain level of skill, a certain level of comfort with you, is then quote unquote handed off to someone who does not have the same level of experience. And that is what normally creates the level of dissension and hostility in clients when they feel that you just picked their file up and dumped it off on some kid down the hall. So we're going to talk about a strategy to actually avoid that happening and then avoid the level of discomfort that that causes you and the level of dissatisfaction that causes your clients. But I want to start talking about some of the ways that we can prevent that even before the client gets to your office.
How can I be successful? I get this question a lot from lawyers when they have a call with us, or a breakthrough session with our office. They assume that what they really need is the tactic, the strategy, the know how. But what most people will encounter when they realize that there's a lot more to building a business than just what you do, in fact, what you do is far less important for the most part than the actual who you become and how you show up. So In this episode I wanted to talk about a couple of strategies and reasons that people are not successful and it involves you being in your own way.
Tune in now to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Law Firm Mentor Master Class: https://lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:02:57
Fear of failure is a real thing. It's a major thing. And it's something that a lot of people have. And the fear of failure derives often from growing up in an atmosphere where we were not allowed to fail. So I want you to think about how you grew up. OK, everyone grew up a little bit differently, whether you had both parents at home or you were raised by a single parent or perhaps by a grandparent. Whether you had a very singular household, meaning two parents, a kid and a dog, or you had a multi family household where you had cousins and aunts and uncles living in the same dwelling. However you grew up.
00:23:14
And that comes from the fact that when she created a goal, she had someone looking at her and saying, I see more for you than you see for yourself. Right. So that modest goal, we understand where it comes from. It comes from wanting to baby step and having a little bit of fear of what's going to happen when you blow up your whole world and become an eight or nine or 10 or 15 times wage earner. What you're used to having, right. When you start mass producing your wages instead of stair stepping and baby stepping them forward, you can create a lot. And there's often a fear of what's going to happen when you arrive there.
Today I’m talking about the fact that you must decide what you want. What you want to create in terms of how big a profile you want to have, what types of accomplishments you want for your career, all of those things are a matter of intentionality. We don't create those things in our lives without some level of intentionality. And the more intentional that you are, the easier time you're going to have creating what you want and most importantly, sustaining it. You should be thinking about what you want to create in terms of who the people are that you work with, what you want to create in terms of what type of cases you want to handle, what you want to create in terms of how you want your adversary relationships to be.
Tune in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Law Firm Mentor Master Class: https://lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:07:17 (52 Seconds)
So you have to think about it from the perspective of, if you just want something better than what you have and you're not creating with an intentionality of how much better it needs to be, how much more you need to have, how much less you need to be working. If you don't quantify that and get crystal clear on what it is that you want to create, you can very easily create a little more and still be measurable. Because what tends to happen is a little bit more today and a little bit more tomorrow and a little bit more next month and a little bit more next week and a little bit more next quarter and next year and next century. All of that. That stair stepping yourself into the next opportunity is tiring. It actually is easier to grow by leaps and bounds than it is to stairstep.
Ann Brennan is the owner of ASMM Digital Marketing and host of the Small Business Connections podcast and has a passion for marketing. Ann has her own show ASMM Digital Marketing, and it's a wonderful resource of information about marketing. I had a lot of fun talking to Ann because her marketing is different than what you usually would expect from a marketer. We talk about some of the highlights of social media marketing, in particular.
Here at Law Firm Mentor, we always recommend that you choose the best strategy, not just any strategy, for your goals. However, if there's any reason why you have resistance around hiring an agency. This is something that you can learn how to do to actually get traction in your business.
Listen in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Ann Brennan is the owner of ASMM Digital Marketing and the host of the Small Business Connections Podcast. Ann has a passion for marketing but she lives with the purpose of stopping suicide. It was this purpose that lead Ann to create Burgers and Bands for Suicide Prevention, a nonprofit that is to opening the conversation about mental illness and erasing the stigma that surrounds it.
Company name: ASMM Digital Marketing
Website: https://asmmdigital.com or annmarkets.com
Email: ann@asmmdigital.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/BrennanAnnie
Twitter Username: https://twitter.com/BrennanAnnie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennanannie/
YouTube Channel: http://youtube.com/BrennanAnnie
Instagram: https://Instagram.com/asmmdigital
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Law Firm Mentor Master Class: https://lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:05:13 (37 Seconds)
Allison Williams:
Because I don't want to talk in soundbites or, you know, I'm not sure if I want to, like, start reducing myself down to like, you know, just that teachable moment. I really want to focus on the big picture of of what I offer in my business.
Ann Brennan:
Well, so what I would say is that it's you're right, you don't want to talk in soundbites, but you have to have a place to put your content, right? So you create this beautiful podcast. I do the same thing. I create a podcast. Well, am I just going to put it out there that one time and hope people come and listen to it? No. I'm going to take it, I'm going to break it into bits and I'm going to share those bits on social media.
00:24:17 (41 Seconds)
Allison Williams:
Yeah. So there is so much to integrate. And this is like a, this is one of those areas that we could literally riff on, like all day every day for probably a week and not and not even scratch the surface of all there is to cover with the way to effectively handle digital marketing. But I do want to ask you if you had to encapsulate what would be the most important thing about digital marketing? What would it be?
Ann Brennan:
I'm going to be one hundred percent honest. Consistency. If you can only post, if you're like, I don't, I'm not going to hire an agency. I don't have the money. I don't have the time. I just don't want to hire an agency yet. Then at least post. And post every day.
A lot of you may be thinking, I can't afford a recruiter. That's far too much money. I always use the traditional pathway of writing an ad, posting it on the usual places, seeing who applies, maybe asking around, and hopefully I'll find the right person for the role.
In this week’s episode I share my thoughts on why I think that may or may not be the right perspective for you and another perspective to consider. I'm going to give you some actual strategies for evaluating recruiters so that if you do decide to work with one, you can make the right choice of recruiter and increase the likelihood of getting the outcome that you desire.
Listen in now to learn more and start getting better results in your business,
In this episode we discuss:
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Law Firm Mentor Master Class: https://lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:01:36 (43 Seconds)
And frankly, a lot of you may be thinking, I can't afford a recruiter. That's far too much money. I'm just going to use the usual pathway, the traditional pathway of writing an ad, posting it on the usual places, seeing who applies, maybe asking around, and hopefully I'll find the right person for the role. And let me tell you just first a little perspective on why I think that may or may not be the right perspective for you and another perspective to consider. And then I'm going to give you some actual strategies for evaluating recruiters so that if you do decide to work with one, you can make the right choice of recruiter and increase the likelihood of getting the outcome that you desire.
00:03:17 (56 Seconds)
But now when I'm of the mindset that something costs too much, right, if my visceral reaction is, wow, that's too much money, I always stop myself from acting on that thought and asking about the return on investment. Because as I've said before, everything in your business is an investment. Everything that you're spending money on, invests in something. Right. You're, when you hire, when you when you purchase engraved letterhead, you are investing in the reputation or the branding of your firm. When you invest in nice office furniture, you are investing in the comfort of your employees and the professional feel of your office. When you are investing in a certain hire, you are investing in the quality of the service that you are providing to the public so that you increase the likelihood that they have a good outcome and hence are more likely to pay your bills, refer more people and increase your positive goodwill in your neighborhood. So there is always an investment that you are making.
Jordan Ostroff is a visionary entrepreneur, the president of Legal Marketing, the managing partner and CEO of Jordan Law in Florida and host of the Exhibit A Attorneys, and Let's Get Up to Business podcast. His firm uses the latest technology and automation to provide top level legal work with a low volume of cases, but a high touch level of care and compassion.
When he started out he was ignorant of marketing and just bought what he thought he could afford. Then he realized he had spent tens of thousands of dollars on marketing that didn't get him anywhere. So he went about the business of actually learning it for himself and then took that expertise and started LegalEase Marketing and LegalEase Marketing. Jordan approaches his marketing business as a holistic lawyer focused on a marketing company, which is both a full service marketing company as well as a business consulting firm. Jordan prides LegalEase on treating his marketing clients the same way those lawyers treat their clients.
I really take pride in bringing you resources that I myself have confidence in and I just know you’ll find value in what he has to say.
Tune in now!
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Jordan Ostroff is a visionary entrepreneur, President of LegalEase Marketing, Managing Partner and CEO of Jordan Law Fl, Host of the Exhibit A(attorneys and Let's Get Up To Business Podcasts and Chair of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Florida.
He manages Jordan Law Fl, a law firm focused on business law, personal injury and civil litigation. His firm utilizes the latest technology and automation to provide top level legal work, with a low volume of cases but a high touch level of care and compassion. The son of a postal employee and a substitute teacher, he is the first lawyer in his family, and with no business experience his first few years of running a firm were incredibly difficult.
He was consistently taken advantage of by other marketing companies, because he didn’t get it and didn’t know what to ask for or what to look for. Having been faced with the prospect of learning how to run a successful business or close his firm and file for bankruptcy, he chose the latter.
This new path culminated in Jordan starting LegalEase Marketing, a holistic lawyer focused marketing company. Part full service marketing company, part business consulting firm. Jordan prides LegalEase on treating its marketing clients the same way those lawyers treat their clients - they come first, they own their "file," no conflicts of interest, etc.
Additionally, Jordan is currently the host of Let’s Get Up to Business a podcast that helps business owners build, grow and protect their companies, as well as the Chair of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Florida a non-profit that pairs hundreds of underserved children with professionals who mentor them for most of their lives and help them achieve success.
Jordan’s life motto is that High Seas Raise All Boats - we are stronger together and we can make the world a better place.
Company name: LegalEase Marketing
Website: https://legaleasemarketing.com/
Email: jordan@legaleasemarketing.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=legalease%20facebook
Twitter: lawyerwithalife
LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/legaleasemarketing/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrO8tHOcVcHLiulu8ogYM7A
Instagram: legaleasemarketing
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Law Firm Mentor Master Class: https://lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:11:06 (1 Minute 9 Seconds)
Jordan Ostroff:
So I'm a huge fan of video and or but one of those to the benefit of video is you can pull audio from the video, you can pull images from video. You can't do the reverse. And so, like, when we do our, I don't do a podcast, I start as a Facebook live show and then we go to a podcast, because that way I have a video, I have the audio, and I can give people the way that they want to go forward to listen to us or watch us. But from the standpoint of marketing, you, I'm not going to pay to push the audio version of it. I'm going to pay to push the video version of it or or vice versa, depending upon who I'm trying to target. And so you really have to think about what makes the most sense to that ideal client. Are you pushing them to a podcast or are you pushing them to a written newsletter or are you pushing them to a YouTube channel? Are you pushing them to, whatever it's going to be? Because that's going to impact how you spend your money in marketing.
Allison Williams:
Yeah, so there's some gold in that. I love the idea that if you start with video, you have the image and the audio versus if you start with audio, you just have the audio. And I think there is definitely value to that that perspective.
00:15:34 (37 Seconds)
Allison Williams:
And I think a lot of people are kind of of the mindset of where let me go to a place where I'm comfortable. But you really have to think about where your people are and go for, go where your people are. Right. If the people are on Clubhouse, that's where you need to be versus, you know, I like to be on Facebook, so that's where I'll stay.
Jordan Ostroff:
And I'm OK with splitting the difference. Like take where they're going to be and take what you're comfortable with and then try to find ideally some sort of an overlap there. I think the most interesting one is business attorneys. So you're a business attorney, you're working with business owners and business owners are going to be in a couple of different places depending upon what your niche is.
Shawn Hill is the community marketing director for Nice Job, a reputation marketing company and host of the Nice Job podcast. He is an expert in community engagement and activation and is passionate about connecting people and protecting their reputations. Shawn and I talk about the distinctions between reputation management and reputation marketing and why you need to have a strategy for both. We touched on several topics related to online marketing such as lawyers getting reviews, responding to reviews, how to avoid the negative review, as well as how to deal with it. Tune in to learn a whole lot of strategies to grow your online reputation.
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Shawn Hill is the Community Marketing Director for NiceJob Inc. and host of The NiceJob Podcast. Previously, he has held roles in marketing and engagement for globally known organizations such as Comcast-Spectacor, World Team Tennis, and USASevens Rugby. He also is a certified Fun Delivery Specialist and once gave a keystone speech to Wells Fargo without even knowing it! Shawn is an expert in community engagement and activation and is passionate about connecting people and protecting reputations.
Website: https://get.nicejob.com
Email: shawn@nicejob.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicejobapp
Twitter: @nicejobapp
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nicejob-inc./
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nicejobdotco
Instagram: @NiceJobApp
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Law Firm Mentor Master Class: https://lawfirmmentor.net/masterclass
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:05:59
Allison Williams
So me going onto a platform and saying, hey, everybody pick me. I'm the best criminal defense lawyer or I'm the best family lawyer or I'm the best bankruptcy lawyer. Not the same as my clients who have actually consumed my service from the perspective of my prospective client, looking at me, evaluating me, having a relationship with me and saying I do a good job for my client. So, can you talk a little bit about kind of the cachet, if you will, of actually having other people be your raving fans versus you yourself saying how great you are?
Shawn Hill
Yeah, I mean, it's always an uncomfortable position to have to brag about yourself, right? You even if you're the most confident person, even if you will admit that you have a little bit of an ego, it never quite feels right, because I feel like a lot of people in a variety of different industries are doing it, because of this passion, not necessarily the result of selling. There was a recent study came out and said that 90 percent that yeah. That high that think reviews are more important than anything that you could even say to a prospective client during the initial consultation,
Annette Choti is the CEO and owner of Law Quill, a legal digital marketing agency focused on solo and small law firms. Law Quill is the only legal digital marketing agency that provides unique SEO optimized content videos, SEO audits, backlink strategies, prepackaged content and courses for lawyers to learn themselves through Law Quill Academy. Annette is the host of the Legal Marketing Lounge podcast and a weekly contributor to Above The Law. I'm really excited to talk to Annette, because she offers something that I think a lot of lawyers look for, which is a do-it-yourself solution, before they invest in a full service digital marketing agency.
Tune in for a lot of interesting stories, guidance and marketing tips for the solo and small firm owners that you can implement right away.
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Annette Choti graduated from law school 20 years ago and is now the CEO & Owner of Law Quill, a legal digital marketing agency focused on small and solo law firms. Law Quill is the only legal digital marketing agency that provides unique, SEO-optimized content, videos, SEO-audits, backlink strategies, pre-packaged content, and courses for lawyers to learn SEO themselves through Law Quill Academy. Annette is the host of the Legal Marketing Lounge podcast, and a weekly contributor to Above The Law. Annette used to do theatre and professional comedy, which is not so different from the legal field if we are all being honest. Annette can be found on LinkedIn, Twitter, @annettechoti on Clubhouse, or at annette@lawquill.com
annette@lawquill.com
Clubhouse: @annettechoti
https://lawquill.com
https://www.facebook.com/LawQuillInk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/annettechoti
https://twitter.com/law_quill
Legal Marketing Lounge Podcast: https://lawquill.com/apple
SmarterQueue (Social Media Posting Tool): https://smarterqueue.com/
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:12:20 (53 Seconds)
Allison Williams:
Wow, so that sounds very strategic, it's kind of like you know, you're creating, like you said, that home base and whatever goes out needs to ultimately come back to that home base so that Google finds you more often and signals to other people that you're a source for that particular piece of information.
Annette Choti:
Yes. (Yeah.) So and and there's a couple of reasons why that's so important. The first is, is that if you have content on your website, there is something for potential clients to read and then see you as an expert in this area. You know, maybe you're answering their questions or maybe you're answering questions they didn't even know they have. Maybe they found you from other areas on social media and they come to your website, they read one or two blogs, and then they see three or four more that they're very interested in.
00:29:24 (53 Seconds)
Annette Choti:
I do that often. I'll write a blog post and then I'll make a podcast about it as well. A few months later, there's so many ways you can take one piece of content and frankly carve it up so that you have I think I think I ended up with near is like eighty seven or something different ways to carve up one article. So.
Allison Williams:
Wow. So I mean we actually ironically I didn't know that we were going to go here today, but this is one of the things that we actually teach lawyers at Marketing for the Masters how to take one thing and mass produce it in multiple different places. We always brainstorm, like if you have, if you have a great article, what can you do with that? And by the time that we get done, we're usually like in the fifties of all the different ways that we can take that one thing and make it into something else, making it that omnipresent marketing that we talked about.
Many of us struggle with whether or not to use credit cards in our business. We say, why pay the processing fee? I can just wait a couple of extra days and get the check. But as I love to say, and I said during this podcast episode, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So, how do we use it effectively? And how do we consider having as many options as possible for our clients in a way that is profitable as well as in a way that improves our relationships with our clients relative to money?
Dan Lear is the head of marketing and partnerships at Gravity Legal, an electronic payments and money management firm built specifically for lawyers and law firms. He has a unique approach to make getting paid easier and faster for you. I love that he's a new player in this space, is making waves and getting some serious traction.
Tune in to this week’s episode for this valuable resource.
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Dan Lear is head of marketing and partnerships at Gravity Legal, an electronic payments and money management firm built specifically for lawyers and law firms. Prior to Gravity Legal, Dan worked as director of industry relations for the legal market place Avvo and, before that , as a technology attorney with both Fortune 500 and startup clients. He has a JD and an MBA from Seattle University. He is based in Seattle, Washington.
Website: https://www.gravity-legal.com/
Financially Legal Blog & Podcast: https://www.gravity-legal.com/financiallylegal
Email: dlear@gravity-legal.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GravityLegal/
Twitter: @rightbrainlaw
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlear/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEravxZKM7M4irjk8ZCYojg/featured
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:37:01 Dan Lear (36 Seconds)
I think that firms can be strategic about how they deploy these types of methods in order to bolster the economic and kind of financial health of their firms.
00:37:15 Allison Williams
Yeah, and I think it's all about having flexibility, like you said, because there may be some firms that are used to having a per transaction amount of somewhere between five and ten thousand dollars. And maybe they have that one big fish that walks in and it's like, OK, this is a fifty thousand dollar case and I'm taking it up front, putting the money in trust and and the client, you know, you don't want to have that kind of payment on a credit card,
Brita Long is the creator and founder of The Happier Attorney, LLC. She is an attorney, author, coach, entrepreneur and all around happy person. She has completely revolutionized the business of law in the firm that she owns, as well as helping lawyers across the country to do the same. Brita has practiced law for over twenty two years and she saw how happy people's lives, including other attorneys, became when they ultimately adopted her business model. She also saw how happy people were negatively affected by the complexity, a lack of purpose and a mismatch between what they said was important in their life versus what their behavior showed was important in their life. Brita brings to us valuable resources, great perspective and some of the how-to of transitioning over to flat fees. In this episode we discuss some of the limiting beliefs that we have around that, like getting stuck in cases or managing communications and all of those things that would stop someone from adopting this particular business model.
Listen in to learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Today our special guest guest is Kathryn Burmeister, a personal injury lawyer with an interesting perspective. Kathryn started a virtual law firm before virtual law firms were a thing.
Kathryn never anticipated starting her own business, but after a number of tumultuous events and what she describes as “having the rug yanked out from underneath her for the third time”, she opened her own law firm in 2018 and has never stopped growing ever since. She focuses exclusively on personal injury by giving a voice to those who have been hurt by someone else and that's something that she has personal experience with.
Tune in to hear her unique insight and story, I know you’ll enjoy it.
In this episode we discuss:
As the owner of Pineapple Consulting Firm, Jack Tompkins helps leaders to analyze and visualize their financial and marketing data and interactive charts, graphs and dashboards. They don't have to deal with the annoying data gathering and manipulation of it all and can quickly see the full picture.
Jack and I explored several topics during our conversation, including some of the nuts and bolts, basic starter places that you can go as a solo law firm owner to understand financial data at a higher level. Before you assemble that full financial team, you need to know your numbers first. Just by easy, simple data understanding of Excel, you can really start to make progress in understanding your numbers and making better financial decisions in business. Tune in and learn more!
In this episode we discuss:
Dave Lorenzo is the guy that can share all the business insider success secrets. Want to close the deal in 60 seconds? Dave's the guy. Want to open the door to a Fortune 500 CEO? Dave's the guy. Want to make more money and get home on time for dinner? Dave is definitely the guy. And that's the reason why I was so excited to have Dave on Crushing Chaos this week. Dave has a wealth of knowledge about sales and has personally worked with lawyers. The beautiful thing about my conversation with him is that he was actually able to give me a framework for how we can be more successful at selling legal services without the negative connotation that comes with selling. Tune in now!
In this episode we discuss:
This week I had a phenomenal conversation with Mia Hewett, the founder and CEO of Allied Intelligence. She is the best selling author of Meant For More and an expert on the topic of human potential. She helps entrepreneurs, of which some are lawyers, stop secretly struggling and make six and seven figure leaps in their business using her aligned intelligence method. This methodology works consistently and predictably, to allow her clients the ability to coach themselves through any obstacles, build their dream businesses and feel fulfilled in their purposes. Tune in to hear this powerful conversation and read her book if you haven’t already!
In this episode we discuss:
In this week’s episode I talk about the need for growth. You may think you don't really need to grow your law firm, which is fine. But I want to invite you to join the conversation about the need for growth, because it isn't necessarily about scaling your law firm. There are certain things that you have to do in order to continually keep a healthy business. These involve growth not only in your revenue, but also in the structure and in the opportunities that you create in your business. Tune in for my five principles that go to the heart of why we need to grow.
In this episode we discuss:
In this episode, I discuss a disturbing pattern of behavior that I often see in the solo and small firm attorneys community and it's always been there. A lot of us create standards for how we want other people to engage in the world, how we want other people to show up in our lives, how we want other people to behave in our businesses, yet we do not meet our own standards. I wanted to share with you some of my reflections on this topic because I know that the inability to see this pattern is keeping a lot of lawyers stuck where they are.
In this episode we discuss:
Amanda Berlin believes she was born to make sure we all are heard and seen and appreciated for our unique genius. And she does just that as a publicity strategist and content consultant. After studying journalism at George Washington University, she interned at CNN, wrote for a local paper, and ultimately became an expert in the creation of publicity strategy and content writing products and programs. For a decade, she has written media pitches for companies like Disney and Dove, Brawney, Baskin Robbins, Colgate and Gamble. And now as a communications consultant, she's the host of the Empowered Publicity Podcast, which is devoted to delivering publicity, AHA's insider secrets and the dish on what it really takes to build buzz, become a trusted authority and get the media to say yes.
In this episode we discuss:
As the host of Be That Lawyer Podcast, Steve Fretzin acts as a kind of business development therapist. He coaches and trains lawyers on the most modern day business development skills, providing precise tips, fresh ideas and actionable tasks that drive tangible results. In today’s episode we discuss sales free selling. Many lawyers have an aversion to selling, Steve offers great insight, as well as a book on the very topic.
In this episode we discuss:
Elise Buie, Esq., is a family law attorney who creates solutions, not obstacles. Her practice involves all aspects of family law, guided by a collaborative philosophy and her deep understanding of complex parenting issues. In this episode, Elise talks with us about her podcast, which is dedicated to the trifecta of three of the most challenging statuses that any person can have in our life; being a lawyer, being a law firm owner, and being a mom. She guides others through the process of coming into a greater sense of appreciation for the difficulty of the trifecta and the ways that she handles it as an individual and a person who has dealt with a lot of trauma and significant experiences in each of those areas, all at the same time.
In this episode we discuss:
Bill Coletti is an impressive leader in the space of crisis management, with more than 25 years of global experience managing high-stakes crises for both Fortune 500 companies and winning global political campaigns. You might think that a crisis for a Fortune 500 company differs from a crisis for a solo or small law firm and certainly, there are differences - but a crisis is still a crisis. Bill has a wealth of knowledge in this business area that lawyers need, but don’t always know that they need.
In this episode we discuss:
Guest Bio:
Bill Coletti is a reputation management, crisis communications and professional development expert. Additionally, he is a keynote speaker, Wall Street Journal Risk and Compliance panelist and bestselling author of Critical Moments, The New Mindset of Reputation Management. He has more than 25 years of global experience managing high-stakes crises, issues management and media relations challenges for both Fortune 500 companies and winning global political campaigns.
Website https://kith.co/
Email Address - rgomez@kith.co
Phone Number - (512) 934-7719
Facebook url https://www.facebook.com/kithconsult
Twitter Handle https://twitter.com/kith_co
YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmLAgAF2cjeRDP_hfchWWrg
Allison Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is the Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest-growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Info:
Contact Law Firm Mentor:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Snippets
00:20:05 Allison (Total 30 Seconds)
But I'm getting the sense that there are some keys to success in these circumstances that one could really turn to. What would you recommend?
00:20:11 Bill Coletti
So planning and preparation is key. You need to plan and prepare. And the simple tactic I give to big companies, small companies, is as you are and you're the law firms that you work with can do this either for their companies or for themselves, for their clients, is pull out The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, your local paper, whatever. Pull out a major publication and say, what if this had happened to us? How would we respond if this was us?
Lawyers who have ventured online to market their businesses are often surprised at how powerful it is to have clients and colleagues review their services. The online review has quickly become the staple of impactful online marketing. Of course, with every positive phenomenon, we also encounter the flip side - the dreaded negative review. What can be done about them? Should we address them, and if so, how?
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Andy Stickel has helped thousands of lawyers all over the world build thriving law firms with simple proven strategies that any lawyer can use. His agency, Social Firestarter was started in 2012 and helps lawyers worldwide transform their law firms. If you’ve ever seen any of his ads on Facebook, you know that he’s an expert in Facebook ads and has helped hundreds of lawyers grow their firms with his Social Media For Lawyers Masterclass.
Andy enjoys spending time with his wife and 3 kids.
Allison Williams
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2021. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2021 and was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey in 2019-2021.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
Contact Andy:
Website - https://www.andrewstickel.com/
Social Firestarter site - https://www.socialfirestarter.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/andystickel
Instagram - andrew.stickel
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewstickel/
Lawyer Marketing Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/marketingforlawyers
Free Resources:
5-Star Attorney Book Waitlist - https://www.getlawfirmreviews.com/waitinglist-1
Free Training! How to Get More Law Clients from Social Media - www.lawfirmmasterclass.com
Free Training! How We Helped One Lawyer Sell His Law Firm & Retire in Hawaii - https://casestudy.socialfirestarter.com/sfs-webinar-registration-1
Free Book for Lawyers - https://freebookforlawyers.com/test-drive-1
In this episode we discuss:
Contact Info:
SOCIAL LINKS & Contact Info -
Book – https://www.modernlawfirmbook.com
| Website | https://www.optimalnetworks.com/ | | Email Address | hlanda@optimalnetworks.com | | Facebook url | https://www.facebook.com/optimalnetworks | | Twitter Handle | https://twitter.com/optimalnetworks | | YouTube Channel | https://www.youtube.com/user/OptimalNetworksVideo |
Optimal Networks
www.optimalnetworks.com
240-499-7900
info@optimalnetworks.com
Bio:
Heinan Landa is the Founder and CEO of Optimal Networks, Inc., a globally ranked IT services firm. After earning his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University, Heinan went on to receive his MBA from The Wharton School of Business. Featured in Legal Management, Legal Times, Chief Executive, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, CIO, and with regular appearances on WJLA-TV, WTTG-TV, and WUSA9, Heinan is a trusted leader in the legal, technology, and business spaces.
Here is a description of Optimal to supplement Heinan's bio that you already have: Founded in 1991, Optimal Networks, Inc. provides comprehensive IT support services, including full or partial IT outsourcing, backup and disaster recovery, strategic consulting, and preeminent, enterprise-class cloud computing solutions to law firms, associations, and SMBs. For 25 years, Optimal has helped thousands of clients navigate the ever-increasing changes in technology to make sure their technology drives their organization’s success.
Snip-Its:
00:34:27 (34 Seconds) Allison Williams
A lot of people are struggling to put themselves into a virtual environment because they think it is a copy and paste version of a brick and mortar environment. And the way that our brains adjust to blue light, the way that our bodies relate to being sedentary and having a certain level of sensory deprivation by virtue of flat screen versus a more kinesthetic experience. All of that plays into how well your clients are going to experience working with you. And just doing what you did in person on screen is not going to cut it.
When it comes to progress you can either get ahead of it, embrace it, or stand in its way and ultimately get run over by it. In today’s episode my guest Moshe Amsel and I look at how you can embrace technology and the changes that occurred in 2020 to encourage growth in your law firm.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Moshe Amsel
Moshe Amsel is the host of the Profit with Law Podcast and the Law Firm Growth Summit. He helps law firm owners grow their practice with a focus on creating generational wealth.
As a married loving husband and father of 5 children ranging from 21 to 3 years, he is very familiar with the struggles of running a successful business and still prioritizing his family.
Moshe has 20 years experience in the IT industry as a business executive. He has extensive experience in Sales and Marketing, having closed over $30 million in sales in a single year. In addition to Profit with Law, Moshe also owns an accounting practice, DreamBuilder Financial, where he helps clients with business advisory and tax strategy services.
Allison Williams
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Contacts – Social Media
Moshe Amsel’s Contacts
https://www.lawfirmgrowthsummit.com/LFM
Name
Moshe Amsel
Law Firm Name
Profit with Law
Website
https://www.profitwithlaw.com/
Email Address
mamsel@dreambuilderfinancial.com
Phone Number
(845) 504-0910
Facebook url
https://www.facebook.com/profitwithlaw
Twitter Handle
@moshe_amsel
Instagram Handle
moshe_amsel
Snip-Its
00:10:35 – 34 Seconds - Moshe
So how do you get your law firm to be the next Netflix of law and not the next Blockbuster of law? And that's where we need to focus the conversation. That's where we need to start looking as we grow our businesses, as we develop our systems, our processes, the technology we use. We should always be looking from a lens of what does the future look like and how do I set myself up for the future instead of thinking about what's available to me today and how is business done today? Always be future thinking. And when you do that, you're going to start seeing opportunities.
00:16:30 - 32 seconds - Allison
one of the things that I love that you mentioned was the idea of you got the, you got the little tickle like somebody said, hey, there, there's this thing, then you float in the direction of that. You just said, let me try, test, see. And then opportunity sprung open. And we know that in the legal industry we tend to be laggards, right? We tend to be on the low end of the early adoption phase. We don't like to just jump without seeing. We like to test the waters. We like to make sure that there's a lot of people that are born into something before we do it.
If you want to grow your law firm and be able to step away from it when you want or only handle the cases you want to handle then you need to change the way you think about your law firm. In today’s episode we are going to look at how to change your mindset about what your law firm has to be in order to allow it to transform into what you need it to be.
In this episode we discuss:
Contact Info:
SOCIAL LINKS & Contact Info -
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:15:42 - About 50 Seconds
OK, what I said to her was this, I believe lawyer that you believe this, that people come for you, and I believe that many people do come to a law firm for you. But I also believe that because you believe this, that you structure your business in a certain way. You communicate about your law firm in a certain way. Your marketing messages are characterized in this certain way. You speak to your clients about their cases in a certain way. You hire people to facilitate work in your law firm with this certain way in mind. Listen, people want what they want, until you show them that there is something better for them to want. So here's an example of that.
00:15:45 – About 57 Seconds
If you have a desire for something greater than yourself and you are driven toward that ego gratifying activity, that's what makes brilliant trial lawyers. Right? I don't know any of them that do it for their health or do it for... Some of them do it for the contribution, but right there, there's also a very real ego component that goes along with it. So you have that desire to create. And as you create in your business and as you create in your profession, your ego is stroked. Ok. The ego stroking that comes from being the lawyer is a certain amount. It is a much bigger ego stroke to have a large entity of other people who are also exceptional, doing things alongside you, and only have that opportunity because you created what you created.
Can your law firm run without you if you were to go on sabbatical or just take time off? In today’s episode we talk about what you need to do to make sure you can step away from your firm without everything falling apart.
In this episode we discuss:
Contemplating the possibility of being able to take time away from your law firm.
A list of specific things you absolutely need in place to be able to have your firm run without you and continue to generate income.
Contact Info:
SOCIAL LINKS & Contact Info -
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:39:43
Now, if you personally are struggling with taking time away from your law firm and you really want to get to a place where you can even just take an extended vacation more than a week away, you have to get these things lined up. And there's a very specific way that you can do this that does not involve stress or agita. It involves directing your attention to different activity than those that you're currently doing. Because at the end of the day, we are the product of our choices. You don't like the result you have in your law firm, you can make a different choice and we can help you do that.
Many law firm owners think that they don’t have time to serve existing clients and perform marketing activities to generate new clients. In this episode not only are we going to talk about how to do both sustainably but also how to set up your marketing so that it generates recurring revenue.
In this episode we discuss:
How do you create a marketing plan and what is it?
The smoothing out of the marketing cycle to bring in consistent recurring revenue.
Contact Info:
SOCIAL LINKS & Contact Info -
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Avatar Worksheet: https://lawfirmmentor.net/avatar/
Check Out My Latest Interview on SalesPop Podcast: https://salespop.net/sales-marketing-alignment/effective-intake-phone-sales-for-law-firms/?fbclid=IwAR1ZSeJx8bXjwCylB5b3wX3w6W5W1odEguhfIr5ev5ULtLIcj8SfvPabb8E
Link to More Money, More Free Time Course:
https://law-firm-mentor.teachable.com/p/webinar-package/
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:34:19 (50 Seconds)
When you when you lump it all together, it becomes very, very challenging for you to target your message using that ideal client avatar. And it becomes very challenging for you to make accurate projections. Because what you can expect off of search engine optimization, very different than what you can expect off a person to person marketing or person to person networking. OK, so I want you to envision that series of funnels, right? This is what our marketing plan is. You're going to have that series of funnels for each marketing activity that you do, and then you're going to start applying some numbers. OK. So the first number that you have to apply to this is the number of clients that you project from each of those activities. Right? Top of the funnel, you're going to have a really big number. Bottom of the funnel, not so much.
00:42:07 (59 Seconds)
Now, I would never recommend that you build your law firm on one funnel. You have to know again the impressions of a particular funnel leading down to the clients. And you're going to be hypothesizing, at least at the beginning, until you have done the marketing activity with regularity and consistency, enough to know that on the balance you can project reasonably. This particular funnel leads to a certain amount of clients and you need to know what types of cases are being generated from each funnel so that you can do that math as well. Right. So the example I gave you earlier, public speaking, one stage equals thirty thousand dollars. That thirty thousand dollars wasn't one thirty thousand dollar case. It might be on average six five thousand cases or it might be twelve twenty five hundred dollar cases. But if you don't know the difference, you don't know how to prepare for the work that's going to come in from your marketing.
No one likes to be seen as a Scrooge, but with everything that’s happened this year how do law firm owners approach the idea of Holiday bonuses? In today’s episode we are going to look at how to answer this question not from an emotional perspective but from a financial management perspective.
In this episode we discuss:
The mindset of giving a holiday bonus.
Basing your decision by the metrics of financial well management.
The feelings of guilt and shame that can be associated with not giving a bonus.
Making it about them, not about you.
Contact Info:
SOCIAL LINKS & Contact Info -
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:30:05
And so when the owner realizes that they have set up this mismatch of expectations. Right. Employee expects to get it because they're employed and owner expects that you will get it only if the firm is producing a certain amount of money and only if you do certain things, then oftentimes there's a triggering of guilt and shame, particularly guilt, because the owner perceives that he or she did not lead the employee to a reasonable expectation.
00:34:06
If you are prioritizing others to the detriment of your business, meaning you don't have it, but you're going to pay it out by virtue of taking a loan or you're going to pay it out by virtue of not taking the salary, or you're going to pay it out by virtue of not making an investment in the future. What you are really doing is saying that my need as the business owner to feel good about myself supersedes your needs as the employees to have a fiscally sound employment, you know, experience.
When it comes to hiring for your law firm there are three elements you need to consider: when to hire, who to hire and how to hire. Today we are going to be looking at all three elements and some ways you can take the chaos out of the hiring process.
In this episode we discuss:
Considering your business model before you hire.
Knowing when it makes sense for your business to hire.
Contact Info:
SOCIAL LINKS & Contact Info -
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Thrive Tribe Tactics January 2021: http://lawfirmmentor.net/thrive-tribe-tactics/
Bio:
Allison Williams Bio
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:11:36
How much do we expect this person to bring into the business based on the work that they do and then, of that stream of revenue, a certain portion goes to the lawyer. So if you think about it, there are three primary expenses that you're going to have in a law firm. You're going to have compensation to the person doing the work. You're going to have the overhead to do the work. And that's the stuff of the files, right. The the ink, the paper, the machines, the licenses, all of the stuff of running the business. And then you're going to have the profit. And you need to have profit, even if you're not planning to take that profit and stick it in your pocket. You need to have profit in order to reinvest in the business and also to weather the economic storms of unexpected expenses, downturns and market.
00:18:21
We either get convenience over money too soon, i.e. we're tired of working so hard. So we work harder to the point where we feel like we can't work any harder. And then we go out and get an employee, whether we have properly monetized that person or not or whether we can actually afford that person or not. And then we have added to our stress, because now we've taken away the stress of having too much do. But we've added the stress of hustling to pay somebody. That is not a wise choice.
00:31:10
But the goal is to look at how you can monetize work upward. OK. That means from the bottom up, you want every person that comes into the business to create more billing opportunity or more collecting opportunity or more monetizing opportunity or more selling opportunity for people that are higher up the food chain. So that may very well mean that when you hire someone that that person isn't going to be a biller. They're not going to be directly working with clients, that they're going to create economic space for others that are.
If you want your law firm to generate more revenue where do you start? Many lawyers try to work harder to generate more leads in the hopes that generating more leads will turn into more clients, which will turn into more money. In today’s episode we're going to talk about how that’s the worst approach to making more money and what the one approach you need to take to double your revenue in one year.
In this episode we discuss:
Four things you need to stop doing and one thing you need to start doing in order to grow your revenue.
Why working harder doesn’t necessarily produce more and better results.
How more leads won’t help if you don’t know how to sell.
That selling is not about you, but about the client.
How stepping and fetching for your client does not build respect.
Contact Info:
Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:08:53 – 42 Seconds
So working harder does have its limits, even for those of us that can put in 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 hours a week, there will be a cap to that. And the problem is we don't often know where that cap is. So when you create a strategy that says I'm going to work harder in order to get myself to that next place, you are always going to have a question mark as to how far you can go because your body and your mind require rest and rejuvenation to work at your best. And if you deprive either your mind or your body or likely both, of that rest, you are going to see not only diminishing returns, but you're going to hit a cap at some point. And let me tell you, the cap is not necessarily what we think it is, right.
00:18:07 – 40 Seconds
So a lot of those people that you would refer to the marketing company as bad leads are really not bad leads. They're just the subject of bad selling because you don't know how to sell, OK? And if you don't know how to sell and if you think of yourself as just a professional and not a salesperson, I hate to break it to you. If you own a business, you are in the business of sales. If you don't sell anything in your business, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. You have to sell people on the idea of working with you. And that does not mean convincing them or tricking them or persuading them. That means getting in touch with what their problem is and offering them a solution and doing it in a way that it's all about the client.
Too many lawyers stand in their own way of making their law firm a success. In today’s episode, my guest Ken Hardison and I will talk about what you are doing to impede your firm’s success and what you can do about it starting today.
In this episode we discuss:
The top 3 barriers to growing a law firm.
The key to hiring and retaining your team.
The cost of making a bad hiring decision.
The responsibility to train that comes with hiring a new employee.
Contact Info:
Ken@pilmma.org
https://www.pilmma.org
800-497-1890
Bio:
Ken Hardison
From Website: https://www.lawyernc.com
After completing his undergraduate work at Campbell University, where he graduated with honors, Mr. Hardison enrolled in Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University. Upon receiving his Juris Doctorate in 1982, he quickly went into practice in Dunn, North Carolina.
In 27 years of practice, Mr. Hardison has acquired many accolades, which he attributes to his focused attention to each and every client he represents.
Mr. Hardison’s ethics, integrity and standards have set the path for which the Firm operates on a daily basis. He is described by attorneys and staff as someone who puts the client first, is very experienced and is always willing to help no matter the problem.
Allison Williams
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:22:14 – (40 Seconds) Ken Hardison
I just think that you've got to hire people that are stronger than you are, that complement your weaknesses. And what you need to do is take your strengths and leverage them. (Yeah.) And I think that's the way you're going to be happier. Because whatever you're good at but you've got a passion for, right, or you wouldn't be good at it. (Right.) And that's what makes you happy. So do the stuff that makes you happy and you've got a passion for, when you can afford to. I mean, I know sometimes when you're starting out, you gotta do, you gotta where, you gotta do some stuff you don't really like to do. And that's just part of life. You know. You got to crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run. You know, things like that. But the sooner you can get there, the more happy you're going to be. And I'll be honest with you. You'll make loads more money.
In 2021 law firm finances will be the new sexy, or at least they should be after everything that happened in 2020. In today’s episode I have invited my guest Shawnna Weber to talk about ways you can crush chaos in the areas of bookkeeping and billing.
In this episode we discuss:
The differences between your Accountant and Bookkeeper and why you need both.
The importance of reviewing your reports for correct expense categories and charges for items no longer used or needed.
Key financial reports to review on a regular basis.
Contact Info:
Contact Information for Shawna
SOCIAL LINKS
https://www.edgewoodbusinesssolutions.com/
https://www.edgewoodbusinesssolutions.com/faces-of-finance
https://www.facebook.com/edgybusinesssolutions
https://www.instagram.com/edgysolutions/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnnaweber/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/edgewood-business-solutions
success@edgysolutions.com
OFFER
We are offering a Financial Deep Dive for $999 which includes reviewing your 2020 year to date bookkeeping and making recommendations for classification and any strategies you can implement now or discuss with your CPA. To sign up for a complimentary 15 minute call about the offer go to edgewood business solutions.as.me/financialdeepdiveintrocall or email us at success@edgysolutions.com
Bio:
Shawna Weber Bio:
Shawnna Weber is the host of the Faces of Finance podcast and the CEO of California based Edgeworth Business Solutions, a business consulting and bookkeeping firm that challenges the traditionally transactional model of financial management. Shawnna founded the company in 2011 with a goal of developing long lasting consultative relationships with clients that allow them to decrease their expenses while driving profitability. And in doing so, Shawnna and her team have managed over 60 million dollars in assets across their client base and have negotiated and implemented strategies saving companies over one million dollars over the past seven years.
Allison Williams Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:19:45 (33 Seconds) - Shawnna
I would say meeting with your CPA is really equally as important and that can be less frequent. But I would say at least twice a year. And a lot of people think, oh, I just need it during tax time, but sometimes by tax time, it can be a little late to take advantage of any strategies. So we say please meet once towards the end of the year and then another at tax time. And, really you want to reach out when there's any changes in your business. I mean, maybe you're looking to purchase an office space or you're adding another partner. Any major changes should be communicated so you don't get to tax time, and your CPA is like, oh, if you told me that last year, I could have helped you with that. So.
00:21:12 (50 Seconds) – Allison
My accountant, so my accountant can shoot me a message and say, hey, I know that you just added three new team members and I know that you've got bonuses coming up at the end of the year or I know you're going to be doing some some gifting through the company. Let's figure out the best way to do that so that we can maximize your tax benefit. And if you have those two different professionals that don't ever communicate, the bookkeeper is on one place, the accounting team is on another place, then you as the business owner have to really be intentional about bringing your financial team together to give you advice periodically. And it doesn't take a whole lot to do that. I mean, it literally is just schedule yourself a quarterly meeting and invite them both to come and have everybody have access to the reports so that you can have those strategy sessions. Don't be passive in trying to get advice for your business. You have to be intentional about seeking that.
One area that many lawyers struggle in is hiring the right person for the right position for your firm. Often this struggle stems from focusing solely on aptitude and not considering key characteristics you need to look at for every position you fill in your firm. Today we are going to explore these three characteristics and what you can do to hire rock stars for your firm.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:15:54 (35 Seconds)
And what I have found since we have started implementing a practical skills component of our interview process is that people oftentimes will report that they have the ability to do something. And then when they are asked to show it, when they're asked to demonstrate it, when they're asked even just to give you a concrete example, they oftentimes cannot do that. And when they can't do that, you know that they either are not confident in their ability or if they are, that they just simply don't have the skill that they allege that they did.
00:34:45 (45 Seconds)
When you hire a misfit, you are also creating an opportunity for yourself. So in every lost opportunity, in every struggle, in every strife and every discord, there is the opportunity for greatness that comes with that. And if you bring somebody into your business who does not fit the culture that's here, is that an opportunity to reform your culture? Positive and negative. Right. So sometimes you may be looking to keep exactly what you have, in which case you want to hire somebody who's exactly like the people that are already here. And other times you might want to step out of your existing culture because you want to reform your culture. You want your culture to advance.
One of the questions I’m asked frequently is how do you create an efficient and effective client intake system? And how do you hire someone who can handle this so that you can convert more of your client intake calls? Today we’re going to talk about client intake and what you need to do to improve your sales process.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:03:52 (35 Seconds)
It is not sufficient that you get a really likable person who's kind of just going through the motions of doing whatever it is that you ask them to do. Not saying that this person has to be someone who's going to set the world on fire. But you have to expect that a person who is in this role, who's going to be front facing forward, client facing most of their time, they have to be the kind of person that enjoys talking to people. They need to have the type of personality that engages through the phone because most of our sensory information comes in through our eyes.
00:07:31 (40 Seconds)
But before you even get to the point of getting them to selling, you have to have the right mindset for what they're doing on the phone. And one of the things that we found in the industry of looking at people that are successful with intake is they are naturally inquisitive people. That means they are going to naturally be oriented toward asking questions and figuring out what's going on and digging deeper beyond the surface of what they're told, because if they take at face value everything that a person says on the phone before that person gets into your office, you will oftentimes have a glut of people to meet with who are just not appropriate prospects for your office whatsoever.
We set business goals at the beginning of the year with every intention of meeting them. But life can get messy and this year things got VERY messy. In today's episode I am going to teach you 3 strategies you can use to get your business back on track. These are concrete strategies that you can not only use right away but that you can work on RIGHT NOW as I outline them for you.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its:
00:17:21 (47 Seconds)
Almost instinctually, we go to the mindset of if something is happening in the external world, we have no choice but to accept the ramifications of that in our law firm. And many times that is not true. Many times we are making choices that have adverse consequences for our business and if we were to make a different choice, the consequence would be different. And so you have to start thinking about what exactly is the cause of the current circumstance that you're experiencing in your business, whether it's an uptick or a downward slide in business. Where did that come from and what are all the pieces that contributed to that so that you can start making different choices to change the outcome that you're experiencing.
00:35:57 (43 Seconds)
There are ways for you to keep the standard the same in terms of production, but allow for some modification of what will actually be produced, meaning if I don't have the work to give to a client, I could give the work into a marketing initiative or I could give the work into a system for the firm, or I could give the work into, you know, pouring into the cultural morale, depending on how high your standards are. Ultimately, that will dictate whether or not your standards should be modified. But if there's a modification, the modification should be a revamping of your structure and it ought to have very clearly defined parameters around it. It should not be simply a wholesale walking away from the standards that you created.
00:41:31 (19 Seconds)
But your goal is to be fully educated and to make decisions that are best for your business based on your business metrics and separating your emotional connection to those decisions from the analysis. And this is where taking stock of yourself and why you are doing what you were doing is very important.
Are you busy or are you productive? There is a difference between the two and while being productive can help you to be successful and generate revenue, being busy can actually hamper growth.
In this episode we discuss:
Snip-Its
00:02:18
So whether you're actually getting what you want or not, the feeling that you are moving toward what you want is almost like an addictive sort of internal feeling. And if you're not careful and you're not very intentional about it, you can be working really hard and feel like you're getting a lot done when in fact you're not. And you look up one day and you say, I have been working so hard for so long, but I'm only making one hundred thousand dollars or I've been working so hard for so long, but I only have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in revenue. And I'm frustrated and I'm exhausted.
00:09:44
You go into all the ways that you can't because you haven't committed to whatever the goal is, because the reality is if you create a goal and you put it firmly in front of you, you write it down and you commit to it, then whatever comes into your mind as a way of achieving that goal, at least on the surface, has some level of ability to help you reach your goal. It doesn't mean that every thought you have is going to be one that you follow from thought to completion. But it has some ability. And that's because as soon as we start to direct our mind toward what we desire, the ways and means for us to achieve that goal is there.
00:51:38 – A bit long at 1 minute
When those types of major events happen, systems give you a level of continuity and a level of ease to be able to solve problems that you don't have when you are flying by the seat of your pants. And most lawyers instinctively know that, which is the reason why most law firm owners don't want to grow. They desire to grow. Right. They, and in their heart of hearts, they say, I want more. I know that I can help more people. I know that I can make a bigger impact. I know that I can make more money. I know that I can have a better existence. I can work nine to five Monday through Friday if I structure my business to be that. But it can't be that. If I want it to be that, I could be nine to five Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I take Tuesday and Thursday off with my young kids, or to just give myself thought work time, or to be with my family or to be creative working in another business. But I can't do that. I can't have that. I have all of the story wrapped in the I can't. I won't.
What could you accomplish if there were no limits? As lawyers we tend to be grounded in reality, which can actually limit what we can achieve in our practice and in our lives. Today I want to show you how a different thought framework will allow you to make decisions which can help you achieve growth in any economic climate.
In this episode we discuss:
How failures can set you free and make you better off.
Contact Info:
To contact Allison:
Website – https://lawfirmmentor.net/
Facebook – https://facebook.com/LawFirmMentor
Instagram – https://instagram.com/Law_Firm_Mentor
Twitter – https://twitter.com/Law_Firm_Mentor
Email – law.firm.mentor@gmail.com
Bio:
About Allison:
Allison C. Williams, Esq., is The Law Firm Mentor. Law Firm Mentor is a Business Coaching service for solo and small law firm attorneys. It helps lawyers to grow their revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Law Firm Mentor was born out of Allison’s experience starting a law firm and scaling its revenues into a multi-million dollar business in only three years. She shares her extensive knowledge of business, mindset coaching and entrepreneurship alongside her team in Law Firm Mentor.
Allison is also Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Allison is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law.
Allison has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – present. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2020 and in 2019-2020, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers and Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey.
Allison is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. She won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. In 2018, Allison was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Allison won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.
In 2018, Allison created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers. Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.
She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.
Snip-Its
00:03:11
So a lot of people will believe that they are restricted by their race, their gender, their region of the world, their economic circumstances, their parentage, ancestry, their political beliefs. They'll believe that there is only so much that can be done and they will only achieve up to the height of that possibility. And when you start to hear someone talk about what is not possible, oftentimes it is because they are focusing on the how and not focusing on a framework that we're going to talk about today that's actually going to give you the ability to start to see possibilities where you don't currently see them.
00:12:07
And thought work is a framework for how to look at problem solving, that does not start with the tactic or the strategy. It starts with understanding that your circumstance is what it is. So we have to accept the circumstance. And if we cannot immediately change the circumstance, we have to then think about how we are thinking about our circumstances. Because our thoughts about a circumstance are going to cause us to have a certain feeling. And the power of that feeling is going to dictate what action or inaction we take that will lead to a result.
00:27:00
And thought work is a framework for how to look at problem solving, that does not start with the tactic or the strategy. It starts with understanding that your circumstance is what it is. So we have to accept the circumstance. And if we cannot immediately change the circumstance, we have to then think about how we are thinking about our circumstances. Because our thoughts about a circumstance are going to cause us to have a certain feeling. And the power of that feeling is going to dictate what action or inaction we take that will lead to a result.
00:44:59
But if you don't want to wait 10, 15, 20 years to get to a place where you are happy with the life that you are living after, you are too old to enjoy it. Or frankly, don't have the stage of life where you're able to physically or emotionally or financially enjoy it because you have other priorities, and you want your success today, then it's time to get out of the scarcity mindset so that you can ultimately get yourself to the place that you want.
Law firms have been behind the curve when it comes to adapting to the idea of remote staffing. But with the onset of COVID, we’ve had no choice but embrace this concept. Now we are faced with the question “How do we make this work?”
In this episode we discuss:
Contact information for Genny and De Novo:
786-251-5814 - Direct
305-925-0229 - Company
genny@denovoreview.com
https://denovoreview.com/
Bio:
Genny Castellanos
Genny Castellanos is an experienced civil litigator and appellate lawyer. Genny is the founder and CEO of De Novo Review, a national provider of managed attorneys aimed at supporting and helping law firms and legal departments throughout the United States to scale their law practice. De Novo Review is a dynamic legal staffing company dedicated to providing high quality, experienced attorneys for complex litigation and appellate research, drafting, and courtroom work. Before De Novo Review, Genny practiced law at top regional law firms in the areas of commercial litigation and appeals.
Genny graduated in the top 15% of her law school class and was a judicial clerk for the Honorable Robert M. Gross, Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal.
De Novo Review is the first and most trusted national curated network connecting law firms with attorneys and legal staff. De Novo hand selects the right law team for you at the right price, and can also improve your processes and workflows. De Novo's network gives you litigation and appellate support for your current cases as well as capacity to take on cases in other areas of law and expand to other jurisdictions without limits.
Contact De Novo today for a free consultation and get your first 5-hour project done for just $249.
The top 5% of world class legal talent on-demand, vetted, and matched to your needs--De Novo Review handles the hard part of hiring so you don't have to.
www.denovoreview.com
Snip-Its
18:06 Genny Castellanos
So I thought, well, this isn't the most efficient way to manage a workforce. And kind of that's what birthed De Novo Review. I also saw that technology was enabling us to work from wherever, and I couldn't imagine why firms were using, spending so much money on overhead costs. So I thought, wait a second, I can eliminate this overhead cost. All it takes is a computer and knowing how to hire the right person for the right price, for the right place.
18:39 Allison Williams
The right person, for the right price, for the right place. So that's kind of like the the key catch phrase there. And I think so many solo and small law firms really compete to or struggle to grow, because of this issue of getting the right people. Right. So there's like a a limiting belief we have if there are no good people or all the good people work for big law or if you have good people and they don't work for big law and they're willing to come work for you. You're not going to be able to afford them. They're going to create mistakes. They're going to become a problem for you. There's a lot of risk associated with that.
24:26 Genny Castellanos
When hiring, so one of the key things that I do and it's one of my secrets is that when I hire, I hire somebody. But I don't necessarily keep them in that position. I put people to do what they're good at. And so the sooner you find out what the person is good at, even if you hired them for something else. If they've got a good work ethic, they like working with you, you like working with them, find the right position in your company to put them because you have gold there. You just might have them in the wrong place in your company.
As attorneys, we don't always think of our practice as a business but it is, in fact, the most valuable asset we have. It is important to understand the value of a practice and the right way to exit your business if you feel it is time for a change.
In this episode we discuss:
Bio:
Michael’s mission is to help associations, business owners, executives and their families make prudent financial decisions to avoid financial failure. Michael coaches his clients on the academics of investing, based upon Nobel Prize economist’s investment strategies and theories.
During the exit planning process, Michael help his business owner clients discover their exit objectives. These objectives include identifying how much money they need to receive from the sale of their business to maintain their lifestyle during retirement, identify the most effective way to transfer their business and to whom do they wish to transfer the business.
Michael joined Strategies for Wealth in 2004, after personally experiencing their uncommon planning process as a client since 2000. Prior to Strategies for Wealth, he was a partner with Let’s Talk Business Network, an entrepreneurial support community. He began his professional career at Deloitte & Touche and BDO Seidman.
Michael received is Bachelors’ of Science in Accounting from State University at Albany and his Masters of Business Administration at New York University Stern School of Business. Michael has been a board member of Marlboro Jewish Center, Special Strides Riding Academy and NIPD/NJ (National Institute for People with Disabilities of New Jersey. Michael and his family work closely with 3Hearts4Paws, a dog rescue in Marlboro, NJ. They have fostered over 100 dogs over the last few years and have 6 rescue dogs of their own.
Snip-Its
00:20:11 - (Michael Ringel) How much is your portion of that business worth? And will that be enough money? Plus your personal balance sheet to be able to produce the cash flow for you in retirement, to enjoy the lifestyle that you worked so hard to achieve? And if it is, that's great to know and that gives you the ability to leave at any time. And if you don't, then you need to do one of two things, you need to save more money. You really need to grow the business to produce that enterprise value such that when you sell your portion of the business that is going to fulfill the gap or you have to reduce the amount of money that you're going to require in retirement.
00:31:37 (Allison) And I wanted the same thing that just about every small law firm owner that I know wanted. I wanted security. I wanted I'm going to I'm going to grind it out for a little while and then I'm going to land at having arrived and it will be easy. And that's the myth that we all reach for. Right. So I had to outgrow that myth. And that only came through working with coaches to really get into my head space and say, wait a minute, you know, the security doesn't come from money in the bank. The security comes from the ability to generate more money when you need it as you need it. And so that is what we ultimately help lawyers to create. And that that, you know, getting out of that that pattern of thinking, you know, X dollars is going to create safety for me is empowering so that they can create that economic safety, that safety net. But recognizing that if that safety net goes away, you're still secure because you can create more.
00:40:04 (Allison) The power is in the plan that comes before the fall because there is always going to be the shit happens moment. And we don't know that it's going to be in the dissolution of the partnership. But much more often than not, partnerships dissolve. So all of you that hear that stat of businesses fail within the first five years in professional practices, it's not often that the lawyer that owns the firm is suddenly not able to own the firm anymore. It's often that there is a business dissolution.
We all know that closing new business can be challenging in the best of times - especially for those who do not consider themselves to be engaged in "selling" during the new prospect consultation process. We want to seize upon every possible advantage in helping prospects to choose to hire us. For that reason, most business owners understand the value of generating referrals.
But what exactly IS a referral? How can a lawyer build a sustainable practice that generates continuous referrals without spending all day every day "pound the pavement" to secure them? Should we be paying for referrals? If not, where should our referrals come from? We discuss this and more with today's guest, Stacey Brown Randall.
Specifically, in this episode we discuss:
Needs identification to make proper referrals
The difference between a referral, recommendation, testimonial, etc.
Why paid referrals aborts consistency
Knowing your referral sources- and making the most of them
How referrals can help you stop selling
Why waiting for referrals is NOT “the way” to generate referrals
The biggest lies lawyers tell themselves about getting referrals
The Growth By Referrals program - one on one and online
To reach Stacey, check out:
Phone: (704) 363-7151
Email: Stacey@StaceyBRandall.com
LinkedIn: /in/staceybrandall
Twitter: @staceybrandall
Facebook: /StaceyBrownRandall
Skype: StaceyBRandall
To learn more about Stacey's program, Growth By Referrals, visit https://www.staceybrownrandall.com/growthbyreferrals
Snip-Its
00:22:50
Stacey Brown Randall: Being intentional with the people who've already referred you to nurture a relationship with them and use the right language. Plant those referral seeds so they continue to refer you.
00:23:02
Stacey Brown Randall: What people don't realize is that someone who referred you once before actually shows a propensity maybe to refer you again in the future.
00:23:11
Stacey Brown Randall: There's lots of times it's one and done. They'll never refer you, again, but many, many times when they've done it once it's something they would be willing to do a second time. We just need to create the right environment for them.
Today on the podcast you can catch Allison appear on Maximum Growth Live with hosts Seth Price and Jay Ruane, with special guest Nalini Prasad!
Seth and Jay interviewed the Law Firm Mentor, and we "talked shop" about business growth for law firms. The Law Firm Mentor provides business coaching to help law firm owners stop the chaos and get to a level of efficiency that will give them a dramatically more successful firm as well as a life with more free time. Allison weighs in on the struggles and benefits of hiring your very first associate.
In this episode we discuss:
FREE OFFER for listeners of the podcast
For this episode, Jay is offering a free 30-day trial of his program GetFirmFlex - here it is: https://www.getfirmflex.com/lp/law-firm-mentor/.
https://www.getfirmflex.com/
Allison’s Contact Information
https://Lawfirmmentor.net
Jay’s Contact Information
jay@ruaneattorneys.com
https://RuaneAttorneys.com
Seth’s Contact Information
https://booking.blusharkdigital.com
https://blusharkdigital.com
#CrushChaos #LawFirmMentor #NeverStopGrowing
Most law firm owners fear growth. Or, more accurately stated, they fear growing their law firms because of the looming "RISK" they perceive inherent in adding bodies to the building. They fear the risk of losing time. The risk of losing clients. The risk of losing money. The risk of losing their reputations. And, most certainly, they fear the risk of malpractice, grievance or BOTH.
What most law firm owners have not figured out yet is that there IS a way to grow while mitigating risk. We cannot - CANNOT - eliminate all risk in business. Doing it all yourself presents a risk. Doing most of the work ourselves presents risk. Having the work done through others presents risk - the question is merely how best to mitigate that risk.
And, investing the time and energy in learning how to hire well limits the risk while expanding the opportunity to enjoy owning a business. In this episode, we cover the keys to finding that happy medium, including:
#CrushChaos #LawFirmMentor #NeverStopGrowing
The issue of collecting money from clients plagues many small or solo law firms. The intricacies of protecting your attorney/client relationship while ensuring your firm stays afloat are difficult to navigate. In this episode of the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast, I break down three tactics to help your law firm collect money.
From engaging in tough conversations with clients to evergreen retainers, this episode goes into the hard-core strategies needed to help you collect money in your law firm and helps you focus on what will move the needle in your business.
In this episode we discuss:
Collections Training Recording // Collections Training Transcript
Be sure to download the webinar and save it to reference!
Did you know that many business owners do not have a business plan? The complexities and nuances that go into building a firm and business planning in general are more important than you might think. In this episode of the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast, executive coach and business consultant, Kathy D'Agostino, shares her knowledge and 25 years of experience to help you grow and invest in your business.
Whether or not you've prepared a basic business plan that you revisit once a year or you have not taken the time to plan yet, this episode will take actionable and relatively quick steps to hone in on your mission, values and vision.
In this episode we discuss:
In the time of COVID-19, countless business owners have pivoted from operating their businesses out of traditional brick and mortar locations to operating primarily online. While many businesses have made this transition to best serve their customers during these uncertain times, Law Firm Mentor client Bridgette Bennett excelled by following our advice by implementing very specific and strategic tactics online. These systems allowed Bridgette to continuing operating her business and gain more leads using non-traditional marketing strategy. Many of these strategies have been outlined in our LFM Accelerator Course.
In this episode, Bridgette and I discuss what she did to 5X her law firm leads in ONE WEEK through use of these non-conventional strategies.
In this episode we discuss:
When you start a law firm, the hurdles and challenges of running a business and surrounding yourself with a team that can support you can be overwhelming. Sometimes the most important step you can take is asking for help and investing in your business. I am joined by Nicole Hull, Esq., a former Law Firm Mentor client, who applied a few basic steps to her business to create more money and more free time in a relatively short period of time.
In this episode, Nicole and I discuss how this act of investing in yourself and your business can make all the difference in your firm and in your life.
In this episode we discuss:
You may or may not know this already, but there are a lot of misconceptions that people have about owning a law firm as a business rather than just doing well in your practice. There is a lot that goes into lawyering and there is a lot that goes into owning a law firm. The lawyering part you know already, but owning a law firm and knowing the cold hard truths of what it really takes to be successful is a whole new realm with which you may be unfamiliar. Lots of people will give you advice, most likely leaving out the cold harsh truths, but not me.
In this episode, I want to talk about the cold hard truths of being the owner of a law firm and the journey of transcending the business to becoming the CEO of the business.
In this episode, I’ll discuss:
Someone asked me the question, “how can I determine if my law firm is a real business?” You might be thinking, well, of course, if my doors are open and I’m selling legal services, I’m a business. But there really are some very fundamental differences between a law firm that can be very professional, providing services with the expectation of payment in some manner and a real business.
In this episode, I want to talk about what I consider to be the top three business indicators that define a sustainable business. Being able to identify these attributes in your law practice will give you greater insight into whether or not your law practice really constitutes a business.
In this episode, I’ll discuss:
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of lawyers are having a hard time adjusting to life in this post-pandemic era. The pandemic has leveled the playing field leaving solo attorneys and law firm business owners of all sizes in the same boat of economic uncertainty. As a solo attorney or business owner, nothing can be left to fate if you want your business to thrive. Now is the time to adapt and find innovative solutions as you move forward in an evolving post-pandemic landscape.
In this episode, we speak with Michael Whelan. Mike has worked in logistics, solo law practice, and legal media. Through his speaking, consulting, and writing, Mike aims to improve the lives of solo attorneys.
If you are looking for an innovative way to navigate the uncharted waters of our current post-pandemic era, then you won't want to miss this episode.
In this episode, Mike and I discuss:
As most law firm owners are making the shift from a partially or fully integrated virtual firm, most come to a halt when it comes to hiring virtual employees. If you have never experienced working with a virtual assistant then many questions may arise, such as: how much should you pay, what expectations are acceptable, or how to evaluate the performance for someone who isn’t physically present. When hiring virtual assistants expect a learning curve that will require your patience and time. The pay off will be worth it. Trust me.
In this episode, we speak with Brett Trembly, a former President of the South Miami Kendall Bar Association and former Vice-Chair of the Florida Bar 11th Circuit Grievance Committee 11 “I.” Brett has also been named a Super Lawyers Rising Star in Florida for the past three years.
Brett is well known for his outstanding law firm and how he created a whole business model around working with virtual assistants.
In this episode, Brett and I discuss:
I wanted to take some time to address the issue that I think a lot of law firm owners are struggling with right now in light of what's going on in our country. And that's the issue of communications and in particular communications around touchy subjects.
There are a lot of ways that we can address traumatic events that happened but how can you communicate these events both externally to the public as well as internally among your teams and between the owner and others that work in the firm?
In this episode, I will discuss how law firm owners can systematize their communications during times of controversial and devastating events.
In this episode, we discuss:
Tough times lay ahead for a lot of business owners and their clients. Some clients may be behind on payments due to the current economic situation, leaving business owners struggling with billing collections. These last few months have posed a burden on us all. How can you and your business survive?
In this episode, we speak with Elizabeth Miller, Owner and Founder of Managing the Business of Practicing Law(R), which helps solo, small and mid-size law firms handle administrative matters, including billing time, collection procedures and a host of other business functions.
If you are looking for a solution to help streamline your billing processes and get paid, then this is the episode for you.
In this episode, Elizabeth and I discuss:
As we all move into motion with the economy slowly making its way to re-opening, now more than ever is the time to round up your All-Star Team so your business can continue to grow and thrive. In this episode we speak with Molly McGrath, the owner and founder of the company, Hiring and Empowering Solutions, the only team of management consultants offering hiring and training support to boutique law firms and solopreneur attorneys throughout the United States.
If you are ready to bring your A-Game and recoup what you’ve lost these last few months during the lockdown, then this is the episode you need to inspire and drive you forward.
In this episode, Molly and I discuss:
For every lawyer your website is your home base, it’s where people find you and check you out even if they were personally referred to you. How do you define what a website is and what it is really designed to accomplish?
In this episode, we speak with Steve Ryan, Founder and CEO of RyTech LLC, a full-service digital marketing agency working with clients across the US at all stages of growth. Steve and I discuss one of my favorite topics of marketing, which is the online business card, i.e. the website.
In this episode, Steve and I discuss:
Content marketing is everywhere, it has saturated every outlet and has seen the most success within the realm of Social Media. Consumers gravitate towards video content more than anything else. If you are unsure where to allocate your marketing budget, Video Content is the first place to start and is where you can expect the most return. In this episode, I am joined with Mark Bullock, Co-Founder of Videosocials a video blogging platform for attorneys and other professionals.
In this episode, Mark and I discuss:
As more firms are going virtual increased risks pose a threat to privacy security. When it comes to technology we as lawyers can tend to be laggards, but this can come at a cost that we can’t afford. In this episode Heinan and I discuss the importance of staying abreast technological advances necessary to preserve the privacy of client information in a virtual era and the challenges law firm owners face when it comes to these changes.
In this episode, Heinan and I discuss:
Have you been thinking about making the leap from Big Law to having a practice of your own? It can be scary especially when there are so many unknowns to account for. In this episode, we speak with Carolyn Elefant, a law firm owner in Washington DC and a long time advocate of solo and small firm practice and lawyer entrepreneurship. Since 2002, Carolyn’s blog MyShingle.com has helped support thousands of lawyers with launching a practice. She is also author of Solo by Choice, the most comprehensive guide on starting a modern 21st century law practice.
Both Carolyn and I can attest that once you do make the leap the opportunities become clearer. Carolyn’s best advice is to stop over analyzing and JUST DO IT, once you start you can never lose.
In this episode, Carolyn and I discuss:
The method in which prospects seek information has resulted in Amazon-ified search results making it difficult to have a conversation that doesn’t just begin and stop at price dropping.
In this episode I am joined with Jan Roos, bestselling author of The Legal Marketing Fastland and CEO of CaseFuel, a marketing platform that helps law firm owners gain greater visibility into their pipelines, generate more leads, and close more deals.
In this episode, Jan and I will discuss:
Part 2 dives deep into proactive measures law firm owners can begin implementing to help adapt their business models during the current evolving landscape. A lot of owners are beginning to come to terms with the fact that they will need to virtualize their practice, and in response some may panic. The transition won’t be an easy feat, but it is possible. In this episode I stress the importance of setting standards, fine-tuning systems, and most importantly how to refrain from negative thoughts while you transform your business in the wake of the Corona Virus pandemic.
In this episode, I will discuss:
The idea of going virtual is an increasing thought among many law firm owners, especially in the times we are going through with the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased productivity, accessibility, and cost savings is just some of the many benefits of going virtual. The process of transferring to a virtual firm however is where the real challenge lies. In this episode I am joined with Melanie Leonard, owner of Streamlined Legal, a consulting service that offers personalized consulting services, training, and education to law firms who are looking to create efficiencies with the use of practice management software.
In this episode, Melanie and I will discuss:
In the marketing world we are living at the height of content consumption and the landscape is competitive. Yes, content is still King and it is essential for the success of your marketing strategy. In this episode I am joined with Law Firm Entrepreneur Marc Cerniglia, founder of Spotlight Branding, a marketing firm committed to helping lawyers become unforgettable. Marc has a passion for helping professionals understand the truths and myths about internet marketing and educating them on how to get the most out of their marketing efforts.
In this episode, Marc and I will discuss:
During the ordinance of Shelter in Place most of us are working remotely and engaging with clients in a way we are not used to. This is especially problematic for lawyers as our brains tend to go into the darkest of places when a problem arises. It’s not that we are negative thinkers, it’s just the way we are conditioned as lawyers. As soon as a problem arises the first place our mind goes is what could go wrong, then we proceed on how to solve it. It is important as business owners that we not only understand what’s happening, but also be proactive to avoid the toxic impact on your clients and your staff. In this episode I will present four things you can do now to stay emotionally and psychologically healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this episode, I will discuss:
Maddy Martin has spent the last decade growing tech startups from New York to California, and most recently helping law firms streamline efficiencies with inbound and outbound communication. Maddy is the Head of Growth & Education at Smith.ai, a virtual receptionist service for phone calls, web chat, and text messages that combines human intelligence and AI to help small businesses achieve happier clients and more qualified leads.
In this episode, Maddy and I discuss:
Dina Eisenberg works with firms and solo lawyers to create custom outsourcing and onboarding strategies that convey a firm's values while retaining employees and provides Ombudsman services. Formerly a prosecutor turned award-winning entrepreneur and CEO of Unstoppable Lawyer Playbook (a.k.a. Outsource Easier), Dina’s mission is to help law firms create sustainable, profitable, and happy workplaces. In this episode, Dina and I will speak about the ways in which solo and small law firm attorneys can better outsource their business minutiae in order to crush chaos is business.
In this episode, Dina and I cover:
Jay Henderson is the owner and founder of Real Talent Hiring. His company is dedicated to helping clients take the guesswork out of people performance using their one of a kind objective metric system Real Talent. Unlike many hiring assessments, the Real Talent Hiring Assessment helps employers evaluate candidates based on performance-focused metrics, which are universal, rather than behavior-based data that can and does change with mood and manipulation. Jay has helped mega-giants and Fortune 500 companies on down to solo and small law firms improve the quality of their workforces.
In this episode, Jay and I will discuss:
An accomplished attorney and transformational thought leader, Seth Price is a founding partner and the business backbone of Price Benowitz LLP as well as the founder and CEO of BluShark Digital. Allison Williams, Law Firm Mentor, interviewed Seth about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), use of SEO as a branding strategy, and converting prospects into paying clients with effective intake protocols.
To learn more about the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast, visit: https://lawfirmmentor.net/podcast.
Check out our show notes on the podcast episode page.
To learn more about BluShark Digital, visit: https://www.facebook.com/blusharkdigital/
An accomplished attorney and transformational thought leader, Seth Price is a founding partner and the business backbone of Price Benowitz LLP as well as the founder and CEO of BluShark Digital. Allison Williams, Law Firm Mentor, interviewed Seth about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), use of SEO as a branding strategy, and converting prospects into paying clients with effective intake protocols.
To learn more about the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast, visit: https://lawfirmmentor.net/podcast.
Check out our show notes on the podcast episode page.
To learn more about BluShark Digital, visit: https://www.facebook.com/blusharkdigital/
An accomplished attorney and transformational thought leader, Seth Price is a founding partner and the business backbone of Price Benowitz LLP as well as the founder and CEO of BluShark Digital. Allison Williams, Law Firm Mentor, interviewed Seth about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), use of SEO as a branding strategy, and converting prospects into paying clients with effective intake protocols.
To learn more about the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast, visit: https://lawfirmmentor.net/podcast.
Check out our show notes on the podcast episode page.
To learn more about BluShark Digital, visit: https://www.facebook.com/blusharkdigital/