Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / 9 Must-Take Actions for Women Law Firm Owners to Generate Wealth

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9 Must-Take Actions for Women Law Firm Owners to Generate Wealth · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

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  Davina Frederick: Hi, and welcome back to the wealthy
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  woman lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Davina Fredrik, founder
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  and CEO of wealthy woman lawyer. And today I want to share with
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  you, the nine must take actions for women, law firm owners to
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  generate wealth. We are here at the first day of the last month
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  of the last quarter of the year, and a lot of us are thinking
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  about 2023 right now. And our plan for the year we're looking
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  at our goals maybe that this year and looking at what we
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  achieved and what we didn't achieve. And thinking about, you
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  know, what we can do differently next year, if our goal is to
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  generate wealth, I have nine must take actions for you. So
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  let's jump in and get started. Number one is to get clear on
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  your goals and your why. So you think Duh, of course get clear
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  on my goals. But that's not exactly what I mean. What I mean
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  is, it's so important for you to get very specific about your
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  goals, what it is that you want. For a lot of people wealth can
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  be a dirty word, and they can think to themselves, well, I
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  can't say that I want well, if I can solve, assign some arbitrary
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  number that I want for my business, but that's not what
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  I'm talking about what I'm talking about, is you getting
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  clear on what is important to you. If you want to make
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  $250,000 You say want to make turn $50,000 in personal income,
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  then why do you want to do that? What is it that that money means
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  to you? What is it that is going to do for you? So to give you an
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  example, a lot of people will say, Well, my kids are my why?
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  Well, what do you mean, your kids, your why? What did you
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  want to provide for them, I want to provide for them a life that
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  I was not able to have as a child, which is what to go and
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  do things to travel the world to have their college funded, so
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  they don't have to take on student loan debt to create
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  generational wealth for them. So I could pass on something them
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  to them that I didn't have. That's an example another why
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  may be well, I don't have kids. That's not my why my why is so
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  that I can travel the world, you know, maybe take six
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  international trips a year, and just live my best life. Another
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  why is I want to make sure that when I'm old, I'm not living on
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  cat food and homeless. So I really, it is compelling to me
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  to create enough money that I'll have enough money to set aside
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  and invest for my future. Get really emotionally attached to
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  your why what is this money about what you want, if you have
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  a financial goal, then attach something if you have other
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  goals, and you don't think in terms of money, then I want you
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  to do the opposite. I want you to think about what it is it's
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  really important to you, your kids, your your freedom, your
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  traveling your future, whatever it is, it's important to you.
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  And then I want you to attach numbers to it. Because often I
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  will hear people say, well, money's not important to me. But
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  they but they want to take six trips internationally every
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  year, or they want to have kids and take care of their kids, or
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  they don't have a plan for the future. They don't even think
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  about the future. They just think that they're never going
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  to get old, that's not going to happen to them. Well, I'm here
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  to tell you, there's a whole lot of people who do get old, and
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  hopefully you will be one of them. So get clear on your
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  goals, but really attach it to your why what's important to
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  you. Number two is put law firm growth on your calendar. If you
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  want to grow a profitable, sustainable wealth generating
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  law firm business that exists for you and creates money for
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  you over time, you have got to start prioritizing that, which
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  means you got to put it on your calendar, your calendar is a
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  reflection of how you spend your time during the day. And if
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  you've got a very full booked calendar, with all these other
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  things that you're doing, then you say anything, oh, well, I'll
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  I'll, I'll squeeze that in, I'll figure out time to look at that
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  or listen to this or invest in this or whatever. But you never
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  put it on your calendar, you won't because your calendar is
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  just a reflection of how you're spending your time during the
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  day. If you have a cram full, you probably have things that
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  aren't on your calendar and also crammed in there. So you're
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  never gonna find time for it, you're gonna keep putting it off
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  and kicking the can down the road. If you want to grow a
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  wealth generating law firm, you must put time on your calendar
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  every week to focus on working on your business. And make that
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  a priority as much of a priority is anything else. If you just
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  wanted to practice law, you can get a job working for somebody
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  else. But if you want to be a business owner of a wealth
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  generating firm, you have to make it an equal priority.
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  Number three is hire a million dollar team so you can stop
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  doing and start reviewing is what I tell people stop doing
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  and start reviewing. Stop trying to do all the things you have to
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  hire a team to help you get to and through a million dollars.
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  Who are those people going to be? We're looking for positions
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  not people okay? Identify create a model aspirational org chart
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  and identify who what positions are required to get you to and
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  through a million dollar team. Do you need to add an attorney
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  do you need to add two attorneys so that you can build them out
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  and they can make you money and make you profit do you need add
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  paralegals Do you desperately need somebody to handle your
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  social media to free up some of your time, figure out who your
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  team is, from a standpoint of positions, then you can fill in
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  people later. Alright, number four is learn to lead. This is
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  really about investing in your own skill development, and
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  learning how to be a better leader. Oftentimes, as we're
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  leading a team of people are trying to be a manager, which is
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  different, a little bit different from being a leader.
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  Managers are a leader, but not all leaders or managers. So you,
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  you may, you may blame the other person they did this, they did
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  that they didn't work out, they were terrible. And you may be
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  right in some cases. But it also could be a you problem, it could
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  be that you haven't invested in the skills that you need to
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  manage, which is a day to day operations kind of thing. Or to
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  be an inspirational leader, you haven't learned how to be a
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  thought leader, you haven't learned how to be an
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  inspirational leader that others want to follow. And that helps
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  you in all walks of your life, all areas of your life, being a
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  leader in your community, being a leader in your business. And
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  being a leader where you're, you're a thought leader, that
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  that's attracting those ideal clients that you want to serve.
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  Number five is systematize, everything that you can. So
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  systems are different from automation, a lot of people
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  conflate the two, but systems existed long before automation.
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  A system being systematic is taking a process that's going to
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  be repeated over and over again, and documenting that process so
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  that anyone can theoretically sit down in that position and do
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  that same activity, because you haven't documented and they have
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  step by step instructions on how to follow it. You want to for
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  every repeatable process in your business, you want to create a
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  checklist, video training, something that documents that
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  process, so that anybody can listen to it and then replicate
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  it. Number six is automate what makes sense, though there are
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  automation is wonderful these days, there are so many tools
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  out there we can use to automate. But we often it's
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  like, Have you ever seen somebody who everything they
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  were as designer, and you're like, that looks terrible. And
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  it's because they're so focused on the label, they're not
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  focused on coming up with a look that just looks, you know,
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  beautiful and stylish, they just want everything to have a label
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  on it. That's what it can be like with automation, if you get
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  if you don't have a clear plan for what you're going to
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  automate and why you're going to automate it, and how you're
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  going to automate it. And then you just jump in and start just
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  buying a bunch of products, because you see some other
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  lawyer on Facebook, recommending that you use this product, you
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  might already have a tool that does the exact same thing,
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  because you haven't been trained on it, or you don't have your
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  team trained on it. You're not using it. And then you go and
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  buy another product that does the same thing. It's a foolish
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  waste of money. So you want to automate what makes sense. Also,
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  when you're automating what makes sense, there are things
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  that may not make sense for automation, you may apply
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  automation to your onboarding intake process, and you should,
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  but there also may need to be a human element there. Have you
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  ever tried to call a any government entity or a large
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  corporation and gotten the phone tree where you just keep going
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  through their system? Because you never have that human
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  contact? Experience? That and how does that make you feel? And
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  do you want your clients to feel that way? Yes, automation is a
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  great benefit does, it's a great benefit to the client. But
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  sometimes we need human to human contact. And so you need to make
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  sure that that if you want to provide that high touch boutique
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  experience, that keeps clients clamoring to hire you and coming
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  back to you, you need to include that part as well. Alright,
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  number seven is master business math. I know, I know, I hear you
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  right now,
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  I don't like math, which is why I became a lawyer. I hear that
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  from a lot of lawyers, I am that person as well. I was a star
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  math student till I was 10 years old. And then they started
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  introducing letters into by math and I got all confused. So I get
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  you. But one of the things that you need to understand if you
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  want to grow a wealth generating law firm business, is you must
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  master business math, you must understand how to read your
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  financial reports and what it means. You must understand what
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  key performance indicators are and which ones are important for
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  you to be tracking and which ones you don't need to worry
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  about right now. Are you should you be sitting there lining up
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  the numbers like little soldiers like a bookkeeper? No, you need
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  to hire a bookkeeper to do that for you need to hire a CPA, but
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  you need to have an understanding. You can't blame
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  your CPA and say, Well, I can't make that investment because my
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  CPA won't let me or I don't understand that. I'll have to
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  check with my CPA. I can't tell you what my revenue was last
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  year. I'll have to call my CPA. Those are all excuses. Where
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  you're you're not taking accountability for you are
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  ultimately responsible for knowing your numbers and your
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  business. The IRS certainly is not going to take that kind of
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  thing as an excuse. And it's not as difficult as you think. A lot
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  of people think It is but something that we teach in the
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  wealthy woman lawyer league is we help people overcome that
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  phobia, and really learn how to get clear on the numbers.
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  Because all of your business decisions around wealth, you
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  must understand your numbers, because that's your map, that's
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  what's going to give you the critical information to help you
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  get to where you're going. Alright, number eight is hired
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  coach who specializes in law firm business growth. Of course,
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  that's what I do. That's what my company wealthy woman lawyer
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  does. So I obviously have an interest in telling you that but
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  also, let me just tell you, I give I give this advice before I
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  became a coach as well, because I hire coaches, and they changed
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  my life. They taught me things that might have otherwise taken
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  me years to learn on my own, I may never have learned some of
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  the things that I've learned working with coaches, had I not
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  made that investment in myself and my business, I really did
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  made that choice so that I would short cut my success getting
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  from point A to point B, a good coach can help you do that. And
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  so I go further and say, really hire one that specializes in law
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  firm business, because we know that law firm businesses are
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  unique. Businesses were not the same thing as a nail salon, or,
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  you know, a gym or something like that, right? We have
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  different ethical obligations, different legal requirements. So
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  you really need to hire somebody who understands that and
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  somebody who's been there done that. You know, I know for me, I
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  built and grew my own law firm business I've done I've built to
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  law for businesses. So I understand the ins and outs of
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  what that's like. And you may be surrounded by people who are
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  supporters who love you, and they want to support you, but
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  they don't have the specialty, the knowledge, special knowledge
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  that they need to be able to do. So. Which brings me to number
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  nine, which is seek out a community of like minded women
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  on the same journey, I cannot stress to you enough the
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  importance of surrounding yourself with people who are
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  optimistic, who walk on the sunny side, who, who who know
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  that it's critical to take risks in your business, if you want to
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  grow, and who can support you in that, because they've been there
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  done that, right. So in in seeking out a community, we
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  often have a community around us anyway, we have our parents, we
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  have our spouse, we have our friends, we have people we went
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  to college with, we went to law school with people used to work
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  with all of these people who are important to us in our lives,
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  and most of them cannot understand what it is that we're
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  doing. And what we have on the line. When we start and grow our
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  own law firm business. They you might have people in your family
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  who love and support you, but they've only ever worked a nine
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  to five job. So they don't get what the added pressure that you
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  have of being entrepreneur. And they may say, Well, why are you
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  working on the weekend? Or why are you working at night? Or why
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  are you doing all this stuff? And you're like, I'm preparing
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  for trial. They don't get what that means, right? They're
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  telling you to take time off. They say things like All work
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  and no play. And they don't really understand what is you're
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  doing on your journey. It's important to seek out people who
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  do understand that those people who don't understand love us,
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  but they don't often know the best thing for us, right? That's
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  for us to decide. And it's the same thing with people who are
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  entrepreneurs in your family. Yes, they may be entrepreneurs.
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  But if they've never owned a law firm, then you know, there's a
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  lot of stuff that they don't know, they don't know that every
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  time you make a decision for our client, you're putting your bar
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  license on the line, because you're you know, you you, you
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  could step into malpractice very quickly. So it's important to
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  surround yourself with a community of like minded people
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  on the same journey as you so that they can support you and
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  really understand where you're coming from. So that's it, those
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  are the nine must do must take actions for women law for owners
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  to generate. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I'm
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  thinking about you as you're going into 2023 as I am having
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  many conversations with my women, law firm, owner clients
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  about it. And I wanted to really take a moment to give you some
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  very specific actions that you could take as you're planning
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  out your 2023. And if you have enjoyed this episode, please
• 14:23
  give us a review on your podcast app. If you're an Apple fan
• 14:27
  girl, go there. Whatever it is, you're listening to this on. If
• 14:30
  you could leave us a review, please do we so appreciate it.
• 14:32
  We're trying to get as many women law firm owners as we can
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  to listen to the podcast so they can get the help that they need
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  to grow their software business. All right, that's her out. I
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  thank you so much for being here and being a member of the
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  wealthy woman lawyer community. I so appreciate you and I will
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  talk to you next week.