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The Trouble with ‘Team’ · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:01
  Intro: Hello, and welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. We believe all women lawyers deserve to be wealthy women lawyers. Our mission is to provide thought provoking, powerful, and practical information to help you in creating your own sustainable wealth generating law firm without overwork or overwhelm so you can live your best life. I'm your host, Devina Frederick, and I'm so excited for you to meet our guest today. So let's get started.
• 0:26
  Davina: Hello. I'm Davina Frederick, and I'd like to welcome you to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. If you've been a fan for a while now, thank you. We appreciate each and every one of you. If you are new to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, welcome.
• 0:39
  I'm so glad you're here. The Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast is sponsored by Wealthy Woman Lawyer, a company that helps women law firm owners scale their law firm businesses to and through a million dollars in gross annual revenue with total ease so they can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of their dreams. If that sounds like something you'd like to do, then come hang out with us in our Facebook group, Wealthy Woman Lawyer, or follow us on Instagram at Wealthy Woman Lawyer. You also can connect with me on LinkedIn. Okay.
• 1:10
  So let's dive into today's episode. No doubt you have heard it over and over again. If you want to scale your law firm business to 7 figures, you're gonna need two things for sure, good systems and a team to operate them. There's just one problem. Hiring a team these days is not as easy as it sounds.
• 1:33
  So for the past year, at least, it seems like employees have had the upper hand in the hiring process. The great resignation, the great reshuffle, the great quit, whatever you wanna call it, has hit law law firm owners really hard. A legal recruiter recently told me he sees BigLaw poaching from medium sized law firms to get attorneys. Medium sized law firms are poaching from small firms, and small firms well, guess what? You're out of luck.
• 2:03
  He also said no matter what other people tell you about how younger generations are more socially conscious and factor that into their decision to work for certain companies, the hard truth is it most always comes down to money. So in light of this, what are small firms supposed to do to attract high performing teams? Most law firm owners who want to expand tell me they struggle to hire and keep good employees, and it's become a huge issue. The work is there, but people are not there to help them get the work done. Can you relate to that?
• 2:41
  One solo attorney recently told me she put out an ad for a new associate attorney, and she received responses from people who weren't even attorneys. More than one woman law firm owner has told me of hiring someone they thought would be a perfect fit only to have that person call on the very day they were supposed to start and tell them they changed their minds. Back to the drawing board. Many others have shared horror stories of hiring someone they thought, would be ideal only to have them have mental breakdowns at work a few months later and cause endless workplace drama. Some people have told me stories of, employees who leave and just don't come back and don't tell anybody.
• 3:29
  Favorite paralegals quit without notice. Young attorneys move on to other opportunities. Formerly loyal employees have an existential crisis and move across the country to start a new life. It happens. And there's good news and there's bad news.
• 3:48
  So the bad news is you can't control what other people do. Also, ask any seasoned business owner, and they'll tell you the biggest challenge of owning a successful business is not getting customers. It's attracting and keeping good employees. Even though this feels new to a lot of people who've never owned a business before, this great resignation or great quit, and it definitely is a real thing that's occurred because of the pandemic, It's really not new to people who've been in business for ten, twenty, or thirty years or more. We have seen people come and go, and we've seen times in our country when when employees didn't have the upper employers didn't have the upper hand.
• 4:32
  Most of the time for the past, know, long while, companies have had the upper hand. People are going to come and go, though. That is just the reality of it. If you want to be a successful business owner yourself, you're going to need to learn to adapt and overcome. The faster, the better.
• 4:55
  K? Adapt and overcome. Something you might hear from people in the military. The sooner you can learn how to move forward, adapt, and overcome, the better off you're gonna be. One mistake I see many law firm owners make is to sit in your feelings when somebody leaves.
• 5:12
  They take it personally. They either get angry at the person for leaving even if they don't act like it on the inside they are, or they're blaming themselves. They're thinking, well, I just suck at this. I will never be able to do this because, obviously, I don't know what I'm doing. There is good news in all of this, though, and that is you do have control over some very important aspects.
• 5:35
  And that's really important for you to know if you want to have the right mindset and attitude, and you really are set on scaling your business. You if you really want it, you will let nothing stop you. And so I want you instead of focusing on things you cannot control, like the world that's going on around us or people's whims or bad behaviors, I want you to begin to focus on the things you can control. And so I have five of them here for you today that I think will really help you. Number one is you have control over your hiring system.
• 6:17
  A good hiring system will help you reduce your percentage of bad hires and increase your percentage of good hires by helping you learn how to spot red flags a whole lot faster. K? So when I see people who keep having an issue with hiring bad hires, I can tell you the reason why is because they don't have a good hiring system to begin with. They think they do, but they don't. I have a 12 step hiring system that I teach my clients.
• 6:53
  So 12 steps. Think about that. If your hiring system is you know, I place an ad and then I interview people, then you need to dig a little bit deeper and think more systematically in how you need to go about selecting the right people to join your business. Number two, you have control over new hire onboarding and training system. So your new hire onboarding and training system, you have control over that.
• 7:22
  You could set your new hires up for success right from the beginning and also be able to weed out mistakes within the first ninety days so you don't prolong the problem. Right? And so you don't invest too much. Right? So if you have the right system set up, you're immediately gonna get in, start onboarding, training, getting these people to work, and, really, the interview process is that first ninety days.
• 7:47
  Right? That's where you want to be paying close, close attention and and making sure that you have that right process. Number three, you have control over your benefits package. Now maybe you don't feel you could offer top dollar right now, but you'd be surprised what other benefits you may be able to offer to sweeten the pot enough to attract qualified candidates, candidates that would be a good fit for your firm and your firm's culture. Think creatively and be sure to capture and convey the full value of working with you and your law firm when making your offer.
• 8:21
  Too many people forget all the benefits of working for small firms, like flexibility, for example. In a survey of women business owners, most said they started their own law firm businesses because they needed more flexibility than their past employers could offer. Can you relate to this? How can you build that into your benefits package? What other benefits are there for working with your firm?
• 8:48
  Think of benefits big firms can't offer. Okay? Number four is you have control over incentivizing your team to remain loyal. This is a term that I don't know if you've ever heard the term, golden handcuffs. Golden handcuffs is keeping someone attached to you by always being a step ahead of them and giving what it is giving them what it is that they truly want and truly need without them having to ask for it.
• 9:20
  Okay? So it's always there. Have you ever worked in a job you weren't crazy about? There was something they offered that no one else could provide. So maybe it was a really high salary.
• 9:32
  And you you said, you know, I can go elsewhere, but I just won't make this kind of money, and it's important for me to do that right now. Maybe that's not enticing to you. Maybe that's not enticing to your employees. Maybe the opportunity for work from to work from home is more enticing. Maybe Friday's off.
• 9:50
  Maybe unlimited vacation time. Could be some bonus, you know, package, the way that you, offer bonuses. Maybe it's a career path with growth opportunities, which leads me to number five. You have control over creating career paths for your employees. I just wanna tell you this.
• 10:09
  If you don't provide them an opportunity to grow with you, if you don't set out a clear path of growth and opportunity for them to increase their skills, develop, to elevate, to make more money, trust me, they will go someplace else, and they will grow without you. So that's it for today's episode. I know it's short, but I think there's a a ton of value here, and it's very timely because I'm hearing a lot lately about people struggling to hire. And so I want to just give you some encouragement. Think about the things you can control.
• 10:43
  If you would like to know more about all seven systems, all these seven essential systems that every law firm needs to scale their business to 7 figures or more, then check out my training. It's very aptly called seven essential system every law firm needs to scale to seven figures, plus three mistakes to avoid. These are mistakes that not only I've made early in my career, but I've seen other women law firm owners make. The registration link is in the show notes. In this this webinar, not only will I share with you the seven essential assistance and the three mistakes to avoid, I'll tell you exactly how you can get the help you need to set up a hiring system that attracts right fit employees.
• 11:25
  And I'll share with you my 12 step hiring system. Here's a hint. It doesn't start with the job listing, the job posting. It starts way before that. So I thank you so much for being here today.
• 11:37
  If you've enjoyed this podcast episode, as always, I ask that you please share it with other, women law firm owners. It's a super easy thing to do right on the app. You could just click share, and she could share the episode or the whole podcast. Also, if you are listening to this on Apple, please leave us a review and, recommendations. We so we appreciate every one of them, and we know it helps us to rank higher on the app so we can get the word out to more women law firm owners looking for help in growing their businesses.
• 12:08
  Thanks again for being here, and I'll talk to you next week.
• 12:13
  Intro: We hope you've enjoyed today's episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. If you have, we invite you to leave us a review on your preferred podcast platform. The more five star reviews we have, the more women law firm owners will be able to positively impact. Your thoughts and opinions are so important to us. If you are a woman law firm owner who wants to scale your law firm to a million dollars or more in gross annual revenue and do it in a way that's sustainable and feels good to you, then we invite you to join us in the Wealthy Woman Lawyer League.
• 12:45
  The league is a community of highly intelligent, goal oriented, and driven women law firm owners who are excited to support one another on their journeys to becoming wealthy women lawyers. We'll be sharing so much in the league in the coming year, including the exclusive million dollar law firm framework that until now, I've only shared with my private one to one clients. For more information and to join us, go now to www.wealthywomanlawyer.com/lead. That's www.wealthywomanlawyer.com/lead. Lead is spelled l e a g u e.
• 13:26
  We look forward to seeing you soon in the lead.