Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Episode 251 5 Skills That Made Me a Better Business Owner

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Episode 251 5 Skills That Made Me a Better Business Owner · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:00
  Davina: The first skill is the ability to identify opportunities. I find this skill to be beneficial because the faster I can identify opportunities, the faster I can take advantage of them. So that's my why. So let me give you an example. Recently, someone reached out to me and they were pitching their services.
• 0:19
  And there was a time when I would have probably been annoyed and said, why is this person cold emailing me about our services? But over the years, I've got much better at identifying opportunities in all their mini forks. So some opportunities are right for me to give it time and some are not. The ones that are not, I just pass on them.
• 0:41
  Announcer: Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers? Ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or 2 to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love.
• 1:11
  Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now, here's Devina.
• 1:30
  Davina: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Layer podcast. I'm your host, Davina Frederick. And today, I wanna share with you 5 skills that I have acquired that I believe make me a better business owner than when I first started out on my entrepreneurial journey many, many years ago. I'm gonna share with you why I think that these have made me a better business owner, because I think that's important as well. Just adopting someone's method or ideas on a subject without understanding why they're doing what they're doing really will not help you understanding the why behind business practices empowers you to make informed decisions to take control of your business.
• 2:10
  So let me illustrate the concept with a story I've heard. Perhaps you've heard it too, but it's a perfect metaphor. A woman is making a roast for a holiday meal, and she cuts the ends of the roast off before she puts it in a pan. And she's always done it this way, and her daughter asked, mom, why do you cut the ends of the roast off before you put it in a pan? And the woman replies, well, because that's how my mother taught me to do it.
• 2:35
  And the next day, the woman is thinking about this, so she calls her mother and she asked her, mom, why do we cut the ends off the roast before putting it in the pan? To which her mother replies, because that's how my mother taught me to do it. The next woman visited her grandmother, and the next day, the the time that the woman visited her grandmother, she asked her grandmother, grand, why do we cut the eggs off to roast before we put it in the pan to cook it? And her grandmother says, because when I was newly married to your grandfather, I didn't have many pots and pans and the pan I did have was small so I had to cut the ends of the roast off to fit the pan that I had. The moral of this story is clear, blindingly following a practice or a belief, blindly following a practice or belief just because you've always done it that way without questioning its relevance may not serve you as well as it did once or as well as it served someone else in a different place or time or circumstance.
• 3:33
  This should inspire you to critically evaluate your business decisions and adapt them to your unique situation. So don't just take what I'm saying, but it's face value. Think about it, how it might apply to you. So I see this all the time on social media where one attorney is convinced that they need a particular software or an automation tool because it's worked for another attorney. And while it may work wonderfully for 1 law firm owner, it may not be the best solution for another.
• 4:02
  Each business is unique with its own set of requirements and circumstances. So if we don't know why it works for them, we're gonna struggle to access to assess whether or not it will work for us. Okay. Now that you understand my thinking, behind these skills and the importance of you understanding why I, have benefited from them, let's dive into the 5 skills I believe had made me a better business owner over time. Note that I did not acquire these skills overnight.
• 4:31
  In fact, most of them result from experience and making mistakes and learning from them, and some of these skills other people have taught me. The first skill is the ability to identify opportunities. I find this skill to be beneficial because the faster I can identify opportunities, the faster I can take advantage of them. So that's my why. So let me give you an example.
• 4:56
  Recently, someone reached out to me and they were pitching their services. And there was a time when I would have probably been annoyed and said, why is this person cold emailing me about our services? But over the years, I've got much better at identifying opportunities in all their mini forks. So some opportunities are right for me to give it time and some are not. The ones that are not, I just pass on them.
• 5:20
  No harm, no foul. I don't feel a need to go write back or call back and tell somebody, you know, this opportunity is not for me. If they're reaching out to me cold, obviously, if it's a warm conversation, I do to, you know, I do say that. But in this case, I happen to need the services that the person was providing. So I responded and voila, they were able to solve a problem for me.
• 5:44
  And so that ability to see that it bit of as an offense, but as an opportunity for me really, helped solve a problem. The ability to see offer opportunities where others seek aggravation has served me well in many ways. It's not a muscle that I used to work out very often, but the more I do it or I see opportunities, around every quarter. In fact, my email inbox and social media feeds are flooded with opportunities for investment and growth in my business. My willingness to see invitations instead of harassment has made me realize the universe is always sending me what I need and what I ask for.
• 6:25
  And I just have to stop expecting it to show up in some particular way because maybe it's going to show up in a way that I at least expect it. So this works for me because it makes me feel that there is a schwabers board of options from which I can choose. So it makes me feel more abundant. I can choose what I want, what I don't want. I don't have to make someone else wrong for extending an invitation to me.
• 6:50
  I could simply choose or not choose. Sometimes I choose well and sometimes things do not go as planned, but that doesn't mean that I do not benefit from all my choices that way whether it's a significant return on my investment or a contrast that provides me more information I didn't even know that I needed. Okay. Skill number 2 that I believe has, made me a better business owner over time is the ability to analyze quickly. And one of the issues with being a lawyer is that we are trained to analyze all possible outcomes, particularly the bad potential outcomes, so we can protect our clients from making missteps.
• 7:29
  To evaluate every possible scenario or outcome can take up a quite a bit of time though as we know as lawyers. So as a lawyer, that's our job is to analyze things for our clients to help protect them. As a CEO or leader of a business though, the ability to analyze and make decisions quickly is critical. So it's not just the ability to analyze but it's also the ability to make decisions and, act quickly on those decisions. So CEOs often do not have the luxury of time.
• 8:02
  With each win in the past, we are stuck in this analysis paralysis. We may miss out on opportunities and leave money on the table. Yes. We need to analyze deals, opportunities, systems, offers, and the like, But we also need to be able to make decisions when the time is right, when it is when it is the moment that, we need to make a decision or we'll lose the opportunity. So I'm super grateful every day to be an attorney because I've been formally trained like you in analysis and seeing all sides of issue.
• 8:39
  As a business owner, though, my goal has been to learn to analyze more quickly because quite frankly, I'm faced with a hundreds of decisions to make every week as I'm sure you are. I simply cannot afford to sit around and ponder whether I want it, whether or not I want to make a decision because I need to remain competitive. My job, the one my team counseled me to do is to decide. Their job then is to implement. So I'm the leader and they will implement on my decisions.
• 9:12
  And and then ultimately, as we grow as leaders, we learn to help other people with our in our organization become better leaders and make some of those other decisions that we don't need to be making. So So getting better and quicker at making decisions, spending days or mulling things over allows us to keep moving forward toward our goals and achieve them faster. So if time is of the essence for you in achieving your goals, it's the skill that you're gonna wanna work on, to try and improve. Skill number 3, which I believe has made me a better owner, is the ability to take fast action. This goes hand in hand with skill number 2, the ability to analyze quickly and make decisions.
• 9:50
  Once a decision is made, the only thing left is to take action on that decision. All the greatest ideas in the world do not matter if you do not take action on them. You trademark attorneys out there will know exactly what I'm talking about because people cannot trademark an idea. They cannot copyright a copyright a concept. You have to actually manifest, bring it into be, take action on it before you can claim it.
• 10:18
  I'll give you an example about, this sort of ability to take fast action and how it can impact your business. Now the, these are kind of composite, story here. This is not anyone in particular, but I'm gonna give you an example, let's say, of 2 law firm owners. Both start out as solos within 6 months of, hiring me. 1 has already hired 3 attorneys and expanded her staff.
• 10:43
  She also jumped from 30,000 to a 100,000 a month in revenue during that time frame. The other one consistently moved up the 5 figure ladder. She's not yet replaced herself at court like the other one has because she's overstuck overthinking each new hire. She hires 1 and she waits to see if that person will work out before she takes the risk of hiring another lawyer. When the first one doesn't work out, she returns to solo status whereas the fast action taker, the one who's all who just went out and hire multiple lawyers within a short period of time, when she has all rebuilt a team.
• 11:21
  So when one lawyer leaves, she immediately replaces them. Her ability to take fast action and not get caught up in her feelings every time an employee leaves has really served her well toward her goal of quickly scaling 2 and 3 a 1000000000 of dollars. Skill number 4 that served me well had made me a better business owner is the ability to reframe. To be honest, I learned this skill through hours spent talking through situations with mentors and coaches. When I first started out at business, I had a tendency to view everything through sort of gray colored glasses.
• 12:01
  I felt as if when things were wrong, went wrong, something was happening to me instead of for me. It took me a long time to develop this reframing scale and it's still something I very much do intentionally. I've heard a sin that at least 85% of human thought are negative, which is why reframing really must be an intentional practice until you get the hang of it. So let me give you an example of reframing. Let's say you've hired an attorney or 2 or 3 and 1 or 2 of them leave.
• 12:33
  And after the initial shock of disappointment, you have 2 choices. 1, you can tell yourself, and this is kind of an instinct that I hear a lot of, law firm owners jump to is I can't do this. I'm just gonna go back to being solo. I can't trust anyone to help me. I need to be single for a while and late things status quo or, you know, I just need to let things settle out for a while before I jump back into higher again.
• 12:59
  So that is a kind of a knee jerk reaction for a lot of solos before they've got accustomed sort of exercising that hiring muscle and and reframing their thoughts. So choice number 2 is if that were to happen to you, you could reframe the situation and say to yourself, I'd be happy for them. They're pursuing new opportunity that may work best for them. And I'm like happy for me at the law firm, because now we can find someone who is a better fit with our team to support us in growing the firm. Right?
• 13:31
  So this is really about being intentional about changing your mindset around an issue. Learning how to reframe has made me happier and much less fearful and worry when changes do occur. Changes in business are inevitable. The more I've experienced change my business, the more it made me realize the most important factor in its success is not what's going on in the here and now, but my perception of what is happening. And as they say, attitude is everything.
• 13:59
  So reframing helps me feel more confident and less anxious. So the last skill I wanna share with you that I believe is making a better business owner is the ability to forgive myself for mistakes. Now this is a doozy for me because I made some big mistakes. I've hired the wrong people before. I've invested money in my business that did not yield a return.
• 14:22
  I've done that more than once. I've trusted people I should not have. I believe people I should not have. I've lost money, and much more. As a high achieving woman, a recovery perfectionist, and someone who is highly critical of myself, it is no easy task to learn how to forgive myself for mistakes in business and in life and personal relationships.
• 14:45
  I have high expectations of myself. I have high hopes. I have dreams. So I'm naturally disappointed in myself when I make mistakes. But one thing I have realized is that mistakes are part of the entrepreneurial journey and without them I would not be the experienced business owner I am today.
• 15:04
  I would not, be able to teach and share with others so they don't make the same mistakes. And I would be somebody, different than the person I am now, and I really love the person I am now. So mistakes and all. I have learned to forgive myself because I know it serves global one if I stay stuck at shame and blame. It it slows down the progress of my business growth when I stay stuck blaming myself.
• 15:30
  Mistakes are inevitable, but we can never go back to yesterday. So why keep living there in your mind and replaying those mistakes over and over again? Sort of would've should've wish you had done something different. The only thing you can control is what you do today, the decisions you make, how you treat people, how you treat yourself. If we are in business because we think it will help us create the lives that we love, which is the purpose of our business is to create a wealth generated business that helps support lifestyle we love, they were working in opposition to that goal if we spend our days blaming ourselves for past mistakes and staying stuck in our negative thoughts.
• 16:12
  So this is this week's episode of Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I do hope you've enjoyed it. If you are a wealthy woman lawyer who would absolutely love to hone your skills as a business owner, a leader, and a manager of a profitable, sustainable, wealth generating law firm, then I invite you to join me in my upcoming free training. It's called 3 critical strategies by women law firm owner clients deploy to build $1,000,000 plus law firms without overwork or overwhelm. This is one of my most popular trainings, which is why I'm presenting it live again on June 6th at 3 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time.
• 16:51
  The link to register for this event is in the show notes so you can go there, click on it. I made it super easy for you to register, put it on your calendar, and plan to be there. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I'll be back next week with with more great content, and I hope to see you then.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthy woman lawyer dotcom to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.