Follow The Show

Follow or subscribe now so that you don’t miss an episode!

Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon MusicTuneInPandoraGoodpodsiHeartRadioOvercast

Episode 169: 3 Common Mindset Blocks Sabotaging Law Firm Growth

by Heather Moulder | Life & Law Podcast

Law firm growth is something every law firm – and most partners/shareholders- are hyper-focused on. Yet few lawyers grow their law firms they way they’d like. Why is that?

[Hint: it’s not lack of time (one of the most common “reasons” I hear from new clients).]

Today we cover 3 common mindset blocks sabotaging your law firm growth. Because no matter your skills, strengths or personality (and regardless of whether you’re an extrovert or introvert) YOU can successfully grow your law firm.

Ready To Build A 7-Figure Law Practice Around The Whole Life You Want To Live?

That is what ELEVATE Business Development Mastermind was designed to help you do. ELEVATE is a once per year mastermind experience tailored to you and your law practice. Inside of ELEVATE, you’ll:

  • Receive customized strategies based on your needs, goals, values and strengths.
  • Get expert guidance from someone with 25+ years of in-the-trenches experience.
  • Have the support from peers (who always have your back).

Doors to ELEVATE are officially open – but not for long (and ELEVATE won’t be offered again until Fall 2025).

Learn more about and apply for ELEVATE >>> here.

Episode Transcript

Well, hello, hello everybody. This is Heather Moulder, host of the Life & Law Podcast, and I’m excited that you are here with me today. Today’s episode is going to be relatively short, but it’s still going to be incredibly important. And here’s why.

We are going to be covering three very common mindset blocks that are sabotaging your law firm growth. Whether it’s that you have a small solo practice, whether you are in a mid-sized or even a very big law law firm, you are probably wanting to grow it to some extent.

And there are some pretty common things that I hear from people that most people give as reasons for why they’re not growing. And they’re not really reasons, I hate to say they are mindset traps, what I like to call mindset traps, and really kind of common assumptions that we make around legal marketing and networking and client development. Okay?

I want to slay those today. I want to really talk about what they are and why they’re not real and a new approach to how to think about it so that they do not sabotage your ability to grow your law firm. Okay? So let’s just get right into it.

Law Firm Growth Mindset Trap 1: No Time (False) Assumption

Mindset trap number one.

And this is the one that I led with at the very beginning.

We assume it will take too much time. We’ve talked about this before but because this continues to come up so often in my practice when I’m working with clients, we’re covering this again.

And we talked about this before in respect of an interview that I did, I think it was two seasons ago now around client development and some of the biggest mistakes that are made. And she talked about everybody assumes it takes too much time. And she had a wonderful question. And if you haven’t listened to that interview or you don’t remember it, I highly, highly recommend you go back and listen. I am going to put a link to that episode in the show notes because we get into other stuff. And frankly, I personally find it helpful for me, myself and I, and also as a mom with my kids, that we sometimes hear this type of thing in different ways from different people for it to really settle in.

So the question I want you to ask, though, if you’re feeling like, okay, I have no time, it’s going to take too much time is this:

How much time do you think it will take?

So this kind of begs the question, have you considered how much time it will take in a proactive manner? We all tend to think things are going to take forever that we haven’t really done much of or that we haven’t gotten started on yet, or maybe we’ve done it, but we kind of let it build in our minds.

[00:04:15] We know we should. We know we’re supposed to. We know we need to. Whatever the language is that’s going on, and because of that heavy feeling, then we think it’s automatically going to take all this time. So you need to really step back and challenge that and go, wait a second. That is an assumption. Let’s not assume. How much time do I think this will really take? Because it’s not a vacuum of time.

[00:04:41] Another thing that gets in the way here, just to note, is we tend to look around and see what others are doing, and our brain thinks that, okay, well, the colleague down the hall is speaking. I probably need to speak. And the person, another person down another hall is writing. I probably need to write. And so our mind is going, like, off on a tangent. Of all the things, all the things we could be doing and assuming we must be doing all of those things, which would be a lot of time if we did, but none of that is true.

Law Firm Growth Mindset Trap #2: Assuming You Have To Do All The Things

[00:05:17] And so that leads me to the second assumption. And the first two mindset traps or assumptions are really interrelated. So think about the first one, move on to the second one, and come back and go back and forth because they really go hand in hand here.

The second one is you haven’t likely narrowed down your own business development strategies, your own law firm growth strategies. And I’ve just said this, you probably are seeing everybody else doing all these other things and thinking, well, I need to do that and that and that.

No, you don’t need to do all of those things.

You do not even have to be doing what your colleagues or peers are doing, even if it’s working for them. And by the way, there’s no guarantee that it really is working all that well for them, even if it seems to be because you do not know how much time, effort, energy, money they’re putting into it, and the return on investment they’re actually getting back.

So you don’t know.

[00:06:21] And you’re making this assumption that you’re supposed to be doing all the things that they’re doing.

How To Combat The First Two Law Firm Growth Traps

So what’s the answer here to these two traps?

Strengths-Based Strategies

Well, one of the things that I do with my clients is we really narrow in on their strengths-based strategies. And when I say strengths-based strategies, I’m talking about, what are your skills, what are your strengths and how can we leverage those in your client development strategies?

Strengths are those things that we do really well. And they’re more than just skills. They’re usually packed on to skills that we have and they go above and beyond. But they’re also enjoyable for us because we’re good at it and we get energy from it.

And so you want to utilize strengths based strategies. Okay?

But that’s not enough.

Narrow Down By Aligning To Your Goals, Needs & Personality

This is something else I help my clients do. We align those strategies to your personality, needs and goals.

So you need to have a good understanding of what is your business development goal right now so that you can pick the best strategies, because your strengths may lead to more than one. Okay? They may mean you’d be great at speaking, they may mean you’d be great at writing, and you would enjoy both. Well, maybe you don’t have time. You probably don’t have time to do both, or at least a lot of both.

So you want to narrow them down based on your goals and then also based on your individual needs and personality. And what I mean by that is there are lots of ways also to write and to speak if you want to write.

You might enjoy writing for business journals that get in front of your perfect client on issues that really don’t just get into the legalese and the legal aspects, but into the business, into the, you know, because maybe you are one of those attorneys and I highly recommend if you do this for your clients, you find a way to showcase this because it’s gold. Y’all. Clients love this.

But maybe one of your selling points is that you really help with business advice. You know, how does a particular legal strategy help or hinder the business? What’s the ripple effect of that? What’s the impact? And you look long term.

Well, you can highlight those types of things when you write for business journals, and you can showcase that.

Maybe you’d prefer not to do that because that’s not really your thing. That’s too much work. It sounds like a slog, but you like smaller, shorter writing. Well, maybe LinkedIn would be a good place for you.

There are lots of ways in which to write, y’all, and those are just two examples.

Speaking also will depend. I have clients who speak at huge conferences. I have clients who prefer to be on panels primarily when they speak. I have clients who are just getting started in speaking and a little bit more introverted. So they’ve chosen to do so in smaller group gatherings, in more intimate local situations.

There’s a lot of ways to do these things. So this is what I mean by you need to understand your skills and strengths and what you’re really good at and what you enjoy, but also how does it fit in with your particular personality, needs and goals, and coming up with strategies that actually play to those things.

Now here’s the other thing that you need to know. You want to ensure that you could be doing a lot of things, and your strengths and your skills and your personality and your needs may show you that you could be doing those things, but you still only want to do maybe one main marketing strategy and one main networking strategy. That is enough.

So something that I help my clients with is really getting very clear around how all of these opportunities and potential things that you could be doing would fit into your current life and your current goals and your current needs.

And that is where your needs come into play based on your current circumstances. Because what is going to make most sense for you as a young parent who needs and wants to be home with your kids more often might be different than what you would want to do 15, 20 years later. Okay, so this will change over time.

And this is why when you get really clear around these things, it’s easier then to narrow in on what will work best for you. And it will become clear that you don’t have to do all the things and that you can be very hyper-focused and it won’t take up so much time.

That is how you answer “how much time will it really take?” Because let me tell you, it often need not take a anywhere near as much time as your mind has gone and assumed.

Law Firm Growth Block #3: Not Treating Your Law Practice As A Business

Now we’re going to get into mindset block three. And this one’s not an assumption, but it’s a real block. You don’t see your practice as a business.

Here’s the deal, y’all.

You’re not just practicing, you are running an actual business. This is the case regardless of whether you own your own law firm, whether you’re a founder of a law firm, you’re a solo practitioner, you’re in a mid sized law firm, you’re in big law. If you are trying to grow your own book, you’re running your own business. That book is your business and it is time for you to treat it like the business that it is.

So this gets into on the business versus in the business. And business development, legal, marketing, networking, that kind of thing are really on the business activities, at least primarily so.

And on the business activities are really the strategic type of things that you do. Long term planning, visioning, goal achievement, strategizing, and then implementation of those types of things for the future. Whereas in the business is the right now, it’s the actual billable work. Your day to day work, your day to day management of other people, your day to day administrative duties, that’s in the business.

And you want to be making sure that you’re spending enough time on the business because if you are nothing, you’re not going to have enough in the business work later on.

[00:12:22] So what do I mean when I say you need to treat your business or your law practice as the business it actually is?

Pay Attention To Marketing Spend

You need to start paying attention to things like how much money are you actually spending on marketing? How much money and time are you spending going to networking events and activities? Pay attention to what is being put in the obvious is the money, right? But also the time. Because time is money as a lawyer.

And start tracking how much you’re actually spending in general, but really on a client by client or prospect by prospect basis or activity also basis.

Know Your ROI

Sometimes it’s really in front of a particular industry and it’s not relatable to a specific client, but you need to be tracking that and then you need to be paying attention to what you’re doing and what the return on investment is.

Now we’re not going to get too into ROI and how to measure that today. Just a heads up. We’ll be talking about it soon in the coming weeks. So be on the lookout for that.

But start paying more attention to how much time, energy and money you are actually putting into these activities and what you’re getting back.

Track Everything

This means you need to be tracking, right? You need to be tracking your networking. You need to be tracking your follow ups. You need to be tracking your marketing expenditures. You need to be tracking where you’re going, what you’re doing and the results you’re seeing so that you can start seeing what your ROI actually is.

Understand Law Firm Economics

You also need to understand basic law firm economics. And this is something that honest, I’ll have to say it.

I hope I don’t offend anybody here, but it always surprises me how few attorneys understand this. But the good news is it’s actually pretty dang simple.

It’s not just about how many hours you bill or even how much money you collect, although collections do need to be paid attention to. But you want to start paying attention to how productive are you and what is your overhead.

And by the way, those expenses, those marketing expenses that you asked the firm to pay for, that goes against your economics, right? So this is what I mean. You need to pay more attention and actually treat your business as a business.

So let me give you two quick examples. Let’s say attorney A bills 2400 hours a year, but he only collects 2000 of them at a rate of $950 an hour. Attorney B bills 2100 that same year, yet he collects 2050 hours at a rate of $950 an hour. Well, obviously, attorney B, even though he’s billing less, is a little bit more profitable because he’s collecting more.

Now, let’s go further. Now, let’s take into account their marketing expenditures and their overhead costs. Let’s say attorney A loves to spend money. He has put out a ton of sponsorship money from the firm into varying conferences. And he takes people and loves to wine and dine them, and he puts on these big events, and he spent a lot of money. Attorney B goes to some lunches, has attended one or two conferences, but really doesn’t have all that much in there that comes into play.

[00:15:53] Attorney A is spending so much, you would expect them to get more back for that expenditure.

And then there’s overhead. Let’s say attorney A has several people working for them, and most of them are billable and they collect, but they don’t collect all that well, just like attorney A doesn’t, because they’ve got clients that like write offs.

And there are two non revenue generating people working for the group.

Attorney B has one non revenue generating person, and everybody collects just as well. And they’re a smaller group, less overhead.

[00:16:32] So these are the things you need to think about when it comes to the economics of your practice. And it’s something to really pay attention to, because it will sabotage your business development.

The reason number three, this third one sabotages your business development, is because you might be spending a lot more time, energy and money than what you’re getting back is actually worth. And if you’re not paying attention to that, you’re not going to see it. You’re just going to see that business is coming in. And I got to tell you, I’ve seen this happen to a lot of people.

I’ll give you one final story, because I did see this. Somebody within my old firm was considered a huge rainmaker, and he really was. He brought in business so easily, it was crazy. But he spent a crazy amount on his marketing and his networking, and he gave gifts, and he frankly, went over and above and over the top in a way that I don’t think his clients would ever have cared for. They still would have been his clients because he was really good at what he did and he had a great team of people. He could never understand why, at the end of the year, he didn’t make as much as he thought he should, given the collections that were coming in. Well, that’s because the firm was taking into account how much he was spending for those collections to come in.

Pay attention to the economics. Make sure what you’re doing is making sense.

[00:18:05] Final piece of advice. Since these mindset traps are so common, one of the things that I advise is to start talking about your struggles more. Start talking about what you’re assuming, what you’re doing, what you’re not doing, what you’re struggling with.

When it comes to business development, attorneys don’t do enough of that. We think that we’re the only ones and therefore shouldn’t be struggling. And the reason why we think that is because we don’t ever say we’re struggling and we don’t ever share what’s going on, which means nobody is willing to admit it to anybody else. What you find when you start to talk to others is that you’re not alone, you’re not the only one. And you get ideas and support from others.

This is exactly why I started my mastermind elevate, which just so happens to be open officially for application.

So if you are struggling with any of the mindset blocks today, I highly recommend you check it out. I will have a link to the mastermind in the show notes.

That is it for today. Bye for now.

A podcast for lawyers ready to build your ideal practice around the whole life you want to live.

Heather Moulder in kitchen wearing light purple top

I’m Heather Moulder, a former Big Law partner who traded in my multi-million dollar practice to help lawyers achieve balanced success. Because success shouldn’t mean having to sacrifice your health, relationships or sanity.

Tired of putting in more time, more energy, more of you (only to feel less in control and less yourself)?

let’s change that.

Join the Next Level Lawyer Newsletter for weekly tools, tips & strategies on how to succeed in both law + life (leveraging 25+ years of in-the-trenches experience).

Categories

Balanced Success

Mindset Mastery

Leadership Development

Law Practice Management

Business Development

SHARE THIS EPISODE