Hiring & Empowering Solutions

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Employees: Your Attorney Desperately Needs This From You

Sure, law firm leaders like to be liked. And they like to be appreciated. But, more than anything else on the planet, they like to be understood. They want their team members to protect their time and their calendar—to have their back! To step up and lead. To stay 20 steps ahead…

Unpacking this need to feel “understood,”—on both the leader and employee’s end of the spectrum—there are three questions that need to be asked to ensure that everyone on your team has what they need to thrive in their position:

  1. What additional information do you need, that you’re just not seeing?
  2. What does it look and feel like to be understood?
  3. Do you feel understood? Do you feel we have the information and skills necessary to execute this task to your standards?

Tune in to to our weekly vlog to learn more about law firm business development and growth via employee empowerment and leadership development.

Schedule a FREE Discovery Session with Molly

If Molly’s message resonates, and you’re ready to either empower your existing employees or hire new team members who are capable of making a measurable difference at your firm, schedule your FREE Discovery Session and start brainstorming next steps with one of the nation’s leading experts in legal staffing and employee empowerment.

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Try These 3 Communication Tactics to Keep Employee Excuses at Bay and Accountability Front & Center

employee communication tactics for accountabilityGone are the days of vertical management structures and strict oversight. Organizations of all kinds, ranging from classrooms to boardrooms, acknowledge the importance of ensuring that everyone has a voice. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but if it does, it’s time to tune in. The bottom line is that employees are more productive, more autonomous, and more satisfied when provided an empowering workspace.

This is fine and dandy when everyone pulls their own weight. But sustaining an open and encouraging company culture is immeasurably more difficult, however, when employees underperform. You won’t do yourself (or your bottom line) any favors if you intervene in such circumstances with an accusing question like, “why did (or didn’t) you…”. Instead, level up your management skills and try out the following 3 communication strategies:

1. Drop the “why.” When you open with an interrogation that points to a fault in an employee’s performance, you trigger the brain’s threat response system, provoking a fight or flight reaction often expressed in terms of excuses or shifting blame. This is a waste of everyone’s time.

2. It takes incredible strength of character to quiet the brain’s threat response. Avoid the need to go there by learning to ask “how,” instead. When addressing an employee’s underperformance, skip over the “why” and go straight to asking how to move forward. State the concern as a matter of fact and present the opportunity for collaborative problem solving by shifting the tone of the conversation toward productive resolution.

3. Opening an opportunity for problem-solving engenders accountability. Take this one step further by asking “what.” There is no better way to empower your employees than by showing them a little TLC. Ask, “what can we do to better support your success?” Not only is this invaluable information, it also demonstrates that you own your role in fostering a healthy, empowered workplace. If employees see you working to improve your performance, they’ll be driven to do the same.

Employee performance issues are tricky to pin down, and as long as human beings, not robots, are behind the wheel, you’ll have your work cut out for you. Though no silver bullet, learning to communicate in such a way that avoids blame and centers accountability will go far. What’s more, “how” and “what” questions furnish you with information that provides insight into systemic issues that require leadership attention. Tweaking these deeper tensions allows for the cultivation of a company culture that, in and of itself, will enhance employee performance.

Ready to get the cogs of communication turning seamlessly at your firm?

We’ve been working with law firms for 20+ years, helping to open the lines of communication between leadership and their teams and empower everyone with the tools and techniques they need to step up and make a difference to your firm’s productivity and profitability. Let’s talk about your challenges and brainstorm some ideas to get your firm on track. Schedule your free discovery session by clicking the button below!

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What Does She DO All Day?

what does she DO all day?Okay…let’s be honest. How many of you have silently screamed to yourself, I have no idea what she does all day!!! about one of your employees—all while you juggle client appointments, referral meetings, internal meetings, document reviews, and “emergency” calls from your kids’ schools. I personally hear this no fewer than 20 times a week from entrepreneurs across the map.

These internal commentaries are not meant to be employee critiques. The intent is not to imply that your employee is messing around on Facebook all day. The truth of the matter is that, when a business owner has that feeling of I don’t know what she does all day, it is indicative of a business that is not operating with a cohesive structure, clear job descriptions, weekly tracking and measurement metrics, accountability, and consistent internal communication. It is indicative of a business owner who stays behind closed doors all day in back-to-back meetings, painfully aware of her or his insane schedule, with little hope of addressing a growling stomach, an overloaded inbox, lack of time with the team, and pressing family obligations.

If you have that sinking feeling about any of your team members, chances are it is not the person who is the issue, but rather a training and communication issue. Fortunately, this is a very easy fix.

With the right training and development program, within 30-days you could know if it is actually a case of the wrong person in the wrong role, and how to course-correct. Our 90-Day Training Plan, combined with our “Tips for Weekly Effectiveness” program will take about an hour of your time and get you started on the right path towards running a more cohesive, communicative business…with a calmer day-to-day life. Together, we’ll also conduct a Communication Analysis and perform a Kolbe Analysis to identify the strengths of each person on your team and determine how to establish consistent, effective communication that ensures you never have that rotten feeling again.

The next time you find yourself asking, What does she DO all day? please contact us to help assess your firm’s internal culture and make some changes that will not only eliminate that question from your daily ponderings, but also—ultimately—improve employee retention and loyalty while increasing your firm’s productivity and productivity. Email [email protected] or click the button below to schedule your free discovery session with our founder, Molly Hall.

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How to Have Conversations that Keep Team Members Content, Engaged & Motivated to Grow Your Firm

how to talk to employeesYou’ve been at this for a while. You know that happy, engaged employees are essential to the growth of your firm. And you know this is cyclical: driven team members drive growth, growth drives motivation, motivation feeds happiness. Keeping this wheel turning is harder than it sounds, though. After all, your team members are not cogs but human beings—and human beings have complex needs.

Think of your firm as a community. Communities are at their best when everyone has a voice. In work as in life, you give people voice by engaging them in conversation. Call it a performance check in if you want but think of it as a targeted chat. In doing so, you address the main reason these sorts of assessments fail: fear. When people sense a social threat, they clam up. Avoid this by turning the tables; encourage your team members to ask you for feedback and engage their request in a conversational tone. Putting employees in charge of their performance evaluations provides a sense of control that soothes the fear mechanism and encourages personal agency.

If you succeed in getting your team to regularly approach you wanting to check in about their work, you’re winning. Don’t blow it by getting caught up in metrics and ledgers. Rather than harping on results, focus on effort, learning, and growth. Again: think of your firm as a community. People want to feel cared for. Part of. Showing an investment in a person’s continued learning and acknowledging their effort keeps them happy. If the culture of your firm nurtures wellbeing and growth, employees will catch their own mistakes and come to see them as opportunities to improve.

Community and belonging are at the top of the list of basic human needs, preceded only by oxygen. Trust me. I’ve got the list and it’s gold. Each of the aforementioned strategies will help foster community at your firm. Take this a step further by inspiring a sense of ownership in your employees, thereby cultivating belonging. The key here is less telling and more asking. When engaging a team member in a performance check in, spur insight by crafting questions that prompt the employee to reflect on their own goals. Thus, your firm’s performance objectives become personal and a sense of belonging is instilled.

Even as organizations become increasingly data-driven and technology-focused, quality conversation continues to be the best method for boosting employee engagement and wellbeing.

Remember to keep your conversations empowering, motivating and loyalty-inspiring by following these 4 steps:

• Think of your firm as a community
• Encourage employees to seek feedback autonomously
• Forget ledgers and focus on education, empowerment and growth
• Rather than telling, ask questions that spur reflection

For more information about how to implement productive communication strategies at your firm, consider downloading the following free White Paper: The 8 Keys to an Empowering Conversation. After all, your firm is only as good as your employees and your employees are only as good as your communication skills!

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How Your Lack of Accountability & Tracking is Sabotaging Your Revenue

lack of accountability and tracking sabotaging revenuePeople call your law firm because they are ready to hire you. But time after time, when I speak with law firm leaders about their struggles, I hear the same old bologna: “They were unqualified leads.” “They were just shopping around; they weren’t ready to write a check.” “They weren’t a good fit for our firm.” “I don’t know what happened, I just never heard from them again…”

Bologna.

In many ways, the small law firm has the advantage over those big, corporate firms with hundreds of associates and dozens of partners. I don’t know about you, but I will always choose a more intimate “mom and pop” experience over being a faceless name in a sea of thousands of other faceless names on the client list of a massive corporation. But I’ve noticed something: for all the times I pick up the phone to call a small business, I rarely receive a follow-up phone call or email if I don’t make an immediate purchase. I—a qualified lead who is ready to make a purchase—am rarely nurtured through the sales funnel. And if we’re being honest, the only reason I failed to follow through and make a purchase in the first place is because I’m busy being an entrepreneur and a wife and a mom and probably got sidetracked somewhere in between client meetings and getting my kid to karate practice. Failure on the business’s behalf to follow-up with me sabotaged their sale…

…and it’s how your firm is sabotaging its own revenue.

The likely story is that the small business probably isn’t staffed enough to execute a regimented follow-up plan, and that’s the likely story for your firm, too. Who would be responsible for checking-in on leads consistently and strategically. Certainly not you. You’re busy doing what you have to do to keep your firm competitive, sustainable, and profitable.

But those lost leads are valuable, and they’re slipping further away with every day you fail to follow up with them. So, here’s how to follow-up for dollars and reclaim the revenue you’ve lost on account of your lack of accountability.

How to Follow-Up for Dollars

This is a simple “how to” system, designed to fill your calendar with appointments and your business account with money. It’s a tried, tested, and proven system for bringing old and prospective clients back to your firm…for $500/week or more.

Step 1: Hire
This is a receptionist caliber position; you could start out with a 20-hour/week or 3-day/week position, but we encourage you to hire someone full-time, since this system is ineffective if, when someone contacts your office, no one is there to answer their call and schedule an appointment. Take the leap of faith and hire someone full-time.

Choosing the right person for this position is crucial. Rely on “Kolbe” recommendations and follow best practices for hiring based on personality

Step 2: Create the Campaign
Identify a list of lost clients or prospects, organized by year, starting with the most recent year and working back to your firm’s inception. Include:

• Contacts who never took the next step
• Contacts who attended a workshop or joined a webinar, but didn’t move forward
• Cancelled appointments
• Maintenance clients who never renewed

Once you’ve compiled your contact lists, call them, send them an email, or mail them a letter of re-engagement. You may include a special offer in this letter, or you may just re-introduce your firm and the various services you offer.

Step 3: Call
This process takes, on average, 12 minutes. You make the phone call, send a follow-up email (step 4, below) and update your database. Your new hire should be able to make about 40 calls/day and, trust us, you WILL see a return on this position after one month.

The script for the phone call is below:

“Hello ___ ,

This is ___ calling from ___ Law Firm. Real quick, I am calling today to follow up with you regarding your ___ (call, workshop attendance, etc.) on ___. It has been ___(days/weeks/months) since we last spoke. We know how important it was to take the first step and contact our office and we want to make certain we have done everything to support your family’s needs and goals. We’d like to extend an offer to you to come in for a complimentary Vision Meeting with attorney___ , as I am certain a few things have changed in your family since ___. Would next ___ or ___ work better for you?

Step 4: Email
Send an email immediately following each unanswered phone call. Time-saving tip: save the email into a Word document or other text file and copy and paste it into the body of each email). The contents of the email should read:

“Hello ___,

I hope this message finds you better than well today. Real quick, I wanted to send you a quick email to let you know that I just left a message on your answering machine, as I was reaching out today to follow up with you regarding your _____ (call, workshop attendance, etc.) on ___. It has been ___(days/weeks/months) since we last spoke. We appreciate how significant it was to take the first step and contact our office and we want to ensure we have done everything to support your family’s needs and goals. We like to extend an offer to you to come in for a complimentary Vision Meeting with attorney ___, as I am certain a few things have changed in your family since ___. Would next ___ or ___ work better for you? Let me know what works best for you and I will be certain to get this reserved for you.

Step 5: Letter or Flier
The last step in this process, after the phone calls and emails have been made, is to send a letter via mail. These letters should be sent out every week (we suggest you send them every Friday). The letter should read:

“Hello ___,

I hope this finds you better than well today. I am reaching out to follow up with you regarding your ___ (call, workshop attendance, etc.) on ___. It has been ___(days/weeks/months) since we last spoke and I appreciate how significant it was to take the first step and contact our office. We want to ensure we have done everything to support your family’s needs and goals and extend an offer to you to come in for a complimentary Vision Meeting with attorney___ as I am certain a few things have changed in your family since ___. Would next ___ or ___ work better for you?
Let me know what works best for you and I will be certain to get this reserved for you.

Also including a flier for a new “Value Add” workshop, for example, a Social Media for Law Firms workshop, will drive even more engagement in your response.

There is no reason your law firm should be struggling to generate revenue—not with so many untapped resources just waiting for you to get back in touch! Everything you need to grow your law firm is already in place—you just need better tracking, better follow-up, and more accountability.

Ready to Hire that Rock Star Receptionist?

If you’re ready to get the RIGHT person in the door—and you’re ready to turn a rock star receptionist into revenue—contact us! Our Smart Hire Solution has been helping law firms find, recruit, hire, onboard and train amazing team members for over 20 years! We’ll save you time and money by hiring the right person, right out of the gates. Email [email protected] to learn more today!