Networking seems to be something we all know we should be doing but very few actually execute on.

I believe this to be true because I, for a long time, fell into the category of someone that wanted to network but was kind of frozen by the nuts and bolts of how to do it well.

When I started my new estate planning law firm I knew I couldn't hide anymore.

So I put together a system and started implementing it. The results have been really good so far.

Because I know it's such a tough hill to climb yet so powerful if executed, I thought I'd spend today's podcast episode breaking down what I believe to be the basics of law firm networking.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. - curious about what I do on a daily basis to create and build my successful law firm? Now you can find out first hand (and steal some of my secrets). It's called the Law Firm Confidential Podcast, and you can get access to the first 5 episodes for free by clicking right here.

Who am I? I am an expert on starting a law firm and law firm marketing. I've started two successful law firms (you can check out my current law firm here) and love sharing what I've learned so you can do it too.

Law Firm Networking Basics Transcript

Hey everybody welcome to episode one nineteen. Of The Art of Lawyering podcast. I am your host as always Christopher Small and I wanted to talk to you a little about networking today. I've been having tons and tons of meetings. Some good some just okay. No bad, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about this networking thing because it's just so, everybody knows you should be doing it but I don't feel like there's a lot out there to tell you sort of like how to do it the right way. And today I'm going to just give you some of my thoughts on that and obviously I'm not an expert on this. I'm not a pro but I can tell you that my networking has created significant business for me thus far. A short stint into my new law firm which is I think evidence that it's working.

So let's talk about this first, how to network, how do we network what are we doing. So you know when I'm networking, what I'm talking about here is, for today let's just talk about the cold cold network. Okay because I've been doing a lot of that. I've been doing some warm networking too. But we'll talk about the cold networking. Cold networking, based on what I'm thinking about. Who are my potential referral sources and then I make a list of them and I start calling them. What I tell them when I call them is look, I say my name's Christopher Small, I'm an estate planning attorney here in Kirkland. And I was reaching out to people in the area. That have similar business interests. I want to see if we could meet and have a cup of coffee. So that I can learn a little bit more about you and your business. And see if there's any connection there.

It's basically what I what I say. So far, pretty much everyone has said okay, except for one person. They said no and that's totally fair and people are going to say no it's okay. They didn't say no in a bad way, they just said like look I'm too busy, I already have referral partners. I'm not super interested in this, I don't have time for this right now. Call me back in a quarter and so I guess the other day it really wasn't a flat no because she did tell me to call back in a quarter. But that's what happened. The key is to just make a bunch of calls. If you get voice mails that's okay. You check the box, and then you call them again the next week or you send them an e-mail the next week and you just keep reaching out. I typically will give it eight shots before I just give up on someone.

Because people are busy. Some people just want to see if you're going to be persistent enough to catch a meeting. And so eight is where I'm at. I keep track of that. Now,

I love talking about the things that are top of mind with my own law firm and this one is top of mind constantly.

When I talk about the starting a law firm roller coaster I mean those wild ups and downs you might experience on a weekly, daily, or even hourly basis.

I'm also talking about those wild swings in energy you have. Sometimes you are so jazzed to get to work you are getting up before the alarm and some days you are forcing yourself out of bed.

This podcast won't help you eliminate those feelings entirely - I just don't think that is possible. But it will help you get out of the lows faster and avoid letting that voice in your head ruin your game.

Here are the five ways to ride the starting a law firm roller coaster. If you want the explanation, listen to the show!

Know there are ups and downs/twists and turns;

Ride the highs;

Get past the lows as fast as possible;

Have perspective - we are not snakes;

Be a pro.

That's it. Pretty simple.

Oh, and if you don't have time to listen, or you prefer to read, the transcript of the show is down below.

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. - curious about what I do on a daily basis to create and build my successful law firm? Now you can find out first hand (and steal some of my secrets). It's called the Law Firm Confidential Podcast, and you can get access to the first 5 episodes for free by clicking right here.

Who am I? I am an expert on starting a law firm and law firm marketing. I've started two successful law firms (you can check out my current law firm here) and love sharing what I've learned so you can do it too.

How to Ride the Starting a Law Firm Roller Coaster Transcript

Hey everybody welcome to episode 118 of The Art of Lawyering podcast, I'm your host Christopher Small. I'm excited to be here with you today. I was hoping to meet recording episode outside. It is crazy warm here in Seattle and I don't know if that's a result of global warming or luck or what but it is awesome. It's like today, it's like probably sixty five. On Monday, it's supposed to be eighty five which is insane. That said, get a lot of weather. That's on the outside.

So I am not going to go sit up on the deck and hang. So we're just have to do this in my windowless, still rather than on or on the decorated office but that's okay. Stuff will still be good for you guys. So let's get to it though. Let's just dive right in. Trying to keep it pretty short and sweet for you. Lot of content, lot of action items, a lot of heavy hitters so that you can go out there and take your business with your firm. I'll give you a real short update about my firm.

I don't know if you know this, but a month agom around mid April right now and I basically started CMS Law Firm all over again and things are going pretty well. I have several clients already, have leads coming in every day. Which is pretty awesome. All i'm doing your sort of following on things I'm talking about here the show. So, pay attention basically. This stuff works. This episode those inspired by the some of the feelings that I've had over the last couple of weeks and even the last sort of, not the last couple hours today but in the span of some several hours and I'm like gosh, I just had to talk about this because I know everybody feel this and go through this and it's not something that a lot of people will talk about.

But the law firm start up roller coaster, what I really mean by that is just sort of the range of emotions that you feel on a daily or weekly basis from oh my god I'm going to fail to this is the best thing ever to the ups and downs of the energy levels. You know some days will be so ready to go and crush it and just get in there and do everything that you need to do and some days you just will not be feeling it.

Starting a law firm is tough. It is painful. It is scary. Sometimes it sucks.

What makes it so tough is that there is so much out there that is unknown. You can bust your ass all day or all week or all month or all quarter and not see many if any results.

Most people can't make it past this stage.

If you are in this stage of starting a law firm. If you are feeling frustrated, scared, pissed off, flustered, tired, exhausted, or anything in between, this episode is for you.

The key to getting through this stage is not to panic. Focus on the process, on getting your stuff done every day, and you will see results.

Starting a law firm takes tenacity. It takes grit. It takes heart. It also takes a willingness to trust. Trust the process. Focus on the process.

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. - curious about what I do on a daily basis to create and build my successful law firm? Now you can find out first hand (and steal some of my secrets). It's called the Law Firm Confidential Podcast, and you can get access to the first 5 episodes for free by clicking right here.

Who am I? I am an expert on starting a law firm and law firm marketing. I've started two successful law firms (you can check out my current law firm here) and love sharing what I've learned so you can do it too.

The Art of Lawyering Podcast 117 Transcript

Hey everybody and welcome to episode 117 of The Art Of Lawyering podcast. I'm your host Christopher Small as always I'm excited to be here with you today. It is a Monday and I guess i'm honestly looking for ways to distract myself from my greatness tracker. But i was reading my book as i do every morning and i came across a passage that i thought that would be really great for everyone to hear. The passage comes from this book called "You Win In The Locker Room First" it's by John Gordon and Mike Smith. These guys or coaches, mostly i think, former coach of the Atlanta Falcons and so the guy John Gordon is an author.

Anyway this book is about the seven seas to build a winning team in business sports and life. Kind of sports oriented but i was reading this passage and we've been talking a lot about how long does it take to become successful, how much work to the take, is it going to come fast enough, all these kind of stuff. And I've been thinking the same thing myself. Because i'm in this new law firm start up. I've just forgotten about what that day to day grind can feel like and how sometimes it can be a little deflating. And how you really need to come to work every day. Ready to just crush it and know that by putting the work in today, it's going to pay off for you tomorrow.

So I really just wanted to read this passage to you and tell you that success is around the corner. That it is going to take a lot of hard work but that you can do it, so here we go. This is the focus on the process it's name of sort of the sub-chapter it's page one thirty five. If you ever want to get the book and read it. The rest of the book is pretty good but when I read this part I was just like, you know maybe it's just because it's kind of top of mind and something I've been talking about to all of you but it really hit home for me and I want to share it with you.

It says when people ask me how long it takes to become an overnight success. I say at least ten years. There's no such thing as an overnight success. Success takes time. Building a winning team in organization requires grit and perseverance. Considerate that Starbucks did not reach store number five until thirteen years into its history. Sam Walton than did not open a second store, until seven years after starting his company. That's wal-mart.

Dr. Seuss wanted to burn the main issue out of his first book after it was rejected by twenty seven publishers. Thankfully he didn't.

One of the most interesting things I see when I talk to people about their law firm success is that they have no true idea how the law firm is actually performing.

They have no idea if they have law firm profit or law firm loss.

They know if they have money in the bank. They know if they have money on the way, but that is about it.

Today I'm going to reveal how I deal with law firm profit and loss. Enjoy!

Hey everybody welcome to episode 116 of The Art of Lawyering podcast. I'm just coming straight to you from interstate 405. I just left a lunch and learn meeting with my pals Keen and John where we talked a lot about profit and loss. And I wanted to talk to you about the same subject because I think it's critically important and it's something that you should start from the beginning or implement now if you're not. Because it's gonna have a huge effect on not just on the actual money that you make but just on the way that you approach and see your business because and this maybe sort of the theme of the show. Numbers don't lie. If you're telling me you're working hard and doing things but the numbers aren't paying, aren't showing that, then you're probably not working on the right things. Or you know focusing on the right things. You're not doing the right things. So, let's talk about that.

First of all, I wanna give a special shout out to my Kansas Jayhawks, who just defeated the Maryland Terrapins to go and advance to the elite eight. I'm super pumped about that. Always a good thing when your team advances. We are the number one overall seed this year. So, we should be winning but I can't help but feel a little nervous when these games are played because by this time, all the teams are getting really good. Anybody can catch fire for a night and knock somebody else off because it's just one game. Anything can happen in a one game series. It's exciting to see these guys cause they execute fantastically. They're even keeled, they have great experience and they're sort of the epitome of what a good team should be. They are talented but they don't just rely on their talent. You can tell they have put it on hard work, and they play together, and they function together like our own teams should do.

Anyway, back to profit and loss. The importance of profit and loss is really not just to see if you're making money or not, it's the ability to see where money is going. To see if your efforts are paying off to project cash flow into the future and the way they presented their information was something that I've never seen before. I've read books on profit and loss statements and sort of general business accounting and the ideas for ways that you should do things and this was a good one. So I'm gonna break it down real quick. I'm trying to keep these episodes shorter and my virtual assistant is transcribing this. So, we need to keep it short.

So basically, it breaks down to four sections. Section number one is expenses. Section number two is profit. Section number three is personal profit profit. And then section number four is net income. In section one is you would guess all of your expenses go there. There are four categories of expenses within this thing. There are you fixed expenses, there are your miscellaneous expenses, there are your wages which should be anyway that's put on the payroll including yourself, and there's personal expenses which if you incorporated are gonna be pretty much zero. So you have to put all those in there to see where your expenses are at every month.

Your section two profit is the profit that's generated by others, and not by you. So for example, if you have an associate attorney that decides up a case and works the case all the way through. Then that would go into section two. The profit that you create thus the cases that you signed up in work, that goes into section three and the idea is that you...

Sometimes it can seem like law firm start-up success takes forever. But how long is too long? How do you know when you should keep going? That's what we talk about today on the show...

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 115 of The Art Of Lawyering podcast. I am your host, Christopher Small, I am out actually walking the dog tonight, figured I would mix up a little bit and give you some good stuff while talking them on a walk. Typically takes me a little bit but we're probably not gonna take forever here. We're doing these short bite sized episodes if you didn't know that.

Interesting question, had somebody that just wanted to join The Law Firm Confidential, and she'd been, has been at it for about three weeks. She's been doing the stuff that's in the program, and she hasn't seen much success yet and she have a Facebook group and she was curious about how long it's gonna take to be successful.

I have good news here and I have bad news for all of you. The good news is, success is around the corner pretty much for all of us. The bad news is, it's gonna take longer than three weeks. Sorry, you know, here's the deal about starting a law firm, becoming a great attorney, becoming a great  parent, becoming a great spouse or partner, anything that you wanna do in life is gonna take time. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Everybody would do the stuff whatever it takes.

It doesn't take three weeks. Blogging to see success, it takes three months. It doesn't take three weeks of networking, it takes three months. Sometimes it takes six months, sometimes it takes nine months. How do I know? That some of you don't have three months, some of you don't have nine months, some of you only have three weeks and I think I haven't talked a lot about this in the past but if that's the case, then it's probably time that you just go get a job.

You do this stuff, you go and you get a night time job just to make some cash. You do some work that will help pay the bills and you pursue this dream of owning your own law firm in your downtime. And by your downtime I mean, you do that in the afternoon as you do this in the days, and you go work some other job at night. It's just a question of how bad do you wanna be successful and what do you want to do to get there. So, the short answer is, it takes longer than three weeks. It's gonna take probably a lot longer than three weeks but the long answer, I guess the long road is that it's possible. You just have to keep going.

So often we see people stop just short of success and the way this growth works, the way the growth will work for your firm, for your business, for your networking efforts, for whatever you wanna do is hawk kiss that growth, it's the way that I describe it. What's gonna happen is you're gonna linger on, you're gonna go through day by day, you're gonna put your deposit in the bank, you're gonna work hard, you're do what you're supposed to do, and nothing's gonna happen. It's gonna seem like nothing's going on and then, one day, boom, it's all gonna come together, the phone's gonna start ringing like crazy, you're gonna be super busy and it's gonna seem like all those bad times were never even there.

It's gonna seem like the turnaround was short but the time in between when you start and when you see success feels like an eternity and I could tell you that first hand because I'm feeling that right now. You know it's March, what's today, 21st? As I'm recording this and you know, I just wanna get my first people. I don't know, I guess I've ruined it really. Working it out on my own, for a couple of weeks but I technically started this whole thing. January first, so it's taken me two and a half months, you know, which is what, eight, ten weeks to get there. But not only that I get a new client today, I got two really really great leads today, I got one another great lead on Friday,

I put on a law firm marketing presentation the other day and thought I'd share my tips in today's podcast episode. Enjoy!

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 114 of The Art Of Lawyering podcast, I'm your host, Christopher Small, and I'm excited to be here with you today. I am at this time currently on the highway driving back to the office from a presentation that I just put on. This presentation was made to a real estate agent and his team about 10 people or so. It's good times I talked about two things. For all you estate planning attorneys out there. I talked about ways that they can provide value to their clients from a business perspective and I talked about ways that they can protect themselves from personal perspective. And estate planning worked into both of those components but that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about were some lessons that I have learned.

This is my first presentation of this kind. I've done presentations before and I should've learned these lessons beforehand but I wanted to just let you know what I experienced. So, first, step one, make sure you confirm the address of the place that you are going. This group is actually run by a guy that's a buddy of mine and what I did not know or think to ask was whether or not they had changed the offices recently and in fact they had. So, on my way down to the office, I got a call and he said, "Hey, are you going to the right place?" I said, "I think so. Is it on the XYZ street?" and he said, "Nope, it's on ABC street." So I had to turn, make a couple of uee's and get on the right track. So, step one.

Step two is make sure you figure out who is providing the food. If food is going to be provided. This was a lunch and learn opportunity and I didn't really realize I guess that I was the one providing the lunch until very late. I still took care of it, got some Jimmy Johns in the house, everybody was happy and excited and crushed it but it could have been a disaster if I ordered showing up with no food.

Step number three. Record every single one of your presentations. If you wanted to see this presentation, you can go on my Youtube channel because it will be up in the next couple of days. Even if you do the same thing over and over again, I would almost always put them up. The reason for that is, it builds strict credit for you to show that you are up and talking about these things, no presentation is going to go exactly the same and I know that because for example, once I get home I'm gonna think about the things that I talked about and the way I structured it and I probably would change and add and tweak some things to make it better.

And the third thing is that, look nobody can hear your message enough times. If you think about the people cheap valium buy us that you like and follow, I think you'll see, if you pay attention, that they really repeat the same ideas over and over and over again. And the reason for that is very simple. You know, the more you say something, the more it gets embedded in people's minds. So, don't be afraid to record all of them. It's also good practice. You can go back and look at your presentation after the fact and see if you were doing something that you wanted to change or fix and what you did well and then you can build off with that. So, those are at least three of the lessons that I learned today.

I would, I guess before that things is, maybe make sure that you practice before you go in. Don't go in there and expect to just wing it because you're gonna look better, people are gonna appreciate it more and it's gonna be more well received if you practice.

The fifth thing that I would do is make sure you have a call to action at the end. For me, I said two things. I said, "Look, if you're interested in sort of pursuing this opportunity and get some estate planning done, I would love to help you or talk to you more and here's the next step." And I also said,

This is a special episode of The Art of Lawyering Podcast because it's a change from the way I've been doing things. Today I want to talk law firm startup personalities. What does that even mean? Listen in...

Hey everybody welcome to episode 113 of The Art Of Lawyering Podcast. I'm your host as always, Christopher Small. I'm excited to be here with you today. You know, this is gonna be a different kind of an episode and the episodes are moving forward. I think we're gonna be kinda different. I think I'm done doing interviews for a while. Their simply taken up too much of my time and too much of my effort and I don't think they're really giving you what you need on the show. They're not really accomplishing my true goal with the show.

So I'm gonna kinda put them on hiatus for a little bit. It doesn't mean I'm gonna stop show. In fact this may actually get another episode out of me per week. So I may go from two to three episodes per week. They're gonna be shorter, they're gonna be topical, they are going to be geared towards one thing and that's helping you start and build your law firm. So we're talking about strategies, we're talking about tactics, mindset, leadership, all of these things that you need to be thinking about, that you need to be working on to get there.

Before we get there though today, I wanna tell you I got a new webinar that I put together for your training; "How To Start A Six Figure Law Firm In Six Months or Less". It's a webinar, it's about an hour and a half. If you're interested, you can go to theartoflawyering.com/sixfigures you can write the number out, you can just use the number as is but it's theartoflawyering.com/sixfigures.

I'm talking about basically exposing through the secrets to starting and building a successful law firm. How to do it without a network, how to do it without experience, and how do it without a big budget. Those are the three of the biggest hurdles that get in people's ways. I can just show you where to get overcome those hurdles and find success. And again, theartoflawyering.com/sixfigures. I would love to see you there.

So, back to our regularly scheduled programming, so yeah I'm gonna chop these up. I'm gonna make them shorter, I'm gonna make them faster. My goal is for you to walk away with from every one of these episodes with something useful. You're in it, for it's a load of nugget. Cause I think the nugget looks sometimes the best because you can listen to this, you can walk away, you can incorporate something into what you're doing and you can have action right now. And one of the things that I did today was, not today actually, I didn't do it today self's funny house, serendipitous, the world is, but I heard someone on the podcast that I listened to. It takes, I think they took a Myers Briggs personality test and I was like, I should go do that. So I found a free one, did it, and I came back with the ENTPE personality type.

I didn't really know what that meant. You know, the site that I went to hasn't good information on it but then I, I was at lunch today with a, plenty admires him, he's Ryan, he's a chiropractor in one of the world's leading cross fit kind of instructors from my health standpoint. You should go check them out at themovementfix.com by the way. Cool dude, we meet up all the time. He's part of the club. You guys did not even know what the club is, that's okay. We're gonna tell you someday.

He's a member of the club and we were talking and he's like, "Hey, have you done the Myers Briggs personality test?" and I was like yeah, I just did it. He's like "Dude, you just go to this website, it's called sixteenpersonalities.com and check it out." And what it does is give you a rundown on your personality type. He's like, "I went and looked at mine and it was spot on." And I went and looked at mine too and it's also spot on. And let me see if I can find a good little, let's see,

Last week I broke up with my law firm.

There were no tears.

There were no hard feelings.

There were no long goodbyes.

It was simply "this isn't working for me," and "this isn't working for me either," and we went our separate ways.

Here's the thing though: I'm not sure many of you would have the guts to do that.

Are you willing to make the hard choices?

Are you willing to admit to yourself that everything isn't going perfectly?

Are you willing to do the hard thing that needs to be done to make sure you are as successful as possible and your firm is as successful as possible.

Law firm break ups aren't fun, but sometimes they are necessary.

Why Law Firm Break Ups Happen

If you want the full story you should listen to the podcast. Here's the reader's digest version.

First, there were too many cooks in the kitchen. With so much input nothing was getting done.

Second, change is hard for everyone. For some it is paralyzing. When it paralyzes nothing gets done.

Third, different people have different visions of what they want. When different visions collide, sometimes it doesn't work out.

And fourth, and last (for this discussion), communication is essential. When people don't (or can't or won't) communicate things are tough.

Listen to the episode. It's a good one.

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. - curious about what I do on a daily basis to create and build my successful law firm? Now you can find out first hand (and steal some of my secrets). It's called the Law Firm Confidential Podcast, and you can get access to the first 5 episodes for free by clicking right here.

Who am I? I am an expert on starting a law firm and law firm marketing. I've started two successful law firms (you can check out my current law firm here) and love sharing what I've learned so you can do it too.

Today's guest has a story like none other before. Yes she is a lawyer, or should I say, was a lawyer, just like us.

She graduated in 2009, took a big law corporate job, and started grinding away. Except, that she wasn’t like us. She had other plans. She refused to lead a life controlled by other’s expectations.

One year after starting her legal career, all of her 100K plus student loan was paid off. And in August, 2015, at just 33 years old, she retired from the practice of law to chase her dreams and travel the world.

Resources

Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence

thepowerofthrift.com

Book Rec: The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. - curious about what I do on a daily basis to create and build my successful law firm? Now you can find out first hand (and steal some of my secrets). It's called the Law Firm Confidential Podcast, and you can get access to the first 5 episodes for free by clicking right here.

Who am I? I am an expert on starting a law firm and law firm marketing. I've started two successful law firms (you can check out my current law firm here) and love sharing what I've learned so you can do it too.

This episode is all about the learning curve that we are all on.

Have you ever started learning anything from scratch?

Of course you have!!

Here's a hint - law.

When you started law you progressed through a specific series of steps that I talk about today in the podcast.

1. Techniques

2. Habits

3. Rituals

If you want to know more, you've got to listen to the show!!

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. - curious about what I do on a daily basis to create and build my successful law firm? Now you can find out first hand (and steal some of my secrets). It's called the Law Firm Confidential Podcast, and you can get access to the first 5 episodes for free by clicking right here.

Who am I? I am an expert on starting a law firm and law firm marketing. I've started two successful law firms (you can check out my current law firm here) and love sharing what I've learned so you can do it too.