Un-Billable Hour: Business Management Strategies for the Busy Lawyer

How are you doing? Not you, personally, your business. Do you know? Because many small businesses, including small law firms, don’t have a true CFO, someone who doesn’t just do your taxes, but who helps you understand your business, your bottom line, and your future. 

Danielle Hendon is the founder and CEO of 4 Corners CFO, bringing the benefit of “big business” financial analysis to entrepreneurs and business owners at a cost they can afford. She and her firm are “fractional CFOs,” providing the analysis and planning you need to stabilize your business, develop consistent revenue models, and grow with a goal in mind. 

Hendon helps businesses, like yours, evaluate where they are, how things are doing, what your “real profit” is, and how to set and move toward goals. 

Allocating overhead, hiring, understanding gross and net profit, and growing with purpose is all doable. Hear about “bottom-up budgeting,” understanding cash flow forecasts and how a CFO, even a part time CFO, can help spot red flags and build the pillars that will lift your business. 

Mentioned in This Episode:

4 Corners CFO

Join the next Community Table live. What’s on your mind?

In this episode’s discussions around the Community Table:

Mentioned in This Episode:

Constant Contact

Hubspot

Zoho CRM

Keap

Clio Grow

Lawmatics

“Origin and Meaning of the Word Lagniappe” 

Join the next Community Table live. What’s on your mind? 

In this special, high-energy episode, we’re getting down and dirty and talking about fixing your firm. Consider this is a “visit to the doctor.” What’s ailing your firm? Guest RJon Robins is the founder and CEO of the firm How To Manage A Small Law Firm. He fixes things. Get real about the cost of client acquisition, marketing, revenue building, financial control, and finally your life as a business owner. 

Start with knowing that when you hang out a shingle, you run a business. You just happen to be a lawyer. Lots of lawyers have gone through what you’ve gone through. How do you turn your passion for the law into a profitable business? 

Hear how you can focus on the fundamentals of running a real business. Law firms are simple, at their core. Don’t overthink it. Lawyers have been running businesses for a thousand years. Learn the core nuggets that will drive your business. No fads, just the honest realities of business. No excuses. 

Learn how your firm can serve you, instead of you sacrificing for your firm. Get fired up, take charge, and get ahead.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Join the next Community Table live. What’s on your mind?

Profit First for Lawyers, by RJon Robins

RJon Robins Podcast

How To Manage A Small Law Firm, Free Resources

In this episode’s discussions around the Community Table:

Mentioned in This Episode:

Legal Soft

Join the next Community Table live. What’s on your mind?

Law firms often focus on revenue generation, client retention, and financial performance. But guest Tracy LaLone says true success is driven by the (very real) people who work at the firm. Firms that fail to engage and recognize their people, she says, can never reach their full potential. 

LaLonde is a corporate trainer who focuses on engagement within law firms. She has more than 30 years’ experience in corporate training and helps firms focus on the involvement, commitment, and enthusiasm workers feel for their workplace. 

Surveys show only 30% of American workplaces are considered “engaged.” So, there’s room to grow if you know how important engagement is to your firm’s success. How eager are employees to get to work each day? How valued do they feel? Are you focusing on billable hours at the expense of your team’s wellbeing and sense of purpose? 

LaLonde explains how she targets law firm burnout and underperformance through her Hierarchy of Engagement, a pyramid of workforce factors including pay, performance, and perks; work/life balance; and a shared purpose. Learn key tips you can put to work at your firm today to nurture engagement and achieve peak performance.

Mentioned in This Episode:

“The Joychiever Journey: Evade Burnout, Surpass Your Goals and Out-Happy Everyone” by Tracy LaLonde

Joychiever Hierarchy of Engagement 

Joychiever Quiz: Are You a Good Manager?

“First, Break All the Rules,” and other titles from Gallup

ALM

Join The Un-Billable Hour Community Table

In this episode’s discussions around the Community Table:

Mentioned in This Episode:

“Getting Started With Local Service Ads,” LSA explained, Google support

Join the next Community Table live. What’s on your mind?

Guest Charlène Gisèle is a former big-firm litigator turned professional high-performance coach. This show is about you. It’s about you being your best, taking better care of you, and avoiding burnout and other health issues. 

It’s no secret, the legal profession is a field filled with stress. Deadlines, precision, scheduling, marketing, and running a business. It’s a lot for anyone to handle. Gisèle helps her clients improve their well-being, increase productivity, and maintain a sustainable practice.

It’s great to set goals, even ambitious goals, at the start of every new year. But don’t forget to take a moment to make a plan for yourself and how you’ll keep going, day after day, with so much weight on your shoulders. 

Hear how Gisèle used her own experience and a lot of professional research and training to develop a coaching method that helps stressed professionals enjoy their life and stay healthy. “You can have all the success in the world,” she says, “but if you’re not going to be around to see it, how much success is that truly going to be?” Do you feel stressed? Exhausted? Isolated? Do you know the symptoms of burnout? This is a podcast for you. You are not alone. 

Mentioned in This Episode:

Charlène Gisèle's Podcast

E-book, “Breathwork For Cognitive Performance,” by Charlène Gisèle 

“Burn-Out An ‘Occupational Phenomenon:’ International Classification Of Diseases,” World Health Organization

Join The Un-Billable Hour Community Table

In this episode’s discussions around the Community Table:

Mentioned in This Episode:

“Who: The A Method for Hiring,” by Geoff Smart and Randy Street 

“Hamlet Was Wrong,” a transcript, from Malcolm Gladwell discusses “hiring nihilism”

Join the next Community Table live. What’s on your mind?

Marketing and sales are keys to building your business. But where do they meet? It takes two to tango, and “Intake” is the junction. Good intake is always worth the effort. 

Guest Bo Royal is co-founder of Pareto Legal and has worked with several Fortune 1,000 companies and scores of law firms. He specializes in helping small and medium sized law firms build their business and strengthen their intake process. 

Data tracking and quality matters. Follow the trail, understand how the marketing funnel is working and where to get prospects in the door and sign that retainer. Intake is about nurturing inbound leads – the results of your advertising and marketing – and turning them into clients.

Intake can make or break all of your marketing and sales efforts. Don’t build a “leaky bucket.” You worked hard, and spent a lot, to develop leads. This is an important episode that can help you go that last mile from generating interest to capturing revenue. Track the “journey” of every prospect. It’s not luck, it’s a process. 

Mentioned in this Episode:

Pareto Legal

Pareto PPC LinkedIn

Lawmatics

Needles legal software

Hubspot

Clio Grow

Google Analytics for beginners

Join The Un-Billable Hour Community Table

In this episode’s discussions around the Community Table: 

Plus, the risks and rewards of posting your firm’s phone number prominently. Sometimes putting your number out there generates spam and time-wasting calls when a simple online scheduling tool could be more efficient. What’s right for you?

Mentioned in this Episode:

ChatGPT 4

Paxton AI for legal profession

“Michael Cohen Says He Unwittingly Sent AI-Generated Fake Legal Cases To His Attorney,” NPR

Microsoft Excel

“PPC For Lawyers: It's About Cost Per Client, NOT Cost-Per-Click,” Lunch Hour Legal Marketing on Legal Talk Network

“Getting Started With Local Services Ads,” Google

Calendly

Join the next Community Table live. What’s on your mind?