Show Notes:

Your environment is a reflection of you. “If you want to encourage a culture and environment of innovation and creativity, you have to be willing to try new things and understand that all of these new initiatives might not work. You must become less risk-averse to the idea of allowing someone to try a different approach to doing something. It also means not taking yourself too seriously. If you’re trying to bat 100, you’re not going to allow for wiggle room or any sort of innovation or creativity because more often than not, some ideas don’t work out. Many ideas simply aren’t effective. Think about how the people in your organization react to something not working out. Are they afraid to fail? If so, they’re never going to be brave enough to try something new. You’ve got to create a culture where you almost encourage failure, or at least encourage new ideas.”

Put yourself in your clients’ shoes. “If you want to stand out from other law firms and be above average for your clients, you’ve got to consider what your clients’ experiences are. If it needs to be better, how do you know where it is before deciding what it needs to be? That’s why the first step is to audit everything. Call your law firm and see how the phone is answered, if the phone is answered, what that experience is like — secret shop your own law firm. Submit a contact form on your firm’s website and see how long it takes to hear back. Start doing the things like Schrodinger’s Cat, because even though you might not want to do it for fear of what the outcome might be, you’ll never know what it is until you do. If you’re not willing to do those things, it’s probably worse than you think it is.”

Share the spotlight with your team. “The value of your law firm should come from your values and the standards that you’ve set and less about the particular lawyer that they work with. For example, if someone’s calling Morgan & Morgan, no one’s expecting to work with John Morgan at this point because he’s got hundreds of lawyers working for him; But the reason that firm is so successful is the simple fact that they have built a brand around a certain type of experience as well as a trial standard to the point where you know what you’re going to get when you call them. You’ve got to highlight the wins of your team members so that your clients know there are no bad options when it comes to working with a lawyer. Bring other people in and set the stage with them to prove that you’re surrounded by competent professionals.”

RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Crisp
Ritz Carlton
Morgan & Morgan
John Morgan