subject: What Successful Business Owners Have In Common [print this page] Anyone who says they've "developed a program for success" has been through an extensive process of trial and error. This is one method of achieving success in your business: try something new, analyze the results, fix problems, repeat as necessary. While it's a good method, it's also very time consuming and frustrating.
Why not learn from someone who's been there, done that, and now practices their own findings?
Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
Looking at the experiences and practices of other successful business owners helps take the time out of trial and error because they've done it for you. This isn't to say you should copy exactly what someone else is doing, which is an extra bad idea if you're looking to a successful business owner in another profession. The point is to see the bigger picture of why a particular method worked for them and figure out how to customize that method for your own law firm.
Look outside your industry and see what the "top dogs" in your area do to attract clients and run their business. Once you identify these strategies, you'll either be saying "that won't work for our firm" or "that's an important piece of information that I need to figure out how to make work for our firm." Being able to seek out great ideas, analyze them, and figure out how those principles can work in your marketing efforts can get you on a faster track to success.
Stop Thinking Like a Lawyer
You're not just a lawyer, you're a business owner. You have a practice to run, employees to pay, an office to keep. You may hear some lawyers talking about the reason they got into law is to help people, and that's great, but you can't help people without making sure your own needs are met. Making a profit is good - the best doctors in the country aren't successful and poor, they're living the good life because they're successful and their skill justifies their salary.
When you stop thinking like a lawyer, you can start thinking like a successful business owner. This means making sure that your office and marketing efforts run like a well oiled machine which in turn will give you the opportunity to keep your focus on the cases you want to work on. Basically, thinking like a business owner gives you more time to act like a lawyer.
Once you realize that your practice works for you, and not the other way around, you can take your visions beyond the present. Successful business owners know this and that's how they've achieved their success. Now it's time to learn from them and put these lessons into play for you and your practice.
