Understanding the importance of the business side of your practice
Most professionals go to school to learn to practice their art in a chosen field: law, accounting, architecture, medicine, engineering, etc. Their energy and attention is devoted to being the best they can be in their field.
Success approaches, their firms grow and now a new element emerges—the business aspects of the practice. New associates and partners join the firm and create communication issues. Expectations are undefined and files are not attended to as promptly or as effectively as when the office was smaller and there were fewer people involved.
Client service begins to wane, fires must be put out, conflicts arise and a crisis environment begins taking hold of the once smooth-running machine. Morale takes a nosedive and what was once a fun place to work quickly becomes drudgery.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however, and it’s all a matter of gaining control over the crisis environment and becoming proactive, both with the practice itself and the business elements that, in reality, protect the practice.
Think of the practice as enfolded in a cocoon of business fundamentals. Best practices of business support the “art” being practiced. When a practice is treated like a business, attention can be redirected. Instead of going from crisis to crisis, clients can now be handled in the manner that was originally intended.
So how does one do this? What is the secret? The simple answer is to utilize the basic fundamentals of business. In my opinion, business is not hard. It’s people who make business hard. Proper planning and effective communications (the most basic of business fundamentals) are overlooked and there goes any decent “return of the time expended.” Fees begin to melt away due to poor or ineffective business methods. More hours are spent to make less income.
Most practices evolve rather than being planned. As an example, two lawyers who have been friends for years decide to leave their individual law firms and open their own practice. Each has a different specialty of law and the chemistry works between the two. All is going well. The client base increases and now there is a need to add a paralegal and a secretary. These individuals are hired and the partners breathe a sign of relief knowing they can direct all of their time and energy on their clients.
But here comes trouble! The paralegal performs well and more work is “dumped” into her lap. The secretary is overwhelmed with paperwork, filing and emails and neither understands the expectations of the partners. The partners are not interested in defining anything as their time is totally booked, regardless of how productive they are. “I’ll get to it later,” is a common retort. Additionally, the two lawyers feel they are paying good money to both of the support staff and the latter should naturally understand what is expected of them. Soon there is a blowup caused by frustration and a lose-lose situation is created; a loss for the partners, the staff and most of all the clients.
When asked why a Position Development Plan was not created for the paralegal or the secretary, the answer is typically “I didn’t have the time.” That is false efficiency. If the time was taken to discuss how to do the “right things the first time” and expectations were clear, then the time taken to correct the situation would have been minimal. A good rule of thumb: if it takes one time unit to perform a given task efficiency, then it takes four time units to correct any deficiencies. This is obviously not a productive use of time. Remember, time is money.
In my book, “A Journey with Mac,” this situation is explained fully and I describe how to properly plan and communicate effectively to avoid repeating the same error. The remaining fundamentals are spelled out in an easy and fun read.
Who said a professional cannot also be a successful businessperson? Don’t make your practice more complicated and frustrating by continuing to use “natural evolvement” as a business plan. It just doesn’t work. Learn the fundamentals to create a practice that is successful, rewarding and enjoyable.
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