What Lawyers Can Learn From NetFlix

Two days ago in the WSJ I read a great article about Netflix and how the owners are preparing for the demise of DVDs.  Well, demise may be a bit of a strong word but they are well aware that snail mail is going the way of the typewriter and they will need to prepare and adapt their business to what modern technology holds (which as of now appears to be movies sent digitally directly to subscribers’ TVs).

So here’s a really quick summary of the article and how you can employ the same wisdom to your practice.  The first point was that they know that although they are cranking out cash with their current setup it’s not going to last forever (in fact they’ve predicted that in 4 years DVDs will be almost obsolete – not movie-watching, just the DVD part).  What elements of your practice are going to become obsolete or are going to require adaptation to keep up?  Are your clients going to still come into your office to see you, are they going to work with you remotely, does video integration into your current structure make sense.  Is paperwork that is currently being mailed going to be filed electronically (or more of it be filed electronically).  If the economy booms, what areas will take off.  If we have another recession what areas of law will take a hit.  Are you prepared for any or all of these possibilities.

The second part of the article made reference to how Netflix invested several million dollars to create a small box which would go on top of your TV and allow movies to be delivered directly to your TV.  Great idea except that they nixed the idea AFTER development and realized that they were in the movie business.  Not the gadget-development business.  Smart people.

So they outsourced the work to a company that does it best and they focused on what they do best.  Question is, “are you focusing on what you do best and outsourcing what you do not?”  Most lawyers don’t.  Not only do they practice areas of law that they have little or no knowledge about (aka the “general practitioner”) but they also handle their accounting, administrative duties, etc.

Focus people, focus.  We’ve been taught our entire lives to work on what we’re “weak” at.  Forget that.  Our weaknesses are infinite while are strenghts are limited.  Focus on what you do well and do it better.  Besides keeping you happier and sane it helps the bottom line by making sure you’re earning $300 an hour for what you do well versus $0 for making photocopies and sharpening pencils (which I can’t imagine is that hard but it’s certainly not paying you what you’re worth).

Lessons from NetFlix:

1) Be forward thinking by pulling your head out of the sand and seeing what is either forseeable (remember that great term from law school) or inevitable; and

2) Do what you do best and outsource everything else to others who do that stuff best.

Now take a break and watch a DVD while there’s still time!

Lawyers Lack Marketing Skills (Article in the WSJ)

This article is about 2 weeks old but warranted mentioning.  It’s a clear indication that law school does NOT prepare us for running our own practices.  In fact, law school teaches us a way to think, not particularly even how to practice law.  But that’s a digression.

The focus is that lawyer marketing training is growing exponentially.  The article focuses on attire, first impressions, etc. which are all salient points.  But the sad part comes in the last line of the article where it states that a large corporate firm has “shifted resources toward one-on-one relationship building.”

I’m wondering what they were working on before?  Even when you have mid to large-sized corporations as your clients ultimately you are still dealing with an INDIVIDUAL (hence the one-on-one relationship).  Luckily as solos we don’t have that confusion of whether we are dealing with an entity or a person (hint: I do believe in both scenarios we are still working with humans).

So if you’re going to take anything from this article it’s to not deviate your marketing focus from what it is, and should be, from the onset, personal relationships.

Here’s the article link from the WSJ (it was still active as of this writing).

Lawyers Often Lack the Skills Needed to Draw, Keep Clients (May 20, 2009)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124277203983936555.html

Are You a Lonely Lawyer?

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely lonely place.  Not many people get you.  Not even other lawyers.  See, many attorneys who hang out there shingle think that running their business (because that’s what it really is, not a law practice) think that the rules of “regular employment” still apply: 9-5 hours, 45 minute lunch breaks, 401K, health insurance, 2-weeks vacation, etc.

All that goes out the window when you start your own practice.  I’m not saying that you don’t have perks but they certainly don’t follow the rules of regular employment.  You can work 10am to 12pm or you can work 7am to 9pm, you can take days off without having to report to anyone, you will find it a pain in the neck to find affordable health insurance, guess what employer contribution to a retirement plan suddenly means?

All that can be sorted out and you will get to a familiarity and comfortable level with all of this.  But what do you do about the loneliness?  Not the “he broke my heart and I’m home crying” loneliness, the kind that when you meet your 9-5er friends and they can’t relate to a thing you do?  They can’t go for breakfast with you at 10am on Wednesday, whenever you whip out your credit card they will always say, “well, you can just expense it” (I love this one, who do they think you are expensing it to?) and of course the concept of time with family is foreign to them outside of weekends and holidays.  I actually took the day off this Memorial day just so I could spend some time with my “regular” friends (let’s just say at 6am on Tuesday morning we went back to our very different routines).

So how do you overcome the loneliness?  It’s actually quite simple.  Surround yourself with like-minded individuals and entrepreneurs.  And if you care about your well-being at all please do NOT just associate with other lawyers.  There are a lot, seriously, a LOT, of unsuccessful solo practitioners who either don’t know how to run a business or are still stuck thinking they are regular employees (in which case they should not be running their practices to begin with).

Spend your time with SUCCESSFUL entrepreneurs (I highly recommend a “mastermind group”).  The ideas and strategies that are used in business transcend industries and an attorney can learn as much about running and marketing his business from a plumber as a carpenter can learn from a chiropractor.  Do not become deluded into thinking that you are running a law firm.  We are all running businesses and the truths apply universally.  So get out there and make some new entrepreneur friends (but keep the old ones, they’ll be the only ones available to play on the weekends).