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Quick-Show Notes:

A Little about Allison Williams:

Allison Williams is the owner of not one, but two successful companies. 

She is the Founder of Williams Law Group, a full-service family law firm where she is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court as Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in Family Law.  After taking Williams Law Group from start-up to a multi-million dollar business in 3.5 years, she created a second business, Law Firm Mentor, where she and her team provide business coaching services for Solo and Small Law Firm attorneys helping them grow their revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. 

In this episode of The Millionaire’s Lawyer, JP and Allison Williams discuss:

Allison states to never stop growing, you can hire people to do the work so you can focus on what you desire to do.

Allison Williams is the Law Firm Mentor

• Works with Small and Solo firms
• Helps crush chaos
• Grows revenue; double and triple your revenue with her help and ideology
• Adds in a consistent order to everything you do

Bring people into your business, you do not have to do everything yourself

Have ways that people can function without you, have systems in place so that the office can flow in auto-pilot

Crushing Chaos

• Create systems that help settle the chaos, make everything flow smoothly and correctly.
  • Systems for:
    • Marketing
    • Staff / vendors / Owner
    • Money Management
  • Break those systems down even more, IE:
    • Money Management gets broken down too:
      • Accounts Payable
      • Accounts Receivable

When you have more work on your table than you want hire out that work; it makes your life that much easier, you have that much more time, and you can focus on what you really enjoy doing rather than the small stuff that anyone could do.

Once you have systems in place you are able to evolve them

• Most people should have a system for booking in appointments (IE: what for, who for, gather all documentation required, and so on)
  • With COVID, that system evolves into a more virtual way of doing things. Instead of gathering the hard file and all documents and putting it on the Bosses desk for the meeting, you then create all virtual files for the meeting, and add those notes / e-file to the calendar appointment rather than a hard file on the desk.

Make sure you have someone double checking the system you or someone else created. It should be dummy-proof, just because something is common sense to you doesn't it will be to a new hire.

Allison goes in to tell us about one of the ways she is able to create systems within the workplace, ART.

Ask - Ask the person who does the role how they do it. (Ask your admin about the process of receiving mail, step by step. Making sure to include "open the envelopes". As a new Admin comes in they may be unsure if they are actually able to open up their boss's mail 

• As JP's Executive assistant I was nervous too until I was told I could; just because it may be common sense, doesn't mean it is to someone coming in.

Record - Have a tape recorder recording what they are saying. They will be stating a step by step order of how that task is completed.

Transcribe - Transcribe what that person has stated into a document. Allison mentions that she uses Sonix as her software for this step.

The CEO of the business should be telling their team about:

• Their goals and visions for the business and team members
• The state of the firm - How it is doing this quarter; if they need to focus on an area that may not be doing as well as it could
• Instill the values into the team
• Celebrating the good and how the good can get better.
  • If you keep celebrating the good that the team is doing they are likely to be motivated to keep up the good work and find ways to improve.
  • Gives them a sense of security and that they are valued. Positive and feedback and bonuses are such a good motivation to keeping your team on track, working, and effective.

When is the best time to start organizing your Chaos?

• You have to have grown enough that you have the economical resources to buy convenience.

Chaos is a sign of growth, just try to make sure that you are monetizing it to help allow yourself the economical resources to buy conveniences to eventually get out of that chaos.

More work, more people, more systems that need to be in place.

Your host, JP, asks how to monetize that chaos like Allison had mentioned, her advice:

• The owner does not have to do everything. If you have more than 25% of extra work then hire someone to take that one. Take that work off of your table.
• The best thing you can do in these situations is to hire someone that could replace you. It's the greater investment because they will be making you money, and provides security because you will be needed less for the business to operate.
  • If you've heard this podcast before, you know that there is a GREAT VALUE in being replaceable in your own business.

Mindset is essential; the mindset of how to do things, that it doesn't have to be you; and that you can hire someone else. The Mindset is what holds all business owners back, but if you are able to shift that you can see the value!

Allison has a "Closed Door" policy within her firms, if you need to talk with you you book a time in the calendar. This allows Allison to give that member her undivided attention; she does not like being interrupted when she is giving her undivided attention to something else as it does take 3 minutes to adjust tasks.

Staff members may be experiencing "decision fatigue" and are not dialed in anymore. To combat this, they need to learn how to focus again. If they are unable then the boss needs to coach them into focus and complete the task.

Working remotely  opened the door for a lot of opportunities; it forces people to be more intentional with their time. No more water cooler hangouts after bathroom breaks!

Allison stated that is important to be available for more internal communication rather than external. If the internal isn't able to communicate and be on the same page, it affects the external in ways that could be easily avoided.

Connect with Allison Williams:

Website
Podcast - Crushing Chaos with the Law Firm Mentor
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube

Connect with your host, JP:

Twitter
Instagram
Facebook
Website
Show:
LinkedIn
Email: jpmcavoy@conductlaw.com
Phone: 1-833-890-8878

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Conduct Law
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