Getting Paid Commandment #8
We have reached the end, folks.
Today is the last commandment to help you get paid 100% for the work you do.
Until today, you’ve worked hard, really hard, to serve your clients well.
You work nights. You work weekends when you have to. You miss activities with your wife and kids. You don’t really have hobbies, or if you do, you don’t do them nearly as often as you would like.
You keep clients you shouldn’t, and your paralegal doesn’t like it.
In other words, you put your clients first.
That’s your problem.
You need to knock it off.
Commandment #8: stop putting your clients first — start putting them third.
Look, I know, that sounds like heresy.
“The client’s always right,” we’re told, and people who are always right always come first.
Nope, that thinking is exactly wrong.
Here’s what your priority list should look like:
- You and your family.
- Your team.
- Your clients.
Why should you and your family come first?
Because if you and your family don’t come first, if you don’t get paid for the work you do, you won’t be around long, and you won’t serve your clients well.
How many attorneys do you know that don’t take care of themselves? Lots, right? They burn out. They get divorced. They have crappy family and personal lives. And, on average, they don’t fulfill their potential as attorneys, which means they don’t serve their clients well.
Get paid.
Go on vacations with your family.
Chill.
Get back and serve your clients exceptionally well.
Why should your team come second?
If you can’t put yourself and your family first, at least put your team first.
If you don’t put your team first, your team will be overworked, underpaid, and miserable (sort of like you right now).
You’ll have a strained office dynamic and high turnover.
Work quality can’t help but suffer in such an environment.
If, in contrast, you collect close to 100% of what you bill, you fire your worst clients, you focus your firm on one (or on a very few) things, and you serve your team and keep them happy, then everyone works less, everyone works better, everyone makes more money, and office stress is drastically decreased.
Why should your clients come third?
Because, as you’ve seen above, when you put clients first, you’re really putting them last in the long run.
Put clients third and you’ll serve them much better over your career, and you’ll make far more money doing it.
