The Law Firm Owner Podcast

Trust is foundational for any team to be effective, and if you lack trust, you’ll waste a lot of time and energy with miscommunication, conflict, and tension. Being unable to trust beyond your own capacity is the reason a lot of business owners keep their businesses small. To help you with this, Tara Gronhovd is back this week, and she’s giving you some things to think about when it comes to trust in your business.

Join Melissa and Tara as they dive deeper into the vital role of trust in the workplace. Hear some definitions of trust and some of the different elements of trust, why this work is so important and valuable, and the problem with not having trust in your team.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/208

Hear Melissa’s conversation with Mastery Group member Ben Hudson of Hudson Law and John Grant of Agile Attorney Consulting. Ben shares what it’s like being facilitated through Monday Map, his work focusing on the Kanban methodology with John, and why they’re complementary.

Discover the value of getting expert help to help you accomplish your goals, and how Melissa and John are essentially cracking the same nut, but with slightly different approaches. Ben offers context for what exactly Velocity Work is, and the work he’s done to optimize his firm. 

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/207

Did you know that you might be unwittingly skewing the true numbers in your business? Whether it’s client costs, case costs, court filing fees, or other items you might be tacking on to your client’s bill and categorizing as income, what you’re seeing isn’t your real revenue.

Melissa is speaking to expert in this field, Claudia Revermann. Claudia is an attorney and the owner of Revermann Law where she primarily does estate planning, business, and real estate, and she's also a CPA. Claudia shares her wisdom on figuring out your natural revenue, how to establish a strong working relationship with your accountant, and how to partner with them in getting to the real numbers.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/206

Jim Hart is a trademark lawyer and founder of The Hart Law Firm where he works exclusively with online business owners, coaches, freelancers, and other entrepreneurs to help them take legal ownership of their brand by securing Federal Trademark protection.

Melissa is taking the opportunity to touch base with Jim on his quarterly Rocks. Examining your goals sounds easy and straightforward, but is often more challenging than you might think. You’ll hear what it’s like to break down and deconstruct your Rocks to gain complete clarity around what’s truly possible in a quarter. 

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/205

Melissa is sitting down with founder of Agile Attorney Consulting, John Grant. John has a proven record as a legal innovator who helps legal teams optimize their workflows, strategies, and systems. The tools he learned during his decade in the tech industry have shaped his mission of helping lawyers improve what they do, and he’s here to share his insights on how we can apply those principles in the real world.

Listen in as Melissa and John dive into the importance of looking at your practice through the lens of your client and their experience. You’ll hear why doing this inherently forces better quality legal work, how he’s navigated shifting to a client-first approach in his business, and how unbundling your business internally has the potential to help you up-level client satisfaction.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/204

If you’re a longtime listener of the show, you’ll understand the importance of rest and the bigger-picture impact prioritizing rest can have on your business. However, on top of all the other concerns you might have about being absent, actually taking time away from your practice feels challenging and selfish, even if you know a lot of good can come from it.

Melissa is sitting down with founder and managing lawyer of VanderLeek Law, Gordon VanderLeek. Hear how Gordon set up his firm for success amidst one of his most challenging business years in 2022. Gordon and Melissa are discussing the ups and downs of business, why getting support when times are good is vital, and how Gordon is experimenting with planning for rest.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/203

To close out this series, Melissa is sharing more common obstacles that you might face as you work towards the things you care about so you can overcome or even eliminate them ahead of time. She lays out the common barriers to consistency that you want to anticipate. From external circumstances that stray you from progress, to emotional discomfort, burnout, and general chaos you might feel, she’s sharing her top tips and advice for coming back to focus and being proactive with your planning.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/202

When you’re working towards a goal, consistency matters. However, something many people get tripped up on is the idea of perfect consistency and executing a plan perfectly. Perfectionism is a spectrum, and most of us fall somewhere on it, including Melissa. It’s learning to value progress over perfection that really moves the needle.

In part three of her four-part series on consistency, Melissa breaks down why striving for perfection isn’t useful and why focusing on making progress is more important for achieving your goals. She shares how to handle falling off the wagon, some statements to keep in mind when facing your perfectionistic thoughts, and why perfectionism actually inhibits the results you want.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/201

If you find yourself trying to reach three rungs ahead of yourself on the ladder of building your business instead of taking everything step by step this episode is for you. Today’s show is all about setting the foundation so you are clear on the move that will bridge you to the next level of success. This is a vital part of consistency that often gets overlooked.

This week, Melissa shares how to reverse engineer your goals so you get consistent around the foundations, using a concept called First Principles. You will learn how to take consistent action that moves you forward one step at a time, instead of trying to make the big swing or wasting money on solutions you aren’t ready for yet.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/200

Melissa is kicking off a brand new series on the topic of consistency. Whether you’re working on the growth of your business, or you want to begin making headway on something in your personal life, consistency is key. She’s laying the groundwork for what really goes into showing up consistently.

Join Melissa for the first of a four-part series on the power of consistency. You’ll hear all the ways consistency supports you as you strive toward your goals, and her top tips and strategies that she has put into practice as she approaches 200 episodes of this podcast. 

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/199

This week, Melissa walks you through Mastery Group’s strategic planning retreat framework. Melissa’s training for facilitating business planning meetings was rigorous, and this was the foundation that she built Mastery Group’s framework upon, plus lots of new research, experimentation, and skills developed over time. 

You’ll hear why this framework is the perfect starting point for getting comprehensive about your planning, what this looks like in practice inside Mastery Group, and how it helps her members finish out the quarter strong with a solid plan in place.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/198

Elizabeth King said, “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.” Getting sidelined, busy, or otherwise forgetting about the things you said you were committed to is something everyone falls prey to at some point in the pursuit of a goal. 

Making a great plan is about remaining as intentional as possible towards the goal you’ve set, and figuring out how to measure progress against that goal. Melissa shares why this is an important discipline to develop as an owner, how it keeps engagement towards your goal high, and her top tips for keeping your efforts and commitment from fizzling out. 

Get full show notes and more information: https://www.velocitywork.com/197

Team dynamics and leadership expert Tara Gronhovd is back to dig into even more aspects of leadership and the challenges you might be facing. Melissa and Tara are specifically diving into the idea that leaders often feel the need to have it all figured out before leading and making decisions, which begs the question: what is a leader supposed to be? 

Hear how most leaders unintentionally operate from fear, and why this is destabilizing for your entire business. Tara is sharing what happens when you don’t make decisions from a fear-based place, what it means to be a grounded leader, and why there needs to be a delicate balance between innovation and stability as you lead your team.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/196

Melissa hears from many clients who say, “I switched to flat-fee packages because I got sick of tracking time.” If the notion of tracking time for a case or matter is bringing up a lot of drama and you find yourself dragging your feet, you’re in the right place.

This week, Melissa walks you through the process of tracking time to make sure your fees align with the amount of time and resources being spent on a case. You’ll hear why doing this gives your business an edge, and how to keep this energy of tracking time alive in your business culture.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/195

If you find yourself flying by the seat of your pants and trying to stay afloat in your business, the truth is, no matter how much you plan, you cannot thrive in that state. That’s why Melissa is showing you what happens when you aren’t honest with yourself about what’s truly possible, and how to plan effectively when you’re in survival mode.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/194

Are you at a crossroads with a particular team member? Is exhaustion and frustration at a tipping point when it comes to navigating your team? Do you have a hunch that you shouldn’t give up on someone, but also feel like you don’t have the time, knowledge, or resources for the next right step? 

Returning guest Tara Gronhovd is an expert on team dynamics, and she's back this week to share her insights on when to keep investing in your relationship with your team and when it might be time to let someone go. She’s sharing her wisdom around creating alignment and clarity in your team dynamic so you can create relationships and an environment that serves your entire company.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/193

Do you know what Mastery Group is and how it works? Well, in this episode, Melissa is giving you all the details on what it's like inside Mastery Group, and most importantly, how it functions to serve you as a law firm owner. The content in the podcast is a great place to start, but Melissa goes even deeper inside Mastery Group.

Discover the evolution of Mastery Group and why it is the place to be for facilitated quarterly strategic planning. Melissa is sharing how Mastery Group works for you, why nobody can do this work alone, and how to see the endless benefits of being part of the group this quarter.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/192

What potential are you sitting on that you need a little help to bring to the surface? Melissa’s guest this week started her own practice during the height of the pandemic; she was bringing in clients and revenue, but lacked the direction that would allow her to serve sustainably. That’s when she found Melissa.

Soulmaz Taghavi is an immigration attorney and an amazing example of what Velocity Work does for law firm owners. She built a structure that allowed her to serve her clients and herself on a new level, slowing down so she could speed up and get her house in order, and she’s here to share everything that went into that process.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/191

Family law, estate planning, and criminal defense lawyer Christine Diorio opened the doors to her law firm in the midst of the pandemic in 2020. Since joining Mastery Group a year later, she’s dialed in on her Rocks, doubled her revenue every year, and grown her team, all while expanding her time and freedom away from her practice, and she's telling us how she did it.

Listen in as Melissa quizzes Christine on her experience of Mastery Group and what it’s been like for her to grow as a law firm owner. Christine is sharing the impact having a supportive community has had for her personally and professionally, how progress over perfection allowed her to keep showing up, and the decisions that have got her to where she is today.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/190

How big can you grow a firm on your own? Melissa’s guest this week spent almost a decade not hiring or automating, and as a result, not expanding. However, when he started being intentional and decided to invest in the future of his firm, it started to grow beyond what he thought was possible.

Bobby Botnick is the founder of The Botnick Law Firm. Up until 18 months ago, he was a one-man-show, but he’s been bringing more people into his practice, and Melissa has been with him every step of the way. So this week, the two of them are sitting down to unpack the process of automation, delegation, and growth on the show.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/189