The Law Firm Owner Podcast

Melissa has witnessed the real uphill climb it can be for law firm owners to learn how to lead a team. In her own business, leading people has been more challenging than she ever thought it would be, but through her hunt for resources to help her be a better leader, she found Tara Gronhovd.

Tara Gronhovd is an expert on team dynamics and communication, and the CEO of Align: a company dedicated to working with teams and leaders of teams by providing leadership coaching and development. If you too are on a journey of figuring out how to bring the best out in your team, or feel like there’s a missing piece in leadership that you’re not quite nailing down, you’re in the right place.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/188

Tune in this week for the second half of Melissa’s conversation with Automation Wizard Ernie Svenson.

Ernie is discussing the seven KPIs we should all be measuring, the value of turtle steps, and how to take the concept of 80/20 deeper in your business by deciding on the most important areas of focus for your firm, as well as discussing a bunch of super-useful resources for any law firm owner.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/187

As a law firm owner, your have limited resources that need to be managed wisely. If you want to optimize your business to be more bulletproof and more flexible without incurring more costs, you need to get clear on exactly what you need to automate or outsource.

To get massive returns on your investments, you need to apply the 80/20 rule to your law firm. Someone who has dug deep into this concept as it relates to the practice of law is Ernie Svenson, a.k.a Ernie the Attorney, and he’s here this week to share how the 80/20 principle applies to your law firm, how he has used this rule to get massive returns on his investments, and his research on the tools that do the heavy lifting of optimization, automation, and outsourcing for you.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/186

Did you grab everything 2022 had to offer you? What did you learn? And what feels more true for you than ever before? These are the end-of-year reflection prompts Melissa has considered around her own life and business throughout this year, and she’s here to share them with you on this episode. 

Listen in this week to hear Melissa’s lessons learned from 2022. She’s sharing her top three realizations from this year, and she’s inviting you to capture your own reflections before you move into 2023 so you’re set up to start the year with a different frame of mind. 

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/185

If you have a problem you’re facing in your firm, you need to apply a process to create the outcome you want. Instead of addressing issues in a one-off scenario, or making decisions that ultimately aren’t best for the health of your business, a clear process helps you develop something meaningful and sustainable while building accountability into the DNA of your organization.

Listen in this week as Melissa offers inspiration for you to form a process around something that currently feels a little sticky, and ideas for tweaking current processes that might not be producing a win-win-win scenario for you, your team, and your clients.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/184

Leadership is one of the biggest learning curves we have to navigate as entrepreneurs and law firm owners. If you’re baffled or frustrated by your employees not stepping up to lead, even though you feel like you’ve paved the way and given them room to, you’re in the right place.

There’s always one person Melissa goes to with questions around this topic: Molly McGrath. Molly is the team development and empowerment extraordinaire of Hiring & Empowering Solutions, and she’s here this week to show you how to get your employees to step up and lead, especially when you think they simply don’t have what it takes, or that they don’t care as much as you do.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/183

Is there an area of your business where you’re afraid of making decisions about what you really want because you can’t work out exactly how you’ll get that result? Stalling out on decisions is keeping so many people from achieving their goals, so if you’re undecided on what you want because you’re not sure how you’re going to get it, this episode is for you.

Spinning in the how, just trying to see a path forward without getting clear on the what guarantees that you will undershoot every single time. So, if you want to take the easier, faster path toward your goals, listen closely this week to discover how you’re getting in your own way, and what you can do to get out of it.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/182

The Holiday season is here, which means you finally get to come up for air, take a breath, and rest. Whether you want to spend time with your loved ones, prepare gifts, get your home ready and decorated, or travel, the truth is rest and rejuvenation don’t come easy.

Join Melissa today as she offers you a new way to think about your calendar for the Holidays. Whether you want to sink your teeth into something you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t had the time, or you just want to do nothing, feel truly rested and ready to start 2023 with renewed energy, you’ll find out how to carve out the time and space to do so.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/181

If you’re like most law firm owners, you’re probably very hard on yourself. It’s easy to focus on the obstacles in front of you, or the frustrations that still haven’t gone away. You might be afraid that by not being hard on yourself, you’ll become complacent. But this week, Melissa is showing you why layering judgment on yourself in this way is the lazy, default approach most people take.

Join Melissa this week to learn the secret to long-lasting results that line up with what you really want. You’ll hear why your future results become unrealistic and unsustainable when judgment is part of your plan, and how to create a plan that involves deliberate, incremental, and iterative progress.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/180

Building relational capital is vital for getting business through the door, but, like most lawyers, you likely want to do the things you love and excel at and not have to spend time on things like social media, a blog, or promoting marketing campaigns. This is why starting a podcast should be strongly considered as part of your growth plan.

This week, Melissa is speaking to Danny Ozment, the founder of Emerald City Productions: a podcast production and consulting company that helps people use one piece of content to expand their brand. Hear why starting a podcast isn’t as tough as you might think, and how it is a long-term investment that will amplify the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/179

Whether you identify as a solo firm, like Melissa’s guest today, or have a large team working with you in your business, you likely want to reduce as much friction as possible when it comes to getting work out and providing excellent services to your clients, especially on the backend items that aren’t actually generating value for your business.

Mastering the skill of delegation is a great solution for accomplishing tasks and getting closer to your Rocks, but what isn’t talked about enough is the power of automation using technology, and this is what firm owner Mitchell Zoll is an expert on. So, if you want to reduce the resources, time, and effort spent on the things that aren’t a value-add in your business, listen in.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/178

No matter how successful your business is, settings goals and making a deliberate, well thought out plan to get there is vital. Melissa’s guest this week is Jake Kimball, the cofounder and partner of Springs Law Group, a personal injury law firm, and he’s here to share an experience that many of you will resonate with. Jake is letting you in on his experience of struggling to honor his rocks, the pushback he felt when Melissa held him accountable, and what it took to get to the other side of having accomplished his goals.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/177

Discover why Monday Map/Friday Wrap is the tool you need to finally start working on what you've been putting off. After joining Mastery Group in September 2021, Aimee Gromowsky approached Melissa with an idea for Monday Map/Friday Wrap that has been a hit with all the members. She’s now the facilitator of our Monday Map Power Hour, and she’s here to tell you all about it. If you want to take control over your time, this is the process you need, and Aimee is sharing her insights on the power of facilitating a container for it to be done in community.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/176

Delegation is a vital skill you need as a law firm owner. Learning to delegate effectively is what will give you the freedom to pay attention to the things that no one else can do but you. However, it’s not always easy, and you most certainly won’t be perfect at it right at the very beginning.

This week, Melissa is coming to you live from Clio Con. She’s sitting down with a host of people who, because of their years of experience with effective delegation, have the freedom to be there. This was the perfect opportunity for Melissa to quiz them on lessons learned and the things that have brought them success, and they’re sharing their best tips with you in this episode.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/175

If you’re in a place where you have multiple people in your firm contributing to generating revenue, this episode is vital for your planning and projections for next year. And if you aren’t there yet but you know you will be, listen closely because this will serve you when you go to hire. Your firm has fulcrum numbers you have to be plugging in if you want to plan forward in a way that allows you to make smart decisions, and one of these data points is your team’s contribution to the firm’s revenue.

Tune in this week as Melissa breaks down her process for evaluating your team’s cost, revenue production, and the margins you’re left with. You’ll discover the importance of figuring out your firm’s ideal attorney to support staff ratio, how to start thinking of your team as units of production, and why using this data will cut through the noise and help you make smart projections so you can not only budget well, but create the team culture you want.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/174

If you have an overarching revenue goal for your law firm, you need data. But you can’t just look at last year’s numbers and decide to add 20% to the top. The truth is you have to set and reach subgoals that will make your ideal revenue inevitable, and this week, Melissa is diving into one key piece of your revenue stream: average revenue per case or matter type.

On this episode, Melissa is reverse engineering the concept of average revenue per case or matter type to help you in your planning and projection process. If you’re wondering what kind of cases or clients you should be bringing through the door, how many of them, and what to expect so you can increase your visibility and plan in a smart way that is based on real numbers, tune in.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/173

What’s an area in your life or business that you feel a need to create a new normal for? As nice as it would be, cultivating a new standard for how you roll isn’t a one-and-done job. Behavioral change takes time, and this week, Melissa is introducing you to a tool you can use to create new normals for anything you want to improve upon.

Take delegation, for example. Mastering the skill of delegation is your path to freedom, but it’s so easy to stay stuck struggling without being able to see how you could improve. So on this episode, Melissa is looking at the issues people face around delegation to demonstrate how you can use her tool to evaluate where you are and reveal your next steps in any aspect of business.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/172

What’s the difference between the people who are in a high results cycle, achieving the results they want, and the people on the other side of the coin? It's not that they are smarter, better in some way, or more suited for being a law firm owner. Through years of experience, Melissa pinpointed exactly what is behind success, and she’s sharing it all in this episode.

Listen in this week to discover where you have an opportunity to amp up more velocity towards where you want to go. Melissa is diving into what the work that creates velocity means, and the three things that will reduce friction on the path to your desired results and make a huge difference on your trajectory of growing your firm.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/171

As all business owners do, we get sucked into always being on and available for people, we don’t stop thinking about work, and our brains are constantly cranking with ideas and anxiety. Your work is to come up with small ways to tee yourself up to win at this game, and to do that, you need to implement rest and rewards.

If you don’t want to be a shell of yourself when you get to where you want to go, or leave yourself in the dust along the way, tune in. Melissa is showing you the importance of being thoughtful around getting better rest in your everyday, and the power of using rewards in the completion of your rocks so you can start baking these into your plans.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/170

People think it’s the big swings at something that will knock it out of the park. That’s true every once in a while, but what typically contributes to success is showing up consistently in small ways. If you want to get to the next level, you’re going to have to evaluate how you’re going to operate and the decisions you’re going to make, and to do that, you need daily reminders.

As a leader, there are so many things vying for your attention and so many hats you have to wear that it’s likely your plans get put on the back burner. What you need is a touchstone every single day to point you in the direction you want to go, and Melissa is sharing questions you can ask to brainstorm and customize your reminders so you can take the reins over the results you’re going to create.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.velocitywork.com/169