Episode: 8
4/25/2016
Host: RJon Robins – Owner & CEO
How To Manage A Small Law Firm
Charles Jamieson
Marital and Family Law
The Law Firm of Charles D. Jamieson
Adam Kosloff
CEO
Vituoso Content, LLC
Alfredo Lozano
Founder/Principal attorney
The Lozano Law Firm PLLC
James Whalen
Criminal Defense
Whalen Law Office
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Lightning Round
Question 1: It is good practice to offer friends and family a discount on your services.
Answer 1: FALSE. We all strive to do the right thing by people we love. If we do something skillfully (or if we’ve built a business that provides skillful services), then we will feel an urge to share that value with those in our inner circle. This impulse is baked into our nature.
So why not just give in and cheat on your prices? In fact, isn’t it weird and off-putting to charge full price to your brother-in-law or mom?
Not if you’ve set up your systems right!
The idea that your relatives need get a better deal than the one Joe Schmo gets suggests that your pricing model is messed up. Joe Schmo isn’t getting a fair deal. To make the exchange seem fair to you, you must discount. That’s bad. Joe Schmo should walk away from your business believing that he extracted more value from your business than he invested in it.
If you genuinely believe your business produces more value for clients than it costs them, you should feel excited and eager to market to anyone who fits Joe Schmo’s profile. You are doing them a favor. You are helping them. The transaction leaves them richer for the experience.
Think about it this way. Imagine your mom gives you a ten dollar bill. You have a magic machine that transforms ten dollar bills into hundred dollar bills. Wouldn’t you feel morally obligated to persuade your mother to give you that ten spot? You wouldn’t think of offering her a discount: No, no, mom,
ordinarily the machine only takes tens, but for you, I’ll try to make it work with just five.
You would never say that!
First of all, there’s not much of an additional benefit to her. Second of all, there is a huge cost to your machine if you accept the wrong currency. Maybe once in a while you can get away with inserting a five and getting out a hundred. But what if you make a habit out of that practice? What will happen to that precious machine you worked so hard to build that gives so much value to everyone it touches?
It will shudder, spark, belch smoke and explode sprockets in every direction.
Bottom line: create a system that delivers more value than the client inputs, and then respect that system’s rules! Do so, and everyone wins. Fail to do so, and it’s the whirlwind. And remember that businesses succeed or fail based on the small things and habits that get repeated in it.
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