September 30, 2024 • 33 mins
Jessica Lackey is the Founder and CEO of Jessica Lackey Consulting.
Jessica is an ex-corporate warrior turned deep business and operations strategist. She was trained as a business consultant, strategist, and operator in places like Harvard Business School, McKinsey Consulting, and Nike.
She brings that expertise in business strategy, combined with a human-centered perspective, to help entrepreneurs grow and scale sustainable businesses.
Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-lackey/
Visit Jessica Lackey Consulting: https://www.jessicalackey.com/
On This Episode, We Discuss…
Jessica is an ex-corporate warrior turned deep business and operations strategist. She was trained as a business consultant, strategist, and operator in places like Harvard Business School, McKinsey Consulting, and Nike.
She brings that expertise in business strategy, combined with a human-centered perspective, to help entrepreneurs grow and scale sustainable businesses.
Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-lackey/
Visit Jessica Lackey Consulting: https://www.jessicalackey.com/
On This Episode, We Discuss…
- Applying Big Business Strategies to Smaller Companies
- How to Align Personal Strengths with Business Needs
- Mastering Niche Marketing
- The Importance of Active Listening
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Almost everyone starts out with I need to get clients
coming in the door.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You ramp up your referral.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Network, you network with everybody you know. But then once
you have, you know, some regular clients coming in, and
then you have to decide, Okay, am I gonna stay broad?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Am I going to go narrow? Am I going to go.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Super super Niche to decide that vertical specialization, and then
you have to decide what's the size affirm you want
to have. And again that can come over time, but
it's very different when you're the one face of it all.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
You're listening to the Legal Mastermind podcast presented by Market
My Market with your hosts Eric BERSONO, Ryan Klein, and
Chase Williams, the go to podcast for learning from the
experts and the legal community about effective ways to grow
and manage your law firm.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Legal Mastermind podcast. Today,
my guest is Jessica Lackey. She is the founder and
CEO of Jessica Consulting. Jessica, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
So let's kick things off with a little bit of
background on you can you give people a little bit
of your history, and then we can kind of work
into what you're doing current day and some of the
some of the tips do you have for the audience.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, I spent my career climbing the corporate ladder. Started
as a professional consultant at McKinsey and Company, went to
Harvard Business School, worked for seven years at Nike. So
got my fortune five hundred chops in and burned out
hard on my way up, looked at the rest of
the ladder, said I don't think I want this life.
(01:44):
I then decided to move back home to Charlotte, North Carolina,
and during the pandemic, I said, I don't even want
to work in an office anymore. So I leapt out
full time to start my business in twenty twenty one,
doing strategy and operation consulting for small businesses because I
decided I didn't want to make big companies more money.
(02:05):
A lot of people doing that, I didn't want to
do that anymore.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yeah, I love that experience for a couple of reasons.
Number one, I think with large companies you get to
see a lot of really good things, you know how
they got to be a large, successful company. But I
also think large successful companies have a lot of blind spots.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
I mean just the amount of.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Headcount, you know, the bloat with you know, human resources
and things. So I think you find like a skill
set like yourself working for these you know, great amazing
companies and then be able to take all the best
parts and just integrate those and infuse those into people
you work with. Is that kind of how you see yourself?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
That's exactly how I see myself. I see I take
the best practices from big business because as much as
we kind of don't love some of the practices of
Mackenzie and of Harvard, and some layoff practices of some
of the couple places I used to work, they have
to run their businesses with some smoothness, some structure to
them because they're big.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
But how do we then imbew that are.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Small businesses with the human side of the fact that
we don't have to have the same rigid policies as.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The big guys.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
We can be more human in our approach, but implement
some of the business practices that that serve companies.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Yeah, and I think the speed to make change too.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
You don't have to go through three or four levels,
you know, it's smaller companies. Less decision makers see an opportunity,
go for it.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yep. More impact At the individual level, you get to
see more. I'm sure you see a lot doing M
and A or big transactions, or lots of work for
big legal firms. But when you get to work hand
in hand with the small business owner, I mean, there's
no better feeling than knowing that you're making your big
difference in someone's life.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Yeah, so let's dive into some of the strategies and
things that you help businesses with. I know one thing
that you had mentioned would be the five primary roles.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Is that something we can kind of dig into.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, So a lot of people have when they're growing
their professional services firm. Think everyone comes in with a
different image of what they're going to do, and sometimes
it's I'm going to build a small law firm. Sometimes
they're like I'm going to set a shop just by myself.
But we too often we don't step aside and say
(04:28):
what is it that I actually want to do in
my business?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
What's the role I want to play.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Do I want to be a lawyer, or do I
want to run a law firm, and or do I
want to sell courses? Teaching people like lead with or
do I want to sell legal templates, which apparently is
like a thing that's what people do. And so we
tend to take advice from different people talking about how
(04:56):
to grow our business before we really step back and say, Okay,
what's the role I want to play in the business.
That's the concept of what's the role in the business.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
And and I'm assuming that that might change. I mean,
when you start out, you might say my vision is
to be this in the role, but I've got.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
A crawl before I walk before I run? Is that
part of that strategy?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
That's exactly part of that strategy. So the five roles
that I've I've kind of identified are what are called
the craftsmen, which is where you're doing. You know, you're
the You're the only you're doing. You are the face
to your client.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You are doing.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Maybe you have an assistant, but you're you're the lawyer.
There's the strategist where you may not do as much
hands on deliverable but you're like legal counsel and more
of an advisor on legal aspects than actually doing filing
a lot of legal work.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
You're the agency.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
When I say the agency, a lot of times that's
like the law firm, like you have, it's multiple lawyers,
you have maybe some juniors, you have a pair of
legal and you have an office staff.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Not everybody wants to do that.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Then there's some again these more non traditional business owners,
which are you're you know, a you're the creator, which
is where you're actually teaching others how to think about,
you know, again, selling those legal templates, having the YouTube channel,
having the social media on that. And then there's again
like you know, even the bigger firms, which is now
(06:24):
you've gone now you're no longer just doing legal work,
but you're a keynote speaker, you're you know, there's a
lot of ways to use the law to make a
lot of money that has nothing to do with actually
filing briefs and doing quote unquote hands on legal work.
And so it's really important for people to think about, Okay, well,
what long term, what do I want to what do
(06:45):
I want to be when I grow up?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Am I am I using my law.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
As part of a different, different style of practice?
Speaker 4 (06:52):
So what would be some of the beginning steps for
if you're if you're working with let's take a law firm,
you know, are there is there or a standard kind
of playbook where you say, I go in, I'm looking
for these you know, three or four things, like nine
times out of ten, A is what I know I'm
going to need to concentrate on first? Or is it
really more of a fact finding mission where you've got
(07:14):
to look into the details of how the business is
growing or operating at the time, and then implement whatever
is going to make the most impact.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
The soonest, almost everyone starts out with I need to
get clients comeing in the door, right, that's the you know,
that's you ramp up your referral network. You you know,
network with everybody you know. But then once you've have
you know, some regular clients coming in, then you have
to decide, Okay, am I going to stay broad?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Am I going to go narrow? Am I going to go.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Super super Niche to decide that vertical specialization, and then
you have to decide what's the the size affirm you
want to have. And again that can come over time,
but it's very different when you're the one face of
it all, and what you do when you're the face
of it all is very different. Then when you say
I'm supervising now junior lawyers or you know, associates. I'm
(08:05):
supervising paralegals, where my job is not being the primary
face with my clients. It's kind of negotiating big deals
and things like that. Those are so I always like
to say, where are you in the stages? Are we
in the growth stage stage where you're still trying to
figure out what's my messaging? How am I different?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Am I? How am I structuring my offers?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Or are we in the scale stage which is now
deciding how big you want to be and what your
role is in the business?
Speaker 4 (08:31):
And what would you say are some of the key things,
because I mean all the things you're saying make perfect sense.
You know, obviously, getting more clients in the door, you've
got to have that in order to do all the
other things that you want to do. Are there certain
strategies that you that you share with them and say, okay,
at let's just take your average marketing I'm sorry, average
(08:51):
law firm. You know, say somewhere between ten two and
ten people you know have can be attorneys, and then saying, hey,
this this is what you really need to do to start.
You know, you're getting x amount of clients in order
to get where you want, We've got at least double
that is it going through individually and saying here are
some tools for you, or pointing them in a certain direction,
(09:14):
or how does that conversation have.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
It's usually looking at it from like a system's approach.
So a lot of firms I work with, they don't
have a specialty, they don't have an expert, they don't
have anything. They just do work. And so step one
is are you known for something? Are you known for
an industry? Are you know for a type of law?
Do you have a perspective that's different that kind of
(09:37):
puts you a set you apart, or a perspective on
how you deliver the work. But almost everyone once you
once you say that, then almost everyone I work with
has no marketing system. They work on referrals, they work
on word of mouth. And so it's stepping back and saying, well,
how do you want to market your business? Is it
being on podcast? Is it more relationship building? Is it
(09:58):
I don't love like the B and I now working groups?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But do you do that?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Are you activating your network? Are you sending out regular communication?
Again like that that nurture conversation, How are you being
known and visible to your clients to protect potential clients.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
And when they say, oh, and on.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Time for that, which almost everybody says that a time
for that, then we go back and look at the
financial systems of the business to say.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Are you charging enough?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Are you effectively you know, monetizing per hour with your
offer suite and offer stack and potentially product type services
in order to free up time and cash so that
you can dedicate it to marketing. Because if you in
order to hit your personal takeco numbers, you have to
be billing all at all hours and you don't have
time for the quote unquote on the business activities. We
(10:44):
got to create space because that's where you start. It's
either I have no demonstrated expertise through again, so much
of what we're what I'm talking about is like spending
you know, twenty percent of the time on on the
business type activities, you know, writing fighting articles that you
can be found on blogs, doing the marketing, rethinking about
(11:05):
your pricing, and when you're just trying to maximize buildable hours,
it's really tough to like free up that time to
create those systems.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
Yeah, I think it makes sense.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Any you know, most people are just going to sit
around and twil their thumbs. So they're going to fill
their day up with some things. And I think if
you look at, you know, an eight to twelve hour day,
I'm sure a lot of these law.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Firms are spending you know, ten twelve hours.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
It's what can you do more efficiently? What can you
remove so that you have time for some of these things?
Speaker 5 (11:33):
They're going to.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Move the needle more. I've got a quick question on
the nicheing down. So you had mentioned a lot of
people are like just out there looking for work. They're
doing lots of things. Puts your opinion on a niching
down or becoming a specialist as opposed to being a
jack of all trades for lack of a better term.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You can go vertical, which is I'm going to specialize
on a particular target. I'm going to do lots of
things for a particular target. So I'm going to be
you know, are you working with super small businesses? Are
you working with mid sized businesses? Are you working with
a particular industry that has a you know, want some
you know, if you're I don't know how many of
(12:12):
your audiences is, but if you're a lawyer working with
people to like navigate cannabis regulation right now as an example, Like,
there's so much work to be done in that vertical
and you have to.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Know the laws specifically for that.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
But like if you're just a generalist, you're probably not
going to be able to play in that zone because
it's so specialized. So there's the vertical nature of going.
And part of this is pattern recognition. Who do you
know specifically, who are you working with, and are you
starting to get some patterns of like, oh, I like
this type of work. I don't like this type of work.
There's also horizontal special specialization where you do one type
(12:46):
of thing you do want you know.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
It's it's trademarks.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
It's a state, but like specifically it's trademarks for this
type of business at this size. It's you know, those
are the types of of But I think it's it's
the more narrow you get, the more you can charge
a premium for the work you're doing because you're not
as commoditized. It's you know it so well in and
out people associate you with that. It's much easier to
get referrals, it's much easier to charre a higher premium.
(13:10):
It's much easier to package your work and potentially not
a billible hours, but in more of a productized service
for a little more regularity. In thinking about how you
package your price your services so that you know you're
making some margin beyond just like working harder and working longer.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Yeah, I think most people I talk to who aren't niche,
down or specialized are nervous about eliminating all these other categories.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
But the people who do specialize.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
And have been doing it for a while, I do
feel like they're I don't know if happier as the world,
but they just seem more content, like they love being
a subject matter expert. And because they're experts, they get
lots of referrals, and like you said, they can charge
a premium. There's a lot of things that sway in
your in your in your favor. And I have this
conversation all the time. You know, if I'm working with
(14:01):
somebody who's in a major market, say a Los Angeles
or a Houston, and I say, listen to play in
the marketing game.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
For the types of cases you want.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
It's it's really expensive, but if you got super niche,
you could spend a fraction of the budget, and the
case values are going to be there, you know, because
it's not like you're going to charge less because it's.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
A it's a niche practice. You may even charge more.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
I think that's it's a lot of the money that's
being dumped into legal right now.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
It's forcing people, I think the niche down to a
certain extent.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, that actually helps with like the elimination factor. Well,
if you're like, well I serve this people and this
people and this people, then you're spending lots of time
on broadbrush marketing. You know, you have to have if
you're doing lots of hourly work for if you're doing
a lot of project work, if you're doing a lot
of britainer work. Those are all different operational systems, right,
So the more you span the types of clients you
(14:52):
work with, Okay, we work a big guys that pay
this way, we work a small guys that pay this way.
Every time you add another segment to your business, you're
increasing your business operations cost. You're spending more time and
more money, and it's harder to bring on people to
work for you because they have to be jack of
all trades. I mean, how do you write training documentation.
When you serve everybody doing everything, it makes it much
(15:13):
more difficult to bring on more junior team members that
you can train.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
To be specialized.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So these are the the cost of being broad. You're like, Okay,
well I don't I really don't want people specializing too
early on because you don't really have any you know,
you got to get some client.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Work under you.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
But the longer you stay general, the more you take
on lots of different costs, about the mental cost, the
actual physical cost. You know of this type of software
and this well I sell it this way and I
sell that way. The more you niche, the more you
can both charge your premium but also substantially streamline your
back end.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
So the shift gears just a little.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
I wanted to you there was another concept that I
saw in your bio that talked about little.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Systems versus big systems. Is that something you can dig
into a little bit and expand on.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, so little system says I need this tool, so
I need this different kind of invoicing tool. Right, that's
the little system. Okay, well this is super complicated, so
I'm going to pick a different system. The big as
system says what is your philosophy around invoicing. Am I
invoicing on the back end by hours? Am I doing
a NET thirty or NET sixty? Am I invoicing in
(16:22):
the front with a recurring retainer product ied service type model.
Before you get to the tool, you have have to
think about how am I running my invoicing process, how
am I pricing?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
What is my communication about value?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
And that then dictates the purpose of again the purpose
of the system, who's running it, how does it work?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
And then you get to the tool.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
A lot of times when people think efficiency, they think tool,
I'm like, well, what if you, for you know, had
like this crazy idea that you didn't have to track
your hours to the billable hour, you didn't have to
track every six minutes. Well, then, I mean, maybe you know,
you probably always want to track your time in this field.
But what if you're pricing wasn't dictated by how many
hours you worked?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, that totally.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Changes the systems you need to run, and the tech
stack you need to have, and the processes you run.
But a lot of people that are like, how can
I make what I'm doing more efficient through tools? Versus
do I need to do this at all? How do
I think about it holistically?
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Yeah, so the.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
It sounds like almost working backwards, like knowing what you
want your final destination to be and then figuring what
to plug in the work are there?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Go ahead?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Oh, and then it goes back to that even goes
back to what role you want to play in the business,
because if you're if you you know, have people billing
doing client facing billing on your behalf, you may need
a different process and a tool than if it's just you. Right,
So those are even some of those big questions to say, well,
what kind of business do I want to run? What
(17:55):
role do I want to play? And then that starts
to get into the tools conversation. You may not need
a super sophisticated legal project management system if it's just
you and like one person, but if you have a
team of you know, a bunch of people, you're totally
going to need that.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Now, when we're going back a little bit onto the
types of the people, like you had mentioned the craftsman,
you know, the creator and no, well not to get
too broad, but you know people are going to have
their skill sets, what they're really good at.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Do you see.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Limitations for each one of those like would you say, listen,
if you're a creator and you know, if you've taken
a personality test or these are the types of things
that you really enjoy doing, you're more likely going to
be successful than if you're a craftsman or someone like that.
Or can these concepts work for anybody? You just have
to kind of know what your role is and then
(18:50):
either hire out or do some you know, working with
some third party people to help fill in some of
the blanks of what you need.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
You can. People tend to gravitate to different roles.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I would would say that that a lot of times
the skill sets needed to for someone that, like, some
people are gonna be really great on camera. Some people
are that can be caught, but some people are just
like naturally like I want to be on video, I
want to be on stages. I want to be seen
as a subject matter expert. Publicly, I want to go
on the podcast tour those you know that can be taught.
(19:28):
But that's not necessarily you know a lot of people
have like a desire for that.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
I think the.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Big skill that's typically missing is management. I've seen too
many firms where people were great lawyers and decided never
to become leaders and they have, they have, they have
turnover and turnover and turnover and turnover because if especially
if they worked in a law froom with bad management
(19:54):
practices and they never saw the back end, or you know,
like where else you can to learn how to manage
people house you gonna learn how to lead a firm,
how to set strategy, how to you know, And I
know it's funny wise, it's a very you know, it's
a highly detail oriented, highly controlled function. But the skill
set in learning how to properly delegate is something that
(20:15):
you're probably never taught, and not everyone has the desire
to learn it. And that's where it's like, well, okay,
well you don't have to in order to you know,
make profit for yourself. But if you want to grow
into that agency arm, that's a that's a non negotiable
that requires it requires time and space to in truly
(20:37):
training in order to learn how to do well.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
That's a good point. I think I've seen that. I've
talked to other people who have seen that. Where you know,
there's the old adage of people getting hired into a
role that they're not good at, you know, so this
happens all the time you know, you know this amazing salesperson,
you might be an amazing lawyer. And then you you
to the next step up the ladder, which you refer
to as in your introduction, are going up this ladder
(21:01):
and the next step is going to be management.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Of some kind. Do you have any good advice for people?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Is it really if you want to go up that
ladder to go get specific training in how to manage
or is.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
It learn on the job. What would you suggest to
that person who does want to go up.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
The skills that when you go up the ladder. There's
there's three big skills that I think are not being
taught O. You know, management we just talked about, but
there's also sales and marketing because if you want to
bring on new people to work on your business, you're
going to have to learn how to sales, do more
proactive BIS DEEV business development. And then there's financial management,
so really you know when you bring people in the payroll,
(21:39):
making sure you understand your numbers and your cash flow.
So those are skills that I would suggest, really, you know,
you can buy books, you can get courses, but I
would say have a truly learning objective, like there's a
I know I should be pitching my own stuff on
these podcasts, but there's a book called The Unstoppable Leader,
I think by Leah Garvin, and it's it's a fantastic
(22:01):
primer on not just like general management, but like management
for small business. It's like how do you set expectations?
How do you delegate? So there's some real good books,
but I would say definitely assume you won't learn and
on the job. I mean you can, but I wouldn't
recommend it, but say I'm gonna I'm gonna take some classes.
I'm going to spend some of that time I have
quote unquote freed up by hiring into actively learning stronger
(22:24):
business development, management leadership and then making sure I understand
my numbers. Most c many CPAs don't actually teach you
anything about your books. They just say here are your numbers,
and but uh, understanding and finding someone to do some
advising on like here's how your here's how your cash
flow statements, here's how your P and L, how does
(22:46):
it actually work? Is going to be really helpful so
that you're focused on growing the team and not focused
on like, oh my god, I have enough money for payroll.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Yeah, and are these a lot of these things that
you learned at the Fortune five hundred companies? Meaning what
what do the Fortune five hundred companies really have figured
it figured out and dialed in that most of the
smaller businesses don't quite have a hangout.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So they have onboarding and training to say, like, this
is our way, So they have a lot of professional
development upfront. They have actually really good performance management rigor
process like every year, like clockwork, I was setting goals,
I was looking at my own development. I was getting
feedback conversation from my managers in my own personal role.
(23:30):
I learned a lot about like budget management, so I
happened to be in roles that we're looking at. You know, again,
the budget of a you know, two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars law firm is very different than the budget
of fifty billion, you know, twenty five billion dollars Nike
North America. But still, like you know, the concepts are
very similar. And and leadership. Myself being a leader, I
(23:56):
invested a lot of money in coaching while I was
there to say, like I can learn the tactics of management.
I learned everything about sale and marketing on in small business,
because you don't learn anything about that when you, you know,
when you work in big business. But leadership, I had
to learn how to like understand my own emotions. So
I invested a lot of my money in coaching to
(24:16):
understand what were my identities and stories around being a leader.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
How did I how do I, you.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Know, increase my emotional fluency and the ability to communicate
in a clear and concise way. Those are all things
that I learned when I became a coach and when
I invested in life coaching for myself. You know, everyone
thinks like life coaching is kind.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Of woo woo, and but.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
It actually is a really great way to understand how
people work and how to communicate with others who are
not you.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
So I have, you know, I've worked at a several
different companies, a couple of Fortune five hundred companies, and
then before I got into legal, I worked for another company.
I had the best manager of my whole life. You know,
I just this person I looked up for would do
anything for him. And my question is what he did
and how great he was.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
I don't think it was duplicatable.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
I mean, he was just had this amazing personality, and
he really felt like he'd listened to you and really
felt like he was on your side. My question is, then,
are there some tactical things like if you want to
be a good leader, if you want to be a
good manager, you know, what are the ABC's, because there's
going to be some things are just personality based, Like
(25:26):
some people are just gonna they're going to have that
magnetism and that you know, that gravitas.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
That just you know, you can't duplicate.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Would love to hear your thoughts on what are some
tactical things people could do to be better managers.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Osh had an acronym for this. As you were talking,
I was like, but like listening, active listening is really
huge that can be taught, you know, not listening for
the next thing you're going to say, but truly actively
listening with like your whole whole self listening really hear
what they have to say. The second is expectation setting
and delegate. This is a skill that can be learned.
(26:02):
Almost everyone tosses things over the fence, assuming that the
person has the same context they do.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
You toss it over the fence.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It's not clear what the expectations are it's not clear
what you're looking for. It's just like do this, and
you know, those are some skills that can be learned
to say, like there can be a delegation checklist and everybody.
The big trick is you have to slow down enough
to delegate effectively. And then there are skills you can
(26:28):
learn about having really hard, hard conversations. So the book
Crucial Conversation how to talk when the tensions high or
skills are high, or something like that. But that's a
like when someone's not performing well or to your standards,
how can you have the conversation with yourself to say,
how am I contributing to the situation? But then how
(26:49):
can you have the conversation with your team members? But
I think you know, active listening, delegation, and communication are
skills that can be taught, even though some people naturally
come by those skills. But I think there's also systems again,
systems involved in management. If you never have one on
ones that are directly they are the one on ones
(27:13):
that you have that are just tied to business deliverables,
and then there's the monthly one on ones or quarterly
one on ones that you have to say this is
the time where we're going to talk about development, You're
going to come prepared.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm going to come prepare.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
That's a system, right like that can be systematized as
much as the skills can be taught.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
I love that that is great because those are Could
it be cads c ads I think there was I
think that covers them all, or decks or something like
that if you wanted an acronym.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
But those are amazing.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
And the one that you said that I think I
think really resonates in today's world is the communication. You know,
we've all got Slack, we've all got email, we've got
text messaging. People are working from home, and I can't
tell you how many times I spend five to ten
minutes confirming something through Slack because everything's one sentence, it's abbreviated,
(28:03):
there's no context around it, whereas a thirty second phone call,
I would know exactly what that person wants for me.
And I feel like it comes up the work sometimes
because people are shorthanding everything because of these communication tools,
and you're not transmitting the message properly.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Oh Man, like email and slack, you know, I think
I'm glad that they exist sometimes, but anytime someone can
get lost in email, I'm like, that's because it's not
your task manager. This sounds like management. If we were
to say, okay, all communication about tasks doesn't get intext
it doesn't get in emails. If it's about a task
that we have, it goes in your task manager. That's again,
(28:46):
you know one of the operation systems that of everyone
you can pass the hot potato around, or you can
all come to one central place where everyone's deliverables are clear,
they're documented. If you want to change the priorities you can.
You can see what's on one's plate. And then when
you have a question about something, understanding whether or not
you have standing regular meetings that you can talk about
(29:08):
these things understanding urgency and then picking up the phone.
I think like a lot like the benefits of ASINC
means that we don't have to be on at the
same time, but the perils of that ACNC is that
things get so lost in translation. Right, only seven percent
of communication is done through verbal and the rest is
done through non verbal and body language. But I do
(29:31):
think that like the misuse of email and slack again,
this goes with being back to like the size of
the organization. When it's two or three of you, you
can get away with that. When you start getting five, six,
ten people in the mix and not having clear priorities,
not having like clarity on what the workload looks like,
not having it all in a place that like doesn't
(29:51):
you know, oh I didn't get in this channel and
you It's called the hide mind. Right, you have to
be uber connected at all times, which means you can
ever get deep work done because otherwise you're gonna miss something.
All right, let's set up our system so that we
don't have to do that.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Yeah, that's a good point. I'm again curious of your
thoughts on this. You know, I think you know we're
people are scheduling out their entire days now. Everybody want
we want to be busy. What's your philosophy on scheduling
time to think or scheduling time that's that's not booked
with a meeting or or something that has to be
(30:27):
in your calendar.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
There's two types of time that I really want on
every CEO's calendar, and they both look like white space,
but they are for very different things. There's the white
space one, which is think time, and then there's white
space two, which which is the I don't know if
I'm allowed to cuss on this, the go sideways, go
sideways time right now, the two to three hours. What
(30:51):
happens is a lot of times are like, oh, people
like have white space on the calendar, and they don't.
They don't segregate the time to say like, Okay, this
is my white space for thinking, and this is my
white space for all this. It's gonna spill over that
I don't know what it is, but it's gonna come.
And so like I always have like but you but
like a lot of times when people have is they
(31:12):
have those times.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
It's like, oh, white space.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
I'm like, then if you know that something's always gonna happen,
you just don't know what it is.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Yeah, I like both those.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
I'd heard the thing time before, which I think is
really important. You know, you're just scheduling time, and you
know your mind is a problem solving organ and if
you just give yourself time to think, I think you're
like some of these things that we're bubbling in your
subconscious start to percolate. But if you're constantly busy, you're
not allowing your mind and that's when you come up
(31:40):
with that great idea or that solve that problem that
you've been ruminating on.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
And then the go sideways. See.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
I like that too, because anybody who's been involved with
growing a company understands that that is just going to happen.
And instead of letting that blow up your whole week,
you're like, uh, I've got time plan set aside to
deal with this new thing that was a hand grenade
that you know just exploded in my lap.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
But I know I've got an hour or two to
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, Like the ideal week is everyone's like, oh, my
week is perfect. I'm like your we can never be perfect.
Assume it will never be perfect, and stick a block
of time on your calendar that you don't schedule things
because you know something's going to go wrong.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
You just don't know what it is.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
Yeah, well we're just about out of time. You've given
us a ton of great stuff to think about. You know,
your experience from the past life and what you're doing
now I think is perfect for this audience. So if
there's more that they want to learn about you or
contact you, where would you suggest they go?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
They can go to my website.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Jessica Lackey dot com backslash welcome there as you can
find out for my weekly newsletter, my monthly free classes,
and take a quiz that establishes your scale and the
growth journey, and to decide what kind of business owner
growth you want to be focused on.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Great well, Jessica, thanks for your time. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Thanks for listening to the Legal Mastermind podcast presented by
Market my Market. You can check out additional episodes and
recaps at Legalmastermind podcast dot com
Almost everyone starts out with I need to get clients
coming in the door.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You ramp up your referral.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Network, you network with everybody you know. But then once
you have, you know, some regular clients coming in, and
then you have to decide, Okay, am I gonna stay broad?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Am I going to go narrow? Am I going to go.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Super super Niche to decide that vertical specialization, and then
you have to decide what's the size affirm you want
to have. And again that can come over time, but
it's very different when you're the one face of it all.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
You're listening to the Legal Mastermind podcast presented by Market
My Market with your hosts Eric BERSONO, Ryan Klein, and
Chase Williams, the go to podcast for learning from the
experts and the legal community about effective ways to grow
and manage your law firm.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Legal Mastermind podcast. Today,
my guest is Jessica Lackey. She is the founder and
CEO of Jessica Consulting. Jessica, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
So let's kick things off with a little bit of
background on you can you give people a little bit
of your history, and then we can kind of work
into what you're doing current day and some of the
some of the tips do you have for the audience.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, I spent my career climbing the corporate ladder. Started
as a professional consultant at McKinsey and Company, went to
Harvard Business School, worked for seven years at Nike. So
got my fortune five hundred chops in and burned out
hard on my way up, looked at the rest of
the ladder, said I don't think I want this life.
(01:44):
I then decided to move back home to Charlotte, North Carolina,
and during the pandemic, I said, I don't even want
to work in an office anymore. So I leapt out
full time to start my business in twenty twenty one,
doing strategy and operation consulting for small businesses because I
decided I didn't want to make big companies more money.
(02:05):
A lot of people doing that, I didn't want to
do that anymore.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yeah, I love that experience for a couple of reasons.
Number one, I think with large companies you get to
see a lot of really good things, you know how
they got to be a large, successful company. But I
also think large successful companies have a lot of blind spots.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
I mean just the amount of.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Headcount, you know, the bloat with you know, human resources
and things. So I think you find like a skill
set like yourself working for these you know, great amazing
companies and then be able to take all the best
parts and just integrate those and infuse those into people
you work with. Is that kind of how you see yourself?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
That's exactly how I see myself. I see I take
the best practices from big business because as much as
we kind of don't love some of the practices of
Mackenzie and of Harvard, and some layoff practices of some
of the couple places I used to work, they have
to run their businesses with some smoothness, some structure to
them because they're big.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
But how do we then imbew that are.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Small businesses with the human side of the fact that
we don't have to have the same rigid policies as.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The big guys.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
We can be more human in our approach, but implement
some of the business practices that that serve companies.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Yeah, and I think the speed to make change too.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
You don't have to go through three or four levels,
you know, it's smaller companies. Less decision makers see an opportunity,
go for it.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yep. More impact At the individual level, you get to
see more. I'm sure you see a lot doing M
and A or big transactions, or lots of work for
big legal firms. But when you get to work hand
in hand with the small business owner, I mean, there's
no better feeling than knowing that you're making your big
difference in someone's life.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Yeah, so let's dive into some of the strategies and
things that you help businesses with. I know one thing
that you had mentioned would be the five primary roles.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Is that something we can kind of dig into.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, So a lot of people have when they're growing
their professional services firm. Think everyone comes in with a
different image of what they're going to do, and sometimes
it's I'm going to build a small law firm. Sometimes
they're like I'm going to set a shop just by myself.
But we too often we don't step aside and say
(04:28):
what is it that I actually want to do in
my business?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
What's the role I want to play.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Do I want to be a lawyer, or do I
want to run a law firm, and or do I
want to sell courses? Teaching people like lead with or
do I want to sell legal templates, which apparently is
like a thing that's what people do. And so we
tend to take advice from different people talking about how
(04:56):
to grow our business before we really step back and say, Okay,
what's the role I want to play in the business.
That's the concept of what's the role in the business.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
And and I'm assuming that that might change. I mean,
when you start out, you might say my vision is
to be this in the role, but I've got.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
A crawl before I walk before I run? Is that
part of that strategy?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
That's exactly part of that strategy. So the five roles
that I've I've kind of identified are what are called
the craftsmen, which is where you're doing. You know, you're
the You're the only you're doing. You are the face
to your client.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You are doing.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Maybe you have an assistant, but you're you're the lawyer.
There's the strategist where you may not do as much
hands on deliverable but you're like legal counsel and more
of an advisor on legal aspects than actually doing filing
a lot of legal work.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
You're the agency.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
When I say the agency, a lot of times that's
like the law firm, like you have, it's multiple lawyers,
you have maybe some juniors, you have a pair of
legal and you have an office staff.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Not everybody wants to do that.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Then there's some again these more non traditional business owners,
which are you're you know, a you're the creator, which
is where you're actually teaching others how to think about,
you know, again, selling those legal templates, having the YouTube channel,
having the social media on that. And then there's again
like you know, even the bigger firms, which is now
(06:24):
you've gone now you're no longer just doing legal work,
but you're a keynote speaker, you're you know, there's a
lot of ways to use the law to make a
lot of money that has nothing to do with actually
filing briefs and doing quote unquote hands on legal work.
And so it's really important for people to think about, Okay, well,
what long term, what do I want to what do
(06:45):
I want to be when I grow up?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Am I am I using my law.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
As part of a different, different style of practice?
Speaker 4 (06:52):
So what would be some of the beginning steps for
if you're if you're working with let's take a law firm,
you know, are there is there or a standard kind
of playbook where you say, I go in, I'm looking
for these you know, three or four things, like nine
times out of ten, A is what I know I'm
going to need to concentrate on first? Or is it
really more of a fact finding mission where you've got
(07:14):
to look into the details of how the business is
growing or operating at the time, and then implement whatever
is going to make the most impact.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
The soonest, almost everyone starts out with I need to
get clients comeing in the door, right, that's the you know,
that's you ramp up your referral network. You you know,
network with everybody you know. But then once you've have
you know, some regular clients coming in, then you have
to decide, Okay, am I going to stay broad?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Am I going to go narrow? Am I going to go.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Super super Niche to decide that vertical specialization, and then
you have to decide what's the the size affirm you
want to have. And again that can come over time,
but it's very different when you're the one face of
it all, and what you do when you're the face
of it all is very different. Then when you say
I'm supervising now junior lawyers or you know, associates. I'm
(08:05):
supervising paralegals, where my job is not being the primary
face with my clients. It's kind of negotiating big deals
and things like that. Those are so I always like
to say, where are you in the stages? Are we
in the growth stage stage where you're still trying to
figure out what's my messaging? How am I different?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Am I? How am I structuring my offers?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Or are we in the scale stage which is now
deciding how big you want to be and what your
role is in the business?
Speaker 4 (08:31):
And what would you say are some of the key things,
because I mean all the things you're saying make perfect sense.
You know, obviously, getting more clients in the door, you've
got to have that in order to do all the
other things that you want to do. Are there certain
strategies that you that you share with them and say, okay,
at let's just take your average marketing I'm sorry, average
(08:51):
law firm. You know, say somewhere between ten two and
ten people you know have can be attorneys, and then saying, hey,
this this is what you really need to do to start.
You know, you're getting x amount of clients in order
to get where you want, We've got at least double
that is it going through individually and saying here are
some tools for you, or pointing them in a certain direction,
(09:14):
or how does that conversation have.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
It's usually looking at it from like a system's approach.
So a lot of firms I work with, they don't
have a specialty, they don't have an expert, they don't
have anything. They just do work. And so step one
is are you known for something? Are you known for
an industry? Are you know for a type of law?
Do you have a perspective that's different that kind of
(09:37):
puts you a set you apart, or a perspective on
how you deliver the work. But almost everyone once you
once you say that, then almost everyone I work with
has no marketing system. They work on referrals, they work
on word of mouth. And so it's stepping back and saying, well,
how do you want to market your business? Is it
being on podcast? Is it more relationship building? Is it
(09:58):
I don't love like the B and I now working groups?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But do you do that?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Are you activating your network? Are you sending out regular communication?
Again like that that nurture conversation, How are you being
known and visible to your clients to protect potential clients.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
And when they say, oh, and on.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Time for that, which almost everybody says that a time
for that, then we go back and look at the
financial systems of the business to say.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Are you charging enough?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Are you effectively you know, monetizing per hour with your
offer suite and offer stack and potentially product type services
in order to free up time and cash so that
you can dedicate it to marketing. Because if you in
order to hit your personal takeco numbers, you have to
be billing all at all hours and you don't have
time for the quote unquote on the business activities. We
(10:44):
got to create space because that's where you start. It's
either I have no demonstrated expertise through again, so much
of what we're what I'm talking about is like spending
you know, twenty percent of the time on on the
business type activities, you know, writing fighting articles that you
can be found on blogs, doing the marketing, rethinking about
(11:05):
your pricing, and when you're just trying to maximize buildable hours,
it's really tough to like free up that time to
create those systems.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
Yeah, I think it makes sense.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Any you know, most people are just going to sit
around and twil their thumbs. So they're going to fill
their day up with some things. And I think if
you look at, you know, an eight to twelve hour day,
I'm sure a lot of these law.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Firms are spending you know, ten twelve hours.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
It's what can you do more efficiently? What can you
remove so that you have time for some of these things?
Speaker 5 (11:33):
They're going to.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Move the needle more. I've got a quick question on
the nicheing down. So you had mentioned a lot of
people are like just out there looking for work. They're
doing lots of things. Puts your opinion on a niching
down or becoming a specialist as opposed to being a
jack of all trades for lack of a better term.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You can go vertical, which is I'm going to specialize
on a particular target. I'm going to do lots of
things for a particular target. So I'm going to be
you know, are you working with super small businesses? Are
you working with mid sized businesses? Are you working with
a particular industry that has a you know, want some
you know, if you're I don't know how many of
(12:12):
your audiences is, but if you're a lawyer working with
people to like navigate cannabis regulation right now as an example, Like,
there's so much work to be done in that vertical
and you have to.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Know the laws specifically for that.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
But like if you're just a generalist, you're probably not
going to be able to play in that zone because
it's so specialized. So there's the vertical nature of going.
And part of this is pattern recognition. Who do you
know specifically, who are you working with, and are you
starting to get some patterns of like, oh, I like
this type of work. I don't like this type of work.
There's also horizontal special specialization where you do one type
(12:46):
of thing you do want you know.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
It's it's trademarks.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
It's a state, but like specifically it's trademarks for this
type of business at this size. It's you know, those
are the types of of But I think it's it's
the more narrow you get, the more you can charge
a premium for the work you're doing because you're not
as commoditized. It's you know it so well in and
out people associate you with that. It's much easier to
get referrals, it's much easier to charre a higher premium.
(13:10):
It's much easier to package your work and potentially not
a billible hours, but in more of a productized service
for a little more regularity. In thinking about how you
package your price your services so that you know you're
making some margin beyond just like working harder and working longer.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Yeah, I think most people I talk to who aren't niche,
down or specialized are nervous about eliminating all these other categories.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
But the people who do specialize.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
And have been doing it for a while, I do
feel like they're I don't know if happier as the world,
but they just seem more content, like they love being
a subject matter expert. And because they're experts, they get
lots of referrals, and like you said, they can charge
a premium. There's a lot of things that sway in
your in your in your favor. And I have this
conversation all the time. You know, if I'm working with
(14:01):
somebody who's in a major market, say a Los Angeles
or a Houston, and I say, listen to play in
the marketing game.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
For the types of cases you want.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
It's it's really expensive, but if you got super niche,
you could spend a fraction of the budget, and the
case values are going to be there, you know, because
it's not like you're going to charge less because it's.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
A it's a niche practice. You may even charge more.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
I think that's it's a lot of the money that's
being dumped into legal right now.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
It's forcing people, I think the niche down to a
certain extent.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, that actually helps with like the elimination factor. Well,
if you're like, well I serve this people and this
people and this people, then you're spending lots of time
on broadbrush marketing. You know, you have to have if
you're doing lots of hourly work for if you're doing
a lot of project work, if you're doing a lot
of britainer work. Those are all different operational systems, right,
So the more you span the types of clients you
(14:52):
work with, Okay, we work a big guys that pay
this way, we work a small guys that pay this way.
Every time you add another segment to your business, you're
increasing your business operations cost. You're spending more time and
more money, and it's harder to bring on people to
work for you because they have to be jack of
all trades. I mean, how do you write training documentation.
When you serve everybody doing everything, it makes it much
(15:13):
more difficult to bring on more junior team members that
you can train.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
To be specialized.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So these are the the cost of being broad. You're like, Okay,
well I don't I really don't want people specializing too
early on because you don't really have any you know,
you got to get some client.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Work under you.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
But the longer you stay general, the more you take
on lots of different costs, about the mental cost, the
actual physical cost. You know of this type of software
and this well I sell it this way and I
sell that way. The more you niche, the more you
can both charge your premium but also substantially streamline your
back end.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
So the shift gears just a little.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
I wanted to you there was another concept that I
saw in your bio that talked about little.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Systems versus big systems. Is that something you can dig
into a little bit and expand on.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, so little system says I need this tool, so
I need this different kind of invoicing tool. Right, that's
the little system. Okay, well this is super complicated, so
I'm going to pick a different system. The big as
system says what is your philosophy around invoicing. Am I
invoicing on the back end by hours? Am I doing
a NET thirty or NET sixty? Am I invoicing in
(16:22):
the front with a recurring retainer product ied service type model.
Before you get to the tool, you have have to
think about how am I running my invoicing process, how
am I pricing?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
What is my communication about value?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
And that then dictates the purpose of again the purpose
of the system, who's running it, how does it work?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
And then you get to the tool.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
A lot of times when people think efficiency, they think tool,
I'm like, well, what if you, for you know, had
like this crazy idea that you didn't have to track
your hours to the billable hour, you didn't have to
track every six minutes. Well, then, I mean, maybe you know,
you probably always want to track your time in this field.
But what if you're pricing wasn't dictated by how many
hours you worked?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, that totally.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Changes the systems you need to run, and the tech
stack you need to have, and the processes you run.
But a lot of people that are like, how can
I make what I'm doing more efficient through tools? Versus
do I need to do this at all? How do
I think about it holistically?
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Yeah, so the.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
It sounds like almost working backwards, like knowing what you
want your final destination to be and then figuring what
to plug in the work are there?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Go ahead?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Oh, and then it goes back to that even goes
back to what role you want to play in the business,
because if you're if you you know, have people billing
doing client facing billing on your behalf, you may need
a different process and a tool than if it's just you. Right,
So those are even some of those big questions to say, well,
what kind of business do I want to run? What
(17:55):
role do I want to play? And then that starts
to get into the tools conversation. You may not need
a super sophisticated legal project management system if it's just
you and like one person, but if you have a
team of you know, a bunch of people, you're totally
going to need that.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Now, when we're going back a little bit onto the
types of the people, like you had mentioned the craftsman,
you know, the creator and no, well not to get
too broad, but you know people are going to have
their skill sets, what they're really good at.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Do you see.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Limitations for each one of those like would you say, listen,
if you're a creator and you know, if you've taken
a personality test or these are the types of things
that you really enjoy doing, you're more likely going to
be successful than if you're a craftsman or someone like that.
Or can these concepts work for anybody? You just have
to kind of know what your role is and then
(18:50):
either hire out or do some you know, working with
some third party people to help fill in some of
the blanks of what you need.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
You can. People tend to gravitate to different roles.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I would would say that that a lot of times
the skill sets needed to for someone that, like, some
people are gonna be really great on camera. Some people
are that can be caught, but some people are just
like naturally like I want to be on video, I
want to be on stages. I want to be seen
as a subject matter expert. Publicly, I want to go
on the podcast tour those you know that can be taught.
(19:28):
But that's not necessarily you know a lot of people
have like a desire for that.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
I think the.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Big skill that's typically missing is management. I've seen too
many firms where people were great lawyers and decided never
to become leaders and they have, they have, they have
turnover and turnover and turnover and turnover because if especially
if they worked in a law froom with bad management
(19:54):
practices and they never saw the back end, or you know,
like where else you can to learn how to manage
people house you gonna learn how to lead a firm,
how to set strategy, how to you know, And I
know it's funny wise, it's a very you know, it's
a highly detail oriented, highly controlled function. But the skill
set in learning how to properly delegate is something that
(20:15):
you're probably never taught, and not everyone has the desire
to learn it. And that's where it's like, well, okay,
well you don't have to in order to you know,
make profit for yourself. But if you want to grow
into that agency arm, that's a that's a non negotiable
that requires it requires time and space to in truly
(20:37):
training in order to learn how to do well.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
That's a good point. I think I've seen that. I've
talked to other people who have seen that. Where you know,
there's the old adage of people getting hired into a
role that they're not good at, you know, so this
happens all the time you know, you know this amazing salesperson,
you might be an amazing lawyer. And then you you
to the next step up the ladder, which you refer
to as in your introduction, are going up this ladder
(21:01):
and the next step is going to be management.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Of some kind. Do you have any good advice for people?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Is it really if you want to go up that
ladder to go get specific training in how to manage
or is.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
It learn on the job. What would you suggest to
that person who does want to go up.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
The skills that when you go up the ladder. There's
there's three big skills that I think are not being
taught O. You know, management we just talked about, but
there's also sales and marketing because if you want to
bring on new people to work on your business, you're
going to have to learn how to sales, do more
proactive BIS DEEV business development. And then there's financial management,
so really you know when you bring people in the payroll,
(21:39):
making sure you understand your numbers and your cash flow.
So those are skills that I would suggest, really, you know,
you can buy books, you can get courses, but I
would say have a truly learning objective, like there's a
I know I should be pitching my own stuff on
these podcasts, but there's a book called The Unstoppable Leader,
I think by Leah Garvin, and it's it's a fantastic
(22:01):
primer on not just like general management, but like management
for small business. It's like how do you set expectations?
How do you delegate? So there's some real good books,
but I would say definitely assume you won't learn and
on the job. I mean you can, but I wouldn't
recommend it, but say I'm gonna I'm gonna take some classes.
I'm going to spend some of that time I have
quote unquote freed up by hiring into actively learning stronger
(22:24):
business development, management leadership and then making sure I understand
my numbers. Most c many CPAs don't actually teach you
anything about your books. They just say here are your numbers,
and but uh, understanding and finding someone to do some
advising on like here's how your here's how your cash
flow statements, here's how your P and L, how does
(22:46):
it actually work? Is going to be really helpful so
that you're focused on growing the team and not focused
on like, oh my god, I have enough money for payroll.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Yeah, and are these a lot of these things that
you learned at the Fortune five hundred companies? Meaning what
what do the Fortune five hundred companies really have figured
it figured out and dialed in that most of the
smaller businesses don't quite have a hangout.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So they have onboarding and training to say, like, this
is our way, So they have a lot of professional
development upfront. They have actually really good performance management rigor
process like every year, like clockwork, I was setting goals,
I was looking at my own development. I was getting
feedback conversation from my managers in my own personal role.
(23:30):
I learned a lot about like budget management, so I
happened to be in roles that we're looking at. You know, again,
the budget of a you know, two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars law firm is very different than the budget
of fifty billion, you know, twenty five billion dollars Nike
North America. But still, like you know, the concepts are
very similar. And and leadership. Myself being a leader, I
(23:56):
invested a lot of money in coaching while I was
there to say, like I can learn the tactics of management.
I learned everything about sale and marketing on in small business,
because you don't learn anything about that when you, you know,
when you work in big business. But leadership, I had
to learn how to like understand my own emotions. So
I invested a lot of my money in coaching to
(24:16):
understand what were my identities and stories around being a leader.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
How did I how do I, you.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Know, increase my emotional fluency and the ability to communicate
in a clear and concise way. Those are all things
that I learned when I became a coach and when
I invested in life coaching for myself. You know, everyone
thinks like life coaching is kind.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Of woo woo, and but.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
It actually is a really great way to understand how
people work and how to communicate with others who are
not you.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
So I have, you know, I've worked at a several
different companies, a couple of Fortune five hundred companies, and
then before I got into legal, I worked for another company.
I had the best manager of my whole life. You know,
I just this person I looked up for would do
anything for him. And my question is what he did
and how great he was.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
I don't think it was duplicatable.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
I mean, he was just had this amazing personality, and
he really felt like he'd listened to you and really
felt like he was on your side. My question is, then,
are there some tactical things like if you want to
be a good leader, if you want to be a
good manager, you know, what are the ABC's, because there's
going to be some things are just personality based, Like
(25:26):
some people are just gonna they're going to have that
magnetism and that you know, that gravitas.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
That just you know, you can't duplicate.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Would love to hear your thoughts on what are some
tactical things people could do to be better managers.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Osh had an acronym for this. As you were talking,
I was like, but like listening, active listening is really
huge that can be taught, you know, not listening for
the next thing you're going to say, but truly actively
listening with like your whole whole self listening really hear
what they have to say. The second is expectation setting
and delegate. This is a skill that can be learned.
(26:02):
Almost everyone tosses things over the fence, assuming that the
person has the same context they do.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
You toss it over the fence.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It's not clear what the expectations are it's not clear
what you're looking for. It's just like do this, and
you know, those are some skills that can be learned
to say, like there can be a delegation checklist and everybody.
The big trick is you have to slow down enough
to delegate effectively. And then there are skills you can
(26:28):
learn about having really hard, hard conversations. So the book
Crucial Conversation how to talk when the tensions high or
skills are high, or something like that. But that's a
like when someone's not performing well or to your standards,
how can you have the conversation with yourself to say,
how am I contributing to the situation? But then how
(26:49):
can you have the conversation with your team members? But
I think you know, active listening, delegation, and communication are
skills that can be taught, even though some people naturally
come by those skills. But I think there's also systems again,
systems involved in management. If you never have one on
ones that are directly they are the one on ones
(27:13):
that you have that are just tied to business deliverables,
and then there's the monthly one on ones or quarterly
one on ones that you have to say this is
the time where we're going to talk about development, You're
going to come prepared.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm going to come prepare.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
That's a system, right like that can be systematized as
much as the skills can be taught.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
I love that that is great because those are Could
it be cads c ads I think there was I
think that covers them all, or decks or something like
that if you wanted an acronym.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
But those are amazing.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
And the one that you said that I think I
think really resonates in today's world is the communication. You know,
we've all got Slack, we've all got email, we've got
text messaging. People are working from home, and I can't
tell you how many times I spend five to ten
minutes confirming something through Slack because everything's one sentence, it's abbreviated,
(28:03):
there's no context around it, whereas a thirty second phone call,
I would know exactly what that person wants for me.
And I feel like it comes up the work sometimes
because people are shorthanding everything because of these communication tools,
and you're not transmitting the message properly.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Oh Man, like email and slack, you know, I think
I'm glad that they exist sometimes, but anytime someone can
get lost in email, I'm like, that's because it's not
your task manager. This sounds like management. If we were
to say, okay, all communication about tasks doesn't get intext
it doesn't get in emails. If it's about a task
that we have, it goes in your task manager. That's again,
(28:46):
you know one of the operation systems that of everyone
you can pass the hot potato around, or you can
all come to one central place where everyone's deliverables are clear,
they're documented. If you want to change the priorities you can.
You can see what's on one's plate. And then when
you have a question about something, understanding whether or not
you have standing regular meetings that you can talk about
(29:08):
these things understanding urgency and then picking up the phone.
I think like a lot like the benefits of ASINC
means that we don't have to be on at the
same time, but the perils of that ACNC is that
things get so lost in translation. Right, only seven percent
of communication is done through verbal and the rest is
done through non verbal and body language. But I do
(29:31):
think that like the misuse of email and slack again,
this goes with being back to like the size of
the organization. When it's two or three of you, you
can get away with that. When you start getting five, six,
ten people in the mix and not having clear priorities,
not having like clarity on what the workload looks like,
not having it all in a place that like doesn't
(29:51):
you know, oh I didn't get in this channel and
you It's called the hide mind. Right, you have to
be uber connected at all times, which means you can
ever get deep work done because otherwise you're gonna miss something.
All right, let's set up our system so that we
don't have to do that.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Yeah, that's a good point. I'm again curious of your
thoughts on this. You know, I think you know we're
people are scheduling out their entire days now. Everybody want
we want to be busy. What's your philosophy on scheduling
time to think or scheduling time that's that's not booked
with a meeting or or something that has to be
(30:27):
in your calendar.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
There's two types of time that I really want on
every CEO's calendar, and they both look like white space,
but they are for very different things. There's the white
space one, which is think time, and then there's white
space two, which which is the I don't know if
I'm allowed to cuss on this, the go sideways, go
sideways time right now, the two to three hours. What
(30:51):
happens is a lot of times are like, oh, people
like have white space on the calendar, and they don't.
They don't segregate the time to say like, Okay, this
is my white space for thinking, and this is my
white space for all this. It's gonna spill over that
I don't know what it is, but it's gonna come.
And so like I always have like but you but
like a lot of times when people have is they
(31:12):
have those times.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
It's like, oh, white space.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
I'm like, then if you know that something's always gonna happen,
you just don't know what it is.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Yeah, I like both those.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
I'd heard the thing time before, which I think is
really important. You know, you're just scheduling time, and you
know your mind is a problem solving organ and if
you just give yourself time to think, I think you're
like some of these things that we're bubbling in your
subconscious start to percolate. But if you're constantly busy, you're
not allowing your mind and that's when you come up
(31:40):
with that great idea or that solve that problem that
you've been ruminating on.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
And then the go sideways. See.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
I like that too, because anybody who's been involved with
growing a company understands that that is just going to happen.
And instead of letting that blow up your whole week,
you're like, uh, I've got time plan set aside to
deal with this new thing that was a hand grenade
that you know just exploded in my lap.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
But I know I've got an hour or two to
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, Like the ideal week is everyone's like, oh, my
week is perfect. I'm like your we can never be perfect.
Assume it will never be perfect, and stick a block
of time on your calendar that you don't schedule things
because you know something's going to go wrong.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
You just don't know what it is.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
Yeah, well we're just about out of time. You've given
us a ton of great stuff to think about. You know,
your experience from the past life and what you're doing
now I think is perfect for this audience. So if
there's more that they want to learn about you or
contact you, where would you suggest they go?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
They can go to my website.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Jessica Lackey dot com backslash welcome there as you can
find out for my weekly newsletter, my monthly free classes,
and take a quiz that establishes your scale and the
growth journey, and to decide what kind of business owner
growth you want to be focused on.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Great well, Jessica, thanks for your time. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Thanks for listening to the Legal Mastermind podcast presented by
Market my Market. You can check out additional episodes and
recaps at Legalmastermind podcast dot com
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