Ken Hardison – Making You Seven-Figures Richer!
A Little About Ken Hardison:
Ken Hardison brings to law firm owners the insights, knowledge, and critical strategies that can only be learned in the trenches of real law firm success. With over 30 years of legal experience, Ken has personally grown and sold two seven-figure law firms and has shared his knowledge and experience with attorneys from across the country. With a passion and deep understanding of both grassroots and cutting-edge online legal marketing strategies, Ken is committed to helping lawyers experience greater levels of financial success, freedom, and personal satisfaction — the kind that comes from building an ethical and exceptional law practice.
Quick-Show Notes:
In this episode of The Millionaire’s Lawyer, JP and Ken Hardison discuss:
When you are employing staff, you want to look to make sure that there will be leadership within the office. You want to ensure that they are leaders and not managers.
How to find a good leader, this is the hard part:
- Hire slow, fire fast.
- Don’t hire as a reaction, take the time to find the right fit, and to find the correct staff member that will stick around.
When Interviewing, look for the following:
- Someone who is humble
- Confident, not cocky
- Hungry for advancement
- People-Smart.
In the Interview ask the following question:
“If I was to call and ask your last two supervisors about you, what would they say?”
- You can tell a lot by the body language the person will give off
- someone can be very skilled in interviewing but not at the job itself.
Ken Hardison tells us how to try and keep the good ones:
- Affirmation – Let them know when they are doing something you appreciate or did a good job on
- Growth within the business- an “A” player wants to play more than a “B” or a “C”, the “a” player deserves a little more pay, but they accomplish much more than the other types.
- Constant feedback – Ken puts a survey with each paycheck to check on the staff’s stress levels, mental health, and overall thoughts.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
To keep the office motivated, Ken mentions it may be a good idea to:
- Have quarterly goals
- Team Gatherings
- Group Benefits
It is great to give praise in public, but when it comes to criticism it should be done in private.
Documented Processes and Systems are so much more valuable than one may think.
- Easy to onboard new staff, it has everything outlined on how they should do what is required.
- It allows you to not be held hostage by your employee, their knowledge of how things run is so valuable that if they were gone it would be a massive learning curve.
- It is recommended to review these quarterly because some suppliers may change, websites may be updated, and so forth.
You want to have everything systemized and documented so that if you would like to go on that two-week vacation your business can run like a well-oiled machine.
Ken has had experience in selling two law firms, from start-up and growing it to selling them for seven figures.
It is a lot harder to sell a law firm than it is to sell any other corporation.
Before it used to have to be another lawyer that was purchasing the firm, but it is slowly changing to anyone being able to purchase law firms.
Ken Hardison goes on to explain how come Non-competes are not applicable in the sale of a law firm, but now there could be another workaround that the solicitor leaving cannot take any of the staff or files.
There are three (3) barriers to having a successful corporation:
- Leadership
- Processes
- Marketing – This is the area that a lot of entrepreneurs are struggling with.
“Helping lawyers and firm owners make the leap to the next level, increase profits, minimize stress, and have a more balanced life” – Mission Statement
Marketing yourself:
- Find a way to Differentiate yourself
- Recognize what your ideal client is
- Brand yourself and make yourself prominent
- don’t come off as always selling something.
Ken is the Founder of PILMMA: Powerful Innovative Legal Marketing and Management Association, where he is a strategic coach
Look at the long haul, how will what you are doing help you get to where you would like to be in 5 years?
Make a practice that works for you, don’t make a practice that works you.
The main things that Start-Ups need are:
- People
- Strategy
- Cashflow
- Execution
JP and Ken joke about how revenue is for show, but how profit is king.
TIP OF THE DAY
You don’t know what you don’t know.
Key Takeaways
From this episode of The Millionaires Lawyer with Ken Hardison:
- No corporation is built on having employees that are not pulling their weight.
- Find leaders, having them as your employees is a great asset.
- Try and get constant feedback from your staff, this is quite helpful in having your staff happy and therefore making your business run efficiently.
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