An attorney who is struggling to build his practice asked for my help. Here’s a snapshot of what he told me:
- He is also a CPA and former IRS agent.
- He works three days a week as the controller for a major corporation, two days a week in his own practice.
- He prepares 75 tax returns per year, and plans to advertise around tax time to get more (but has had limited success advertising in the past).
- He has several PI and contract litigation cases.
- He does unlawful detainer appearances for a paralegal firm.
- He has tried direct mail (unsuccessfully) to build a bankruptcy practice.
Okay, now what would you tell him if he asked you for help? Would you tell him he’s spreading himself too thin and that he should choose one or two things and concentrate on those?
Of course. That’s exactly what I told him.
How can you possibly expect to have great success in anything when you do so many different things? Especially when you work at it only two days per week and compete with attorneys who do the same things full time?
I told him to first decide where he would like to be in five years, and then to look at what kind of work he enjoys. You can be successful doing just about anything so why not make it something you like? The chances are that what he enjoys and what he’s good at are the same thing, and that’s probably what he should do.
After speaking with him, my guess is that if he’s honest with himself, he would choose preparing tax returns. Now, I can think of three very good reasons why this is not the best choice:
1. Massive competition
2. Seasonality
3. He’s overqualified
But if that’s what he enjoys, that’s probably what he should do. His passion will help him overcome the challenges. He’ll develop a reputation for being the best at what he does and neutralize his competition. He’ll do corporate returns throughout the rest of the year, or build his practice so big that he doesn’t need to work the rest of the year.
If he’s happy and rich, does it really matter what his qualifications are?
There’s another point: why couldn’t he figure this out for himself? The answer is he could have, but when you are so caught up in making a living, sometimes you can’t think straight. It’s work, work, work, and there’s no time for reflection or planning. The wheel keep spinning and you can’t get off.
There’s an expression that comes to mind that applies not only in this situation but for all of us sometimes:
"Slow down to speed up."
What that means is we all need to periodically stop what we’re doing long enough to evaluate where we are and where we want to go. Will doing what we’re doing get us there? Is there a better plan?
Notice that you slow down "to" speed up. That means something. It means that if we’re not going in the right direction, if we have too much on our plate, our subconscious mind knows it and holds us back. Slowing down to re-evaluate allows us to get clear on what we’re doing, and it is that clarity that allows us to move more quickly towards what we really want.
