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When I was three years old, I was so shy I hid behind my father’s leg and wouldn’t speak to anyone. This seems unbelievable today, since I do so much public speaking and really enjoy being on stage. But when I was three, my mother left me to my brother and father. In the 1970s it was unusual for the father to be the custodial parent, but he had little choice － my mother committed suicide.

This trauma in my life has led to many successes and failures. As a lifetime learner, I attend quite a few conferences each year. If I get one kernel of knowledge to take back to the office with me, I am usually satisfied. This year’s Lawyers with Purpose annual retreat filled my briefcase with a lot of chewable popcorn ideas!

The one I’d like to share with you is simple － Tell your story and connect with prospective clients. Were you drawn in by my story? Did you want to know more?

Clients hire people they like. They assume you have the credentials and legal knowledge. Many times I sit down with clients who have been honest enough to say they have met with another lawyer but it just didn’t “click.” What didn’t click? Their personality. Clients are looking for someone with whom they feel comfortable. The only way to really do that is to be yourself and share yourself with them – your personal self.

In my conference room I have pictures of my three-year-old twins, who are adorable. I can almost guarantee my prospective clients will comment on the pictures. I take that moment to really share a personal aspect of my life and connect with the client. It can then lead to a conversation about their grandchildren, with whom they are naturally very fond.

Understand that your vulnerabilities (struggles you have had, pain you have experienced) can be an asset in developing strong relationships with your clients. I share with my clients on my website, in my workshops and during initial meetings that I moved out of my parent’s house when I was 17 years old, still in high school and without any money. After a year and a half of going nowhere, I enlisted in the Air Force. This tells them that I was not born with a silver spoon and that I am “like them.”

What is your story? How can you connect with your prospects? What vulnerabilities are you willing to share?

If you are not used to this, try something small at first. If a client travels, share where you have traveled. If a client’s spouse has a health concern, share if one of your family members had a similar health issue and how you dealt with it. Then build on that and incorporate your story into your marketing messages and conversations.

Immediately notice the connections. Immediately notice the increase in conversation rates. Immediately notice that you have helped someone else by sharing yourself.

If you are currently not a Lawyers With Purpose member and would like to learn more about what we have to offer, please spend some time with us on November 19th at 5:00 EST. We are offering a one hour live webinar where we will share:

• Why clients don’t care how much you know and what they want from you.
• There’s no such thing as crisis Medicaid planning and the preplanning you are missing out on is right in front of you.
• The key features and provisions of grantor, non-grantor, and pure grantor trusts and when to utilize each for asset protection, Medicaid and VA planning.
• The newest forms and procedures to file VA apps and appeals and receive timely decisions.
• Why annuities are often the “lazy-attorney” approach to Medicaid planning and what it fails to consider.
• How to calculate if an IRA should be liquidated and when not to use personal service contracts when Medicaid planning.

Register now by clicking here : https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/308773030

Victoria L. Collier is a Veteran and Certified Elder Law Attorney, Fellow of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Co-Founder of Lawyers With Purpose LLC, and author of “47 Secret Veterans’ Benefits for Seniors—Benefits You Have Earned … but Don’t Know About.”

How do you know whether you are traveling down the wrong road and need to turn around, or are within inches of success and need to keep going?

The closest Krispy Kreme to my house and office is approximately 15 minutes away without traffic, and I wanted fresh, hot donuts before work. With rush-hour traffic heading into Atlanta, the travel time is no less than 30 minutes one way. I only live two miles from my office. Therefore, I was making a deliberate choice to spend at least an hour in traffic for a donut.

I knew the route, but I have no geographical sense. After I passed a Dunkin’ Donuts, which I did not want, and had not yet seen Krispy Kreme, I began to doubt myself. Had I gone too far? Did I miss it? Should I turn around? In a split second I did a very unsafe u-turn. While driving, I looked up the address of the Krispy Kreme on my iPhone and input it into my GPS, which prompted me to do another u-turn.

Upon reaching the point of my first u-turn, I could see that the Krispy Kreme was less than a block away – visible from where I actually turned around. I did not see it previously because I was so frantic about whether I had gone too far, and about “wasting” any more of my precious time. Whereas, in reality, doubting myself took me even longer to obtain my goal.

So, how do you know when to keep going or to turn around? Unless you have a crystal ball, you don’t. But, you can assess the situation to make a sound decision. Ask yourself these five questions:

1. How badly do you want to achieve the goal? How important is the goal to you?

   — If it is your life dream, you may want to keep going regardless of all factors. But if it is just another “interest,” then you may want to cut your losses and focus on more productive interests. In this case, I REALLY wanted a donut!

2. How much time and effort have you already invested, and how much more are you willing to invest, even if all efforts have ended in failure?

   — Have you spent only a few months pursuing this goal, or has it been years? From the outset, how much time did you envision it would take to achieve the goal? Have you given it enough time? I knew that it would take 30-45 minutes to get to Krispy Kreme. I was willing to spend up to an hour and a half to get the donut.

3. What are the negative consequences of going forward with the current plan?

   — Will you be investing more time and money into achieving the goal? Is it affecting other people around you? Is it preventing you from reaching other goals you have? When I set off to get my donut, I knew I had no appointments that morning and could take until lunchtime. Now, obviously I did not want it to take all morning, but even if it did it would have no direct negative impact.

4. Are you making short-term decisions based on immediate pain reactions or long-term decisions based on research, data and experience?

   — Be mindful as to why and how you are making your decision to keep going or to turn around. If you are making the decision because of the immediate pain you are in and are disregarding the huge reward at the end to eliminate the current pain, you may want to step back and see if there is any other way (short of turning around) to minimize the pain (i.e. if you are short on money, how can you generate it otherwise or cut expenses). As they say, “No pain, no gain.” Remember, short-term pain is worth pushing through. Chronic pain calls for treatment (changing the plans).

5. If you turn around, will you always regret that you didn’t go forward?

   — You live with your success, your failures and your decisions. How will this decision affect you? Will it roll off your back because tomorrow is another day, another plan, another opportunity, or will it sit inside you, eating at you and tainting everything else you do? In my decision to turn around the first time, I was still in pursuit of my donut dream. I was not going to give up until I had it. I would have driven that road, making unsafe u-turn after u-turn, until I had it in my watering mouth.

However, I recently made a decision for one of my businesses where I said to myself, “I will invest a certain amount of money for the next two months. If this does not return the results I want, I will not invest any more money or time into it.” Well, those months were September and October of this year and as of October 31, I will be satisfied with my decision to walk away and follow a different road to success. (To be clear, the business is not my law firm or Lawyers With Purpose).

Where are you on your road? Are you just enjoying the scenery without knowing or caring where you end up? Do you need to turn around or keep going to achieve the success you seek?

As for me, now that I have had my donut I will be pursuing other goals.

Victoria L. Collier is a Veteran and Certified Elder Law Attorney, Fellow of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Co-Founder of Lawyers With Purpose LLC, and author of “47 Secret Veterans’ Benefits for Seniors—Benefits You Have Earned … but Don’t Know About.”

What is the greatest success you've had since joining LWP?

Our greatest success is simply the number of clients that are coming to us for assistance. These are clients I would not have been able to assist before LWP, and I certainly would not have been able to provide them assistance as effectively without the organized approach we learned from LWP.

What is your favorite LWP tool?

My favorite tool is the workshop. It took a leap of faith. My first workshop was mostly for family of my staff, and I didn't make an impressive presentation in my opinion. But I immediately saw how I could improve and it gave me confidence. We have been able to keep people coming as word spreads. In fact, my current challenge is how to most effectively focus my business development efforts. I have several insurance and financial professionals that want to be part of what we are developing. All I needed to do was implement the tools LWP provided.

How has being part of LWP impacted your team and your practice?

LWP has opened up entirely new opportunities for our practice. We are able to provide services in very specialized areas of estate planning (i.e. Medicaid planning) and do so in an organized way that allows us to think both short term and long term. This sets us apart. I am very optimistic about our future.

Join us for our weekly webinar and explore the key issues, step by step, in creating the optimal plans for your clients. Today we’ll be talking about lifetime planning (for all plans). You must know what rights and powers the grantor intends to retain during his/her lifetime, including:

1. Income
2. Principal
3. Powers of Appointment
4. Disability panel
5. Disability instructions – who will retain these powers

Registration Link to register for the entire series:

Registration Web Link: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/143535054

“The secret of discipline is motivation. When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.” ~Sir Alexander Paterson

We’ve been blogging about how “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni has become the world’s definitive source of practical information about building teams. The fourth dysfunction he discusses is the Avoidance of Accountability, specifically peer to peer accountability. This issue arises from the desire to NOT let down your peers, which is VERY strong in the workplace.

In the model from the book, the avoidance of accountability is a byproduct of the underlying dysfunctions of the team. Without stable commitments, even after healthy conflicts are addressed, we tend to not hold people accountable. We have a hard time holding people accountable when we know they were never really committed. Or, quite possibly, maybe we are the ones lacking commitment.

In the context of teamwork, accountability refers specifically to the willingness of team members to call their peers on performance or behaviors that might come off as hurtful.

A team that avoids accountability:

1. Creates resentment among team members who have different standards of performance
2. Encourages mediocrity
3. Misses deadlines and key deliverables
4. Places an undue burden on the team leader as the sole source of discipline

A team that holds one another accountable:

1. Ensures that poor performers feel pressure to improve
2. Identifies potential problems quickly by questioning one another’s approach without hesitation
3. Establishes respect among team members who are held to the same high standards
4. Avoids excessive bureaucracy around performance management and corrective action

Suggestions for overcoming avoidance of accountability:

1. Team rewards
2. Explicitly communicate goals and standards of behavior
3. Regular discussion of performance versus goals and standards

“The ultimate dysfunction of a team is the tendency of members to care about something other than the collective goals of the group.” ~Patrick Lencioni

Holding each other accountable doesn’t have to be aggressive, but it does have to be honest and frequent. The make or break of this depends solely on your team leaders’ willingness to hold all members of the firm to their goals and dreams, often in spite of themselves. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the team – and that’s the birthplace for resentment and frustration.

Team leaders must give every team member (yes, attorneys too) a clear understanding of what is expected of them, what the team standards are, what needs to get done, by whom and when. This should be communicated weekly at your team meetings, and summed up and distributed in writing. Once this environment has been created, it is ultimately up to the team leader to consistently remind everyone of the group goals. Imagine a team that holds one another accountable and people not only expect that but depend on it, weekly. Such a team is on its way to escaping a world of dysfunction and mediocrity.

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

I am excited about the upcoming Enhancement Retreat. Not only will it allow me to get out of my pajamas and put on “big-girl clothes” (those who work from home offices will understand the importance of that!) but this year we are doing some things that are new and exciting! I was asked to share what I’m most looking forward to about the retreat, and I honestly could not settle on only one thing. So, I’m going to cheat and say what I’m most looking forward to is the entire Day 2 of the program!

This year, we are allowing team members to have a session of their own away from the attorneys. So, while the lawyers are reviewing in-depth legal technical information (which is usually incredibly interesting to them and puts the team into a coma-like state) we will be “doing our thing” as team members in a different room.

The more I work with attorneys, the more I realize their mindset is drastically different from that of the support team. The overall goal and commitment is the same, but even after 15 years in this industry, the vast difference in perspective still surprises me at times. Having a separate session for team members is going to allow us to explore their mindset and support their needs directly.

We’ll be covering a lot on this day, but the three things I’m most excited about, and that I think will make the biggest difference for team members, are:

1. What is YOUR story and how is this conveyed by the role you fill? So often a firm’s marketing and message revolve around the attorneys and why they do what they do. Today, we will take a look at why team members do what they do, and how that makes a difference for the clients you serve. I know that sounds mushy, and some of you are surely thinking, “I don’t need to know why – I just do my job and I do it well!” But it is important. We spend too much time at work to not connect the dots on what it’s all really for. For example, I’ve stayed in the estate planning industry, in some way or another, for over 15 years. (Ouch! It hurts to count those years up, but considering my 20 year high school reunion just passed, the numbers don’t lie!) By mid-morning every team member will connect with why they do what they do, and what all the effort is for. Sometimes you need to know that to deal with getting through the tough and stressful times.
2. I also cannot wait for the afternoon of team day. We have some incredibly smart and innovative team members across the country in the LWP community. We are going to break into groups based on your role in your firm and lead conversations about how you succeed there. Funding coordinators will talk with other funding coordinators; drafting coordinators will share with other drafting coordinators; client service coordinators will connect with other client service coordinators, and so on. Putting all that brain power and experience together will result is some powerful learning.
3. One of the things about team day that will make a huge difference in the day-to-day life of support team members is the level of detail we will go through regarding the LWP process. Whereas attorneys need to understand it and know how to conduct the workshops and meetings, team members need an entirely different level of detail to be able to confidently do their jobs without chasing their tail all day. What do you print for meetings? What is the follow-up? Where do you find the items you need? What goes in the file? We will even be providing sample client “cheat sheets” so you can see what goes where.

We will cover all these details so you can go back to your firm and reduce the stress and confusion you can sometimes experience when you are implementing a system.

I love that in this retreat, attorneys and their team members will start off together, break apart for a day to receive training for their respective needs, then end together again with a powerful planning day. Members will connect, train and then put it all together in an action plan for 2014 so they can hit the ground running. I’m excited and I hope to see you there.

Are you registered for our 2013 Member Enhancement Retreat? If not, there is still time to invest in your firm, in your team and in your upcoming year. The hotel is sold out but we have made accommodations with another hotel and shuttle services. Click here. Register today.

Laney Lyons-Richardson, Implementation Coach for Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.