I enjoyed this book.
His ultimate thesis, boiled down to a sentence: Stop bitching and whining, and start doing. That's my kind of thesis (this resonates with my background with years of folk-style wrestling, and a few years of triathlon -- you can (and should) do more with less, rather than less with more). He takes on the know-it-all business books -- and says, forget complex business plans, instead, focus on things in a daily and quarterly construct. I like that thought.
One's Passion.
He devotes a chapter to ensuring that your business is your passion. Well, this _is_, a bit of a problem for me. I know my passion: Taking gnarly criminals and putting them in prison for long periods of time after hard fought jury trials. That's as fun today as when I started five years ago. I love the battle. I don't know that I will have the same passion for civil (instead of criminal) trials. I may have more passion, if I have a direct client that savors the result. It may be much more difficult if I don't do as well as a client had hoped and I have to explain that to him. So, I'm on the fence on the passion topic.
Incidentally, you may ask, well then why give up being a prosecutor? Well, I have a newborn son, a wife, and we live in Los Angeles. I'm from Iowa. Los Angeles is hell. You really can't (ethically/morally) send your kid to public school, except for a few small areas of respite around hte county. As you can imagine the housing prices are astronomical in those areas (think like $600,000 for 1200 square feet and on up from there). But, San Diego is like half that price. I was a wrestling coach there -- so I know the schools. I'd put our kid into the Poway District in a heartbeat (along with several other school districts as well). Moreover, I moved to California to live in San Diego -- I only came to LA to go to law school. Unfortunately, the San Diego DA's office (according to several inside confidential sources I've developed) hires all of their law clerks; the remainder of the spots, are divided among those who apply. In practical terms, they have about 20 spots; the clerks take 17-19 spots; the other 381 people compete for the 1-3 spots that are available. Even with 5 years of being a DDA and 45 jury trials (25 of which are heavy felony jury trials) I don't think I'll be able to snag a spot this year. Which means, I expect to move to San Diego and simply put up my own shingle and start taking cases. Hey, I tried -- I'd rather just be a DDA in San Diego -- but, since this year will be my fourth annual application, I'm going to have a strong Plan B for getting the family out of LA and down to San Diego.
So, here's what Michalowicz has to say about business plans (and I love the sentiment):
"How many times have you heard about the importance of a detailed business plan? Make sure you have ten years of financials. Make sure you can make $100M dollars capturing only 0.1% of the potential market. Make sure you have a strong management team with a strong track record. Make sure you can show clearly where the customers will be coming from and why. Everyone tries to tell you that you need a winning business plan if you ever hope to go anywhere with your business. Well, I'm here to tell you a business plan is a total waste of time."
Go brother Michalowicz, go! They are a waste of time (I've written them in a past life about recording studios, car retail and selling pop songs on late night TV). Instead, he insists on three short documents -- more of a creed, than the details. That's fine. There should be some plan -- but it shouldn't be out of control. (Basically he says set quarterly goals and set a daily metric so you can check the numbers and plot your current trajectory and modify as necessary).
As for networking groups, he suggests doing it online: LinkedIn.com or meetup.com.
MONEY
He also describes that his life is filled with people who ask him for "money to launch his business." He says they are a waste of time -- and posits that "so many people get caught up in the money aspect that they forget everything else that's important." Instead, he says "[i]t is critical that your business makes cash, not that it starts with it." Well, that's the good news about a law practice -- I do, indeed, expect to charge money first and then do the work. And, I do believe many people need the assistance of an attorney, whether for divorces, construction or renovation disasters, or personal injuries or accidents -- or, even criminal charges. The distinct difference between divorces and criminal work on the one hand, and person injury work on the other -- is that the PI work is first the attorney does the work (and pays the filing fees), then you see what you make (if anything); whereas, in the world of criminal and family law, first you get a retainer (or flat fee), then you do the work. That's my kind of cash flow. So, I pretty lucky in that regard.
In fact, Michalowicz says this about money needed at start-up:
If I get one more stinking, whining email about how impossible it is to start a business without any money, I am goin gto explode. Money, if used wisely, will let you start faster. But lack of money will not prevent you from starting. If you have the ability to send me an email, you clearly have access to a computer or cell phone, which are more than enough tools to get started. So if you don't have money, stop making excuses and find a way."
I've got money available to fund a start-up law practice. But, I refuse to spend tons. Indeed, I think it will be very hard to get me to rent a full-fledged office at $500 bucks per month -- that's $6,000 per year; I think I can do great things with $6,000 per year. (More about how I've seen lawyers waste money in unnecessary overhead in my law firm staff years in New York in the 90s in another later post). So, I intend to really, really start on a shoe string. I'll find a way to work out getting access to an office for appointments and access to a business mailing address -- that's all I really need in the beginning I think.
For office furniture Michalowicz suggests goin to office buildings with multiple occupants to see if you can snag what tenants inevitably leave behind when the move out. Bravo! I've already done that for free wood in my amateur woodworking career.
On large overhead/payroll, Michalowicz says this:
I nearly destroyed my company by borrowing to death. It wasn't the credit cards; I paid all of those back. It was the bank loans. I borrowed $250K and blew it. One of the biggest mistakes I made was using the money to cover payroll. I gave myself a bloated salary and paid for employees who weren't needed. Finally, when the money ran out I had to face the truth and cut y salary, fire employees, and get back on track. But I still had a huge amount of debt on my shoulders.
I love that thought. But, I expect my payroll to be me. At least for the first few years.
He offers this tip about press:
"Start local and small and then build your way up. Your local paper is starving for good stories about local heroes. Email or fax a quick press release, and you'll be surprised how fast the local guys call for an interview or to confirm facts."
Finally, Michalowicz extols the virtues of being small: Nimble, quick, flexible and able to offer the ultimate customer/client service. Obviously, the downside is, lack of capital, budget, and people resources. But, it's not all downside is the point.
Finally, he's best website tips:
1) for service professionals (I suppose that includes attorneys) -- a) elance.com or b) guru.com; of course, c) craigslist.org;
2) Virtual Meetings. dimdim.com;
3) conference calls. freeconferencecall.com
4) accounting. Intuit's quickbooks simple start offers a free, basic accounting system (then again, so does excel. No need to buy or specialize until you have the need, right? One can track the expenses in the first year of 3 clients, $15,000 in revenue and $3,000 in expenses -- if it gets overly complex, then I'll find some other way to track the info, or use all of the overwhelming checks coming in to hire someone to track it);
5) payment clearance: Paypal and zen cart.
6) sales marketing automation: zoho crm - apparently free for three users or less; not sure exactly what it even does!
7) Office space. Unused office space from friends or other rents -- exchange space for service (will consider, I'd give free legal advice in exchange for rent payments; or agree to do appearance work for some criminal law firm);
All in all, I'd give the books high marks. I intend to go through the web sites and give some further review of those in the coming days. I also need to post my own metrics and what I'm going to measure on a day to day basis.
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