#283: 5 Problems Stunting Your Firm’s Growth

5 Problems Stunting Your Firm's Growth

(00:00):
Hello my friends. How are you doing today? I don't have an intro today. Why? 'cause I'm changing my intro up. I really want to focus this podcast on creating practices that not only feel amazing to work in but feel fulfilling. And I don't think that my intro adequately expresses that right now. So I have an intro in the works that is going to really pinpoint exactly what I wanna be talking about in this, in this podcast. So new people, when they come in they can hear, Hey, this is what this podcast about is about and here's what to expect. And that will be coming in the next couple of episodes. But I share that with you because it's just one of the things that I think about when I think about my business and how I am communicating what it is that I do and who it is that I want to serve in the world.

(01:07):
And so when you are thinking about your practice and thinking about bringing in clients that you want for your practice, it's those little things to think about is who do you want to really bring into your world? Who do you want to serve at your highest level and how are you communicating that to them? And it can be as simple as how you might have your introduction crafted on your social media pages, how you are, you know, how your about page is formulated on your website. It can be those little things that can share who it is that you want to serve in the world. So I'm just gonna share that with you so you know, kind of what I'm thinking about. I always like getting those little sneak peeks into how people are thinking about their businesses and how they're growing their businesses and you know, what are those little shifts that they make in their businesses so that they are performing at higher levels so that they are reaching the people they wanna reach.

(02:07):
So I thought I'd share that with you. Okay, so today we are gonna talk about five problems that are stunting your law firm's growth. So these problems I've really pulled from working with so many clients over the years and recognizing that these are really common problems. So if you are experiencing any, experiencing any of them, if you are finding yourself kind of stuck in some of these areas, know that they're a hundred percent normal and what I'm gonna share with you are the common problems, but also some solutions. So you can start really working through this on your own. And if you are interested in really creating a law practice that feels fulfilling, that feels like it's easier than you've ever made it before, I want to invite you to get on the wait list for my December 2nd half day event. And we are gonna be working specifically that half day on planning your goals for 2024.

(03:13):
And this is work that you know, I've already been working with some of my clients on to really help them get that clean and straight in their head how to really focus on it. In the last episode, which I'll link in the show notes, we really dug into how to start thinking about planning for 2024. I don't want you to put this off as you're listening to this. It's October 19th. There's only a little more than two months left in this year and we want you to get ready now so you have a plan. It doesn't feel overwhelming. You can start planning how to think about your business in 2024. Like some of the goals that I'm working on with some of my clients are, okay, what processes do I wanna start implementing to save myself more time to make my my people more efficient in my practice?

(04:08):
We're really starting to break some of these things down. What kind of promotions do I wanna create? What kind of marketing am I going to be really doing that makes sense for my practice? And these are things that are so amazing to think about right now, so that when you hit January, you don't feel behind. And I want to help you with that. So go to dina cataldo.com/ 2024, get on the wait list for this half day event. It's gonna be held online and we are gonna enjoy a beautiful morning of working on our business in a way that actually is fun. We're gonna sit back, we're gonna have some coffee, we're gonna think through what makes sense in our practice. It's gonna be super organized, it's gonna be amazing. So go to dina cataldo.com/ 2024, get a jumpstart on your year. We are going to be talking all things goal setting and how to really think about your goals in a way that simplifies and doesn't overwhelm.

(05:13):
Alright, so let's jump into this episode. So the first problem that could really be stunting your law firm's growth is not knowing the value of your services. And this is really common. I talk to so many lawyers about this and I want you to know that there are some ways that you can know if this is you right now, because you might think I know the value of my services. But if you're doing any of these things that I'm gonna share with you, there are some underlying thoughts about the value of your services that could be undercutting your ability to grow your practice. So some ways that you will know that you don't know the value of your services and you're not owning the value of your services is if you're not evaluating your prices regularly. Maybe you haven't raised your prices in years, okay?

(06:07):
You feel fear around increasing your prices even though you know that there are others who are charging more and people are paying it. You avoid looking at your numbers, whether it's your weekly billables or your monthly revenue or your budget. You don't know your numbers for services like your courier fees or your mailing fees or your filing fees. Maybe you don't even know the numbers for the particular services that you offer. So you're always kind of calculating it in the middle of a consult. Like how much is this gonna be like versus understanding very clearly, oh, this is what I'm going to charge. You maybe feel uncomfortable asking for payments from your clients. You avoid talking numbers with your clients or even taking retainers, you think, I just hate talking money. You think about your prices. Well that's just too much. So I just wanna show you that this is just what's going on.

(07:10):
If you aren't really in touch with the value of your services, when you don't know the value of your services, it is costing you money. You could be leaving thousands of dollars on the table right now and I want you to know that there's an easy solution for this. I'm gonna walk you through this. It's really knowing and understanding the value of the services that you are providing for your clients. So I want you to actually pull out a piece of paper. If you're driving, obviously don't do that. But if you are listening to this and you're drinking your coffee and you're sitting at a table and your breakfast nook, I want you to just pull out your journal, pull out a piece of paper and write down all of the value that you bring to your clients. The peace of mind, the fact that you help them understand a process that was complicated and now it's simplified.

(08:04):
You're making this process easier for them. You have actually created processes maybe in your practice to help make this as simple as possible for your clients, right? Understand that you created this value, you create the ability to solve their problem, right? And it's not just a problem that maybe is in this instant. If you, you know, are an estate planner, it is something that is going to be solving problems for at least a generation or two or three, right? If you are a personal injury attorney, you could be generating wealth for somebody that they've never had access to before, right? These are things that have impact generationally. So just understand, really think about how it is that you are impacting your client's lives. If you're a defense attorney, right, a criminal defense attorney, you go in and maybe you are, you are helping somebody you know, stay out of jail.

(09:07):
That is somebody who is really important to a family member, right? So just understand that whatever it is that you are doing, it has amazing value. But you've gotta get your brain on board with it. Or you might be discounting your prices. That's another way you'll know that if you, you aren't valuing the services that you bring your people. So now let's look at how you created that value. 'cause You didn't just show up and do some work. You spent years in law school, you have years of experience. And even if you don't have years of experience and you're listening to this podcast, you have the ability to solve problems for someone who doesn't know how to access the legal system like you do, who doesn't understand the ins and outs of research like you do. You have an ability to understand the law and figure it out for them.

(09:59):
And when you own your own practice, you also have put yourself out there by opening up a shop, you have promoted your business, you have shown up for your other clients who with amazing service so that you're bringing in referrals like you are creating all of this. You are helping this person in a way that they may not be able to be helped by another attorney. When you think about the attorneys who are in your vicinity who practice a similar area of law, can you think of other attorneys where you're like, wow, you know, a lot of people are going to them and they don't provide as quality of services. I do. I know so many lawyers that I talk to do know someone like this. So when you think about the quality of service that you are providing for your people, is it excellent service and outline why they need to be coming to you?

(10:56):
This practice that I'm sharing with you is about mindset. It is about really bringing to the forefront of your brain all of the value that you bring to your clients. This is powerful work. If you do this work like I'm outlining it for you, you will stop discounting, you will begin charging your value, right? Not your worth. Remember, we're a hundred percent worthy. We're talking about the value of your services, which is separate from our intrinsic worth as a human being. So do this work. I would do this regularly. Like really, if you've never done this work before and you find yourself really resonating with what I'm saying in this particular section, like really examine what you think about the value of your services and start bringing forth all of the quality thoughts that I just outlined about the value that you are bringing to your clients and how that value is actually spilling out to other areas of their life, maybe their family's lives, their businesses' lives.

(12:00):
Like this is really important. I think about this in with my clients too. Because when I show up in my, my practice, my coaching practice, I'm not just impacting my client. Like yes, I'm impacting them because they're growing their business and because they feel more confident and because they can have those difficult conversations with employees and with sometimes family members. But what's really happening there is that they are gaining long-term competencies so that for the rest of their lives they're going to have the ability to solve problems in a way that they'd never been able to solve before. They are able to build relationships with their family members that they never had time to before because they couldn't be present enough to be in those relationships. They are going to feel more calm, they're gonna feel more wellbeing, they're gonna take better care of themselves because they now know how important it is to take care of themselves and put themselves on the calendar and they're gonna improve their health, their longevity, and they're gonna be able to spend more time on this planet.

(13:11):
I can't put a dollar amount on that kind of work, but I do. But you ha having a far reaching impact with the work that you're doing. No matter what kind of work you're doing, you are having a far reaching impact and I want you to be able to see that so you can make this shift and you are able to get out of this particular problem. You're able to solve it. Okay? Problem number two, putting everyone ahead of yourself. How do you know this is you? Well one you probably already know, but you put your needs aside for your clients regularly. Even if it's not a true emergency where there's a court deadline, you skip a vacation, a workout, a meal, drinking water during your day in favor of work, you say yes, then later wish you had said no. You give your personal number to your clients.

(14:07):
I hope you don't do that. But I know that some people do. You tell yourself you're behind and that you can't, you'll catch up later or that you can't catch up at all. You feel exhausted at the end of the day and you realize that you've been running around all day like a chicken with your head cut off. You don't have a calendar. And if you do have one, there's only hearings on it. There's nothing about you on it. There's nothing about <laugh>, about anybody about any of the work that you need to do besides the hearings. Maybe you have some family events on it. You find yourself making lots of exceptions to your rules for clients. Like the only one change for some estate planners might become five changes. Or you do work beyond scope and then you don't charge for it. So this is what it's costing you to stay in this problem and not solve it.

(14:57):
It's costing you your wellbeing, your peace of mind, time spent with your family or doing something that you really enjoy and it's costing you money. Okay? So here's the solution. The solution is to understand that you are important. That you are essential to your practice. You are the person that you need to take care of in order for everything else to work. How you treat yourself shows you what you think of yourself. Are you treating yourself like you are important? Okay? Now put yourself first and then you start enabling yourself to have the energy to help other people. But if you're not taking care of yourself, you will not have that energy. Make time for you on your calendar and make it sacrosanct. Don't let anybody take that away from you. If it's four o'clock in the afternoon and you have a gym workout scheduled at that time and you're in the middle of a project, say, okay, no, not today.

(16:00):
We're gonna finish this project tomorrow. I gotta go to the gym. I know you're not gonna want to at four o'clock. But you made that commitment to yourself. You told yourself this is important. I am important. So don't go at four o'clock and suddenly tell yourself you're not important. You're still important. Don't prioritize. Work over your health and your wellbeing because you are important to your firm, you're important to your family and your longevity ensures that you will be able to help more people in your lifetime. So solve this problem by really looking at how you are treating yourself. And if you're noticing that you're not treating yourself like you're important, start making some shifts. Start adding time on your calendar for workouts, for going to the grocery store and getting some healthy foods, right for maybe meal planning. Whatever you're noticing that you're not taking care of for yourself, start incorporating that into your week and don't tell yourself that you don't have enough time.

(17:00):
You've gotta give up that belief in order to have what you want in your practice. All right? Problem number three that I see with lawyers that stunting their practice growth is doubting their abilities. So how you will know that this is you is that you don't send out bills because you think that they're too late. And if you send them now, the client is gonna think you're disorganized or that you're incompetent. Or when you get emails from a client or from opposing counsel, you immediately feel anxiety, right? If this is you, no, I talk to a lot of lawyers like this, so just understand this is normal but it's stemming from you doubting your abilities. So you might think that they're mad at you or maybe you think to yourself, well you know, I should have worked on that project sooner. I should have planned better for this.

(17:56):
But when you do that, you get defensive, right? So if you get defensive anytime someone questions you, then you're doubting your abilities. So here's what it's costing you first. It's costing you so much money 'cause you're spending a lot of time doubting your abilities and worrying about what other people think of you instead of doing things like marketing your services. So if you're not marketing your services actively, it may be a time management problem, but it may also be that you don't feel comfortable putting yourself forward as an attorney who is providing these services, right? 'cause You're doubting your ability. So just kind of check in with that, see if that feels true for you. But if you're not, that's costing you money. If you are ignoring these emails that have legitimate work that needs to be done on them, you could be losing money by not doing work on those projects.

(18:54):
You're also losing money by not sending those bills that you're telling yourself are too late. You're costing yourself peace of mind and you're costing yourself a ton of time ruminating, spinning out and putting off these projects. So notice if this is happening for you, the solution here is awareness of where you are right now. Right? So what is coming up when you hear these things that I'm saying to you, like start really questioning them. So for instance, when you get an email from somebody, an opposing counsel, it could be a client and you feel shame or anxiety come up for you, don't run away from it, right? It's so easy to want to run away from it, to want to run away from the email. But what I wanna offer to you that the solution is here is to sit with that feeling. I know you don't want to my clients don't want to either.

(19:54):
I don't want to. These feelings are not fun feelings to feel. But when you start gaining control of them, when you start feeling empowered, then you have the ability to make change. So what I look at in these feelings, these feelings like shame and anxiety, I look at them as empowering when I feel them because I'm consciously feeling them. I'm not ignoring them. I'm not trying to numb out. I'm not trying to avoid them. I am conscious in that moment. I am present with myself in that moment and I allow myself to feel the feelings even if they feel bad. That gives me power. And if you're not present with your feelings, you are avoiding that power, you're giving that power away to the email to the client, to the opposing counsel versus saying, wait a minute, let me just sit here for a second.

(20:47):
Let me just feel this for a second. Like, what's, what do I need? That's another great question to ask yourself in that moment. What do I need right now? Maybe you just need to breathe and just sit there, right? Don't go to social media, don't pick up your phone, don't check your email. Don't respond to the email right away. Don't get up and grab a snack. I want you to sit there with the feeling. I want it to be boring. I want you to sit there and describe it to yourself. Describe the pressure in your chest, the shallow breath, the shoulders slouched forward, right? The the, maybe you feel it in the pit of your stomach. I want you to describe it. 'cause Once you start having that ability to be conscious and present with an emotion that you don't like to feel, you become empowered.

(21:37):
You become more and more powerful. You are able to do things in your practice to grow it in a way that you would never have been able to do before. So then when it comes to getting an email, when you are, you know, feeling a little anxious, when you see just the headline, right, the subject line, you are in a position to say, okay, this is just where I feel shame. This is just where I feel anxiety. This is not a problem. Let's just open up the email. Let me read the email and let me breathe knowing that I might feel more anxious. I might feel more shame. That's okay. Let's just breathe and feel your way through it, okay? Be conscious through it. Don't check out, don't avoid, take control over this by just feeling the feeling. It is incredibly empowering when you learn this skill.

(22:34):
It is one that will make you more money in your practice. I doubted it for a long time and when I started feeling the shame that came up for me in my practice, I started making more money. It is crazy, but being conscious, being present with your emotions will help you work through the difficult parts of your practice and make more money. Just like sending off those old bills. If you've got old bills laying around and you feel some shame because you haven't sent them off, I want you to sit with the shame and then I want you to just sit with it, be conscious with it, and then start pulling out the bills one at a time and letting it be okay. Like yeah, this is just what shame feels like. Doesn't mean anything's gone wrong. And just calmly walk yourself through the process knowing that you've got this and being kind to yourself.

(23:26):
The whole process. Don't beat yourself up through it. Be kind to yourself. So this is, this is a practice that so many people avoid. I avoided it for a very long time because these feelings feel horrible. And so we want to avoid, we wanna numb out, we wanna go to social media, email, grab a snack, talk to somebody down the hall, go. You know, we wanna avoid. But the last thing we wanna do with these intense emotions is avoid them. We actually wanna sit with them. And here's what happens when you do you, they start to lose their power over you. You start to be the one with power because you can feel the feelings without letting them mean anything about you. You can feel shame and not believe you're a bad person or that you did anything wrong. You're just like, oh this is just the part where I feel some shame.

(24:21):
That's okay. Like I love you no matter what, but this is just the part where I feel shame. And this is something that nobody teaches us. So if you don't feel like, if you don't even feel connected with your feelings, I want you to know that's normal. I didn't feel connected with my feelings for a really long time. I actually work with a, a lot of my clients on reconnecting with these feelings because we've been trained to work through them. Like really like hustle and grind through them rather than acknowledge our feelings and start to really connect with ourselves and love ourselves more and love ourselves no matter how we're showing up. So this is a really big one. And if you're not doing, if you're avoiding your feelings, you are costing yourself money and you're costing yourself time in your business. So I just want you to know that if you're feeling resistance against this, that's okay.

(25:15):
I know that it's normal, but I want you to consider that this is a missing piece that is stunting your growth in your law practice. Alright? Problem number four, stunting the growth of your law practice is not thinking far enough ahead in your practice to catch problems before they become problems. So this is how you will know this is happening. You constantly think about work. You feel like you never have days off. You're constantly putting out fires. You're often rushing around from appointment to appointment. You work late on a regular basis because you have assignments due the next day. Even though you've known about those assignments for weeks, you're always worried about whether you're gonna get work completed in time. You use pressure and dread to get work done. You skip things you want for yourself like going to the gym more. You rely on a to-do list to get things done.

(26:12):
You don't use a calendar for anything but appointments and hearings. You might find yourself snapping at people because you're in a hurry and you think that they're wasting your time. You're sometimes late to appointments or you miss them altogether and you aren't marketing regularly or working on your business regularly. So here's what this is costing you. First of all, it's costing you relationships. Let's look at that because if you aren't thinking far enough ahead in your practice, there's a few things that could be happening. You could be not having communication with your spouse about planning and that's gonna cause some friction between the two of you. So having that communication, that open communication can happen when you start thinking ahead in your practice about what needs to happen, you can start communicating those things regularly to your partners. Additionally, when you are in a hurry at the office and you have employees, people notice it.

(27:12):
Like if you're snapping at them, they're gonna be more afraid to talk to you. They're gonna be more afraid to ask you questions or show you that they don't know what they're doing. They are not going to be as effective of an employee if you're snapping at them because you're not going to have the good communication that you need to have with them. So just notice that this could be costing you relationships. It also could be costing you money. Actually I know for a fact it's costing you money. I mean when I talk to my clients and we really start working through the numbers on this, the numbers don't lie. So when you're not thinking ahead in your practice about problems, you're not thinking about systems that are going to help you. If you're not investing the time into creating those systems, you're losing money.

(27:57):
I, I talked to two clients today. One of them we're thinking through systems in 2024 that she wants to implement. And she's already seeing like how she could get eight hours back in one area of her practice. She can actually get 16 hours a month back in her practice area and she's charging 3 25 an hour. So this time adds up. You're losing thousands of dollars if you're not addressing this. I have another client I was talking to and we were talking about how there's a system that he wanted to put into place and that system is gonna give him another eight hours back and he's charging 4 25 an hour. So just know that you could be leaving thousands of dollars on the table every single month. If you don't address these problems, it's also impacting your wellbeing. 'cause If you were constantly running around, you cannot be present.

(28:54):
If you are not thinking ahead in your practice about what needs to get done. You cannot be present when you are sitting on let's say a Monday morning and you are thinking about what needs to get done during the week and you really lay it out when you really like sit there and think, okay, I have two deadlines on Thursday. I have a deadline on Friday. What do I need to get done? And in what order? You get to plan ahead of time. You get to decide, oh wait a minute. So I need to make sure I contact that client now because if I don't contact that client today, I may not have the information I need to meet the filing deadline on Thursday. Oh, I better make sure I talk to my assistant later on today because I need to make sure that she's available on Wednesday to help me with the filing process.

(29:47):
But if you are not thinking through the problems of your practice before they become problems, you are looking for fires, you are looking for trouble. And when I see lawyers who are resistant to the calendar, I feel for him, I get it. But they are missing out on so much, right? Their wellbeing, their health, their business growth, the money that they could be bringing into their practice because they're not thinking ahead about where their time is being spent and where it is best spent. So here's the solution, right? You've gotta give up the fear that you're going to miss something. If you use a calendar, it's actually the opposite. If you use a calendar, you're not going to miss anything because it's all on the calendar when you learn how to use it properly. So you've gotta invest the upfront time to learn how to use a calendar properly.

(30:42):
I go through this all on the Busy Lawyer's guide. You can download it at dina cataldo.com/busy lawyer and it really walks you through step-by-step how you can do this. What I work through with my clients on time management is implementing that process. 'cause Having the knowledge of the process is one thing, but then making it a habit is a totally different ballgame. So if you are not implementing it, if you're saying, okay, well I'll try it this one week. Oh this one week it didn't work exactly the way I wanted it to. You're missing out on what needs to happen. And in the Busy Lawyer's Guide I walk you through how you need to think about your calendar and what you need to do after that first week to ensure that you keep improving your calendar processing. If you don't do this, you are going to miss out on the benefits.

(31:28):
And when my clients use it, they make thousands of dollars more. So if you wanna make more money in your practice, if you wanna grow it, this is the way to do it. I know, I know you might not want a calendar, but oh my gosh, I get more done in a week now than I got done in oh my god, like a month years ago, right? So just know you can do this. And then also I want you to give up your belief that calendars don't work for you. Because the to-do list what you're doing right now, if you resonate with anything that I just said under this problem, that's not working for you either, right? So what do you wanna do? Do you wanna try something new that is going to give you what you need so that you can think more clearly about your practice and start solving problems before they become problems?

(32:14):
Or do you wanna keep your current habits? You get to choose. I'm just giving you the options. Alright, so let's go to problem number five. All right? So what I see is that lawyers stunt the growth of their law practice when they don't take personal responsibility to lead their team. So if you have a team, I really want you to listen closely to this one. Come back to me here. So here's how you know this is happening in your firm. You don't believe you can delegate tasks, right? You don't thoroughly train your employees so that you can delegate to them. You tell yourself that you don't have the time to train you tell yourself they're not trainable or that good people are hard to find. You generally aren't creating time to work on your business. Instead of in your business, you ruminate on how your employee isn't doing what you want them to do.

(33:14):
Or you tell yourself they should know this by now. So you kind of give up on them. So this is what it's costing you. It's costing you your dream practice. You're leaving thousands of dollars on the table every single month doing tasks that you don't need to be doing, right? You're losing your peace of mind and you are really losing the value of an employee that can be trained and that can become a bigger asset in your firm. Okay? So here's the solution and this is how I look at it, right? Like you've gotta give up your belief that it just takes too much time to train. I hear this so often and then we just run the numbers. Okay? So this is what I want you to do. I want you to run the numbers because numbers don't lie. Look at the math exactly.

(34:07):
How much time is the pro problem costing you? Weekly, monthly, yearly. So I really want you to break down. So for instance, if you are if you have an assistant who need, who isn't taking calls the way that you want them to, right? Isn't necessarily following the program you want them to. How much time is that taking away from you? Is that person coming into your office on a regular basis? Are they interrupting you? How much time do you think that's costing you in a week with the interruptions, with having to find your place in the work that you were doing? Like just write it down and then multiply that by four for your month and then multiply that by 12. That's about how much it's costing you every single year. So if it's costing you two hours a week, that's eight hours a month, eight times 12, off the top of my head, I don't know, 80, 90 ish hours, right?

(35:11):
And then what is your billable rate? And multiply it by that number. That is how much it is costing you not to train the person time and money. So now let's look at what it will, what it will take for to think through the problem, come up with a solution to the problem, creating a system for them, and then training them on that system. Right? Really calculate it. What is it an hour? Is it two hours? Is it three hours? Maybe you tweak the system a little bit. Let's even add a couple hours. 'cause You need to retrain them after you've tweaked the system. That's five hours, six hours. That does not hold a candle to the 90 plus hours that you are losing in revenue and time. So give up the belief that it's gonna take too much time to train them. Just stop it <laugh>.

(35:59):
I dunno how else to say it. Just stop it, right? Start just implementing this, asking yourself these simple questions and then implementing this. 'cause You're gonna get back so much money, your revenue's gonna come back, come up. You're gonna be shocked at the impact that this has. This is probably the most valuable podcast you could be listening to right now because it is giving you the solutions to some of the problems stunting the growth in your law practice. You've also gotta give up the belief that they're not teachable. So one of the things that you know you might come across in this is that you've hired somebody who maybe doesn't have the learning abilities that you need. That could be possible. But what if you just gave up that belief and trained them anyway and just saw what was possible with them? Because you can always take personal responsibility for, okay, look at who I hired.

(36:59):
What was the hiring process? Why did I decide, decide to hire this person in the first place and then decide in the future not to hire people in that way again. But since they're in your office and you're not releasing them anytime soon or you haven't made that decision, why not just train them and see what happens? Give up the belief that they're not trainable and see what happens. So just know that this is something that you can change. And that takes being curious too. So get curious about your thought process that you want in your practice to be the system for whatever area of your practice it is. And then you wanna teach your employees how to think like you do. I was talking to a client, he has an intake process. He comes into the intake process and spends about 30 minutes, sometimes an hour on it.

(37:55):
And he doesn't necessarily want to spend all of that time on it, but the intake person doesn't do the intake process the way that he wants them to do it. Well, what we walked through was pulling apart what it is that he does specifically in his 30 minutes to an hour with that client that the intake person isn't doing. Oh, he's looking for certain words, he's looking for certain mannerisms, he's looking for different things that are going on in that person. He's totally present with the client. 100% there for them, them listening. And he hasn't taught that skill to the intake people. He's just said, well, they just don't know how to do it. Versus him really being present with what he's doing differently, how he's thinking about this intake process and what questions he's asking. And then having his intake person just sit in there with him and watch him and afterwards do a debrief, maybe like 15 minute, 10 minute debrief.

(39:04):
Like, Hey, do you see why I asked that question? Do you understand why I got that response? Do you know why I asked that question? So when that intake person comes up with the same things in their session, that person knows, oh, wait a minute, that is a flag for me to ask this question. That is a flag for me to make sure I ask this question. If we don't think about the process that we want our employees to walk through, they're not going to do it. We're not gonna train them to do it and they're not gonna do it. So we've gotta give up the belief that they're not trainable, that we do everything better than they do. We've gotta think about, oh, what is different about how I do things and how do I want them to do things differently? And then make it into a training for them.

(39:56):
Make it into a teaching area for them so that they become an expert too. And you no longer have to be there holding their hand every step of the way. Alright, so we went through a lot today. I want to briefly cover it one more time because these are gonna really boost your revenue. They're going to help give you more time when you implement them. I want you to save this podcast. Start it. I want you to go back. I want you to take notes. I want you to start implementing this. These can be some of your goals for 2024 too. So if you go back and you listen to last week's podcast, you can think about, okay, well what do I wanna do differently? Maybe some of these are some of your goals. So these are the five problems again. So number one, not knowing the value of your services.

(40:47):
Number two, putting everyone ahead of yourself. Number three, doubting your abilities. And number four, don't thinking, not thinking far enough ahead in your practice to catch problems before they become problems. And number five, not taking personal responsibility to lead your team. And if you are listening to this and you're thinking, wow, that's actually like a lot of stuff I have to do, I want you to know it can be so much simpler. You don't have to tackle all of these things all at once. You can just pick one because just one is going to change everything for you. And then when you get one, you hit number two. And when you hit number two, then you do number three. This doesn't have to be overwhelming. In fact, when I, I work with my clients, we don't tackle everything at once because that wouldn't be efficient, that wouldn't help them really think through their problems and make sustainable change.

(41:42):
We tackle what is most important to them right now. What is going to be the most impactful actions that they need to take in their practice so that they can calm the overwhelm and think about growth moving forward. So if this is something that interests you, if you want help with this, if you want somebody who's there for you, giving you support every step of the way, I encourage you to book a strategy session with me at dina cataldo.com/strategy session. What I create in my container is a nourishing environment. One where you can feel fully yourself mistakes and all shame and all, and know that it's okay, right? That you're in a place where we're just there to look at what's happening and to solve problems for your practice moving forward. Like this is a very safe environment where we're just looking at your practice like an open book and we're looking out what you want to change, right?

(42:42):
And we do it in a way that feels doable to you. We're not gonna flip your practice upside down. That would not be a practical use of your time. We wanna look at what is the most important tasks that need to be done first, okay? And for you, if you're feeling overwhelmed, we wanna calm the overwhelm. We wanna see where that overwhelm feels the most strong. And we wanna take that area and work on that area first. And what I'm also doing in my, in my one-on-one coaching now, is I really wanted to create an immersive program. One where you feel so nourished, so supported that you feel empowered to take on anything in your practice. So what I've done is, in addition to my six month one-on-one coaching with you, I'm doing monthly business coaching. So we're talking about everything from funnels to marketing in different ways, to really thinking about your opt-ins to everything that you could possibly imagine so that you feel more comfortable marketing your practice. And it's giving you that time every month to be working on your business. So whether or not you're able to do that any other time during the week, this is one hour during the week, you can work on your business. So in addition to all of that, goodness, I'm also deciding to create a challenge every month for my one-on-one clients to start bringing even more awareness to themselves because awareness is the key to change. And what I've noticed working with my clients over the years is that these little tiny awarenesses can make

(44:31):
Huge shifts. So I wanna fast track that change, I wanna fast track those shifts. And so that's why I'm offering these little challenges Every single month. They're gonna be bite-sized. And so if you are a one-on-one coach, I'm gonna be e or a one-on-one client, I'm gonna be emailing you about this at the beginning of November for our very first challenge. I'm really excited to share this with you. So if you want this kind of support, you want this kind of help growing your practice in a way that feels good and not stressful, book a strategy session with me. Go to dina cataldo.com/strategy session and we will talk about your next steps. Alright, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and I'll talk to.