A lawyer canceled her membership at Rosen Institute the other day. She was one of the first to cancel, so I e-mailed her to check in and see whether we’d disappointed her in some way.

At Rosen Institute, our goal is to continue refining the membership site so that it’s delivering a great deal of value at a very affordable price. Thus, I’m monitoring things very carefully as we continue to grow, expand, and refine the resources on the site.

The lawyer e-mailed me back promptly. She’s happy with the live calls, recorded programs, forums, and resources. She’s satisfied, but her practice is growing so fast that she doesn’t have time to keep up.

If I have to lose a member, then that’s a pretty good reason, I suppose. The program is all about growing your practice, so I like it when I’m hearing about growth peaking, revenue soaring, and clients keeping you busy.

But then I started thinking about it and found a way (I’m good at this) to turn her good news into bad news.

When Busyness Is a Bad Sign

She should be growing. She should be seeing strong revenue and a healthy profit. That’s good.

But she shouldn’t be so busy that she doesn’t have time to keep learning. That’s not good.

I suspect that she’s growing fast, struggling to keep up, and getting buried in the work. Again, that’s not good.

We all need to keep the revenue flowing. We all need to be taking profit from the business, and we need to see positive reports on our leading indicators.

But we can’t afford to be so busy that we’re on overload.

Overload is a bad sign.

Overload means we’re not managing the people, the systems, the technology, or the finances. Overload means something is wrong.

Figuring Out What’s Wrong

What’s wrong with her practice?

I don’t know.

I’d guess, based on my consulting experience, that she’s got a pricing problem. That’s very often the case. I find lots of lawyers charging too little, taking on too much, and getting slammed with the work. That’s a formula for going backward, not forward.

Maybe it’s not pricing. Maybe she’s having trouble with management. Maybe she’s struggling to find good people, get them on track, or retain them. Maybe she’s having trouble with training or supervision. Management is a challenge.

Maybe it’s not management. Maybe she’s having trouble with technology. Maybe she’s doing things the hard way and is still cutting and pasting, using her e-mail as a practice management system, and struggling to keep up with storing and locating her documents. It could be a technology problem.

It’s tough to know why she’s on overload, but it’s easy to identify overload as a problem. It’s not a good sign. Being too busy is a warning sign.

How to Respond to the Busyness Warning Sign

My bet is that she’s getting into a boom/bust cycle. She’s likely to cut back on the things that matter, like marketing and learning, and end up with insufficient profit before long. My bet is that she’s responding to the overload by cutting the important stuff rather than by fixing the systems, processes, and people that can be fixed.

There are times where you should stop learning and start doing. Taking action is important if you’re stuck and not making progress. But if you’re taking action, making money, seeing success, and heading in the right direction, then you need to keep doing what you’re doing. You need to stick with what’s helping, and learning is almost always part of that mix.

It’s self-serving, of course, for me to suggest that this particular lawyer and Institute member should keep learning and continue her Rosen Institute membership. But it also happens to be true. The investment you make in yourself is the most important investment. It’s that investment that allows you to continue to move your business in the right direction.