A wonderful lawyer e-mailed me:

The problem I have with frequent client communication is trying to manage that time commitment along with the 100 e-mails I receive each day, many of which result in tasks that have to be captured somehow and somewhere (I use Outlook tasks, although not very successfully), profiling every e-mail into our document management system, managing the high load of discovery in family law cases, and entering my time into our billing software. This minutiae is on top of a practice area that moves very quickly. My previous litigation practice was nothing like family law in terms of immediate demands on my time. Clients come in and invariably they want a petition filed immediately, or there is an emergency temporary custody order or restraining order that truly needs to be filed immediately. I try to manage client expectations, but the nature of the practice is that our clients do have serious issues that often demand immediate attention, regardless of whether we’re in the middle of preparing for trial or doing something else that requires focus, and I want to give them that attention.

I don’t know how to manage it all, and I’m overwhelmed. Adding staff to assist with some of these tasks is not an option at this time, and even if it were, I’ve taken to heart your blog post about when to hire an assistant. I already have one, but I share her with another family law attorney and one of my estate planning partners. Family law and estate planning practices require my assistant to spend a good deal of time on the phone with the clients and attend signings, so she is already overworked. This situation is causing me to think I won’t be able to sustain my family law practice for years to come.

This e-mail isn’t unusual. They come each day.

Is It a Problem of Time?

My e-mailing friend thinks she has a time problem. It feels like overwhelm. It’s that “waking up in the middle of the night to add to your task list” feeling. Even when you’re sleeping, you’re dreaming of what you’ve forgotten to get done. It’s flashbacks to forgetting to study for the college exam. It’s sweating through your Mickey Mouse pajamas.

If it’s a time problem, then it can be solved—easily. The solution to the time problem is systems, technology, and more people. You can hire folks to help you build systems. Then you mix in a batch of tech. You add cool gizmos and gadgets that free you up. You bring on associates, paralegals, and managers to get things under control. The time problem is the easiest problem to solve. We can buy more time (contrary to popular opinion).

But it’s not a time problem.

Is It a Problem of Price?

Once we see the solution to the time problem, we discover a new problem. We’ve got to pay for that time. How can we pay for it out of existing revenue? We can’t. We need more money to trade for time. We need to increase revenue.

How do we increase revenue? We raise the price, obviously. She could double the price and see what happens.

If she doubles the price, then either:

1. Half the work will disappear, or
2. Her revenue will double (or something in between, but let’s keep this simple).

The good news is that by doubling the price, the revenue would stay at its current level even if half the clients went away. She’d be half as busy and have the same money. Then she won’t be overwhelmed unless the same number of clients keeps coming at the higher price. If that happens (which is a good thing), she could turn away the work or add staff to handle the business. Either way, she’s way ahead.

Simple, right? She can raise the price and solve the time problem. She’ll be better off. Raising the price is a win.

But she “can’t” raise the price. She can’t do it because her clients “can’t afford it,” “wouldn’t hire her,” “would do it themselves,” or whatever other story she’s got for why the price increase would kill her business. Maybe she’s right. Maybe raising the price wouldn’t run off half of the clients. Maybe raising the price would run off all the clients.

But running off her clients with a price hike will only happen if she’s not attracting clients willing to pay what she’s charging. We’re all willing to pay what it costs when we value the thing we’re buying. “Money is no object” when it really matters. The question is, “Do her clients sufficiently value what she offers?” If they do, then the price increase isn’t a problem. If they don’t, then we’ve got a problem.

But it’s not a price problem.

Is It a Problem of Marketing?

If she can’t raise the price without losing her clients and the resulting revenue, then it’s a marketing problem. She hasn’t positioned herself in the market in such a way that encourages the right clients to pay a price that allows her to get the work done without overwhelm. She isn’t creating sufficient value in the minds of her prospective clients.

The marketing problem can, just like the time problem and the price problem, be solved. In fact, solving a marketing problem is pretty straightforward and manageable.

She needs to do a better job of defining her message and disseminating it in her community. She needs to clarify her story and her client’s story and then refine the tactics she uses to communicate those stories. She needs to take bold steps to connect with others and make sure they understand that she understands her client’s needs and how to help. She needs to tell stories that people want to tell others. Marketing is the ticket. She needs to change the way the world sees her and thinks of her.

Marketing isn’t rocket science. It’s about identifying an audience, figuring out what they need and how they need it, and then putting yourself in the perfect position to be the solution to their problem. Every business does it, and there are vendors galore to help us execute on our ideas and plans. She knows her clients and can tell their story. She’s got a compelling story of her own. She’s driven, passionate, and talented. She’s the answer they need when their life fills with questions. She just needs to get the word out.

She’s read about marketing. She’s thought about marketing. She knows other lawyers who are good at marketing. She knows she should be enhancing her reputation, growing her professional network, building out her website, and getting “out there” more. She gets it. But she doesn’t do it. Instead, she experiences the overwhelm. She gets bogged down in the minutiae. She sees it and yet she feels such a level of overwhelm that she can’t get herself out of the cycle of busyness.

Here’s where we stand:

1. She’s on overload and can’t dig out.
2. She has no time and not enough help.
3. Raising her prices would solve the problem because she’d have fewer clients and funds for more help.
4. But she can’t raise the prices because her clients would abandon her (she thinks).
5. So she needs to better market her practice so she’ll have clients who’ll pay what she’s worth.
6. But…

And that’s when we discover that it’s not a marketing problem.

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What Is the Real Problem?

She knows how to market her practice. She knows what to do. Yet she’s not doing it. Yes, she’ll explain her inaction well. She has great reasons for doing what she’s doing and why she’s doing it. She can explain the priorities that prevent her from taking the time to do the marketing that creates the value that allows her to increase the price, enabling her to buy the time. However, she’s afraid that she can’t find the time to do what she knows needs doing.

Suddenly, we’re right back where we started, and it’s about the lack of time. We talk ourselves around and around in this circle of time, price, and marketing, and then we stay right where we’re stuck. We fear that it’ll stay this way forever and that we won’t be able to sustain our practice.

And that’s when we discover the real problem.

The real problem is about her fear. There’s a reason she’s not doing the things she knows she needs to do. It’s not a lack of education. She knows what to do. It’s not a lack of skill and talent. She’s getting the job done. It’s not a lack of motivation. She’s working really hard.

Her problem is fear.

It’s like being afraid of heights. She’s got everything it takes to stand at the edge. But she can’t. The edge scares her. She can force herself over there for a moment, but she can’t stay.

There’s something like that going on here. She’s probably not seeing it: she’s too busy. She’s feeling it though. She can tell there’s something standing between her and doing what she knows can be done. She’s seeing others do it. She has friends and colleagues who are pulling it off, and she’s wondering why this feels harder for her than for some of her peers. She’s not someone who’s normally afraid of anything, so she doesn’t expect to find fear underneath her struggle.

But it’s there. The fear is right beneath the surface. It’s floating just underneath the surface and preventing her from doing the things that need doing.

• Maybe she’s afraid of commitment. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t narrow her focus to the work that needs doing.
• Maybe she’s afraid of embarrassment. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t say the things that matter.
• Maybe she’s afraid of rejection. Maybe that’s why she’s not building her network.
• Maybe she’s afraid of success. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t take the risk she knows would pay off.

It’s challenging to imagine her fears, because we’re all so creative that we find new things to fear all the time.

We’ll never understand her fear. Only she can know what’s really going on in there. We feel something that’s not real so it’s hard to share. It’s just floating around in our heads. We feel it, or we avoid doing the thing that makes us feel it.

Over and over, I come to the realization that, for us anyway, the first step is seeing the fear. We’re good at using our logical brains to push ourselves to compensate for our emotional reactions. Once we identify fear—once we step away from our elaborate rationalizations about why we’re right to avoid the thing that scares us—we begin to overcome it.

Once she knows that it’s fear, not time, not price, and not marketing, then she’s on the path to solving the problem. Once she identifies the fear, she’ll start to discover her own personal path to resolving the issues she’s struggling with. I harp on fear here because it’s everywhere, and it’s keeping us from getting what we want. Figure it out, and everything else works out. Start with the fear, and take the shortcut to figuring out how to sustain your practice for years to come.