The First Step to Success
Joining Client Care Academy and establishing a customized, profitable, and sustainable ongoing client care program is more than just drafting a plan for new estate planning processes and client care. The impact of the concepts and approaches we teach goes much deeper. You will be strategically maneuvering your practice, team, and mindset to chart a new course. The benefits are far reaching and enable you to truly take care of clients and their families and empower your team to new success and growth. All this change is exciting and seeing it through will push you to grow as a steadfast leader. With that thought in mind, we wanted to share a leadership lesson from John Maxwell on the first step to success: initiation.
On March 6, 2019, John Maxwell aired an episode of his leadership podcast titled, How to Start Successfully (Part 1), on your next drive, give it a listen (link opens in Spotify). John Maxwell is a New York Times bestselling author, coach for Fortune 500 companies, and was named the #1 leadership expert in the world in 2014 by Inc. Magazine. Podcasts have gained a ton of popularity over the past few years, and if you haven’t hopped onto the podcast train you might want to consider it.
In this particular podcast episode, Maxwell dives into the value of initiating and what that means: it separates the doers and winners. While we are not going to summarize the entire episode, because we want to encourage you to listen to it and part two, we do want to touch on Maxwell’s first point: when initiating, you first start with yourself.
Two of the reasons why you should start with yourself are because it gives you experience and influence and to give something to others.
Starting with yourself to gain more experience and influence, as Maxwell puts it, is like being a leader who is either a travel agent or a tour guide. Travel agents send people to places they’ve never been themselves, while tour guides take you where they’ve been and immerse you. You need to start with yourself, so you can experience how you’re trying to lead, “if you wouldn’t follow yourself, why should anybody else?” The experience you gain from starting with yourself, then enables you to influence others, just like tour guides are better able to make you fall in love with a place or idea because they know what they’re showing you inside and out and can tell you the charm you might have missed. Or in this case, better able to make your team passionate about starting an ongoing client care program and your clients excited to sign on.
Another reason you need to start with yourself is so you can give to others. You can’t help others if you can’t help yourself first. The example Maxwell gives is on a plane you’re told if something bad happens and you need your oxygen mask, first you need to put the mask on yourself before you help kids, elderly, or others. If you can’t breathe, what good are you going to be in trying to help others? If you don’t have a clear vision or understanding of the importance of an ongoing client care program, how will you be able to motivate your team to make this change or convince your clients to sign on?
In order to be a steadfast leader who will usher in the practice altering changes CCA teaches that will help you become the lawyer you’ve always wanted to be, generate consistent, predictable, and recurring revenue, increase profits, empower your team, and take care of families when it really matters, you first need to start with yourself. Starting this journey will be one you won’t regret, and you will see immense growth in yourself, your team, and your practice, but first you need to start with yourself. You need to shift your mindset when it comes to estate planning, it is more than likely most of your team will be ready to jump on board when you mention re-envisioning your systems, so start by opening your mind to a new way of estate planning that is relationship oriented.
Start examining where you want to grow as a leader and where you want to see growth in your firm. Begin changing your view of your team, they are no longer your staff when you begin CCA, instead they are essential to success. Remember, “if you wouldn’t follow yourself, then why should anybody else”, so open the doors for others to also be leaders. Working on these mindset changes within yourself will then enable you to help your team navigate the new changes CCA will bring, because together as a team you will be achieving new levels of success and profitability, while being assured you are taking care of families.
We leave you with this last quote from Maxwell, “the bookends of success are starting and finishing”. Start shifting your mindset today, so CCA can help you finish successfully with an ongoing client care program that will take care of families and boost your profits.
To learn more about Client Care Academy, our fall workshops, and offerings for newcomers and alum, email our Program Coordinator, Megan Davitt, today!
The John Maxwell Leadership PodcastLinks: