Tara (00:51):
Hello, thank you so much for tuning in. It's Tara, your host here, and today I wanted to talk about a non-technical topic, but it is related to running a business, a small business and a law firm.
(01:09):
And my tennis lesson this morning was cancelled, so I had a bit of time, extra time that I don't normally have and something on my mind. So I thought, why don't I just sit down and record an episode about this? So what I want to talk about today is how I managed to get everything done in my sole director firm that turns over around a million dollars a year working. So maybe this will be of interest to you. If you are just here for the technical information, then I completely give you permission to switch to another podcast or music right now. But if you do like a little bit of waffling, a little bit of business talk, then welcome. I hope you enjoy this. And I do really want to acknowledge that what I'm saying today is unique to the way that my particular brain works.
(02:06):
You might hate a lot of the things that I do or suggestions, and I'm certainly not telling anyone how to live their life, but I did just want to sort of put some ideas out there. I have learned from different people, different books I've read, and just my sort of experience nearly 20 years in the law where I have sort of come up with some ways to do things and I just wanted to share it. Maybe it'll serve you today, maybe it's not at all relevant, but I think the more we talk about this, the more opportunity there is to learn from each other. So I don't want to gatekeep on anything, and maybe you will get something out of today. So this is coming to you from someone who was a complete workaholic. I'm now reformed, but when I was working in the law firms, whether I was an employee or a firm that I was a founder of, I was just working 14 hour days eating meals at my desk.
(03:14):
I really had no time for hobbies. I had one hobby, which was yoga and Pilates, and that was all I could sort of fit in. And then, yeah, work consumed everything. And I was reflecting recently because I recently turned 40 and also it's a new year, and I was just reflecting on how lucky I feel to have this lifestyle now and how amazed it blows my mind that I managed to sort of turn things around so radically. So I run the Art of Estate planning if you want a refresher on exactly the business of the art of Estate planning. It is a law firm but not a traditional law firm by any means. Episode 54 is where I explain that. But yeah, so I run the Art of Estate planning, which wholly supports our family at the moment. My husband's been doing his PhD and I have had two children pretty much throughout the whole life of the art of estate planning.
(04:14):
I think I had six months when I first started it, and then I fell pregnant with my first son. So I've basically been raising, been pregnant or postpartum throughout the entire journey. I pretty much work 20 to 25 hours per week. It's mostly low stress and how on earth did I get here because I just feel so lucky. I've got so much space and abundance and obviously I have to give a huge thank you to everyone listening and all of our incredible customers because your support of the Art of Estate planning has created this for me, and I would be nothing without all of you supporting me. So thank you. But yeah, now I only work 20 to 25 hours a week. I don't work every week. I also have a chronic illness that does mean and two kids who are constantly sick and all of the time that I need to be up at the school and everything.
(05:13):
So I do have a lot of external demands on my time or weeks or days where I'm not able to show up with my full energy due to health issues or health issues with my family and family and school commitments. But I also have a lot of space this year, 2026, I'm dubbing the year of hobbies because I've been doing tennis for nearly a year, weekly tennis lessons and then also fixtures. I do yoga. I have recently got back into wakeboarding and water skiing. I'm picking up the piano again and my sewing. So I'm just realising now that littlest is almost three, that I've got a lot of extra space in my life and I love my work, but I also have a really nice balance, and I think part of that is because the art of estate planning has been going for nearly eight years now.
(06:17):
Yeah, I think that's right, and I have been doing things over those eight years that I'm able to now capitalise on and get the return of. So yeah, I guess I wanted to talk about them, and I've got a little list here, and I know that the auto estate planning business is different to a traditional law firm. The art of estate planning is really built on automation, recurring revenue, leveraging intellectual property, and it is harder in a estate planning firm where you do have to repeat the same work over and over for clients. But I still have some lessons on how I think I would implement those same principles if I were to open up a client facing law firm again tomorrow. But I wanted to sort of just say, I think there's about four main principles that underlie the actions that I want to talk about today.
(07:14):
So the first one is I really try to prioritise and invest in me spending time on work that I can leverage and get a lot of mileage out of. So rather than one off repetitive work, of course that's always there, but when I look at what are my priorities for the day or my goals for a quarter, I will look at, well, what can I get a lot of mileage out of? And I spend the time now, but this just keeps on giving back and back to the firm and me and the clients. The second principle is that I really try not to make the same mistake twice or fix the same issue more than once. So I have everything that I possibly can automate it and systemized if I need to change it or it's not right. Then we update the underlying system and fix it so that the next time it's not going to be broken and need that manual change again.
(08:15):
I think that's incredible for obviously time efficiency, but also your team and supporting them and minimising risk and errors. I also try to focus on getting the most important things done first. Now, I am not the best at this. I love procrastinating with a little job and cleaning out. I try to do the zero inbox. I love cleaning out all the emails and things I can deal with quickly, but I do also focus on getting my big things done. So you might've seen a video of this. I think it came from a TED Talk. It's probably in a book too. I don't really remember the original source, but if you imagine that there's a teacher in a classroom and they're talking to the students about, they've got a big pile of rocks, a jar of sand and some water, and they're saying, how are we going to get all of these rocks, sand and water into this clear glass vase and basically showing them that if you put the sand in and the little rocks and debris and the water in, then there's actually no space for the big rocks.
(09:30):
But if you put the big rocks in first into that glass bars, then you can tip in the sand on top of the big rocks and it will filter down through the gaps and spaces to fill in all the way from the bottom up to the top to fit in that sand. And then once you tip the water in last, it will also filter down and trickle through. So if you put the order in right, fit all of that into that vase, but if you did it with the small and wet stuff first, and then there's just no room for the rock. So I think the same comes in terms of managing the way we approach things. If you get your big priorities done, you will make big progress. And then the little things are either reveal themselves to not be important or you find a way to get them done anyway, and you get everything done.
(10:24):
And if you get into the habit of doing your big important things and making sure they get done, it helps you to dream big, then you can have those big, hairy audacious goals and actually know that you have what it takes to get them done, and you can just keep dreaming bigger and bigger. That also, I think, ties into this one thing at a time, which I really believe in terms of, and this is my nature, and again, I know not everyone's brain works like this, but I love finishing things. I love ticking it off and actually getting things done. I feel very unsettled if I have too many unfinished projects at once. So for me, what has really worked is just committing to whatever's achievable, but one or two big projects at a time, and that is all I'm going to focus on until they're done so that they actually get done and then I move on to the next thing.
(11:27):
So those are sort of the principles that I try to follow, and I've got a list of actual actions or things that represent that which you might be interested in thinking about following some or some of them might resonate with you. And again, this is a bit of a different episode. I'm really just here for a bit of a waffle and a chat. I hope you get something out of it. There's so many ways to run a business and live your life, so you, but I do feel like just sharing this and talking about it helps us all think a little bit differently. We are the only people who can change something that's not working for us. No one is going to call you up and go, Hey, I give you permission to only meet with clients two days a week. You are the one who has to make the change to get the outcome that you want.
(12:19):
So it is always good to just take a step back, look at what's working, what's not working, are there some ideas that you could adopt? So one thing that I want to work through is the idea of batching everything ahead. So I love batching. I have been spending the first two weeks when it's quiet in January with my team setting up all of our social media and events for the year ahead. So we have a number of events every second Thursday of the month, we have a live webinar in the Art of Estate Planning Facebook group. We call it the Power Hour, where we have a live webinar on an estate planning related topic. So that's 11 a year. We don't do one in January on holidays, but we do 11 of those a year. And I get a lot of guest speakers. I present some myself, so my assistant Kat and I have been setting those all up for the year ahead so that we just focus on it in January and in February, and then it all just flows.
(13:28):
Kat still has to confirm the presenters and remind them that they've committed to doing it and that type of thing, and I jump on stories and talk about it, but it's all set up. I'm never left scrambling at the start of the month going, oh, what are we going to talk about this month? It is all lined up. Same with the TT Precedents Club. Three times a year we have a special interest 90 minute webinar where we dive into a special interest topic, whether it's ethics, so everyone gets their ethics CBD point or a particular, like this year, we're doing an ethics presentation in March, and then in August I am speaking on family law protection of trusts and testamentary trusts. So that's all set up for the year. I know when it's locked in, I've looked at the dates and the school holidays and made sure there's no clashes and the date is already booked in.
(14:23):
Someone actually asked me when I set up the event in our Facebook group, oh, is this a date error because it's so far in advance, and I'm like, Nope, we're just that organised. So I love that. I just give it all my attention and then I don't have to worry and get caught out. The same with our social media, my entire social media posts for the year ahead are already scheduled in our software. So I don't usually wake up feeling inspired to create a social media post. I actually rarely do. So I have just got it planned out, and that means we can also think about what we're doing over the year in June. We always have an end financial year push of resources because that's a great time to invest in resources and get that deduction. So our posts around June and the end of May in alignment with that, talking about the same things that we are promoting in our emails and our end of financial year campaigns.
(15:30):
So I just try and do one thing at a time, get it all done, and then that helps me get the little, because the little things right, A social media post every day is a low little thing. It's not going to get done if I don't batch it, but it means I don't have to really think about it every day and I can focus on my big important rocks and projects. So if I was in a law firm, how would I apply this? I would think about, again, yeah, my social media and batching that and doing a month or two months in advance. I have it down here on the list, but I'll talk about the automatic marketing machine, but I repeat my social media posts if I might post the same post two or three times a year because you get new followers in all the time.
(16:20):
Not everyone even sees your posts and new people are constantly coming in. So if I'm like, that's a really helpful post with my audience. I might post it in February and then again in July and then in November, and no one remembers that you've posted it again or they just scroll past it. But if someone new needs to see it, then they get to see it. You don't have to create new posts all of the time. And then what ends up happening is when I am inspired or motivated by something that I do create a post. So rather than just feeling overwhelmed or stressed by getting a social media post, it's under control. So I would be doing that in my firm. I would also be looking at newsletters. I love law firms sending out newsletters and just keeping that connection and being front of mind with their clients.
(17:13):
I personally do not like writing. I much prefer to speak. So I find the newsletters challenging, but batching your newsletter, writing three months at a time and just blocking out an afternoon or a six months or something so that the bones of it and the ubstance is there and then each month you can just check over it and go, well, what's been happening? That's timely, adding in a little extra personal anecdote or something, but it's done. It's ready, and it happens. Also, if I was running a firm where I had in-person marketing events, I would be thinking about when are we running those and trying to batch all of that, getting all the bookings done, all the marketing promo done, the catering orders, whatever it is, and batching all of that too. So I love batching. I think it's such a good idea and it helps you get the big things or the little things taken care of so you can free up your space to focus on the big things.
(18:13):
Obviously. The next thing I need to talk about is the support that I have from my team. So I have two assistants, Kat and Khate. Now, they're not in Australia, Kat is in Dubai, and Khate is actually in Taiwan, and they jump on and help me out throughout the day at different times, and they're both absolutely incredible. I also have a number of contractors who come in for special purpose marketing things. Shout out to Daniel who's editing and mixes the podcast and all of those people. I don't do a lot of the work. I have an incredible team who I get them to work in their genius zone. So none of this would happen without my amazing team. Also, a huge shout out to carry Pain. If you've been a listener from the very beginning, you'll know that Carrie and I started this podcast together, and Carrie really ran things while I was on maternity leave with my second son.
(19:17):
So that was unbelievable support. I really dunno what I would've done without her because she just took charge of the hot seats and the emails, customer inquiries, all of that, and really was a tremendous support to me while I was recuperating and spending time with my son. So yeah, huge shout out to Carry for doing that stint a little while back because I will be forever indebted to her. So yeah, I think just look at where do you need support? Where can you get a team member? The reality is a lot of my team are much, much better at their roles than I could ever, ever be. I can't edit a podcast. I'm terrible at Canva. I am not very good at Excel, like I'm not great at building automations and the tech side. So all of that, I'm far better getting somebody who that is their genius zone then me being spread really thin, trying to do things that I'm not cut out to do.
(20:24):
My job is knowing the law and knowing how to turn my intellectual property into a resource that other lawyers can leverage and setting it out in a way that manages their risk and my risk and sets up other lawyers for success. So my job is not to learn how to do Facebook ads or how to work on my website. So I'm really all about bringing in the right team members, and I think time tied in with that is I spend money to make money. Now, this has obviously evolved when I was only making $50,000 a year with my side gig startup. I had to be more careful about this, but we turn over a million dollars now, and a huge key to getting to that level has been spending money to make money. I have an incredible marketing agency who create a lot of my social ads and engagement.
(21:29):
They run the Facebook ads. Working with them has helped us really get our message out to a larger audience and created a lot of financial growth. Also, the reality is, without them, I just wouldn't be doing Facebook ads and I wouldn't be creating anywhere near as much as the content on our retainer. They email me and say, Tara, I want you to make a video about this product of yours or this resource of yours, and I think it should say something like this. I recently turned our podcast episode about Ferb and how it applies to testament. She trusts into a blog post. Well, actually when I say I did it, I didn't even do it. I have an incredible lady who is a copywriter who turned my podcast episode. She wrote the first draught from the podcast episode that I created. So that was all me coming up with the podcast episode and speaking it.
(22:33):
But then she created that from the transcript into a blog post because I do not enjoy writing. So she wrote it, but it was based off my words, my spoken words, and put it on the website and designed it all, and then my marketing agency went, great. Now you've got this written blog post as well. Why don't you do a video about it that we can turn into an ad and they told me to do it, but for them sending me a task to say, you need to record a video on this. Here's the first draught of the script. Customise it however you like. The video should be this long. I wouldn't have done it, but they told me to do it. It was on my list. Now I've done it. They've taken care of everything. They're editing the video, they're putting in the captions and the headings, they're writing up the ad.
(23:24):
None of that would get done. But now I've got an asset, which is whenever I see in a Facebook group, like a lawyer's Facebook group asking about Ferb or the TT Precedents Club, I've got these assets, I've got it in a podcast, I've got it in a blog post. And importantly, I think a lot of lawyers don't know about the impact of ferb on estate planning. So now we're getting the message out there through ads and reaching a greater audience. So I am a huge advocate for pay experts to work in their genius zone, and that will then free you up to do so much more. Because if I was to sit there and try and think of it and do it all myself, I wouldn't be able to do it. So I think it's so important to work with specialists and spend money to make money.
(24:17):
Same with this podcast episode. If I had edited it, it would probably be unlistenable and it would take me so long that I would only be able to release one episode a month instead of one a week. So Carrie and I actually spoke more about this in terms of all the things we delegate maybe a year ago when we first started episode 29. So if you need a little push in that direction, go back and listen to episode 29. Another thing that I am a staunch advocate for that changed my life is the book, the 12 week year. And I think I first started that either when I was pregnant with my first son or maybe postpartum with him, and there's a little book that you can buy or I think they even have a blog. You don't necessarily need the book because the premise is pretty simple, but go check out, see what resonates with you.
(25:17):
But the idea of it is instead of setting annual goals, you set goals every 12 weeks. So you have a shorter time to get things done. You actually set fewer goals, but you must be able to get them done in the 12 weeks and then you take a week or two or however long you want to actually keep yourself accountable and celebrate that you achieved the goal. So that has been remarkable for me in terms of getting huge things done. And the particular benefit has been while I am in a 12 week block, I do not work on anything else except the goals that I committed to myself at the start of the 12 weeks. So if a new project comes along, someone reaches out to me and they go, Hey, we've got this exciting new collaboration we want you to be part of. I go, I'm in the middle of a 12 week block.
(26:16):
That sounds great, but I cannot give it any attention until I have finished my 12 weeks and then I will look at whether this should be one of my goals for the next 12 weeks. And it really helps minimise that distraction and taking on too much and being spread too thin and never finishing anything. If you don't finish it in the 12 weeks, it is incredibly stark and you know that haven't met your goal. And you can then decide, well, sure, am I going to do what needs to happen to get this done and work longer and make changes to make sure it can happen? Or what other way am I going to hold myself accountable? So the amount of things that I've been able to do whilst on maternity leave, whilst having a newborn, whilst only being able to work a few hours a week has been mind blowing.
(27:11):
I've exceeded even my expectations for myself, which are always very high, and I really can't emphasise enough how important it is. Now if you are on the tools seeing clients all the time, maybe that can't change, but you might have one goal that you are working on as an extra project outside of client work that you have for your 12 weeks, or you might have a few. I'm not really client facing it on the tools, so I have a lot more space in my day. So I have about six big goals that I'm going to get done in this 12 week block. So it just depends. But what it does is just keeps you true to the projects you have committed on. So I won't keep labouring that, but read the book if you think that would resonate with you. Another thing I do, which is tied into how do I select the goals for my 12 week year is I really prioritise investing my time on projects that are related to processes and systems that I can get a lot of mileage from.
(28:23):
So not one-off things, things that I will keep reaping the benefits of. So for instance, this podcast, it's tremendously helpful because I now have an episode on so many topics that come up and I find throughout the week all the time when I'm chatting with people or seeing questions in our group, people are asking a question. I've got a podcast episode on that, and we're also now turning it into a blog post. So I can say, Hey, here's the resource that I've got on that lives forever. I do have to of keep them fresh and up to date, but it's always there and it's a one to many solution. I'm not there sort of voice memoing or typing out what the answer is. The answer lives there in a resource that everyone can access over time on and on The same is teaching people about testamentary trusts and the same questions coming up in the TT precedents club.
(29:20):
Well, I made the essential guide to testamentary trust for Australian lawyers that online course. So it is there now as an ongoing resource documenting all of the information that lawyers need to confidently prepare testamentary trust and know the theory and the legal principles behind the precedents and the trust so that it was well worth spending my time on because I've created it now. It lives there forever and so many people can come and access it when it chooses. And I've moved on to the next project that I can work on. I'm going to create a new precedent on a different estate planning resource that again, keeps on giving back. Not only does it give back to our customers and our audience as a resource they can keep using, they don't care what I'm doing. I might be in Melbourne at the Australian Open I was two weeks ago.
(30:17):
They can access it whenever they need it, but also it's an asset that keeps making money for my business as well because people can come and buy it whenever they like, and it's not dependent on me exercising my personal exertion. So those are the things when I'm looking at, okay, is this a one-off that I'm just going to do once and then I'm never going to be able to use it or benefit anyone with it again, or is this actually worth my time? Because people will get the benefit over and over. So if I was in a law firm, the kinds of things I would think about there are where am I repeating myself? So if for instance, I am explaining testamentary trust in every single meeting I ever do, I would create a nice video explaining testamentary trust that I send to my clients in their intake process with the draught documents.
(31:14):
I'd put it on my website, I'd put it on my socials, I'd put it on my blogs so that when people are interacting with my firm, they've heard me explain testamentary trust. Now I still might have to do the explanation, but I'm not doing it for the very first time. It's all quicker. And maybe that conversation about testamentary trust actually moves towards the client asking insightful questions about how it works for their personal circumstances rather than them sitting there with eyes the size of dinner plates, hearing about them for the first time. I would also be writing a lot of blog posts. If you are the kind of estate planning lawyer who gets work from community Facebook groups or is active in those and you feel like you are answering the same questions over and over, especially around things like who can recommend or who's done an online DIY wheel, or why would I go see a lawyer or I need to go get a will and reminding them they need a power of attorney and super nominations, I'd make blog posts or videos about those or probably both.
(32:20):
Put it on YouTube and on your blog and then you just go, Hey, I wrote a blog post on this and put the link in and you're not repeating yourself, typing out the same message over and over. The same with automating my client intake process. I'd have a beautiful PDF flyer about what happens in the client engagement and the workflow, like the expectations of you send me the material, I'll send you the price, then we'll have a meeting. That meeting will go for this long. Then you'll get your draughts within two weeks. Then we'll have another meeting so they know what to expect. I'd have that in my onboarding new client or prospective client process, I would have flyers explaining key concepts. So if you use the art of estate planning precedents, you know that we already have a lot of those flyers that are white labelled that you can brand.
(33:15):
But rather than that having to go into a letter, I would have it as a beautiful flyer that's interesting for clients to read. I would make sure all of my precedents are up to date if there's things that I find myself changing every time, I would fix it in the core precedent so that we are not replicating that or overlooking at each time and my staff and team members aren't making the same mistake. So I'd be taking that same approach and looking at what are we handling all the time that we can automate even like a welcome video as a new onboarding matter. Here's what you can expect. You'll get a questionnaire with all your core information, then it will take this long for me to look at it, then we'll give you a call, whatever it is, you can automate all of that. So to elevate the client experience, eliminate questions, eliminate confusion, and try to get the core information communicated as simply as possible so that you've got time for bespoke conversation with your clients.
(34:24):
The next thing that I do is I work really hard to protect my energy. So I'm getting old now. I remember how much energy I had when I was in my early twenties. I was like the Energizer bunny, actually, young people probably don't even know that reference, but I had a lot of energy and enthusiasm and I just don't have that anymore. Being old, obviously I'm not that old and growing old is a huge privilege, but I have a chronic illness. I have kids. I don't think slept a full night sleep in six years. So yeah, I don't have the energy that I used to have anymore. So I work really hard to protect it so that I can show up for the things that matter to me. And my day is not dictated by other people who don't know what's important for me. So examples of that, I do not really take a lot of calls.
(35:20):
I've actually set up a lot of processes so that I don't need to, I don't actually even get requests for calls that much because I have got so much infrastructure around explaining what I do and how the services work and flyers and sales pages and videos and automated webinars and all of that. We've got frequently asked questions. So Khate, our customer service manager, she knows how to answer nearly everything. That's not a legal question. We've got customer service manual with the answer to everything. I'm very selective about the conferences. I do the partnerships so I don't have a diary full of calls that is disrupting my day and I'm really in charge of the agenda for my day. So if I was in a law firm, how would I do that? Obviously talking to clients and having meetings is a big part of the role, which don't get me wrong, I think I'm a extroverted introvert in the sense that I do love talking to people, but I do really need my own time to myself, and I can find that I can get to a point where I'm completely exhausted by external interaction.
(36:37):
So I think knowing how you feel about that for yourself could really inform some of the choices you make here. I also know that it is really important for me to have space to get important things done. So if I was running a law firm with clients, I would probably have it so that firstly, my meetings are automated so they can book it in through Calendly or something, and there's parameters in there in terms of limiting the number of meetings I can have per day, the space between the meetings and also only having meetings on set days. So for me, it would be really important to have days where I do not have any meetings. Also, this is from someone who used to squeeze in a million meetings a day and barely have time to go to the toilet and or eat in between them.
(37:28):
Now I would make sure that I have lots of rest time in between those meetings and calls and really have those boundaries set up. And I would make sure that I have days where I don't deal with emails or phone calls, so I can do the important deep work. I've also, something that I've been working on from the start of this year is that I am doing less people pleasing and focusing more on boundaries around the communication channels. So I'm on all the social medias and I find that I'm constantly getting people texting me and all hours of the day and on the weekend about work, things messaging me. I'm in random group chats where there's constantly pulling my attention back to work when I'm not on the days that I don't work or the weekend Instagram messages, all kinds, the Facebook groups. So I have just decided that we have the right, our members know the channels for communicating with us, and I'm ignoring everything outside of that because I just cannot keep up with it.
(38:40):
And it's really important to me if I'm sitting down practising a piece on the piano because I really want to switch my mind off and be present with that. Or if I'm playing with my kids, I don't want to be drawn into work. It's not work time. This is time for me to live my life. And it's important overall for my mental health and overall health to be able to switch off and so that when I am working, I'm showing up fully and completely. And when I'm not working, I'm prioritising my family and being present in whatever activity I'm doing. So I'm just ignoring it. And the saying goes, I've got channels and infrastructure set up to support people in the estate planning community. And if you're not in those processes, you don't get access to me, which sounds like, oh, who do I think I am?
(39:34):
But it's not fair to my members or to myself. So for instance, the TT Precedents Club, my members get so much support. I will answer any question they have about estate planning in our Thursday call. They get to have a live conversation with me and we will walk through their matter and answer their questions and I'll research things for them and I'll create resources for them. And if you are not in the TT precedents club, but you want that access of support, then you have to join the TT precedents club. That is the environment where you get that support. You don't get it for free in the free Facebook groups or in my dms. And the reason for that is, firstly, I believe everyone deserves to be paid fairly for their work, but also, I can't show up for my members if I am giving my energy and knowledge away for free to people who aren't.
(40:27):
The TT precedents club is really affordable. Like I said, spend money to make money for $149 a month. You get access to me live for an hour four or five times a week. I'll answer all of your questions. You get all of our infrastructure, our recorded trainings, our community like this, our clause library. You would spend more having lunch at a cafe once a week. It's really good value, especially it's deductible to your firm. It's so much more value than the fee that you pay. And the reason for that is because we can scale it with numbers. So as a group, it ends up being enough to remunerate me for all of that. So you've got to join the group or I'm not giving you support, and that's just how it is now. So the same goes for clients or prospective clients who are trying to be tyre kickers or get free advice in meetings or just want a quick phone call.
(41:30):
So I probably think I would be implementing a lot of what's in our estate planning pricing toolkit in terms of setting up the expectations in the cost agreement. I would have a beautiful cost agreement that is easy for clients to read, setting out really clearly what's allowed, what they can do, what the expectation is of them, what the expectation is of me setting that boundary if I had a receptionist or whatever, giving them the right scripts and processes, making it sort of clear if they want to book a call or phone call, then checking that they've got a package or that, even just to pick my brain price on that. Just really setting up the infrastructure to protect your piece so you have the boundaries. And I think on that note, this is related to another thing that I do where I know if it's something that in the moment I will self-sabotage myself because I'll feel guilty or I need to be people pleasing.
(42:36):
I have set up a process that can be implemented that me and the team have to follow. So I don't rely on myself. So a good one of that is speaking at conferences or people wanting to come on my podcast or for me to do something for them where I've decided that I don't do speaking for free anymore. So I don't go to conferences and speak for free. I have a speaker fee. I made a decision. I don't like speaking at conferences that much. So I'm very strategic about it, and I've at least got to get remunerated for my travel. I live five hours from Brisbane to go anywhere. It takes two days by the time you either drive or connect the flights and all of that. So it's a long time away from my family and out of my office and from doing my deep work.
(43:34):
So I've got a speaker fee, but if someone asks me or messages me, I'm like, oh, it feels really hard to tell them that and I don't want to do it. I'm going to check it out. But Kat, my incredible assistant, has created a beautiful professional looking speaker fee flyer, and she or I now just send that go, Hey, this looks like a great conference. Here's my speaker fee and here's the flyer with all the information. I set the boundary. I'm professional, I'm not rude. And because I've got that process in place, I'm not going to find myself accidentally agreeing to do something that I'm going to later regret speaking for free. Same with people who are like, sure, can we come and talk to your audience about our product? Well, I'm like, actually, I've got parameters around how we do that now to respect my audience, but also respect the time that I have to put into facilitating that interaction and event or whatever it is.
(44:34):
So we have a flyer and a brochure on how that all works now and what the fee is and what our internal criteria is for even engaging and accepting an organisation and who we will promote or not, because we have to obviously maintain integrity around that. So if there's things that you think that you will do that you might in the moment, but if you can take it away and not have a connection with a particular person or a particular instance and just think about it in broad strokes and go, well, this is my policy decision, then I would really encourage you to have it documented in an impartial professional looking document, like a flyer you make on Canva and a process documented. So your team, they might not even ask you. The team just follows the process and it only gets elevated once they've accepted your fee, for instance.
(45:28):
So yeah, I think in line with that, I also try to implement a lot of systems and processes for the things that I find hard. So you will know that I send a lot of emails and emails are the way that we get our message out about our services and be able to tell the story about what we do and how our products help people. But I don't like writing emails. I find that really hard. So we have an automated marketing machine. I also don't like recording videos all the time and showing up and doing all of that. It's only a few times a month where I feel like doing that. It takes a lot of energy and it's very vulnerable to show up like that. So I have got an automated marketing machine that just doesn't on autopilot through systems and automation and doesn't really require me to do anything except once or twice a month.
(46:25):
So for instance, if you are new to our email nurture, you will get an email from me every three days about what we do and with tips and tricks and letting you know about our free resources and our paid resources, and really just helping to grow your knowledge in estate planning. Now, I'm not sitting here writing those emails. I wrote those emails once, but they are in an automatic email sequence that gets sent out to people when they join, do something to join our mailing list. So whether they download one of our freebies, join the Art of Estate Planning Facebook group, subscribe to the podcast, anything like that, then you get it from me. And it just happens on your timeline. Your three days starts when you join, and then if you buy something and you're getting different emails from me about how the product that you bought works and how to make the most of it, then you get taken off one email sequence onto a new email sequence.
(47:26):
It all happens automatically. I'm not going, oh, we've had three new clients today or three new TT precedents club members. I need to send them personalised emails about how to make sure they know all the benefits of their membership. It all happens automatically. The same sort of going with my marketing agency and my social media. It's all set up automatically because I know that if we are just relying on me to show up and have the energy to do those marketing activities, it's not going to get done. Also, even if I was feeling the energy or inspiration to do it, the reality is it will take up too much of my time and I won't be able to get the important things done. I will not be able to work on an important precedent update or write a new precedent for our members. So I'm just all about not letting myself and my energy dictate what happens in the business.
(48:24):
It happens anyway. You can use automation and systems even if you can't automate it, then you can delegate it to a team member who can follow a system and a process like we have. So how would you do this in your firm? This is what I've got in my firm. We've got an administration handbook and a customer service manual. They're like really long, I don't know how long, 50 pages each, a hundred pages where it says exactly what the process and steps to follow are. It's got all of the template email responses, and if we're updating it or the process has changed, then my team knows to go and update it and fix it as they're doing it. And that means also if your team member changes, because let's face it, people are always coming and going and moving, and they might outgrow your role in the firm and you have to replace them or they might not work out that losing a team member isn't the absolute disaster because everything's documented.
(49:27):
There's obviously onboarding, but at least they can hit the ground running and there's a protocol for everything. Or I find even for me on the days where if one of my assistants isn't there and I have to do something that's usually in their responsibilities, I have to follow the process. And because the process is documented, I'm not going to be the one messing it up even though I don't really remember how to do all the things, especially if I haven't done it for a few years. So make sure that you invest in customer manuals and admin and protocol. Obviously, automate as much as you can so that you don't rely on a human to do it. And then where you do need a human to do it, have it automated and systemized on that front. I will admit that I'm not really using artificial intelligence very much at the moment.
(50:16):
I use a lot of automation, but that's not in terms of artificial intelligence and LLMs, that's probably where you need a bit of creativity. And the answer is different every time. The automation I'm using is if this, then that kind of thing, or it happens all the time. So I'm huge on automation on LLMs. I am still working that out. I mostly use it for marketing stuff like the podcast show notes and social media captions or how would I word this? Can you make this more interesting? Inject some personality into my writing, please. That kind of thing. But I don't really use it for anything legal. I do not trust it for research that might evolve. I definitely intrigued by it and keeping an eye on it, but I'm mostly just using the LLMs for the marketing stuff, nothing client confidentiality wise. I'm very cautious and hesitant about that.
(51:15):
Actually, we did do a podcast episode last year where we had an incredible speaker Jenny Pakula comes. So look at episode 65 about using AI in your legal practise. If you're interested in that. I'm still very much on the fence. I think it's great for if you are like, oh yeah, how do I actually create a flyer about my speaker fee? I would totally use AI for something like that. Why not? They can do a draught for you that you can amend. Nothing at stake really. If they do a bad job, you just do it from scratch. So those types of things, even like writing emails or turning a piece of something that you've written into more client-centric work, I think that's great. But I wouldn't say that I'm really investing heavily in AI at the moment, but I'm certainly watching that space. So anyway, that's another conversation for another episode.
(52:12):
This has turned into quite a long episode, so thank you for sticking with me. I think the last thing I will say is that the way that I've been able to set things up has really helped to build space into my week for reflection and dreaming big and finding inspiration in other things, like being able to listen to podcasts or read books and follow people outside the industry. And that then has a snowballing effect because it gives me more ideas and helps me dream big about what is possible and new ways to approach things. So I really feel like if you can find a way to give yourself space in your week to be the CEO of either your career or your firm, depending on what level you are at in the firm, but even if you're an employee where you don't have a lot of control, you can implement some of these or talk to your manager about why you want to implement these frameworks so that you can ultimately do better at work and try to find a way where you can have some no pressure space for reflection, dreaming, because I think you'll be amazed when you give yourself that space where your mind goes and how that can really benefit you, benefit your clients, benefit your services.
(53:40):
So thank you so much for sticking with me. I appreciate you all so much. Like I said at the very beginning, this art of estate planning wouldn't exist without all of you supporting me buying our resources and just being part of our incredible community. And that is not lost on me. I do also want to acknowledge the privilege that I have to have a supportive partner who helps look after our children, money to be able to send the children to daycare and afterschool care, and also just the privilege of all the mentors and friends that I have who I have learnt for 'em as well. So it's not lost on me. I hope that this episode is a part of not gatekeeping and maybe paying something forward to someone. Hopefully there's something you got out of this episode that was of interest or has got you thinking and wishing you all the best for this incredible year ahead.
(54:40):
Thanks for listening.
