By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach The concept of taking time off of work or stepping away from work seems like an obvious one, but for those that are super-dedicated to their job, this can actually be a difficult task to do sometimes. It took me some time, but it was something that I had to learn over a number of years of going full-steam, with very little to no breaks. I can recall when I was first hired by Phil back in 2004, I was an eager, freshly graduated college student. There were a lot of details to my…
Strength in Numbers
By Bert A. Cooper, CES Can a solo Financial Advisor effectively offer all the expertise their clients deserve? While we’d all like to think we’re exceptional at what we do, the real answer is no. The most successful Advisors are those with a team behind them. I saw a growing need among clients for comprehensive wealth management and my vision was to build a cohesive team that consisted of specialists who offered these services exceptionally well. In order to make this vision a reality I had to make a series of important strategic decisions. I knew from the start I…
5 Reasons Why You Should Have an Office Manager
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach If you are an estate planning attorney, CPA, financial advisor, or life insurance agent and you’re running your own practice, then you already know how precious your time is and, hopefully, how valuable that time is to your practice and its overall success. It is important that you see yourself as the “talent” and that you maximize the use of your time for tasks that only you can do. You need someone else to be the “producer-director”, handling other necessary details. All too often, we see estate planners that are spending far too much…
Top 6 Strategies for Managing Interruptions in the Workplace
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach According to a study, the average time spent per day by employees being interrupted and trying to refocus is 2.1 hours. Interruptions at the workplace is estimated to cost businesses in the U.S. over half a trillion dollars each year! While interruptions at the workplace are inevitable, it doesn’t mean that they cannot be minimized or reduced. Below are what I consider to be the top ten strategies for managing (and reducing) the amount of interruptions at the workplace. Strategy #1: Evaluate (and change) your physical workspace. One of the biggest eye-openers for me…
Top 9 Mistakes Attorneys Make Bonusing Support Staff
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach The concept of financial bonuses is not unknown to most people. It is highly used in a lot of sales and marketing industries. Even in the legal world, many lawyers have, at some time or another when working for a firm, received some kind of bonus. However, the concept of bonusing non-attorneys is relatively new, particularly for the estate planning lawyer world. Attorney and Ultimate Estate Planner President, Philip Kavesh, did not consider or implement the idea of a formal staff bonus system until about 12 years ago. He, as well as the attorneys…
Are You a Helicopter Boss? How Micromanaging is Killing Your Practice
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach You may have heard of the term “helicopter parent”. It’s a term used to describe that parenting style where they “hover overhead”, like helicopters, over everything that their child is doing, overseeing and trying to control and supervise all aspects of their lives. This type of style can also be found in the workplace. A helicopter boss, whether it’s the attorney business owner or perhaps an office manager or other person in some type of supervisory role over others, is someone whose management style is similar to this parenting style. It’s someone who is…
Having Disconnects and Conflicts in the Office Right Now?
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach With everything going on in the world right now, it is safe to say that most people are under much more stress than usual. From dealing with concerns around the pandemic and working in a post-pandemic world, managing the constantly barrage of headlines, politics and war, to feeling a whole spectrum of emotions about all the change and heaviness that has happened in past couple of years. Business owners and employees with young children are having to juggle their own set of challenges trying to navigate care and schooling for their children, while we…
How Do You Properly Compensate (and Incentivize) Associate Attorneys?
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law One of the biggest mistakes I see attorneys that own their own practices make is failing to properly incentivize associate attorneys. The primary way I have done this successfully for many years is through monthly bonuses. Whereas attorney bonuses are usually purely discretionary and undefined in advance as to their amount and frequency, the bonus system that I have developed is based on a clearly defined formula. By utilizing monthly bonuses, you will not only make your associate attorneys…
The Success of Your Business Starts with a Happy Work Environment
By Kristina Schneider, Practice-Building & Marketing Specialist “Businesses often forget about the culture and ultimately suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.” – Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos An often overlooked aspect of developing a successful business is really taking the time to look at the employees, the work environment and the company culture. The fact is, if you have a disorderly, stressful, and hostile work environment, chances are that you have unhappy employees who don’t like coming into work every day. And the bold truth of it is that your business will suffer…
Kick-Start Your Boss’ Calendar in the Right Direction for 2022
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach It’s hard to believe that we are already heading into the final months of 2021. As the former Executive Assistant to busy attorney, Philip Kavesh, what this time of year typically meant for me is that I would be typically preparing Phil’s calendar for the next year so that we can maximize the best use of his time, while also making sure that I don’t overlook important items that need to get onto his calendar. Here are some tips for laying out the 2022 calendar for your boss (whether he or she is an…