In today’s blog, we will be assessing two of the four key areas regarding selling your law firm: The first is our personal readiness, the second is our emotional readiness, and the third is financial readiness. Finally, we get to our firm readiness which is the fourth key area.
When someone is getting ready to exit their firm they usually think, “I want to get out of my firm and how do I sell this?”. It’s critical for a successful transition that we take into account the four different ways to be ready to transition. So, if you wish to learn more about the steps required to exit your firm, keep reading!
Personal Readiness
Our first key aspect is always the hardest because it’s personal, and most people avoid this. They are scared to really look at themselves. When we dive into this aspect we get to explore why the person believes they are ready to sell. Most people feel like they want to get out, but in reality, they are just burned out. They are exhausted, haven’t taken a vacation in three years, and feel like they can’t do this work anymore. But what if they could have a vacation? Would they feel more rested, more productive, and maybe more profitable? Afterward, they might go back to enjoying what they are doing and might not actually want to sell their law firm.
So, we have to truly look at the reason we want to sell. Sometimes, we are just not making the money that we thought we should be. As lawyers, we have this perception that lawyers make lots of money. Then, when you are a lawyer running your own business and not meeting that perception, you can feel like you’re an imposter. None of that is necessarily true. What it may mean is that you just need a good coach so that you know the right way to be profitable. If you did that, you might still enjoy having your firm and doing your thing. Right? That’s why knowing how we really feel inside is important: so we avoid regrets later on because 75% of people who sell their law firms have regrets.
Emotional Readiness
This is the most critical part of the sales process. Being emotionally ready to part with your business requires you to do some digging into what your next steps will be as a professional and as a person. Business owners spend countless hours building up their businesses it becomes a part of their identity. Knowing that you have decided to part ways with it, who will you be? What will you be doing?
You can only spend so much time on the beach, so think about how you will be investing your time to avoid having regrets about selling your business. For me, when I sit on the beach, I know what I’m going to be doing. I’m going to be writing novels because my next phase of life is being an author; a published one. I have no shortage of ideas.
When I sold my law firm, I not only bought a farm and grew hemp for CBD products to further my ongoing mission of helping people live the highest quality of life in their elderly years (as I did as an elder care attorney,) but I’m doing that now through my farm and CBD products. I’m continuing to help lawyers live their best quality of life post-law firm. I have no shortage of things to do. Others aren’t as lucky as I am. They are unsure of what their next phase of life entails, and so we’ve got to get past that. We’ve got to create a plan for what comes next, so life after law is actually something that excites you!
If you want to hear more and learn the other two key aspects of selling a law firm, listen to our podcast episode “What are the first steps to selling a law firm?” Here or stream it on your favorite platform. You can find us as “Smart Lawyers Position to Transition”: