Lawyers are famous for impenetrable jargon, but when Jeffrey Unger talks
about how he practices law like an entrepreneur, his words are
crystalline. "It means I am willing to make an investment of
time and capital to grow this business like my clients do,"
says the 35-year-old Beverly Hills, California, attorney.
In any language, Unger's approach to running a law firm is
decidedly entrepreneurial. While developing a specialty providing
incorporation services to business owners, he's invested a
six-figure sum creating technology to speed up and streamline the
process using Web-based information-gathering tools. He has an
annual marketing budget that he invests in advertising in trade
publications serving accountants (a key referral source),
circulating a free e-mail newsletter to 4,000 CPAs and others, and
speaking throughout California to provide continuing education to
accountants.
In six years, Unger has grown his firm to 10 employees and has a
client base stretching from Chico, in Northern California, to San
Diego in the south. He's also become a shining example of a
professional services provider who runs his company like an
entrepreneur. Attorneys, doctors, dentists, engineers and other
professional service providers have reputations for being stodgy
and unenterprising in the way they do business. But that's
mainly a bad rap, according to Doug Hall, an Austin, Texas,
business consultant who advises professionals on client retention.
"A small law firm or engineering firm is run [in an
entrepreneurial way] because there's no choice," says
Hall.
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Take Rebecca Jensen, 36, owner of The
Accounting Source in Spokane, Washington. Jensen left an
accounting job in Seattle to become an entrepreneur so she could
spend more time with her children. With her husband, Todd, as the
company's operations manager, she's crafted an innovative
accounting enterprise that markets energetically, embraces new
technology, and tirelessly develops new products and services for
its markets. "The opportunity to practice my profession as an
entrepreneur is extremely important to me," she says. Her
secret? "You have to be able to put on different hats and be
willing to learn and grow in different areas, as well as know when
you need to outsource."
Make It Work
You can grow your professional practice like an entrepreneur if
you come up with innovative solutions to your special problems. For
example, professionals often find that their management skills are
doubly stressed because few are trained to manage or communicate
with nonprofessionals. "I don't know how to talk
nondoctor," admits Dr. Adam D. Singer, co-founder, chair and
CEO of IPC - The
Hospitalist Company, a North Hollywood, California, company
that supplies physicians trained to care for hospitalized patients.
Singer's solution is to hire nonprofessional managers who have
the skills he lacks. Says Singer, 44, "You really need two
leaders."
Next, face and overcome the challenge of managing other
professionals. "Managing other lawyers is like herding
cats," Unger says. But he's got a solution: Corral the
cats with technology that lets his firm grow without hiring
additional professionals. Web-based collaboration allows him to use
paralegals, who are less costly-and more easily managed-than the
attorneys that a less automated firm would have to hire.
You can also help grow your firm by opening your mind to outside
experts and ideas, says Jeffrey J. Denning, a consultant with
Practice
Performance Group, a La Jolla, California, firm that advises
physicians on how to better manage their practices. "Reporting
to a committee of doctors is not the way a professional manager
wants to work," says Denning. "He wants to report to an
enlightened entrepreneur who understands what he's
doing."
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