Investments vs. Expenses: The Key to Building a Thriving Business of Any Size

Ali Katz:
And I was like, oh, uh huh. Okay, yeah, I want to have a million dollar law practice. And here I am trying to save as much as possible on my bookkeeper. And here I am at 09:00 at night, untangling a mess made by the bookkeeper because I didn't want to spend money on the bookkeeper. So then I started to realize, okay, I need to pay more for a bookkeeper, and I need to shift the mind from not, I can't afford it, but how can I afford it?

Ali Katz:
Hello, and welcome to the NewLaw podcast, where we guide entrepreneurial lawyers to build law practices into businesses they love. I'm Ali Katz.

Ali Katz:
You are going to love this episode. If you've ever been confused about the difference between expenses and investments as you grow your business in this episode, you are going to hear me speaking with one of my longtime members, turn, and team member Kim Rockwood. And we're talking about the difference between investments and expenses going way back to the beginning of each of our businesses. And we're even going to talk about how cutting expenses can actually cost you your most valuable resources, your non renewable resources of time, energy, and attention, and why investing in yourself and your vision is essential, and how to know the difference between investments and expenses. Listen in, and I'll see you on the other side.

Kim Rockwood:
Hello, everyone. If you don't know me, you might know me by now. I'm Kim Rockwood, and I'm here with Ali to talk to you guys about the differences between investments and expenses. And this is something that occurred to me as something that I think really would have been helpful for me to internalize when I was really just starting out. And I think that we all kind of get it on a high level. Oh, an investment that's easy. That's something that you, you know, you spend money on and you expect to get your money and more back, right? Like, you kind of get it, but I don't really think most of us get it. That could be wrong.

Kim Rockwood:
But I'm suspecting most of us don't really get it on a deeper level and internally. So Ali was gracious enough to sit down with me here today so we can go through these things with you and let's talk. Ali, is there anything that you want to say first before we get into the substance?

Ali Katz:
Yeah, I'll just share why I think that this is just so critically important. I also did not understand this really in the beginning stages of my practice. I think because I did make a lot of investments in my practice, I thought that it was just a given that maybe lawyers know they need to invest in their practice. So mine was maybe an opposite experience of yours, where I didn't make a lot of investments early, early on in my practice. And that's really a big part of what allowed me to grow my practice from nothing to over a million a year in that three year time period. And it was really the second and third years. The first year, I was still definitely in the mindset of trying to save money, because I didn't have any money. Even though I had been making the six figure paycheck at the firm, I wasn't saving any of it.

Ali Katz:
So when I started my law practice, I didn't have, or at least I thought I didn't have any money. That was my mindset. I don't have any money. And so I traded 20 hours a month for my rent in my first office space. And then when I recognized I needed to hire somebody, I just hired the receptionist that worked at the front desk of this office where I was trading my time for rent. And, you know, I looked at, how can I keep the expenses as low as possible? I paid my sister to be my bookkeeper, even though she had no bookkeeping experience whatsoever. And I remember sitting at my big desk, it was like a double desk, and she's across from me working on, you know, my bookkeeping. She had no idea what she was doing.

Ali Katz:
And pretty quickly, though, I learned, okay, this is, this is not going to work. Trying to save my way to building a business is not the answer. And I began to learn I need to invest money, really to buy back my time so that I can be focusing my time on things that will generate results, because I have this high value service that I can provide, and people will want it if they see me and hear about me. And the very first thing that I needed to do, Kim, was learn to engage clients for that high value service at that hundred percent rate that we teach here. It's why it's the first thing that we teach. Because when you know how to engage clients for a high value service, and you love to deliver that service, well, now you've got a machine where you get to use the money to buy back your time, energy, and attention. So because I got that relatively quickly in my own journey as a business owner, I thought, okay, well, that's just obvious. And so when I sold my practice in 2008, I figured that the person who bought it would just know that they needed to do that.

Ali Katz:
Well, it turns out that that was not the case. And I learned the hard way, unfortunately, that you can't sell a million dollar practice to a business owner who's never run a million dollar practice because they haven't become a business owner who can pay the expenses that are necessary to run a million dollar practice. So what happened is, even though he was an attorney who had, you know, is very well versed in estate planning, and he was, you know, had been practicing like, 40 years, but he'd never run a business. And so when he took over the practice, the very first thing that he did is look to cut expenses. So he fired the marketing director, and he did all these other things to cut expenses. And then some months later, he came back to me and said, where's all the leads? Where's all the clients? Well, you stopped running the marketing, you stopped sending out the direct mail. And I had really planted a farm in my community of people who were used to getting my direct mail and were taking action based on it. He stopped doing that because it's expensive.

Ali Katz:
And he fired the marketing director because she was expensive. But then where'd the clients go? So he ultimately handed me back the firm, having basically sucked all of the money out of it, and said, okay, here it is. You can either restart it or do whatever you want with it, he was not able to become that million dollar business owner. And what I mean by that is to run a million dollar business with a million dollars plus of revenue, you are going to be writing checks for somewhere in the neighborhood of a minimum of 6 to $700,000 a year. It takes something, it takes something to let that amount flow through you and out of you. And that is who you become when you're growing your practice into whatever, whether it's a 250,000 a year business or a million dollar plus business, you are becoming a person that can allow money to flow through you in that way. And this is the place that we see lawyers. I think getting stuck the most is the resistance to becoming that person because of the mindset of I need to keep my expenses as low as possible.

Ali Katz:
And so you end up sacrificing your non-renewable resources, your time, energy, and attention to save money, when, as a lawyer, you can use money to buy back your time, energy and attention, and to build a real business. So that's why we're doing this today.

Kim Rockwood:
Yeah, no, absolutely. So I'm so glad we're talking about this. I have heard so many lawyers say what you were just saying about, it's too expensive, I can't afford that. I'm so glad that we're talking about this, because it's such an important concept to grasp.

Ali Katz:
Yes.

Kim Rockwood:
So let's jump in first. Then the first topic. I'm going to ask you this question. Pretty basic, but let's go there. What is an investment, actually, and how is it different from an expense?

Ali Katz:
Yeah, so an investment, you know, Kim said it a little earlier, is something that you're going to make to get a return. Now we think of getting a return of more money, but this is also somewhere that I want you to start to shift your thinking. Because if you are getting a return of time, energy, and attention, that is also an incredibly valuable return and an important return that you cannot discount, because your time, energy, and attention, you'll hear me say this all the time, because you have a high value service that you can offer, are your most valuable assets. You can always make more money. You can't make more time, energy, and attention. And, you know, Kim and I, we're in our late forties now. Maybe back in the day when we started in practice and we were in our late twenties and early thirties, it felt like there's plenty of time. Well, now we look back and our kids are, you know, almost grown or grown, and we're looking back like, whoa, that went fast.

Kim Rockwood:
Yep. Exactly. Yes.

Ali Katz:
And so you've, yeah, you've got to be looking at your investment as, am I getting a return of money on my money, or am I getting a return of time, energy, and attention that I can then use to put that time, energy, and attention into either having a great life or doing the parts of the business that only you can do, like educating your community, like perhaps engaging clients, although that's not actually the case. You can actually, other people can engage clients. In fact, other people could even educate your community. If you really want to have that kind of business, you could be a pure business owner where you're just leading the business, you're just allowing all that money to flow through you, making all the investments, and then everybody else is doing everything else. So you get to choose that. Whereas an expense, I consider that, like, it's a cost of doing business. It's your overhead that you are going to put out just to keep the doors open no matter what. It doesn't necessarily bring you a return on your investment directly related to that expense.

Ali Katz:
Like, for example, your rent, payroll. These are things that you're going to pay out no matter what. And those are overhead. Those are fixed costs, generally type things. However, I will say that I see employees. I see hiring employees as a major investment. A major, critically important investment. Because that's who's going to free you up. That's who's going to free you up.

Kim Rockwood:
I'm glad you mentioned that because I think some of these things can get blurred. So, like, it's really easy to think, well, postage, that's obviously an expense, right? Advertising, that's obviously an investment. But some of these things can really get blurred. So I'm wondering if you can just give a little bit more to that. I agree with you. I think employees are an investment. And one of the things that I've heard our members say really often is I can't afford to hire additional support. I just, I don't have the money in my bank account.

Kim Rockwood:
I literally don't have the money in my bank account. But then they're also not getting as many clients as they want every month.

Ali Katz:
Well, that's the rub. Right? Ultimately, it comes down to the fear that I'm going to put out this money and it's not going to come back to me because I'm not going to get enough clients. So we'll talk about that in a moment. We'll also talk about where to get the money and how to change that mindset. But I do want to talk about this blurred piece that you mentioned because I think that's really important. Postage is actually a perfect example. Oh, that's an expense. But if that postage is contributing to the client experience, that makes your clients into raving fans or makes your prospects more likely to hire you.

Ali Katz:
And by the way, what happens when our clients are raving fans is they tell everybody that they know about us. They remember our name. When somebody asks about estate planning, they think of you and they say, oh, hire my lawyer. My lawyer is amazing. Oh, my God, I get to have this experience and, wow. Oh, my gosh. Right? That's what you want. And so if that postage really allows for that client experience to happen.

Ali Katz:
Right? So some people might have said that me building out my office, I put a lot of money into creating my office into a place. When I created my office and my office had been a garage with no floors, no ceilings, a garage. And I turned it into the cutest cottage. You all can watch a video in our training resources and see pictures in my office. And my thought when I created the office was that when people walk into my office, I want them to feel as if they're walking into a spa. That was an expense that cost me quite a lot of money to do. I had to put up walls and floors and everything, every, buy all the furniture. And it was terrifying because I did not yet have the money.

Ali Katz:
I did not yet have the money to do that. I was building it based on a vision of knowing that when I built that, the money would come in to pay for it. So what does that mean? Where did I pay for it? Well, that was the very first time that I ever took on credit, and I was terrified to take on credit. I thought that that made me bad or wrong. Like, if I have to use credit, then I must be doing something wrong. Now, I didn't think that way about going to law school and taking on $100,000 in debt to get my degree, but to build my business, I thought, oh, if I have to take on credit or go into debt, then I'm bad and wrong. I'm curious if you had that same internal feeling Kim.

Kim Rockwood:
100% going to law school, to me, was one. It was something I really wanted to do, so I was willing to take on that debt. But it also was very clear to me that, well, I'll definitely get my money back, because I'm going to make more money than that in my career.

Ali Katz:
So that's the way you want to think of it in your business, too. And it didn't occur to me that way until I was in the process of building out this office space. And through that, I met a banker, a local banker, a local business banker, and he came to my office and sat down with me and heard my vision of what I was creating. And he helped me realize I needed to apply for a line of credit at the bank. I was like, oh, God, okay, what's the least I can ask for? And it was like $25,000 or something like that. And so I asked for the least I could, which was really stupid. Now I look back, and that was the wrong question. The right question was, what's the most you'll give me? Yeah, what is the most you will give me? Because credit is one of the most important resources, and as lawyers, we have access to credit.

Ali Katz:
As long as you know that you're going to be able to pay it back with the clients that you generate, then of course you're going to use credit. I mean, how do you think wealthy people get wealthy? They use credit shamelessly as a resource because they're not using it as a consumer. Consumer debt is a problem. Consumer debt is a problem because how are you going to pay that back? And yet, in our minds, we think about, oh, I can use debt to buy a house. Or buy a car. Well, that house or that car is not going to be able to pay back your debt. What's going to be able to pay back your debt? You engaging and serving clients with a high value service that's going to pay back your debt. Now, I know that a lot of you are in this place of like, yeah, but what if I don't get clients? It's a fear.

Ali Katz:
It's a fear for all of us. What if I don't get clients?

Ali Katz:
Gosh. I mean, that question drove way too many of my decisions for too long. And what if every time, first of all, mindset shift number one, when you think to yourself, I can't afford it. Notice how often you say that. First of all, notice how often you say it, I can't afford it. Then every time you say it, ask yourself, do I want this? Is this a thing that I want? Do I want to build a practice that serves ten or 15 clients a month? Do I want that? If I do, if I do, and that has to come first. Your own desire has to come first. If you don't have the desire for it, don't ask the next question. Just say, okay, I just accept I don't actually want.

Ali Katz:
But if you do want it, then, and by the way, you might want to get some coaching on that question of whether you want it, because there could be like, you know, some things up there. But if you do want it, then every time you hear yourself ask that question or say that I can't afford it, you shift that consciously, intentionally, using your power to shift your mind into, okay, how can I afford it? How can I afford it? Going from I can't afford it to how can I afford it was one of the biggest shifts that I got to make as a million dollar business builder from I can't afford it to how can I afford it? And I'll tell you, this one came up when I heard Mark Cuban on a podcast. I was working in my office late one night, and I had little kids. And I'm working in my office late one night, and I'm listening to this Mark Cuban podcast. And I was working late that night because I was untangling a very complicated bookkeeping issue that had arisen where my payroll taxes did not get paid because I kept trying to hire cheap bookkeepers. And frankly, I didn't know how to work with my bookkeepers, which is why we train you on that in our LIFT program. I didn't know how to work with a bookkeeper, so I kept hiring these cheap bookkeepers, trying to save as much as possible. But I don't want to pay money to bookkeeping.

Ali Katz:
And I'm listening to this podcast, not at home with my family, and I hear him say, are you building your business? You say you want a million dollar business? Are you making decisions, though, as a hundred thousand dollars business owner? And then he gave an example that was specifically around hiring a bookkeeper, getting your accounting done. And I was like, oh, uh huh, okay, yeah, I want to have a million dollar law practice. And here I am trying to save as much as possible on my bookkeeper. And here I am at 09:00 at night untangling a mess made by the bookkeeper because I didn't want to spend money on the bookkeeper. So then I started to realize, okay, I need to pay more for a bookkeeper and I need to shift the mind from not, I can't afford it, but how can I afford it? And that began to change, really, all of my decisions around how am I seeing, you know, expenses and investments and how am I using credit to build. And really everything started to change at that point.

Kim Rockwood:
Yep, I've heard you tell that story before and the Mark Cuban story. And my first thought was, well, if it's good enough for Mark Cuban, it's good enough for me. Right. And my second thought was, that makes so much sense. You know, you just want to, you know, you want to go somewhere from where you are now, you want to make some progress, then you're going to have to make some decisions and put yourself in that place first before you can get there.

Ali Katz:
That's right. Yes.

Kim Rockwood:
I'm wondering if you can speak to this. This was my experience, too, by the way. Let me, I'm going to throw in one last thing about that, especially since you mentioned bookkeepers. This was my mistake. I made, I was saving money on a CPA, on taxes early on, and so I did it myself. And then I got a notice from the IRS that I actually owed $17,000 more than I thought because I did it wrong. Right. And so that hurts.

Kim Rockwood:
I didn't have $17,000 sitting around just to pay the IRS at once, so I had to go on a payment plan and pay. It was, it was a mess. And I guarantee you I never made that mistake again.

Ali Katz:
Yeah, yeah. And you did that to save money and then it ended up costing you way more time and money. And I generally find that to be the case almost any time that we are trying to save money and I mean, in, like, really little, teeny ways. Like, I was raised to, like, love the Sunday paper for the coupons. Like, who doesn't love the coupons in the Sunday paper? Well, I don't do that anymore because the time to save that money is not worth it. And so, like, you can start to look at all the places that you've been taught to try to save money instead of being taught to try to save time. And, y'all, you are your most valuable resource. You.

Ali Katz:
And I get that it takes something internally to accept that. But once you accept it, because you have such a high value service that you've invested so much in, and you know how to engage clients now for that high value service. So let's go back to that part of the fear around, what if I don't get enough clients? Yeah. Deep. That fear. That fear is really, really deep. And that's the fear to overcome.

Ali Katz:
And when that fear comes up for me, and sometimes it still comes up for me, I mean, I, you know, I'm running a company with a. I don't know what our overhead is at this point, but, like, $6 million overhead. Let's just say, what if we don't get any clients? Yeah. What if one day you all decide to leave?

Kim Rockwood:
Yeah.

Ali Katz:
So that's fear still. It comes up. It comes up. So what do I do with it when it comes up?

Ali Katz:
Would you love direct support to help you grow your law practice into a business you love? Go to newlawbusinessmodel.com/show and sign up for a call with one of our trusted law business advisors. Each of our advisors has been trained directly by me over the past five years plus to help you chart your path from wherever you are now to where you want to go as efficiently and effectively as possible. You're ready to grow. We are here to help.

Ali Katz:
I think this is critically important. I get into service. I get into service, meaning that I will notice that it came up, okay. I'm afraid of either not getting more clients or whatever, and I'm afraid of running out of money, basically, but it generally manifests, and I'm not going to get clients because you already have the high value service, because you already know how to engage clients. Assuming that you've been through our program, it shows up. That fear of running out of money shows up as I'm not going to get enough clients. For other people in businesses where they don't yet know what their services, they don't yet know how to engage clients. It'll show up differently, but for you all, it shows up because I don't know how I'm going to get clients. In that moment when you, first of all, just become aware of the thought when it comes up. The second thing to do when that thought comes up is to, I'm going to put it in the context of pray.

Ali Katz:
Pray. Whether you pray to God, life, spirit, source, energy, whatever it is that's bigger than you, I want you to go to that and ask for guidance. All right, life, I am here in service. I am showing up in service to you, to life itself, to you. This is how I do it. Show me the way. Show me who I can serve right now. Show me who needs my service right now.

Ali Katz:
And that might look like me going into the NLBM social media forum and making a post, helping somebody. That might mean me going into the Lifestyle Lawyers Club Facebook group and messaging somebody. That might mean me talking to somebody on my team who needs something. It might mean me going to the grocery store and paying for the person behind me's groceries, even something like that. Because it's not necessarily a one to one correlation, actually, when you act from service, life serves you back. It's kind of a miracle. And I just, and I know it probably sounds really woo, but it's really being actually taught by some not woo people. I can actually look up some of the books that I've read on it and maybe we can share those just for those of you that need that like left brain reinforcement.

Ali Katz:
That's really true, but it is. And even if you don't believe it, you don't need to go pay for somebody's gas, you know, at the gas station or the grocery store, but you can go into a mom's group on Facebook, right? We have all those prompts that people have used and they post a thing in the Facebook group and then all of a sudden they have ten appointments on their counter. Or you call up a real estate agent's office to see, can I come talk to your real estate agents so that I can educate them? These are all things that you do from a place of service. Who can I educate? Who can I talk to? Not from a place of the need. I have to engage clients. That's the shift, it's the come from of, okay, how can I be in service? Because here's the cool thing about what we have here at NewLaw Business Model and what you have in your practice. You have a service that people need that the cost of doing that service for the right people. Right for the right people, not for everybody, not everybody needs your service.

Ali Katz:
But for the people who would leave a mess behind in their business or for their family, because, I mean, let's look at all the reasons. They have minor kids at home. They have a blended family. They have a business. They have real estate in multiple places, or even just real estate in one place, all the reasons that if they were to become incapacitated or die are going to create a mess for the people they love. And then working with you in advance is going to decrease the time, energy and attention and money that their family or their business have to spend cleaning up that mess. And because your service costs less than that mess, you've got a thing.

Kim Rockwood:
Yeah.

Ali Katz:
That is extremely valuable. That if people just heard you talk about that, they could self select in to your intake and enrollment process that we've taught you, to your engagement meeting that we've taught you, and you just do the thing and then you deliver the thing. You've got a machine that will pay back the investments that you make in building the machine.

Kim Rockwood:
Yeah.

Ali Katz:
Now, if you have not built the machine because you've not made the investments. And so as a result of that, you don't actually have confidence in your machine. You don't know that your machine delivers. You don't know that when you go out and educate people, they end up in your intake and enrollment process. Or when they do come in, they don't engage you. Well, the next investment for you to make is in that part of the machine that needs to be fixed so that you have that confidence because we know the machine works, but you got to make the investments and then it'll. You'll be able to pay back the investments.

Kim Rockwood:
Yep.

Ali Katz:
Does that all make sense?

Kim Rockwood:
Yes, it absolutely does. So, yeah. So talk about blurred lines just for a quick second, getting back to that education. Right. Education, I think that is an investment.

Kim Rockwood:
Right? A program like this is an investment because you're learning the skills that you need to get where you want to get your. Your money back, to get your time, energy and attention. Right?

Ali Katz:
Yeah. Well, and it's not. It's why we actually provide so much more than education. Here at NewLaw Business Model, I very specifically built out as part of Personal Family Lawyer the resources that cost me so much to create on my own. And then ultimately, if I, like, didn't make huge investments, I just maybe never would have gotten around, like the website copy and the weekly articles so I could send out my email newsletter and all of the presentations and all of these resources that it doesn't make sense for every lawyer to have to create on their own. And then I priced the investment for those resources at an amount that would be lower than what any lawyer would pay to try to do it on their own. And that's literally how I've made every decision at NewLaw Business Model regarding what do we offer and how do we price our services. We offer what you are going to need, no matter what, in order to feed your machine.

Ali Katz:
And we price it less expensive than it would cost you to do it on your own. So, to me, if you want it, if you want the machine, because you love doing estate planning, you love having an estate planning business. Maybe at some point you'll get tired of doing estate planning, but you'll still want an estate planning business. Right. So, you know, Kim ultimately decided she doesn't want an estate planning business, hence why she's here with us. She wants to be a teacher and a coach, right?

Kim Rockwood:
Yep.

Ali Katz:
Which I get, obviously, I get, because that was the same for me. I didn't want an estate planning business. Now, I do believe had I known then what I know now, I never would have sold my law practice because I already had the machine. I had built the machine. What I did, the part of the machine I didn't have was the mindset. And the reason I didn't have the mindset back then is because I did not know how to read my numbers. So I was building the machine from the place of let me just make as much money as I can so I never have to actually look at the numbers. And obviously, that didn't go well because I ultimately sold the machine to the wrong person for the wrong reasons, because I was actually terrified of the numbers because I never, at that phase, did not learn to look at the numbers.

Ali Katz:
I actually ended up having to walk away from business altogether, as you all know, file bankruptcy, start over, because I didn't know how to look at the numbers. And that process had me learn how to look at the numbers. It's really critically important for you to recognize you're going to have negative numbers in your transition period because you're making investments in resources before you have the revenue coming in. You're always in this dance as a business owner, between creating capacity, actually creating capacity here. So being able to serve clients and then creating client flow, we'll call it right. Marketing, fulfillment and sales is in the middle. Now we've got sales nailed for you. 100% engagement rate.

Ali Katz:
That is unheard of in any industry. When I teach that, and, you know, when I teach non lawyers, and they're like, what, 100% engagement rate? How does, how do I do that? Because that is so, we've got the sales bridge covered. But you're always going to be in this dance between marketing, so increasing your client flow and capacity to serve. And when you are in the acceleration and growth phase, you're going to be investing in increasing your capacity before you've got more clients coming in. And if you don't do that because some of you try to do it the other way, or, like, let me get my marketing up and then I'll invest. Well, guess what happens? What happens? Kim, I'm sure you've seen this. What happens?

Kim Rockwood:
I've done it myself, of course.

Ali Katz:
Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Rockwood:
So then, then you can't serve the clients that you get because you don't have the capacity to do that. Things fall through the cracks, and then ultimately the clients aren't satisfied, and they'll tell you.

Ali Katz:
And then you lose confidence. That's the biggest hit. That's the biggest hit, right? The biggest hit to you, not investing is internal. It is your own loss of confidence in yourself. Now, in some ways, that's actually what happened to me when I walked away from everything. I lost confidence in myself. What needed to happen at that phase when I threw out my hands said I'm done and walked away, moved to the farm, was I actually needed to invest in a next level of support. That was too scary for me at that time.

Ali Katz:
It was too scary for me at that time. I had made, actually, $100,000 investment in the mastermind and in working with a coach. But the mastermind part was great. The coach part was not great. And I probably needed to make an investment in another coach at that time who could have helped me to get to that next level of once you've got, you know, $1 million business to, like, probably a $2 million business, and instead, I froze, freaked out, and just walked away and collapsed basically, under, under the weight of it. And there's many, many other, other issues as well. And I needed to be able to learn this one way or another, I needed to be able to learn this, and I was not motivated enough to do it for me without hitting rock bottom. My hope is that you will get motivated enough, and now I can provide the support to you to actually be able to do it.

Ali Katz:
I frankly, also couldn't find anybody that was able to teach me this. I don't know why. Maybe people were trying to teach me it and I couldn't hear it. But all I kept seeing to hear people say is you got to change your mindset. Well, I couldn't just change my mindset. I needed proof. I needed to go through it so I could learn it and teach it to you. You're going to have negative.

Ali Katz:
You're going to have negative in that growth mode. As you are ramping up, you're going to have negative and you might have negative longer and deeper. Right. Because now you're going to a whole other level. Right. So that's the benefit of getting to work with a model like this. You get to play with it and you do this with your coach and you do this with your coach so that you can be making what I call eyes wide open financial decisions. Instead of making financial decisions based on the emotions of fear, stress, worry, old mentality from your parents of you're going to be homeless or bad lady.

Ali Katz:
That's all conditioning. We want you making decisions based on where do you want to get to, what are the investments you need to make to get there, and what do you need to invest in next to get the confidence in yourself that might be your delivery, knowing that you have a product worth $4,000, it might be your sales engaging 100% of the people you're meeting with, fixing your intake and enrollment process. It might be you're getting out in the community and educating people from a place of service where you are educating far and wide as many people as you can, helping the people who don't need you, know how to get their healthcare, directives, powers of attorney, wills in place for free, because legal documents should be free and letting the people who are not going to do it because they're too busy, right. Or they have too complex of a situation. I mean, everybody thinks their situation is simple. So for the most part, not everybody, but a lot of people do. So you don't want to make it on that argument. It's really based on that.

Ali Katz:
You know, they're not going to do it. They're too busy. And so imagine the cost to your family of having to clean up the mess that you didn't take care of during your lifetime because you were too busy. And now you're putting that mess on people who are already just as busy as you. Just take care of. Take care of it. Let us handle it for you. We've got this for you.

Ali Katz:
Educate as many people about that and also what they can do themselves, because the people that are your right clients don't want to do it themselves. They do not want to do it themselves. They are looking for a solution that makes it easy, affordable, meaning that it costs them less than it will cost their family, which is what we teach you how to show them and is not going to take that much time. And then they're going to be able to feel really great about having done it. Yeah, you can have it all. You can't do it all.

Kim Rockwood:
Yeah. Yep. And then the last thing I want to point out is look at this. So just to move to this, this next level, $10,000 first 30 days. Pretty doable, right? Pretty doable for most people, I think. Yeah.

Ali Katz:
And then some people might be saying, no, no, it's not. It's not doable for me. Okay, great. So if that's you, if that's what's coming up for you right now, and you're like, it's not doable for me. I don't have $10,000. I don't have $10,000. Okay, well, let's use the first principle that I shared. Do you want it? Do you want it? If you want it, claim your desire, claim that you want it.

Ali Katz:
And then shift that question from I don't have it, I can't afford it to how can I afford it? And you spend as much of your mental energy on that question, and I promise you that the answers will start to show up. Some places you wouldn't even expect. Now, obviously, credit, and I want you using business credit. If you have a good credit score, you use business credit. You use business credit. And you can probably, I mean, you could probably get $10,000 in business credit.

Kim Rockwood:
Yeah.

Ali Katz:
Now, after my bankruptcy, I did not have a good credit score. I had a horrible credit score and I needed to rebuild. So what did I do? I asked my mom to invest in me. Not with money, because she didn't have any money. She's an art teacher. She doesn't even have enough for retirement. I asked her to use her credit score. I asked her to be my credit partner.

Ali Katz:
My mom got me access to $150,000 of business credit that did not report on her credit report because it's business credit that I was able to use to invest in my business. And listen, this was terrifying for both of us. I had already filed bankruptcy. Terrified. In fact, I have a video, if you haven't seen it, I have a video of me asking my mom to invest in me. And I made that video because I knew that the moment of me asking her to do that was going to be critically important teaching, because I knew she was going to say no, because of course she was going to say no. I would have said no.

Ali Katz:
But I also knew that the way that I met her, in her no was really important for you to be able to see because I didn't get upset. In fact, I got upset about her no. Before I even ever talked to her and let myself meet myself in that upset, like, oh, my God, my own mom won't invest in me. Who's ever going to invest in me? I had to face all that inside of myself. My insecurities and fears that I was never going to be able to find the money. I met all of that inside of me before I ever met with her. So that by the time I met with her, I was ready for the no. I expected the no.

Ali Katz:
I planned for the no. And I was like, okay, yeah, she's going to say no, and how am I going to handle that no? Okay, I'm going to handle that no by understanding it. Of course she's going to say no. These are the tools from C4, our same training that we offer you on how to meet your clients in their Nos, or your prospects in their Nos, or your kids, by the way, in their Nos. It's all the same tools. And so I met her in her no. I understood her no. And then I let her know why investing in me with a credit score tool she wasn't even using was the best thing possible for her.

Ali Katz:
Because ultimately, I was going to have to take care of her. So we better get me back into a situation where I was earning the money to be able to do that. And, hey, guess what? This is where you get to do what I did really with my mom. In a way. Right. So if anybody is not on board with your desires, the first step is for you to get clear on your own desires. What do you desire separate from your partner? Right.

Ali Katz:
Most of us have been raised to be pretty codependent. Okay, so now we're going to go into my therapy talk. Most of us have been raised pretty codependent. And instead of owning our desires or our fears, we put them on other people. In the example with my mom, the truth was that I was terrified, that I was horrible with money. The truth is that I was really insecure about my ability to build a business that would thrive and that I would stick with it. Frankly, that I would stick with it. And I wouldn't go into the mental mind loops of wanting to quit all the time.

Ali Katz:
I was terrified of that. Well, rather than facing those fears of my own insecurity, it'd be way easier to project those out onto my mom and to blame her for not supporting me without actually giving her the chance to support me. And for me to give her the chance to support me, I had to face all of those fears in myself first, so that when I gave her the chance to support me, I had already met all of that in myself, worked through it in myself, so that when she reflected back to me the fears that I had, too, I was able to speak to those fears with a, yeah, those fears make sense. I had those fears, too, and here's how I addressed them, and here's why I still think it's a good idea for us to do this, even though I'm also afraid. So when you go to your partner, if you go to your partner with an internal wobble that has not been met, guess what? Your partner's going to reflect that internal wobble back to you, and you're going to collapse under the weight of it because you have not actually done the work inside of yourself to meet the reasonable fear. So then they're going to bring the fear, and then you aren't standing strong because you actually haven't met it inside of yourself. You haven't faced it. And so now the two of you go into what I call a downward spiral together.

Ali Katz:
Instead of you having the opportunity to show your partner how trustworthy you are, to show yourself how trustworthy you are, because you acknowledge that's totally reasonable. I see that as a fear, too. I have worked through that fear inside of myself, and here's how I'm meeting it. Here's how I'm dealing with it. Here's how I know that I am making wise decisions when it comes to using credit. I'm using 0% business credit that is not going to report on my credit score. I'm going to pay it back by learning how to engage clients, or because I've already learned how to engage clients, and I know these clients are going to pay me four or five, $6,000 maybe, worst case scenario, $2,000. That's still a lot of money, y'all.

Ali Katz:
Right. You know, for a family plan, a well based plan. So worst case scenario, like, I can't, for some reason, I know you all have all the reasons why you can't do it in your area, and. Yeah, right. So. So I've already addressed that. I know I'm going to be able to engage the clients when I learn how to engage the clients, or because I already have, I know I'm going to be providing a high value service that everybody needs. Because I've done the curiosity questions, gone out and talked to people in the community and realized, oh my God, people are not doing estate planning.

Ali Katz:
And I know why they're not doing it. They're too busy. They don't see a good solution. They don't understand. Right. And I'm going to be able to educate people about these things so that they then want to call me. So I've, I've addressed that piece, partner spouse, and let me how would you be willing to watch a video with me? You could say, and you could show them this video. Hi, partner spouse. This is for you because your partner spouse lawyer has everything it takes to build a business. Has everything it takes to build a business. And actually all that they need now is your support, your belief in them. And if there truly is a reason that you don't believe in them, okay, this would be the time to surface it and help them, don't go into the downward spiral. Help them see maybe the part that only you can see, like maybe they're going to have to get out of bed at seven in the morning instead of ten in the morning. And if you see that they're sleeping until ten in the morning every day and you don't want to make an investment in that, tell them right now. That, that would have you believe in them if they got out of bed at seven in the morning, if you see that they're drinking too much or that they're smoking too much pot or that they're watching too much Netflix and that has you not believe in them, this is your time, partner spouse, to be really honest about what it would take for you to believe in them. And then for you lawyer who might be maybe not showing up as super trustworthy, this is your time to say, okay, I'm ready to stand up.

Ali Katz:
I'm ready to show up as trustworthy. I have all the tools to do that. And I'm not going to defend against what my partner is saying. I'm actually going to listen to them and say, oh, okay, here's what I can do to make myself more trustworthy in the eyes of my most intimate partner. Now, if you're not showing your intimate partner who doesn't believe in you this video because you don't believe in them, and you don't trust them because they drink too much or watch too much Netflix or smoke too much pot or any of the things that have you not believe in them, then don't compromise your choices because of someone that you don't respect. Stand up. Become somebody that you respect. Stop blaming them for keeping you and holding you back.

Ali Katz:
Now, this actually happened. We were at a big turning point in the NewLaw Business Model business, and I was abdicating my power. I wasn't making an investment that I needed to make. And I was talking to the sales guy, and he said, okay, great. Are you ready to go? And I was like, yep, just need to talk to my partners. And he's like, what? Actually, they weren't partners yet. Just need to talk to my COO. He's like, what do you mean? Who owns this business? Who owns this business? I was like, me.

Ali Katz:
Why are you talking to anybody else about your decision? Now, that was a major aha for me about where I was giving away my power. Now, there is a way that I could have ended up talking to them. There was a lot of growth for me there, too, but in that moment, I saw, oh, I am not taking full responsibility. I'm abdicating my power. I'm abdicating my authority. I'm abdicating my responsibility. I need to stop doing that, major turning point moment. I ended up making the investment.

Ali Katz:
A lot changed, a lot shifted. I really want to encourage you to look at what's going on if your partner is not supporting this investment.

Kim Rockwood:
Yeah, yeah. Completely agree. That's been my experience too. Both those things. Both those things.

Ali Katz:
So I have a feeling that as we've been doing this, I'm realizing that some lawyers who have not joined us yet might see this. And so if that's you, if you're seeing us and you haven't joined us in NewLaw Business Model yet, and you want to serve families and business owners with a new law business model, you can also talk to one of our law business advisors, because they also can help you think through, is NewLaw Business Model a great investment for me?

Kim Rockwood:
Yeah.

Ali Katz:
And how soon can I start to see the kinds of results and returns that you saw in these three different practice models, shifting from your not investing at all mentality to say, you know, saving as much money in my practice to having a thriving practice either as a solo or staff practice or a seven figure empire builder. So you can also book a call with a law business advisor if you are not yet part of our network.

Kim Rockwood:
Great. All right.

Ali Katz:
Thank you, Kim.

Kim Rockwood:
Thank you. This was really, really helpful. Thank you so much. And we hope that you guys have found it helpful too. All right, bye for now.

Ali Katz:
I hope you loved that episode as much as I loved creating it. This is one of the things that was very confusing to me when I first started out in business, and I hope that you learned a lot from hearing the mistakes that I made along the way. And now you understand the difference between investments and expenses and why distinguishing between them is so crucial for business growth. You learned here as well how to leverage credit wisely and how to even talk with your partner about business investments and address any concerns or fears that they might have. Now, if you listen to this episode and you realized that you do not want to go it alone, that you are a lawyer who wants to learn estate planning, or you're already doing estate planning and you're ready to build a business around it, making investments along the way, to build yourself an incredibly valuable asset with your law degree, then you should go to newlaw.co/show to get a call with a law business advisor. Get qualified for that call with a law business advisor to find out how we can support you so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel, so that you can turn your expenses into investments and build yourself a truly valuable asset with your business. Go to newlaw.co/show and I look forward to seeing you on the inside.