Most Firm Owners Never Ask What Good Looks Like

When I was a kid of indeterminate age, my Dad tasked me with large chores to teach me the value of hard work, or to give me an opportunity to make a little money, or to just get me out of the house for a while. Whatever your most generous interpretation is, I ended up weather-treating and painting a massive doghouse, I dug this ditch around a corner of the house, and I washed the family car. I don’t remember what purpose the ditch was intended to serve, but I do remember never getting it right.

How deep, how wide, how long, how far from the house? The dirt was hard as rock. How does one dig in something like that? No idea. No explanation. No help.

Did I miss a few spots on the doghouse or the car? Yes. Did I have to do it again? Yes.

Did I know what good looked like for any of these tasks?

I did not.

And so, of course the ditch was never quite right. I won’t try to excuse the doghouse or the car … I’ve been washing cars for decades and I still can’t seem to get it right the first time through. But at least I know to look for the flaws now and to rectify my mistakes.

I digress.

As business owners, or leaders in our profession, we often make decisions and operate our business by instinct. We’re doing the best we can, but we don’t know what good looks like so we figure it out as we go. Bit by bit we define what good looks like to us, for specific tasks, or specific elements of serving our clients. But it’s done in a vacuum.

Instead, imagine a world where someone asked you to dig a ditch, told you what “done” looked like, and then had you sit and watch them get it started. And while they dug, they explained what they were trying to accomplish, how they intended to do it, and things to keep in mind.

The odds of you digging that ditch properly went WAY up, and I bet the next time you have a ditch to dig you’ll know what you need to get started and how to do it.

On one hand, you might be thinking about how this might apply to the tasks you hand off to your employees. But what about how this might apply to you and how you run your business?

How do well-run firms manage their business? How do they handle intake or run their meetings? What about hiring or handling benefits? What does good look like in your industry, for firms your size? Wouldn’t it be demoralizing to find out that you’re happily making 10 pins a day in your factory, and the woman running the factory down the road is making 48,000? Same number of people, different method.

Demoralizing is a strong word, but it’s an honest one. Wouldn’t you want to know though?

You can’t know what you don’t know. Most owners don’t know because it never occurs to them to even ask. They dig the ditch by instinct and they focus on excelling at the work of supporting their clients.

Now that you know there’s likely someone out there who has figured out how to run your business exceedingly well, how do you find that information? How do you learn what good looks like?

There are obvious sources, like mentors or peers within your industry who have clearly figured something out. People who have seen multiple other firms in your space and can speak to what works well; think bankers, accountants, consultants, etc. But the less obvious might be published benchmarks for your industry like Clio’s Legal Trends Report, Kitces Research, or others.

What about asking AI to research how firms of your size tackle a given task … specifically asking it to provide you with an analysis of what good looks like, relying only on reliable and trustworthy sources (and asking it to link to all of its sources in the report it creates for you). Don’t forget to check them yourself.

This week I want you to look at your business, pick one area that isn’t where you want it to be, and figure out what good looks like. Ask around, talk to your friendly neighborhood AI platform, engage your successful peers. Let me know what you find.

Oh, and if you have the secret to washing your car without missing spots here and there, please help.