This article was first published in the Internet Newsletter.  See also the interviewes on which it was based in the posts below.

There can be very few solicitors unaware of the arrival of the Quality Solicitors brand on the legal landscape. With their pink and black colours, launch parties, and snazzy advertising, they have made an immediate impact on the High Street.

Last year I wrote an article about Quality Solicitors (QS) as part of a series on referral organisations, which at that stage is essentially what they were. Why the change? It is all down to the Legal Services Act, and the effect it will have on the market, says Craig Holt, the dynamic CEO and driving force behind the QS brand. He explains:

“When the LSA comes into effect “find a solicitor” type services will become extinct. Why? They only operate successfully now because of how fragmented the legal market is. When people need a lawyer there is no brand name they immediately think of and go to. So they have no choice other than to ask a friend or browse the Yellow Pages or go online and type in “solicitors in Liverpool” etc.

The LSA will change all this. The biggest impact will be the entry – in a wide variety of forms and demographics – of brands in the legal market. We took a decision to ensure that alongside Tesco, Virgin and Co-op , QualitySolicitors was one of those brands. In fact, our aim is for it to be the legal brand.”

So the decision was taken to alter the model of QS.

“The most effective way of establishing a new “high street” name brand alongside the banks, opticians, travel agents etc is to be amongst them and to have a national physical presence.

We therefore refined the QualitySolicitors model to be more akin to a franchise arrangement. QualitySolicitors members now actually become QualitySolicitors. They retain their name and therefore their own goodwill and reputation but brand as “QualitySolicitors [firm name]”.

It has been and is a huge undertaking. The first fifteen ‘founder members’ launched in May. How was it for the firms?

The QS firm in Brighton is Howlett Clark. Partner Warren Clarke :

“It was a massive undertaking for us. A full rebrand of our offices, website, stationary. Every facet of the business had to change. It was all done in around two months as we signed on the dotted line to become Founder Partners only in March.”

The QS firm in Wigan is Stephensons. They have a number of offices but only the Wigan office was re-branded. Partner Tom Bridge:

“Change of signage , internal branding , new uniforms for staff etc . As we deal with so many different work types we had to ensure that the staff in that office could deal with any type of enquiry across the board . A lot of training was required and a lot of input from the various worktypes”.

A lot of work then. Was it justified?  The QS firm in Hull is Lockings. Partner Richard Swaine is enthusiastic:

“Being part of the QualitySolicitors brand has, in a short time, very significantly raised our profile locally both amongst fellow professionals from other law firms and disciplines and with our existing and prospective client base. It has also given our staff a real boost and a feeling of belonging to something big new and exciting”

Tom Bridge is more cautious:

“It has not impacted massively in terms of the fees generated so far but the major benefit is that it has provided us with a lot of free publicity, it has created a lot of interest locally and has provided an opportunity to potentially work with a firm in London on a new QS retail unit in a shopping centre .”

While Warren Robertson is reserving judgment:

“It has not been a cheap undertaking! As to whether we have recouped our costs, we will not know for some time. The television advertising is due to start in September and the key time for being able to gauge the success of it will be say in six months to a years time”.

Not all the initial QS member firms will go forward to become branded QS firms. Some have decided not to take this route, others have been dropped as the QS model only allows one QS firm per town or city. Last year I spoke to Brian Inkster of Scottish firm Inksters, not one of the new branded firms. What is his firms position?

It will, he says

“depend on how well current initiatives on the part of QualitySolicitors, work out. The Legal Services (Scotland) Bill has not finished its passage through the Scottish Parliament and when it does it may well be somewhat different from the Legal Services Act in England. This could dictate if and how we rebrand in association with QualitySolicitors”

Although he would prefer ‘Inksters QualitySolicitors’, to ‘QualitySolicitors Inksters’.

So what of the future? Craug Holt again:

We are due to launch 35 new QualitySolicitors ‘branches’ next month and will have 100 nationwide before the end of the year. We have received enquiries about becoming a branded firm from over 1,000 law firms. Our aim for this time next year is for approx 250-300 ‘branches’ providing total UK coverage. We have had applications now from firms in most towns and cities however we have yet to reach decisions in most areas and therefore are happy to still receive applications.

As Warren Robertons points out, the LSA will change everything :

“being good lawyers will no longer be enough, as we will be competing with the most successful companies in the country, with bottomless pits of money, colossal marketing machines, massive retail presence, potential client databases well into the millions and at least some with an utterly ruthless approach.

But Tom Bridge has faith in the QS model establishing “a national presence in advance of the implementation of the legal service act reforms . Being part of it provides us with a vehicle to potentially compete with new entrants to the market”

What is Craig Holt’s advice then for the rest of us?

“Do something and do it now. Complacency is not an option.”

You have been warned!

With thanks to Craig Holt CEO Quality Solicitors, Warren Robertson of QualitySolicitors Howlett Clarke , Tom Bridge of QualitySolicitors Stephens, Richard Swaine of QualitySolicitors Lockings , and Brian Inkster of Inksters .

UV6UHYHK382C

This is the sort of business book I might have written myself, had I thought of it. Although I run a legal business and not a software company, a lot of the book resonated with me.

For a long time I have shut my eyes and done things my way, ignoring what you are ‘supposed’ to be doing, and what everyone else does.  Now it seems that the boys at 37signals have been doing the same.

For example, here are some of the chapter headings (the chapters are very short):

Planning is guessing.  How true!  When I set up my business (back in 1994) I did write a business plan, but the business I eventually ended up with turned out to be nothing like what I had naively envisaged.

Doing the plan was not a complete waste of time.  I got the bank loan, and typing it up helped me learn how to use my new computer (and also incidentally discover the internet and my future ..).  However had I  stuck to my ‘plan’ I probably would have gone bust. You have to feel your way towards what works and what is right for you.  I’m still getting there.

As they say in the book ‘unless you are a fortune teller, long term business planning is a fantasy’.  And in a fast changing world, how can you plan properly based on the past?

Why grow? Indeed.  Initially it was me and the cat.  Now I work with my husband.  We did discuss taking on staff and growing, but I never really wanted to.  I don’t want to manage people.  I prefer to write and develop new ideas.  Having a lot of staff would get in the way of that.  I may take on a few staff eventually, but I now outsource things, such as telephone calls (I use Moneypenny) and web design rather than have employees.  Much better.

As they say in the book ‘What’s the attraction of big besides ego?’ …  ‘Small is not just a stepping stone.  Small is a great destination in itself.’

Put yourself into your product.  To quote from the book: ‘If you’re successful, people will try to copy what you do.  Its just a fact of life. But there is a great way to protect yourself from copycats.  Make you part of your product or service.  Make it something no-one else can offer.’  Yup!  Done that too.

Outside money is plan Z. Maybe with the new regulation rules for solicitors I might be able to get outside funding, but do I want some investor telling me what to do?  Do I hell!

You get the picture.  Go with what you think is right and what feels right, rather than what tradition and other people tell you is the thing to do.

If you are running a business, read this book.  It will help you see clearly.

You can buy the book ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever from Amazon (affiliate link).

In my change of direction post, I said I had been reading a few books.  I thought it might be nice to tell you about some of them.  This is good for me too as it gets me to look through them again.

I read somewhere, a long time ago, that when you first read a book you learn a bit from it.  If you then read it again, you absorb a bit more.  Most people take their examinations at this stage (it was a book about studying you understand).  But, the writer went on, if you read the book a third and a fourth time, you take in much more from it.

That struck a chord with me, which is the reason why I changed my revision strategy from trying to condense the whole of the law of England and Wales onto one A4 sheet of paper so I could learn it off by heart, to reading around the subject a lot more.  I think it worked.  I passed the exams anyway.  But I am rambling.  Today I am going to tell you about The E-myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber.

The E Myth book is a good book.  A very good book.  Which is why, of course, it has sold over 1 million copies (as we are helpfully told on the cover).  It goes on a bit in places, and I did get rather tired of Sarah and her pies (read it and you will understand), but I feel he gets to the heart of things.

The book starts out by saying that most businesses fail within a few years (cue glow of smugness on my  part as I have been self employed now for over 14 years).  The reason they fail is that they don’t think about their business in the right way.  Everyone, says Gerber, who runs a business has three elements, three types of business person, warring within him:

• the entrepreneur
• the manager and
• the technician

The entrepreneur is the visionary.  He lives as it were, in the future working out what could be.  The manager sorts things out and organises them.  The technician does the work.

I have to say that I identified very strongly with the entrepreneur – who says Gerber, has a strong need for control, who creates a deal of havoc around him, and who often regards people as ‘problems who get in the way of the dream’.  I did actually laugh out loud when I read that (not a thing I do very often) as that is very me. As my husband would no doubt agree.

However I can see the other elements in me also.  I like systems.  I am a sole practitioner working without support staff – if I did not have systems and precedents I would never get anything done.  You need the systems in place, then you do not have to re-invent the wheel, and can find space and time for the dreaming and the thinking. Which for me is the most exciting and fulfilling part.

But, Gerber says, most business owners just carry on being technicians. Doing the work.  Because they are good cooks, or mechanics, or accountants, or whatever.  That is why they fail.  What you need to do, he said, is look at the business from the outside and set it up, with systems in place, so it can work without you if necessary.

The heart of the book is about franchising.  Looking at your business as a product in itself, something that is so well organised that it will work perfectly, like a well oiled machine, so that you can then eventually sell it for lots of money.

That sounds rather cold and clinical, which is not what Gerber (who is a bit of an old 1960s hippie at heart) means.  Far from it.  The system should be set up to be as caring as possible, so people enjoy working  in it and the customers enjoy using it.  He describes a hotel where customers are asked their preferences, which are then noted on the system and never forgotten.  The service is then tailored to the customer, so he feels cared for and looked after.

He also says that consistency is important.  Having systems in place to produce the perfect whatever (burger, hotel experience etc) so that this is reproduced *every time* without fail.  Customers will then appreciate the reliability and come back, again and again.

He is right of course.  That is a good way to set up a business, and will make it far less likely to fail.  Reading the book again for this review, I have rediscovered the setting up of systems part, the planning to provide the perfect experience for the customer.  Which is very timely as I am now planning a major change for my online legal service, so, hmmm.

So yes, highly recommended for all business owners and aspiring business owners. You can buy it here from Amazon.

And I think I had better read it again …