074: Richard James of Automated Business Results discusses automating your business

Richard James, Founder and President of Automated Business Results, has earned a reputation as a national “Legal Systems Expert.” His legacy includes a career of building businesses in five different industries bringing his secret to each to achieve success. His success ingredient is simple: systems. Author of two books, The DNA of the Autonomous Attorney and Discover The Acres Of Diamonds In Your Law Firm, Richard has devised a twelve step system for designing and implementing automated marketing systems that grow your business FAST.   Applying his creative energies on a helping key law firms manage their direct marketing initiatives and achieving extraordinary results. Richard put his systems and marketing tools to the test in building one of the most successful consumer bankruptcy firms in Phoenix from Zero to surpass $3.5 million in sales in just over two years. Richard believes that attorneys can truly create a practice that will support their dreams and aspirations rather than undermine their very core values. More information about Richard James, his services (that can develop a law practice that supports its owner’s lifestyle rather than completely undermining it) and more of his story may be found at www.TheRichardJames.com.

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Listen to the podcast

Fail fast to succeed faster

• Listen as Richard describes how early on he confused activity with accomplishment.
• Hear how he discovered that when he ran the business using systems things went smoother.
• Richard tells us to “eat the frog first”

Tell us something good

• Richard explains that he measures his success by his client’s success.  He provides the example of an attorney client who couldn’t go on vacation without being attached to her cell phone.  She had no freedom.  Three and a half years later, she has 45 employees and spent three weeks in Greece without her cell phone.  Now, she runs the business by inspecting the systems that have been put in place.

What’s on your desk?

• Hear how Richard describes the perfect client lifecycle: a common thread runs through client development and relations.  At core, all business are the same.
  1. Lead
  2. Show Up
  3. Hire
  4. Pay
  5. Serve with excellence
• Richard tells us that the secret to success is measuring the conversion between each step. With a system in place, it becomes easier to identify and improve things that work and fix or get rid of the things that do not work.

Favorite Resource

• Infusionsoft is the one resource that Richard couldn’t live without
• Desire and Discipline, while not downloadable, are what allow us to run the systems we create.
• The free resources that are available on their website:  therichardjames.com

Favorite Books:

• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It In this first new and totally revised edition of the bestseller, The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. He walks you through the steps in the life of a business from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed. He then shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business whether or not it is a franchise. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between
• E-Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company The bestselling author of phenomenally successful and continually vital The E-Myth Revisited presents the next big step in entrepreneurial management and leadership with E-Myth Mastery. A practical, real-world program that is implemented real-time into your business, Gerber begins by engaging the reader in understanding why the entrepreneur is so critical to the success of any enterprise, no matter how small or large it may be.
• Think and Grow Rich Think and grow rich is the most important financial book ever written. Napoleon Hill researched more than forty millionaires to find out what made them the men that they were. By following the advice laid out clearly in this book you’ll be the one with an edge. It’s time to stop wondering what it’s like to be rich and start knowing. This book will change your life!
• Atlas Shrugged With this acclaimed work and its immortal query, “Who is John Galt?”, Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her vision of existence. Atlas Shrugged made Rand not only one of the most popular novelists of the century, but one of its most influential thinkers. Atlas Shrugged is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world–and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged stretches the boundaries further than any book you have ever read. It is a mystery, not about the murder of a man’s body, but about the murder–and rebirth–of man’s spirit.
• Books by Richard: THE DNA OF THE AUTONOMOUS ATTORNEY and DISCOVER THE ACRES OF DIAMONDS IN YOUR LAW FIRM

Favorite Quote of the Show in a One Minute Clip

Thanks for Listening

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Miranda McCroskey – host of Lawpreneur Radio