Unlocking the Power of Delegation for Law Firm Success – Ep 40

Welcome back to The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, where we empower law firm owners with financial wisdom and strategies for success. I’m your host, Darren Wurz, and today we’ve reached a special milestone with Episode 40!

In today’s episode, we’re diving deep into the secrets of profitable delegation with our esteemed guest, Dan Warburton. Dan is a seasoned expert in leadership transformation, and he brings a wealth of experience from his journey of building a successful restaurant chain to coaching law firm owners and partners. Are you struggling to manage your team effectively? Do you find yourself swamped with tasks that are holding you back from reaching true profitability? Well, Dan’s insights on effective delegation could be the game-changer you need.

Dan will share with us: the lessons he learned from overcoming the challenges of employees not delivering their promised skills, the art of crafting specific and measurable requests, and strategies for creating loyalty within your team. He’ll also reveal how empowering your team can not only enhance their capabilities but also elevate your law firm’s profits.

As law firm owners, we often overlook the importance of people-focused leadership skills. Dan addresses this gap and offers transformative strategies to help us transition from being overwhelmed business operators to thriving business owners with teams that generate increased income and provide extreme freedom and fulfillment.

So, stay tuned as we uncover the power of delegation with Dan Warburton, and get ready to transform the way you lead your law firm towards a future of prosperity. It’s all coming up on The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast.

In the competitive world of legal services, efficient management and delegation are not just beneficial skills—they are essential for survival and growth. Our latest episode of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast features a profound discussion that no law firm owner can afford to miss. Guest expert Dan Warburton, a seasoned leadership coach, joins host Darren Wurz to explore the critical importance of delegation as a strategic tool for the modern legal practitioner.

Episode 40, “Dan Warburton: Harnessing the Power of Delegation for Law Firm Success,” takes a deep dive into the transformative approaches to leadership that are often overlooked in the legal sector. Dan Warburton brings a treasure trove of practical wisdom, gleaned from his own experiences and his work mentoring law firm owners.

Throughout this episode, our audience will discover:

1. Effective Delegation Techniques: Unlock the keys to delegating tasks in a way that ensures execution with precision and intent.

2. Cultivating Team Loyalty: Explore strategies for fostering a loyal and invested team, which is the backbone of any successful legal practice.

3. Strategic Communication: Learn how setting clear, specific, and measurable goals can minimize miscommunication and optimize your firm’s workflow.

4. Team Empowerment: Gain insights on empowering your staff to take ownership, which not only boosts morale but also capacity for results.

5. The Shift to Business Ownership: Understand the essential shift from working in your business as a partner to working on your business as an owner, yielding greater productivity and profitability.

Dan Warburton’s conversation with Darren Wurz is not merely an interview; it is a roadmap for law firm owners looking to refine their leadership skills and achieve exponential growth and personal satisfaction.

Take a decisive step toward enhancing your law firm’s operational efficiency and your own work-life balance. Listen to Episode 40 of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast today—featuring Dan Warburton—and start implementing the level of delegation that can transform the very fabric of your firm’s culture and success. Your journey to masterful delegation begins now.

Mastering Profitable Delegation: Transform Your Law Firm with Dan Warburton

Are you a law firm owner bogged down by endless tasks that hamper your firm’s growth and your personal freedom? Imagine if you could unlock the secret to scaling your legal practice, improving your bottom line, and reclaiming your time. In Episode 40 of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, host Darren Wurz sits down with transformative leadership coach Dan Warburton, who shares invaluable insights into profitable delegation designed to propel law firm owners into a realm of unprecedented success and fulfillment.

The Delegation Masterclass for Law Firm Owners

Delegation isn’t just about passing off tasks; it’s an art that, when mastered, can be the gateway to freedom and profitability for law firm owners. Darren Wurz and Dan Warburton dive deep into the ‘how-tos’ of effective delegation—from setting specific, measurable requests with clear timelines to strategies for building a loyal, high-performing team.

Empowering Your Team: The Path to Growth

Dan Warburton’s message to law firm owners is clear: empower your team for growth. By focusing on genuine listening, clear instruction, and regular communication with team members, law firm partners can amplify their team’s potential. Warburton’s approach to holding team members accountable through the “accept, decline, or counteroffer” method fosters a culture of responsibility and trust.

The Human Touch in Leadership

Transitioning from hands-on legal work to a leadership role means placing people at the heart of your firm’s operations. Warburton stresses the significance of providing mentorship and support to junior staff. The impacts are twofold: elevated skill sets within your firm and decreased staff turnover. Moreover, it’s a step towards transforming law firm partners into seasoned business owners—a shift that can lead to improved productivity and profitability.

From Vision to Reality: Achieving Lifestyle Freedom

Having observed his father’s work ethic and starting his own handyman business before diving into leadership training, Warburton relates his journey to his passion for coaching law firm owners. He envisions becoming a global mentor for legal professionals, assisting them in overcoming challenges and achieving their dreams. This episode isn’t just about the mechanics of delegation; it’s about inspiring a transformative lifestyle for those at the helm of law practice.

Connect with the Experts

As Warburton unveils plans for his upcoming book, “Profitable Delegation,” prospective readers and clients are invited to connect with him through his website and LinkedIn. Meanwhile, Darren Wurz urges listeners to seek tailored financial advice by visiting the podcast’s website to navigate the financial complexities unique to law firm owners.

Your Key Takeaway: Delegation = Freedom + Profit

By the end of Episode 40, it becomes abundantly clear: effective delegation is the linchpin in transitioning from overwhelmed law practitioner to thriving law firm owner. It’s about creating a self-reliant team that doesn’t just sustain your firm but helps drive it forward to greater heights of profitability and market dominance.

Will you take the steps necessary to perfect the delegation in your practice? Tune in to The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, Episode 40 with Dan Warburton, and begin your journey towards mastering profitable delegation, achieving greater freedom, and enhancing your law firm’s success starting today.

Resources:

Wurz Financial Services

Connect with Darren Wurz:

Connect with Dan Warburton:

Email: dan@danwarburton.com
Linkedin: Dan Warburton
Website: Dan Warburton

About our guest:

Dan Warburton helps Law Firm Partners & CEOs increase their profit and reduce their workload

Dan Warburton, a well traveled British entrepreneur is someone who has always had a great ambition to create, live and share an extraordinary lifestyle yet he spent a major part of his life dealing with sadness, anxiety and frustration.

The cause of his deep dissatisfaction was a feeling of not fitting in at school and college, failing to succeed in numerous business ventures and not being able to make his father proud. From his mid-twenties and throughout his thirties Dan became ever more determined to discover why he found himself to continually fail in creating even one satisfying business and so turned to self-reflection and development for the answer.

Initially, Warburton read hundreds of books about leadership and success all in an attempt to find that missing key to breaking through and begin succeeding as a business owner. He implemented what he learned from books such as The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Losing My Virginity by Sir Richard Branson, The Way Of The Peaceful Warrior By Dan Milman and A New Earth By Eckhart Tolle, The 4 Hour Work Week By Timothy Ferris and The Richest Man in Babylon By George Clason.

Along with reading such literature Dan also spent time learning to meditate with Buddhist monks, he practiced Tai Chi for years and was awarded a Tai Chi Master certificate, he also practiced Yoga under great teachers in India and in the Himalayas. All of this was again to enhance his abilities in creating and living the greatest lifestyle an entrepreneur possibly can.

While reading and carrying out such practices Dan also completed nearly two-hundred courses in self-development that covered ontology (the study of being), leadership skills and self-transformation which is now his primary expertise.

Warburton gained great insights as to how he’d been subconsciously dominated by ways of thinking that no longer served him. These were totally life-transforming insights for Dan. After further years of studying self-transformation, Dan is now able clearly to guide others to implement the self-transformational methods that he’s discovered to have greatly elevated his lifestyle as an entrepreneur.

Dan now has numerous testimonials online from entrepreneurs stating that the quality of their life has dramatically elevated from receiving Dan’s coaching and thus he is now seen as the pioneer of transformational coaching and is often invited to speak at large events around the world about what transformation makes possible for those who truly want to succeed.

What makes Dan happier than anything is coaching entrepreneurs, seeing them impact humanity in a great way and in the process create and live their dream lifestyle.

From his own life’s journey and from now having coached over one thousand entrepreneurs, in his books, the author Dan Warburton reveals his greatest insights about what it takes to succeed in an extraordinary way as an entrepreneur both in business and in dream lifestyle creation.

Transcript:

Darren Wurz [00:00:24]:
As a law firm owner, you’re probably wearing more hats than you can count. Partner, strategist, mentor, and often the biggest worrier in the room. The constant pressure of a growing to do list can be overwhelming. Right, well, what if I told you you could potentially double your profit while cutting your work hours in half? Sound like a dream? Well, my guest is here today to tell you it’s more attainable than you think. Hello and welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire podcast. I’m Darren Wurz, financial planner and dedicated ally to law firm owners. Our mission here is one you’re quite familiar with, empowering you to build wealth so you can live the life you want. Our guest today is Dan Warburton. He’s a mastermind behind transformative strategies that enable law firm owners to delegate profitably and efficiently, unlocking both the potential of their teams and their own peace of mind. Dan, welcome to the show.

Dan Warburton [00:01:32]:
Thanks so much to have me here, Darren. I’ve been really looking forward to this.

Darren Wurz [00:01:37]:
Yes, I’m so excited. And you’re all the way over in the UK. We’re excited to have you here. My first guest from the so.

Dan Warburton [00:01:45]:
Well, actually, I’m in Spain.

Darren Wurz [00:01:47]:
Yes. Yes.

Dan Warburton [00:01:49]:
I’m thoroughly british, but living in the sun nearby.

Darren Wurz [00:01:53]:
That’s awesome, I love it. So let’s get into our topic today. And today we’re talking about the secrets of profitable delegation for law firm owners. Let’s start with delegation itself. Law firm owners are obviously wearing a lot of hats, especially solo attorneys. Why is delegation such a powerful tool for law firm owners?

Dan Warburton [00:02:17]:
Mainly because they’ve never been shown it or had its possibilities explained to them. So what happens is generally a law firm partner becomes a law firm partner based on their book of clients and the number of hours they’re billing. So then when they finally become a partner, they then continue doing what they’ve always done, which is billing. And if you go right back to the beginning of that journey, all the way through their heavily academic studies, training and everything, never were they taught management and leadership. So their whole fundamental mindset is built on, how am I going to fit this in? How am I going to get this done? And looking at their schedule, when somebody says, can you do this? Or a client has another piece of work, they’re always thinking, where am I going to fit this in? How am I going to do it? Whereas once somebody’s been through, you could say, skilled leadership and management training, they no longer think, how am I going to fit this in? They instantly think, who can I ask to do this for me? And that’s the fundamental shift. And so what happens is most law firm partners are in what I call the law technician’s valley of doom. In other words, they are in a situation where, let me give you an example. I had a law firm partner, he leads a team of 50 people in London, and he was in his early fifties and he got on this call with me and he said, oh, thanks for speaking to me.. And he told me about a situation, and he was in a situation where he had either of two options. Either he was going to have to burn himself out and exhaust himself doing what he’d always done, which is trying to fit in a lot of the fee earning work whilst managing and running everything in his whole team, or walk away from a business that he’d spent years to build and he couldn’t see any other way out. He wanted to stay on the train, but the train was exhausting him. And if he got off the train, well, then the train would just stop. All the fun ends, everything he’s built ends, everything he’s passionate about, just ends. And I find this is very common for law firm partners and owners.

Darren Wurz [00:04:36]:
Yeah, that’s a tough spot to be in. And a similar familiar frustration I’ve seen with a lot of people that I work with. And these are just skills that you can learn. They’re skills that you haven’t been taught, necessarily having been through law school. So maybe a lot of times people feel like they should be good at these things naturally, but there are things that take some time to learn and you can learn how to delegate and run your business more effectively. Your website talks about enabling law firm partners to free up their time, unleash their potential and greatly elevate their profits in less than twelve months. Could you tell us a little bit about how that process works?

Dan Warburton [00:05:23]:
So if you were to look at that again, it says unleash their team’s potential, because that’s the, the fundamentally, the first part to understand is that no leader is ever a true leader without a loyal team underneath. Know if you haven’t got a loyal team. That we have a saying here in England, you’re trying to herd cats. Cats never listen to you. You can try running around them and try and get them all in one room in your house, but you’ll really struggle. You end up not easy. And that’s because if that’s the experience that a law firm partner is having with their teams, is that the team is not loyal to the law firm owner’s partner’s vision and what they want to accomplish, it’s as simple as that. So the first thing is, how do you create a loyal team? And that’s where the work begins. Usually, for teams that aren’t loyal to their business leaders, it’s because the business leaders don’t do either or both of two things. One, they don’t listen to their team members. When you go out and you meet somebody and somebody asks you, what do you do for work? What do you enjoy doing? How long have you lived here? That’s great. Wow, that’s interesting. What else would you want to do next? And when somebody speaks to you in that way and is really genuinely interested in what you have to say, we’re always left with this amazing experience of how great and wonderful this person is. And that feeling can rise up within us within minutes. But many law firm partners and owners are so busy, so exhausted, so stressed out, that they never have time to just listen to what particularly their key team members want. And so it begins by first scheduling regular one on one calls with the key team members or key team leaders and starting off by asking them, why are you employed in this company? What do you want to achieve here? What do you want to get out of this? It could be Fridays off, it could be more money, it could be becoming partner.

Dan Warburton [00:07:39]:
It could be just security and reliable pay and not have to manage or lead anyone at all. They might be their answer, whatever it is, because people usually enjoy doing what their strengths are. So it can be difficult to try and work out what are somebody’s strengths. But actually, if you just ask them what they enjoy doing or what do they want to do more of in the firm, they’re actually talking about what they’re already strong in doing. And then once you’ve got that, then it’s about holding regular one on one calls to empower them to ensure that they have everything they need to really succeed at what matters to them. So that’s the first one, that’s the listening part on an ongoing basis. And then the second one is all about making sure that the people that you’re leading have regular clear instruction, because it’s easy to make requests of somebody and leave out any of these three key elements. And if these key elements are missing, then it’s not a request. So a request, it says exactly what you want somebody to do. It’s a measurable result. Like when that work is done, you can see that it’s done, right? It’s not make that client happy. That’s not a request. Right. It needs to be that report or this document or whatever it is. So that’s the first one. Secondly, a time frame. If you ask somebody to do something and you don’t request a time frame or ask them by when can you do that? And then they give you a time frame, then that’s not a request, that’s some weird communication. And what happens is, let’s say that the client needs this piece of work on a Friday morning. You need to check it and release it on the Thursday. You want to have it by 12:00 p.m. That Thursday. Now let’s say that you haven’t agreed a time frame for that piece to be done so that you could review it to then release it onto the client. As it comes to 12:00 you start to think, are they doing it? Are they not? Should I text them? Should I call them? I don’t want to micromanage them. I don’t want to bother them. And in the end, you can’t focus, you can’t concentrate, you can’t do your work properly. And if you’ve got a series of these going on with a series of work where you’re not knowing if it’s being done or not, it can become extremely stressful and exhausting. So the second thing is always agree a time frame, because then if it gets to 12:00 p.m. You can then go and open your email box, and if it’s not delivered, then you can pick up the phone to that individual, say, hey, we had this agreement that this was going to be done by 12:00 today and it hasn’t. Are you okay? What do you need from me? By when can you get it done? And then the final thing is agreement. There needs to be agreement from both of you on exactly what needs to be done and by what time frame. If there’s any slight idea that they might be vague on exactly what needs to be done and by when, then it’s more than likely not going to be done how you like it to, or by the time frame that you like it to or need it to or both.

Darren Wurz [00:10:45]:
Yeah, that’s great insights. And that’s probably one of the key things that you focus on in your work. I imagine helping people put that into practice and also other things that can enable them to delegate. And having a definition of when it’s done that seems to be very critical. And you’re right. Sometimes when we tell people we want a task accomplished, we have in our head how we do it and what it should look like. And we’re not always good about getting that put onto paper and really explained well for other folks.

Dan Warburton [00:11:21]:
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s vital to be able to not only make those clear requests, but in a way that doesn’t leave people feeling manipulated. So manipulation is when you use fear tactics or threats to have somebody do what you want them to do and they sound things like, if you don’t do this, we’re going to have words. Or if you don’t sort this out, I might be sending you an email with something soon that’s using manipulation tactics to try and manipulate people to do what you want them to. And what that does is that starts to break down loyalty. That’s the fastest way to breaking down loyalty because as soon as somebody feels like they’re being manipulated or forced into doing something they don’t want to do, then, yeah, that really starts to break down relationships. So the question is, how do you hold somebody to account to do what you want them to without manipulating? The opposite is you simply give them the opportunity to every request they make three either options, accept, decline, or counteroffer. That’s it. And as long as you make sure that that context is there in your communication, then you’ll never sound manipulative. And you’ll always feel like you’re respecting whoever you’re speaking to, and they will feel respected, which will maintain their loyalty to your success and to that of your firm. So if we look at this accept, you make the request. Yes, I can do that. Okay. By when? By 12:00 Thursday. Brilliant. So you’re going to do this, you’re going to complete that report, these three sections, get that done, and you’re going to have it to me emailed in my inbox by 12:00 p.m..

Dan Warburton [00:13:14]:
Thursday, is that right? Yes. Great. Brilliant. Fantastic. That was a request broadcasted, request received and agreed. Right. Counteroffer. Okay, can you do that? I’ve got a lot on. Okay, so what’s your counteroffer then? Well, I could do, but not today or tomorrow. Okay, but when could you do it? I could do it by Monday next week. Or is there no way you could get it done Friday? Or maybe could you do it like, right the end of Friday? Let’s say, give yourself enough breakdown time, say, 03:00 p.m.. Friday. Could you get it to me by then? Yes. Great. Okay, fantastic. There you go. That’s counteroffer. Agreed. Yeah. Or decline. No, I can’t do that. Okay, got it. You can’t do that. Why not? It’s just too complex. I don’t understand it. Okay, got it. So now from that response, in other words, first you’re being a kind, generous leader. That’s giving people the opportunity to be honest with you and say that they don’t want to do something. And why not? So it’s very important. If you’re always losing your temper and getting angry and frustrated with people, you won’t create this environment where people will communicate with you openly like this, but then with them saying they can’t and giving the reason why, then you can put in place of structures that has them get the support they need. Okay, got it. So you could then say, so if I organized you extra training around how to do this, would you be up for taking it on? Quite often that individual will say, yeah, that sounds great. Because they see it as an opportunity to learn something new, increase their value and their impact on the business, on you and the clients as well.

Darren Wurz [00:14:50]:
Yeah, that’s great, having a system like that or a format for dealing with those requests. And it all comes back to building the team and the team loyalty, which is interesting, not just about efficiency, but there’s this broader purpose behind all of that. Dan, I’m curious, what’s your background? And tell our audience about how you came to specialize in delegation and working with law firm owners.

Dan Warburton [00:15:22]:
You’ve got me laughing already because it’s such a story. So I saw my father sitting at his office desk at home, which was in the basement of our home. And he was tired, he was exhausted. And he would come up for lunch, and then he would huff and puff and go back downstairs after lunch, and then after the evening meal, he would say, oh, bloody hell, I need to go back downstairs and work at that bloody desk again. And then on Saturdays, he’d be there working. I’m just going to do a bit in the office. By middle of the afternoon, Saturday is still there. And then often Sundays, he’d be in there again. As I grew sort of into my realized there isn’t as much freedom as an employee as there is when you’re a business owner, like when you’re an employee, you’ve got to work certain hours, you can’t go on holiday as and when you want, you need to be told when you can and can’t go on holiday and all these other things. And a business owner gets to choose when they go on holiday, they have unlimited earning potential and they really carve out their future. So I knew that’s the way that I wanted, which was what my father had done. But I realized I wanted to be a business owner, but not a business owner like my father. And so I then began a handyman business, knocking on doors, introducing myself as Superdan the handyman. And whilst this was going on, I was attending a lot of leadership and management training in some amazing training programs that were based in London. And these training programs were so tough that for one of them, where there were twelve of us in it, on this year long program, only three of us completed the first year and made it into the second year. And we were being taught to come up with projects that would positively impact humanity, and then going out to find people to then inspire, to become the leaders of those projects and then take them through to completion. And the idea was to create these projects that took on a life of their own, so much so that you, as the leader, could just disappear and no longer even be needed in it. And there’s a very successful restaurant chain here in England called Pretamanje, if you know it. So it’s called Pretamanje, very successful. There’s chains everywhere. And they wanted to create a cafe where no food was ever wasted and made a real difference to people who didn’t have food. So all the food, like long before it’s gone off date, it’s given away or sold at a greatly reduced price to certain institutions to help people who haven’t got food. But that’s now very successful. So that’s the kind of projects that rise out of this leadership training.

Dan Warburton [00:18:11]:
And as I was going through it, I was implementing everything I learned in my business. So I realized, well, I can only ever be impacting one person’s life at once, as long as I’m working on the tools. Whereas if I had ten people doing work on people’s houses, I could have ten people impacting ten clients lives all at once. So that’s ten times me being able to cause the impact. So I knew that was the way to go. I then grew from super Dan to team super. It was a team of eight guys matching uniforms, matching vans. We were renowned in the south of England for integrity, timekeeping, cleanliness, like real high level handyman building repair service. And what happened was some of the workmen that told me about the work they could do, they couldn’t actually do it. So in the end, they started to make these mistakes, and they weren’t plastering walls properly. There started to be cracks in some of the building work. So then that had to be taken down and redone again. And then I was having to go and borrow money on personal credit cards to be able to go and pay other companies and other workmen to come and repair the mistakes they made, because I knew that reputation was everything. And in the end, works ended up delayed. I ended up in so much debt, some clients chose not to pay anymore until certain works were finished, and I didn’t have more money to finish the work. So in the end, I had to close the whole business down. And in the process, I borrowed even more money to give back people that owed it. And even to those workmen. And those workmen that let me down, I still chose to pay them back because I wanted to leave a great word of mouth and reputation for myself as an individual employer, business owner, all these things. And then there I was, back to square one, back in this one bedroom bed Sit apartment, which is where I started this whole journey three years later. Except I also had 100,000 pounds of debt. No business, no job, no career. And I knew, again, employment wasn’t an option. I had to be a business owner.

Dan Warburton [00:20:02]:
And as I carried on going through these leadership training programs and looking and pulling apart what it was that went wrong, what I realized was that to delegate effectively, if you don’t delegate the responsibility with the task, then people don’t perform at a high level. So you can ask people to do things all you want, and they can kind of do them or half do them or do them late. But for them to do them effectively to a high standard and on time, they need to feel the responsibility for doing that work properly and on time. And so then that began my deeper level of leadership learnings, which was learning, how do you transfer responsibility from your shoulders onto the shoulders of others? And I covered a bit of this earlier, like finding out what people want as being part of your team, what do they aspire to achieve? What’s important to them. Then when they feel like those dreams, goals, and ambitions, or what matters to them is on the line, and they can see that through them fulfilling their agreements with you, they get to fulfill what is important to them. That then leads to them actually starting to take the responsibility off your shoulders themselves. They start to actually think about clients needs before you’ve even thought of it. That’s one of the things. And so I then went through this deeper journey of really learning how to transfer responsibility. And as a result, I took that into a new business, which was a 24 hours emergency plumbing and drainage business. Met a business owner. He had a small team already offering it. And then I said to him, look, I can get the phone ringing like there’s no tomorrow if I bring this work in and I close it, can you action your team to do it? Said, yes. Great. So that’s what I did. And it was amazing because I now had a manager that managed all the problems that arose.

Dan Warburton [00:21:51]:
I didn’t even have to handle any of those. And I could answer the phone anywhere. So I’d be on ski lifts in Chamonix, France, and I’d be holding my mobile phone with this panoramic view with a snowboard strapped around my feet, and I’d be saying, hello, two four seven, drainage. How can I help you? We can be there in 1 hour. That’s 100 pounds. Okay, great. What’s your name and what’s your address? And I would then text them the details. And it was just brilliant. I could travel everywhere and I was earning good money. And then I started to coach and show the manager how to and grow his team, how to make them highly loyal, effective, and operate at high levels of performance and further delegate the work that came in. And so I helped him grow this team, and it was all looking really good, and I could see a whole future for it. And then my dad said, what is this leadership transformational kind of work that you do? So I sat down with him and he had this huge experience, and he said, wow, you’re very good at this, sunshine. Have you thought about doing this professionally? And that was January 2016. My father became one of my first clients. And then neighbors, friends of friends, started to ask me because they saw me traveling a lot, living this good life. And then I end up working with over 1000 clients on a one on one basis. Some of them were just complimentary sessions, some of them were much deeper, one year long programs. And then three years ago, I did an advanced marketing program. And my mentor at the time said, look at which of your clients get the best results and which you enjoy working with the most. Wrote them all out. And it was really clear those clients were law firm owners and partners. So ever since then, that’s what I’ve niched in. And I’m like a kid in a sweet shop because as I said earlier, in the legal sector, all the training is very academic. There isn’t people to people leadership skills and all those things, which is all I’ve had for many years. So now in this industry, I’ve really come to life because I find that it’s very missing for partners who basically want to earn a lot more whilst working less.

Darren Wurz [00:23:53]:
Yeah. Wow, that is really fascinating. You figured out how to do this and then took that skill elsewhere. And as I’m listening to you, it kind of seems like there’s two, maybe three layers of this, right. And you’ve kind of descended deeper and deeper into a depth that really I hadn’t thought about before until you were sharing this story. There’s hiring, bringing people onto the team initially, then there’s delegating and just kind of the assigning of tasks. You talked about tasks versus responsibilities, and then as you’re talking about it, it’s more like, okay, in more of an internal motivated kind of way. Like not just the tasks themselves, but giving people the responsibilities and then enabling them not just to complete tasks, but do so in a way that is efficient and well done and where they’re doing outstanding work. Have I kind of got that right?

Dan Warburton [00:25:00]:
Brilliant. And I love the way you broke that down. Yeah, great. And it’s not giving people the responsibility.

Darren Wurz [00:25:08]:
Okay.

Dan Warburton [00:25:09]:
The secret is inspiring people to want to take the responsibility. That’s the difference, because you’re either pushing away or someone else is pulling towards. And it’s much more effective when people are pulling towards opportunity, pulling towards wanting to speak to you, pulling towards being in your firm and pay rises and a whole future, that inspires them. And one of the biggest problems in the legal sector is staff turnover. Two, three years in juniors, they get bored, they get tired, fed up, and they want to leave. Why? Because they’ve not had enough one on one time with more senior members to train and empower them to elevate their skills and become worth more. And this is all because usually the law firm partners are so busy focusing on their own fee earning work rather than being available to offer that training and support and time to inspire their juniors to rise up instead. And the bottom line is, it’s like a law firm partner can earn so much more and impact so many more lives.If they had ten highly effective ferners working that 1 hour instead of them. Not only that, they end up earning so much more and they haven’t had to do 1 hour of fee earning in that 1 hour. So then they are finally free to solve all the next problems. Because the nature of business is when you find a solution to one problem, it then services all the rest. But for me, this is the one major problem a law firm partner must solve first before they transition from being just a technician in their business to being an actual business owner and gaining the great freedom and quality of life that then comes with that. Because once they’ve delegated away their workload, then they’re free. Then they can solve attracting, retaining clients, they can solve business development, they can solve workflow challenges and problems, they can solve absolutely everything else because they’re free to be able to do so.

Darren Wurz [00:27:13]:
And that’s where it really starts to turn into profit. It’s fun, right? You’re not just offloading things you have to do, you’re creating a team that’s going to make more money for you. Right?

Dan Warburton [00:27:30]:
That’s it. And enjoy the process of proving themselves to you and climbing this ladder to what feels to them like real progression in their lives and career, which then further deepens their loyalty to you and your vision.

Darren Wurz [00:27:42]:
Fantastic. Well, this has absolutely been very eye opening for me. I know it has been for the people who are listening as well. Unfortunately, we’re coming to the end of our time here and we’ve got to wrap it up. But this is really great. We’ll have to have you back again, Dan, to talk more about it. I do have another question for you as we come to the end here, and that is, what’s your ultimate vision and the future plans maybe you have for yourself and your business?

Dan Warburton [00:28:14]:
So my dream is to become recognized as the mentor, the coach, whatever you want to call it. The guy that the most respected law firm partners in the world approach to achieve their greatest dreams and overcome all their challenges.

Darren Wurz [00:28:33]:
I love it.

Dan Warburton [00:28:34]:
Yeah, that’s my commitment.

Darren Wurz [00:28:35]:
You’re already living the dream somewhat in Spain of all places, and that’s.

Dan Warburton [00:28:44]:
I’ve got clients in the USA, few from around the world, and I absolutely love what? Like, I’m only interested in being paid for making a real difference in the world. I’m not interested in selling oil or gas or some plastic widgets or something. And no disrespect to anyone who chooses to do that, that’s totally fine. But what lights me up is when I’m lying in bed at night and I’m still remembering the conversation. I’ve had one of my clients where they said I get to spend the evenings with my wife. I get to go on holiday with my children. I’m earning more money than I’ve ever earned before, yet I haven’t got black rings around my eyes. I’m now able to give away my time to charity. I’m able to empower the juniors in the team to have them create fantastic careers. I’m now able to attend podcast interviews, be featured in magazines, be invited to speak at events around the world and all the things that are so enjoyful after having spent 1015 2030 years of having built a firm, rather than being stuck behind a desk thinking how the hell am I going to fit all this in and how much longer can I keep this up for? Because I don’t know.

Darren Wurz [00:30:09]:
Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s great stuff because I talk about retirement for law firm owners a lot. But retirement for law firm owners usually doesn’t necessarily mean just stopping working. And many of them are trying to get to that place of moving into more of a leadership role where they’re kind of the figurehead of an organization and they can work on the more big picture stuff, the vision and the goal setting while they have a team in place that’s really doing the operations for them.

Dan Warburton [00:30:41]:
Yeah, absolutely. And this is a great podcast to all of you partners that are listening to this to remember it is possible you don’t need to keep exhausting yourself out and you don’t have to walk away from a business that you spent years building. There is a completely new avenue that will lead to extreme freedom and fulfillment in your lifestyle.

Darren Wurz [00:31:01]:
Absolutely. Well, Dan, would you please share with our audience how they can learn more about you and get in touch with you if they have questions?

Dan Warburton [00:31:09]:
That’s kind of you. So you go danwalburton.com. So if you go there danwarburton.com, I’ve actually got a 62nd assessment, and if you take that, it will break down for you where your strengths and weaknesses are in your profitable delegation skills and give you some tailored insights in what you need to focus on next. And alternatively, yeah, you can add me on LinkedIn. Just search Dan Warburton and I’d love to connect with you. And I’m soon launching a book called Profitable Delegation and it’s going to be free for the very 1st 24 hours, and that’s going to be announced on LinkedIn. So if that’s something you’d like, then add me on LinkedIn to make sure you know of that announcement.

Darren Wurz [00:31:49]:
Great stuff. Well, that’s a wrap for today’s episode. Thanks, Dan, for joining us. And thank you, the listener, for being with us today. I hope you’ve gained some insights that can help you elevate your firm, streamline your workload, and boost your profits. While learning from experts like Dan will help you improve your firm’s profitability, optimizing your personal financial is a different story, and that’s where I come in. As a financial advisor dedicated to serving law firm owners, I can partner with you to empower you to clarify your finances and create extraordinary wealth so you can achieve the life you want. Navigating the financial world can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’d like advice on your own circumstances, simply visit thelawyormillionaire.com to schedule a meeting with me. Thanks for joining today, and keep tuning in for more episodes packed with actionable advice and thought provoking discussions. If you haven’t yet, go ahead and hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you like what you heard, please leave us review I’m your host, Darren Wurz, and I’ll see you next time.