Business Development

Tax season will be here before you know it. Choosing a CPA is a necessity as you begin your legal nurse consulting business and as your CLNC^® business grows. This experience need not be a daunting one.

Match the CPA’s Service to Your Needs

Your main focus should be to match the needs of your CLNC^® business with the services provided by the CPA. CPAs can:

1. Set up your books – A CPA can help you determine your chart of accounts, set up record-keeping guidelines and generally get you started. A CPA can also review your records and tax returns to be sure you’ve made no blatant mistakes.
2. Prepare all tax returns – These can include both Federal and state tax returns for personal, corporate,  payroll, sales tax and other business-related filings. While a CPA may review returns you have prepared, the CPA will not sign off on them unless he completed the return. A CPA can also help in the event of an audit by the IRS or any other taxing authority. You may also want to consider a payroll service to handle your payroll needs, including tax filings and records compliance.
3. Provide managerial advice – A CPA who is well informed about your legal nurse consulting business can often provide tax and cost saving suggestions as well as help you make informed decisions about your business based on your financial statements and tax returns. Tax laws and reporting requirements frequently change, and helping you stay abreast of these changes is an important role of the CPA.
4. Provide complete bookkeeping services – Some CPA firms have bookkeepers on staff who perform the record-keeping the CPA requires for your financial statements and tax returns. While this service is not free, you gain billable hours to devote to your CLNC^® business at a higher billing rate than what you would pay for the bookkeeping services.
5. Help with computer applications – A CPA may be able to guide you in choosing the appropriate accounting software package for your business. Easy-to-use, complete accounting software packages, such as Quicken, Quickbooks and Peachtree are available as are tax preparation software (TurboTax, Tax Cut).

Find the Right Professional

To begin your search for the right CPA, consider networking with other business owners, family members and friends. Other sources for referrals are local legal and professional associations. Each state has an association of CPAs that can give you names. The Internet can also be a source for names of CPAs in your state. One helpful website is aicpa.org which offers a list of State Boards of Accountancy that can be accessed online to research names and verify licensing.

When you have narrowed the field, interview each candidate. Verify the CPA’s license with the respective State Board of accountancy. Take previous tax returns and financial statements with you to give each candidate a chance to understand your business. Ask what their specialties are and if they have worked with consultants or other business owners previously. Request references and contact the references, asking how helpful and accessible the CPA has been for them. If at all possible, have the CPA come to your office. This can help the CPA appreciate where you are in your business and where you want to go in the future. Your focus should be on finding an individual who is compatible with you and knowledgeable about your CLNC^® business. Assess whether the candidates have answered your questions thoroughly and used terms you understand.

Here are some additional factors to consider when choosing a CPA:

• Size
  The size of the CPA firm is important. Large firms can be costly and less likely to give you personal attention. However, they will likely provide a wider range of services than a smaller firm. A sole practitioner can provide personal attention but may offer fewer services, have less time to devote to staying current and might become overwhelmed by a growing business. You may want to start with a sole practitioner and, when your needs outgrow his services, move on to a larger firm.

• Credentials
  Check the accountant’s credentials. An individual with the CPA designation has met state licensing requirements and passed a difficult two-day national exam. CPAs who belong to the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) are governed by a strict code of ethics and must complete extensive continuing education requirements. Inquire about association memberships and how active the CPA is in those organizations.

• Integrity
  Integrity and honesty are also a major consideration. Some CPAs stretch the meaning of the law. Be sure you are comfortable with the interpretation your CPA gives you. If you have any doubt about the advice the CPA gives you, get a second opinion.

Be sure to get the fee schedule in writing so you can budget to make the best use of the CPA’s time.

Don’t hesitate to replace your CPA if you find that your needs as a legal nurse consultant are not being met. When you consider the dollars you are losing by using an inefficient CPA, it will help you justify the time you will spend on a search for your new “financial partner.”

Success Is Inside!

Here at Vickie Milazzo Institute we frequently mentor new CLNC^® graduates on creating their unique selling position (USP). Your USP communicates how your legal nurse consulting experience, nursing experience, education and leadership in nursing can specifically benefit the attorney-client with his medical-related cases. In essence, you are translating your experience into a benefit for the attorney. USP is not about you and the CLNC^® services that you provide. It is about how you translate you and your CLNC^® services into the mind of the attorney-prospect.

The important word in USP is “unique.” What can you claim that another registered nurse cannot? The most common mistake I see is including a generic quality or characteristic that any legal nurse consultant can claim such as, “I’m organized and very analytical.” Who among us would say we’re not organized and analytical? If you want to stress your analytical skills, is there a specific experience that separates you from other RNs? Here’s an example:

“Five years of experience reviewing medical records as a risk manager in a variety of specialties plus my CLNC^® Certification qualifies me to quickly and cost-effectively review cases in any medical and nursing specialty. I can save you time and money by screening cases before you pay to send them to expensive medical experts.”

A second common mistake I see is legal nurse consultants stating expertise and credentials without a benefit statement such as, “I have 10 years of experience.” The attorney might not instantly understand all the benefits these 10 years of experience offer. Here’s an example of adding a benefit statement to your experience:

“I have 10 years of emergency experience. Having worked inside emergency departments, I can share details of how emergency services are provided that you will never find in an emergency medicine textbook. This will reduce the time you’ll have to spend with expensive medical experts.”

A third mistake I see is focusing on the CLNC^® services you provide such as screening cases and analyzing causation issues. At some stage you will want to emphasize CLNC^® services you provide, but they are not a USP. CLNC^® services are common to all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. Your USP can, however, qualify you to deliver a CLNC^® service in a very unique, more qualified or more specific way. Here’s an example:

“My five years of experience in cardiology qualifies me to identify plaintiffs who have a pre-existing risk for heart attack and stroke in the defense of your Vioxx^® cases.”

Put your USP to work for your CLNC^® business with your attorney-prospects and remember to keep it unique.

Success Is Inside!

There’s a movie called Pirate Radio about the “offshore” radio stations that broadcast rock and roll and pop music into England. This movie has one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in years and I asked Tom to put a copy in my Christmas stocking (I’m listening to it now). The movie is about the antics of one of the merry bands of radio pirates who floated on ships just outside of England’s territorial waters and blasted rock and roll music to the British public.

Believe it or not, in the ‘60s the BBC restricted the types of music the British could hear over the radio. In response, these rollicking and swinging bands of pirate entrepreneurs took it upon themselves to fill a gap in the radio market. The featured ship experienced smooth sailing until it hit a business “iceberg” and the ship sunk.

While the Pirate Radio ship did not sink from an iceberg, it did sink. This movie got Tom and me talking about the traveling Titanic artifact exhibition we have seen and the timeless and valuable business lessons Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can learn from the tragic events of the Titanic 90 years ago (besides the value of being onboard with Leonardo DiCaprio).

Your Business Is a Treasure

You enter the Titanic exhibit through a dimly lit room and walk past a large model of the ship as it sits today, broken and rusting on the bottom of the North Atlantic surrounded by treasures that have come to rest on the bed of the ocean. Here, on the museum floor, sit two rows of dishes half buried in sand – the wooden crate they were stored in long ago eaten away by the ocean. Over there is a crushed light fixture from the ceiling of a stateroom and here sits a ceramic sink, all recovered from the debris field surrounding the great ship. A hidden speaker system plays submarine sounds, adding to the chilling undersea effect and setting the mood for the exhibit to come.

Business Lesson #1 – One day you will retire. How will you remember your CLNC^® business – as a failure or as a success story? Will your mistakes become Titanic-size failures or will you learn from them and make corrections? Will something good come from the business treasures revealed by lessons learned? Amazing lessons lead to a new and higher levels of success for your legal nurse consulting business.

You Bear the Captain’s Burden of Trust

In the next exhibit room you see photographs of the passengers and crew. The black and white photos show stern looking men and women, sweet, well-dressed children, proud sailors and crew members. None had any idea of the tragedy ahead of them. They believed the ship was unsinkable and trusted in the White Star Line and their captain. In fact, the captain’s reputation was so strong that several of the passengers refused to sail with anyone else, booking passage only on ships under his command.

Business Lesson #2 – Your job is to steer your CLNC^® business ship wisely and to lead wisely. Outstanding leadership and knowledge will give you a ship full of loyal, trusting attorney-clients not to mention CLNC^® subcontractors and employees. Never betray their trust. One betrayal of trust can sink the business relationship. It may not be the Titanic, but when you consider that a single attorney-client can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to you, that’s a lot of gold left at the bottom of the ocean. Your subcontractors are needed to help keep your ship on course and making “all possible speed.”

Technology Doesn’t Guarantee Success

Next you see a large photo of the room where the Titanic was designed, along with shots of the ship under construction. It took 3½ years to build this engineering marvel, the largest ship of its day. Revolutionary advances in ship and engine design were developed to make the Titanic unsinkable.

Business Lesson #3 – You can create a modern, state-of-the-art business enterprise using every technology available, but as much as I love technology, it is only an aid. Attorneys need strong analysis to keep their cases from sinking. All the computers, software, smartphones, etc. are tools to be used, not substitutes for critical thinking and communication.

Glitz and Glamour Are Only Skin Deep

The exhibit recreates the level of comfort first-class passengers enjoyed:

1. Full-size staterooms, the largest, most comfortable rooms ever built on a ship, complete with running water and electric lights, a rarity in 1912.
2. A Parisian café, along with gourmet menus and manifests showing the diverse array of fresh and exotic foodstuffs stocked on board.
3. The grand wooden staircase with ballroom music playing in the background and a rescued cherub bearing witness to the ship’s former glory.

In today’s dollars, a first-class ticket would have cost as much as $78,000. The passengers truly sailed in luxury never before seen on a ship, yet, the Titanic was rushed into service and not all its systems and services had been tested. The opulence belied hidden problems.

Business Lesson #4 – The first impression is so powerful that you want every aspect of your legal nurse consulting business to look good. To an outsider your business may look solid and even glamorous. But as the captain of your ship, only you know where your weaknesses lie. For example, are your medical-related case reports filled with substance or just appear glitzy? As long as you can identify weaknesses and remedy them, you can still maintain the glitz and glamour. Ask for feedback from your clients and do some self-analysis of your work – nothing is perfect (just ask your spouse) and everything can be improved upon.

Stay on the Lookout for Icebergs

In the next starkly lit room, you step out onto the deck and feel the chill of the night air. A 30-foot-long mountain of ice dominates your view. You can press your hand into the side to feel the chill of the ice and start thinking about the coldness of the waters. The recovered ship’s bell hanging nearby rings suddenly, loud and clear, and you hear a lookout shout, “Iceberg!” You learn that in the rush to prepare the ship for sailing, neither lookout could find his binoculars, a fatal error.

Business Lesson #5 – No matter how many times you cruise the seas – even while tending to your attorney-clients’ every need – you must always be on the lookout. Don’t get lost in the details of running your CLNC^® business or creating the glitz and glitter. You can easily lose sight of what’s ahead and forget to watch where you are going or what icebergs may await you. To stay on alert you need to keep one eye on the future, one eye on the past and one on the present.

You Don’t Have to Hit the Iceberg Head-On

The Titanic’s collision with the iceberg wasn’t head-on. Instead the berg glanced along the side, tearing a gash no wider than three inches in six watertight compartments. The ship was designed to float with as many as four of these compartments flooded. But six flooded almost simultaneously, dooming the ship. With a harder collision, even a head-on blow, or a crash tearing one large hole across two compartments, the ship would have survived.

Business Lesson #6 – Don’t underestimate the small problems. Even a small amount of damage can have catastrophic effects. You may plan for a major catastrophe, but the cumulative effect of smaller injuries can sink your business as surely as a giant iceberg.

There Are Icebergs Everywhere

The Titanic sailed for only two days before striking the iceberg. After 3½ years in design and construction, it took less than 3½ hours for the ship to go down.

Business Lesson #7 – No matter how long you spend building your business, it is important to be alert at all times. Icebergs are plentiful.

Have Your Lifeboat Ready at All Times

Leaving the iceberg, you move to the next room and you are quickly sobered by the personalization of this tragedy with the lists of names, photographs and artifacts from the passengers. In the haste, some lifeboats were launched nearly empty. Some were over-full. There were far too few lifeboat seats for the number of passengers and crew. People who fell into the ocean lived less than 10 minutes due to the extreme cold. At least one lifeboat tipped over, saving only those lucky enough and strong enough to climb out of the freezing water and cling to the capsized boat.

Business Lesson #8 – You must always have enough lifeboats and be prepared with an alternative if you run out. Today’s lifeboats are self-righting – but you still need to be strong enough to climb out of the water. In business terms, this means you need not only a viable emergency or contingency plan that you can easily activate, but also the ability to survive for the duration of the emergency.

Rescue Your Best Attorney-Clients First

In most cases men chivalrously stood aside as women and children were put into the boats. The highest percentage of survivors were from the first-class section. Proportionately fewer second- and third-class passengers survived. Passenger class was determined by the cost of the ticket, and hence by the passenger’s wealth. (Incidentally, two rich passengers traveled in third class to hide their wealth, and both were lost.)

Business Lesson #9 – Take care of your best attorney-clients first, but don’t forget your occasional attorney-client. Your best clients are the ones you’ll need most and a show of loyalty here can take you far. But all attorneys, big and small add value to your company so make sure that your level and quality of service is constant across all your attorney-clients.

Icebergs Lead to Improvements

The sinking of the Titanic triggered a congressional inquiry (even back in 1912). A lot of fingers were pointed, and the rules of shipbuilding were changed forever. None of this helped those who went down with the ship although future passengers enjoyed a higher level of safety.

Business Lesson #10 – Rules can and will be changed after mistakes are made from hitting icebergs. If you’re not out there making mistakes, you’re not making any progress. Each mistake is a learning opportunity that will make your business better – if you take the time to learn from your mistakes and not just shrug them off as “experience.”

It’s Okay to Hit Icebergs

The last business lesson is the most dramatic of all. The Titanic wouldn’t have sunk if it hadn’t sailed. If you never leave the dock, you’ll never hit an iceberg – but you’ll also miss the thrills of the voyage.

Business Lesson #11 – You have to sail before you can fail. If you hit an iceberg while you’re working, at least you’ll have the chance to keep your business afloat. If you never leave the dock, you’ll never have a legal nurse consulting business to keep afloat.

Some businesses sink on the drafting board because they never get built. The owners spend more time getting ready than they spend on marketing. One CLNC^® consultant kept her business in the planning stages for four months because she wasn’t happy with the company name she had selected – and she finally went with the original name she had chosen. She might have missed a lot of icebergs in four months, but she also didn’t win any attorney-clients. As hockey legend Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

No business is unsinkable – but there are steps you can take to watch out for icebergs. Personally, I’d much rather try and fail than never try at all. I’ve made my share of mistakes and I’ve hit my own large iceberg. My business didn’t sink and I stayed afloat, thankfully I had the necessary lifeboats and contingency plans in place and acted quickly on them. The iceberg knocked me off course and led me on a journey that would change my business and the nursing profession forever. In fact, if I had missed the iceberg, I probably would have kept going in my original direction. Then you wouldn’t be reading this blog, and thousands of RNs who are now successful CLNC^® consultants would instead be battling healthcare facility icebergs daily.

Full steam ahead, lookouts to the crow’s nest!

My success, like that of many entrepreneurs, is built on challenging the experts – not relying on them. Our Founding Fathers weren’t expert politicians. Our captains of industry weren’t experts in their fields. Our best inventors weren’t experts. America and almost all of our achievements were built by a nation of amateurs, tinkerers and inventors constantly poking, prodding, testing and discarding what didn’t work until they eventually hit the magic formula for success.

In 1982, when I pioneered the field of legal nurse consulting, I challenged the experts. The whole concept of legal nurse consulting was contrary to what attorneys accepted as an industry standard. Typically, they relied on doctors to try to make sense of medical records. How crazy is that? As RNs, we know doctors don’t even read the medical records when they’re at work. So how could attorneys possibly be getting what they really needed? Not to mention the fact that physicians were charging way too much for their time and weren’t always giving the attorneys objective opinions (because doctors are way too protective of each other).

I had to go against the “experts” and educate attorneys that the registered nurse (RN) is the only healthcare provider who knows everything that is going on with the patient. We’re the ones with hands-on information, with face-to-face 24/7 contact with patients, and most important, the only healthcare provider who ever reads the entire medical record. As RNs, we not only have the expertise to uncover vital facts and key pieces of information that can make or break an attorney’s case, but we’re cost-effective too. As an added bonus, we bring our (highly developed) skills of critiquing other healthcare providers to the table. This ensures that we deliver an objective opinion.

Shortly after I started consulting with attorneys on the medical issues in their cases, I recognized exactly how widespread the need for nurses in the legal arena really was. My next step was to begin training other nurses on how to consult with attorneys too. Now I had two growing businesses in a field the experts said would never succeed. Today, over 6,000 CLNC^® consultants are still proving those same experts wrong!

Contrary to what most people believe, it doesn’t take an Einstein to spawn brilliant ideas, and even Einstein wasn’t born an expert (just a genius). Experts and extraordinary people can and do wake up with dumb ideas while ordinary people can and do wake up with extraordinary ideas.

The reality is that there are very few Einsteins out there and a lot more ordinary people like you and me (some with Einstein hair though). Like I said, ordinary people wake up with ideas every day; some are brilliant ideas, some are ordinary ideas and some are just plain dumb. But even a small, ordinary idea can pay off huge when you have the courage to own it and take action on it.

In my company, I encourage everyone, expert or not, to speak up when they have a new concept and to verbalize their objections when they think something isn’t working. Sometimes the person who knows the least about the subject asks a question that helps us make the biggest breakthroughs. In fact, I always know we’re onto a truly innovative idea at Vickie Milazzo Institute when one of the experts says, “You can’t do that.”

You’ll advance your legal nurse consulting business faster by listening to non-experts as well as experts. The experts aren’t always right except in their own mind. If it weren’t for people who didn’t listen to the experts, there are a lot of the things that we take for granted today that wouldn’t exist because the experts said that they weren’t needed or nobody would buy them.

What “expert” have you challenged lately? What “non-expert” have you listened to? Don’t let anyone stop you on your way to CLNC^® success.

Success Is Inside!

Tom, my twin brother Vince and I were walking through the mall the other day with no particular destination on our minds. It was just one of those evenings when you just troll the mall because it’s there. Since we didn’t have a goal or focus I found myself taking in the shops from a different perspective. Normally, I’m what Tom refers to as a F&F shopper – fire and forget. I’m a laser-like focused shopper, entering the mall at a fast pace, making my purchases and coming back out just as fast, paying no attention to the in-between.

To give you a little dish, Tom and Vince can spend more time in a store than I do and still come out empty-handed. I’m always perplexed that they can spend so much time in a store (even a sporting goods store) without buying anything. I need to keep those two apart or leave them at home.

Being with Tom and Vince that evening at the mall (and nope, they didn’t buy a thing) gave me time to think about our legal nurse consulting businesses.

I walked past windows and display after display of the same lines of clothing. Mind-numbing displays of solids, stripes, plaids and every color under the sun – virtually the same from store to store. I realized that no matter where you are in the developed world, the shopping is disturbingly similar. Global brands have limited our choices from what was once a world of many selections to a world of few. Walk through Macy’s, Sak’s, Neiman’s, Nordy’s, Target or even my favorite, Walmart and they are scarily the same.

So I started to wonder what really makes one store more successful than another since it’s not really the product. Tom and Vince were still debating the merits of one brand of athletic supporter over another, so I chose a couple of stores at random and walked in. I learned more than a few things from this, both about myself and what I think Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can apply to their legal nurse consulting businesses. First of all, I noticed the few stores that had inventive window displays designed to catch my eye, did just that. Next, the stores that presented themselves in the best possible light seemed to be the most inviting.

But, the busy stores were the ones that raised my curiosity the most. If a lot of people were looking at their products, then surely I must look too. An empty store, no matter how clean and attractively laid out, tells me it’s empty for a reason. Something is clearly lacking – it might be value, quality, price or service but I’ll never know because I didn’t go in (sorry Valentino). Of the stores I did go in, the one thing that made the difference between the ones that were successful or not, was the service.

I’m not a fan of the hide and seek game that some salespeople play. If I have to hunt all over for a salesperson just to ask if they have a particular blouse in a size 2 (just kidding), I’m going to lose interest fast. Even more disturbing to me is when I do find a salesperson (or two) and they’re either talking on their cell phones or chatting it up with each other and can’t be interrupted to service a customer. That’s a quick way to lose a sale, sister.

Okay, so let’s look at the lessons for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. First of all, present yourself in the best possible manner. Dress neatly and professionally. No one likes sloppy looking salespeople. If you can’t be bothered to dress appropriately for work, how do you think attorneys can trust you to help them? Attorneys and other professionals are drawn to successful-looking people. Although some of the rules from the old “Dress for Success” book don’t apply, the basic one does – dress like you’re part of your market.

Second, how are you displaying your products? Is your line sloppily presented or do your marketing materials practically snap with crispness? Start with your cover letter, is it on good quality bond paper? Do you use a letterhead that matches your other materials? Is your message congruent throughout? I see business cards that look like they’ve been hand-printed and sales brochures that look like they’ve been pasted together from ransom notes. You have seconds to get your attorney-prospect’s attention and catch their eye. Think of the way you sort your own mail and make sure your materials represent the professional you are. Too cute, too poorly done and too cheaply done send the same message. One your attorney-prospect won’t be receptive to.

Third, are you on your feet marketing or are you passively waiting for your market to find you? In the stores that I enjoyed shopping the most, the sales clerks didn’t wait for me to walk up to them, they were all over me from the minute I walked in. Not in a clinging manner, but in a professional “how may I help you find something” manner. There’s a certain salesperson in the shoe department of one of my favorite stores who always makes a point of acknowledging me no matter how busy he is. He checks to see if I need something in particular and lets me in on any upcoming sales – all while juggling other customers and an armful of shoe boxes.

He makes me think of one of the CLNC^® Mentors who exhibits at legal conferences. She positions herself in front of her booth and walks up to the attorneys as they come by, offering descriptions of her CLNC^® services. She’s got a super high success rate. I can contrast her to another legal nurse consultant (not a CLNC^® consultant) who she often sees at many of the same conferences. That woman sits inside her booth (a total no-no) and waits for attorneys to approach her. She has commented that she’s surprised she doesn’t do as well as the CLNC^® Mentor at attracting new business.

The salespeople who earn my business are often the ones that offer the business – not the ones that earn their commission simply by ringing me up. If I know something is likely to be available in that product line at another store with better service, guess where I’ll go to buy it. Even if I end up having to order the item, I’d rather do it where I experience good service and have the commission go to someone who’s earned it, than someone who hasn’t. Attorneys are the same way. They’re crazy busy and don’t have time to go looking for you. You need to get out there and, as one Certified Legal Nurse Consultant once said, if they don’t know why they need my CLNC^® services, I just explain it to them until they do!

Fourth, the best salespeople are the ones who not only help you find the perfect item, but also help you accessorize it or supplement it. You can always find the perfect jacket, but blouses, earrings or a purse that compliment it and extend its range are great. Make yourself indispensible. You’re not there to sell the attorney-client just one service. Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know how to deliver over thirty different CLNC^® services to attorneys. Don’t be the store with just one pair of shoes on the shelf. If they’re not the shoes the attorney-client is looking for (or they don’t fit) they’ll go elsewhere.

Remember, ultimately you may be offering the same services as the next legal nurse consultant so you need to distinguish yourself in the eyes of your market and make sure that you offer them what they want and what they need. The best performing Certified Legal Nurse Consultants deliver quality service when they say they will.

Next time you’re in the mall, zero in on what attracts you to a particular store or salesperson. Ask yourself what makes you loyal to a particular line of products or store. Then apply these insights to your own legal nurse consulting business. I know I bring home something different every time I go to the mall and I don’t mean purchases – I’m talking about new ideas I discover for improving my own business.

Success Is Inside!

Nurses often say, “You must have known quite a few attorneys when you started,” suggesting that the adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is the guaranteed path to launching a successful business as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

Actually, I didn’t know any attorneys when I got started! I didn’t live in their neighborhoods or get invited to their parties. When I decided to become a legal nurse consultant I didn’t even think I knew anyone who knew an attorney. That false-ism, “It’s not what you know it’s who you know,” is a leftover from the 1980s, when “networking” was the buzzword among out-of-work professionals vying for consulting or other business. They gathered at events to eat, drink, pass out business cards and ask for referrals. Sometimes it resulted in new business and sometimes it was just an excuse to drink.

While referral and word-of-mouth promotion are still the strongest and the most cost-effective ways of building an attorney-client base, networking only works for you when you are selective. Unless you’re selective, networking events become nothing more than a waste of your time, i.e. networking is NOT working.

As Dale Barnes, a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, shared, “The worst advice I followed had to do with a networking group. I think networking groups are wonderful and can be effective, but it has to be the right one. I had a friend who belonged to a group and received a lot of business because of this group, so I joined too. I found that there were manicurists, massage therapists, hairdressers, network marketing people, construction company owners, electricians, etc. in this group. There were no attorneys and no one seemed to know any attorneys. I stuck with it for a year. I was able to find some good resources for my own personal use, but it never helped grow my CLNC^® business and was a waste of time and money. I later joined a high-powered business networking group for attorneys, CPAs, bankers, upper management and administrative people. My CLNC^® business did grow due to this connection. I wish I had not wasted that first year. It pays to really check out the makeup of a group and its main focus prior to joining.”

That one year Dale spent in the wrong networking group is an example of where networking was not working – at least as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. She wisely sought out and found the appropriate group to network with.

Networking is often overrated. I’ve seen people spend countless hours in meaningless conversation with people they really don’t want to spend time with while trying to build a business. The best way to find attorneys through networking is to spend time with potential attorney-prospects or people closely related to them. Your prospects are attorneys, so if you want to hang somewhere, hang out at the courthouse. Target your networking to where it will make the most impact.

Be cautious also with established networking groups, such as associations, and with how much power you give them over your success. Sometimes when you’re within a network, and your ideas don’t align with that network, people can try to persuade you to their side and it can often be the “dark side.” I often wonder what people expect when they join a closed-minded organization. Do they expect members to share business (Sure, I’ve been working with Bob Smith but you can cut me out)? Or even worse, the network will try to eliminate you or blackball you in your industry because of your ideas or stance.

Your own ideas, your own career plan, your own business model have to be strong enough to stand alone, without network support. That’s the entrepreneurial secret that has helped to build this country and that I’ve used to build my business.

After pioneering the industry of legal nurse consulting, I took a grand departure from what others believed our industry needed. I believed we needed a standardized certification program. They disagreed. So what did I do? I ticked some people off by creating what became the first and most widely recognized certification for legal nurse consultants and the largest association for legal nurse consultants – the National Alliance for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (NACLNC^®).

In short, the less approval is important to you, the freer you are to succeed. Don’t let association groupthink dictate what is acceptable or appropriate for your future. Taking a grand departure from conventional wisdom can take you places no other has dared to go before. Something else to remember is that when someone’s status quo is threatened they’ll react with fear and do what they can to discourage you and put down your ideas. This especially includes new group members who want their own piece of the pie.

Networks are often an incestuous “go along” type of situation and when it comes to career building, striving to “go along to get along” is not necessarily a formula for success. Did Madonna “go along” to skyrocket her career? Does Donald Trump “go along” with anybody? Is Richard Branson “going along” as he promotes one crazy, successful venture after another?

As I started to achieve success, I began to realize that my position would be stronger if I didn’t rely on an outside network to advance my company but instead built a strong company of free thinkers. I believe in inviting my staff to disagree with me and they are quite vocal and quite comfortable (sometimes too comfortable) doing so. My ideas often get shot down. We are a stronger company for that.

You have to be willing to take a stand. Audaciously successful people often stand contrary to what the world believes is right and proper, and they don’t care if their ideas upset people. Of course your goal is not to upset people but to express your ideas and opinions, uncensored, in your truest voice.

Neutrality is a death sentence. You’ll never please everybody, so don’t kill your nursing career – and your earning potential – by trying. As we say in Texas, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road except yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” You don’t want to be either.

Dramatic success comes from taking a stance, even if it’s contrary to the experts or to the self-proclaimed experts. It’s your nursing career and to make the most of it, you need to be willing to stir things up, stand out and maybe tick off a few people. Let other nurses “go along” and have their middle-of-the-road successes. But, don’t let one of those “other” nurses be you.

Success Is Inside!

During my polar bear watching trip, one of the naturalists, Richard, was often one of the first to spot a polar bear. Now, if they’re sitting next to the ship or licking the bow that’s pretty easy, but Richard could spot an off-white bear in a white environment as far as 2½ miles away. Everyone was in awe of him. Plus, it wasn’t just polar bears that he’d spot. We’d be scanning the ice flows for anything that looked like it might be alive and when Richard would spot a bear he’d tell me something like, “It’s lying on its belly, off the bow at 2:00, about a mile out, just past the two ivory gulls and to the left of the walrus with the cavity in its left tusk.”

Richard could see things that others could not and everyone commented on his ability to be the first to spot wildlife. What went uncommented on, however, was the fact that it was more than just his talent. He had a slight advantage because he started off as a birdwatcher. So in comparison to spotting and identifying tiny, quick-moving birds, the large polar bears were relatively easy. When we were on land, he’d spot Arctic foxes, reindeer (easy) and tell you about every bird that swooped by seemingly without looking at them directly.

It was when I stopped to watch Richard spot wildlife, that I noticed why he was so successful. He never stopped moving and searching. Richard was a combination of constant movement and stillness, starting on one side of the ship’s bridge, searching, moving to the other side, searching, moving outside to the observation deck (in his flip-flops) and searching. When he was moving, he moved quickly (even faster than Tom), but when he was searching, he was a portrait in stillness. Richard achieved the perfect balance of movement and stillness, one that I certainly envy – not just for polar bear spotting but for everyday work.

Other passengers and crew were also looking for wildlife but without the success rate that Richard achieved. Some would spot for half an hour or so and then give up. Others would simply look to see where Richard was searching and then try and search in that same direction. But none of them realized the essential difference between themselves and Richard. He was working harder (and at the same time smarter) than anyone else.

I learned a lot from Richard over the course of my trip. He taught me the best way to spot a polar bear (at least one that isn’t sleeping) was to slowly move my binoculars or spotting scope (and I do mean infinitesimally slowly) across the landscape looking for the slightest bit of movement, any movement. On an ice flow, that movement might be an indication of wildlife or it might just be a bergy bit rolling over. In any event, I learned first to watch for movement as the first step in locating a polar bear or a walrus.

Next, Richard taught me to watch for variations in color. Polar bears, despite what you see in most photos, are not pure white. They’re really sort of a yellowish white but when photographers edit and color correct the photos, the bears tend to come out whiter than real life. Richard knew to scan for variations in color at the same time he was looking for movement – all in the white on white icescape.

But most important, Richard’s actions and lessons reinforced something I’d learned long ago and something that even Thomas Jefferson had commented on when he said, “I’m a great believer in luck. It seems the harder I work, the luckier I get.” Richard was making his own luck by working harder than anyone else on the ship. When he was on duty he never quit and I even ran into him transiting from the bridge to the observation deck during his off-duty hours. He was a man driven to succeed.

The successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants I’ve met aren’t the lucky ones or even the ones that are better at marketing than anyone else. The successful CLNC^® consultants are the ones who work the hardest – day in and day out. They’re the ones constantly searching and looking. If you find yourself commenting on how lucky or more talented some other CLNC^® consultant seems to be, maybe you should ask yourself whether or not you’re willing to put in the hard, smart work necessary to find your own polar bear or just sit back and look at someone else’s CLNC^® success. In the meantime you’ll find me on the bridge searching like crazy for my own polar bears.

Success Is Inside!

Michelangelo is my favorite sculptor and artist because he was the renegade of his time. Michelangelo knew from his earliest days that he wanted to be a sculptor. He was happiest when he worked with stone and his passion completely transformed his sculpture. He learned to create statues that live and breathe. He was a renegade in his departure from the expected. His works are celebrated to this day and, during my trip to the Louvre, I was lucky to see these two different slaves, one of which he finished sculpting in 1516.

Today is a great day to ask yourself what renegade actions you can take for your legal nurse consulting business to create something unexpected and lasting – something your attorney-clients will remember you for.

Success Is Inside!