CLNC business

I want to share this video of a brand new Certified Legal Nurse Consultant who attended the Las Vegas CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminar. As a VIP, David Kuntz had already studied the CLNC^® Certification Program via DVDs at home, so he came to Las Vegas already certified and excited to share his immediate success. Watch this video as David shares the single strategy that made it easy to launch his CLNC^® business.

Congratulations to David.

Success Is Inside!

I just mentored a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant who had completed a project for an attorney. She had not entered into a contract or letter agreement and did not get a retainer before starting the project. After completing the project she had difficulty getting paid for the work she’d done. When she contacted the Institute for mentoring, I asked her to describe her plan for solving this challenge. Her response was, “I guess I’ll just chalk this one up to experience.” That was exactly the WRONG THING TO SAY to me. I was all over that like a goose on a bug.

“No, you don’t chalk it up to experience. No, you don’t write off your time or claim you’re gaining experience just because you ignored the model for success you learned in the CLNC^® Certification Program. That time you want to write off, you will never get back. The time you want to write off would have been better spent solidifying your relationship with your attorney-clients, marketing to grow your CLNC^® business and working on cases for $125 per hour. Lost time is lost money. Sometimes you have to chalk a mistake up to experience, but this is not one of those times. Why? Because you didn’t make a mistake. You consciously chose to do something you knew you should not do. With that conscious decision comes a conscious price you pay.”

I am all for making mistakes (I make at least one every day, sometimes before I even get out of bed). After all people who never make a mistake never make anything. But I am not into making just any mistake – especially not mistakes that are obvious and avoidable. Instead I aim for making intelligent ones. Making a bad choice and expecting a different outcome isn’t a learning experience, it’s insanity.

In the CLNC^® Certification Program I teach that when you do X, you will get Y result. For 27 years I have taken the Xs very seriously and that is why CLNC^® graduates get the enviable results they do. But if you choose to do Z, do not expect to get Y, and you shouldn’t be surprised by the pain either. (Think about a recipe – even growing up in Louisiana we didn’t add crab boil to our lemonade – bad choice – bad result.)

My motto is “Do what is right, not what feels easier at the moment.” And if you are uncertain, go back and review the pertinent portions of the Core Curriculum for Legal Nurse Consulting^® textbook or request mentoring. It’s always better to take the time to prepare in advance than to lose the time, money and possibly an attorney-client because you didn’t.

Make it your goal to only chalk up to experience that which is enriching. This is how you grow yourself and ultimately your CLNC^® business.

To life’s enrichments.

Success Is Inside!

When my father was a kid, he didn’t even know a nickel. He and his friends were penny boys. They couldn’t afford comic books or candy, but they found creative ways to have fun on what they called “the greatest corner in the world.”

Nothing got in the way of their fun. If a skate broke, they’d tear it apart and make a scooter. They’d make their own toys.

My father taught me that fun was what you made it. It wasn’t about spending money, or possessing the latest Barbie. Although, I would have really enjoyed a CEO Barbie. (Wouldn’t that be great, the one that comes complete with her own briefcase, power suit and assistant. “Ken. Get me a cup of coffee. NOW!”)

Even having kids didn’t stop my parents or their friends from enjoying life. When they were married with children, none of them could afford babysitters. No problem. They went out anyway, kids and all, each couple taking turns babysitting in the car while the rest were inside dancing the swing, celebrating life.

When I feel overwhelmed by my responsibilities, I think about how my parents always found time to dance! Happy Father’s Day and thanks Dad, for teaching me how to dance and to appreciate the simple joys of entrepreneurship and my legal nurse consulting education company.

Success Is Inside!

Vickie,

My father is very active politically in our county and surrounding counties. He is well respected and loved. He is going to set up a meeting for me with two prominent judges so I can introduce them to my CLNC^® services. These judges know every attorney in my county. Is it okay to use the judges’ names when speaking with the attorney contacts they provide me?

Debbie, RN, CLNC

Hi Debbie,

Congratulations on being well connected. I always say if you want to build your legal nurse consulting business fast, “ride the horse” of the people you know. Two judges sound like the beginning of a stable of terrific horses. Yes, you will want to use the judges’ names when you are speaking to the attorneys they refer you to. This will give you instant credibility for you and your CLNC^® business and easily get you through the “barn door.”

Be sure to get permission from the judges to use their names when contacting the attorneys. Later, remember to add each attorney you work with to your stable of names – every attorney knows other attorneys, so ride those horses too. Send written thank-you letters to both judges for their time. And take your dad to lunch!

Success Is Inside!

Vickie

About an hour after the photos below were taken, just a block from my home, the street was filled with runners from the Houston Marathon. Over 23,000 participants showed up to run. Some finished in just over two hours while others were still running (or had dropped out) when the six-hour time limit expired.

Before the marathon

Here’s a picture of the front runners at the half way point including the winner, Deriba Merga who collected $45,000 for finishing the marathon in a record time of 2:07:52 beating the previous men’s record of 2:10:04.

You may remember him from the 2008 Olympics marathon. Deriba entered the tunnel of the Bird’s Nest stadium in third place, 50 meters ahead of his Ethiopian teammate, Tsegaye Kebede.

Tom and I were at a friend’s house watching the race. As Deriba came into the stadium I said, “He’s not going to get the medal.” Tom asked “How do you know?” and I pointed out how Deriba was struggling. Sure enough in the last 400 meters, Tsegaye passed him and Deriba finished fourth. It was tragic to watch a world-class runner fade before your eyes and everyone else’s in the Bird’s Nest that day, and be overtaken with the finish line in view.

What does running a marathon have to do with being a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant? In marathons, like business, you have to pace yourself. If you shoot off the starting line too fast, you’ll lose steam and won’t have the energy to finish the race.

The big difference between marathons and legal nurse consulting (all that running for 26+ miles aside) is that in business, there is no finish line. You must keep your pace as long as you want to keep your business. This means that sometimes you run slowly, sometimes you sprint and sometimes you stop and catch your breath. The trick for each of us is to find our pace and keep it. Knowing my pace and sticking to it are two of the reasons I’ve stayed in the legal nurse consulting business since 1982 and the biggest reason I still love my business after 27 years.

I’ve seen legal nurse consultants who start their business full of fire. They market themselves at a sprinter’s pace and then suddenly get tired and quit. Others plug successfully away, day after day after day. Business can be like a Venti^® Peppermint Mocha Twist Frappucinno^® from Starbucks^®. Those 660 calories and 116 grams of carbs (not to mention the 55 mg of caffeine) fire you up and set you off at a sprint. Soon though, you’re in a carb-sag and need a nap. It’s hard to keep the fire burning on artificial stimulants.

For the first week of January our gym, where I’ve been a member for 20 years, is full of newcomers throwing weights around like Arnold and nearly flying off the treadmills and elliptical trainers. By the second week in January, the gym’s back to normal because those newcomers went at it a little too hard at first, got stiff and sore and lost their steam for the long term. I see this in yoga (stretched a little too vigorously the first day back) and in dieting (after a week of steamed broccoli and turkey, a hamburger sounds really good).

Your personal life and your business life are like marathons. The key is to manage the pace at which you run them. You need to pace yourself to maintain your energy level for the long run. For my business, sometimes I go fast, sometimes I go faster and sometimes I stop and smell the sneakers. I do take 12 weeks off each year for renewal time. But even on vacation I keep a certain pace – exercise, diet and sleep. That’s what gives me the energy to keep me in business. Are you running at a pace that will keep you successful in your CLNC^® business or will your pace put you out of business before the finish line?

See you at the CLNC^® finish line!

Let’s face it. Connectivity is king. The more we complain about getting away from things, the more we need to be connected whenever we get away. BlackBerries^® and iPhones^® have made being on the road a little more bearable. But we do need more than just email when we’re out of the office. Sure, those lucky legal nurse consultants who are iPhone users can surf the web, watch YouTube and listen to music, but for the legal nurse consulting “crackberry” users out there – we need the Internet and we need it fast!

What’s a business owner to do? Until recently, laptop owners were forced to limit ourselves to email and if we needed to communicate via a document, we had to boot up and head to Starbucks^®, camp out in the hotel lobby or line up for signal leakage outside the walls of the airline lounges. We’d go anywhere to find a free (or unsecured) wireless network, to get and stay connected. Even worse, in hotels we’re forced to pay high prices for unstable wired or wireless connections. So, what choice do we have? Not much more than to get up and shout, “I’m mad as can be and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

Well now you don’t have to feel like roadkill on the information superhighway. Today can be your independence day as a CLNC consultant! Head on down to the nearest Verizon wireless store and buy a PC5750 wireless PC card or, to your AT&T store and buy a Sierra Wireless AirCard 881. These slick little Type II cards slide into a PCMCIA slot on your computer (USB models are available and work with MAC and PC) and, once activated, connect you to the Internet at a genuine broadband access rate of speed.

I’ve had a Verizon card for over a year now and it’s worked just about everywhere. I’ve checked email while on the van transfer from the airport, while on the runway (before they shut the cabin door) and even in traffic in the Big Apple (I wasn’t driving). It will free you from the vagaries of hotel wireless. And, best of all, in just about any area where you can get a cell signal, you can get on the Internet.

I recently test-drove the AT&T card and found its connectivity was less than perfect, but they’ve apparently upgraded their 3G network.

One caveat though, is that you have to watch your data transfer. Like many of the broadband providers will soon be doing, both AT&T and Verizon mobile networks have placed a cap on how much data you can transfer (stuff you can download) before you run into an overage charge. Verizon alone offers a low-end service of 50MB of transfer for $40/month and both AT&T and Verizon offer a mega-user service of 5GB of transfer (1,200 songs or 10 hours of video) for $60/month. Both services used to be unlimited but, no longer. Apparently they didn’t realize that people thought unlimited really meant unlimited. My guess is they’ll have to let you access an online meter so you can track how much data transfer you have left before going into overage charges.

Find out which provider has the better coverage in the areas you’ll be likely to use and then set yourself free! The cards can be pricey (there’s a rebate) and service isn’t cheap for a new Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, but if you’re a seasoned road warrior, one of these PC cards may be for you. Try playing one off against the other – remember what I say in my contracts lecture – “Everything is negotiable except your fee.”

There’s a bonus. If it works well at home, and you’re a one-computer CLNC^® business, you may even consider ditching your home broadband service.

Keep on techin’,

Tom