Why ‘Ease’ Is a Key Component to a Strong Business Collaboration

by Dave Zumpano With Guy Remond

Working in collaboration with another business can help you both reach another level of success; to truly work well it needs to be easy.

Guy and I met through Strategic Coach® (coaching for growth-minded business owners). Its creator Dan Sullivan explains how a collaborative approach involves bringing together two different people with skills or knowledge in a particular area and using them for a different purpose.

Partnership

The partnership that Guy and I created felt completely natural. I have a network of attorneys that have been affiliated with me for 20 years, and I have a software system that generates legal documents to help people in the estate planning industry. Guy had built a large technology firm of engineers who built software that was highly focused on user experience, user interface, and elements of artificial intelligence.

My requirements were clear; I needed a tech Guy.

Guy and I brought together our skills and created Guidr, the online legal platform that allows lawyers to remain at the centre of a digitized service whilst retaining and attracting new clients.

Ease

The most memorable part of my partnership with Guy is that it has all been easy. We were introduced to each other, chatted briefly over lunch, set up another couple of calls, and within the space of 18 months we created a whole new platform that serves the legal industry, its clients and Guidr.

Beyond the ceiling

I wanted to hear Guy’s thoughts on why a collaborative approach works (you can hear our full conversation on The Legal Community Podcast).

Guy: “A solo entrepreneur can only take a company so far. Some very talented ones will go quite a long way on their own without collaboration, but the reality is that everyone hits a ceiling at some point. Collaboration is one of the most effective ways to grow your business.

When we bring in new perspectives and different skill sets we enhance the work that we do and it helps us to go further than we could on our own. A collaboration might be with another company, one person, or a team of people.

Dave and I naturally met the three criteria that Joe Polish, Founder of Genius Network® describes as E.L.F® – fun, easy and lucrative.”

Unique abilities®

Part of what makes our partnership work so well is that we recognize what Strategic Coach® refers to as our unique abilities®. People often discredit what they do really well because it feels too easy for them to consider it a skill.

Systemizing the practice of law and creating legal documents that orient them more towards the needs of clients is easy to me. Developing technology is easy for Guy.

Pulling teeth

Guy was not my first crack at the apple; we had already worked with another company for two years to develop a platform. They developed a product but it was not robust enough.

The collaboration with that company wasn’t easy, and it took a lot of time. Within six months of Guy and I meeting we had developed and released a product for testing. It was quick. It was efficient. It was easy, fun and enjoyable. I’m doing the part that I like to do, and Guy is doing the part that he likes to do. The beneficiaries are all around us.

The three levels of the legal industry

In my experience the first (and biggest) segment of the legal market consists of solo practitioners, and solo attorneys with one or two staff. They’re usually trying to figure out how to generate consistent income.

The second level are lawyers who know how to generate revenue and be consistently profitable. They start to grow and add a second layer of staff which helps them become more robust.

For most lawyers, the ultimate goal is to reach the third level (the freedom level), where the law firm can successfully operate without them physically being there. At the freedom level other people are actively helping build that business.

Instead of eliminating lawyers by offering a 100% digitized system, the Guidr platform will enable people who are time-poor to initiate and self-serve legal estate planning documents online; business that many law firms would ordinarily miss out on if only working in the traditional way. This enables lawyers to make money while they sleep, and offers a lower cost option to the consumer (with the option to have direct support from their local law firm if preferred).

Built on collaboration

Guidr is built on collaboration and people making the most of their unique abilities® Guy explained the benefits to law firms.

Guy: “The collaboration between Guidr and law firms will be incredible. We can provide a unique, well architected, well designed, simple and easy way for lawyers to communicate digitally with clients. We want to help law firms digitize, democratize, and demonetize some of their services to offer the consumer wider choice.

It works across all age groups; more and more people are choosing to self-serve in the knowledge that their local lawyer is to hand if they have any difficulties along the way.”

True value

My law firm implemented the Guidr platform and even though we helped create this we were surprised at how simple and comprehensive it is to use. It’s easy, adds a whole new value stream, and there’s little to no cost to access the platform which is true collaboration; minimize the cost and realize the sharing of the value that is created through that partnership. Everybody wins.

If you would like to find out how Guidr can support your local law firm to attract new business from consumers who want a digitized service whilst continuing to offer personalised legal expertise contact me gremond@guidr.legal or Dave dzumpano@guidr.legal.