Take Five Minutes to Change Your Life

The next five minutes could change your life. In the future, you may look back at this article as the point when you gained a powerful insight that changed the trajectory of your professional journey. I hope, at least, to change your view of business lawyers.

All that depends on whether or not I can persuade you of a powerful truth. That truth, simply, is this:

The belief that hiring a business lawyer is unaffordable or, at least, will make one’s business less profitable is false.

Competitive Advantage Is Fragile

Business is tough. Knowing who you can trust is difficult. When most entrepreneurs start their businesses, they have what they believe is a good idea and the willpower to transform that idea into a profitable enterprise.

More often than not, however, they lack just about everything else they need to start a successful business. Only by careful planning, diligent execution, wise trading, and forming smart alliances does a business become stable. Rarely does any business achieve true stability in under a decade.

The entrepreneur’s good idea tends to be their primary competitive advantage. The aspects of the business that allow an enterprise to produce goods or services better or more cheaply than its rivals are always changing. Many people fail to realize, or refuse to acknowledge, this dynamic environment affects the good idea upon which the business was based.

Constantly changing circumstances, and ever-evolving ideas, make start-ups and small businesses extremely fragile. Like a young animal on the savannah, one misstep could end everything. Therefore, early in a business venture, one cannot overstate the importance of creating stability and protection.

Overwhelm Is to Defects as Smoke Is to Fire

Overwhelm, for business decision-makers, is a sure sign that a business is under strain. Metaphorically speaking, overwhelm is smoke and defects in the business are fire. Where one finds smoke, he tends to find fire.

Defects, generally, are either defects in planning or execution. A stable, successful business is characterized by ease of operations, because defects have been corrected. Also, please observe, overwhelm is not stress; overwhelm is being stressed-out! Stress is not something that can be eliminated. Stress, however, can be effectively managed and minimized.

Consider, again, the young creature living on the savannah. A gazelle, giraffe, or zebra will not be overwhelmed when it has the support of the herd. Predators will always cause concern, but panic is the result of a potentially fatal defect — wandering too far from the herd, an injury that has not yet healed, malnourishment, etc.

Small, vulnerable businesses frequently experience overwhelm. Just as frequently, however, they mistake this symptom for a problem. Rather than fixing the underlying defects, they address the symptoms of stress, creating an unsustainable cycle of behavior.

Business Lawyers: Assets and Allies

Lawyers, in general, are trained to be problem solvers and relationship managers. Their unique training equips them with a special set of skills, making them adept at resolving conflicts and analyzing fact patterns. This kind of thinking is exactly what most small businesses need… and what almost all of them lack.

Building, maintaining, and protecting assets is essential to safeguarding a business’s fragile competitive advantage. This is equally true for the good idea upon which a business was originally built and the other accrued elements of the business that give it an edge. Because of their training and skills, business lawyers are particularly effective guardians of competitive advantage.

Lawyers help correct defects, prevent missteps, and serve as insightful allies. They help build assets that solidify and protect competitive advantage. In short, they provide the kind of critical thinking and productive output small businesses need in order to grow and thrive.

Long term business success, therefore, can often be traced back to a business lawyer’s involvement in a business’s asset building, maintenance, and protection efforts.

Business Success Is a Team Sport

Like the animal on the savannah, whether predator or prey, few survive very long when they are completely alone. The savanna is a very competitive environment. By its very nature, business, too, is highly competitive. Those who find the most success do so together with others who share their vision and purpose.

Team efforts, rather than individual genius, most often produce the stability that arises from careful planning, diligent execution, wise trading, and forming smart alliances. Who is on your team? What support do you have? Who are your allies?

Few allies are as powerful as a business lawyer. Few allies can contribute to your business’s profitability in the way a business lawyer can. Lawyers help businesses get everything else right.

Yvon Chouinard famously said, “Profit is what happens when you do everything else right.”

Without the aid of a business lawyer, business owners risk losing their competitive advantage and suffering from unsustainable cycles of overwhelm. It’s a mistake to ask whether or not a business can afford to hire a lawyer. The correct question is how long a business can afford to refrain from hiring a lawyer. The answer is invariably the same: not long.

This is why the belief that hiring a business lawyer is unaffordable or, at least, will make one’s business less profitable is false.