Who are you taking your business and marketing advice from?

Agreed. I don’t understand why anyone would ask for and take strategy advice for web design, customer service, or bookkeeping folks.

AMEN Alexis! It’s like asking your sister who ran her kid’s lemonade stand about start-up experience or your Uncle Ira who is a divorce attorney for M&A advice. Opinions are like….you know where this is going. Seek advice in from those with a specialized track-record and experience.

I’ve found myself taking advice from people who I thought could help me but couldn’t because I didn’t understand what it really took to build a business and frankly I was desperate for advice from anyone who I thought knew what they were talking about. I had to learn the hard way how important it is to take advice from people who really have done what I wanted to do and been through the direct experience of it. Thanks for the comment.

Amen sister. A very close friend of mine hired a divorce attorney to handle his criminal matter (which should have been a slam dunk for him) and he was wrongly convicted (later discovered and proven) of a major criminal offense. Ruined his life for five years because he hired someone who was great at what he did (handling divorces), but not at all qualified to represent anyone in a criminal matter. Specialization is oh so important in today’s complex world.

Alexis is right. Don’t take advice from these people who pretend to be experts. Especially Alexis herself.

Which would make the perfect case not to take tax advice from Alexis Martin Neely, who is not a tax expert, or legal advice as she seems to have only had a few years of legal expereince and seems to have spent most of it marketing, not practicing law.
Or business advice from her as she does not have an MBA, or any track record of legitimate businesses. Other than trying to sell us how to make millons of dollars. That’s not a busines, that’s a ruse. Oh, and her ex-employees sued her and won. And she lost $800,000 in a business. Great businesswoman.
She has never shown us that she actualy has made all these “millions of dollars.” No balance sheets, no transperancy nothing.

Do you guys really believe she would walk away from million-dollar businesses to hawk stuff on the internet?

She teaches (ok, “coaches” people) how to promote themselves as experts in whatever field they pick. Same thing as these rogue web designers or bookkeepers. Pot calls kettle.

– Julie

I just have to say that Alexis is transparent by telling the world that she did indeed lose $800,000. That taught her a valuable lesson in business and the BEST school for this type of thing is “The School of Hard Knocks”. I don’t know if you have had any business education or not but it doesn’t take an MBA to teach business principles and to coach. Sometimes it’s a hindrance, I know this for a fact. Also, once someone goes through hard knocks in their own business and learns tax laws the hard way, they never forget them. I’m an ex-accountant and I still do tax strategies, returns, etc. for a small accounting firm (on the side) and believe me, once you teach someone and they go through it, as I mentioned they don’t forget it. So she is well qualified to give tax advice and her advice isn’t so much “I’ll show you exactly how to do your tax return” it’s more like the big picture. She highlights the BIG picture and warns what is needed and what you can let go for the moment, such as filing an extension. Most people don’t know that you can file an extension and turn the tax return in later but you have to pay what you think you owe and to be on the safe side, pay a little more.

So in my professional opinion, I would say she is more than qualified.

Hey Alexis!

I see 2 key issues come up again and again with marketing in the online space:

1) Biz owners trying to get a foothold online simply don’t know what they don’t know.
2) Web professionals offering bullshit advice and/or shoddy services to those biz owners.

As long as there is someone willing to pay for the BS, there’ someone happy to give it out.

It’s either the blind leading the blind or the sheisters leading the blind. It’s not just a matter of strategy either. The market is simply brimming with low quality to mediocre products and services.

Regardless, biz owners need to stop throwing their brains under the bus just because the Internet can be confusing or overwhelming. Not a good excuse for running your business like a birthday party.

I’ve seen otherwise intelligent business owners spends GOBS of money on say a website, a bad one with bad copy and bad SEO and no strategic foundation whatsoever. Sometimes they learn. Sometimes … not so much.

I tell people they don’t have to become an expert to make better decisions with their marketing. That’s why we’re here. But they need to OWN IT and engage with it. Ask questions until they get it. Be assertive. Seek understanding. Pay for the knowledge if you have to.

On the flip side, more marketing professionals and other specialists need to buck up and be willing to say, “I’m not the right person to help. But here’s someone who can.”

I see the carnage ALL THE TIME. It’s incredible.

Keep the conversation going, Alexis. People need to hear it.
Karri

Be careful when considering expertise only based on credentials or length of time in a profession. These are both dated ways of thinking and encouraged by bureaucratic organizations such as unions or income generating professional associations designed to encourage ladder climbing.

People entrenched in these systems often feel the need to keep people from skipping rungs on the ladder and jumping all the way to the top, because it serves their own self interest of maintaining their own position in the hierarchy.

I can tell you from experience that the coveted MBA, JD or any other set of letters, are NOT the qualifications that makes you an expert qualified to give advice. I have an MBA and am considered a “tax expert” according to my credentials. I’ve also had business successes and failures, I’ve studied from books, seminars, and coaches and am also on the other side of the fence in providing coaching and consulting.

Without a doubt, the fastest way to learn business, tax, or any other skill is from lots and lots of self study and coaching from the right coach and then finally jumping in and making mistakes.

It is far more important that a coach/consultant has the knowledge and is the able to connect with you in a way you can learn, than all of the letters after his or her name. And time in service, which is the union way of ranking people, is often a very poor indicator of skill.

Many years in a profession usually leads to more experience, but often leads to complacency and laziness and the resistance to consider new ideas that young and hungry entrepreneurs are open to.

And in response to the comment about spending most of the time marketing instead of practicing whatever trade you’re in, welcome to the world of being a business owner.

I think we all naively enter a profession because we want to do the thing we do, but quickly learn that in order to run a profitable business and be able to continue helping clients, we have to spend a high percentage of the time marketing. Anyone who says otherwise has never started a business.

Keep an open mind.

Chuck J. Rylant, MBA, CFP,

“If you are taking strategic advice from anyone, make sure you are taking strategic business advice from someone who has done what you want to do.” Right on, Alexis!

Full disclosure: I’m a private client of Alexis’. Why? Because Alexis has done what I want to do. In particular she has a deep desire to provide ideas and solutions that both drive profitable bottom lines and create meaningful, positive impacts in real people’s lives (both her client’s & her client’s clients…).

And as a Harvard MBA & CFA, I’d also like to echo Chuck’s comment which I think is spot on: “It is far more important that a coach/consultant has the knowledge and is the able to connect with you in a way you can learn, than all of the letters after his or her name. And time in service, which is the union way of ranking people, is often a very poor indicator of skill.” The most impactful lessons in my life have come from wonderful people like Alexis who have “been here, done that.”

As I see it the purpose of Alexis’ post – as with all her work – is providing thought provoking, heartfelt practical advice. As with any advice you have to tailor it to your situation. Perhaps you do have a graphic designer who has a natural knack for business strategy. If so, great – you’ve got match. What I took from Alexis’ post was the importance of looking at the tangible results of the person you are seeking guidance from. To me, that’s just plain, powerful common sense & I’m grateful for the reminder.

Manisha,

That might be what Alexis is doing now as her main focus, but she still has a lawyer coaching program, and that’s where she started. The problem with that is she never built a successful law firm. Her law firm was around for 3 maybr 4 years and then she sold it and then she got it back and then she closed. Whether the problem was with the person who purchased it or with the systems she’s selling – it doesn’t matter. She hasn’t done what she says you should do, now has anyone she’s coached as far as I’m aware.

Arguably the lawyer coaching program is the most successful thing she’s done since she’s gotten a book published about it, etc. But that program is a fraction of what it once was in terms of membership and I haven’t seen a lot of former members of that program talking about how much they learned from it. To be fair, I think there have gotten to be some lawyers that got something out of it, but others probably didn’t. But even former members aren’t out there saying “I was a student of Alexis and my law practice is great because of it.”

I think people are looking for an answer to “your law practice operation and sale didn’t work out – how can you coach about that” and “your lawyer coaching program petered out – how can you coach about that” – It would be one thing if she shut the second one down too, but she’s still out there promoting it.

This comment may not stay up here, but if it does, I’m looking for an answer from Alexis about how that can all be true at the same time. IT just doesn’t seem to add up.

Thank you Manisha. It’s an honor and a great pleasure to support you to a life and business in alignment with all of who you are. Alexis

Interesting discussion. I can see how people accidentally get into this zone as I often have people ask me questions I’m not qualified to answer. For example they might ask me about my legal contracts or how I do my book keeping. I’ll say that I’m not an expert in that area but I find they often push back with “I don’t care, I just want to know how you do it!”. I’ll usually answer with the disclaimer that I have limited knowledge and I might not be doing it right, but maybe I shouldn’t answer at all.

Believe it or not, that’s your choice. I wonder how your disbelief and skepticism is reflected in other areas of your life.

What I teach lawyers is how to provide a new level of service and experience to their clients that not only justifies higher fees, but does result in clients happier to pay them. Why? Because the reality is that what most lawyers are doing for their clients does not work for the clients. Sure, it might be cheap, but it doesn’t work!

Lawyers are putting in place form documents for clients that will not and do not work when they need them – the estate plan fails and sticks the family in court or with unnecessary taxes, the business documents don’t prevent the lawsuit or the partnership from falling apart, the divorce spins out of control and escalates into massive conflict, the bankruptcy is never complete, etc.

The model I’ve created for lawyers based on my own experience is one in which clients do pay one-time flat fees or on a recurring monthly or annual basis and they are all agreed to in advance with no surprises. Clients love that because they don’t get surprise invoices in the mail and their matters get handled the right way. Lawyers love it because they can provide a higher level of service and build a real business with revenue they can count on, which means they can hire support people and thereby provide even better service.

Yes, one of the people who worked for me sued me. This is one of the biggets mistakes I made. I considered my team members friends and did not require anyone to keep any records of their time. I let them work flexible schedules as long as the work got done. After working for months with this team member to create a partnership and then finding out that she was using my firm resources to do work for other lawyers and charging me for her time, so I fired her. She sued me claiming I didn’t provide break time or pay overtime. And in California, the law says that if the employer doesn’t keep records, the employer loses. I didn’t have the correct insurance to fight that claim and after paying my lawyer $10k out of my own pocket, decided to settle. I learned many big lessons through that experience, which I now teach my clients.

The Personal Family Lawyers routinely receive testimonials from their clients singing their praises and any lawyer who wants happier clients and a better way of life would be smart to do things the PFL Way.

Best wishes,
Alexis

No, I don’t avoid discussions. I appreciate them.

I totally disagree that 2 years of revenue is a fluke, especially when done twice in two separate businesses. Unless it’s a recurring fluke, an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.

99.5% of people will never build a million dollar business even once, so it’s got to mean something that I’ve done it twice in 4 years and at the same time built another two multi-hundred thousand dollar businesses. What I think it means is that I am really good at building highly effective marketing and sales systems that resonate with the marketplace.

Where I have gotten stuck each time is in building the support teams to sustain the growth and vision. I have chosen the wrong people, trained ineffectively, and not made clear agreements with the people I hired. I became emotionally involved and made decisions from guilt, fear and people pleasing instead of from a place of smart business.

The versions of my approach that “didn’t work” did not affect the people in my programs, it affected me and my family. It meant my business model was not sustainable because I was giving too much – too much of my time, too much of my life, and too much of my soul – and not keeping enough for myself and my family.

I’ve learned those lessons well. I’ve revamped the lawyer program so that it can continue to provide tremendous value to the lawyers it serves with a much smaller team, a lot less of my personal time and without me hiding who I really am – a creative, evolutionary entrepreneur who lives what some might call an eccentric life.

And today, I know more about building support teams than I ever have. I know that I have to be exceedingly clear about my vision, not settle for anyone less than the right people, hire slow and fire fast, and I’m still (always) learning. To me, that’s what life is about – evolution, growth, constant learning.

I’ll never stop evolving. The business I am building now is focused on serving people who want that too – they want to keep evolving, growing and changing. And they see their own business life as a vehicle for that evolution.

If you get a chance, read the book by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh – embracing change is one of the Zappos company core values. And if more of us got better at embracing change, the world would be a better place.

Alexis

PS – yes, I didn’t successfully sell my law firm, but I totally disagree that means it wasn’t successful. Had I wanted to continue running it, I’d have a $2,000,000+ firm today, but I’d have to be living in Redondo Beach running a law firm and I probably wouldn’t be wearing feathers in my hair, traveling to Peru, and have total flexibility about where and when I work.

Thanks for commenting Laura and sharing your experience. This actually came up for me recently when I was helping a client with Twitter. Even though I am a power Twitter user, I am so not a social media teacher. So I directed her to your Twitter in 10 minutes a day program. When people are asking you about legal contracts or bookkeeping, send them over to me. I’ll make sure they are doing it in the right way.

It is obvious to me – someone who knows you and your work – that the critical comments are petty and uninformed. For example, your book was not about the PFL program. I ramped up my law firm services until I believed that the value justified the higher fee you recommended. My clients are also happy and willing to pay the higher fee because they can see the value. Alexis is totally honest and one of the most giving people I know. I’ve seen all her programs, PFL, LIFT, Money Map, etc and would not hesitate to recommend them all (I’ve got them.) If someone is going to write negative things, they should at least investigate instead of guessing. It makes them look petty and envious. Love you Alexis.

Karri has a point, people don’t know what they don’t know. They may not understand that just because a VA may know how to set up an autoresponder or shopping cart doesn’t necessarily mean that he/she is the go-to person to put together your marketing strategy. They’d be charging a lot more – trust me! 🙂

As an online business manager, one of my prerequisites before I take on a client is that they need to have their own coach – someone who can guide them as they plan, create a vision, and strategize to connect with their audience. These are not things that a service provider or even an OBM should be doing for your business.

Karri said it best: business owners need to ask questions, pay for coaching/consulting, be more engaged, and OWN it – not turn over their business to the VAs who provide administrative tasks.

ok…listen up. i am a sales professional. and damn good at what i do. it is not that alexis is a sleezy lawyer/hawker of crap, OR that the peeps she refers biz to are doing a disservice to clients by offering marketing and strategic advice.

it is a very simple sales strategy that i see SOOOOO many coaches/online entrepreneurs not doing. you do all of this INCREDIBLE WORK and really cool marketing, but when it’s time to ANTE UP… sometimes (ahem–many times) these–and yes, potentially you, alexis–fail to ASK. i ALWAYS ASK. it’s part of MY JOB. it is not my prospects job, or my colleagues job to REMEMBER LITTLE OLD ALISON. at best, i am an afterthought in people’s minds when what i have sold them or helped them to incorporate into their business/life increases revenue/improves their lives. it’s not that i am not DAMN GOOD at what i do…it’s just human nature.

alexis, you are such a kind soul. and even though you are clearly moving through not giving two shits what people think about you…you DO CARE. which is what makes you unique and valuable. HOWEVER, it is also why you are so quick to REFER business. i am just throwin out a guess here…many of these referrals you make are actually coming from the bottom of your heart. many times, you haven’t been asked to make the referral, but you do. bc A. you are logical. and you can clearly see the value in referring and working with experts. and B. bc you are loyal. here’s the third and final reason: C. you CARE. you can clearly see that caring is a HUGE part of what makes you tick. not everyone is like that. that doesn’t make them bad. just different.

i am probably going to get accosted for making this suggestion to a top strategic biz woman, but here goes: stop assuming that those people you make referrals for will return the favor. get on the horn, hire someone to do it..whatever…devise a plan wherein you call your varied past clients on a rotating schedule (depending on what level of client they are, A, B, C, etc)…you don’t want to call everyone, perhaps just your top 10-20? once a month/once a quarter. CALL THEM. chat em up. see whats cookin. then ask them for business. period. end. of. discussion. i repeat: ask them for business.

the reason i assume that you are not asking for referrals is bc in my experience (and i have studied form the same school of marketing thought as alexis) i have never been tapped into for business. i have been marketed to, but never sold to. there have been a few times where i literally TRIED to sign up for a program, not with alexis, but with someone else…and i never heard back from the person! i had some questions and i wanted to chat. lollll!!!!!!!!!!!!!! last time i checked anyone would want an extra $2 grand in their monthly earnings. i mean unless you are a really serious baller. and then, when you are a really serious baller…the reason you ARE is bc you do care about the $2 grand.

in this wild world of internet marketing, one in which i have spent thousands of dollars in…without so much as a thank you note a phone call…nada…zero. (and i have more money to spend)…i don’t buy stuff sometimes bc i feel like i am just a damn number on a spreadsheet. a name on a list. a tweet in a stream of nonsense.

in real life, i only spend money REPEATEDLY with people who have the balls and the follow through to engage me in conversation. who ask me to make a referral. (hello–can you say “APPLE STORE” anyone? a little conversation goes a lonnnnng way).

i am a DIE HARD abraham-hicks/LOA practitioner, and i STILL know (my sales numbers prove it) that the people who GET the referrals, the people who GET the business, the people who get the REPEAT business are the ones who ask for it.

the RAVING FAN concept (a concept made popular by the online marketing community in which your raving fans will refer you) is great in theory…but it doesn’t account for many referrals that are there waiting for you to ask for them. and until i become a pop star…i am probably still going to have to actually ask questions to my past clients/prospects, listen to what they are saying, solve a problem, and then ask if they want to work with me, sell my product, and do they have any friends/family/colleagues who are in the market presently. it’s not cheesy. it’s a lost art. and just to repeat, you do not have to ask for referrals from everyone. pick out 10 ppl who have the clients that you want, that you can help. then, go get it.

BUSINESS ISN’T PERSONAL. it feels personal. but it’s really not.

my final point is this, i was at my first live event a month ago. RHH LIVE and it was AMAZING. but at one point someone in the crowd asked a question to the panel something like this, “how do you deal with people coming up to you at events…does it get annoying, etc” apparently the lady asking the question had had this experience, and had a PROBLEM with it. i almost fell out of my chair LOL-ing. ok..let me get this straight, you’re in a room with the vast majority of your target market waiting in line to talk to you, and you found that ANNOYING? ::scratching head in confusion::

seems to me that many online entrepreneurs are missing some very basic business acumen. not one you get with an MBA…one you get with a sales job and a quota. it’s called hustle.

sincerely,
alison

Wow. I am astounded by the negativity directed toward Alexis! As a small business owner, I have been following her for over two years now, have invested in some of her programs, referred others to her and will continue to invest.

Alexis is a breath of fresh air. In my opinion, she’s completely transparent — sometimes to a fault. But I do respect and admire that about her. She’s not perfect and that’s what’s great about her. Her mistakes don’t need to be my mistakes and that’s a good thing. She’s a brilliant strategist, brimming with ideas for all types of businesses — and is excellent at inspiring and motivating others to “live their truth.”

From my experience with her, I believe her to be one of the most caring and giving people I know. I have gained FAR more (value, insight and knowledge) from her than I have ever invested. I thank her and will continue to follow, and invest my time and dollars with her.

This is a fascinating discussion. At the end of the day its about relationship management, which is very tricky for a service provider who also recommends other service providers. A couple of things we should recognize as inevitables:

A) I used to run a web design company. If Arthur Andersen (I’m dating myself) recommended a client to me I was CERTAINLY going to attempt to steal that client to do web strategy, etc. Not every web designer will do that but I was transitioning my business to do strategy.
B) Whenever I did recommend a client to someone else to perform another service I always tried to keep the project management function for my firm, even if it meant overloading myself or personnel. This was, of course, very difficult to do and sometimes I failed at it (and then, failed occasionally at keeping the client when the service provider I recommended would chip away at the relationship).

Its just a fact of life that people do that. Everyone (or, I should say, most) is trying to build their business, extend their skillsets, provide for their families, etc.

The real solution (other than keeping the project management function in every case) is building a rock-solid relationship at the C-level of the client. That means providing services other than what they are paying for (being their friend, wining and dining, helping them with other areas of their life/business, etc.) Almost by being a consigliere of sorts.

As far as this discussion goes – its great to see human nature at its finest. People are very angry from the crisis of the past 2 years. They are, of course, taking it out (often anonymously) on an ambitious successful woman who is building her business and attempting to be a success in these difficult times. I don’t know how to handle negative comments. I use four strategies in equal doses:
A) delete them when i can.
B) ignore them (typical media relations strategy is to not respond to negativity. Its how clinton survived so long)
C) argue with them
D) joke with them

But, its almost always painful. I give Alexis a lot of credit for standing up to the negativity here.

Dear D,

Let me begin with this … I hear your upset. I wish I would have heard it from you directly as opposed to in this forum, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to hear you and respond rather than having you carry this with you.

I take full responsibility for how my firm was closed. I did the best I could under the circumstances and I also understand that for some folks my best was not good enough.

Just to give you some background … I had entered into an agreement for the sale of the firm to another lawyer who I believed would take excellent care of my clients and my team as I began to feel the pull to something else. The agreement called for a transition over time.

Within a few short months of signing the agreement and during the transition period, I began to realize he was not following the systems I had created. The old practice model patterns were far too ingrained. He was not willing to invest in marketing, he was not treating my clients the way I wanted them treated, and he was not running the systems.

Within six months of our agreement and before we could even issue a formal announcement about the sale, he stopped paying the bills and my entire team and all of my clients were going to be left high and dry if I didn’t step back in and do something.

By that time, I had another f/t business requiring my attention with a full team of people and clients there depending on me plus my kids to raise. I prayed for guidance. Should I step back into the firm and start taking on new clients again? Should I sue the guy I had entered into an agreement with and force him to perform? Or was there another alternative?

I decided the right thing to do would be to personally absorb all of the costs of running the firm until I could find new homes for my clients and my team. And that is what I did. I took on more than $150,000 of debt to maintain the office, the staff and service the clients without taking on any new clients while we worked hard to make sure everyone was taken care of.

We hosted a gathering for our clients to introduce them to the lawyers I had trained via my Personal Family Lawyer program who would take over their files and agreed to update and maintain their plans w/o making them start over from scratch.

We sent letters, wrote emails, and worked to finalize any plans that were incomplete before the office closed for good.

This was, as you can imagine, a very trying time for everyone. I grieved deeply over the closure. And yet, when it came down to it, I had to let go.

I did it in the best way I knew how to make sure my clients and team were taken care of, even if I could not be the one to do it.

I am so sorry that this came across as selfish and unnecessary. I can assure you that the entire time all of this was happening, I was thinking of everyone else and not putting myself first. If I had done that, I would have just walked away and said — “sorry, not my responsibility anymore.” But, of course I could not and would not have done that.

So, having said all that … the reason we provided all of our clients with a list of the lawyers we recommended who shared our planning philosophies is because there are many lawyers out there who are simply not doing things the right way. Please do not think your wishes can be carried out w/ a 25 page trust.

The reason our plans were more than 300+ pages (and not all of them were, I believe you had a complex situation if I recall correctly – but there were all far more than 25 pages) is because we do not know what will happen when you die. We don’t know when you will die. We don’t know what the law will be when you die. So, we created plans to be flexible and handle as many unknowns as possible up front. A 25 page plan cannot do that. If you would like to discuss this personally, please email me at [email protected] and I would be happy to get on the phone with you.

With love and blessings, Alexis