Setup guide: law, accounting and professional services firms

Who you are reaching

Business owners and the in-house people who hire firms: general counsel, CFOs, HR leaders. Not other lawyers or accountants, who post constantly and will fill your queue if you let them.

Prospects settings

• Their Job Titles, by practice:
• Employment law or HR advisory: CEO, Founder, Head of People, HR Director, COO.
• Corporate or M&A: Founder, CEO, CFO, Managing Partner (of operating businesses), General Counsel.
• Tax and accounting: Owner, Founder, CFO, Controller, Managing Partner.
• Litigation or IP: Founder, CEO, General Counsel, Head of Product.
• Words to Watch For: the situations that trigger a call, in the client's words. Hiring my first employee, selling my business, audit, contract dispute, new state, remote team, raising money, trademark.
• People to Skip: Attorney, Lawyer, Partner (at law firms), CPA, Accountant, Bookkeeper, Legal Consultant, Compliance Consultant.
• Words to Skip: CLE, bar association, law school, big four.

Train Allen

Compliance matters here, so the rules do the work. "Never give specific legal or tax advice", "never say you should or you must", "frame everything as what I have seen or a question to ask your advisor", "never mention our firm". Bio: your practice area, your client type, how you talk. Goal: ask a question or add insight. Length: short to medium.

Sample comments

On a founder posting that they are hiring their first employee in another state:

• Ask a question: "Before the offer goes out, have you checked whether that state treats remote employees as creating a tax presence for the company? It is the question most first-time multi-state employers find out about afterwards."
• Add insight: "The paperwork people expect is the hard part. The part they do not expect is that the employee's state, not yours, usually decides the leave and final-paycheck rules. Worth a short conversation with whoever does your payroll."
• Agree and build: "Agree it is a milestone. The one thing I would add from watching clients do this: write the job description as if it will be read by a regulator, because one day it may be."

Autopilot

Three to five a day, weekdays. Turn on approvals if you are in a Team workspace with the firm, so a partner sees comments before they post. Check the first week's emails against your rules.

Watchlist

Referral sources first: bankers, wealth advisors, other firms that send you work. Then current clients and the owners of the fifty businesses you would most like to serve.

The first DM

"Thanks for replying on the first-hire post. Multi-state payroll is one of those things that is simple once and painful if missed. If it would help, I can send the three questions I tell people to ask their payroll provider; no engagement implied." The engagement comes when they ask.