How do you know when you’re ready to progress to partner? When is the right time to move forward in your career? There are really no tell tale signs that you are ready to take that partnership route. But most of the time, you will know when you should be moving forward in your career and start aiming to be the next partner. In this video, I share with you a key point in knowing when you’re ready to progress to partner and how to face it boldly.
One of the questions that was asked to me recently on my webinar was, how do you know when you’re ready to progress to partner? That’s a really, really good question. I could be glib and say, when you’re acting and thinking and feeling like a partner, which is the right answer. But how do you know? Because very often, we don’t know. Very often, the little voice of doubt sabotages our self. So how do you really know when you’re ready? Nobody’s going to go tap, tap on the shoulder, you’re ready. No one’s going to turn around and say, with what you’re achieving you should really go for partner. Well, they might do but very rarely. So how do you know when you’re ready? Well, first thing is you’re probably going to be the role beneath partner, or maybe you’re a senior manager. If in your big four there’s sometimes interim step to associate partner, executive director, maybe that’s happening. So typically, you’re going to be one step away. That is one of the signs. Two, your numbers are going to be trending towards what a new partner portfolio looks like. So, what do I mean by that? That means, effectively your client portfolio. The clients that you can put as mine, that I’ve won them, maybe through the internal firm marketplace, or sometimes through external. Very often if you’re lawyer, you need to able to demonstrate that you can win external work, not just stuff that comes through the internal firm marketplace. It’s external clients, new clients to the firm. And actually, you’re going to find that if you’re ready to make partners you’re probably already running a portfolio of work with minimal supervision. Now you in your head might not feel ready. You might have crippling self-doubts but that’s where we can come in. All too often I see people come on our How To Make Partner Program* that actually, if I’m honest, I look at their written record, what they’re doing, their numbers, how they’re seen and I think, you don’t need me. (* How to Make Partner Program has stopped now but take a look at joining my membership site Progress to Partner for career advice, training courses and more) But what they do need is someone to give them that confidence. Somebody to actually say, you are ready, let’s go for it. I think about somebody that’s on my current How To Make Partner, and because I’ve given him that confidence, he’s now realized he’s ready. So often, it’s that confidence thing. Yes, there’s the trappings of your portfolio is a certain size, you’ve putting down a business case, and your automatically making time for business development. There’s all of that stuff. You have a team built beneath you or one you know you can call your own. Yes, there’s all that stuff. But actually, it often comes down to confidence. And sometimes that confidence comes from working on a plan to make partner. To see it in your direction. Sometimes that confidence comes ’cause you’ve got someone like me in your corner going yeah you can do it, yeah you’re brilliant. I know you can do it. But actually, very often when you know you’re ready where’s you commit to go for it.
If you sense that you should be ready to start to progress your career to the next stage, then become a member of Progress to Partner. For the price of a couple of coffees a week, you will have access to our Self-Study Courses and Live Virtual Masterclasses, Training videos and Group coaching, plus a discount on any 121 career- coaching sessions.
