We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristyn Carmichael a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kristyn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the early days of establishing your own firm. What can you share?
When I’m not with my clients, I’m an adjunct professor at Arizona State University College of Law – and I get this question from students about starting my own practice often. And my answer is always the same – I never would have had the knowledge or the confidence to open a practice on my own right after law school. The law is a complex field and you can only learn so much from law school or even the bar exam. You have to get your feet wet actually practicing in a firm to understand the complexities of the law and how you want to practice. I’m so grateful for the experiences I had – from working for the state government in Michigan (quickly learning that was not my passion) to working as a mediator in mediation centers/firms. The experiences, whether they fuel your passion or are simply a learning experience, help you grow as a professional and understand what you truly want in your own practice.
Starting your own firm is not for everyone and that’s completely okay! I’m friends with so many professionals who love the companies they work for and thrive in that environment. Personally, I couldn’t find exactly what i wanted to offer my clients anywhere else – leading me to start my own firm. And it was not an easy, challenge-free experience at all! Regardless of how much I had learned at other firms, growing my management, customer service, and client management skills – now I had to learn how to manage business taxes, insurance and other regulatory elements of the business, payment collection, marketing, and so much more! Owning your own firm is not solely about the work you love doing but all the administrative tasks that make a business run. The biggest lesson I learned was that my perfectionism would hold me back – I needed to simply start and perfect as I went along. I changed marketing strategies, pricing structures, and even the core values of my business to create what it is today. Each client and each situation has helped me develop and hone the business. And I know that it will continue to grow and change into the future.
Ultimately, Couples Solutions Center has grown to a firm in which we seek to provide a compassionate and thoughtful approach, focussed on family-centered agreements. We believe in providing transparent fees to keep costs low, and expertise to help you create advantageous agreements. Our concierge services connect you with exceptional professionals to help you not only through your process itself, but also to better understand the implications surrounding your legal agreements and your future.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My background is as a licensed Arizona attorney, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA), and professional mediator. My practice, Couples Solutions Center, focuses on divorce mediation, premarital mediation including prenuptial agreements, parenting mediation, post divorce mediation, and divorce financial coaching. We additionally offer a low cost document drafting service for divorce.
In law school, I quickly realized that the adversarial litigation process (going to court) wasn’t what I wanted to offer to my clients. I strongly believe in collaborative processes that bring people together to find mutual solutions. This is particularly important in the family law field, where the stability of families and children is of utmost importance. I believe a wide majority of people can use mediation to resolve their issues, regardless of their level of conflict. At Couples Solutions Center, we have created a unique concierge divorce service where we assist our clients from beginning to end – not only with the legal aspects of their divorce, but also in connecting them with exceptional professional who can assist them with the ancillary items impacted by the divorce such as estate planning, home sale/refinance, health insurance, property insurance, taxes, and so much more. We want to help our clients understand the complexities of their divorce, without fear that they are missing a step along the way.
On the other side of relationships, we offer premarital mediation for those planning their weddings. We added the premarital mediation services as a way to combat divorce from before a couple says “I do”. In premarital mediation, we have the difficult conversations around important topics, such as children, finances, values, and more, before a couple gets married. We additionally provide prenuptial agreement services. The goal is to create a solid foundation for our couples before they walk down the aisle, setting up their relationship for success.
Ultimately, we want to provide our clients with the most comprehensive and thoughtful service, to remove as many obstacles from their process as possible.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I have always suffered from perfectionism, which ultimately can be beneficial and detrimental. Perfectionism often can lead to good grades, scholarships, promotions, and even recognition. But in starting a business, I ultimately found perfectionism to be debilitating. I wouldn’t want to put out content on social media until it was perfect, I would obsess over my website before launching it, and I couldn’t settle on a pricing structure until it was just right. But in reality, nothing will ever be perfect, just right, or without mistakes. We are human beings and we do the best we can every day. But if you wait around for everything to be perfect, someone else will launch the product first, get the client you wanted, or prevent you from even starting at all. You have to take a leap and adjust accordingly. Some of the pricing structures I have offered previously didn’t work – so I moved on to something different. I still cringe to this day watching my reels on Instagram or TikTok – but I put them out there anyways because even if I don’t think it’s perfect, it contains helpful information that I want to get to my potential clients. I’m not saying anyone should be putting out poor work product or not caring about the services they offer – but there is a difference between poor work and something that hasn’t reached “perfection”. So now I am a recovering perfectionist, working on finding a balance between offering my best services possible without holding myself back because something is not flawless.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
I cannot say this enough – referrals will always be your best resource for new clientele! If you provide someone with a great service, they will send their friends or family to you when they need a similar service. And it’s not just about the clients that pay you. As an example, it is very rare in my field to offer a free consultation. I’ve heard it all – you should be paid for your time, you are getting unvetted leads, and you are wasting your time. But I give every single person my time for free if they want to take me up on the offer and they all get my best. Why? Because even if I can’t help them – they will refer me to someone else. I cannot tell you the number of clients I have received by giving a consultation to someone who couldn’t use my services, who then refers someone else to me. It is about building trust with people and sometimes building trust means you have to give your time for free. When you treat each person with empathy, compassion, and thoughtfully answer their questions, you build rapport that lasts well beyond that short meeting. So focus on giving your clients the best experience and never undervalue giving your time for free.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.couplessolutionscenter.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/couplesolutionsmediation/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kristyn-carmichael-esq-cdfa
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@couplessolutionsmediation
Image Credits
Photo Fusion Studio – https://photofusionstudio.com/