Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Dawn Gilliland. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sarah Dawn , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

The number one thing is the way my work interacts with my lifestyle as a whole. I refuse to burn myself out (again). The legal field is known for high stress, low mental health, and zero life balance. Earlier in my career, I dove deep into the “hard working lawyer” identity. I never told a client no. I made myself available anytime and anywhere. I never turned off my phone or email. It took priority over my family, marriage, mental and physical health. Working this way wasn’t sustainable, I knew it, and weird part of me was really proud of working that hard anyway. Eventually it all finally crashed in on me. I was missing the most important moments with my family, I had health issues that I was way to young for, and finally had a big health scare that stopped me in my tracks. It took me a while to get the message, but I had a great support system in my husband, mentors, and life coach to help me see I had to find a better way. The truth is, our clients don’t need us available 24/7. They need us showing up as the best version of ourselves. They don’t need us to answer an email in seconds. They need us to spend the time and attention to get them the best possible solution. They don’t need us to miss our child’s baseball game to take their call. They need us to work with them without resentment.

Although it took several years to train myself (and my client base), the ding of an email no longer rules my life. I’m able to attract and mentor soul-level clients that benefit from seeing it’s possible to grow a business without burnout, and I can see a future in my business that I’m really excited about and doesn’t feel exhausting.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Absolutely! I’m an attorney, and my practice focuses on new and growing businesses, entrepreneurs, contracts, and real estate. I’ve been an attorney for 13 years and in the legal field for nearly 20 years! I’ve been very intentional to curate my current practice to be work that is actually fun for me. I help my clients with every level of legal protection their business needs: brand protection through trademarks and copyright, company formation, business contracts, and legal protection in every growth phase. I’ve also been excited this year to develop The Legal Shoppe™, a DIY legal template shop for businesses which uses plain langauge so our customers feel confident about their legal documents, not confused. I get absolutely giddy about new businesses. I love nothing more than watching someone take a skill or passion and turn it into a profitable venture. I’m so honored to be able to play a role in an entrepreneur’s dreams with my work.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Unlearning the story that burnout = success was one of the hardest and most important lessons of my career (maybe even my adult life). In only the first handful of years in my career my mental and physical health were suffering. Worse yet, I thought that meant I was doing it right. For me, hard work felt more valuable than healthy work, and I so desperately needed to feel valuable at that time. I think there are a handful of backstories that lead people to burn out, and mine was definitely around my own value. I grew up very poor. Our power was often shut off, we got groceries from church donations, and were always struggling. Very young I decided I would be a lawyer because it sounded like they could pay the bills. However, even after finishing law school, starting my own firm, and having some success, I doubted my own value. I believed I had to earn my place harder than my counterparts. I had to prove I was worthy of my success, because I didn’t come from an impressive family like many of my peers. Subconsciously, I did that by working non-stop. If I gave everything I had to my business and clients, I would be valuable and worthy. It took a lot of self and spiritual discovery to unlearn those beliefs and the work habits that came along with it.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

I have three rules for finding the absolute best clientele that make work feel fun. First, is building true, genuine relationships with other professionals. When you put yourself in rooms with professionals who share your values, and genuinely build friendships with them, you now have a team of people out in the world excited to send referrals to you. This is definitely a practice that you get out of it what you put in. You can’t show up once, go to a coffee meeting and expect business to pour in. You also can’t show up expecting referral trades from people who don’t really know you. While it’s sort of the long game it is so very rewarding, not only for growing a client base, but for having people in your life that understand the ups and downs of business, and will show up for you to celebrate or give you a hug when you need it. Second is being very transparent and authentic about my values. We should all have clients that either share our values or have complimentary ones. If I kept it my little secret that life balance was a high priority of mine, and appeared as though I would work 24/7, the clients I would attract would have a very different expectation from what I deliver. We would both be frustrated, and I doubt referrals would be pouring in from them. By being open about my values I’m meeting clients that are an excellent fit, and we both love working together. Bonus, they almost always send their friends!

Last, and the most challenging one to learn but also maybe the most important, is saying “no” to energetically expensive money. Really, this is any client that’s a poor fit. When you say “yes” to a client that doesn’t share your values and isn’t the best fit you’re saying “no” to spending that time and energy going out and meeting soul level clients. Say you work with an energetically expensive client for 4 hours. You also haven’t only lost those 4 hours. You’ve lost the time it takes to recoup your energy. Saying “no” to energetically expensive opportunities doesn’t mean anyone is bad, or not good enough for the other. It means you respect yourself, your business, and the other person enough to not try to force a poor fit. This leaves you open to go connect with the perfect clientele.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thelegalshoppe.com
• Instagram: @thelegalshoppe & @thesarahdawn
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thelegalshoppe