April 29, 2025

Growing Your Business, By the Book

By Emily A. Poler

Over the past few years, I’ve had a bunch of conversations with attorney friends about growing a business, whether it’s building a small firm like mine or increasing a client list (a “book of business”) within a larger firm. Despite the fact that these friends work for organizations that are either “BigLaw” or a lot closer to “BigLaw” than my (now) two-person firm, there is a lot of overlap between what I do and what they do (or want to do) in their workplaces. When we’re talking, I inevitably end up recommending business books that I’ve found helpful. And now, I’m sharing them with you!

First, a caveat: I am generally not a fan of “self-help” books; most, if not all, spend hundreds of pages regurgitating a basic premise that could be easily conveyed in a single chapter. Each of the books below could most definitely be shorter. However, if you can wade through the dreck, you will find valuable nuggets of wisdom in each of these.

Traction by Gino Wickman – This book introduced the “Entrepreneurial Operating System” and is closely associated with the Entrepreneurs Organization. I have problems with both of those things. As a result, this book sat unread on my shelf for years. But I finally pulled it out, and I was glad I did — it’s a classic for good reason. If you’re running your own business this book has some really indispensable points about figuring out and setting your goals, and how to use them to guide a whole range of business activities. It’s similarly useful if you’re running or developing your own area within a larger organization because defining goals that drive you forward is equally important in that environment.
Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port – Yes, the title is awful. The book, however, is pretty good, despite being somewhat similar to Traction in its focus on identifying and setting goals. For me, this was the book that finally convinced me to not try a little bit of this area of law and a little bit of that, but instead focus on the types of work I really want to handle and the clients I really want to work with.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport – As the title suggests, this book is for anyone, not just those trying to develop their businesses. That said, it is particularly useful for anyone in a position of selling their own expertise and experience because, at its heart, Deep Work is about slowing down, putting your phone aside, and not jumping to respond to every email as it flies in. Instead, this book encourages you to focus on thinking about the bigger questions and solving the problems we all face in our work and personal lives — the more important things that require the “deep work” of the book’s title and that ultimately lead to greater business (and personal) growth.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman – The book’s title comes from the fact that the average human lifespan is about 4,000 weeks (gulp!). It uses this jumping off point to talk about how “efficiency” and “time saving strategies” are myths and that life, including how you use your time, requires hard choices about what is and isn’t important. The main lesson: Focus on what’s actually important instead of frantically trying to do everything that comes one’s way.

That final point is one I cannot emphasize enough. Focusing on the big things has been invaluable for me the past few years. It’s helped my business grow in ways that made me more satisfied, engaged, and successful, which of course has made every aspect of my life better. For that lesson, and many others, I heartily recommend these books.