Bigger Isn’t Always Better: How Small Businesses Can Compete In a Big-Business Market
As a small business, it can be daunting when most of your competition is made up of businesses that are much larger than yours. But a small size also gives you the opportunity to rework the big-business model to suit your needs.
Being a small business in a big-business market gives you the opportunity to pivot your company’s practices, get rid inefficient systems, and cater better to your clients.
Law firms are notorious for their large businesses, high retainer fees, and fancy office spaces. “Big law” is attractive to a lot of high-paying clients for its impressive reputation, but its large size often means that smaller clients don’t receive the same attention and priority.
Noam Cohen and Hannah Genton had both worked as lawyers for big law firms and realized that the demanding nature of big law wasn’t the right fit for them. So they banded together and created CGL LLP, a small law firm without a physical residence.
Hannah and Noam totally reinvented the concept of big law in a small business model. They have kept the parts of big law that make a good business — top-notch lawyers and personable client interaction — while providing an alternative way for legal practices to be consumed by clients and practiced by lawyers.
On our recent podcast, we spoke with Noam and Hannah about their reinvention of big law to suit a small business’s needs, the ways their unusual practices helped them survive the pandemic, and how their business is working to change the future of legal services.
Staying Lean and Mean
While much of the business world struggled to learn how to work remotely when the pandemic hit, Hannah and Noam hardly changed their business model at all. CGL was already well-versed in remote communication with their clients, and they weren’t paying rent on an office building they couldn’t use during lockdown.
Even before the pandemic, Noam and Hannah had found that much of the prestige of law firms actually ended up being more inconvenient than attractive to their clients. Those high-rise buildings in big cities meant more time the client had to spend commuting to the office, finding parking, and waiting to be seen.
While brick-and-mortar big businesses have a lot of aesthetic appeal, they aren’t always necessary, especially for smaller companies. As a small business, you can cut out a lot of the luxury parts of big business that aren’t necessary for your business to succeed.
If you are able to strip away unneeded costs and practices when your business is flourishing, you will better survive unforeseen events. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Just because other businesses do things a certain way doesn’t automatically make their choices good or necessary.
Know what your business needs to be successful, and find out what practices might be costing you more than what they are worth. Don’t hesitate to discard systems that aren’t helpful.
Allow for Flexibility and Autonomy
Hannah and Noam both have a “hunger for life,” as they put it. Because of this, the high demands of big law — long work weeks, lots of clients, and strict work hours — quickly outweighed the benefits of a hefty salary and a nice work office.
So when they went into business for themselves, they chose the unique model of an asynchronous distributed business. This means they chose not to have a dedicated office space, and they don’t work a typical 9-to-5 schedule. The employees of CGL can live wherever they choose and work the time schedule that caters best to them.
Burnout is a major issue for lawyers, according to Noam, and she wants CGL’s employees to thrive at work, not just survive it: “We believe that you should be able to work autonomously, and to us autonomously means every single person should set up their work and life in a way that maximizes their wellbeing, as well as their productivity.”
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, two-thirds of workers state that working outside of a traditional office environment increases their productivity.
If you want to build a long-lasting, successful business, make sure your company takes care of its employees. Whether that’s a remote work environment, flexible office hours, or something else, be mindful of your employees’ needs.
What are a few ways you can allow your employees to have more flexibility and autonomy throughout their workdays?
Catering to Your Clients
CGL’s goal is to be the best quality option on the market, offering exceptional legal services without the exorbitant prices major law firms charge. Because of the lack of overhead costs related to Hannah and Noam’s business, they can use that extra revenue to hire first-rate lawyers for their legal team without increasing their prices for clients.
Noam and Hannah want CGL to be accessible to a wide range of clients, and they want all of their clients to feel that they are getting the best value for their money.
Many of the clients CGL works with have used big law firms before and were not satisfied with the service they received. Those clients chose to work with Hannah and Noam because their small business offered something different from the big law offices, something more personal and reasonably priced.
If you want your business to stand out, especially against bigger competitors, you have to offer something to your clients that other businesses don’t. Know what your company’s strengths are, and lean into those assets. The clients who want the experience your business can offer will find you.
What are some common complaints about the big businesses in your line of work? How can you make sure your company acts differently?
Small Business, Big Rewards
While owning a small business is not for the faint of heart, it is the perfect place to reinvent, disrupt, and rethink the way old service industries are run.
For Noam and Hannah, reinventing the market meant a total upheaval of how their law firm conducted business compared to other, bigger law firms. But because they weren’t tied to a big corporation, they were free to try out an entirely new business model on their own terms.
If you have the opportunity to try something new with your small business, take it, because small businesses are where the reinvention of the business market begins.
