This article is written by Ramanuj Mukherjee, CEO, LawSikho.

Tony Robbins, a coach and trainer who built a billion-dollar empire helping other people to be more successful, and coached people like Bill Clinton, often says: success leaves clues.

What does that mean?

You can study other people who have become successful and find out how they did it. 

And if you do this methodically, you can find pathways to success that you cannot imagine otherwise.

Can you think of someone who has accomplished what you want to accomplish? 

Let’s take an example. 

I had to learn sales. To grow LawSikho, I had to figure out how I can build a sales team and how to manage it. What should I do? Can you do this as a thought exercise?

Of course, have there been some companies which grew their sales rapidly, within years, and built really amazing companies? Surely, they must know things that I do not know?  

When I researched the companies in Silicon Valley which managed to achieve hypergrowth in sales, I learned a hell lot about sales. 

I learned things that blew my mind. I would read one page and then stop reading so that I can process how much I was learning from that single page. It was incredible!

For instance, I learned that customer success is a sales department. I also learned that customer success and customer service are very different functions and you need separate teams for those things.

I learned that before hiring lots of salespeople I need to hire a good team in customer success so that there is strong cross-selling, upselling, and referral business coming all the time! This multiplies any sales effort. Investing in a large sales team before investing in this does not make sense.

Such insights were game-changing for me. In LawSikho, we managed to double our sales every 3-6 months. I would say learning about how other companies did what they do helped a great deal.

But let’s not get into specific details of things I learned about sales. Understand the process instead.

A lot of wildly successful people follow these steps in their preparation/ training stage:

• Researching role models in their field to quickly learn what works and what doesn’t
• Making early decisions about where they want to arrive at and what success would look like
• Motivate themselves through regular affirmations of their goals
• Finding highly capable and inspiring mentors
• Develop cornerstone habits that support their eventual success
• Create and follow a regular and effective learning and development routine
• Develop strong networks with other colleagues and supportive professionals 
• Remove toxic people as well as people whose destinations do not match from their circle of influence

Let’s say you want to be a very successful M&A lawyer. What should you do?

• Spend time learning what kind of work do M&A lawyers have to do
• Identify the most successful M&A lawyers. What do they do differently from the lawyers who are not as successful? 
• Is it all about experience or are there young M&A lawyers who are wildly successful?
• What was different in the early career days for very successful lawyers v. not-so-successful lawyers?
• What kind of mentors did they have? Where did they learn what they did better than others? What were their habits that made outlier success possible?
• What did their schedule look like when they were preparing for the success that they are enjoying today?
• What hardships did they face along the way? How did they overcome such hardship?
• How did they network and connect with other people that led to major opportunities or turning points in their lives?

How we follow this principle in LawSikho

• Our course material and syllabus are always created after consulting successful lawyers, judges, bureaucrats, investors, and actual clients. We learn how they do what they do. We go and learn what problems the market is facing, and what work will be in demand. We learn what challenges you will face, and then tune our courses to prepare you to face those challenges. This is why our students have a very high success rate, and recruiters are amazed by the training we give to our students.
• We train and encourage our students to do informational interviews. You have to speak to lawyers like who you want to become, and ask a few questions. The intention is to develop an understanding of what it takes to succeed.
• When you join a course with LawSikho, you get access to teachers and mentors who have already achieved what you want to achieve. Imagine learning from law firm founders, retired judges, people who have cleared difficult exams like judiciary or IBPS, top litigators teaching you and guiding you in your journey. How much speed can you pick up if you can learn from such people? How fast will you learn things that otherwise take years to learn when you do not get that kind of guidance?
• We are continuously doing webinars (you could see them here), interviews (check out superlawyer.in) and workshops to help you to achieve this. Here are the upcoming workshops (and they are super affordable):

Beat COVID Crisis And Recession: How Can You Get 2 New Clients Every Month And Earn An Additional 50,000?  | Fee: INR 500 | Last date of enrolment: August 25, 2020, 3 pm | Duration: 2 Days | Timing: August 25, 2020: 7 pm – 10 pm; August 26, 2020: 7pm – 9pm | To enroll: click here.

How To Get An Internship And A Job In A Law Firm (Corporate And Disputes And Other Similar Fields)  | Fee: INR 500 | Last date of enrolment: September 13, 2020, 3 pm | Duration: 2 Days | Timing: September 13, 2020: 7 pm – 10 pm; September 14, 2020: 7 pm – 9 pm | To enroll: click here.

• We have launched some really affordable month-long courses that can get you started (money should not stop you from getting good education):

Here are the courses that we are taking enrollment in currently. Enrollment will close in about a week, so hurry:

1. If you are interested in corporate governance, you should check out the diploma in Companies Act, Corporate Governance and SEBI Regulations;
2. If you want to get that in-house counsel job, go check out the diploma in Business Laws for In-House Counsels;
3. If Industrial and Labour Laws interest you, go take a look at that diploma course;
4. The Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Laws will be booming in the coming times, if you’re inclined towards that career, check out that diploma course;
5. If you’re sure that your niche lies in M&A, Institutional Finance and Investment Laws (PE & VC transactions), go check out that course;
6. The Cyber Law, Fintech Regulations and Technology Contracts is in dire need of good young talent if that is what ticks for you, go check out that course; and
7. Every young lawyer should check out our diploma course in Advanced Contract Drafting, Negotiation and Dispute Resolution. 

Check out our other executive courses which can be helpful: 

1. We have a certificate course in Advance Corporate Taxation; 
2. You can also check out this course for Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code; 
3. If Trademark, Licensing; Prosecution and Litigation interest you, we have a course for that;
4. LawSikho also teaches Competition Law, Practice and Enforcement in a course;
5. Technology Contracts will be essential to every business in the future, you can check out that certificate course; and
6. Knowledge about Banking & Finance Practice: Contracts, Disputes & Recovery is essential for every BigLaw layer, you can check that out too.

LawSikho has created a telegram group for exchanging legal knowledge, referrals and various opportunities. You can click on this link and join: