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Hello everyone! Welcome back to Feminine Wealth TV! In this week’s episode, I interview Claire Wivell Plater – author, speaker and co-founder of The Fold Legal. Claire is a prolific commentator and public speaker on regulatory and legal issues and is a long standing member of the Business Advisory Committee to ASIC’s Licensing Division.

We discuss the power of partnerships (when done right!). How do you best leverage the knowledge you have? What about joint ventures and raising capital? Claire is a very well-respected adviser to businesses and shares some of her vast knowledge with us!

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Barbara Turley: Hi there. I’m Barbara Turley and you’re watching Feminine Wealth TV. The show that uncovers the diamond tips on creating truly conscious wealth from change makers, world shakers and wealth creators. Today’s show, we’re going to be talking about the power of leveraging your business using joint ventures, partnerships and of course, getting the investors on board. I’m joined to talk about this topic, by Claire Wivell Plater from the Fold Legal. Welcome to the show, Claire.

Claire Wivell Plater: Thank you, Barbara.

Barbara Turley: As always, I like to start the show with a little story about how I met my guest, and why I chose them for the show. How I met Claire, was a few weeks ago, I had a little issue in my business. Realistically, it was a legal issue that I needed legal advice on. I procrastinated about getting advice. I was avoiding going to a lawyer. You know what they say, “You don’t want to be going to the lawyers. That’s going to cost a fortune.”

I was asking everybody in my industry who had the answer to this question. An industry colleague said to me, you need to go and see Claire over at the Fold. I thought, okay. I looked up the website, and what immediately struck me was the fact that on your website, you have photos of each of you as children on your profile pages. I just absolutely loved that. It drew me into going to see Claire, and we struck up this amazing conversation about business and life. It was a really, really good experience for me. That’s why I chose to have you on the show today.

Claire Wivell Plater: Thank you.

Barbara Turley: What was the decision to have the profile pictures? I love that about your website. What was the decision to have those profile pictures as children?

Claire Wivell Plater: I guess the issue was that we wanted to show people that we were accessible. Not only do we have pictures of us as babies, so our baby photos is the initial thing you see about us. When then when you click through, you actually see us all at various stages of our life. Doing things outside of work as well. [crosstalk 00:02:03]

Barbara Turley: To make it real.

Claire Wivell Plater: To make it real. To make people understand that we’re people too. Lawyers like to put themselves on a pedestal sometimes. Our clients are all SMA businesses, they’re all entrepreneurs. They’re all people like us that have the same exact, we have the same issues and concerns that they do. I wanted them to feel they could relate to us.

Barbara Turley: I definitely felt like that, and that was what really drew me into the –

Claire Wivell Plater: Despite the fact, I should say that that’s my only time I ever got on a horse.

Barbara Turley: Oh, was it? Wow, because I’m a horse person. Maybe that was the reason I actually went to the business, because I do love horses. Something else I read when I was reading your profile. You said that you had several escapes from a Tasmanian apple farm, a big law firm and a major financial institution before finding your calling in the form of the Fold Legal. Can you tell us a bit about your journey there, and particularly the use of the word escape?

Claire Wivell Plater: I suppose the reason it feels like escape, initially in Tasmania was, I grew up on an apple farm in Tasmania. I never felt like I belonged there. I just didn’t think that, I knew I didn’t like the outdoors. I didn’t particularly like the farm. I didn’t like being dirty. I liked books, I liked reading, and I just knew that that wasn’t going to be my life. Then when I was nine and then again when I was 12, my family brought me to Sydney. I just never forget driving down into Sydney from part of Northern suburbs. Seeing that vistor of the harbor and the water and the bridge and I just thought, this is where I’m going to live.

Barbara Turley: Actually that resonates with me, because the first time I arrived in Australia I landed into Sydney. I was here as a backpacker, and I remember that moment of seeing the harbor and going, I want to live here long term. I really resonate with that feeling.

Claire Wivell Plater: That’s right. Basically I never really even applied to go to university in Tasmania. I enrolled in ANU and came up to Sydney after a few years. I’ve been here ever since, and I love it.

Barbara Turley: Did you start out at the big box law firm, is that were you started?

Claire Wivell Plater: No, I didn’t actually. I had one year in a very unfortunate small little firm that doesn’t exist anymore. Realizing that that wasn’t the place to be, I managed to find another role. Quite fortunate to see through a friend in a firm that actually wasn’t a large firm at that stage. I was lucky enough to join it when it started to grow, and I grew with it. By the age at 30, I was a partner in a fairly … It was tier two firm, not a tier one firm, but I was a partner there at the age of 30. Just because it experienced incredible grown in the last six years, and I was lucky enough to grow with it.

Barbara Turley: Then what was the decision to move on from there? You were their partner. Oh my God, you get to 30. You’ve made a partner. It’s like your life has made and you decide to move on from there. What was the decision?

Claire Wivell Plater: It is interesting, because it was like that. It felt like my goal, I’ve arrived at 30. Of course, every arrival is just a beginning. Over the next 11 years as partner, the firm continued to grow, we became a national firm. Then it started to corporatize. That was the beginning of the end for me, because instead of being a place were achievement was recognized and shared, it became a place where people were pitted against each other –

Barbara Turley: Such a bad energy to have in a business. The banks have this problem. I should blank and say that, but they have that problem as well.

Claire Wivell Plater: Yes, precisely.

Barbara Turley: Divide and conquer.

Claire Wivell Plater: Exactly. The whole concept of partnership is that everybody contributes equally. If they don’t, you manage them either up or out until they do. That was what ceased to happen. They thought they could overcome the difficulty of managing people with remiteration structures and –

Barbara Turley: Bonuses and reporting lines. Politics and what comes of that actually is just more and more politics and unhappiness, angst in the business.

Claire Wivell Plater: It’s just not a good recipe for, in my view, for business. In particularly for legal partnerships where, a large firm like that has a series of experts. It’s really important for the health of the firm and the reputation of the firm, for the experts to actually do the work that they are good at. For you, as another partner who might not have the expertise, to pass that on to somebody else, so that you’re not swimming in a pond that you’re not familiar with.

That’s what stops happening, unfortunately. Sharing clients also stops happening. Then as these firms grow, what happens is that those decisions about who does what, is made for you by other people than yourself. That’s even more demoralizing and damaging. Now, I wasn’t there when that happened. I left at the point where I could see that it wasn’t going to be a collegiate atmosphere anymore. I didn’t want to play in that space.

Barbara Turley: Is that what lead you then, was the Fold after that or was this the thing that lead you on this journey towards going back into a boutique business, which is what you started in?

Claire Wivell Plater: I fell out of the frying pan into the fire. I went to work for a very large financial institution. If I had thought that politics and dilution of creativity were a problem in a law firm that was corporatizing, I really found out what it means when I went to a large financial institution.

Barbara Turley: There’s plenty of reporting lines there. Having been in those financial institutions myself. I know full well the politics and particularly the pitting against each other thing. It’s very masculine energy driven.

Claire Wivell Plater: It was incredibly masculine. I think the thing that upset me the most when I was there, that nothing seemed to be about shareholder interest. It all seemed to be about furthering their careers and the individual victims of the people working in the business. Again, that just didn’t interest me. I found it very difficult to find a purpose for being in that firm. Also, to find a way to use my skills. It was primarily the problem of getting anything done when you had to work through so many layers of people. Then also, it wasn’t just the fact that we might have had a good idea. It was whether it suited the aspirations of other people for you to be permitted to use that idea in the business as well.

Barbara Turley: Do you think actually, because I know this is something. Everything’s resonating with me here, because I obviously had spent a long time in the financial industry. Women are leaving the corporate world in quite massive amounts at the moment. They’re going a bit alone. They’re starting their own businesses, like what you’ve done, what I’ve done. Do you think that’s been a cause? Are women waking up to this and going, you know what, I can’t do this anymore, I can’t fit into this structure anymore. Do you think that’s the problem right there?

Claire Wivell Plater: I think so. You used the word masculine energy a moment ago. I think that even with all of the best women in the world, and the talking that they’re doing, big organizations are still very masculine driven. I think that they, we’re a long way away from big business being able to recognize and value and really incorporate female energy and values into the business.

Barbara Turley: I think they’re trying really, really hard, but there’s something missing. Women who are leaving are finding that they’re coming home. When they do find their own business. You said that it was a calling for you or the Fold was when you finally felt at home. Would that be true to say about your own business now?

Claire Wivell Plater: Absolutely. Certainly I knew I was never going to find a place where I felt comfortable and fitted in a large organization. Whether it be a law firm or a financial institution or any other corporate. Was the Fold initially there? Was that the reason for doing it? No, probably not. It was probably something I discovered later. It was more opportunistic in fact.

Barbara Turley: Tell me about that, I know that you said actually, back in the beginning there was a business partner involved as well. Tell me about the [inaudible 00:09:35] of the Fold. [crosstalk 00:09:37] How did you fall into it?

Claire Wivell Plater: In 2002, there was a very large piece of reform in the financial services industry. It was called the Financial Services Reform Act of all things. What that, it was a very complex piece of legislation. It involved every element of businesses from the way that they interact with their customers, to the way that they run their business. There was a lot of it basically. You had acts, you had regulations, you had any number of regulatory guides.

Barbara Turley: A financial industry loves regulation.

Claire Wivell Plater: We do. The industry doesn’t love it but –

Barbara Turley: The industry hates it, but the regulator love, they’s acts for everything. You’re probably in a great business for you do be in.

Claire Wivell Plater: Yeah bring it on. [crosstalk 00:10:17] What we could see, when I was at Phillips Fox, what I had done is worked as an insurance specialist. I has particularly worked with a lot of insurance brokers. I could see that they were going to struggle with coming to terms with all this regulation. In particular, they were going to need to have documented procedures for pretty much everything that opened and shut. Insurance brokers aren’t necessarily, that’s not what they do. They are –

Barbara Turley: I suppose a lot of business owners would be like that. This is not the core reason why the went into a particular field or an area. Financial advisors would be the same. They’re just really tedious, because what they want to be doing is dealing with the clients –

Claire Wivell Plater: Identify risks, identifying products, insurance policies that will manage those risks. Basically helping their clients to solve those problems. While many of them had and continued to have extremely good businesses, they weren’t necessarily as disciplined and structured in terms of documenting their processes as the new legislation is expecting them to be. I could see a need for them to, they would need help with that.

The woman that I went into business with, had been very involved with the insurance brokers industry association. In my career as a lawyer I looked after many insurance brokers as well. Between us, we knew the industry incredibly well. We were very lucky that we were actively promoted by the industry association to help brokers with converting their businesses, and doing the work that they needed to do to get ready for the legislation.

Barbara Turley: You came along at the right time.

Claire Wivell Plater: We did.

Barbara Turley: This is the interesting thing as well. I love the fact that you said, you saw an opportunity. It was opportunistic actually. I think that is in business, that soul key as well. You can have a passion, but you also have to be really opportunistic and spot a diamond opportunity when it comes your way.

Claire Wivell Plater: That’s right. To be honest, I don’t even take the credit for spotting the opportunity. My business partner, it was given to her by the industry association. We said, we’d like you to expand what you’re currently doing. Which was helping brokers manage professional risk into a full compliance system. She, not being a lawyer, realized that she needed some help with that, so she asked me to be involved. It was lucky.

Barbara Turley: Was it a partnership originally?

Claire Wivell Plater: We said it out as a business, 50/50 ownership. We had one company that we did that with. Then we, after about a year, we decided that we needed a legal firm, and so we set up a law firm. We had an excellent young lawyer who we recruited at Phillips Fox, again, working with us. We gave her a small share in that, but Valerie, my partner and I, own the rest of it 50/50.

Then a few months later we thought that there was an opportunity to have, provide HR services and training services into the same client base. We started up the third company, in which my partner’s sister became an equal shareholder as well. It was slightly complex structure, but it worked for us. We ran the companies very much as one. There was just different ownerships.

Barbara Turley: Claire, with partnerships, how well did you know the other woman when you first went into the partnership? Did you know her well?

Claire Wivell Plater: No, I didn’t know terribly well. We had known each other superficially for probably about ten years. We’d met maybe once every three or four years. No, I didn’t know her terribly well. She has an excellent reputation in the industry. She was certainly highly respected in the insurance industry. She brought with her, an enormous amount of know how about how insurance brokers operated, how the industry operated, how underwriting agencies operated. I brought with me a lot of legal knowledge about exactly the same thing. Together –

Barbara Turley: Is a perfect synergy.

Claire Wivell Plater: It was an excellent synergy.

Barbara Turley: What about, because I know obviously partnerships, they can go really wrong, they can be a real mind field. Were there any challenges for you guys early on that you can share. I think partnerships are a challenging area anyway.

Claire Wivell Plater: I think early on, it worked incredibly well. It did in many things, we shared decisions. We always discussed things. We’d talk on the phone many times each day. She was on the Gold Coast and I was in Sydney. It went really well. I left all the running of the business, the operational part of the business up to her. I was in charge, if you like, of the technical legal operational side of preparing our products because we created compliance manuals and indeed delivering quite a bit of the more technical advice that we gave to clients. She was involved in administering the business. Very much involved in the marketing. Finding clients in the early days, which are fantastic.

Barbara Turley: A very important role. A difficult role, an important role.

Claire Wivell Plater: As the business grew, she ran all the administration side and I ran much of these legal products, I’ve continued to do that. I think our challenges probably came later.

Barbara Turley: How did you deal? I think when things start out, and you get a partnership, and it’s all working really well, business it going well. The challenge of course is later. If things do go wrong. What advice would you give to anyone who is thinking about doing a partnership? Are there any things that you would say you wish you’d done at the beginning to protect against things going wrong? What would be your –

Claire Wivell Plater: Gosh, it’s such a hard thing. The things that became challenging in our business, were that we were doing too much. We were trying to run to many initiatives all at the same time.

Barbara Turley: Of course, you have HR. Yeah, you had three different companies effectively running.

Claire Wivell Plater: That’s right. What happened was that my partner and I tended to be managing each other, and others more than actually being involved in productive work for the business. Financially, that just didn’t work basically. Also, the other thing that happened. This is something which could not have been predicted from the outset. One part of the business was much more financially profitable than the other part, but what we didn’t do was set up the metrics of the business in terms or our management accounting in a way that adequately measured that. It was masked for a very long time.

That actually meant that we prolonged that situation for much longer than we should have. There wasn’t really reporting around which parts of the business where actually more productive than the others. In business, it’s really important to understand what’s working for you and what’s not. When it’s not working, you try to make it work. You give it a fair go, and then when everything that you do isn’t sufficient to actually turn that element of business into a profitable part. You have to make –

Barbara Turley: You have to let it go.

Claire Wivell Plater: Yeah, well you got to do something.

Barbara Turley: Mind you, if you don’t know in the first place thought what parts of the business are working and what parts aren’t, because you don’t have this transparency of accounting or whatever. That’s a disaster really, then you got parts of the business that are pulling other parts down. You don’t even know.

Claire Wivell Plater: Exactly. That’s what turned out to be the case. Financially in this respect. There were other synergies that were there. The joint marketing was fantastic. It meant that we were very visible because we’re all marketing to the same industries. They were just very, very different. Huge differences in the contributions made by each. Which just weren’t sustainable long term.

Barbara Turley: In your line of work now, and the businesses that you’re dealing with. Obviously, I know a lot of who you deal with are financial services, businesses, but you do branch out into other areas.

Claire Wivell Plater: Yes.

Barbara Turley: A lot of these businesses, they’re bringing on investors, they’re doing shareholder agreements, they’re buying and selling, they’re doing partnerships and joint ventures. These are all great ways of obviously leveraging your business, and creating greater scale, etc. What are the major pitfalls though that you see with business coming in trying to do those things. Is it that their lack of knowledge in that area or what are the major pitfalls?

Claire Wivell Plater: I think it really depends on whether it’s a new business or a mature business. We work very extensively with financial planning business as well. We’re seeing an enormous amount of work being done there in forming joint venture and referral style arrangements with accounting firms, legal firms, other types of firms who have clients that need financial advice, but who don’t necessarily want to provide those services themselves.

We see some of them work well, and we see some of them not work well. The ones that work are the ones where, first of all they’re very clear about the objectives, and they’re very clear about the role that each party will play and what the limits on that role are. They’re also clear about what they expect each party to contribute and what they expect each party to get out of it. They also make sure that there is enough in it for each party, for them to be motivated to make it work.

Barbara Turley: Otherwise it just doesn’t work.

Claire Wivell Plater: That’s right.

Barbara Turley: A perfectly good joint venture on paper can just go –

Claire Wivell Plater: That’s right. Let’s take a referral as an example. Say you think if you’ve got a business, you think it would be nice for your clients to have the opportunity to go to a trusted partner. That’s all good. It starts out nicely, so you say, all right I’ll refer all my clients who need financial advice to you. That’s a lovely idea, but unless you merger that relationship with the other planner, with the planner for example, in such a way that you can, first of all be confident that they’re delivering services that are the sorts of services and with the same sort of professionalism as you would deliver.

Barbara Turley: You would deliver, because you never know inside someone else’s business. It might look great from the outside, but you don’t know what the customer experience is.

Claire Wivell Plater: That’s right, so you due diligence on that out front and you need to keep a weather eye on it. You don’t want to be in a situation where your reputation can be damaged because you’ve referred the client to somebody who might have different values and standards than you. Secondly we find, that if there’s not enough in it for both parties, in the sense of their being … It doesn’t have to be financial. It really depends on what it is, but often financial helps, it tends to teeter out those sorts of relationships.

Barbara Turley: There’s going to be energy to keep pushing it.

Claire Wivell Plater: That can be a number of things. Financial is excellent. I think that works really well, but it can’t be all one way. Also, just communication and making sure that, there’s reporting back, that the person to whom the clients are being referred isn’t just grabbing them and running with them. That they actually report back to the accountant with of course the clients consent on how they’re going, what they’re doing to help serve the accountant better serves their clients as well. Making sure that there is true duality in the way that the service is operating. I think it’s very important.

Barbara Turley: It’s very important. I know at the moment a big buzz word out there is, capital raises. Everybody’s looking for [inaudible 00:21:04] investors, everybody’s raising capital. It just is everywhere. My personal view is, a lot of businesses, particularly startups, running around looking for capital that either don’t need it, or shouldn’t be looking for it. What would you say to startups that are just, they feel [inaudible 00:21:19] and they say, I need money, I need money. What would say to them about raising capital, bringing new investors onboard?

Claire Wivell Plater: I guess the, I would say be mean. Be stingy. Find a way –

Barbara Turley: It’s your company.

Claire Wivell Plater: It’s your money.

Barbara Turley: Take their pound of flesh.

Claire Wivell Plater: If you’re going to raise money at the outset. The earlier you raise money, the more your investor will want from you. The more mature your business is, the less they will expect from you. If you want to raise money, right at the outset, before you’ve got anything at all, your investor may well want a very large proportion of a share of your business. What that does is a number of things. First of all, it leaves very little on the table for you. Secondly, it constrains your ability to raise money from other investors at other times in the future.

Barbara Turley: That’s a good point, I hadn’t really thought about that one. If you take on an early investor, then they get a big share, then they have a really big say in what happens later.

Claire Wivell Plater: Yes, absolutely. Then they insist, for example, on being the third capital provider if the business is going really well. They might not permit you to go out and get other shareholders or investors who might be able to bring other things to the table. I’d also, be really careful to make sure that it’s not just a money investment, that it’s actually someone who can bring something to the business as well.

Barbara Turley: In terms of expertise, like a mentor.

Claire Wivell Plater: A mentor maybe. It may be that they can direct clients your way. I may be that they create other opportunities for you, open doors for you in the business. These things are all very important. The more they can do with those things that will help to secure the success of your business, the more likely you are to potentially want to engage at an earlier stage. I was in the lucky position that, in our business we’ve actually never borrowed a cent. From the very beginning.

Barbara Turley: I’m a big fan of that. I’m more of a bootstrapper. I think you go to get in there, obviously as we talked earlier, if you’re building apps and websites and big technology platforms, you probably do need investors on board or some capital. Typically speaking, a lot of the women I know that are launching business, really bootstrapping is I think the way to go. Get on with it and keep your company.

Claire Wivell Plater: We had what I like to call our garage phase were we literally worked from our garages. We weren’t slumming. It was a –

Barbara Turley: It was a nice garage.

Claire Wivell Plater: It was a room above the garage in a nice big house. It was pretty okay until summer came and we didn’t have any air conditioning. The point was we didn’t pay rent. [inaudible 00:23:45] We didn’t have an in cost on the business from the outset. We also didn’t have any salaries to speak of because we did all our own admin and business was relatively small.

Barbara Turley: You just have to do that in the beginning really don’t you?

Claire Wivell Plater: Absolutely. There was no choice. Particularity as I spent the first three months of the business actually writing a lot of our product. We then sold a mass [inaudible 00:24:07] and we reaped the reward of that.

Barbara Turley: That work, because I know that I’m writing content at the moment and it’s such a big job. You know that once you’ve created it once, you can keep selling it. You’ve got your product.

Claire Wivell Plater: To be honest, we were overwhelmed with what we did sell, in the insurance broking industry, which was our very first forwrite. We estimate that over 65 percent of insurance brokers bought our products, so you can imagine –

Barbara Turley: That a roaring success.

Claire Wivell Plater: I wish it were still the case. Many of them have updated and we have services to update, but then when we did our other product for financial planners and mortgage brokers, there were other products available in the marketplace by that time or that used other methods to document their procedures. We have a steady flow of sales on those.

Barbara Turley: Just on that actually, a product. Tell me about that. What kind of product? When you say product, was it an information product, was it a device product?

Claire Wivell Plater: Yes, that’s a very good question, because you don’t normally hear lawyers talk about products.

Barbara Turley: Products.

Claire Wivell Plater: Part of the philosophy of our business was about knowledge leverage. My concept was that it seemed a terrible waste to me that a client would come into the office, or ring me on the phone, and I would give them a piece of beautiful technical legal advice that not only applied to them, it applied to many other people.

Barbara Turley: Lots of people.

Claire Wivell Plater: Our view was, let’s see if we can leverage that knowledge by turning into a procedure or turning it into a tool or a template that we could then sell to other clients who might need it. That’s what we meant by products. It was turning our know how into something that we could then offer to other people.

Barbara Turley: You are absolutely ahead of your time, because the big thing out there now is productizing knowledge. Businesses and for anyone out there who’s trading time for money still, which is this is the trap, you can’t leverage your business if you’re still trading time for money. The only way out of that is to take your expertise and productize it and actually sell it. This is where the [inaudible 00:26:01], and then joint ventures, and partnerships, and the referral arrangements are great because you’ve got a product that can be sold into that distribution line.

Claire Wivell Plater: That’s right. Then the other thing that we’ve felt would also be a way of reaching the audience that we knew needed this information, was to offer training.

Barbara Turley: The next step.

Claire Wivell Plater: Hence, the training company. Now the difference between those business models is very great. Business, law firms if you like, offer very much one to one advice. Then product is one to some, and training should be one to many. The difficulty of course is that they are marketed very, very differently. This was the challenge that we underestimated, how difficult it was to actually market all three things with the different marketing methods that were required.

Barbara Turley: Were there different audiences, or different end clients for each product, or was it different way of selling to the same client?

Claire Wivell Plater: Same industry, but different decision makers within each client. That’s the thing that we underestimated. In the end, what we realized was that for that be run out of one business with the same people operating and being in charge of it, was a mistake. It would’ve been better to have separate businesses offering the training that could effectively leverage the information that we were creating in the technique of a new product would be a better outcome. That’s indeed how most training companies actually work. They buy in expertise and they focus on mass distribution.

Barbara Turley: That’s their core capability. It’s a different thing, distribution is a totally different thing from advice or product creation.

Claire Wivell Plater: As we learned.

Barbara Turley: What I loved about that story though, is the fact that you were in the legal profession. You’re in this niche financial services area, with yet the things that you learned in terms of running a business, would be the same for any business.

Claire Wivell Plater: Absolutely.

Barbara Turley: I love that and these are the tips I want the viewers to really take from this, is that it doesn’t matter what industry that you’re in. If you’re in the legal profession, I hear people say all the time that that wouldn’t work in my industry. It does, because the business model really matters. You got to try and leverage your business model, whatever way you can.

Claire Wivell Plater: One of the great things about coming from the legal profession actually, is how focused the legal profession is on measuring the productivity of it’s people. Accountants are the same.

Barbara Turley: Is this the six minute increment thing?

Claire Wivell Plater: Yes. [crosstalk 00:28:29] I don’t mind it. It’s okay, because at the end of the day, you get grand satisfaction in watching that time sheet fill up and knowing that you’ve actually achieved all of that. Some of us of course you’re not padding it out and putting things in there that you generally shouldn’t be charging for. It can be done the right way, it can be very satisfied for the [crosstalk 00:28:48]

Barbara Turley: Also, thinking even for a small business owner by themselves, it could be quite good. You’re getting the most out of every hour, and not laughing about it on Facebook.

Claire Wivell Plater: There is that. It also has it’s advantages. You can work out who is productive in your staff. If they’re not being productive, you can see it to address the reasons why that is the case. Whereas, it’s more difficult when people are just working on projects where it’s hard to measure the relative contributions of different people.

Barbara Turley: Yeah you wonder are people, people work in different ways I know, but the measuring of it is the tricky part.

Claire Wivell Plater: Personally I like those disciplines. I find them actually quite useful. Certainly they enable you to manage your resources very effectively. I’m sure there are other ways of doing it. Those disciplines are actually quite useful.

Barbara Turley: Maybe you should productize that knowledge into productivity tool. Totally different business model.

Claire Wivell Plater: I guess the problem with that is that a lot of people outside the legal profession does resist it, because they say you can’t categorize what I do, you can’t turn it into something –

Barbara Turley: Something funkier. We’ll call it something else, but actually teach the program exactly what it is. There you go. There’s an idea. Another thing I read about you, which I laughed hysterically when I saw it. You’ve got your creed written on your website. Your creed is, if everything’s under control, you’re not going fast enough. I want to know, is that why you put after that, that your colleagues say that you’re a terrible driver.

Claire Wivell Plater: Oddly enough the two things are unrelated. My terrible driving arises out of the fact that I bump into things a lot. I mostly do that under 25 kilometers an hour.

Barbara Turley: You’re obviously under too much control.

Claire Wivell Plater: Yes that’s right. It’s not about the speed of the car, it is certainly about the speed of what’s going on inside my head. The reason I bump into this is usually because I’m trying to think of too many things at once.

Barbara Turley: That happens to me. I’m like that, my mind is just racing all the time.

Claire Wivell Plater: All the time. I love it. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but unfortunately the body work of my car is the –

Barbara Turley: Pays the price for it.

Claire Wivell Plater: It does.

Barbara Turley: Claire, as a savvy entrepreneur, who’s built amazing businesses and had an amazing career. What does the future hold for Claire?

Claire Wivell Plater: The immediate future is something that’s in and outside of my control. I’m getting married in a few weeks time.

Barbara Turley: Wow, I didn’t know that. [inaudible 00:31:11] Congratulations.

Claire Wivell Plater: Thank you. Despite my best intentions, I’m a bit of a bridezilla at the moment.

Barbara Turley: We all do that. Even the most relaxed brides, we all turn into bridezilla before the wedding.

Claire Wivell Plater: The word matching is passing my lips far too many times. I think when my feet come back down onto the ground, what I plan to do over the next four to five years is to at least double and probably triple the size of the business. The reason I want to do that is I want to actually bring my staff into the business as equity partners. Basically sell down at least half of my shares to them, because they’re tomorrows business for me. They’re the people I want to take it forward. They’re the ones I know can do it. I really believe in them and I want to give them those opportunities.

Barbara Turley: You have obviously got quite a big vision then for this business and for where you can really take it, which I love, because you have to have big vision and also a plan to sell and your exit strategy [crosstalk 00:32:06].

Claire Wivell Plater: Yeah, that’s right. That happens to coincide with the, my youngest son’s school finishing. At which time I’d like to have a bit more flexibility. I guess I’ll divest the rest of the business all going well over the next couple of years. Then I’ll probably, I’d like to do some other things. I would quite like to spend some time with regulator for example. I’ll do some consulting, some boards, really whatever work I can find where my talents are being used [crosstalk 00:32:39]

Barbara Turley: Claire, it’s been an absolutely pleasure having you on the show today. Thank you very much for joining me. If our viewers want to find out more about the great work that you do and a bit more about you, where should they go?

Claire Wivell Plater: Okay, www.thefoldlegal.com.au.

Barbara Turley: How about on LinkedIn?

Claire Wivell Plater: Yes.

Barbara Turley: Are you on LinkedIn?

Claire Wivell Plater: I’m so on LinkedIn.

Barbara Turley: Oh, good. You might try on LinkedIn as well

Claire Wivell Plater: Just if you want to link in with me, please just mention energize wealth and I’ll be very happy to link in with you.

Barbara Turley: She’s awesome, you really should. Thank you everyone again for joining us for another week of a fantastic show. I hope you will try and catch me later this week on my podcast on iTunes, where I’m going to be giving you my key take outs for my chat with Claire today. Remember also as well that we’re going to be back next week, where I’m going to be spending time with the very inspiring Marina Passalaris from Beautiful Minds Australia. We’re going to be taking a journey into the minds of our teenage girls. I want to see how they feel about business, money and wealth. See you then.