Kimberly Alford Rice
2012 First Quarter Gone – How Did You Do?
Looking in the rear view mirror, 25% of 2012 is gone. How have you made out in honoring your commitments to yourself in planning and executing on a marketing action plan to propel your practice development goals forward?
If you haven’t checked off the list of initiatives you intended, now is a good time to stop and evaluate what happened so you can course correct and maximize the remaining 75% of the year.
Consider this:
- Did you manage your time efficiently to get out of the office at least once per week to grab coffee or lunch to cultivate a business relationship and grow your referral network? Is not, why not? What’s holding you back?
- Are you fishing where the fish are? Do you know for sure that your chosen networking venues are the most targeted given the spheres of influence you are seeking to penetrate?
- How are you advancing your personal brand? Are you talking so others listen?
- Look at your goals and compare where you are to where you thought you would be at this point. How are you doing? What needs to be changed at this point?
- Examine the tactics supporting your goals. Have you executed well and what has been left undone? What can you double down on in the second quarter to get back on track?
With the best of intentions, often life gets in the way. Many of our clients find that having an accountability partner or coach can be a very productive relationship to forge. Having a partner to brainstorm and troubleshoot with can provide helpful and objective insights from someone who has “been there, done that”. It is through this working relationship that you can develop a targeted action plan and specific steps to take to help you accomplish your 2012 marketing goals. Do you even have a written plan? If not, why not? A professional coach can help you in this process and then guide you through the process to produce measurable results.
Challenge yourself to make 2012 a “go for the gold” kind of year that you can be proud of. Commit yourself to the process of developing a solid practice for greater career fulfillment and autonomy, and financial security. It’s certainly within your reach, if you start today.
Part 2 – What is the Goal of Goal Setting for a Prosperous Law Practice?
Part 2 of 2
In the first installment of this article, we spoke of the imperative of clear goal setting to advance your business development goals of building and sustaining a profitable practice. In this last installment, we will outline step-by-step how to take a blank sheet of paper (or blank monitor screen) to create a blueprint of specific steps to take in the goal-setting process.
Step 1 – Get Clear on What Your Goals Are
Begin by brainstorming potential goals. Think about what you want to accomplish in your practice such as the clients you want to work with, the type of work you want to do more of, the lifestyle you’d like to enjoy. Remember, you can have more than one goal.
Once you have completed your list, think about and jot down why each goal is important to you and why you are motivated to achieve each goal.
Step 2 – Draft Action Steps
This step is the “in the trenches” thinking wherein you outline specific steps you will take to accomplish each goal. Often, I brainstorm with my clients step-by-step on how to bring measurable results to each goal. We have found over the years, it is not so much that clients don’t know what to do but rather how and in what time frame to execute upon their specific action steps. In this step, it is best to be as specific as possible.
Step 3 – Devise Reasonable Timetable
Once you have written down your goals, why they are important to you (your motivation for achieving them) and the specific action steps you will take to achieve each goal, it is very important to write down the timetable for which you will dedicate your resources to accomplishing your goals. This is a crucial step in the goal-setting process.
I provide my clients an Action Plan Worksheet (example below) to facilitate the goal-setting process whereby clients can see at a glance what their goals are, the associated action steps and time frame for accomplishment. It is a very effective tool to stay on track.
Action Plan Worksheet
Goal
Action
Role
Deadline
The best way to break each of the action steps into a reasonable time frame is to plot out each into a weekly action plan that is, what you will do each week to bring you closer to achieving your goals. If you break down each action step into minute pieces, you will avoid overwhelm, be more likely to accomplish smaller steps which add up to accomplishing sizable goals, and feel better about the goal-setting process.
One of the pearls of wisdom I impart to clients consistently is the importance of developing a “marketing mindset” in their everyday practice. Instead of taking off your lawyer hat and putting on your marketing hat, discipline yourself to integrate marketing activities into your everyday practice. It’s simple if you have broken down your goals into weekly action steps and you diary them on your calendar. This is how you balance your billable and non-billable time….in disciplining yourself to execute on a daily basis just a nugget of your weekly action plan. Sometimes it involves no more than a phone call, jotting off a personal note to a client, or reviewing a presentation outline. Small, simple steps taken every day in incremental fashion will propel you towards accomplishing your greater goals.
Results in building a profitable practice often do not come in big, grandiose actions but rather in the small and steady results which over time accrue into a solid practice.
As a part of devising a reasonable time frame, you must make appointments with yourself just like you would for client meetings. This is important work that you are doing, so to be successful, you must honor yourself and the work you are doing. Due to the nature of a relationship-building business, there are some elements which you cannot control and that is no more evident than in fostering and nurturing professional relationships. It is only through consistent and persistent massive amounts of action over a prolonged period of time that you will reap rewards, so stay the course EVEN when there seems to be few results. It will come.
Step 4 – Execute, Execute, Execute
This is where your commitment becomes evident. Are you honoring your goals by staying true to your weekly action plan? Are you taking at least one simple action a day towards accomplishing your goals? Jot it down to stay on track.
Bottom Line
Clear goal setting begins with your decision of what you desire to accomplish. Then, it takes a detailed action plan to achieve your client development goals and the discipline and commitment to execute the plan. Not rocket science at all, but still a challenge for so many practicing lawyers. Get up and get going, today.
Successful Rainmakers Stay the Course
Taking proactive and consistent steps to build and strengthen professional relationships is imperative to developing a solid practice. In fact, research teaches us that in order to even appear on prospects’ mental radar, one must make contact with them at least 7-10 times in a calendar year. Yet when some lawyers sense they are not yielding the results they expect, they often become frustrated and simply give up. To that I say: “stay the course!”
One of the distinguishing characteristics between lawyers who become frustrated and give up on their client development activities and successful rainmakers is committing to stay the course despite lackluster short-term gains. We all intellectually understand that there is no substitute or short cut to building solid professional relationships than thoughtful efforts targeted to getting in front of qualified prospects on a regular and consistent basis over a certain amount of time. Despite that simple truth, lawyers (especially those who do not have and/or execute an integrated marketing plan) frequently employ a gunshot approach which renders few or no meaningful results.
Though I am not the biggest of sports fans, I do know that in baseball if a batter hits 30 home runs in a full season of about 500-600 at bats, he will most likely be named an All Star and receive a hefty salary increase. For a professional baseball homerun hitter, therefore, success may only occur 5% of the time at bat. Likewise, to implement a focused approach to building professional relationships which are likely to result in increased client retentions, you must be prepared to strike out on occasion. Do not be dissuaded.
Successful rainmakers understand this concept thoroughly and embrace it. They build relationships constantly with clients, referral sources, and prospects by being helpful to others, by making connections, for others and other means in recognition that to build a relationship is to stay top of mind when business and legal issues arise.
They also know that generating work means taking calculated risks and that only 20% of their activity will yield direct results. They also know that while it is critical to be strategic about where to invest their time and energy, it is impossible to know in advance which of the 80% of their activity will not be fruitful.
In many ways, direct rejection is easiest to accept. “Our company has decided to hire firm Y because they have more experience handling securities fraud” does not leave much room for ambiguity. You will not be retained. However, you can leave the door open for other types of work (e.g. perhaps the client will retain your services when they have matters in which you do have extensive experience); but it’s clear when you receive this feedback, it is time to move on.
Another matter altogether, though, is the unanswered phone call or email. This is much more challenging and presents some of the greatest obstacles for lawyers working diligently to build a practice. As we all struggle to effectively manage our communications, everyone has a preference in how they want to communicate. In light of that and the sheer volume, many folks simply do not respond or even acknowledge all of their messages.
It is frustrating when someone does not respond to a message that we have sent via e-mail, left on voice mail or with a secretary. It looks like rejection. When two or three messages go unanswered, most will give up. To save our bruised egos any further indignity, we simply stop trying. However, to do so, we leave opportunity on the table.
Here is the good news: Silence is not ‘no’; it can merely be the temporary absence of ‘yes’.
Until a prospect tells you directly that she or he is not interested, you have no idea why they are not responding; and if the individual is someone with whom you really want to do business, you should keep trying.
Using a “multimedia” approach can also be helpful (send an e-mail first, then call and leave voice mail followed by checking with a secretary third and then possibly even send a letter – mix up your approach). Be sure your targeted prospects are on your frequent contact list to receive articles and updates, etc.
In some ways, it is vain to perceive that a lack of response has anything to do with you. There are many reasons why someone may not return your call, respond to your email or other communication. Coaching lawyers over many years, I have heard countless anecdotes along the theme “I met this potential client nearly 2 years ago, hadn’t connected in months and out of the blue, I receive a call that he has a matter he wants me to handle.” Who hasn’t experienced or at least heard a similar story?
In most cases, my clients were eventually retained and the new clients apologized for being so unavailable for a time. In these scenarios, the potential clients’ unresponsiveness had nothing to do with my clients and they would have forfeited a new client had they not persisted.
The bottom line is this: Building a healthy practice requires you to forge on despite immediate circumstances. If you have a strategic plan of action, are targeting qualified prospects in a meaningful way in a consistent and persistent manner, you will ultimately develop the business you are working for and your professional satisfaction will grow as a result of it.
