Remember your New Year’s resolutions? Don’t feel bad – few of us do.
Big tasks of all kinds are more likely to be completed when they are broken down into smaller components. Just as you would not train for a 5K without preparation, you can’t possibly succeed in marketing and growing your practice without breaking all of the related tasks into smaller pieces, finding resources to help and planning, planning, planning.
One of our favorite planning tools is the calendar.
What is more basic than a calendar, which divides our solar year into days, weeks and months?
Start by setting strategic goals for the entire year. Be specific. That’s what we dig into at our private strategic planning retreats. What do you want for your practice: more clients, fewer clients but ones with higher asset levels, more estate litigation or less estate litigation? What do you want for yourself: more time with your family, more time doing community outreach? What is realistic, and honestly, what is not?
Defining specific goals gives you benchmarks that are critical to achieving success.
Consider the four quarters of the year. One month is too small a span of time to measure efforts and results, but a quarter – three months – is better. Ask anyone in corporate finance or stock markets – that’s why reports are issued quarterly.
March 31 marks the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2016. Make an appointment with yourself and your team to look back at the first quarter. How did you do? How many new leads came in from your website, how many phone calls came in and how many of those became clients? Did your associates and paralegals bill enough hours so that they paid for their own salaries and benefits and generated profits for the firm?
Yes, these are a lot of questions, but a time billing system should be in place that will allow you to get these answers readily. In fact, all of your time and billing and marketing systems should be integrated so you can see what is working as well as what is not working.
The year is still relatively young – young enough that there’s still time for you to plan ahead, make necessary changes and make 2016 your best year yet.