My daughter is learning to drive; I have the grey hairs to prove it.
She has had some paid for driving lessons and so I felt sufficiently confident to take her out with me in the passenger seat. We had three perfect driving lessons. I revelled in her getting better at each junction and was delighted that it was working so well.
Then we had a fourth lesson together. She pulled off the drive nicely, handled a couple of junctions really well and everything was going really smoothly. We then approached a junction on a slight hill. She did her usual preparation, released the hand brake, started to pull away and then stalled.
No big issue. I told her not to worry and to go through the process again, which she did, and which lead to her stalling again.
About four stalls later I explained that if she wanted a different outcome she was going to have to change her actions (sometimes I think my children hate me for being a consultant).
She said she was doing what she always does, but it just wasn’t working.
I explained that because she was on a hill she needed to provide more revs to make the car move, or it would keep stalling.
A few more tries later she succeeded, but it took an awfully long time with both of us getting more frustrated as she kept stalling.
I am pleased to say that she has another long lesson with her driving instructor who is going to focus on hill starts, so hopefully it will be easier next time.
However, it provided an important reminder to me.
Megan kept doing exactly what she always did at a junction and her frustration came from the fact that the results were not what she wanted. However, it took a long time for her to change her actions to produce the desired results.
It reminded me of so many of my experiences with solicitors.
Being on the outside of a law firm and working with hundreds of law firms since I established my legal marketing consultancy in 2003, I can very quickly not only see what needs to be done, but perhaps more importantly I can ‘hear’ the mental blocks that the solicitor has which are stopping him or her from making the changes required.
They do what Megan does. They keep doing what they have always done and get frustrated that the results they are achieving are not what they want. They want different outcomes but don’t employ different actions to achieve them.
I see it instantly, but I understand that when they have consistently carried out those ‘actions’ usually for many months or even years, changing them can be very difficult. When I point out that they want different outcomes but are not taking different actions I can see or hear them thinking this through, and after a period of time they understand.
It is only human nature. We all run our own businesses and feel that we know best, but eventually, when we want different results enough, we accept that something has to change.
With that in mind, what have you done differently in the last month?
In the last Get More Clients Letter I explained that you need to focus your valuable time only on the tactics that will produce the results that you are looking for. These are the 20% of your time tactics that will produce the 80% of results which will grow your practice to the size and profitability that you would like.
Have you changed your actions to the productive ones and dropped the unproductive ones, or have you kept doing what you have always done and achieved the same or more likely still worse results?
You don’t need to put your foot down on the accelerator more like my daughter had to. You don’t have to work harder, faster or put in more hours.
You just have to do more of the things that make the difference to the growth of your law firm.
Stop making yourself busy for the sake of being busy and start doing the things that will produce the results that you want to see.
One of the best ways of achieving this is to spend the first 30 minutes of every working day taking these A star actions.
This 30 minutes should take place before you open the post, before you look at any emails and can even take place before you get into your office.
Looking at your emails first thing in the morning fills your brain with other people’s demands on your working day. You might be shaking your head and saying to yourself “No Nick, not for me. I just like to see what is going on then I can plan my working day.”
If you are saying that, you really are kidding yourself. Stop it and stop it now.
It never ceases to amaze me how many intelligent people allow other people to control their day and their life.
Once you see an email from your client checking that you will do what you said you are going to do today your mind moves to that matter. When another client is stating that you are a day late with your advice, or an estate agent is chasing an exchange, your mind will wonder to those matters.
Now that lovely, fresh, clear mind you had when you got into the working zone is filled with other people’s demands on your time.
The work you were going to do on your business either now doesn’t happen at all, or it takes three times as long and is half as good as it would have been if you had just got on with it straight away.
Spend the first 30 minutes of every working day working on the 20% actions that will produce 80% of your results, or a minimum of three days every week, and I promise that you will transform your practice.
If you are not yet where you would like to be, imagine how much closer you would be if from July onwards (week 27) you did this consistently. 30 minutes a day, 90 minutes per week minimum let’s say for 18 weeks allowing for some good holidays.
That will be 27 hours (18 x 90) of quality time working on your business.
If you do it for 5 days, it amounts to 45 hours.
It doesn’t sound a huge amount of time does it, but if you are not doing this now I guarantee that it will make a substantial difference to your success.
Suddenly you change from someone who talks about wanting to grow their practice but does nothing to make it happen, to someone who gives themselves a real chance of finally creating the practice that they have always wanted.
You focus on the tactics that will produce the results and you will see your firm flourish. When this happens, you won’t go back to checking your emails first thing in the morning ever again. Why would you?
If you are thinking that this is a good thing to do and wondering what the 20% activities are that you should be focusing on, they are, perhaps not surprisingly, the items covered in the Marketing4Solicitors Blueprints with the most important ones being:
- Ensuring that you have ‘The Meaningful Conversation’ with your clients which allows you to sell your services to more of the people already calling you and at a better price;
- Ensuring that your website consistently attracts visitors and turns them into enquiries for your services (covered in detail by the four Website Lead Generation System Training – Blueprint 4);
- Once your website is working properly, sending more targeted visitors to it using the Google Adwords Masterclass – Blueprint 5;
- Ensuring that every single month your clients, prospects and referral partners hear from you Issues 42 & 43 in the Marketing4Solicitors Online Privatezone.
Come on. If you are not where you want to be right now follow my advice above and you will ensure that you finish 2016 in a far better place than you started it.
Ready To Take Action And See Results Now?
Please call 0117 290 8555 to arrange a mutually convenient time for a telephone discussion, Email me or complete a Free Online Enquiry. There is no cost or obligation. We will have a chat about where you are and where you would like to be and I will suggest some things you can do to get there quickly.
