When a solicitor comes to see me on my yellow/gold sofa in my office I always ask them a question, the answer to which is incredibly telling to me.
Bear in mind that the solicitor has come to see me because they want more clients coming through their front door, those clients leading to more billing which in turn leads to more profits, so they are with me to solve that very specific issue.
Therefore, the question I ask, to me, is the most obvious one in the world because it is linked to their very problem:
“What do you do first thing every day?”
If the answer is not ‘marketing/working on the growth of my law firm’, I am astounded.
If you don’t have enough clients then the first and only thing you should do every day is to fix that. Spending time doing anything else when you have a client void is plain ridiculous.
If they go on to tell me that the first thing they do is to ‘check their emails’ I often go into a little bit of a blind rage.
You need more clients yet you spend the first part of every day, THE MOST IMPORTANT PART WHEN YOU ARE AT YOUR MOST RESTED AND READY TO TACKLE ANYTHING, answering other people’s demands on your time and wasting your best energy.
Insanity!
My book, The Law Firm Growth Formula, finishes on this very topic. My big rallying call to action at the end to inspire solicitors to take action to grow their law firm, word for word is this:
Let’s go back in time and pretend that you have to hunt to feed yourself and your family every day. You live
near a river, so fishing is your method of choice. What would be the first thing you did every day? It would be to grab your fishing rod and throw it in the water, wouldn’t it?
Of course it would, because you would know that without the fish you wouldn’t eat and if you went without food for a few days, your chances of living would decrease quite rapidly. The trouble now is that we have become far too comfortable. Food is easy to find; even if you don’t have too much money, you can grab something to eat.
However, when it comes to running and growing your law firm, the same principles apply as they did with the fishing. You must fish first thing every day if you are serious about growing your law firm. Are you serious? Then prove it to me. Tell me now, what is the first thing that you do every day when you come into your office? If you answered ‘Well, first thing I check my emails, then when I get into the office I check the post, then I usually handle a few staff enquiries and before I know it it’s 5 PM and time to go home’, then I have some bad news for you.
You are never going to grow your law firm.
If you answered ‘I get straight down to working on the marketing of my business’, then fantastic. You will grow your law firm. You can’t fail to. It is a certainty. Guaranteed. It really is that simple.
If you are going to let the rest of the world plan your day for you, responding to other people’s demands on your time from emails, from post and from staff, then you are never going to grow your firm.
You might get by or manage, but is that all you want? Really?
If yes, then I suggest you quickly give this book to someone else who is serious about growing their law firm and go back to getting by, which is a phrase that makes me feel physically sick as I type it.
I told you at the beginning of this book that I was giving you the formula for success in growing a law firm, and I have done that.
This final part is a huge part of it.
First thing, every day, you have to work on the growth of your law firm.
I am not suggesting that this takes hours, usually 30 minutes a day is enough. Remember, the law firm growth formula teaches that you must outsource all of your marketing, so all your growth time will involve either running through your numbers, thinking about the next marketing artery to implement or improve, or coming up with some ideas for your next email newsletter, but these are all incredibly important and they do need some of your time.
Work on the marketing of your business first thing every day and you will succeed.
If you need some more encouragement from me (some might call it ranting – but I do it because I care and am committed to ensuring more law firm owners create the firm of their dreams) plus a formula to follow to get that law firm of your dreams, here is the book on Amazon: //www.amazon.co.uk/Law-Firm-Growth-Formula-solicitors/dp/1781332657/
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