Below is my opening article from my Marketing4Solicitors magazine which goes out to members in the post 10 times a year.
You can read more about Marketing4Solicitors here: https://www.marketing4solicitors.co.uk/
How is your year going? Where are you in relation to the targets that you set yourself at the beginning of the year? If you are not there, I want to talk about the three things that you need to do between now and the end of the year that will either get you there or will get you well on you’re the way to success.
I spend a considerable amount of time not only reading around marketing topics, but also around mindset and how people have got out of their own way to grow their businesses.
I used to think that all I needed to do was to provide you with the right marketing advice and then the rest would take care of itself. However, being as ultimately marketing is all about understanding what makes people tick, over the years I have realised that I also need to find what makes my clients tick and then link everything that they need to do to grow the law firm of their dreams back to that.
If this doesn’t happen, they might start the marketing, but they will soon stop doing what brings in new 
clients because they will lose focus, take their eye off the ball and go back to being sucked into the day to day nitty gritty which creates zero momentum when it comes to growing their law firm.
Now sadly I cannot get inside your head during this issue of M4S, but I can offer you something. If you do not have your “Why” you do what you do completely and totally nailed down, hop on a call with me and let’s explore it.
When you do have it nailed down, then these three things are all that you need to make your dreams come true (I am off to see Gabrielle in concert tonight – just thought I would share that with you 😉).
They are so ridiculously simple, but please do take them on board, because I know from my thousands of hours of reading books, watching webinars and videos, that they ARE the three things that make the difference:
- Goals
- Routine
- Action
Goals
I have completed an entire double issue on this, M4S 70-71 so my strong advice is that you head to the Private Zone download it, print it, then most importantly, work through it because it is a full goal setting system that covers your business goals and your personal goals. It guides you to a place where you know exactly what you need to be turning over to fund your dream lifestyle.
It is essential Marketing4Solicitors’ member reading.
Once you have nailed down your Goals, you need to set a routine in stone that will allow you to accomplish them.
Routine
It seems to me that each year has a different focus in the self-help world. Last year was all about ‘journaling’ (which ultimately is recording your routine after the event). This next year, I can tell from all the online marketing world rumble, is very much going to be about routines.
Why? Because if you don’t have any routines in place you will never grow your law firm.
Following is the routine (more like lack thereof) of most law firm owners (based on my thousands of interviews with them):
- Check emails
- Open the post
- Start answering emails and the post
- Finish work
- Rinse and repeat the following day.
What is wrong with this, you might think?
What is wrong with this, you might think? Well, let me start first with the results that this will give you as a law firm owner:
The same or more likely worse results than the previous year.
The problem with this method is that at all times all that the law firm owner is doing is working to other people’s needs; largely his clients and his staff’s needs and helping them to accomplish their goals rather than their own.
There is no space anywhere in this day’s activity to ensure that this law firm owner spends any time achieving his goals. Nowhere.
Routine is what will change this.
You should have heard this from me before, but if you aren’t doing it I can assure you that it is the sole reason why your law firm isn’t more successful and more profitable:
Spend the first 30 minutes of every working day working towards the law firm of your dreams.
I really mean the first 30 minutes too. NOT the first 30 minutes after reading emails. Don’t read emails until you have worked on your goals. I cannot tell you how important this is. If you read emails first thing, when your brain is at its freshest, most creative and most imaginative, your brain switches to working on all of the challenges that your clients and staff have sent to you, not your own challenges.
Spend the first 30 minutes of every day working on your law firm growth and you will, I promise, transform your business.
Action
If you follow ‘Routine’, action has to take place. Action is vital. The good news for you here is that the Action I talk about is you asking other people to take action, not you doing everything.
The most successful law firm owner does next to nothing. The most successful law firm owner can go on holiday as often as they like and come back to a law firm that is running itself because everyone else in the business is taking all of the action, not the law firm owner (see M4S 77 for more on this).
If you create this firm, you can spend ALL of your time simply focusing on making your law firm even more successful and even more profitable and in the process you also create a very saleable asset (if you want to sell it of course).
Summary
These three things will transform your law firm:
- Goal Setting
- Routine
- Action
If you are not already exactly where you want to be, following this simple three step plan will get you there.
Also in this issue:
- How to deal with the nonsensical Pricing rules coming into play;
- The Legal Syndicate – special offers exclusively for M4S members; and
- Should your fee earners be dealing with voicemail?
You can read more about Marketing4Solicitors here: //www.marketing4solicitors.co.uk/