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6 steps to make 2015 the best year yet

The new year has rung in and Q1 is well on its way. January is an optimum time to reflect on the previous year and plan for a strong 2015.

Last year was a touchstone year for KLA Marketing Associates as hundreds of lawyers attended our rainmaking workshops and learned practical steps for increasing work from existing clients, attracting new clients, and expanding and strengthening their referral relationships. We are planning new workshops in 2015 and are excited about new services we will introduce soon.  Stay tuned.

One of the top habits of very successful lawyers is that they understand the value of planning for the future. An old axiom says that if we fail to plan we are certainly planning to fail. With life’s distractions and overloaded calendars, to build a prosperous practice it is essential to plan for your growing practice:

• 7-10 touch points with prospects in a calendar year. What will they be?
• Monthly contact with active clients (even when there is not much activity in the case)
• Quarterly meetings with referral sources to maintain ‘top-of-mind’ awareness for future referrals.
• Reputation-enhancing activities such as publishing, public speaking, charitable sponsorships, and the like
• Other relationship-building activities such as targeted networking events, client lunch n’ learns, face-to-face meetings.

While I was coaching one of my clients recently, she questioned the value of planning when so many things outside her control arise that knock her off course. Spot-on concern to which I respond, “just think what would happen if you didn’t have goals set that may be modified slightly.” Life happens and we must be flexible enough in our goal setting yet persistent in our pursuit of accomplishing them.

What we know for sure is that goal-setting is the easy part. Most of us know what we must do. It’s the ‘doing it’ and the follow through which separates the successful lawyers from the ones who have good intentions but do not get off the ground.

To help you off to a strong start in 2015, below are 6 steps you can take to get and stay focused for achieving your goals this year.

1. Set yourself up for success. Seek out an accountability partner to help stay focused on implementing your goals. Accountability is essential for keeping commitments. This may be a partner in your firm, at a different firm, or a KLA Marketing Associates coach. Our clients repeatedly tell us “I know I must do what I commit to doing because I will be asked about it during my next coaching session”.
2. Develop a SMART plan – That is to say, a well-crafted marketing plan is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. An example of a SMART goal would be to schedule coffee dates with six non-active clients in the first quarter of 2015 to check in on their business and whether there are any issues with which you may help them. Moreover, during this meeting, you will proactively ask for two referrals from each of the six clients. To break this goal down, you would need to have a face-to-face every two weeks over the next three months to meet this goal. Is this attainable and realistic for you?
3. Break down goals into manageable action steps. Schedule a marketing activity for every day that need not consume more than five minutes in your already jammed schedule. Create a recurring calendar item to send an email to one non-active client and one high impact prospect every day. Is that attainable? If not, you get the idea now set your own calendar item. By engaging in some type of marketing activity daily you will develop what is referred to as a “marketing mindset” by creating a sense of higher awareness that to build a solid practice, it is necessary to integrate relationship-building initiatives into your day (and in some cases, evening) along with your actual practice. The point here being that they go hand in hand, simultaneously. The second purpose of engaging in daily marketing activities is that over time you will build a sense of confidence from the continual “seed sowing” of building your practice and you will “reap” the “fruit”, the reward being new client retentions and an expanding network of contacts and referral sources.
4. Get out of your office. There are abundant opportunities for lawyers to participate in extracurricular activities to develop meaningful business relationships and an expert reputation. Evaluate your interests, your target audience, and select one or two organizations in which to become active. You will be far more likely to contribute in a meaningful way if the organization’s mission resonates with you and/or your practice. Let me be clear. It is not enough to ‘show up’ to a gathering on an irregular basis if your intention is to “get business” from organizational involvements. You must take concrete steps (such as volunteering on a high profile committee like the membership or program committees) to develop relationships with organizational members as well as to develop a reputation as an expert in your chosen field.
5. Ignite your passion. Are you really committed to building, growing and sustaining a prosperous practice? What are you willing to do to achieve your goals? In coaching lawyers every day, we have found that if there are not enough SMART goals, accountability, and a lack of passion, it’s not happening. Consider what you really get fired up about in your business. Is it delivering a winner result for your clients? Or, maybe sharing your expertise with other lawyers? Take a bit of time to evaluate what gets and keeps you going in your business, and plan to do more of that in 2015.
6. Measure your progress. Successful lawyer rainmakers know to create set points in the year to measure their results. Calendar it in to run a report monthly of your P&L and other important metrics. If you do not like what you see in the report, make adjustments to your action steps. What we know for sure is that building a prosperous business is not rocket science but rather entails this ‘secret sauce’ - consistent and persistent massive amounts of action over a prolonged period of time is the ONLY path to successful marketing results.

All the best for a very prosperous 2015!

About the Author:

Kimberly Alford Rice is Principal of KLA Marketing Associates (www.klamarketing.net), a business development advisory firm focusing on legal services. As a law marketing authority, Kimberly helps law firms and lawyers develop practical business development and marketing strategies which lead directly to new clients and increased revenues. Additionally, Kimberly provides career management services to lawyers in transition.  She may be reached at 609.458.0415 or via email at kimberly@klamarketing.net.