As you can see, this post is going to be about my goals for 2011 - my business goals for 2011, at least. And just so you aren't waiting on baited breath for Friday, Friday's post will be about two topics people have asked about - my yearly financials and starting a firm right out of law school. I thought I'd spoken about starting a law firm right out of law school but it doesn't look like I have. Sorry.
So, here we go, the annual "goals" post (every site has one it seems).
1. Gross $250,000
Looking at it on the computer screen, it seems like such a big number. Though I'll talk about it more on Friday, I'm going to gross just under $100,000 this year. That means I want to increase my revenues by about 150% (I'm not a math whiz so cut me some slack if I'm wrong). That's a lot. But it's not that hard, if you tackle the problem in the right way.
Broken down, I need to make about $20,800 a month. Broken down further, I need to make about $4,150 a week. I think that's entirely possible. But it's going to mean ramping up my marketing efforts even more, honing in on my ideal clients, and then showing them why I am worth what I'm asking for.
It's an ambitious goal, to be sure. But it's reachable. And it will drive many of the goals you see below.
2. Roll Out One New Location Based Website a Month
I'm a DUI lawyer and I'm number one in many Google searches for my major city's keywords. But there are a lot of other large cities nearby that are just waiting for me to take over their search queries. Creating a new site for each location allows me to focus my marketing efforts on those keywords and jump to the head of the pack quickly. It will also significantly increase the potential pool of clients, the number of calls, and, at the end, the number of clients I have.
And the great thing is, this is pretty easy to do. I've already got most of the content for each site at my old site. I just have to tweak it for the geography and it's ready to go.
To give you an idea, right now I probably have access to about 300,000 potential eyeballs (the major metropolitan area I'm in). If I reach my goal of expanding my websites, I'll have access to $3,000,000. That's a pretty big jump.
3. Have My Assistant Working For Me Full Time by March 1
Getting from part time to full time isn't that big of a jump, really. All I have to do is bring in enough money with the time she saves me to pay for her. Was that as confusing as it sounded when I wrote it?
Think of it this way, if I can bring her on full time she can manage the phones and calendar for me all day, every day. She can take care of the minor questions from clients that don't really need me. And that frees up a lot of time for me to do other things, like work on launching the website for that month, promoting a seminar I'm doing, or dreaming up new ways to churn up business. That isn't very hard to do.
I'm just hoping the year starts out fast enough for me to hire her full time without having to lose a lot of sleep over it.
4. Locate Long Term Office Space
Right now my office is serviceable, at best. My lease is up in May, and I'd like to find some space that we can settle into for a while. If it had an extra office for potential expansion that would be great too. But I'm really looking for a place we can settle into and start to make the firms. Right now, at only leasing for a year at a time, it feels like once we get settled in it's time to start looking for a new space.
5. Revamp the Website
It's that time of year to tweak the website. Or, maybe more than just a tweak. My website works well - people call. But I think it could work so much better. Remember my buddy RJon that I've talked about in the past? I spoke with him on the phone yesterday and he had a couple of good ideas. Here they are:
1. Figure out the rules of professional conduct in my state with regard to testimonials, and possible, get at least one video testimonial and put it on the first page of the site right at the top.In addition to those things I also want to tweak the site in a couple of other ways, namely putting my picture back up, tweaking the language on the site, and updating my profile to reflect what's been going on the last year and a half and let people know that I'm not the only one working here any more.
2. Create more tools to educate potential clients about what they can expect when they come into my office and what their charges mean for their lives. This includes written and audio materials, in particular a kind of interview to answer the most common questions people have about their DUI case.
As a side note, RJon pointed out a great side effect of providing all of this information. Not only does it make potential clients ready to hire you before they come into the office, but it screens out people that are only shopping for information.
3. Finally, create a button(s) on the site to provide access to these materials for only the small price of providing your name and email address. This will help identify potential clients and help them understand the benefits of using my services over another firms.
6. Join Toastmasters
If you didn't know, toastmasters is an organization that is dedicated to the spoken word. There are toastmasters groups all over the country that meet bi-weekly or monthly to work on their speaking skills. I plan on joining one of those groups.
I think most people initially join these groups because they want to conquer a fear of speaking in public. That's not really my motivation. If you ever played sports, you know that practice makes perfect. Same with public speaking. In a courtroom in front of a jury isn't really the proper place to work consciously on getting rid of that "um" you put into every sentence. Toastmasters is.
7. Create a Sustained Social Media Presence
I don't think social media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can generate you a lot of business by themselves. But I think they can do a great job of keeping your business and what you do at the top of the mind of your clients and potential clients. I've got it set up right now where a post on facebook automatically generates a post on twitter and post on LinkedIn. All I have to do is come up with something interesting to say every day and I'm good. My goal is to do just that.
8. Explore Alternative Marketing Methods
This may or may not come as a surprise to you, but I don't have a lot of alternative marketing channels working right now. I rely on the internet and referrals almost exclusively. And, while it's been treating me well up to this point, I know deep down that the more pots in the fire you have the better (or something like that - fill in your own analogy that works).
There are a couple of things I've been thinking about that I'm neither ready to implement or tell you, so they will have to wait. But there are some other things that are probably worth exploring. One of those things, which I've just learned can be quite effective, is bathroom advertising (if done right). For me, that's a pretty low cost, high gain type of activity. Another is really pushing free seminars for how to deal with cops. There are a whole bunch of groups out there that would love to hear about that (particularly since my presentation is both informative and funny).
9. Create Checklists and Implement Systems for Everything
In my mind, this might just be the most important goal of all. And, it violates one my goal writing rules - drilling down into specific things that need to be done to either define the goal clearly or actually reach the goal. So I'll try to do a little bit of that here.
First, the checklists in general. I can already tell my legal assistant is good. And while I hope I can get her to stick around for a long time in the role she is in, at some point I'm going to have to find something else for her to do (my preference) or she is going to leave (not my preference). Either way, that means at some point someone new is going to come in here and have to figure out how to do everything, from answer the phones to file a notice of appearance to handle a call from a current client. Checklists can help make any necessary transition seamless and (sorta) easy.
Checklists can also help streamline the entire process of running and managing a law firm. For each DUI case, for example, there are a set of things that need to be done. A checklist not only helps to confirm that everything has been done but helps to remind everyone what needs to be done. It also provides an easy way for me to show potential clients all of the things I am going to do for them that other lawyers wouldn't. That's invaluable.
Now, systems. This is a little bit different, but still equally important. In my mind systems relate more to the business management side of things than checklists (which I would describe as the business practice side). Systems to me include tracking finances, tracking marketing measurables, tracking lead generation, tracking potential client conversion, and anything else that provides information related to how the business is running (including client management). I don't have too many systems in place right now, and I need some.
That's it. Those are my goals for this year. Piece of cake, right? Of course not. But that's the point of goals. And, to make things easier on me - to help me remember my goals, I'm going to write them up on a big dry erase board where I can see them every day.
If you've made it this far I know you've got questions or comments. Hit me! Oh, I do have one request, if you've got a comment or question that relates to a specific post, please post a comment instead of sending me an email. I'd love to get a little dialogue going with all the readers, and that's so much easier when we have a place for conversation - the comments!
No comments:
Post a Comment