Law Firm Marketing | Goals for 2011

Before I even get started I want to thank everyone for their questions, comments, and emails. They are all greatly appreciated. In a lot of ways my talks with you help me learn more about the business of law and starting a successful law firm and where I want to go in the future. Your participation is key to this blog's success, and it does not go unnoticed.

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.

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.

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.

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!

End of the Year To-Dos

Believe it or not, it's the end of the year again. Christmas is only four short weeks away, and I honestly can't believe it. The time has flown by, and as I look back I can see a lot of opportunities seized and a lot of opportunities missed. And it's important to recognize and understand both, so as not to lose one and to be on the lookout for the other.

As the name of this post implies, we've got some end of the year starting a law firm to-do's. There are two that I am thinking of, neither one of which I've done yet, but both of which I'll be doing very soon. They are goal setting and reviewing and revising the business plan. Let's talk a little bit about both.

Goal Setting

At the end of the year last year I set some law firm goals. And, sadly, but truthfully, I hadn't really looked at them when I set them until now. What's the point of setting goals if you aren't going to check them and work toward them, right? Here's a recap of my goals for this year:

1. Gross $100,000. I actually have reached this goal I think (though I don't know for sure - something that will be fixed in 2011).

2. Pay down half of my current debt. I wish I could say I'd done that, but I'm not even close. That's a personal goal rather than a professional goal, but still, not reached.

3. Travel with my wife. Again, more personal than professional, and I again, not really met. We went to Cabo for a wedding, but that's about it. I could do much much better in this department.

4. Play some golf. I played a fair amount of golf this year. I'd love to play much more. Nuff said about that I think.

5. Begin saving money to buy a house. Not done at all. Don't have any excuses except the money just isn't there for this. I'm pouring most of it into paying down debt. When that's gone, the house saving gets much easier (and grows much faster).

6. Strictly adhere to my internet marketing plan. I don't remember what the plan was exactly, but I'd say I did it. I'm number one for several of my targeted keywords, and continue to work on that every day. That is one of the things that's contributed to my success.

7. Give one talk a month to people about how to deal with cops. I think I gave three of these this year, and not month to month. We'll talk about this when we talk about my goals for 2011.

8. Track and tweak my marketing efforts to get the best ROI. Can't say that I've done this very well. For quite some time I got caught up in the day to day of the firm - that means a lot of busy work and not much else.

9. Work every day to become the best DUI attorney there is, which includes 5 trials. I'm not going to reach my goal of 5 trials. I'm not even going to get close. But that isn't for lack of trying. Each time I thought a case was going to go to trial something happened and it ended up resolving. I know I'll have at least two trials in January though, so that should get me off to a good start.

10. Set up a tracking system to make sure I'm tracking these goals. I've already confessed to not doing this.

As you can see, I met some, and I didn't meet others. But I think all in all I'm moving in the right direction, and that's the point, right?

Actually, that isn't the point at all. The point isn't to set goals so you might meet them. To "try hard" but not lose any sleep if you fall short. The point is to meet or exceed your goals. I need to do better.

I'm not going to tell you my goals for next year yet. Honestly, I haven't come up with them. But I can tell you that my goals are going to look dramatically different than they do here in this post. Part of what makes goals so hard to attain is often you only describe the big picture, end result. For example, I want to lose 40 pounds. Okay, great. That sounds wonderful to say, and is a great goal. But just saying it isn't enough. You need to have more details if you want to succeed. Maybe you break it down like one hour in the gym a day and no McDonald's french fries. Whatever it is, unless you break it down you have little hope of achieving success. So I'm going to break it down for me.

Revising the Business Plan

When I started my firm almost exactly a year and a half ago I wrote a business plan, and I think it was one of the best things I did. Not only did it make me think about what I was going to do before I did it, but it helped give me direction and make choices when they needed to be made. And I haven't done anything with it since.

So, I need to revise it. I guess now it would be more aptly described as a strategic plan or something like that, but at the heart of it it's a business plan for a business that's already up and running. This will help me with the goal setting described above, because it's natural design will force me to map out where the business goes in the future. But it will also make me plan long term, something we should all do.

Don't worry, I'll let you know what I've done with that too. But remember, all this stuff about me won't always apply to you. I just tell you what I'm doing so you can see an example of how it's been done. Hopefully you take away from it what you like, leave the rest behind, and avoid some of the same mistakes I've made.

Hope you all had a happy turkey day, and I'll talk to you again on Friday. I think we're going to talk about my laziness and affinity for television - in other words, how to deal with the things that steal our time.

Starting a Law Firm | Goals for 2010

I know I know, another goals for 2010 post. If you read any other blogs then you are probably seeing these pop up all over the place. Everyone is telling you how to set goals you can achieve and set goals that will help make starting a law firm a reality for you. Well, I'm selfish. I care about your success, but I like to do a little less talk and a little more show. To do that, I'm going to tell you what my goals are for 2010 for starting my law firm (there won't be any personal goals in here, so wifey, don't get mad).

Before I get there, I want to talk about the questions I've asked myself to get to my answers. And, as is usual with much of my direction, I haven't obtained this information from any lawyer sites. I picked it up from somewhere else. And to get to my goals for the year I asked myself 4 primary questions. First, how much money do I want to make this year? Second, what kinds of specific things do I want to do with the money I will make? Third, what am I going to do to reach that moneymaking goal? And finally, what am I going to do to measure day to day success?

First, the money. People start law firms all the time for different reasons. One of my reasons is to make money. I want to be able to provide for my family. But I'm realistic. I know it grows over time. But I also know to reach goals you have to set goals. My gross income goal for this year is $100,000. That boils down to about $8,333 a month, though I may not make that much every month (the goal is to increase my revenues every month).

Second, what kinds of things do I want to do with the money I'll make? The first thing I want to do is pay down debt. I won't tell you what I owe, but it's a lot. The main thing I want to do with this money is pay down the debts I owe (these are primarily personal debts). I'd like to pay down at least half of the debt that I owe that isn't associated with student loans (the interest rate is too good to pay off early). The second thing I want to do is travel with my wife. The third thing is play some golf. And the fourth thing is begin saving money to buy a house.

Third, what am I going to do to reach that moneymaking goal? First, I am going to continue to strictly adhere to my online marketing plan (you can read more about that here). Second, I am going to set up a system where I give one online or in-person talk a month about dealing with cops. Third, I am going to continue to track and tweak my marketing efforts to get the return on investment I need. And finally, I'm going to continue working every day to become the best Seattle DUI attorney there is (this includes doing at least 5 trials this year).

Fourth, and finally, what am I going to do to measure day to day success? This is easy, but won't be readily explained here. I'm going to create a strategic plan in the next couple of days that will produce a day to day list of action items to carry out. It will be set up so the next 6 months or so are planned out for me. The day to day satisfaction I'm going to take out of meeting my goals is crossing everything off the to-do list I've got scheduled for that day.

2010 is on the horizon, and I'm really excited about it. I'm looking forward to getting new business, helping new people, and making more money.

By the way, I'm working out my finances for this year right now. When I get those numbers I'll let you know what they are so you can have an idea of what I've been doing.

Happy New Year and thanks for reading How to Start a Law Firm!

Related Posts:

How to Start a Law Firm | To-Do List

Starting a Law Firm | Practice Update