Get tactical to ensure short and longer-term financial success and profitability
Many external marketing companies want you to invest in hours and hours and hours of time discussing branding strategies, brand development, customer experience scenario planning, or developing go-to-market plans for the incubation of obscure practice areas, blah, blah, blah!
Keep in mind, this investment of time is billable for them, not for you!
We are not that type of partner.
Don’t get us wrong, there is a time and place for strategy. However, what we see every day when talking to clients and prospects is a real need to get the basics in place before attempting to embark on the journey to develop long term strategies for your marketing, human resource and overall financial management.
To that end, we consistently proselytize a “Tactics First” approach.
This approach ensures the firm builds a solid foundation from which they can successfully execute broader, long-term firm initiatives, whatever those may be.
“Tactics First” Foundational Building Block Examples: (Ya gotta do #1 if nothing else…)
- Financial Analysis of your firm, practice areas and individual attorneys: This is critical to ensure you are effectively investing in what truly drives your business and makes the firm profitable. Having broad experience in this regard, assuming the proper model for your firm is applied, “the numbers NEVER Lie”.
- You must go deep on this type of analysis. Assuming most of you have just gone through some sort of compensation plan review, this may strike a chord.
- Next: Review what you are doing to support the staples (bread and butter) of your firm’s profitability: Are you making the right investments in key functional areas. To highlight a handful, such as:
- Talking to your best clients about their satisfaction: As elementary as this sounds, very few successful firms take the time to do this as a regular and structured program.
- Spending more time with your clients: Safe to say, the goal of every attorney is become the trusted advisor of their clients.
- If you are successful in achieving this status, cross-selling your other capabilities is easy.
- Creating a target profile for prospective clients where your unique capabilities are needed, and used: Your greatest opportunity for successfully acquiring new clients will be those where you have visible and proven expertise in their industries or specific legal issue(s).
- Profile your existing clients first!
- Making sure you are “showing up” where they are: Again, really basic stuff here, but many are not attending industry functions, or offering to speak or write on topics, or developing knowledge share forums, et al.
- There are many ways and place to “show up”. It is just a matter of spending some time thinking on where your targets are.
- If you are drawing a blank, call your clients and ask what they read, which industry events they attend, etc.
- Most importantly take some action, just thinking about it will not make it so…
- There are many ways and place to “show up”. It is just a matter of spending some time thinking on where your targets are.
- And then: Review your current marketing investments, your website and other marketing collaterals: This one is pretty easy. Do they support properly and highlight your most important money makers? If not, well make sure they do!
- Website updates and collateral overhauls are so easy and cost-effective, and more importantly, REALLY CRITICAL. If they are not clean, current and on-point, you will potentially confuse your prospects and clients.
- Confusion is not what you are going for here!
The list above is just a taste of what ultimately needs to be done to successfully build your firm’s platform for sustained growth and profitability. However, should you complete any of the steps, your firm will be better off for the effort.
In closing, taking this “Tactics First” approach can and will ultimately be a very strategic investment of time, money and effort for your firm. Key steps:
- Trust your instincts.
- Take some kind of action.
- If you need help kicking around ideas or getting stuff done, call us at 510-912-0929, send an email, or click the button below.
We will get back to you promptly!