4 KEYS TO BREAKING THE 7-FIGURE BARRIER
careful about signing long-term leasing agreements, especially when your revenues can’ t justify it.
Money— very few attorneys went to school to become a bookkeeper or an accountant, but to manage a growing business you must know how to manage your money. You need to know the basics of finances for small business, from reading a profit and loss statement, to analyzing your cash flow. Being an owner means other people are depending on you managing the money wisely.
Metrics— to consistently break a million dollars per year in revenues, there are over a dozen numbers you must be monitoring and measuring consistently. Here are a few of them: how many unique website visitors each month, how many leads per month are you getting, how much is your average cost per lead by marketing channel( PPC, SEO, TV, radio, print, etc.), how many appointments is your team setting per month, what is the show up rate to your appointments, what is your conversion rate for initial consultation by attorney, what is your average cost per client acquisition by marketing channel, what are your COGS( cost of goods sold) per practice area, and your profit margin per practice area. This is not a comprehensive list, but if you know, measure, and track each of those metrics every month, you will be far ahead of your competitors!
Strategy— while having a great strategy is necessary, the reason why it’ s so far down on the list is because most attorneys spend way too much time on developing a strategy and far too little time implementing the strategy! Get some leads in the door. Make the sale. Collect the money. Do great work. Get some referrals. Wash, rinse, and repeat! Then work on your next level strategy.
Self— upgrading yourself is the last, but most important step. You need to read business growth books or take classes or attend marketing seminars, whatever fits your style of learning better. Hang around other successful business owners. Join a mastermind group of successful attorneys. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone. You will never build a multi-million dollar law firm by staying inside your comfort zone. You will have to face bigger challenges than you’ ve ever faced before. You must make tough decisions without having all the information. You will encounter“ bet the business” scenarios. You will be accused of things by employees or clients that you didn’ t do. Building a highly successful business from the ground up has never been easy. It is not for the weak or the faint of heart. The bigger your business grows the bigger the target on your back becomes. Spending time with business owners who have already been where you want to go is a great way to reduce your learning curve.
2. Focus on a niche.
When you’ re in the startup phase( from $ 0 to about $ 250,000) you face a neverending challenge of taking whatever business comes in through the door in order to pay the bills or concentrating on one area to build a niche practice. It becomes a question of short-term focus vs. long-term survival – and I realize that most solos need to balance both in order to make it.
However, the faster you can start focusing on one to two practice area niches the faster you will go from having a job($ 0 to $ 500,000) to creating a practice($ 500,000 to $ 1M). When people see you as a jack of all trades( the generalist approach), they also perceive you as the master of none. People will pay more for a specialist because they see you as an expert. People will refer more to a specialist because they aren’ t afraid of you stealing their clients or competing with them. Contrary to popular belief, this approach does not limit you; rather, it helps to focus your marketing and business development efforts.
There are many ways to select a niche, but it must be small enough to be realistic, yet big enough to have enough potential clients in it. For example, being the number one bankruptcy attorney in all of the Phoenix metro area is not realistic. There are far too many entrenched and successful competitors to ever achieve this. However, you could be the number one business bankruptcy and tax attorney for entrepreneurs and small business owners in the East Valley.
Review your top ten client list( either by amount of revenue / fees generated or in terms of how much you enjoy working with them). Then look for any similarities. It may not be apparent at first, but keep asking questions and you will find it. Once you niche your practice, you will find that referrals come more readily to you, since it will become clear in referral source’ s mind just exactly what it is you do.
3. Identify your ideal target market.
Your Ideal Target Market( ITM) is the person or company who is most likely to retain you initially, repeatedly, and at the highest profit margin. Most bankruptcy attorneys focus on individual consumers so here are some questions to help you determine your ideal client. I recommend you answer these questions with as much specificity as you can:
1. What does your perfect client look like?( Think in terms of age, profession, gender, education, interests, work, marital status, family size, hobbies, and lifestyle.)
2. Who can afford your fees? How much can they afford? What’ s your value to them?
3. Why should they hire you versus another competitor or
National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys Summer 2016 CONSUMER BANKRUPTCY JOURNAL 27