Skip to main content

DO YOU PUT GROWTH BEFORE VALUE?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Business Strategy, Client Retention, Firm Leadership, Leadership, Strategic Planning.

Creating value and communicating it to clients and prospects is essential to jumpstarting your revenue. These form the next three of 12 essential practices to accelerate new revenue.

VALUE: Are you building value in your customers’ eyes?
COMMUNICATION: Have you built a customer satisfaction ladder?
TEAM: Have you created a commitment-based culture?

Notice how client-oriented these three essential revenue-accelerator practices are. Let us work with you to make them work for you.

“Business Unusual” – Firm Leadership and Revenue Growth

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Attorney Marketing, Firm Leadership, Leadership.

Firm leadership and revenue growth is the second of 12 essential practices to make your business unusual.  Ask your colleagues the following:

  • Describe the “client experience”;
  • Describe your current efforts to create sustainable revenue growth;
  • Describe your professional development program and diversity and inclusion efforts;
  • What has triggered clients cancelling relationships?
  • If there is a next level of growth, what does it look like?
  • What % of your colleagues cross market and market internally?
  • What are the 3 most important actions you or the firm take to bring value to your clients?
  • What 3 actions can you delegate or spend less time on?

The answers and solutions will come directly from what you hear!

Prevent Laterals – A Major 2018 Business Goal

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Business Strategy, Client Retention, Leadership.

Preventing laterals should be a major business goal for all law firms in 2018.  The survey we conducted did not receive enough responses to be publishable.  BUT, other than retaining clients and new client acquisition – duh!-, preventing laterals needs to be emphasized.

In today’s highly competitive market for gaining new business with in-house counsel, your attorneys with a significant book of business are prime targets.  Talk with them, make sure they are getting all of the support they say they need,   Understand they are indeed receiving calls from recruiters and many are already holding exploratory meetings.

Where firms make retaining laterals their number 1 business goal for 2018, retaining clients and new client acquisition will be following.

What is Missing in Generating Law Firm Revenue Growth?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Attorney Marketing, Leadership, New Business Development.

What is missing in generating law firm revenue growth is accelerating leadership.  It is one of 12 exceptional leadership practices that firms should focus on, including branding, building client value, strategy, team building and so forth.

The key to building recurring, sustainable revenue lies with http://www.lawjournalnewsletters.com/sites/lawjournalnewsletters/2017/09/01/leadership-linking-law-firm-leadership-with-revenue-generation/

Portrait of confident waiter presenting invisible product against gray background

What’s Missing In Law Firm Revenue Growth?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Law Firm Leadership, Leadership, Managing Partners.

What’s missing in law firm revenue growth is leadership.
Clarity, focus and execution start with a firm’s leadership. The key to transform sustainable revenue to productive revenue lies with the firm’s leaders who address critical impact areas.

Developing customized 90 day strategic implementation maps are needed to identify action details, timing, resources needed and leadership assignments. Leaders will emerge to help others overcome obstacles and challenges resulting in:

* More revenue * More clients * More open doors.

Ridin’ The Storm Out — #5 in Accelerating New Business Development

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Attorney Marketing, Business Development, Content Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization, Email Marketing, Law Firm Marketing, Leadership, Marketing Partners.

In our last post we began a discussion of Bruce Tuckman’s 4 phase path for teamwork – “forming, storming, norming and performing” and how it applies to accelerating new business development. When “storming”, people start to push against the law firm marketing and business development programs that are identified in the “forming” stage. This is often the stage where many teams fail and firm management may give up. Storming frequently begins where there is conflict between team members’ natural working styles. But if these working styles cause unforeseen problems, the individuals may become frustrated and loose the proximity to the “accelerator zone.”

Other storming situations may occur if team members challenge your authority or jockey for position as their roles are clarified. Some may question the goals and resist taking on tasks.

Next column will cover “norming” and how this stage impacts law firm marketing and business development.

90% of Marketing is “Half” Mental

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Attorney Marketing, Business Development, Content Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization, Email Marketing, Law Firm Leadership, Leadership, Managing Partners, Marketing for Law Firms, Marketing Partners, Practice Group Leaders.

Yogi Berra’s famous quote, in it’s modified use, addresses the most important aspect of marketing and accelerating new business development. Ultimately it is the attorneys and paralegals that will drive law firm business development into the “accelerator zone.” For management, understanding how to support and drive their people by using our “one page strategic plan” becomes the road to success. Psychologist Bruce Tuckman observed a 4 phase path that teams need to follow on their way to high performance and accelerating new business — “forming, storming, norming and performing.”

Today’s column deals with the “forming” stage, where team members are positive and polite. Some are anxious as they do not fully understand what work they will be doing. As the leader, you play a dominant role at this stage, because roles and responsibilities are not clear. Be aware that this stage can last for some time, as people begin working together and make an effort to get to know their colleagues. The so-called attorney “silo” operational set is still all to present and prevents early acknowledgement of entering the “accelerator zone.”

Next column will cover “storming.”

Why Focus on Your Client's Bottom Line?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Business Development, Business Strategy, Content Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization, Email Marketing, Law Firm Marketing, Leadership, Marketing for Law Firms.

Accelerate Your Business Now – Chpt.3

Note that these 12 Practices from 36ixty [brand, leadership, strategy, communication, team, core message, marketing, sales, customer experience, revenue and systems]Closers Group: Is Your Firm in the "Accelerator Zone"? break down into 3 manageable groups; how people work; how processes work; and systems to integrate and manage them all. We call them “impact areas” where clients focus on bottom line results. And in order to define these, we start with having senior firm management answer these questions as a group.

• What do I need to do more of?
• What do I need to do less of?
• What do I need to start doing?
• What do I need to stop doing?

The right questions are designed to focus on what is really important to the business and internal aspects necessary for success. The answers become the foundation that might lead to refinement, transformation in effectiveness and profits. They are the keys to growing new business. What then follows is the strategic planning process in our next column.

12 Essential Practices for New Business Development

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Allan Colman, Business Development, Content Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization, Email Marketing, Law Firm Marketing, Leadership.

 

Why isn’t everyone in business living in an ACCELERATOR ZONE for new business development?

We find in our work that a primary reason is that most people don’t know what ingredients are necessary for marketing and new business development. 36ixty Corp. has identified 12 essential practices that lead business leaders to new business success. They are:

  • Branding
  • Leadership
  • Strategy
  • Communication
  • Team
  • Value creation
  • Core story
  • Marketing
  • Sales
  • Customer experience
  • Revenue, and
  • Systems to manage all of these.

 

These 12 are not and end-all, cure-all or a series of magic pills. What they are equates to a BUSINESS ACTION MODEL, leading to marketing and sales leadership success. They are especially applicable to firms or companies managed by consensus or collegiality. Practicing them lead to more clarity, focus and execution in business development.

More in the next post.