Seven Steps for a Better Year
By Adam Radzik
Consultant to Professional Firms

Your firm wants the coming year to be a better year than this past year, and why not? It’s human nature. We all wish to improve, and we have an obligation to the whole family of employees who make a living from our enterprise. What are the key steps?

1. Analyze your revenue: Where did the business come from? How many new clients? Why did they come to your firm? How many clients were lost? Why did you lose them? What types of matters are coming to your firm? Was there a pattern to the size of clients? Were there specific industry concentrations? How does the client base differ from the year before and the year before that? Is there a trend? Are you viewing your firm realistically or do you have some grand vision that is a relic from years past?

2. Monitor your competition: What are they claiming? Who are their clients? Are they making inroads into your target groups? Are they growing? In which direction? Who are their key players? Can you seduce any of their top producers to come over to your side of the fence? What appears to be their marketing strategy? Are they vulnerable in some way? Have you been scouring their Web sites? Have you been “acquiring” their sales literature? Do you know how they present themselves to the same prospects you are hoping to land?

3. Watch your wallet: Are your fees set at the right level? Are your professionals billing for every task they should be billing for? Are you too quick to write down or to write off? Are you focusing your efforts toward the most profitable aspects of your practice? Are you spending excessively? Are you putting aside money for a rainy day? Are you financially motivating your professionals to work more hours?

4. Invest in education: Do you have a significant in-house education program? Do you provide courses that stress the how-to dimension of work? Do you offer instruction on time management, organization, delegation, motivation and constructive criticism? Do you have a meaningful mentoring program?

5. Keep your best and brightest: How’s the morale at your firm? Are people happy to come to work? Are you treating your employees with courtesy, dignity and respect? Is there an “in” crowd at your firm and therefore also an “out” crowd? Do people believe that the compensation system is a fair one?

6. Watch the road ahead: Are you studying the local economy, the national economy and the international economy as to how they may influence the future of your firm? Does your firm have a strategic plan that is actually being implemented as opposed to being filed somewhere under the title of “Firm Retreat”? Do department heads know where they need to steer their troops in order to take advantage of powerful future trends?

7. Identify and promote talent: Have you identified the managerial talent within your ranks? Is your firm grooming the next generation? Have you selected the professionals who should receive in-depth training and coaching to help make them the leaders that marketing and management will require? Have you looked carefully at the pool of talent you have at your firm and made decisions based on those realities?

If you would like to learn more about how management coaching
would benefit your firm, contact SIC today!


Comedy Corner

A client, after getting bad advice after bad advice from his professional, finally feels compelled to say, “Milton, don’t be offended, but if things don’t get better real soon, I’m going to have to ask you to stop helping me!”