If you’re serious about
making 2007 a better year...
By Adam Radzik
Consultant to Professional Firms

As the days of the new year march determinedly and assertively into our business lives, many of us are struggling with how we can make this a better year for our practices. There are four questions we need to ask ourselves in this regard.

Question number one: What will we do differently in the coming year than we did in the past year? Will we alter and sophisticate the focus of our practices? Will we get rid of those one or two problematic clients who have been making everyone in our departments miserable? Will we specialize in certain industries? Will we do some more internal marketing so that everybody at our own firms knows where our true expertise lies? Will we join a trade association or two, where desirable prospects are to be found? Will we become more committed to the process of delegation, and get away from the notion of “I might as well just do it myself”?

Question number two: What will be our action plans to ensure desirable changes will actually occur? Will we attend several seminars to enhance our knowledge of the law and of practice management? Will we begin monthly training meetings with our staff members so they can learn from our experiences? Will we examine our receivables aging reports on a more regular basis and actually take action on those worrisome clients? Will we visit with our clients for the express purpose of learning more about their businesses and daily challenges?

Question number three: What sacrifices are we willing to make in order for positive changes to occur? Are we willing to spend more time learning about our industry and what makes it tick? Are we ready to spend less time chatting with staff and more time applying ourselves to our labors? Are we ready to spend one or two nights a month writing articles that will make us appear as genuine authorities? Are we willing to do our personal errands after the day’s work and not during the day’s work? Are we ready to learn a new but related area of law as our clients have burgeoning needs in this direction? Are we ready to take on management responsibilities at our firms that will require time and effort?

Question number four: How will we monitor our activities to help us to determine whether we are being successful? Shall we monitor by the number of new and desirable behaviors? Should we note how the financial numbers are changing in a more favorable direction? Who else can we utilize that would be impartial and fair and could assist us in not reverting back to our old ways?

Finally, a new year creates opportunities to make new goals, and though there are those who poke fun at goal-setting activity, human nature is such that we have a significantly greater chance of reaching a goal if we set a goal than if we don’t set one. The reason for this is challenge and competition. We like to challenge ourselves. We like to see if we can do better than before. We like to compete with ourselves, and many of us like to compete with others. This is why contests work. Man strives to be more, to accomplish more, to achieve more … and why not? Should we not all strive to be more in 2007 than we were in 2006?

If you’d like to learn more about goal setting and strategic planning:
Contact Sales Improvement Consultants Today!


Comedy Corner

After watching sales falling off for three straight months at KFC, the colonel telephones the pope and asks for a favor. The pope says, “What can I do?” The colonel says, “I need you to change the daily prayer from ‘give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily chicken.’ If you do it, I’ll donate $10 million to the Vatican.” The pope replies, “I am sorry. That is the Lord’s Prayer, and I cannot change the words.” So the colonel hangs up. After another month of dismal sales, the colonel panics and calls again. “Listen your excellency, I really need your help. I’ll donate $50 million if you change the words of the daily prayer from ‘give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily chicken.’” And the pope responds, “It is very tempting, Colonel Sanders. The church could do a lot of good with that much money. It would help us to support many charities. But, again, I must decline. It is the Lord’s Prayer, and I can’t change the words.” So the colonel gives up again. After two more months of terrible sales, the colonel gets desperate. “This is my final offer, your excellency. If you change the words of the daily prayer from, ‘give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily chicken,’ I will donate $100 million to the Vatican.” The pope replies, “Let me get back to you.” So the next day, the pope calls together all of his bishops and he says, “I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is that KFC is going to donate $100 million to the Vatican.” The bishops rejoice at the news. Then one asks about the bad news. The pope replies, “The bad news is that we lost the Wonder Bread account.”

Years ago some enterprising bankers came up with an idea they called “product testing” that had a dramatic side benefit. If they were going to lend several million dollars to a manufacturer, they reasoned that they wanted to know about the quality of the product being offered to the public. So, where possible, they would actually buy a copy of the product to determine whether it did what it was supposed to do … sort of like what the Consumer Reports researchers do. When the tests were positive, the bankers would show up at the plant of the prospective borrower with the product in hand, describe their utilization of the item, and their reaction to it as an end user. Manufacturers loved this attention and often rewarded the thoughtful bankers with the desired borrowing.

When we go to see a prospect, we should bring some manifestation of the company’s products or services that would indicate we did our homework, and I am referring to more than just Internet research or a copy of their annual report. You’ll make a big impression. C’mon … be creative, be inventive, be different. You know you can do it!