Easy! 3 Steps to Success in the next 7 Days

June 4, 2021 Doug Brown ,

Each week is a new opportunity to succeed.

You get to define what must happen for you to feel like you advanced your practice by this time next week.

Here’s how:

  1. Decide on your top 3 practice-building priorities. Pick things that provide you leverage in your practice. Things that strengthen your foundation and increase your capacity to get more done and make more money. It might be updating an important process, like how you close the deal with new clients. Or maybe finding an additional support person for your team, or finally doing the outreach to your network to get more referrals. Just pick 3. Save others for next week.
  2. Make an appointment with yourself to work on your Top 3. If it isn’t on your calendar it won’t happen. Block 45 minutes each day to work on one of your top 3. Do it at a time when you are at your best – for me that’s early morning, and not mid-afternoon. When the appointment comes, stay in the work for the full 45 minutes. When you get to the 40-minute mark you can decide whether to continue or make notes so you can pick up quickly in tomorrow’s block.
  3. Create an accountability loop. If you really want to succeed, share your top 3 things and your plan with an accountability partner. Give them permission to follow up and give you a nudge if you need it.

You might have heard this advice before. And if you are like most professionals (including yours truly), you know that it’s not enough to hear the tips. You need to practice them. And be reminded, often. It’s why the world’s best golfers have caddies and coaches.

So go forth with these easy tips today so you’ll have the success you want and deserve by this time next week.

P.S… If you don’t have an accountability partner and want to give it a try just hit “REPLY” and let me know what your plan is for the week. I’ll check in with you next week to see how it went.

Doug BrownEasy! 3 Steps to Success in the next 7 Days
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Selling Legal Services Doesn’t Have to be a Soul-Sucking Experience

May 21, 2021 Doug Brown ,

Selling has a bad rap in the legal community.

When I was a young lawyer it was made clear to me that “lawyers don’t sell”.

Selling was (and by some still is) viewed as unprofessional or unbecoming.

We were supposed to do “business development” and learn how to “make it rain”, but we were not supposed to sell. Or at least we couldn’t use the word.

Later in my corporate career, I got a crash course in what professional selling really is and how to do it well.

I learned that selling doesn’t have to be a soul-sucking experience beneath the likes of professional lawyers.

Selling isn’t about taking something from your prospective client.

Selling isn’t about putting something over on them and getting them to buy something they don’t need. In fact, when you think about it, doing that would be a violation of our ethical rules.

Done properly, selling is simply a process of becoming known to the people (or businesses) you were meant to serve. Not everyone in the world. Only those who you were meant to serve.

Isn’t it an act of service to share what you do with the people you were meant to serve? Don’t you think they’d want to know what you do and how you do it, and what makes you different?

Wouldn’t it be helpful to them to know all of that information so they know who they can trust when they or their friends need a lawyer? How is that a bad thing?

Once you take out the head trash around selling you will be free to learn and apply the formula that actually works to help you find more clients and close more deals.

It isn’t about spending gobs of money on advertising. It is about being focused and taking disciplined action in the right direction.

Selling in service to the people you were meant to serve feels good. Very good. Because you are doing the work you were meant to do. You are solving problems. You are adding value and changing lives. And you’re making the money you deserve at the same time.

Pass it on! If this would help a member of your team or a colleague please like and share it. It is time we changed the conversation around selling.

-Doug

P.S. If you liked this post check out my #1 hack to get more done and make more money at the same time. Click here for your copy

Doug BrownSelling Legal Services Doesn’t Have to be a Soul-Sucking Experience
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The SMART Way to Grow Your Practice

July 23, 2020 Doug Brown , , ,

How many clients will you add to your practice in the next quarter?

How much revenue and profit will that generate for your firm?

If you’re like most attorneys (or most business professionals for that matter) you will probably say “as many as possible” and “as much as possible”. And that’s a problem – because it is impossible to achieve “as many/much as possible”.

The most successful professionals and business owners have very specific targets for their sales and business development activities. These targets allow them to reverse engineer their activities with the specific intent of hitting their targets. When they hit them there is a reward – financially and otherwise.

This discipline – setting very specific targets for sales, profit, and many other business metrics – will work in your law practice. Even if you don’t hit your targets – you will be a better, faster, stronger, and more profitable firm. Here’s how to get started.

Get SMART

In business, we talk about setting SMART objectives and goals. SMART stands for:

  1. Specific – you know exactly where you are going and why.
  2. Measurable – you know how to measure your progress, and when you get there
  3. Actionable/Achievable – you can take concrete action to actually achieve it.
  4. Relevant – it makes sense for your broader business
  5. Time-Based – you have a deadline, and defined checkpoints.

Getting Started on Sales Goals

The sales discipline of businesses applies to your law practice. Follow these steps to get started.

1) Xray Past Sales. Those are the clients and the matters you’ve handled in the last 24 months. You’ll use that as your baseline so your targets are not simply a wish or a shot in the dark. How did they come to you? What was their journey to get to your door? Who was their guide? How many came, in what frequency?

2) Identify Patterns. What patterns or trends do you see in the data? Who are your top referral sources? What matter(s) are driving clients to you? Why? You’ll use these patterns to create a forecast for the coming two quarters.  I know that COVID is going to impact the data since March – so you’ll have to adjust. Don’t make the mistake that you can’t create a forecast just because it’s complicated.

3) Make a SMART Sales Plan to take advantage of the patterns and trends with specific sales targets for the next couple of quarters, and the specific steps you need to take to cause that to happen.  SMART is easier to understand than it is to implement. Even when you think a goal is SMART you can probably make it much SMARTer and more powerful.

Like most business principles, this is not a one-and-done. It is a process and a cycle that takes time to master. But you can’t master it unless you start.

The value in doing this work is both the plan you’ll need and what you learn about your practice along the way.

Don’t leave your future to luck or circumstance. Get SMART.

And if you’d like help with this or to learn more, just message me, like or share.

Doug BrownThe SMART Way to Grow Your Practice
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Sales Advice from Top Gurus(Part 1)

August 9, 2011 Coach Doug

Sales Gurus Brian Tracy and Omar Perieu visited Hartford on Monday November 8th to share their most valuable sales training advice with an audience of over 800 professionals. Of course, generating more sales is the key to revenue enhancement. According to Brian Tracy a key to sales is following the advice of legendary football coach Vince Lombardi: “Become Brilliant on the Basics”.

Of course, there is alot to the “Basics”. In the coming weeks weeks I’ll share insights from these meetings so that we can all generate new revenues to drive growth.

Coach DougSales Advice from Top Gurus(Part 1)
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