Has your growth hit a plateau or worse, is it getting dragged down? Image Credit: SpaceX on Unsplash.
There is a term in physics called escape velocity. This term describes the velocity necessary for a rocket to escape a planet’s gravity and make it into space. If a space mission is going to be successful, the launch vehicle must surpass this velocity, or it will be caught by the planet’s gravity and get dragged back down. This can be avoided with the right momentum.
We can feel that way, too; our launch dragged backwards by the gravity of life. If you are looking to break free of the pull of gravity and get your firm growing again, here are some law firm growth strategies to ignite your engines! But before you decide on an action to take, you will need to understand what caused your growth to stall – was it due to an internal or an external event? If the retrograde motion is driven by external factors, you will need to understand those factors. Here are a few scenarios that we have seen affect small to midsize law. Learn more about using a SWOT analysis for this type of strategy development.
- Has a competitor gained an outsize share of the market? This shift can happen to law firms focusing on any area of practice. This phenomenon is becoming increasingly common, especially as some firms are investing significant time and resources into digital marketing, search engine optimization, and mergers and acquisitions.
- Your strategy: Get in the game. Build out a marketing plan, bring in consultants or hire out if you must. Consistent action is essential, especially in digital marketing. Your brand strength, in its simplest form, is a product of your firm’s visibility times your reputation. In the long run, the most helpful content wins.
- Has a need your practice served dried up in the region? Perhaps you specialized in a certain industry or need which has moved out of your region, closed, or perhaps COVID changed the landscape so significantly and the old ways of doing things no longer yield the results they once did.
- Your strategy: The landscape for legal services has shifted significantly since the beginning of 2020. Leverage the remote and mobile technologies you have used since COVID hit to follow this industry as it leaves your region. Remote meetings and services are here to stay. Your zip code no longer limits your ability to deliver services in the ways it once did. Examine the details carefully because you may need to get barred in a new state or you may need to partner with someone who is. If you cannot follow the need, perhaps because it no longer exists, then you can acquire, hire, or partner with people to help you bridge into a new practice area to keep your firm growing as you recover from the downturn. Take a firm mentality and leverage your entrepreneurial skills.
Your zip code no longer limits your ability to deliver services in the ways in once did.
- Have federal changes affected your practice? COVID disrupted many different practice areas, especially with the widespread use of technology such as video meetings with clients and hearings. One practice area that could be deeply affected by federal changes is the Social Security Disability (SSD) practice. If SSD hearings remain remote, then the landscape in this practice area will shift dramatically. Without the need for brick-and-mortar offices in rural areas, larger firms with the skills and resources to market themselves digitally are moving swiftly into areas they had previously ignored to gain market share.
- Your strategy: There is strength in numbers. Reach out and form alliances and partnerships with other firms and send each other cases and referrals. This technique alone tripled one client’s (SSD firm) case count within ninety days. This may also be the time to consider joining your firm with another in a merger or acquisition.
In the previous examples we examined external reasons for dwindling growth, but stalled growth can also be due to internal reasons. Here are a few law firm growth strategies addressing internal factors.
- You are in a downswing of a feast vs. famine cycle. This often happens when we focus too much on billable work and pause marketing activities.
- Your strategy: If you have ever been through these cycles before, and most small to midsize firms have, you will need to integrate your marketing and outreach activities into your daily work, which is critical for ongoing success. Either you make the time, partner with a marketer, or hire someone to do it. You break the cycle by learning how to serve your current clients and grow your new clients simultaneously. Strategy, research, and consistent action are keys to the success of this strategy.
- Has a key team member left the firm? Recovering from the loss of a key team member can be a stressful situation, but you can recover.
- Your strategy: In the short term this could mean some crunch time for you as you absorb the extra workload, or delegate it to the rest of your team. In either case, make finding a replacement and getting them on-boarded a high priority. To be successful, firm leaders must maintain a continual perspective of acquiring and developing talent. I have seen some amazing firms tolerate lackluster performance, even with clear expectations setting and performance improvement plans, for the fear of what would happen if someone left. When those poor performers finally do leave, the pinch passes sooner or later, and most will be happier for the choice. Much of the strain can be avoided by rewarding high performers and separating from nonperformers quickly. Keeping your team focused and motivated and addressing toxic nonperformers may force you to face the reality that a cultural problem within your own firm exists driving this situation and driving people away. As Brene’ Brown, Ph.D. wrote in her book Dare to Lead, “If you do not spend time understanding the root causes of what’s going on with your team, you will spend a lot of time dealing with problem behavior and attrition.” We help law firms improve on their managerial skills through our management 101 and other customized management training programs. They work, and they help.
- What if you are stuck and feeling deflated? This happens. You might think, “I’ll never get another client or earn another dollar.” Or you might be struggling with feelings like, “I’ll never make a positive impact in anyone’s life or my own again.” These feelings happen, and from time to time we all feel different flavors of these emotions. If you have been stuck in these feelings for a long time, and only you can decide how long “long” is, then you may be stuck in a negative thought pattern that could lead to a depression. How do you move someone out of a negative emotional pattern?
- Your strategy: Give them something positive to look forward to. If you want to have a great and growing law practice, that practice is already out there in the future waiting for you to get there. But you need to define what you want to do, set your mission, and make progress every day moving in that direction. The progress will come in a series of small wins; you may not feel a big difference between today and tomorrow. But the more you work, the more you track your progress, the more you have an accountability buddy, the more you share your strategies and your plans with your friends, family and your team, the more likely you will be to achieve it.
We help ambitious small to midsize law firms grow, and we do it using a proven, repeatable, engineered process that delivers results. Check out how one of our clients grew to be a regional leader, and made the number one fastest growing law firm on Forbes 5000 list.
“[Scales & Compass founder] Rocco is easy to talk to and very experienced. In [my first] hour, I had three big action items for my strategy that were perfectly on point, high impact, and more importantly felt absolutely achievable. I highly recommend him as a coach.” – Brett Spooner, CEO, Gravis Law, PLLC.