Plan now for 2004
Five steps to ensure a fiscally happy new year.
By Richard G. Stock
November is a good time to make some decisions that will help tip the balance in favour of a better year. It isn’t enough to hope for the best and deal with setbacks as they come along: ice storms, forest fires, mad-cow disease, SARS, power blackouts – even changes in government. Something always seems to come along that disturbs the natural order of things.
However, not everything that can go wrong is unforeseeable. Clients go out of business or re-organize, rainmaking partners retire, and good professional and technical support seems harder to come by than ever. Here are some priorities for every firm and every practice.
1. Client Retention
This is about keeping existing clients and increasing or diversifying the work they refer to your firm. Insurance companies, banks and most levels of government will assign work based on strong relationships. But conflicts and other circumstances result in a significant availability. Users of legal services say that their regular law firms rarely measure service levels and do too little to try to cross-sell those services.
2. Client Recruitment
One reason that many partners are poor performers in delegating work to associates and paralegal employees (as much as 30% of the credenza, in some cases) is that they are as busy as they want to be. A recent survey shows that lawyers are investing less than four hours a week on formal business development activity. This is not enough to supply the pipeline, and puts far too much pressure on the rainmakers. Every lawyer should average ten hours a week of non-billable effort directed at getting more work from existing and new clients.
3. Legal Talent
The search is endless, and it is heating up. Certain areas and regions have an over-supply of qualified individuals and firms, too little work for too many lawyers. Law firms that want to grow must recruit experienced lawyers with established, portable relationships. It’s a double challenge – recruiting for growth while and retaining every individual along with the work and relationships they control. The number one priority for firm leadership is the management of talent of all vintages.
4. Profitability
Three observations on this point. One, most professionals could gain one additional hour of billable activity each day for themselves or for one other fee earner, simply by paying attention to file allocation and time-keeping. Two, it should be difficult for a partner to reduce her individual rate for a specific client. Third, time value recorded by other lawyers, students and paralegals on the file should be fully billed before the partner’s time – a good incentive to ensure only the right amount of professional resources are used, and used efficiently.
5. Innovation
It is increasingly important to inject some fun into what is usually a serious and demanding undertaking. Spend more time with the clients you like and refer or refuse those who are less enjoyable, despite the revenue stream. Obsolescence in work product and old service delivery methods is inevitable, but innovation in both focuses one’s energy and creativity on doing business differently. This in turn contributes to the sustainability of the practice and tends to command a higher price.
Plan now for client retention, new clients, talent management, profitability improvement and innovation as priorities for 2004. And even then, beware of the FTI (failure to implement) disease.
Richard G. Stock, M.A., FCIS, C.Adm., CMC is a partner with Catalyst Consulting, designated the Preferred Supplier for Legal Services Consulting by both the CBA and the CCCA. Richard can be contacted at (416) 367-4447 or at www.catalystlegal.com.
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Prévoyez maintenant, récoltez plus tard!
Cinq étapes pour obtenir du succès au niveau financier au cours de 2004.
Le mois de novembre est le moment idéal pour prendre certaines décisions qui influenceront de façon positive l’année qui vient. Même si les temps sont parfois durs et bourrés d’imprévus, voici certains éléments à considérer pour que vos affaires roulent :
1. Maintenir votre clientèle
Pensez à renforcer vos liens avec vos clients et à diversifier le type de services que vous pouvez offrir.
2. Recruter de la clientèle
Les avocats, en moyenne, ne consacrent pas suffisamment de temps au recrutement. Déléguez certaines de vos autres tâches et consacrez au moins 10 heures de votre temps par semaine à recruter de la clientèle.
3. Rechercher des talents
Vous devriez mettre la priorité sur la recherche et la préservation de personnes talentueuses de tous les horizons.
4. Viser la rentabilité
En portant attention à la tenue de temps, à la distribution des dossiers et à la facturation du temps des étudiants, des employés parajuridiques et des autres avocats, vous pouvez augmenter le total de vos heures facturables.
5. Innover
Trouvez une façon d’avoir du plaisir même durant vos tâches plus sérieuses ou exigeantes et tentez de trouver de nouveaux moyens pour conduire vos affaires autrement.
Et surtout, n’oubliez pas que s’il est important de planifier, il faut aussi s’assurer de mettre en œuvre ces bonnes résolutions! |
