Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Episode 242 3 Questions to Ask Yourself Ahead of Q2 to Grow Your Law Firm

Transcript

Episode 242 3 Questions to Ask Yourself Ahead of Q2 to Grow Your Law Firm · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:01
  Intro: Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. What
• 0:05
  Davina: if
• 0:05
  Intro: you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve, and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's Devina.
• 0:51
  Davina: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick. And today's topic was inspired by conversations I've been having with women law firm owners about their feelings about q one and their plans for q two. So how did you do for the 2024? Are you happy with your results?
• 1:10
  Are you on track to achieve your financial goals for the year? If so, then I'm really super happy for you, and congratulations because I know that's not easy. And I think it's awesome. If not, I want you to keep listening as I discuss what you should do to get back on track. So before diving into what you should focus on in the 2024, let's first debrief q '1.
• 1:35
  Here's what I've heard some people say about the first quarter of the year. January is always slow because people don't have money. I never make much money in February because it's a short month. I don't expect as much business until after April 15 because that's when people get their tax refunds. Other people have said that even though they are working their butts off and bringing in money, they don't feel in control of their team.
• 2:04
  Some have lost several team members for one reason or another or that their systems don't feel up to par. They feel like they don't have their, good handle on their systems. They're working too much in the business, and there's never seems to be enough time to work on the business. So maybe there's money coming in, but there are other issues going on. Whatever you stand wherever you stand right now in your business, it's important to take a few minutes to reflect on the first quarter of the year and evaluate what's working and what's not.
• 2:34
  What's even more important is that you celebrate all you and your team have done. Too often, we women are quick to gloss over our accomplishments and often the accomplishments of our team because we're ambitious perfectionists and we're high performers who are always focused on next. What is next? For example, often when I coach women law firm owners, by the end of the six months or a year, they've accomplished some very significant goals, like perhaps taking more time off for themselves that they really needed or spending more time with their kids or becoming better delegators or improving their leadership and management skills, traveling more, and, of course, making more money, both revenue and that take home pay, those profits. However, they are so driven by their goals that they often don't even see the significant transformations that they've already made over the past year.
• 3:27
  They may have started with a team of one, which many people do when they hire me, and now they have a team of five. Or maybe they've doubled their revenue or tripled their revenue. Or perhaps they've markedly improved their systems and their processes and documented many of them, and now they have a team that has taken some things off their plate because they have processes they can follow. So here's my true confession time. I am exactly the same.
• 3:54
  Last year was a remarkable year for me personally and in the business. I celebrated ten years of my law firm strategy and coaching business. I moved to a new home in another state, which is absolutely gorgeous home. And I now spend more time than ever on my health and well-being, which is a lot of the reason for me moving here. I take more naps.
• 4:14
  I exercise more. I'm out in nature more. I go for hikes. I read more books, and I'm a little bit wealthier than I was the year before. But at the beginning of the year, instead of focusing on all those delightful improvements and happiness and growth in my life, I was focused on the what's next part.
• 4:33
  And it took me a minute to sort of check myself to slow down and relax into the joy I had already created. And I find that's very common among high achieving women. We're just so focused on what's next that we that we don't stop to celebrate ourselves and our business and and the people who helped us get there. What's next is coming one way or another. Stopping to celebrate ourselves won't happen unless we make it happen, unless we're intentional about it.
• 5:06
  So whatever that means to you, whether it's just acknowledging what you've done or maybe taking a little time off to reward yourself or or buying yourself something special to commemorate your accomplishments, do take time to celebrate. Regardless of where you are in your business and your life, you deserve to celebrate you, not just for your accomplishments, but just for your being and what that means to the world and and the people who care about you. Okay. Now let's talk about q two. I always find q two to be a really exciting time.
• 5:39
  And perhaps it's the renewal and the rebirth energy of spring. Or as a matter of fact, I'm recording this. I think it's the first day of spring. And maybe it's the run up to summer. It feels like a time when people have finally sort of shaken off the doldrums from after the holiday, and they're finally beginning to embrace life again.
• 5:57
  People wanna take action and get things done. This is always a high energy time of year, and I find that most women law firm owners experience a lot of business and success at this time of year. In most businesses following a traditional calendar, Q one includes the month of April, May, and June. So that's what we're gonna discuss today. Also, for the purpose of this podcast episode and since we are Wealthy Woman Lawyers, I am going to keep just confine my recommendations to the business.
• 6:27
  However, you might also wanna consider these questions that I'm about to share with you for your personal life if that is appropriate for you. Here are three questions I recommend you ask yourself before the start of q two and write down both the questions and the answers when you can because writing things down really makes them stick. I know if you're driving your car or you're out walking or you're doing dishes right now, you might not be able to, write this down. But when you get a chance, do go write this down. So question number one, what did we do well in q one that we can continue to build upon?
• 7:03
  And the follow-up question to that is, what worked in our marketing, in our processes, and with our team? Your purpose in asking this question is to ascertain what's already working and determine how to keep that momentum going in the right direction. If we're doing something right, we wanna double down on that. We don't wanna fix what's, not broken. So you wanna first stop and say, what went really well and how can we build upon it?
• 7:31
  What else do we need to do to sort of continue pouring into that? Alright. Question number two, are we on track for our financial goals? Right? If not, what action must we take immediately to get on track?
• 7:45
  Do we need to improve our billing and collections process or create a system that doesn't even require collections? Do we need to improve our marketing strategies or perhaps create a marketing strategy? Do we need to improve intake and onboarding? Do we need to focus on our client relationships, retention, and referrals? There's a whole lot of, that goes into reaching financial goals, and there's a whole lot that goes into this question.
• 8:10
  And the one thing I know for sure is that those who are intentional about reaching their financial goals are much more likely to be financially successful than those who turn a blind eye to their money and avoid the topic at every turn because they feel, insecure talking about money or dealing with money. If you want to grow your law firm's revenue, achieve record profits, and increase your personal income, you need to make that a priority both for you and your team. The build it and they will come mentality is not sufficient in industries like the legal business where competition is literally everywhere on every corner. If you wanna own and operate a wealth generating law firm business that frees you up from the day to day operations without a dip in your personal income, then you need to, a, be intentional, and, b, get granular. So what do I mean by that?
• 9:03
  I mean, you need to get comfortable investigating the details of where your money is coming from and how it's going out. You need to know how many leads your firm is getting a month, where those leads are coming from, and what percentage of them are converting. You need to know why leads are not converting. You need to understand the levers that you need to pull to create a flood of cash when you need it and how to balance the flow of new work with your firm's capacity to handle it. So, essentially, you need to understand what your key performance indicators are, how to track them, and what they tell you about the financial health of your business.
• 9:42
  Always remember that while your business may provide a lot of nonfinancial benefits to you, like a sense of accomplishment or prestige or attention or purpose, The primary purpose for every for profit business is to make money for the shareholders. In this case, that's you. And if you are not making profits for you, then there is a serious problem you need to address immediately. I should not have to convince anyone that in our modern capitalist society, money is more important to our well-being because it is a fact. If you cannot afford health insurance, if you can afford to pay your current bills, like for food, for shelter, for power, utilities, if you cannot afford to invest money to take care of future you, if you cannot afford to take care of your family and provide the lifestyle of your choosing, then all of these things will be detrimental to your happiness.
• 10:40
  Money is a means to an end. It's not about the money. Money is a resource that helps you create more and often better options for you and your family. If you've been hiding from understanding the financials of your law firm business, it's time to get real with yourself. If you can go to law school and you become a lawyer and you can start your business, then you are smart enough to figure out your law firm business's financials.
• 11:05
  Okay. I'm gonna climb down from my soapbox now, but you see this is how strongly I feel about question number two. Alright. Finally, question number three of the questions that you wanna ask yourself going into q two. What is our most important challenge at the moment in our law firm business that if we overcome it will cause the biggest transformation in our business both in the short and long term?
• 11:32
  Okay. So let me repeat that. What is our most important challenge at this moment that if we overcome it will cause the biggest transformation in our law firm business both in the long and short term? So this may be is it a is it capacity? Meaning, you do not have enough team members or the right team members to handle the day to day operations of your business.
• 11:53
  Is it an un unorganized systems, processes, and procedures that you don't feel you have time to work on? Is it you and your unwillingness to learn how to be a better leader and a delegator that's clogging up your pipeline? Right? Is there something in your head that is keeping you stuck hanging on to all the things, instead of delegating them to other people so you can focus on being a visionary and the CEO of your business. What is the greatest challenge for your business at this moment?
• 12:26
  Now with this question, you can only pick one. You can only pick one challenge. That doesn't mean that you don't have other challenges in your business. But we're looking for the number one biggest challenge you have at the moment, that if you solve that problem, you would leap forward by leaps and bounds from where you are now. If you would like help with scaling your law firm business and with, having a better q two, q '3, q '4, then I encourage you to reach out to me and schedule an appointment and let's talk about what is going on in your law firm business that we need to resolve to get you the results that you desire.
• 13:06
  All my links are in the show notes, so just check there and you can, schedule time with me. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I appreciate each and every one of our listeners, especially you, and I thank you for being here. I'll see you next week with more great content to help you build your own profitable, sustainable, wealth generating law firm business. Bye for now.
• 13:27
  Intro: If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.