Write your law firm a 10% revenue bump
90% of the small law firms I encounter can EASILY "write" themselves a 10% revenue bump. Want to increase your own revenues by 10% starting today? Keep reading because I'm going to spell it out for you exactly how to do it. And if you're one of my Members look in the library for samples too.
OK, let's talk about Greenstreets Restaurant which incidentally has an almost-great website except it misses on a few key points and so it sucks. But more about what those "key" points are later…
The reason their very expensive website site sucks is because the way it works in the "real world" of politically-incorrect marketing is that either you MAKE the sale, get the client, enroll the Member etc. or you DON'T. There are no excuses. So the client who hired someone else "almost" hired your law firm. So what? Don't fool yourself. This doesn't just do you no good at all, it actually HURTS you. But more about that later too…
RIGHT NOW what you want to know is "How Can I Give Myself A 10% Bump In Revenues Right Away, RJon?!?!"
So back to Greenstreets which I generally AVOID on the weekends because they don't know how to sell me. You see, even if YOU are not wired like this, the fact of the matter is that most people actually WANT to be sold.
We WANT someone who we trust to tell us what the solution is to our problem or opportunity. We WANT someone we like to take us by the hand and tell us what steps to take. And we WANT the person who is selling to us to make it easy for us. Experience counts! Just not in the way most lawyers think it does ;-)
So there we are this morning. You stroll up to the two young women who are busily taking down the names of all wallets waiting to empty themselves into the coffers of the owner of this very busy restaurant. But here's where things start to go wrong. Because the hostesses don't actually give a shit about why I'm standing there. They only care about keeping track of all the names they've collected.
And so they tell you it will be about 15-20 minutes. They don't offer to have someone bring me a cup of coffee while I wait. They don't offer me a glass of water. Some bread. A menu to look at so that when I sit down we can expedite the transfer of wealth from me to the owner. Nope. Just tell me it will be about 20 minutes.
But I'm standing right next to you and I can see at least two empty tables. No response. No initiative. No interest in anything else but doing their job. And they did it well. That list looked VERY organized.
So we're standing there and all of the sudden another employee of the restaurant walks up and takes control of the situation. He tells the organized young women to get two parties ready to go to those two tables and then he grabs a bussboy, gets him to clear & set the tables and just like that two parties are sat and ready to begin thinking about how to transfer some wealth instead of thinking about giving it to someone else. Incidentally, make no mistake about it. Patrons of this restaurant some of whom are no-doubt potential clients for your law firm too…we WANT to transfer some of our wealth to SOMEONE today.
OK, so back to the story. So now it's about 2 minutes later and that employee I talked about above is back from taking another survey of the survey of the restaurant, tells the hostesses to get two more parties ready because there are two more tables almost ready to go. Grabs the bussboy and voila two more happy groups. Within 10 minutes he had whittled down the now 20-40 minute waiting list to practically nothing and sat 5 or six tables.
OK, good customer service. But if you think that's how you're going to increase your revenues you've missed the point. Let's take a look at the numbers and see how to apply this analysis to your law firm.
Figure for breakfast on a Saturday you have about a 4 hour window. Average meal about 45 minutes. Average ticket about $35. Average profit per ticket about $25. So every table that "turns" is a $25 profit to the owner. 4 hours divides by 45 minutes into 5.3 table "turns". Or the way the two hostesses were mismanaging the client intake procedures, er…I mean seating customers at breakfast tables the restaurant was not only driving customers away but even for those of us willing to suffer through it all they were LOSING $25 of PROFIT on every table. Multiply that by about 30 tables…
and you're talking about LOSING $750 PER MORNING SHIFT!
But RJon, you don't understand! It's HARD to get good help! BULLSHIT! Don't you suppose Greenstreets could find some good help if their hostess earned $100 for a 4 hour breakfast shift? Of course they could! So why don't they? Because even if they had a great person, a real go-getter in that position that person would be lost since the restaurant obviously has no documented client intake procedures. Or if they do, then their procedures suck.
So Here's What You Can Do With This Information
Write out your client intake procedures. Pretend you're a new client calling your law firm. Follow the process from start to finish and at every step take note of all they barriers your staff, your technology, your procedures throw-up in a prospect's way when all they want to do is give you their money! And then study best practices of other law firms to grease the skids to your bank account!
A couple of hours, a few pieces of paper, a little ink and some studied attention from the owner of the firm. That's all it will take to bump the revenues of most small law firms by 10%.
To get some free samples to help you out go to www.howtomanageasmalllawfirm.com and stay-tuned for this Thursday's teleseminar entitled "How To Double The Revenues Of Your Small Law Firm In 12 Months Or Less and STILL have time to play golf every Friday afternoon"
