Lack of a vision, clear sense of direction or a goal
Many of the professionals who we work with at Auric Results start talking to us because they recognise a need to focus on business development. They either have a desire to grow or are moving away from a threat. An example of a current threat is that many law firms who are highly dependent on conveyancing work now want to build their other practice areas to compensate for the downturn in the property market.
What is wrong with this as a goal? We want to grow or we want to build up other parts of our practice; that sounds okay – doesn’t it?
Let us compare this with deciding to go on holiday. You might want to go on holiday because that is something you do every year; it might be that you want to get away from the bad weather in England; or you might need to get away from the office for a while. If you were to walk into the travel agents or start searching on the internet at this stage it could take you forever and use an enormous amount of time and energy in finding a suitable holiday. It might also mean that you book a particular holiday only to discover that it was not the type of break that you really wanted.
Most would put a lot more thought into the kind of holiday they want before starting the search. You will have some specific requirements, including who will be going, when you want to go and how much you want to spend. You will also have an idea, consciously or unconsciously, of what you want to get out of your time away.
The clearer the picture you have of the type of holiday you want and your specific requirements the easier it is to know when you have found the right one and to guarantee that it will be successful.
Solution
To return to growing your business: the clearer and more specific your vision, your goal and what you want to achieve, the easier it is to take the right actions to achieve it and to maintain your motivation to implement these actions when faced with all the other pressures facing busy professionals.
Some of the questions that we ask when helping our clients to develop their vision are:
What type of work do you want to be doing?
What type of clients do you want to be working with? Where do you want to be working?
Who do you want to be working with? How much fee-income do you want?
How will you know when you have got there?
Typically, we would start with a long-term vision or goal – say five to ten years – and then break it down into annual milestones.
For further information or for help in implementing some of these solutions please contact Jacqueline Harris of Auric Results Limited on 0118 969 0783 or at j.harris@auricresults.co.uk.
Author – Jacqueline Harris has extensive experience of helping professionals and professional service firms to grow and increase their fee income. Her work focuses on business development, sales, client relationship management, business communication skills and executive coaching.