Failing to plan is planning to fail. – Benjamin Franklin

If your goal is to achieve MASSIVE growth in your law firm, then you cannot afford to wing it.

You cannot afford to guess your way through it. You need a detailed roadmap that provides step-by-step guidance on how to structure, run, and grow your business.

A business plan is a simple written document that details your business concept and strategy for growth.

Simple, and yet so few law firm owners ever take the time to write one!

That’s usually because law firm owners see themselves as a practice, not a business. And this is a dangerous rookie mistake!  

Having a written, well thought-out, and organized business plan significantly increases your odds of achieving success.

Would you take the time to pack up your family and start out on a road trip without knowing where you wanted to go?

Of course not!

There’s a multitude of problems with this, right? If you don’t know where you are going then you can’t create a plan of action to get there. You will have no idea how long the trip is going to take, how much gas you are going to need, how much money you should bring, how much luggage you are going to need to pack or where you should stop for rest.

Why would you set yourself up for that kind of failure, disappointment, and stress?

That’s the same successful mindset you should have when it comes to creating a business plan for the purpose of ensuring success in your law firm.

Give yourself the best possible start for massive growth by establishing and implementing a written business plan. 

Here are the top 10 reasons your law firm needs a business plan:

  1. A written business plan allows you to sit down and form a clear picture of where your business is right now and what kind of shape it’s in.
  2. It allows you to set future goals and create a plan to achieve them.
  3. It provides the accountability you need to get things DONE.
  4. It takes the guesswork out of the optimal marketing plan for your law firm as it should map out how many leads you need to make the money you want to make.
  5. It allows you to get control of your numbers so you know exactly where money is coming in and where it’s going out.
  6. A business plan gives you the comfort of knowing how it’s all going to work out, instead of just “hoping” it does.
  7. It allows you to be confident that you will actually reach your goals because every time you hit up against a wall, you will be able to refer to that plan to get back on track.
  8. It helps you be able to run a business effectively instead of JUST practicing law and shows you how to build a 12 month forward looking budget and profit and loss reports.
  9. It will help you serve your clients better.
  10. It will house the policies and procedures that help your firm run like a well-oiled machine!

Some lawyers tend to have the mentality that they don’t NEED to have a business plan, because that’s “business stuff”. They think that any time spent doing “business stuff” is time taken away from their clients, so they continue to work more and more, harder, and harder.

Don’t make this mistake.

The fact is that a written business plan allows you to spend your time on the things that matter most, so that you can actually free up MORE time for your clients.

THAT’S the big disconnect that most lawyers have. They don’t realize that running a multi-million-dollar law firm is actually LESS work than running a $250k law firm, not more!

The ones that get that are the ones that have a written business plan, and they are also the ones who are most successful and spending the most time with their families.