This year shook the foundations of every business. It’s time to find the cracks and make yours stronger so your practice house doesn’t fall and is ready for the storms ahead.
I’ve been helping attorneys and business professionals repair storm damage and prepare for the future for more than 25 years. This was a norm-shattering year and it’s still not clear what a “new normal” looks like. No matter what lies ahead I do know that certain fundamentals will be there no matter what. And that’s the place to start.
First, let’s toss out the notion that you can either be a licensed professional or a business person. You must be both. To do that successfully you have to learn and apply core business principles you may not have learned or mastered.
I call these the 4 Pillars of your Practice (Business) Foundation.
1. The vision, mission, goals and objectives you set for yourself and your practice.
2. The problems you solve and how clearly you focus on those problems.
3. The clients you solve it for, you can’t be everything to everyone.
4. Why you do what you do, what you really value drives what you want to create.
So many professionals skip quickly over the first pillar. They are not clear on exactly what they want to accomplish for themselves or their business. They just get going and get sucked into the vortex. Then years later they may realize that they are working for their business rather than have their business working for them.
To check the first pillar just answer the following questions and do it on paper or it’s not really real!
– What do I really want for myself and my business (Vision)?
– What am I doing to make that vision a reality (Mission)?
– What are my Goals for the next year to move me toward that Mission?
– What are the interim objectives (or milestones) I’ll use to check my progress?
If you are like most professionals, you’ll find that this isn’t quite as easy as it looks especially if you’re doing it for the first time by yourself. Luckily you’re something of an expert in figuring out difficult things so you can do this too. And if you’d like some support just reach out and we’ll talk.