by Gary Mitchell | Mar 15, 2018 | Becoming more strategic, Business development, Growing your firm, Growing your practice, Measuring results
How do you know your marketing efforts are paying off? Do you track your results?
Are you confident you are investing your time and money in the most effective ways to grow your practice or firm? Are you getting the maximum return on your investment of time or money?
Take the uncertainty out of your approach. Take my complimentary marketing audit to help you analyze your efforts. My clients have told me repeatedly how valuable this exercise has been for them to clarify what works and what doesn’t.
Simply contact me directly at gary@ontraccoach.com and I will send you the audit. Fill it out and send it back to me and we can schedule a 30-minute consultation to discuss your answers. This is a crucial 1st step to growing your practice or firm.
#lawyercoach #businesscoach #growyourpractice #getmoreclients #legalmarketing
by Gary Mitchell | Jan 24, 2018 | Coaching, Motivation, Re-building your practice, Your career
98.7% of my clients are perfectionists at heart. I am a perfectionist at heart. What’s the problem with being a perfectionist? It holds you back from actually getting things done. Nothing will ever be perfect, including perfectionism.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Striving for, and achieving excellence should be our number one goal as professional service providers. And for that matter, as humans. But if you wait until something is perfect to get it out there, you will never get it out there. It’s an impossible dream.
How many times has procrastination come into play because of your perfectionist tendencies? You fear getting started because you don’t know if it will be perfect. So you hold off. Time passes. More time passes and still nothing is done. If some of the top companies of all time waited until they perfected their product or service, they wouldn’t be in business. They wouldn’t have pushed the innovation envelope.
So the next time you are confronted with your perfectionist tendencies, ask yourself, “Is it excellent?” “Is it good enough for now?” And then remember, it can always be improved upon later. Get it out there. One of my favorite things to suggest to my clients is ‘NIKE’. Just do it!
#businesscoach #lawyercoach
by Gary Mitchell | Jan 9, 2018 | Becoming more strategic, Growing your firm, Growing your practice, Motivation, Thinking Positive, Your career
The beginning of a New Year always offers us so much hope. Hope for a new start. Hope for another chance. Hope to improve, learn and grow. Hope for whatever it is that we want more of.
That brings me to my all-time favorite quote. It comes from one of Goethe’s couplets:
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can-begin it-boldness has genius, power and magic in it”
#businesscoach @ontraccoach
by Gary Mitchell | Sep 29, 2014 | Business development, Growing your practice, Raising your profile
Shotgun approach or strategic approach? That’s easy. Strategic. Don’t do what everyone else does (‘show up and throw up’). Look at building your profile from the client’s perspective first, then your own. Here’s how you can avoid the lacklustre results you get from a self-centred shotgun approach by being strategic about how you build your profile: First, be where your target market is; second, be relevant. How do you do that? Ask your current clients what events they attend and why. Ask them what they read and why. Ask them what content would be of value to them and why. Find out what’s missing. Then contact the associations and publications your target market attends and reads and ask them the same questions. This is a highly effective and strategic way of ensuring you are where your target market is and you’re relevant to them and their needs.
by Gary Mitchell | Sep 24, 2014 | Building relationships, Building your referral network, Internal relationships, Leadership, Practice management, The business of law, Your career
Going beyond business development and your ability to generate work, there are a couple of considerations you should think about if you’re looking to get on or speed up the ‘Partner Track’. The first consideration is to learn how to play well with others. Here I am referring to everyone with whom you come into contact on a daily basis; your assistant, paralegals, IT professionals, receptionists, firm management, marketing, library services, etc. Go out of your way to treat these people with the utmost respect and watch how in turn they will over perform and deliver for you. You will not become successful in your career without their support. So when they go out of their way for you, acknowledge their efforts. Take them out to lunch from time to time. Ask them how they would like to contribute. Find out how you can help them achieve their career goals by first understanding what they are. Treat them as you do your clients. In other words get to know them as much as possible.
Giving back to the firm
By this I am referring to what can you do outside your practice to provide value to your firm. Consider answering these questions as a place to start:
- What committees can you be on and contribute to?
- Are their opportunities for you to mentor a summer or articling student, or even an associate more junior then you?
- What can you do outside the walls of your firm in the community to better position your firm?
Follow this advice and you are more likely to become a partner at your firm.
