Practice Growth for Solicitors

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Derek ODwyer

Since 2008, Solicitors and their firms have faced increased pressure from a financial DerekODwyer-017perspective. Less conveyancing work, fewer developers with complex legal arrangements have resulted in firms reducing their teams, cutting hours and cutting the fees that they charge.

But now, some solicitors firms are fighting back. They understand that if they are to survive in the long term, they will have to be more proactive, clearer about why someone should do business with them rather than someone else and also more direct in their pursuit of new business. They are also aware that there is business in their existing client files as well.

One of the challenges that solicitor firms face is lack of key skills in the areas of marketing and business development. The logical view would be that some of the solicitors themselves could take on more of the responsibility. That’s where the dichotomy arises:

Solicitors do not see themselves as marketers or business development specialists and they shudder at the thought of winning business.

They also have the capacity to earn up fees in excess of €150 per hour

So why would you have a €150 per hour revenue generator doing work that you could pay someone else much less than that to do?

The answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Doing nothing is not an option. Doing the same as everyone else is marginally better but differentiating yourself is where the money starts to flow again. But are solicitors ready to stick their heads above the parapet and proclaim “Yes, I have a Solicitors Practice and I intend to grow it by attracting great client via referral and by other forms of marketing as well.”

If you have a practice and are keen to escape the dread of breakeven or loss making, contact us for a Free Practice Building Assessment today…

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

In Business? Good is the enemy of Great

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Derek ODwyer

Do you have a good business or a great business? A Great Business could be described as follows:

  • 1. Excellent Growth Prospects
  • watch your thoughts2. Good Margins
  • 3. Repeat Business
  • 4. Very Well Differentiated in the Marketplace
  • 5. Excellent Leadership throughout the company
  • 6. Committed Team at every level in the organisation
  • 7. Fully Systemised
  • 8. Where customers sing your praises unprompted.
  • No Ball ever dropped

There are lots of “good” businesses out there as well. Good could be determined as:

  • 1. Decent growth prospects
  • 2. Margins in line with the industry but a good deal of price sensitivity
  • 3. Some repeat business but not as much loyalty as one would like
  • 4. Facing competition in the marketplace but holding own
  • 5. Leadership being demonstrated by one person doing most of the work, one person being the face of the business, over dependence on one person
  • 6. A good team but underdeveloped and unchallenged
  • 7. Some systems in place but very dependent on people being there
  • 8. Good deal of referred business
  • 9. On occasion, some customers are left disappointed.

We would all like to have a great business and we all talk of the frustrations associated with the good business, its overdependence on the owner to be there, slower growth than one would like, cashflow challenges, and too many hours being worked for the return being generated. And this is a good business?

So whats the difference and how does one attain greatness?

It starts with a decision. A decision that you want to have a great business. A decision to make the necessary changes in your business. A decision to implement the changes required and a decision not to settle any longer for good.

Its the difference between the pain of discipline and the pain of regret.

To support the decision, you must also have a dream. Why exactly do you want to have a great business, what would it mean to you and what would it mean not to have it?. Is there sufficient difference to get you to make and stick to difficult decisions or will you be back, basking in the warm glow of a “good” business? What is your dream?

To fulfill the dream, you must set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, results massive actionorientated and have timescales attached. They are generally short term and can be assigned to people.

How you achieve each of the goals requires a decent and thorough plan that people can understand. It has to be broken into specific parts.

Do deliver on the plan you have to take massive action.

When is now the right time? A coach like me helps clients get their business from good to great. Call me when you are ready, now.

 

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How Lazy Is Your Marketing?

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Derek ODwyer

Newspapers, Radio Stations, Google, Facebook and companies looking for sponsorship LOVE lazy marketers.

They LOVE them because they continually waste money on campaigns. And then they waste some more. Any then the complain that marketing does not work until they get desperate again and waste some more money.

Here’s how not to be a lazy marketer…

1. Clearly Define Your Target Market – Being as specific as you can, who are the most likely people to buy your product. Age, Gender, Demographic, Interests etc. This will help to determine the medium of advertising that you use.

2. Get your AD properly prepared with Good Copy and a Good Offer. There is no point in stuffsaying “Hello – here I am – please buy my stuff” when you should be saying “Hey – this product will change your life and you need it today and look how it has helped these other people as well”!!

3. Do some Testing. Even the best marketing experts in the world write and and create marketing pieces that do not work. In fact they may have 8/9 failures for every massive success that they enjoy. But it does not bother them because in the main, they have identified the failures during a process of test marketing.

  • Why send out 1000 mail pieces when sending 100 will let you know if the campaign will work or not
  • Why use one Google Ad with one Headline when you can create 10 for the same price
  • Why create create ads that work when you send the prospects to a website that fails to convert them to customers
  • Why are you not breaking down and analyzing every step of your process?

Become an expert on the process that is marketing and enjoy an unlimited marketing budget. That’s real marketing.

Call me if you’d like to find out how – 087 222 0720

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

What gets measured gets managed

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Derek ODwyer

If you have ever played a game, be it football or tiddly winks, you will most probably have kept score. The same is not true in many businesses and consequently business struggle and fail to take corrective action quickly enough – because they are often unaware of subtle changes taking place.

There are financial measures and there are non financial measures in every company. It is easy to measure turnover, and cashflow and wages etc. It is not easy to measure and then understand the activities that lead to the turnover, cashflow and wages. And it is this lack of information that leads to many business mistakes.

For example, if business A had a turnover of 100,000 and business B had a turnover of 80,000 we could easily assume that A was a better business. But we cannot tell anything from turnover.

If Business A had a Net Profit of 10,000 and Business B had a Net Profit of 9,000, we would again think that A was a better business.

But what if Business Owner A had to spend 15,000 to get that level of sales while Business Owner B only Spent 1,000

What if Business Sales Manager A required 10 inquiries to get every sales, where Business Sales Manager B only required 2 inquiries.

What is business A had a gross profit of 40% while Business B was making 55% while selling the same product?

What if Business A realised that no enquiry over the past year had come from his website, despite spending thousands on its development?

What if business B realised that 20% of all his enquiries were as a result of one happy customer singing their praises?

What if the receptionist at company A always informed inquiries that they would be called back but never passed the message on?

What if one sales person in the business was visiting 10 customers per day and the 2nd sales person was only visiting 5, struggling but unaware of what they should do?

What if the supplier for company A was actually charging them 5% more than their competitors because he knew he could get away with it?

What if company B had a wage figure which was 15% higher than their immediate counterparts.

Imagine if you had every available piece of information about how well or poorly your business was doing. Would some of your decision have been different and would you have focused more on sales and customers and less on rules and regulations.

We call all of the above Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). Do you have yours?

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to assert authority in a new role

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Derek ODwyer

So you are in a new role with people responsibility. Your team have been there a while but new manager challenging teamthe business is under performing. Some of the under performance is due to the existing team not being committed. Where do you start?

As a new leader in a role, the first few weeks can be challenging and exciting. Getting a clear “big picture” will help. Being clear about the direction of the company would also be beneficial plus having authority to make any necessary changes is also crucial to you success. Once you are clear on current situation and future direction required, it is time to inform the team, explain what you need from them and explain what is in it for them on achievement of particular objectives.

Where morale and energy levels are low, the quicker you get to this point the better. While you may not be in a position to carry out appraisals with your team, you will be in a position to meet with your direct reports individually and outline their role and your expectations of them very quickly.

Introducing Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility in each role is important. Therefore you need to have clear objectives and deliverables for each team member. It will take time to map all this out but that’s what you are being paid for – leading a team to deliver success to the company.

If your objective for the team is that they all need to improve their performance, you need to communicate the to your team every day. You must be unswerving in your approach to maintaining standards.

Where you enter a long established workforce, your authority will be questioned and challenged. This is primarily because people are fearful of change. The sometimes associate change with a dis-improvement in their working environment or life and therefore they oppose it strongly. Your objective should be to create a positive work environment, focused on achieving specific objectives where each team member understands what is expected of them.

If, prior to your arrival, the objectives of the team were to do as little as possible, then the change will cause some discussion and resistance. Clearly objectives, longer term focus and setting standards at the right level will see you through.

Being a good leader and manager is challenging but rewarding when you start to see the almost immediate effect that you will have by being clear about your objectives, being clear about what you expect from the team and by being consistent in your approach to managing your team

 

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook and Irish Business – Does it work?

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Derek ODwyer

Everyone talks about how important it is to be on Facebook, especially if you have a business. And that’s often where the advice stops – So you have to figure it out for yourself facebook good or badand very often the decisions taken can be wrong and costly.

Here are some observations about Facebook for business…

1. Facebook can be a great way to build your brand and make people aware that you exist. This will only work for you if you have someone who maintains your Facebook account properly and that you engage with your customers. Just having a Facebook account with friends and putting something on there once per week or month is a waste of time.

2. Facebook is not the place to try and sell things directly or advertise products for sale – Its not why people use Facebook and its too “in your face”. If you do this continuously, people will start to hide your feeds.

3. People use Facebook to communicate with friends, to be entertained and to share information. Many businesses have tried to “muscle” in on this and effectively “doorstep” people into buying your product.

4. If you do have a produce or service that people crave or love or can get emotionally attached to, then informing people on Facebook is a good idea. If your product is more functional or just carries out a normal service, then pushing it on Facebook will be a slow and arduous task.

4. If you are spending time on Facebook when you should really be talking to customers, or prospective customers, then it can be a really costly to your business. Nothing beats personal contact and personal recommendation – Absolutely nothing.

5. Facebook can serve you well but bad news or negative news can also spread like wildfire so be care what you post and be careful about who you authorise to post for you.

6. Building a profile on Facebook, as a business page or friends page takes a lot of time and this has to be done continuously. Outsourcing it is too expensive because the ROI simply is not there for small businesses that do not have a brand like Coke or Nike.

7. As for advertising on Facebook on the right hand side of the page, it is proving to be very difficult to get a return and the reason for this is being given as “users of Facebook do not start with a commercial intent – where they log on to purchase something” – think about this before you part with your hard earned cash.

Just some thoughts… I’m not saying do or don’t  - I’m saying that you should understand it first and make your own decision relative to your business.

 

 

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Persistence and Consistency in Marketing

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Derek ODwyer

As business owners get back to business for 2013, budgets are being prepared, cashflow forecasts are being created, sales targets are being agreed and distributed and marketing often exists as an afterthought.

Marketing is required by every business in 2013. It is required to attract new customers ireland marketingand clients to your business. It is also required to maintain your customers and clients. But most business owners are very poor at marketing. They see it as being all about advertising and flashiness and websites. It includes these things but it is much more than that. Marketing is happening every time your company comes into contact with a customer or potential customer in what you say, how you say it, what is heard and what action ensues.

I’m working with clients right now to create a marketing calendar for the year. from a practical point of view we are establishing they strategies and tactics that they can manage, they they will embrace and carry out week in and week out, that they can measure as well.

Some of our marketing strategies involve working with the team, ensuring that the entire team know that they have an impact on the profitability of the business. In some cases, my marketing time may involve customer service training, it may involve mystery shopping and it may involve challenging peoples behavious and attitudes. This is important.

Why would you spend money on external marketing only to lose the benefit with a team that do not understand what your business is about. Its like pouring water into a holed bucket. And remember this – the person who may need to be trained and educated may be you.

Whats important with all aspects of marketing is that it is done over an extended period of time. There is no point initiating a course of action if it cannot be sustained over 52 weeks. Its about time in the game more than trying to get the timing right.

Very often we see people do a huge burst of marketing for a few weeks and nothing for a few years. That’s not how business works and it certainly is not a profitable way of running a business.

And that why we encourage people to build up their marketing steadily, sharing the responsibilities throughout the team and ensuring that a certain amount of accountability exists in discussions throughout the year.

If you want to steady the ship and get away from a peak-trough, feast-famine business, take the first step today.

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Need a Business Plan for a Start Up Business

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Derek ODwyer

If you are going into business for the first time or setting up a new business in addition to your existing one, its important to complete a written plan. It may seem unnecessary or boring but it is important.

Its not important to actually have the plan – its important to go through the planning business-planprocess, answering all the questions that need to be answered honestly to give yourself the best chance of success.

80% of businesses that have been started fail to make it to five years. None would have started out to fail. Either they did not do what was on their plan, or they had no plan or they did not cover all the bases before they started out.

Taking the time to prepare a proper plan costs very little – Running a loss making business will cost you dearly every month and for months and years after you call it a day.

Your business plan will consist of the following

I.        Table of Contents.

II.       Executive Summary.  - Brief explanation of the idea, 1, 3 and 5 year plan, who the customers are and expected outcomes

III.     General Company Description.

IV.     Products and Services. – Exactly what are you planning to sell and how will you price them.

V.      Marketing Plan. – This contains evidence of your market research – is there a market for your product, is there sufficient need for it, whats the competition like, whats your plan for getting and keeping customers, why should they buy from you?

VI.     Operational Plan. – How will the business run on a day to day level – will you do everything, will you work 20 hours per day, what can you delegate – how good are you at systems, can you lead, manage, delegate, sell, buy?

VII.    Management and Organization. – What will the structure look like as the business grows – have you given it much thought? Do you know where you will be operating – are you the best MD for the business or are you better in sales?

VIII.  Personal Financial Statement  - Whats going to fund the business, how much reserves do you have, how much can you invest, when will the income start arriving, have you considered worst and best cases. Have these numbers been challenged?

IX.     Startup Expenses and Capitalization.  - What types of initial costs will you have, where will you spend, where will you not spend, How much goods need to be capitalised?

X.      Financial Plan. – This is your cash flow projection, your budgets for 3 years, your pricing strategy, your evidence of research into running costs etc.

XI.     Appendices. – Supporting information.

XII.    Refining the Plan.  - How to really challenge yourself so that your plan, if followed will deliver the success you desire.

Plan your business for success – starting today.

We help people complete proper business plans for themselves and not just for the bank – Get one today.

 

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Your Business in 2013 – Top Tips

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Derek ODwyer

Fed up with just getting by in your business? Fed up with working too hard for too little return? Time to make some changes and approach your business in a different way.

Time to get your business working for you and time to start making a profit from your business.

To achieve this, you do not need to make massive changes in your business starting tomorrow. You probably just need to make small changes but an important thing is to make the changes permanent and stick to them. Work consistently utilising these small changes in your business every day.

Attracting new business or generating leads…

Do you need to have a consistent number of letters being sent out promoting your business, followed by consistent telemarketing to generate appointments. If so, start with creating your list of prospects, cleaning it up and sending the letters. Only send out as many as you can actually follow up each week. Sending any more is a waste of money.

How is your online presence? What does it say about you? Have you embraced technology and are you using the web to generate business for you. At the very minimum, you need to have an online presence that represents you well.

There are about 50 different strategies to attract new customers to your business. Have 3-4 working well at any point for you.

Once a potential customer contacts you, how well do react to their requirements. How well do your team react. How many of these prospects do you actually convert to customers. This is the single biggest improvement area that every business owner should concentrate on in 2013. Reason: Its free to improve and you get a double benefit in that any improvement you make here improves your return from any marketing investment you make.

The single biggest improvement you can make in 2013 will be in how your team work in your business. How well could they do their jobs if they received some training. How much better able to converse with customers if they were shown the correct way. How well can they sell versus take orders from customers?

Simple sales training for 30 minutes per week will improve your sales and profits. Can you plan this training and deliver it on a consistent basis for 1 year? If you knew that just by doing this you could grow your business by 20% would you do it?

This is what business is about – planning and doing small things on a consistent basis throughout the year and measuring the effectiveness of each approach every week.

Start with your list of improvements today. If you need help, call me.

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Appraisals in a small business – how to get the most from them.

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Derek ODwyer

How many times have you heard people in your company say “i’ve got do to these appraisals with the team – its just a lot of form filling really but HR say we have to do it – what a waste of time”

Should these people be give the responsibility of doing appraisals in the first place? Who gave them the responsibility and how well did the person giving the responsibility understand what they are all about?

Appraisals serve a number of functions for both the employer and the employee. The have proven to be very useful in determining direction, re-focusing, identification of training needs and identification of skills deficiencies when done correctly. Some companies carry out continuous reviews, others do 360 feedback from all colleagues – whatever your company does, it is important to have some form of measurement.

Never carry out an appraisal unless you know the reason why its being done and why it is important for the company as well.

Before the appraisal process, it is important to be clear about the strategic direction of your business. If you are clear about this you will also be clear about the skills and attitudes you will need from your team in order to achieve your objectives. If you also have a functional organisation chart for your business, this will help to identify any skills gaps in advance of any appraisals.

Prior to the appraisal, you will need to ask the employee to prepare for the meeting. There are many appraisal forms online. pick one that suits your business. Explain why the appraisal is being carried out and explain that it for the benefit of the team member in association with the strategic direction of the company.

The care and attention given to this part of the process will tell you as much as the appraisal itself. This is the employee’s opportunity to have a discussion about their performance and their future career direction. You will identify if you have leaders, ambition, followers, doers, or maybe unambitious, negative or even non committed employees.

Get the Right People on The Bus, and then get the Right People in the Rights Seats on the Bus. That has to be the objective. In a small business, it is critical that each team member wants to be there and wants to contribute – for their own sake and for your sake. The appraisal is the opportunity to discuss this.

The appraisal give you the opportunity to understand more about what makes the employee tick – for some it is financial reward, for others it is security, for others it is the people they work with, the customers, or for others its the opportunity to learn, develop and expand and challenge themselves. Equipped with this information, you have the opportunity to help them to get everything that they want and you will find that your company benefits as a return.

I encourage people to complete appraisals with their team for the success of the business and the success of the individual. plan them carefully – do not do them as a matter of course – Need to know how to get started – contact me.

 

Posted in Business Coaching | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment