No business, law firm or otherwise, can survive without a steady flow of new clients. Even when your law firm is successful with a strong presence in the legal industry, there is always competition or variables in the market that make you shift your business practices to remain at the top.
Law firms in the High Velocity profile are the epitome of what it means to practice law in our modern society. However, as we’ve highlighted in the Cruising Altitude profile, growing too comfortable in your operations while letting law firm marketing fall to the wayside can be detrimental to long-term growth.
Summary of the High Velocity Profile
The Law Firm Growth Quiz is based on two factors — scalability and market presence. Based on your answers, we can measure the efficiency of the processes used to manage your business and the investment you’ve made in your firm.
The High Velocity profile (innovative, ambitious, systematic) has a proven track record of success with legal technology to manage its operations and modern growth tactics to scale its business.
Law firms in this profile use some form of law practice management software (LPM) for processes like document management, client communications, matters, and billing. This allows them to efficiently manage their time between managing their practice and prioritizing a marketing strategy.
These firms are likely to continue on a growth path, but the challenge becomes keeping momentum and market presence in the long term. To evolve, these firms must track and implement growth tactics that ebb with trends in the industry along with consumer demand.
Growing a Law Firm in the High Velocity Profile
The High Velocity profile is unique in that it has the structure to easily pivot strategy without sacrificing other areas of the practice. These firms have flexibility due to the adoption of all-in-one law practice management software that impacts multiple functions across their practice.
To keep momentum, firms in the High Velocity profile must leverage law practice management software to manage their goals and analyze their processes for areas of improvement and bottlenecks.
Firms in the High Velocity profile should also seek avenues to absorb industry trends from stakeholders or influencers in the legal industry. Law firms can find resources through a variety of sources including:
Assess Current Operations and Law Firm KPIs
Before you can make improvements, you need a comprehensive view of your current operations. Ensure you’re balancing time on your practice, effectively allocating staff, or automating processes as necessary to get everything done.
This is where you should tap into the reporting functionality of law practice management software to analyze your law firm KPIs.
Prioritize Tracking and Measuring Performance
You won’t know what’s working unless you track and measure your performance, and that starts with strong goals. Use SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timebound) to challenge yourself in ways that are realistic and trackable.
Once you have goals in place, define an evaluation process for your firm’s marketing strategy. Metrics don’t exist in a vacuum — they inform each other. Each platform or tactic may have different KPIs to monitor so it’s best to keep them in a central location.
Your ROI is relative to the goals defined in your law firm marketing strategy. For this example, the performance of your Facebook ads could be measured by converted leads vs marketing spend over a period of time. Based on that number, you can determine ROI and pivot your strategy accordingly to meet your goals.
Outlook on the High Velocity Profile
Law firms in the High Velocity profile are on the right path for growth, but it can be too easy to sit back and ride the steady wave. Don’t get comfortable — use the stability to capitalize on your efforts and ensure that every marketing effort is generating a positive return. Meticulous tracking combined with studying industry trends are a significant component of moving your firm forward.