Let me ask you this. Have you ever thought it was about time that you started “marketing” but didn’t really know why… or how you’d start, even if you did?

 If you have, then you’re not alone. The idea that a practice should “market” is more and more the message that we are given, but rarely are we sure what “marketing” even is, in practical terms.  Sure, we know the theory of it, but what does that mean to us here and now? What exactly, do we do? How do we do it? What actions should we take?

 Many times, solicitors and accountants with very successful businesses, and with large client bases, tell me that they have thought about doing marketing, or wanted to send out some letters, or something… but they never found the time, or the energy, or something happened and they just never got around to it for one reason or another.

 What they are also saying, if they realise it consciously or not – is that the practice and the clients are not doing so well as they could be… all for lack of a simple and ongoing system in place to make getting the message out about the good work they do and the help they can provide.

 Do clients want legal services? Probably they do not. Do they want their assets safe and secure? Probably they do. You see people don’t want the services. They want what having the services gives them. Very few people will get excited at the prospect of getting a new accountant. Will they be excited about being able to see their business in a whole way they never could before because they have better systems and know what to look for now? You bet! Just as me offering you coaching services would have you thinking “What’s that all about?” and yet still you might be excited about being able to move forward on those areas you’ve been stuck, or finally being able to articulate that vision that you’ve been carrying around in your head and never known how to explain… Being able to articulate that now, and even better, develop the strategies to bring it to life, now that is something to be excited about!  Remember, it is not the service that people want. Its what the service does.

 How well do you expect your practice to operate? At one hundred percent of  potential or are you happy with less than that? 75%… 50%? Where is the line that you draw between “acceptable”, and “have to do something about it”?

 Of course, to begin making some decisions about setting standards that are acceptable raises other questions, some of them, about costs. If I do “this”, does that mean I will have less time for “that”. If I get more clients, will I have less time than I do now? Sometimes we put off implementing improvements to the business, because we fear that there is something that we’ll have to trade off. We fear there might be something that we’ll have to give up, or let go. Sometimes we don’t like to do what we know we should, because we just plain don’t know how.

 Unfortunately when we are thinking about these costs, we fail to account for the costs that we are already paying. Opportunity costs, that not doing what should be the least that we provide ourselves, or our clients, would give us. These costs though they are invisible and easy to neglect to factor in – can be substantial.

Understanding where we are at this time, and calibrating that against where we could be; the level that the business could be achieving, is a starting point. Developing the strategies to go from here to there, is where the fun begins.

 Knowing What To Do is the beginning.  Working out How To Do It, comes after you reach the point of knowing in your gut, that you want something more than you have now. You don’t need to know what, just that there is something and that your instincts are telling you that now is the time to stop procrastinating and get started.  Learn to recognise that signal.

When you reach that point when it comes to marketing your practice, then its time to work out where you are and what outcomes you’d like to achieve. If it helps, and it usually, does, then talk to someone who can help you get the results you want.