029: Goal Planning for This Year

Your Law Firm is a Business. Take it to the Next Level

Our goal on this podcast is to always be authentic. We want to share our struggles as business owners because we know many of you will relate. We aren’t perfect and are still working on implementing many of the things we’ve talked about in these episodes.

Today’s episode is no exception. We’re going to be talking about goal planning for the next year.

What we want to harp on in this episode is that, just as with everything else in entrepreneurship, imperfect goal planning is better than none at all. Don’t let perfect become the enemy of good. Of course, we’d all love to have the perfect plan but it’s more important that we just get started.

So, in this episode, we’ll teach you how. We will discuss the three steps to goal planning for the next year. We’ll break it down into where we are now, where we want to be, and what it will take to get there.

Tune in to start your new year strong with some imperfect but good goal planning!

Show Highlights:

• Why we should think about where we want to be farther into the future.
• Questions to ask yourself when planning for the future.
• How to figure out what your firm will be known for.
• The power of creating a concrete 3-year vision for your firm.
• Why you need to analyze where you are now.
• Why you need to block off time in your calendar for goal planning.
• How to do yearly planning.

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Supporting Resources:

Vivid Vision: A Remarkable Tool for Aligning Your Business Around a Shared Vision of the Future by Cameron Herold

The Vision Driven Leader: 10 Questions to Focus Your Efforts, Energize Your Team, and Scale Your Business by Michael Hyatt

ACTION STEPS:

1. Get out your calendar and schedule 1-2 hours next week and another 1-2 hours the week after.

• Next week, spend time brainstorming about where you want your law firm to be in the future using some of the questions I mentioned or grab one of the books I referenced to help guide you.
• The following week, pick up the brainstorming at where you want your firm to be in 10+ years and create a concrete vision for what your law firm will look like in 3 years.

2. Put one hour in the calendar, take your 3-year vision, and think about the measurable things you will need to start gathering. You want to figure out where you are now so you can define where you need to go.

• Gather the information and know that if you haven’t done this before it may take you a few months of tracking new things at your firm in a simple spreadsheet to get started.

3. Set a time for you (and your team if desired) to take your 3-year vision and work backward to know where you need to be at the end of each year to set up the next year to hit the 3-year goal.

4. Narrow that list down to the top 2 or 3 priorities for this year and sketch out a plan. Everyone needs to be clear on who is doing what and by when so they can work on the tasks needed for these priorities as they are above and beyond the daily work. Check-in frequently and adjust as the year unfolds.

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Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com