Breaking Through Revenue Plateaus in Your Estate Planning Law Firm

Have you ever felt as if your law firm's revenue has hit a ceiling? A plateau that, no matter how hard you try, you can't seem to surpass? Join us on this enlightening episode as we uncover the strategies that can help your firm break through the dreaded revenue plateau.

We begin by defining the revenue plateau and identifying its common markers.  What happens when that plateau seems to be fixed at the $250,000 to $300,000 mark? We delve into the financial challenges that accompany such a plateau, including reduced margins for efficiency, technology, and staffing improvements. We show how your ambitious goals  may seem just out of reach at this income level, and stress the importance of increasing your value and ability to eventually sell your law firm.

In the final part of our conversation, we highlight the significant role of digital marketing in catalyzing growth and breaking through revenue plateaus. We reveal how this powerful tool can provide your firm with the leverage of time, data, and targeted prospecting. We also look at the potential need for sales training and mindset coaching to enhance lead quality, sales process effectiveness, and the ability to charge appropriately for your services. All in all, this episode is packed with invaluable wisdom for law firms  to escape income stagnation and launch into a new phase of growth. Don't miss out!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Before we dive into today's episode, a special shout out to our sponsor, QuidProQuo. Are you a law firm looking to scale or sell your practice? Qpq's expert team can help you unlock your firm's full potential. Stay tuned for valuable insights brought to you by QPQ.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Hi, I'm Jennifer Goddard and welcome to the Marketing LawCast. I'm here today with my guest, michael Campbell, who works in sales with integrity marketing, and we're going to be talking today about how to break through a revenue plateau in your law firm. Michael, is this something I know? You talk to attorneys all day, every day. Is this something that you come across pretty frequently?

Speaker 3: 0:41

Actually, just twice this week I've had discovery calls where this is the situation with the law firm that I'm talking about and the price or the revenue income can vary quite a bit. It can be above a million, it can be below, it can be at 300,000. But law firms, they experience a plateau and they just can't seem to break through. So that's kind of what I want to talk to you about today is strategies on how we might help lawyers break through that income plateau. So first of all we ought to identify what is a revenue plateau, jennifer.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Well, what I see is that just kind of what you said a revenue plateau can happen at any number. But what we see frequently is that a small firm, a state planning or an elder law firm, will get to 250 or 300,000 in annual revenue and then they kind of start to stall. And what we see is that's typically not quite where they want to be. They want to go on, they want to scale up, but they've hit that space and they're there for maybe a year or two years and they've tried a lot of things, a lot of the same things that they've been doing some different things, and they just can't break through.

Speaker 2: 2:04

And I know you are an athlete, you do a lot of training for mountain climbing. I like to think of it as kind of like a weight loss plateau. Anybody that's tried to lose weight or even get faster, get stronger, you hit this place where you just can't seem to move the needle. And, michael, I'm sure you've experienced that in your training and physically. What we know is that we've got to do something different. It's the same way with a revenue plateau If we just keep doing what we've been doing, we don't break through. That plateau is saying you're just going to have to shake things up. Do something a little bit different.

Speaker 3: 2:49

Yeah, Jennifer, I mean, I definitely have experienced that in my training. It's, you know, when you're banging your head up against that specific time and you race after race, you're hitting that same time. But you want to improve. You got to do something different. It's not just going out and gritting your teeth and running harder in your training sessions. You might have to change your diet, you might have to lift some weights, you might have to do some different types of workouts. You know, you got to do your research. So we got to change our strategy a little bit to break through those plateaus. So how do people get to an income or revenue plateau when it seems like everything is going pretty well and they just can't get past this level?

Speaker 2: 3:29

I see this a lot. It really goes right along with any kind of physical training. Typically we hit a plateau when we've had a level of success so you've lost some weight, you've gotten faster, you can run farther, you've gotten stronger. So I think it's important to realize that that plateau is kind of a symbol of success. But here's kind of where I see it in the estate planning and elder law firm we start out with building that referral network or doing some live workshops or maybe a combination of both, and that really works well. You get the referrals in businesses coming in the door, you're doing some live workshops, businesses coming in the door. And where I see those two things end up at a plateau is that, particularly with referral marketing, you really don't have control over your lead flow. You can build those referral relationships but the referral source is in control as to when you get the referral, how many referrals you get, and sometimes you kind of tap out what you can get for your referral network and a lot of times you tap out at that number right around 250,000, 300,000. I see it a lot. And then the other thing is people get burned out. Building those referral relationships and doing those live workshops. It takes a lot of your personal time. And then you get busy and you're working with clients. So you are meeting with clients, you're drafting documents and then you're doing the execution meetings. Then you have to hire a little bit of staff and pretty soon you're thinking this has got to get easier at some point. Surely I'm not going to have to keep working all the time, giving up my evenings to do workshops, giving up my lunch hours to take people out for business lunches.

Speaker 2: 5:36

What I see is a lot of times when people come to us, it's not so much that things aren't going well, it's just that they're tired of it. They would like something that would be easier, that would be more consistent. It's just like this law of economics you have finite resources. One of the most finite of all is your time. It's not uncommon that working hard to grow those referral relationships and working hard to do live workshops is, in a way, it becomes almost self-defeating because it's taking all of your time. And then you're getting busy and that's taking all of your time. Sometimes what we see is that attorneys who have hit this revenue plateau. They get on the phone and they're like help, this can't keep going the way it is. Something has to change.

Speaker 3: 6:33

Yeah, attorneys are very smart. They can see the writing on the wall before it's actually happening. So they're trying to prevent this from happening and they know they need to break through one way or another. What's important is that when you're experiencing this, is to not be embarrassed about it. It's very common they shouldn't feel embarrassed at all and feel bad about it. But the real danger, jennifer, that I see is that people get to this point and they get super frustrated, just like me in my times. When I get that result, it's like I feel like I ran my hardest. Why didn't I improve? So that frustration sometimes leads to them saying I'll just give up. This plateau is just where I'm going to be. Is that just okay? What's wrong with that?

Speaker 2: 7:25

Well, I have to agree with you. I've had that same experience where you're thinking it's just not worth it to work more or to keep even working like this, because there's more to life than just work and money. So I get it, I understand that frustration, but there's an old saying from Zig Ziglar money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen in the got to have it scale. Here's what happens if you don't figure out a way to break through, especially if you're at that $250,000, $300,000 mark, or if you're just not where you want to be, where you kind of set out that you wanted to be. It can be comfortable, but it's also frustrating and in a way, it's financially dangerous.

Speaker 2: 8:20

The first thing is, at that level you're constantly struggling to keep your expenses low and that means that you're investing in an orderly amount of time trying to do things yourself, because you're like I can't afford to hire help, I can't afford to upgrade my technology, I can't afford to invest in anything. Because at that level, in that $250,000 to $300,000 level, you tell yourself that's comfortable but it really doesn't give you enough margin to really become more efficient, to invest in technology, to invest in staff that can help you and that's kind of like that circular reference where I'm really tired and worn out and burned out because I'm doing everything, but I'm doing everything because I can't really afford to hire people to help me and I can't afford to invest. It really becomes kind of that catch 22. And then the other thing that I see that I really want people to think about is at that income level it may be comfortable as long as everything is working, but if a referral source goes south on you and just stops sending referrals, if you get sick, if something happens in the economy that's outside of your control and you have a couple of off months, then you can be not in that comfort zone anymore and really in a dangerous financial situation.

Speaker 2: 9:57

So it's kind of like the wolf is always at the door and you try to tell yourself that $250,000, $300,000, that ought to be good money and it is if you were taking all of that home.

Speaker 2: 10:10

But your overhead means you're not taking all of that home and so that starts to get a razor thin profit margin. And I hear that from a lot of attorneys who are coming in even at higher levels than this $750,000, even at $1 million, saying my client acquisition costs are so high that my profit margin is really razor thin. The other thing is, I think a lot of attorneys have some ambitious goals and at that $250,000 to $300,000 mark they're hard to achieve and some of those goals like having your children go to private schools, having your older kids go to college without having to borrow money, maybe being able to buy a vacation home so there are a lot of really big reasons to try to figure this out in a way that does preserve your quality of life, that gets you out of frustration and burnout but doesn't have you giving up and settling for things a level of income and financial insecurity that you really didn't sign up for.

Speaker 3: 11:23

Yeah, so I see a lot of people try a lot of things to break this plateau. Maybe it would be helpful to talk about the things that don't work.

Speaker 2: 11:35

Are you looking for ways to increase the value and sellability of your law firm? Our partner, quidproquo, has 25 years of experience in business coaching and leadership and offer services that can help you navigate the best path to reach your goals. Contact QPQ today at info at quidproquolawcom, or visit them online at quidproquolawcom to get a free checklist assessment that will help you explore how your law firm is performing. Yeah, so I think it's a good idea to take a minute to talk about things that people try and we see that they just don't work to bust a revenue plateau. The first one is just doing more of what you've been doing. I think a lot of times you feel like I'm just going to work harder at this, I'm going to do more and if you want to go back to that analogy that we had about your physical training or a weight loss journey, you just can't bust that plateau by I'm going to die it harder or I'm going to run longer. I've been training for my marathon by running 30 miles. Now I'm going to run 35. It's just a recipe for disaster to really totally burn out. So just doing more of the same thing doesn't break that plateau.

Speaker 2: 13:10

Another thing that people try to do to break that revenue plateau is get very efficient with their internal processes. I'm all about being efficient in the way that you manage your business, but understand that could make you more profitable and incrementally more profitable, but it doesn't bring in more revenue. So the revenue stays the same. But it's a good idea to try to become more efficient, but that's not what's going to break that revenue plateau. Along with that same line like hiring more people doesn't bring in more revenue. Trying to just really cut your costs, that doesn't bring in more revenue. All those things may be very good things to do. They may improve your profitability, but at the end of the year you're still going to look at that revenue number. It just hasn't gone up and you still have a lot of those same frustrations. The other thing is just ignoring it and hoping that it will get better. That doesn't break the plateau either. So those are the things that don't work, that we often try and think they're not bad ideas, that they're not going to boost your revenue and break through that barrier.

Speaker 2: 14:33

To break through that revenue plateau, there's only one thing you can do and that is you have to bring in more revenue. And it seems kind of simple and silly, but when you look at it, if you want to have more revenue, then you have to admit to yourself that the truth is you've got to get more revenue. So you may be doing all these other things and they may be good and healthy for your business, but to get more revenue you've got to go get more revenue. And so, understanding that, where does revenue come from? Revenue comes from sales. I know in the legal world sometimes lawyers feel like sales is a dirty word, but it is not. Sales just means that you are engaging clients, that you're doing work for people and you're doing more work for more people. Where does sales come from? Sales come from leads. So there are just two ways to break your revenue plateau. You've got to either fix your lead flow so you have more leads, or fix your sales so you have more revenue from your leads, and typically you have to do both.

Speaker 2: 15:53

So the strategy begins with looking at your lead flow. When you're on a revenue plateau, typically the problem with your lead flow is that it all depends on you, and that's where you're getting that burnout and that frustration, because if you're not out there beating the bushes, doing the workshops, taking people to lunch working it. Then there's no leads. That's typically what I see is the biggest problem when people hit this revenue plateau. You don't control your lead flow. You're not the master of your fate, so to speak. So what happens is typically lead flow is either feast or famine. You do a workshop, you get a lot of leads, you work through those leads, you do the work. Now you're back to famine. You've got to do another workshop. Same way with referrals.

Speaker 2: 16:51

Referrals can really lead to that revenue roller coaster because again, you don't have any control over the timing. So if you're getting referrals, for example from a financial advisors, maybe their goal or their focus for a quarter is we're going to make sure all of our clients get in and do a state planning, and so they send you a ton of referrals and you get really busy. And then the next quarter their focus is on something else and so all of those referrals just kind of dwindle down. That's where that revenue roller coaster comes from. And so when you look at lead flow, the way to break through this revenue barrier is to get control of your lead flow and make sure that it doesn't depend on you personally bringing in every lead.

Speaker 2: 17:46

And so for a lot of attorneys, a lot of law firms where the next step is getting digital marketing to work for them, because digital marketing can reach way more people than an individual can by going out and making phone calls and talking to people.

Speaker 2: 18:04

Your digital marketing can reach literally thousands and thousands of people and it can work for you 24 seven. So you get a lot more reach you without more work and it works for you even if you're on vacation or you're in court or you're working with clients that those leads are still coming through. So that gives you leverage. It gives you time leverage. The other thing about digital is that it gives you incredible amount of data. Consequently, once you start tracking and analyzing that data, you can get better and better and better at it and it just gets. It works for you in terms of targeting for the correct client, the correct prospect for your law firm, and then bringing those leads in at the lowest cost possible, because you're always able to optimize. And all of that is done without you having to physically go and do a workshop, physically take someone out, make a phone call, be talking to them. So that's where the leverage really comes in is getting have, having control of your lead flow and having it not be dependent on you driving every single lead.

Speaker 3: 19:26

Yeah, so. So the first part of this is all about, like, making it to the point where you're getting consistent lead flow. That doesn't depend on you. You could take somebody out to lunch and dinner, you know, every day of the year. It still won't compare to what your digital presence can do, right? So we get that under control. Get off the hamster wheel of doing live workshops and everything like that unless you enjoy doing them. It doesn't depend on that, right exactly. Sometimes I see firms that have lots of leads and it doesn't fix the problem. So what else could be going on in that type of a situation where you have lots of leads but you're still hitting your head up against this plateau?

Speaker 2: 20:15

You know, there's two things that can be going on that we see really common. The first one is the quality of the leads, and that's a direct indication of the quality of the marketing. So the marketing message may not be right on target. The marketing message may be sometimes inadvertently positioning you in a way that you're attracting the wrong type of lead. So one of the things that we do when we do strategy planning with our clients is we really want to zero in on who is going to be their perfect avatar, their perfect ideal client. And now what do we know about that person and how can we position the marketing to attract more of that type of person? And that's really from the design of the website to the platform where we're going to advertise, to the messages in the ads and the way that we bring leads in. So it could be a. It's a marketing problem and it's just like a positioning and a messaging problem. But then there's this other thing that's really common in law firms and sometimes the attorney is blind to it and it's the sales problem. So you have a couple of things that can go wrong in the sales process, and one of the big ones is that the attorneys don't want to see themselves as a salesperson, so they see themselves as an educator, and so everything that they are doing is trying to educate people to make a better decision, and that just means that they're good people. You know, these are the attorneys that we work with. They're good people and they want to give this knowledge and this education. But it can be a very bad sales process. And the other thing I find, too, is sometimes attorneys get their ego bruised when they give all of this value in terms of education and then the prospect says, like it costs too much, or I have to think about it, or I'm going to shop around, and then you feel sort of used that you've given all this value and you didn't get anything in return for it. So a lot of times it is a problem in the sales process, from intake through the initial consultation, and it's maybe bringing in some training for the people who are answering the phones, the people who are having that initial contact with the prospect, as well as revamping how you structure your initial consultations.

Speaker 2: 23:19

And then what I find is that most attorneys are not charging enough. They're simply not charging enough and that's why they can't break through that revenue plateau, because they can't do more business. So if they don't raise their prices they're never going to be able to do enough business to break through that income barrier. But they don't raise their prices because they're afraid. They're afraid that they won't close, they'll lose this lead, they'll lose this prospect altogether, they're afraid that their referral sources will dry up. So it really comes back to sometimes it's a mindset issue. There's training on process doing this thing in the proper way, but until you, as the attorney, really believe in the value that you're bringing to this prospect, you're never going to be able to raise your fees.

Speaker 2: 24:20

I think a lot of times attorneys think, well, I don't want to be one of those people that overcharges my prospects. The people I'm talking to. They really need this service and they really can't afford it and so I'm going to have to do it at a price point that they can afford. That's where sales training and coaching really comes in. It's understanding and accepting and believing in the value that you're bringing and then being able to communicate that value to the client or the person across the table from you in a way that they see the value and are willing and actually anxious to pay for that service because they see what an impact is going to have on their lives. So that's why here at IMS, that we take a more holistic approach to the whole growing your law firm concept. Yes, there's marketing involved. It's getting the marketing working, it's getting the marketing message so that it sets you up for a successful sales call, successful sales experience. But then we also work on that sales training and that mindset coaching so that you can support a higher fee structure in your sales process.

Speaker 2: 25:46

Michael, the first client that comes to my mind that really came to us having hit a plateau is one of our clients whose name is Rudy. Interestingly, he had been in practice for literal decades. He is very, very successful. I think he was probably around that $500,000 mark. I'm not sure, might have even been a little bit more. But the reason that he came to us was I've hit this plateau.

Speaker 2: 26:20

The great opportunity for Rudy was that he wasn't really taking advantage of digital marketing at all. We got everything put in place for him. In the first year that he was with us he increased his revenue by more than 30 percent. It really was just that. That was the only tap we had to turn for him. He had a lot of the internal processes going. A lot of things were going right, but he had this big window of opportunity that he had just never opened up and let flow in that revenue.

Speaker 2: 26:57

We were able to turn things around really quickly for Rudy and break through that revenue plateau just by turning on really effective and strategic digital marketing. The best way that I can see for people to break through a revenue plateau is to book a strategy call with you, michael, or someone on our team, and just bring those problems, bring those challenges that you've been facing, bring those to the call. My dear, you want to tell me a little bit about what a call like that, how that goes when people schedule with you and you get on the phone with them. How does that work?

Speaker 3: 27:40

Yeah, the discovery call is just that we're really just trying to get to know you establish what your marketing problem might be, establish what your goals are and how we might assist you on accomplishing those goals. It's really just an intake session where you do most of the talking. I sit and listen, I try to take in as much as I can and then, based off those answers, I go back to the team. We have a conversation with Jennifer, I have a conversation with James, our growth expert, and then we have a strategy session and we address a tailor-made marketing plan to help you get to where you want to be. The discovery call is really a no pressure. It can be as short or as long. If you have time to talk, I'll make the time, but it can be as short as 15 minutes. It's really just an intake session.

Speaker 2: 28:36

My bottom line is if you want to break through a revenue plateau, the first and best next step is to book a call with my team and let us take a look at what's going on and we can help map out a strategy that's going to work for you. The way to book that call is to go to our website at wwwimsrockscom, or you can just go to our website. You'll find it. We make it really easy to find that book of call. That's imsrockscom. And while you're here listening, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and give us a like and share with your colleagues and we'll see you on the next edition of the Marketing Lawcast.

Speaker 1: 29:49

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