Love Law Firm - January 2019

Love Law Firm - January 2019

BUILD. NOT BILLED.

TM

JAN 2019

BUI LDING BLOCKS

www.lovelawfirmpllc.com 516-697-4828

A S P I R E T O MO R E I N 2 0 1 9

It’s that time of year — just about everyone is thinking about their goals, myself included. Personally, I don’t set out to make goals for the entire year. I don’t sit down and map out January through December.

Once specified, I can measure how many of those clients I begin working with that quarter. When I hit a goal, I know it. It’s not based on a feeling or assumption. I’ve tracked my progress every step of the way, and there is documentation that tells me what I’ve accomplished. I set numbers that require me to stretch to meet them. If it is easy, it wasn’t a good goal. A good goal forces you to act in different ways than before. From the moment you set a goal until the moment you complete it, that goal should be in the forefront of your mind. Put it on a sticky note on your monitor. Write it in your planner. Have it repeat as an appointment in Outlook. With goals in place, you need accountability . Writing your goals down helps, but telling your goals to another person is even better. For me, it’s my spouse and Seamus — more on Seamus inside this newsletter. My spouse helps me focus on my goals and encourages me to accomplish them. She’s the best! Finally, don’t forget to celebrate the victories. When you reach a goal, enjoy the moment. It doesn’t have to be extravagant. It can be a celebratory venti soy quadruple shot latte with no foam — as I once heard a person order to my profound wonderment — or something else that makes you happy. Remember, when you achieve a goal, you’ve accomplished something most people won’t. A lot of people will set goals this month, but only a select few are going to follow through to the end . That alone is worthy of celebration.

Instead, I have a theme . Consider it the tag line for the movie of my upcoming year. But instead of, “In space, no one can hear you scream” — which I most sincerely hope will never be my year’s tag line, because an alien erupting out of my chest is absolutely no good for anyone — my theme for 2019 is,“Putting it together.” Aside from the nod to Sondheim, my theme means I am bringing all my efforts of the last three years in business and synergizing them. But that isn’t the point of this article. I have a theme for the year, but then I focus on making quarterly goals . I find that when you set goals for the year, it’s too easy to put those goals off until November. Then you spend the last weeks of the year playing catch-up instead of seeing your accomplishments come to fruition. Instead, my theme informs my goals, and my goals inform my actions every day throughout the year.

As we begin a new year, we’d love to hear what your goals are and if there is anything we can do to help you reach victory.

This is why I set my goals according to certain rules. Every goal must be specific, measurable, and aspirational .

If my goal is to increase my client base, I get very specific. What type of clients? What do they look like? What are their legal needs? How often do they need to work with me? What value do I bring to them?

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3 Strategies for Success HOW TO DRAW THE BEST NEW HIRES IN A RECORD- BREAKING LABOR MARKET Finding good employees has always been hard, but in the economic environment of 2019, it can feel downright impossible. At the end of 2018, U.S. unemployment was the lowest it had been since 1969. For months, unfilled jobs outweighed the number of people seeking employment. In a market where job seekers have the pick of the litter, employers face stiff competition when courting prospects. Here are three strategies to draw in top performers and keep them. 1. Pay more. Excellent benefits, fancy perks, and flexible hours are important items on any job seeker’s checklist, but virtually every prospect’s top priority is adequate pay. Workers today have unprecedented bargaining power, and yet, according to ADP, small businesses with fewer than 50 employees boosted wages only a little over 3 percent last year, an amount quickly swallowed up by inflation and increasingly steep living costs. There’s just no way around it. To attract top-tier talent, competitive compensation is paramount, especially in 2019. 2. Give new hires the chance to grow. The best employees constantly hunger for new growth and development opportunities.

Show prospective hires the potential heights they can reach at your organization. First, your business has to have a growth mindset that promotes loyal employees and empowers them to step into exciting new roles. Then you need to present prospective employees with challenging, rewarding projects and responsibilities and show examples of how those who’ve come before them have succeeded. Annual reviews and raises are a start, but you should also explain how a job at your business will improve your prospect’s skills, career, and life. 3. Get them in the door. If you already offer a legitimately competitive salary, an expansive benefits package, and a good work environment with opportunities for growth, the only challenge left is to get on your ideal candidate’s radar. One of the best ways to do this is to implement an employee referral program. Ask your team if they know anyone who’d fit the empty role. If you end up hiring their prospect and they stay on the team for, say, six months, then reward the referrer. Cash, PTO, and other benefits will encourage your loyal employees to bring in their skilled friends.

SATISFIED WITH LAST YEAR’S PERFORMANCE? ARE YOU SURE YOU SHOULD BE? CALCULATE CUSTOMER CHURN — AND LEARN HOW TO REDUCE IT IN 2019

You’re looking over last year’s numbers, feeling pretty satisfied about the results for 2018. Production increased and you have a lot to feel proud of overall. But what about those customers or subscribers who said goodbye to you in 2018? If you haven’t yet calculated your end-of-year churn, you should feel a little less comfortable. Looking at that churn rate is key to your business’s success. Most business owners say that if they could change one thing about their business, it would be their customer churn rate. Retention is key to success because it almost always costs less to retain a client than it does to attract a new one. Increasing client retention and reducing churn in the coming year can only happen if you know what your churn rate was last year.

as a percentage of recurring value lost. Choose the measurement that makes the most sense for your business.

Why is this number so important? Think about it this way: Beyond representing how many customers flew the coop in 2018, churn represents an exponential loss of profit. Each year those lost clients don’t do business with you, you lose a year’s worth of potential revenue. By tracking customer churn throughout the year — ideally quarterly — in addition to end-of-year churn, you’ll begin to notice trends that you can address. Does the highest churn always happen in the third quarter? Did you sell more subscriptions in 2018 but lose more longtime customers in the course of chasing those leads? Noticing how these threads lead back to your losses is the first step in decreasing your churn rate. Of course, it’s impossible to calculate your customer churn if you haven’t been tracking and measuring it throughout the year. If you haven’t, you now have the opportunity to do so for the coming year. Add monitoring these numbers to your resolutions for 2019.

Calculating Churn

It’s not rocket science! One of the most straightforward ways to express yearly churn is to calculate it as a percentage of customers lost: Divide the number of customers you started with in 2018 by the number of customers you lost in 2018. Churn can also be measured by the value of recurring business lost or

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Hello! I’m Seamus, the new bulldog- in-residence. I understand that I have a big collar to fill, as I’ve heard a lot about Satchmo from my favorite humans. Although I am currently in my internship phase, learning the ropes, I was asked to share a few thoughts on what I’ve learned so far. Don’t be intimidated. That’s a bulldog quality. In my home, Satchmo is a legend. It is easy to feel like I can’t live up to him, but I need to forge my own path. I am my own bulldog. I can’t pretend to be anything else. Snore like no one is listening. Basically, do what you’re good at no matter who your critics are or what they say. Someday, my humans are going to make a lot of money off of a viral video of me snoring loudly into my food bowl after falling asleep while eating … and who will get the last laugh then? Love while you can. Okay, this is something Satchmo taught me. We aren’t guaranteed any amount of time, so while I’m here, I intend to love these humans like crazy. I will show it with big, wet, stinky, slobbery kisses. It’s my signature.

Off to nap. Paws and kisses.

–Seamus

T H E SMA L L B U S I NE S S T I P O F T H E MON T H

Make All Decisions Measurable

When you’re focused on growth, bringing in new customers, establishing new company benefits, or upgrading equipment, do you have a system in place to measure the progress and success?

Having trackable metrics in place for most, if not all, of your systems and initiatives gives you crucial >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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