The 3 Systems You Need for a Successful Estate Planning Practice

It's time to systemize your law firm success!

Are you getting inconsistent results in your law practice?

Maybe you have a month where you exceed your revenue goals only to have that great month followed by 3 months of anxiety and struggle because you don't know where your next client is coming from.

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Many lawyers are running their firms based on hope, guesswork, and luck. They're constantly spinning their wheels, trying to keep everything together and make it all work.

But the problem is they don't know what levers to pull to make revenue come out on the other end.

So they aren't clear on where they should invest their time and energy, and they end up exhausted and panicked about their dwindling resources and have little to show for it.

But what if there was a way to create reliable income and predictable success for your firm?

What if you could go to bed every night knowing exactly what to do the next day to hit your income goals?

Well, you can, and today I am going to show you the 3 systems you need to make it happen.

The secret to consistent success is systems.

There is something all successful businesses across industries have in common. Regardless of who they serve and what they sell, every successful business is built on repeatable systems based on clear numbers.

The problem is law school taught us how to analyze and interpret the law, but it did not teach us to think like business owners.

I'll let you in on something, part of the reason I went to law school was so I didn't have to deal with numbers.

But once I started building my own firm, I discovered that systems and numbers were the keys to my freedom, success, and stability.

Businesses built on systems are predictable. And the predictability of knowing how many hours you need to work and what you need to be doing with those hours to generate the revenue you need is the secret to building a life and law practice you love.

Once you have the right systems in place, you can get off the feast or famine roller coaster. There will be no more overworking with little to show for it and no more sleepless nights wondering how you will meet your income goals.

Having the right systems in place allows you to take full control of your time and income so you can love being a lawyer.

Here are the 3 systems you need to build a successful Estate Planning Practice

1. A system to establish clear time and money goals

If you want your law practice to succeed, you need to know exactly what success looks like. You should start with the end goal in mind and work backward.

How much money do you want and need to make per month?

How many hours do you want to work?

Once you're clear on those things, you need to figure out how many clients you need to meet with and engage to hit those numbers.

I've created a tool called the Cash Flow Forecast Planner that helps you figure out exactly how many initial meetings, what we call Family Wealth Planning Sessions, you need to have to meet your unique financial goals.

Once you know how many Family Wealth Planning Sessions you need to have, you can use the goal-based time management strategies we teach to block out time on your calendar for the business generating activities you need to do to hit your goals.

Once you are clear on your time and money goals, you can do only what you need to, and no more, so you'll still have plenty of time and energy to live a life you love outside of work.

Also, having a system that lays out measurable and tangible time and money numbers will keep you motivated because you will be able to measure and track your progress in a clear and objective way.

2. A high converting engagement system

Once your time and money system is in place, you need to build a high converting engagement system.

There are 3 parts to a highly effective engagement system. And it's important to note that you want to have this system in place before you spend a dime on ads.

• A highly effective intake system with at least a 50% conversion rate

•  A high converting engagement system with at least a 75% conversion rate

•  A pricing and packaging structure that pays you what's needed to deliver on a great service

We train our lawyers how to build trust and connection from their first contact with a prospect so that at least 50% of inquiries turn into initial meetings.

And instead of the standard initial meeting, our lawyers lead Family Wealth Planning Sessions, where they share their firm story and help prospects get clear on their assets, family dynamics, and financial goals in a way that shows clients exactly what it's like to work with them. 

Also, clients have to do homework before their Family Wealth Planning Session, which keeps them invested in working with you instead of shopping around for the cheapest estate planning lawyer.

Lawyers that lead Family Wealth Planning Sessions the way we teach consistently have an 80% engagement rate, and for some of our lawyers, their engagement rate is 100%.

Even if you're engaging at least 80% of the clients you meet with, it's important to have a pricing and packaging structure that allows you to deliver a meaningful service that you enjoy providing and that clients truly benefit from.

We help lawyers ditch the outdated and ineffective hourly billing model and too-low flat fees for "affordable premium fees." With "affordable premium fees," you let clients choose their own fees based on the level of service they need from you. Our lawyers enjoy average fees of $4,000-$6,000 per plan, a fee that clients are happy to pay.

3. A no cost client attraction system

Once your engagement system is converting, you need to feed a consistent stream of prospects into the system. The way you attract these clients is with a no cost client attraction system.

Let's say that based on your time and money goals numbers, you know you need to engage 2 clients per week to meet your goals. And based on your engagement system numbers, for every 10 people that see you and are exposed to your message, 6 inquire, 3 book a Family Wealth Planning Session, and 2 engage your services.

Based on those numbers, you need to use your no cost client attraction system to get in front of 10 people per week.  

We teach our lawyers proven ways to attract clients into their system, including:

• Leveraging social media to get inquiries to your practice

• Networking at local BNI and Chamber of Commerce to connect with referral resources

• Speaking at affinity groups like real estate offices, daycare centers, churches, and "new mom" stores and gathering places.

And to make sure these activities bear fruit, so you're not just spinning your wheels, we equip our lawyers with a lead magnet + follow-up system so you can nurture relationships with interested prospects who aren't quite ready for your services yet.

It's imperative not to invest in paid marketing until your free marketing systems consistently deliver for you.

The time to invest in paid marketing is when you have the capacity to serve more clients, you know you can engage qualified prospects 80%-100% of the time for a solid fee, and you know who your ideal client avatar is, and your funnel is designed for them.

Once all of those pieces are in place, and you have exhausted all or most of the free marketing channels that could accomplish the same goals, or you have the money to invest in paid marketing but not the time for free marketing, then it's the perfect time to invest in paid marketing— but not before the above criteria are met.

When you become a Personal Family Lawyer®, we give you everything you need for these 3 systems that are essential for a successful estate planning practice. If you would like to learn more about how we can help you build and implement these systems in your law practice, schedule a call with a Law Business Advisor. On the call, they will help you figure out whether our program is a good fit for you and whether you're a good fit for our community of trusted lawyers.