Are you going into business for yourself, and setting up your own law firm? Firstly, congratulations! It will probably be one of the most rewarding and exciting yet challenging and at times stressful things you will ever do!
A large stressor in business can be money, and how you think about money, and what you do about money. Your money thoughts will be distinguishing factors in your sales, revenue, and profitability.
When you set up your firm, you may have these thoughts, or fall into these thoughts patterns:-
- I will not be able to pay myself a wage/ salary for (insert xxxx years that you have personally considered and can identify with – this will be determined by your lack of confidence, money mindset, and self- limiting beliefs).
- Most small businesses fail.
- It is a competitive industry, and my competitors will take all the work.
- I may just be able to take a wage home.
Either one of your thoughts will predetermine your success or otherwise. I am here to tell you this: –
You can either think you can, or you can think you can’t.
You can either think and believe you will be successful, or think you will not be successful.
You can either think you will only ever be able to earn just a wage (creating a job for yourself, rather than a business), or you can believe you can grow a thriving business.
Each thought will equal a different action and depending on what thought you have will determine what action you take.
If you believe you can’t, or will not succeed, it is likely you will not take action to succeed, because you have already accepted your fate as a business owner, by adopting a limiting belief, which in those circumstances, is likely to be adopted as limited action.
If you believe you will succeed, you will at least try to build a profitable business, and its likely you will take action that accords with that belief, and make your thoughts come to life. By having this mindset, you are not resigning yourself to a negative belief of failure.
If you are starting a business, and your opening thoughts are resigned to failure, lack of success, and lack of perceived sales, you will hardly be motivated or inspired, will you?
I am not suggesting mere happy and positive thoughts will produce results in your business, but happy and positive thoughts can help inspire you to take action, so actually results meet your thoughts.
So, have you checked in on your mindset about the financial success of your business? Great! Now let’s assume you believe you will be successful, or you are trying REALLY HARD to believe you will be successful (yay – you are not giving up, before you even start), have you thought about what you need to do daily and weekly to think about sales and financial growth?
Some tips for ensuring financial growth
- Consistently set sale goals – start of the week works for me – it sets my intention for financial abundance, and allows me to focus on how I will achieve my financial goals – its simple, really: I need to ask for the sale, or issue the invoice for work completed. My thoughts create my actions, and my actions create my reality.
- Reverse engineer reaching your sale goals by knowing your financial targets and setting your prices and fixed fees, accordingly. Identify what your financial target is, and work backwards to be clear on the volume you need to sell, or what you need to bill, or how you quote your work.
- Set time aside weekly (choose a day if you wish, I love ‘Money Monday’) where you set your intention for your sales’ goals, and assess your sales’ goals, and work out how you are going to take action – which leads do you need to nurture? What outstanding invoices do you need to follow up? Assess what quotes you can send out and SEND THEM OUT!
- Be conscious every single day about money; whilst we are lawyers, and our role is to be lawyers for our clients, you now have another role as a business owner, and fundamentally, as a business owner, in order to have a viable business, you need to make sales. Set time in your calendar every single week for money making activities.
