Well a belated happy 4th of July and hope you didn’t get too wet at your local parade and fireworks display. It was cold and rainy in Chicago but the morning and the evening were fine so no great impact on my plans. Yet beyond celebrating the signing of our Declaration of Independence and John Cabot’s discovery of our nation, the 4th also serves as a handy half-way point for the year so I thought I’d gauge my progress…
2009 Business Goals & Plans
1. Generate an average of $6,000 gross income per month and $72,000 for the year, specifically from lawyering revenue only.
Analysis: I’m going to be just beneath this goal at the halfway point of ’09. I was at just over $30k through May but I know that June’s income wasn’t great. I’m still very dissatisfied with the inconsistency of my income month-to-month. Simply for living and planning purposes I’d like to just churn-out month after month of $6k to $8k sort of months rather than some big months and then a $1,500 type month. Some things I’ve been doing to generate more business were to put in an application with the CBA’s Domestic Relations Referral Service, I’m set to attend a seminar in August to get on the Cook County Arbitrators list of panelists, and I joined a weekly LeTip group. Three marketing initiatives for the rest of ’09: experiment with Google Adwords, Website redesign, and really reachout to other attorneys to make more professional referral relationships. If there’s one thing this blog has done is it has helped me meet many lawyers and I’m sure some of them need a family law referral source so I need to become that person.
Grade: B.
2. Become a Cook County Circuit Court Child’s Representative.
Analysis: I do have a very vibrant domestic relations practice involving many, many child custody matters and I do surely seek out continuing legal education seminars covering this subject. I really need to figure out if this or becoming a certified collaborative attorney is the better use of my time and resources. I need more information for 1-2 real seasoned family law practitioners.
Grade: C.
3. Complete a law review style article.
Analysis: Minimal progress. I want to get a couple scholarly articles under my belt because I really do enjoy writing but I’d also like to bolster my resume for law school teaching purposes.
Grade: F.
4. Create both law firm and blogging business plans.
Analysis: Very little progress on this front sad to say.
Grade: F.
5. Blogging consistency and attend Chicago Bloggers Meetup Group monthly.
Analysis: Primarily the issue here is simply viewing blogging as a very serious business endeavor that’s very much about of my future career and income generating plans. I’ve made around 90 postings here this year and about 70 over at ClosingChicagorealestate.com…not too shabby I’d say. Plus the traffic has really been solid as we’ve solidified things since the transfer over to WordPress. I’m just about halfway through Yaro Starak’s BlogMastermind program and expecting that to be a great guide as I work through more of the marketing portions of the program.
Grade: B.
6. Coaching and Mentoring and Getting Mentored.
Analysis: I’d like to have at least three mentors in my life: one for lawyering, one for business consulting, & one for my Christian faith. Unfortunately I only have the lawyer mentor in place currently. The one I’m frustrated about is the business mentor/coach…I’m not sure where to turn on that front. There are a lot of business coaches out there but they cost $500 per hour. I may have to seek this out through a local group like Rotary or a Chamber of Commerce. I did get my first contact to act as a mentor through the ISBA’s MentorCenter so I was happy about that…I think that’s the ideal, having both sides of the mentor/mentee relationships in your life. And I am making some progress on the blog mentor program that I bought in early ’08 so that’s good.
Grade: C.
Some fairly random things I’m thinking about beyond the above:
- Improve my Website and really make it a business generator and tie in with online ads…take advantage of decent traffic stemming from my blog profile on the Web.
- Create a firm overview publication with fee listing as part of the package that clients see prior to our initial meetings.
- Market hard to other lawyers I meet here to turn them into referral sources and vice versa.
- Consider a firm merger. I want to play bigger and take on bigger cases and I think great teamwork and synergy might be the answer…any takers?
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[...] Streamline Theme Tubular Theme 5 Finalists: Your Choice of One StudioPress Theme (Worth $59.95) ! Evaluating My Progress Towards 2009 Goals w/ a Look Ahead – soloinchicago.com 07/10/2009 Well a belated happy 4th of July and hope you didn’t get too [...]
Thank you for posting this. It has helped me to focus my goals. One of those goals is to be better about setting goals!
As you look forward in these difficult times don’t forget to glance back at all the progress you have made so far. Best wishes for meeting and exceeding all of your goals, and for being content even if you do not. Give praise where it is due. You can consider that as both business and faith advice.