A Business Advisor does for business owners exactly the same thing as a sports coaching does for athletes – help them reach maximum potential.

 

If you have built a successful practice or business then you are unquestionably the expert in your field. What an advisor can do is give you a completely objective view of your business, tap into knowledge gained by working with dozens of businesses and introduce you to a way of thinking about your business that will change your approach to business. In short, an advisor helps clients be more successful than they have been in the past.  

 

To make this more concrete, let’s look at three typical areas of improvement - TIME, TEAM and MONEY. 

 

TIME: An attorney’s profits are tied directly to the number of billable hours. One client conducted a study and discovered a number of “time vampires” – activities that were sucking billable hours out of his week. One example was staff interruptions – where his paralegals would interrupt and ask for his help or signature. Sometimes this would be captured in the billing system but many times it was not. He instituted a program where he closes his door and works for 50 minutes uninterrupted. Then for 10 minutes he leaves his office to answer any questions or sign any papers that needed to be signed, and book any new meetings. This was just one of the many corrective actions we implemented – the sum of which increased his billings by over 10%. 

 

This leads me to TEAM. One client had several key employees who had been with the company for many years but who were not performing as well as expected. At the coach’s suggestion, the owner created an organizational chart of how his company would look when he was semi-retired and wrote a job description for each of the key positions. He reviewed this with these long-term employees and they discussed where they saw themselves in a few years. By mutual agreement one person immediately moved from sales to an operations management role – which better matched his skills and interests. Each team member now has a clear idea of their individual futures with the company and therefore is much more dedicated to making it successful. The side benefit is the owner, who loves to sell, is now free to be on the road selling – knowing that the daily operations are being well managed by a trusted employee.

 

Everyone is concerned with MONEY and Success & Profits Coaching has 21 proven strategies to increase the profit of a company. One client, another attorney, realized that the uncertainty of the total cost caused by hourly billing was an inhibiting factor in his sales process. So he offered a fixed price menu for some of his more standard and predictable services. This increased the number of sales he made immediately. In addition, after the prospect picked a service off the menu, the attorney would ask if they also wanted him to do another related service. Most prospects agreed, thereby increasing the average dollars spent in each transaction. His profit has increased 130% in 10 months.

 

At Success & Profits Advising, we inspire and educate attorneys, professionals and business owners to maximize their success and profits. Let’s look at the sports analogy again. There is no denying that Tom Brady is an immensely talented quarterback. Would his raw talent alone have made him successful? Almost certainly: Yet it was Bill Belichick, his coach, who was able to recognize the full extent of that potential, had the knowledge of how to tap into it and had the skills to enable Tom to realize his potential to the full.

 

It’s exactly the same in business. You are running a profitable practice or business. But the question remains:  What is YOUR true potential and that of YOUR business/practice? That’s what business advising can do for you – it can unlock the potential in you and your business.