Are you sick of being too busy to have an annual planning day?
Today I received a call from a partner in a very good firm. During our conversation, the partner commented that “we have been too busy to have our annual planning strategy day”.
What does it really mean if you are too busy to hold your annual planning day?
I happen to think that it means that you are more focused on making yourself busy and billing more hours. This leads to more stress and less profit…
Some other common frustrations and effects of being busy include…
- your average hourly rate recoverable is lowered
- it becomes impossible to achieve true leverage
- it causes scope creep and write offs
- it results in fewer profits
- your team members become more frustrated
- plus, it increases your frustration with the team
- it leads to inconsistent use of templates & forms
- it means you must re-invent the wheel each time a new value add service is pitched, sold and delivered
- and, it makes your best people busier
In short, if you are not spending time planning and implementing then nothing changes.
A high performing firm knows that to offer value add services they need to build a delivery model. This requires time and effort to create a vision, get a plan in place and ensure implementation is on track.
The thing is that making time for this has multiple positive effects.
- More profit
- Better outcomes for clients
- More enjoyable work
- Committed people who take ownership
- and less stress for you
To read more about the benefits of a more strategic approach to running your firm, take a look at TA47 ‘Make Your Partnership Great’. You’ll see a side-by-side comparison of average (or below) partnerships with their best performing counterparts.
Sometimes it takes more than just scheduling an annual planning day to make it happen. At these times it can be useful to bring in a third party to facilitate the session, kick start the creative ideas and bring the team together around a vision.
I run annual planning days for multiple clients, including multi-partner firms. You can view more about how I work here.
How to be less busy… covered today at 1:30pm AEDT in ‘Practice Growth Webinar’
Jenny Tse and I are running a free 45 minute training session today.
We cover:
- 5 elements your firm needs to grow in today’s climate
- How you can unlock extra fees from your existing client base, right now
- Which services your clients need (and will pay more for) but aren’t telling you about
- How to PRICE your services and structure them for easy revenue growth.