The Secrets of 6x Growth with Marc Whitehead – Part 1
Working five hours a day as an attorney sounds like a fantasy. Increasing your revenue six times as well? Impossible.
The key is in the method, it’s doable, and it won’t cost you any money. Your law firm can achieve greater success by focusing on a niche and being unafraid of attempting new things.
Marc Whitehead is a lawyer with double-board certification who focuses on disability cases. His business has more than 50 employees and is expanding. He spent the first half of his career representing clients in personal injury trials, including those involving slip-and-fall accidents, car accidents, and other similar situations. At roughly the halfway point of his 30-year career, Marc started switching to Social Security disability cases and found he could schedule his days, months, and even vacations rather than being a slave to his trial schedule.
Marc finds disability claims gratifying and chose to shift his practice after being introduced to the concept by a marketing firm. Since first attending the “Double Your Revenue” workshop in 2015, he has grown his practice’s revenue six times and now co-teaches the workshop. Marc also serves as Atticus’s adjunct practice advisor.
One key strategy he uses in growing his business is limiting who he takes on as clients and hiring the right people. An old lawyer once said to Marc the quality of your life depends directly on the quality of the people you let in your front door. He meant the clients you accept and the people you hire. In other words, your business won’t succeed if you try to serve everyone and don’t hire the right people for the job. Determine your niche and concentrate on it.
Some attorneys are ignoring things they should be considering as they contemplate expansion. While it’s old school, Marc mails a printed newsletter to 4,500 attorneys six times a year. Last year, he attempted to reduce it to four times a year and received negative feedback in response to the reduction. His newsletter is popular, so this year, it’s going back to six times a year with some adjustments.
Additionally, he considers his practice’s future development. The only limitation on its growth is what he’s decided in his head. Marc is always open to thinking about where he may find more resources. For instance, his practice doesn’t have to be limited to the building where it’s based. Instead, he could have employees working from home around the country–or the world. It could become a 24/7 shop. The possibilities are endless if you don’t allow limitations to exist in your mind.
Finally, don’t be afraid to hire team members. Perform a cost-benefit analysis. Marc determined how long a case typically took him to work on and how long a paralegal usually worked on one. Adding more attorneys and staff started to make sense as he calculated the cost of a paralegal, together with benefits and overhead, compared to his price and value.
If you want to learn more about the secrets of 6x growth, check out https://atticusadvantage.com/episode012
Steve Riley
Certified Practice Advisor & Attorney
Steve Riley has coached attorneys for more than 20 years. His one-on-one coaching focuses on a limited number of top producing attorneys committed to taking their practices to new levels of excellence, profit, and personal success. He also presents at group coaching workshops around the country for individual law firms, state bar associations, and other legal organizations.