Is Success Without Strategy Possible? No.

Having a strategy, a real, honest-to-goodness plan of action, is your competitive advantage, writes Samantha Graveney in Success Doesn’t Just Happen. It’s Planned For. All of your competitors are doing it (to varying degrees of success), and all of your clients – in one way or another – are expecting you to get out in front of their evolving legal needs and delivery of service demands. But it isn’t easy:

“Developing a coherent, informed, consensual and realistic plan is hard work; putting and keeping it in action is even harder. There are many opportunities for it to come off the rails or fall by the wayside.”

That’s where Graveney’s post, and her thoughts on the steps to a successful strategy, can help. Read it, and you’ll agree.

Business Developers: Luck Is Not a Good Strategy

Successful business developers have a habit of making themselves lucky, writes Eric Fletcher in 5 Things Rainmakers Do That Put Them In The Right Place At The Right Time, but little of their success actually stems from luck:

“In fact, the epitome of strategic business development and marketing is increasingly about executing a plan that connects with those most likely to buy your product or service.”

Fletcher goes on to lay out five keys to a strategy that eliminates the guesswork and happenstance of business development. Read it, then take his ideas out for a spin. More likely than not, they'll help you unlock new successes.

Your "To-Do" List Is Not A Strategy

"Strategy is an exercise in problem solving," writes Peter Winick in Strategy Is Not the Same as Goal Setting, not the list of things you have to do to get where you're going. Of course you need to define your objectives, identify the tactics that will support your efforts, and execute, execute, execute. But if you're looking for a strategy, you must remember that "activity is [just] activity:"

When a potential client tells me what their current strategy is, what I often hear is a list of activities, a description of various tactics, and a summary of how they are progressing against their goals. My response is typically something along the lines of, “What problems in the marketplace are you and your work uniquely qualified to solve and why do you believe that to be so?”

Read the post. Identify your problems and the strategies that allow you to solve them. Then get to work.

Don't Let Exceptionalism Keep You From Improving Your Revenue Stream

Lawyers tend to get stuck on law practice exceptionalism, "the belief that nearly every aspect of the practice of law is unique and must be considered in isolation from what we see elsewhere," writes Dennis Kennedy in The Productization of Legal Services. And that can keep them from adopting new strategics and techniques that will raise the bottom line. But it doesn't have to be that way:

Consider these examples:

• Ernst & Young creates and publishes a popular (as I write this, in the top 100 among taxation books on Amazon) and affordable ($24.95) annual tax guide for the public.

• Attorney Larry Katzenstein creates and sells a widely used software program called Tiger Tables that computes actuarial factors for tax calculations and planning.

• A prominent technology company sought out a law firm to create a document assembly application for standard agreements that the company would license on an annual subscription basis.

• A law firm produces training videos on legal topics for sale to the public.

• A law firm packages research information updated on an annual basis as a subscription offering.

At the heart of each example is adapting a service or set of services traditionally done by time-based billing for a single or limited number of clients into an “information product” that can be licensed or sold to a much larger audience than the client base. The result is a new revenue stream that can be added on to the traditional services model. In other professions, this approach is often referred to as “making money while you sleep.”

Kennedy outlines a nine-step process for "productizing" legal services that can help you supplement and even enhance traditional services. Read the post. Try something new.

SWOT's That? You Want To Grow Your Law Firm?

Julian Summerhayes’ “A Good Old Fashioned S.W.O.T. Analysis” on his blog Brand You. Written as a guide for lawyers and firms that are considering branching out into new practice areas, Summerhayes’ post is a useful reminder of the planning and analysis that goes into any successful initiative. Even if that initiative is just business as usual.

Because there’s more to this post than a standard, “good old-fashioned SWOT analysis,” as Summerhayes describes it. The template he’s put together for analyzing practice initiatives is in fact a template for analyzing the firm itself. Yes, you can use it to sort through your firm’s willingness, abilities, and affinities for taking on new expansion efforts. But the questions Summerhayes sets out will guide the analysis you should do (and do often) of the institutional strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that bear on every effort your firm undertakes. Read the post. And have a happy Friday the 13th!

Law Mergers: Is Bigger Better? Or Just Bigger?

Steven Harper’s “Another Day, Another Law Firm Merger” from his blog, The Belly of the Beast. This post is a few months old, but that doesn’t take anything away from Harper’s analysis of the challenges facing large law firms that combine to become, well, larger. And in doing so, he sheds light on some of the myths of success that drive the urge to merge: bigger is better because profits will grow, bigger is better because laterals will find us more attractive, bigger is better because it brings greater value to the partnership. The truth? Bigger may be better, but it’s above all just bigger. And that makes a law firm merger hard to pull off, for a number of reasons (as Harper lays out).

Does this mean firms shouldn’t merge? Harper doesn’t say, at least not in so many words. And why should he when no one would listen to him: firms will keep on merging as long as their leaders and partners keep thinking that bigger is better. But they’d do well to heed one of his lessons as they “take herculean efforts to vindicate” their merger strategy: “beware of that spin-thing.” Come to think of it, that’s a lesson for us all.

Maybe the ability to say "no" is the real silver bullet.

Eric Fletcher's "The Quest For A Silver Bullet" on his eponymous Eric Fletcher Blog. Looking for a silver bullet? Yeah, you and every other cowboy who rode into this crowded legal services marketplace. But the truth is that silver bullets don't exist, for lawyers or anybody else. Success is a function of effort and focus and discipline, not volume and hope and chasing down everything that even remotely looks like an opportunity, whether it sits in your sweet spot or not. And more often than not, success comes from knowing what you cannot do, the work you should not try to land, the opportunities you should not pursue. Fletcher's post reminds us that saying "no" is an important part of strategies that work.

Strategic planning is more than writing a good plan. Much more.

Paramjit Mahli's "Planning Pitfalls for Lawyers and Professionals" on her blog Profiting with Public Relations. We've said it before. Several times in fact. And we'll no doubt say it again. If you don't know where you're going, you'll most likely end up somewhere else. But strategic planning isn't just about the plan, as complex and challenging and comprehensive as it may be. To be successful, you need more than a good road map. Like accountability. And commitment. And leadership, communication, and focused, disciplined execution. Mahli's post will give you useful insight into the pitfalls that derail the best of plans. Read it and take note.

The problem with the evolution is that it never stands still.

Tim Corcoran's "Law Firm Leaders: Moving the Needle" on Corcoran's Business of Law Blog. Want some insight into the competition's strategy? How it's adapting to an evolving profession? How it defines client service, innovation, diversity? What it's doing to address the key issues shaping the profession today and in the future? Here's your chance. Corcoran's post recaps a panel discussion featuring the heads of Miles & Stockbridge, Williams Mullen, and McKenna Long & Aldridge (hosted by the Capital Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association) where these topics, and many more, were on the agenda. But it's more than a mere summary of an interesting and insightful discussion from a group of law firm leaders. It's also a thoughtful commentary on those very same issues, from one of the people leading the innovation charge. Read it. You'll learn something.

Succession planning in your law firm. Crystal ball need not apply.

Tom Grella's "Five Questions to Ask About Your Firm’s Succession Readiness" in the May / June 2011 edition of the ABA's Law Practice Magazine. Is your firm ready for the future? Not the "practicing in the cloud" future or the paperless office future or the Watson advising clients future. The future as in the next generation of leadership, when the current managing partner and practice leaders and office heads have retired, taking the recipe for success with them, leaving new leaders the challenge of practicing law and managing a firm and figuring out how to create value for the partnership. Think you're ready for that future? Shouldn't you be sure before it arrives? Grella's article, along with every other piece in this issue of Law Practice Magazine, is a big step in the right direction.

Think strategic planning's just for the other guys? Think again.

Colin Cameron's "Planning for Success" on the Small Firm Innovation blog. Is strategic planning for every firm? Absolutely, writes Cameron. And it's particularly important for solos and small firms in today's competitive environment. But it doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming. And it doesn't have to be difficult. Just a plan that articulates where you are now, where you want to go, what it's going to take to get there. Cameron's post will help you get started.

What's the management equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot?

Patrick McKenna's "Hurdles to Executing Your Strategic Plan" at Slaw.ca. "Hope is not a strategy," writes McKenna. Neither are good intentions, good ideas, or even good karma. But even when you have a solid strategic plan, one that articulates realistic, measurable objectives and the steps required to achieve them, the real world is going to throw countless unexpected (and unforeseeable) obstacles into your path. So the last thing you should have to worry about are the internal hurdles to executing your plan. McKenna's post outlines the most common of those barriers, and provides valuable advice on how to work through them.

Keeping up with the Joneses just got a little easier.

Altman Weil's "Law Firms in Transition Survey 2011," authored by Thomas Clay and Eric Seeger. Struggling to keep up with the Joneses? You're probably not alone. And thanks to Clay and Seeger, you now know exactly what the Joneses are doing. 240 US law firms with 50 or more lawyers responded to their survey covering a broad range of themes, like economic performance and pricing, use of alternative fee arrangements, partners and partnerships, growth, and law firms in transition. It's a useful report on the state of the profession, on the goals and challenges and objectives of your competitors. And according to Clay and Seeger, it's a positive report, indicating that "confidence [is] high among US law firm leaders in firms of all sizes." Read it, and see for yourself.

Managing a network isn't all fun and games.

Sally Schmidt's "Creating a Game Plan for Your Contacts" in the ABA's May / June 2011 Law Practice Magazine. Don't let the title fool you. Managing a network of clients, referral sources and other influencers isn't a game, it's work. A lot of work. Serious work. Valuable work. Schmidt knows that, and has laid out a practical and comprehensive plan for making sure you don't miss out on opportunities because you aren't following up with the right people. Six steps that will help you go from a stack of business cards to an executed plan of action. Read it, and get to work.

Strategy as it should be.

Bruce MacEwen's "Third in Our Series on Strategy: Bad Strategy" on his blog Adam Smith, Esq. Think you've got strategy? Then you need to read this post, which is easily one of the best pieces on law firm strategy I have read (and I read a lot of 'em). Law firms are notorious for spending time, money, and resources developing strategic plans that do little more than confirm a broad range of unrealistic assumptions, about the market, the firm, the competition, the potential for increased revenue. Not on purpose, mind you. It just happens. Because they fear dissent if everyone doesn't have a voice. Because they think if they want something bad enough it will come true. Because good strategy is hard: it requires making difficult choices, admitting weaknesses, setting unpopular priorities. MacEwen's post can help you break that cycle. If you heed his advice, that is:

"Doing it the hard way-the right way-may be more painful in the short run, but anything else is sure to be far more painful in the long run."

It's a brand new day. Don't you need a brand new strategy?

Joe Altonji's "Thinking about Strategy in a Post-Crisis World" at the Hildebrandt Baker-Robbins blog. Sure, the economy's getting better. But it's not where it was and, says Altonji, probably won't ever get back there again. That means the way you did things in the past is not going to drive your success in the future. So what are you going to do about it?

A good first step: redefine your strategy. Figure out what's important to you, to your partners, to your clients. Develop a plan for making sure you stay relevant. This post will help you get started. But don't read it if you're just looking for answers, for a "one-size-fits-all" strategy that you can tweak to your firm's needs. Because this post only asks the questions. You have to supply the answers. Fortunately, these are the very questions you need to prepare your firm for the brand new day.

One secret of success? A rock-solid foundation.

Joe Evans' "What Every Business Executive Should Know About Creating a Comprehensive and Executable Strategic Plan – Part 1" at the Vistage Buzz Blog. Strategic planning is one of the pillars of starting and maintaining a successful practice. Yet many lawyers give it only lip service (when they're not ignoring it altogether). If you're in that group, this post is for you. Come to think of it, if you're not in that group, the post is for you, too. In it -- and in the nine other posts in the series -- Evans lays out the "components of a comprehensive business strategic plan and ... a checklist for evaluating strategic planning process effectiveness." Sound useful? It is.

Wanna increase profitability? Take my advice.

Colin Cameron's "The Top 5 Things Law Firms Need To Do Now To Increase Profitability" at Cameron's Profits for Partners Blog. This post, like all of the ones Cameron writes, is short, to the point, and full of solid advice. No-nonsense advice. Practical advice. The kind you need when you're thinking about your firm's future and its profitability, its management, its strategy, people, and clients. So take my advice: read this post, and add this blog to your feed. You'll be glad you did.

Setting an objective. And meaning it.

Ernie Svenson's "Little Big Firm" at his blog, Ernie the Attorney. There's a couple of things I like about this post. First and foremost, it's a great how-to for new (and not so new) solos, a comprehensive overview of how one lawyer runs his firm on a budget while still projecting the professionalism, efficiency and proficiency of larger firms. But what sets this post apart from so many others isn't the what and how, it's the why. Svenson is driven by two clear and achievable goals, objectives that guide all aspects of his practice, from service delivery to technology to secretarial assistance. And that's a lesson we should all take to heart.

Don't just prattle on. Make real strategy.

Seth Godin's "All abstract strategy discussions are useless" from Seth Godin's Blog. I've recommended posts on strategy. I've written about strategy myself. But not like this. It will probably take you less than a minute to read this post of 79 words (including title). But it might well change the way you think about what a strategy is. More importantly, it might change the way you think about, and execute, your own.