I signed up to Michelle’s Profitable Practice Programme in April 2020 during the depths of Lockdown I. Having started my firm 11 years ago and grown to 5 fee earners, I was looking to get some help with developing high quality leads outside of my immediate network –I was particularly drawn to the “Attract” element of Michelle’s Attract, Convert and Maximise model for practice growth.
One year on, and having just signed up for another year, I can honestly say that the programme has been invaluable. Not only has it provided the structure, focus and direction which I was looking for, I have also found that talking to other members of the programme so beneficial – it is really good to know that there are lots of lawyers out there who are dealing or have dealt with similar issues and so useful to get their point of view. And the sessions also mean that you are forced to take time out of the business and work on it, not in it.
I’ve also found the resources available through the PPP dashboard very helpful and quickly learned that the trick was not to try to look at everything but just the specific sessions to address the issue I was facing –just in time learning!
Actual tangible outputs that I can directly link to the PPP are:
– Doubling monthly profit from £15k to £30k
– Increasing fee earner rates across the board (by up to 27%)
– Production of a Client Magnet to attract new (ideal) clients
– Marketing of the Client Magnet through Linked-in and mailings
– Confidence to employ an extra fee earner
Michelle’s great gift is that she is able to distil what might be seen as complex issues, break them down into bite sized issues and suggest ways of dealing which are easy to understand and implement. And the key to all this is implementation – if that is a struggle for you then join the club! But the support is there should you need it.
Before joining the plan, I had an annual pre-tax profit of £175k. In the first year of being part of the PPP, this had increased to £265k which despite the impact of COVID and furloughed staff, met my first 12 months’ target. But the real impact and benefit of the Programme is only now really being felt. When I started I had a 3 year vision of generating £700k revenue with £360k pre tax profit. I now fully expect to hit these targets this year – ie at least one year early.