What Makes A Business Plan Effective

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers What Makes a Business Plan Effective? Have you created a plan for your non-billable time for the second half of 2012? If you haven’t, I want to share some ideas with you. Each lawyer I coach is unique. Their practice, their opportunities, their challenges, their talents and their experiences are unique. So, it is challenging to come up with what makes a business plan effective for a broad array of lawyers. You might begin by making a list of all the potential client development activities you could do during the next six months. Then, determine which activities will give you the greatest potential return for the least time invested. Recently a lawyer I coach sent me his business plan and asked for my review. He had made the list and ranked the activities by the return on his investment of time. I thought it was great. What made it stand out is that it included very specific actions he planned to take, like: I could go on, but I hope you get the idea with just the four actions above. Why is this approach effective? Many of us need a plan that enables us to keep score and check off when we have done specific things. This both motivates us and is a tool to hold us accountable. Does your plan motivate you and provide you with a tool to hold yourself accountable?   I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.