Most firms limit themselves to being “deadline-meeters”: they receive a case and provide the required service. But these firms lack direction—a position in the market that can reduce their strategic risk— that is, the uncertainty about what could happen to them in the medium to long term. It’s not important where the firm is, but rather where it is heading. It’s essential to have a clear strategy about where we are going. This is the best guarantee the firm has for the future.

The main strategy in (professional) life is to enhance one’s strengths or virtues and make the potential market not only value them, but prefer them. It is also essential to convert weaknesses that limit our value in the market, into strengths, or to at least minimize them.

All professionals organize themselves, but to what end? To provide good service. When you have a defined strategy or roadmap, you have to organize yourself to get there and to do so efficiently, with the least amount of resources possible. You have to organize yourself for this, not only to provide good service. Again, we are talking about striking a balance between effectiveness and efficiency.

Most firms do not have a roadmap that gives them peace of mind in this sense, or that ensures that their future does not depend on what may happen to their current clients. We must try to govern our own lives with courage if we want to be free.

A roadmap obligates us to think about what we want and what we don’t want —about what our virtues are from the potential market’s point of view and about how we can make a difference. If we complement this with skills training which is consistent with the firm’s strategy, that is, the path we want to follow, then we have the foundation we need for our competent law firm to become also more competitive.

Source: Book Legal Marketing: from a competent law firm to a competitive one. How to achieve it