Leveraging Metrics to Fuel Hyper Growth

Author: Rosanne DeTorres, Esq., DeTorres & DeGeorge Family Law​

​What do I know about hyper growth? Quite a bit, actually.  In the last five years, my law firm experienced hyper growth. From 2015 to 2018, we saw a revenue increase of 125% with profit hovering around 10%. By 2017, we had quadrupled our revenue—without quadrupling client headcount. In fact, in 2016, we serviced 158 clients. In 2017 that number dropped to 125, but our revenue jumped by almost half a million dollars. By 2018 we brought in 142 new clients, representing a 15.5% revenue growth over 2017. We grew the dollar value of our average client by over 60%!

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You don’t experience growth like this without learning some lessons along the way. For us, it was a matter of gathering data and applying metrics to course correct when we needed a change of direction. 
 
Several years ago, were not reaching our ideal client. We thought we were doing everything right: we had a target market, a message we believed resonated with our audience and a valuable service that helped people. Yet, somewhere along the way, there was a disconnect—and we had to get to the bottom of it in order to stay profitable.
 
We needed a better understanding of our ideal client. To do this, we gathered as much demographic data as we could about our existing clients—things like age, gender, occupation, zip code and more. We then formed an advisory board, which was comprised of a sampling of those ideal clients, as well as successful business owners and community leaders, to help us identify why we weren’t reaching more customers. The more we dug, the more metrics we identified—and the more we learned about what we were doing wrong and where profitable opportunities were hiding.
 
Before we knew it, we were headed down a metrics-based path that guided us to the hyper growth we continue to enjoy today.
 
Here’s what those metrics told us:

• We needed to expand into a new geographical market. We learned that 80% of our clients lived within a 15-mile radius of our (then) only physical address in Flemington, NJ. We then looked at US Census Data on the incidence of divorce within that radius. Turns out, while we had a huge market share in that geographical region, we were unlikely to grow it further; the market was saturated. We needed to turn our attention to a more densely populated area—that was Morristown.

 

• We needed to rebrand. With input from the advisory board, we learned that the public viewed us as a local, country firm that lacked the credentials and ability of more urban family law and divorce firms.

 
To combat the false perception, we initiated a number of rebranding initiatives, which included a new website, updated marketing materials and a new visual brand identity that reflected the more upscale image we were trying to convey. We also updated the physical appearance of our offices—both inside and out. With those foundational elements in place, we then targeted our print and digital advertising and social media strategy on clients with higher income.
 

• We needed to get clear on revenue, profit and growth goals. With the rebranding done and a strategy in place to actively attract more of our ideal client, we needed clearly defined metrics to support our organizational objectives. We began to laser focus on revenue, profit and growth goals—as a firm and for each individual attorney and paralegal.

 
For every business, setting goals like this might look different. For us it meant defining what each lawyer and paralegal could and should generate in terms of billable hours. That gave us a projected revenue stream, which helped us determine the budget we had to work with. We then engaged our marketing team to develop a dashboard that now helps us measure ROI on every marketing dollar we spend, our growth and the number of clients coming in.
 
Do you want to experience hyper growth? Of course you do. What business wouldn’t? You can. But it takes some tough love, an honest look at the business and a willingness to use input and data to understand your customer, your market and even your business so that you profitably redirect your efforts.