Developing Your Vision and Goals for 2025 and Beyond (Ep. 96)

What if I told you that 10x growth is easier than 2x?

On this episode, host Darren Wurz dives deep into developing a visionary plan for 2025 and beyond. Let’s break down key insights from Darren’s talk on setting audacious goals, strategic planning, and achieving unparalleled success in your law firm.

Why Aim for 10x?

Thinking big isn’t just a cliché; it’s a strategy. Darren explains that aiming for 10x growth, rather than incremental improvements, forces you to innovate and rethink your processes. Aiming for 10x might feel daunting, but it’s actually more effective because it pushes you beyond your comfort zone and encourages creative problem-solving.

Step 1: Establish Your Big Goal

Set a bold, audacious goal. According to Darren, this is the first and most crucial step. Think beyond doubling your revenue—think 10x. This enormous goal should challenge and excite you, driving you to innovate and discard unproductive methods.

Step 2: Break Down the Goal

Make your big goal manageable by breaking it into smaller targets. This involves setting milestones for three years, one year, and quarterly targets. By doing so, you can see just how achievable your big goal is.

Three to Five-Year Targets:Where do you need to be in 3-5 years to stay on track for your 10x goal?
One-Year Targets:What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to hit by the end of this year?
Quarterly Targets:Break down your one-year targets into quarterly objectives to make them more manageable.

Step 3: Identify Key Actions

Identify strategic moves and actions. Beyond day-to-day tasks, focus on actions that will drive your firm towards your big goal. This could mean investing in new technology, hiring additional staff, or refining your marketing strategy.

Understand Your Target Market: Narrowing down your niche will help you stand out and drive growth. Analyze your current clients and identify the most profitable segments.
Break Down Strategic Moves: Divide your big projects into smaller, quarterly tasks. This makes it easier to track progress and stay focused.

The Power of Quarterly Planning

Studies show that setting quarterly goals improves accountability and completion rates by up to 64%. Darren suggests spending an entire day periodically revisiting and adjusting your goals and KPIs. This proactive approach ensures you stay on track and can adapt to changes in your market or business environment.

Real-Life Success Stories

Darren shares real-life examples of law firms that have benefited from 10x thinking. One client aimed to grow from $4 million to $40 million and found that a detailed market analysis revealed untapped opportunities. Similarly, Darren’s own business doubled its revenue in one year by focusing on innovative strategies and structural changes.

Take Action Now

Don’t just plan—act. Darren challenges listeners to set aside a whole day to map out their goals. Reflect on your progress and think big. If you’re struggling with where to start, Darren offers a free, simple, but powerful one-page business plan to help you.

Upcoming Webinar

Excited about these insights? Join Darren and his colleague Steve Fretson on January 14th for a webinar titled “Unlock Unstoppable Growth in 2025.” This one-hour session will delve deeper into strategic planning for law firm owners. Register now to reserve your spot.

Conclusion

Unlocking 10x growth for your law firm isn’t just a lofty dream—it’s a viable strategy. By setting audacious goals, breaking them down into manageable steps, and identifying key strategic moves, you can transform your business. Aim high, plan meticulously, and take unwavering steps towards your ambitious vision.

Resources:

Transcript:

Darren Wurz [00:00:00]:
What if I told you that 10x growth is easier than 2x? Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire podcast, the show that helps law firm owners transform law firm success into personal freedom. Even if you’re just starting your law practice. Hey, let’s kick off 2025 with a bang. Numerous studies and real life examples show that big thinking leads to big outcomes. And the secret to connecting the two is breaking goals down into achievable steps. And today, we will show you how.

Intro [00:00:37]:
We are on a mission to help lawyers and law firm owners maximize wealth and achieve financial independence. Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire with Darren Wurz from Wurz Financial Services.

Darren Wurz [00:00:51]:
Hey, guys, Darren Wurz here, this. Thank you so much for being here today. We are at an exciting moment in time. It’s the beginning of 2025. And you know, I don’t know about you, but I get super pumped about the beginning of the year because I get to think about all the cool things that I want to do for the coming year. And I sit down, I take a day, I rent a room at the library, of all places. Number one, because it’s free. Number two, because it gets me off site, away from the office.

Darren Wurz [00:01:21]:
I sit down and I plan out the year. And not just the year, the next 10 years. So today we’re going to talk about that. Give you a framework for how you can do some strategic planning as we come into 2025, how you can get ready for the year and just knock the COVID off the ball this year, really set some big goals and achieve them. And I’m going to tell you about my own experience, my own story in setting goals and achieving them. And hopefully that inspires you. So let’s start with establishing your big goal. Number one, that’s the first thing to do, is to establish a big goal for the future.

Darren Wurz [00:02:01]:
And I want you to think big. Okay, what is a big goal? Well, a big goal is huge and inspiring. And when I’m working with clients, you know, I often challenge them to think in terms of 10x. And you know, I was really inspired by the book 10x is easier than 2x. And if you want to look up the book, I’ll put the link in the show notes for you. But you can get the concept of the whole book just from the title. It’s this idea that thinking big is actually easier than thinking small. And it’s revolutionary way of thinking about big goals.

Darren Wurz [00:02:43]:
A 10x goal is a bold, ambitious vision for your business. The reason 10x is great is because it stretches your imagination and your capabilities. So don’t just think about doubling your revenue. Think about 10xing your revenue. Make your big goal, as Jim Collins calls it, your big, hairy, audacious goal. It should be audacious. It should challenge you. It should almost seem like it’s unachievable and unattainable.

Darren Wurz [00:03:16]:
And when you think on that level, there are some really powerful things that happen. 10x is actually easier than 2x, and here’s why. 2x goals rely on incremental thinking. We’re thinking about working harder, we’re thinking about doing more of the same. We’re thinking about how much more we need to pour into marketing to get, you know, this equation right. Pour in more to get this. And don’t get me wrong, doubling your revenue is great, but 10x is even better. And here’s why.

Darren Wurz [00:03:50]:
10x requires you to think in a whole different way realm. It’s no longer about how hard you’re working. It’s no longer about you putting in more hours. It’s no longer about you getting to work earlier and, you know, working later and making more phone calls and doing more workshops. It’s not about you anymore. 10x requires innovation, rethinking your processes and letting go of what’s not working. And I would actually say that thinking in terms of 2x is dangerous. Here’s why.

Darren Wurz [00:04:27]:
Better to aim high and miss than aim low and hit. If you aim for 2x, you’re gonna get one and a half or one, one and a quarter. If you aim for 10x and you only get 5x, well, hip hip hooray, you know, 5x is fantastic. It’s way better than 2. So that’s part of the magic. Aiming for 10. Aim as high as you can because, hey, you’re not going to probably get there. That’s okay.

Darren Wurz [00:04:55]:
But you’ll get so much farther than if you just aimed for 2. And actually thinking in 2x is dangerous because you’re thinking too low. You need to think bigger. And I’ll give you some reasons why. Number one, when you’re thinking about 2x, you, you’re going to get there anyway. Because of the nature of inflation, you could do nothing and get to 2x in the next 10 years. It’s just going to happen because of the nature of economies, because of the nature of business growth. It’s just going to happen.

Darren Wurz [00:05:28]:
You’re on the slow and steady. You’re going to get to 2x. It’s not going to require any extra effort from you. It’s just going to happen. But here’s the dangerous thing about thinking in 2x terms is because it, it actually encourages the status quo. It encourages laziness. And when you stay in a 2x mindset, you’re not stretching yourself. And if you’re not stretching, if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking.

Darren Wurz [00:05:56]:
And the danger is that you will fall behind. And that if you’re not growing, your business is slowly dying. I’m going to give you some examples. One of our clients we worked with this year on creating his business plan. We challenged him to think about 10Xing his business from 4 million to 40 million. And at first he thought we were crazy. That’s too much. I don’t know.

Darren Wurz [00:06:20]:
I don’t think the market can even support that much. Right. Well, we did this early in the year. Later in the year, we revisited this and we broke it down into chunks. And actually one of the, the core quarterly objectives that we had him suggested that he do was to do a market analysis. When he did that market analysis, he realized that his share of the market, currently at 4 million in revenue, was tiny. Not just small, tiny, infinitesimally tiny. And that’s cool.

Darren Wurz [00:06:55]:
And actually some of the people at his firm were discouraged by that. They’re like, oh no, our market share is only 1% or whatever it was. And he was like, no, no, don’t be discouraged, be excited. Because actually there’s so much opportunity. All of a sudden, 10x started to seem reasonable, even doable, even too small. Wow. You know, we actually did this in our own business as well. At the end of 2023, we set a 10x goal for ourselves.

Darren Wurz [00:07:30]:
Well, I set a 10x goal for myself as the business owner to 10x our revenue over the next 5 to 10 years. And you know, something crazy and magical happened. In 2024. We doubled our revenue. We doubled our revenue in one year. Because why? Because thinking in terms of 10x made us think different. It wasn’t so much about me going out and getting new clients. It was about the structures and the system that I needed to build and the team that I needed to build, and the training and resources and tools I needed to invest in to get to that level.

Darren Wurz [00:08:14]:
And guess what? We did it. We 2x our business in one year. You know, 2x over a five year period would be great. We did in one year. And we’re going to do it again this year. We’re going to 2x again this year, baby. Yes, we are. And you can do it too.

Darren Wurz [00:08:30]:
It just requires you to step a little bit higher in your thinking and something magical will happen when you do that. Research actually supports this. There’s a lot of research that shows setting larger, more challenging goals leads to higher performance because it pushes you to think differently and to take bigger risks. Yeah, we took some risks. We took on some debt. Yeah, we took on about $30,000 in debt at the beginning of 2023 because we needed to invest in some things. And it paid off. It paid off huge.

Darren Wurz [00:09:10]:
And you know, sometimes being a business owner requires you to, to take on some risk. And that’s okay. Okay, so I want you to take five minutes today or sometime this week. Right here we are at the beginning of 2025. Actually, I don’t want you to take five minutes. I want you to take a whole day. I want you to set aside a day for this. And part of that day needs to be reflecting on your big goal.

Darren Wurz [00:09:34]:
What would your big goal look like if there were no constraints? Financial time. Otherwise, here’s a starting point. What was your revenue this year? Multiply by 10. I tell you what, our 10x goal that we set last year is starting to look too small. Wow. Imagine that. That’s what happens. You start to realize, wow, there’s so much growth that can happen.

Darren Wurz [00:10:00]:
All right, step one is getting that goal, setting that goal. That’s only the beginning part. Step two, I want you to break that goal down. This is where the magic happens because you start to see just how achievable this is. Break your big goal down into three years, one year, and quarterly targets. This is going to make it manageable for you. You’re going to set targets, it’s going to be less overwhelming. And you’re going to see just how easy and simple this is.

Darren Wurz [00:10:30]:
Start with your three year targets. Okay? You set a 10x revenue goal. Let’s say your 10x revenue goal is $10 million. Okay? So where do your, does your business need to be three years from now? Let’s say that’s your five year target. Or it could be 10 years. Let’s say it’s your 10 year target now. It could be three years or five years. You know, either one.

Darren Wurz [00:10:51]:
Take your pick. Three, four, five, whatever. Maybe it’s five. Okay, well, your five year targets, what must be true in five years to make sure you’re on track for that 10x goal? If your 10x goal is 10 million, let’s say five years from now, you need to be at 5 million. Okay? But also set profit marks too. Where does your profit need to be? Where does your revenue need to be? Where does your profit need to be? Okay, what do your expenses need to be? And then those are, those are KPIs, by the way. Those are key performance indicators. Revenue is the easiest, simplest, biggest and most important key performance indicator.

Darren Wurz [00:11:27]:
You can have millions of key performance indicators. Start with a few. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Revenue is already something you’re tracking, I hope, and it’s a KPI right there. Boom. Revenue and profit. Profit takes a little more work because you have to be up to date on your accounting, which you should be, but also profit. There, you’re two KPIs.

Darren Wurz [00:11:49]:
All right, now, now break it down further into metrics. They’re going to get you there. So if we need $5 million in revenue, how many new clients do we need to have? If we have recurring clients, how many total clients do we need to have? Break it down into the KPIs that are going to support that revenue goal. What does our revenue per client need to be? What does our average case value need to be? How many new leads do we need to have? What does our conversion rate need to be? And break it down. $10 million. Okay, let’s say our current revenue per client is $5,000. Okay, so how, let’s say we want to improve that to maybe $10,000. We want $10,000 clients.

Darren Wurz [00:12:33]:
Okay, how many $10,000 a year clients do we need to have to have a $10 million business? Well, if we’re doing, let’s say we’re doing five years, $5 million business, how many do we need to have? Do that math. Right, okay, if we need X number of clients, how many leads do we need to have coming in and what is the conversion rate need to be? Very simple. Right? And you have a few KPIs that you’re going to track. And then you start breaking it down further. Okay? Right. So you break it down even further from that. So now once you’re at your three or your five year targets, now set your one year target. If my five year goal is five million, what’s my, what are my one year targets? Where do I want to be at the end of this year? Let’s say right now I’m at 2 million.

Darren Wurz [00:13:21]:
Okay? So the end of next year I want to be at two and a half to be on track for my five million dollar target. On my five, you know, five year horizon, I want to be at two and a half. And then what are all the KPIs? What do all the KPIs need to look like average case value, number of new clients, number of new leads, conversion rate, etc. Okay, just start breaking it down. So, and then once you have your one year target set, now we can set targets for the quarter. Okay. And we can see where we are now in terms of all these different targets. It’s hard to do this without like a whiteboard and showing it to you, but hopefully you’re visualizing this.

Darren Wurz [00:14:07]:
You have a list of KPIs for the five year. Okay, these are our five year goals. But now let’s say, okay, look at where we are now. Okay, what does it need to be at the end of this year? How many leads do we need to have per week or per month? What does our conversion rate need to be? What is the average value per case that’s coming in or revenue per client need to be this year? And then bring it into the quarter. Okay, for this quarter, let’s say I want to do two and a half million this year. So take that and divide it by four. And maybe it’s a little bit less because you’re kind, you know, kind of hockey, sticking right into that year end target. But you know, think about seasonality as well.

Darren Wurz [00:14:46]:
Is there a particular time of the year where revenue is higher for you? But let’s say two and a half million, divide that by four quarters. Okay, 625. I need to be at 625,000 in revenue for this quarter. Quarter. Maybe we, Maybe we say 600, 000 this quarter. We’ll give ourselves some room to grow throughout the year. Okay, so if I have that, if that needs to be my revenue this quarter, break it down. How many new clients do I need to get? How many new leads? What’s the conversion rate? Right, and any other KPIs, what are the KPIs that are going to support that? In order for me to make $625,000 this quarter, what KPIs need to be in place? What KPIs are going to support that website traffic, right? I don’t know.

Darren Wurz [00:15:33]:
It’s going to be different for every law practice. But you need to think for your type of client. What are the metrics that are going to achieve that revenue target for you? Now we know what you need to be doing. Okay, gosh, I need to bring in 100 clients this quarter. Okay, so how many per month? Okay, how many per week? Okay, now let’s start tracking it weekly. How many clients do we get this week? Do we get the number of clients we need to get? If not, why not? What do we need to adjust? What do we need to do differently so then you can start tracking these things. You really want to track all of your KPIs on a weekly basis to really be effective, effective in moving, you know, moving things forward, keeping the train on the tracks. Let me give you an example.

Darren Wurz [00:16:26]:
Let’s go back to our client. We’re working on his $40 million big goal. We broke that down to $20 million in five years. 10 million in three years, 5 million next year. Currently he’s at 4 million. All of a sudden it starts to seem very reasonable because he had a fantastic Q4 and he’s going to hit 5 million next year no matter what. And it’s like, wow, in the market. There’s so much opportunity in the market.

Darren Wurz [00:16:51]:
All of a sudden it starts to seem very reasonable. How we could get there in 10 years to 40 million. You know, we tend to underestimate growth potential as human beings. But here’s the truth. Small incremental changes can lead to huge results. Setting goals and measuring progress is what keeps you on track. Studies show that quarterly goal setting, and you want to revisit these goals quarterly. You want to check your KPIs weekly, you want to adjust your quarterly targets every quarter.

Darren Wurz [00:17:25]:
And once a year, you want to adjust everything your one year targets, your three to five year targets, and revisit your big goal. Does that need to change? Studies show that quarterly goal setting improves accountability and, and completion by up to 64%. So that’s what you’re gonna do in your planning session this week. At the beginning of the year, this one day, I want you to set aside a whole day for yourself. Take your big goal, Break it down. Okay, 10 years. It’s huge. It’s insurmountable, it’s big.

Darren Wurz [00:17:57]:
It’s hard to think about. Okay, break it down. Three years, one year, quarterly. You can do this. You can do this. All right, okay, so now let’s talk about the actions. So that’s the measurements. Now third, you have your big goal.

Darren Wurz [00:18:17]:
You know how you’re going to measure your progress. Three, you need to clearly identify the marketing stuff that you’re going to do, the key strategic moves, the things that you’re going to change and work on above and beyond the day to day stuff, the law cases, the whatever, the work, the billable work, whatever you’re doing, the day to day operations, the stuff you’re going to do to move the organization forward. Start with your target market. Get really clear on your target market. A clear target market allows you to tailor your services, marketing and operations to maximize impact and profit. How do you define your target market? Look at your client base. Look at your client list. Where are the most profitable clients? Commanding a niche and we’ve talked about this before on previous episodes.

Darren Wurz [00:19:12]:
Biggest drivers of value. Commanding a niche is one of the strongest and biggest drivers of value and profit. It is also one of the biggest contributors to creating a sustainable business is commanding a niche because you won’t wash out. You won’t wash out. In the, in the huge sea of law firms, you will stand out. Well, I like that. I’m going to copyright that. Don’t wash out, stand out.

Darren Wurz [00:19:38]:
Narrow your niche to stand out in a crowded marketplace and you will unlock exponential growth potential. Analyze who are your most profitable clients. Go after more of those. Don’t be afraid to narrow it down. The world is wide. The opportunities are out there. You’re thinking too big. You’re thinking too wide.

Darren Wurz [00:20:02]:
You need to narrow it down. Okay, as you’re thinking about your big goal, you’re thinking about things you need to do. You want to identify your key strategic moves. Let’s start with three to five years. What are the big things that you are going to do? Invest in change that are going to bring you closer to your bigger goal? Is it starting a whole new service? Is it starting a new pricing model? Is it building a team? Is it investing in technology? What does it look like? What are the big moves? As I was setting my big goals last year, one of the big things I realized is I needed to invest in sales training. I needed to invest in a new website. I needed to hire some team members, right? I needed to create some new service models, some new profit drivers. So think about those big things.

Darren Wurz [00:20:58]:
What are the big things? What does it look like in three to five years? If we’re going to get to that, you know, that three to five year target, what are the things we need to have in place? We need to have a whole new intake team, right? We need to, we need to get some sales training for our attorneys or we need to delegate billing, have a new billing department. Where are the inefficiencies? What are the things that are going to allow you to grow and scale and how do you get there? And they might not be sexy either. It might be something like developing a new process or documenting your policies and procedures. It might be something like that. That sounds really boring, but those kinds of things are going to Set you up for major success, because that’s the foundation that’s going to allow you to scale. So you have these big, huge goals you need to work on. Maybe you need a whole new practice management software or you need to build out HubSpot so you can really be more effective. You don’t know the first thing about HubSpot.

Darren Wurz [00:22:05]:
Okay? Break it down into quarterly rocks, sometimes called bricks. These are the key objectives that you’re going to commit to each 90 days. You’re going to work in 90 day sprints. So if you need to implement a whole new case management software, step number one, investigate different case management softwares. Okay? That’s one small thing you can do this quarter. Okay. Then next quarter we’re going to pick one. Then the quarter after that, we’re going to hire somebody or pay somebody to set it up for us.

Darren Wurz [00:22:41]:
And then the quarter after that, we’re going to train everybody and get it implemented. And then the quarter after that, we’re going to optimize it. Right? So you break it down into small, achievable chunks. Look, you’ve got a lot on your plate. You don’t need to overwhelm yourself. If you’re like me, you have business adhd. Every shiny new idea that comes along your path, you want to try it, you want to, you want to do all kinds of new fun and exciting and things. There’s so many ideas that are running through your head.

Darren Wurz [00:23:06]:
Okay, Stay focused, Stay focused. According to the rock, could be hiring a new paralegal, starting a new marketing campaign, a market analysis, comparing case management software. Right. Something very small and manageable. The idea is to take huge, big, complex projects and break them down into small tasks. And you want to focus on the things that are going to have the most significant impact in moving you towards your targets, towards your big goal. Tie those rocks into your KPIs. What are the KPI? What KPIs do we need to improve? Oh, you know, we need to improve the number of leads that are coming through our funnel.

Darren Wurz [00:23:48]:
Okay. What do we need to invest in? It’s going to make that happen, right? Simple. Each rock should align with a specific metric. Increasing revenue, onboarding new clients, reducing case resolution time, getting people through the system faster. Right. All of those things. Focus on the things that are going to move you closer to that big goal. I’ll give you an example.

Darren Wurz [00:24:16]:
One of our clients we’re working with is running a litigation practice, realized that as we were going through this business planning process, looking at target markets, he realized that his greatest potential was not with insurance firms, who always tend to underpay, by the way, but actually with cosmetic companies and energy companies. Ooh, interesting. So we talked about what he would need to do to target those people. Because when he actually looked at his client list, looked at who are the best clients, who are the clients. I want more of who are the most profitable clients? These clients. So let’s build a marketing campaign around those people. Not insurance firms. Insurance firms will be there.

Darren Wurz [00:25:01]:
They’ll always be there. There’ll always be some insurance litigation work. But let’s focus on these other companies and let’s build a strategy around that. That was a really huge aha moment for that client. Okay, so this is going to be part of that day of planning. Spend some time really analyzing your client list, targeting, you know, narrowing down your market and brainstorming on those three to five, three to five strategic moves over the next three to five years that are going to get you to that big goal. And then break those down into quarterly rocks that are achievable, that are attainable, and those are not all on you. Assign those to your team members.

Darren Wurz [00:25:49]:
Give each team member a rock that they’re responsible for doing this quarter. Okay, all right, so there you have it. Get your big goal. Establish that big goal. Dream big. Aim high. Aim for 10x. Break it down into actionable milestones.

Darren Wurz [00:26:06]:
And you know, I get so much pushback on 10x. Well, 10 10x wouldn’t work for my business because blah, blah, blah. Yes, it will. You’re not thinking creatively enough. It can. All right, and then break it down into milestones that three years, one year, quarterly. And then think about marketing. Define your target market very clearly.

Darren Wurz [00:26:26]:
Map out those strategic moves. What are the very what. And then break those down into smaller tasks, your quarterly rocks that you can achieve this quarter without getting overwhelmed. Here’s my challenge for you. Set aside a whole day to do this. Don’t neglect it if it has to be on a Saturday. Okay, great, whatever. But set aside some time to sit down and work on this.

Darren Wurz [00:26:56]:
It will change your business and it will change your life. If this episode inspired you, take the first step. Schedule your intro call with me and I will walk you through our free, simple but powerful one page business plan so you can figure out how to 10x your law firm. Also, we’ve got an exciting thing coming up. On January 14th. My good friend and colleague Steve Fretson and I are doing a webinar on strategic planning for ambitious entrepreneurial law firm owners like you. We’re calling it Unlock unstoppable growth in 2025. You don’t want to miss it.

Darren Wurz [00:27:41]:
We’re going to give away all the secrets. Okay, it’s one hour, January 14th. Check the show notes for the link to register and let’s turn your vision into your reality this year. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Lawyer Millionaire podcast today. I’m your host Darren Wirtz, here to help you expand your business, grow your wealth, and take your business to the next level. Remember, success starts with a vision, a clear plan, and breaking it down into small steps. See you next time.

Outro [00:28:24]:
Thank you for listening to the Lawyer Millionaire. Click the Follow button below to be notified when new episodes become available. This content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. This content is not intended to represent investing or tax advice. Always seek the advice of a qualified investment or tax advisor with any questions you may have regarding your own financial circumstances.