In this video, Linda Artesani of Artesani Accounting and The Proper Trust explains why law firm owners and partners should create clear vision and mission statements and how these tools drive strategic planning, financial goals, and team alignment. She walks viewers through the process of clarifying short‑ and long‑term revenue targets, aligning personal aspirations with business objectives, and involving the entire staff in achieving measurable client‑experience milestones. Artesani emphasizes the need for hyper‑focused, written statements, citing James Clear’s Atomic Habits as a framework for building consistent habits that support growth. She also offers practical advice on structuring meetings, hiring with purpose, and mapping out step‑by‑step actions—from a three‑month pilot to five‑year horizons—to ensure the firm’s trajectory is clear, client‑centric, and financially sustainable.
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Hi there, Linda Artesani, Artesani Accounting and The Proper Trust. Today we're going to talk a little bit about vision and mission statements if you run your own law firm or you're a partner in a law firm and why this is an important step. Now I have to admit that I also had this opinion of like, oh, I gotta write a mission statement. I actually went on a workshop. I was in a woman's private mentoring group, and they made us write a mission statement. And I thought to myself, you know, I don't really want to do this. It's too woo-woo. It's too not me. But actually, there's a really good reason why you want to create a mission statement for your— or a vision statement for your business, if that helps you to kind of figure out your financial strategy. The more I delve into coaching and really working at an advisory level with our clients, I realized the importance of this, because if you don't see the big picture and know where you're going to, or at least add some goals along the way and make them super clear, hyper-focused, then it's really difficult to even strategize your future and really plan your records and where you want to go and how you can make your business move in the direction that you're seeking. So I think the first thing you need to do is to clarify what your goals are. And sometimes it's hard to even start this process because it's like, where do I start? You get a blank line pad and a pen, and you're looking at it going, oh, I wanna be, I wanna be the best accountant for attorneys and law firms. Yeah, it's kind of a broad statement for me. How do I obtain that? What does the best mean? or the best in the United States, or the best in Florida, or whatever my goal is. You really need to clarify exactly what you want to do and where you're going and how you're gonna get there. And I think saying you're the best is not really good enough. You really wanna have a couple of revenue goals in mind, and you wanna look long-term and short-term. You don't want to think 10 years down the road without thinking of the stepping stones along the way. You really wanna really want to strategize and figure out that pathway. Hyperfocus, creating that mission statement and vision statement is clearly where you want to start to look for the firm's trajectory. It's going to give you that laser sharp, laser sharp focus and really give you some powerful tools behind where you're going to go and how you're going to get there. And you can even start with personal goals. There's no reason why you can't line up personal goals first and then align them with your business goals. I think that's a great way to move towards it. And then also involve your team. Once you've created that vision for the firm, it's not a bad idea to get the team involved. Give them some goals. Give them some things to achieve. We all like to achieve milestones. If you can give them, we've got this sales goal we're trying to get to, or we've got this happy client goal and start to do client satisfaction. We always talk about client experience. Client experience at the firm is really important. You get really great, really great results from that. You get referrals. So expanding your business with a great client experience is paramount at a law firm. Most attorneys, if you ask them how they get their business, they will say hands down referrals. So thinking of it in that way, I recently read a book by James Clear called Atomic Habits, and I truly recommend you watch this, read this book, or listen to it. I listened to it on my audiobook, but it's fascinating how he breaks it down, and I think it really will help you in if you're trying to do this step, how you can get to the point where you want to get to with your law firm. Start with the why. If you're in a space where you feel like your business is spinning out of control and you're just, you're growing, but you're growing, you don't really know what direction everything's going in. Or maybe you're in a place where you're stuck and you're not really growing, and you can't figure out why. I think if you think about what you're going to do next and where your business is changing or not changing, those are the places to kind of start to figure out where your practice aligns. So ultimately it's focus. Ultimately, it's really writing it down. I really recommend writing it down. It's a lot more better for you to write it down. It's very cathartic to write it down. But Figure out your focus. You know, when you have a great focus, you're gonna be able to make better hires in your firm, because now you know exactly who you're looking to hire, because you know where you're going. Maybe you'll have better focus in your meetings, and I've been guilty of this. Sometimes our meetings are 40 minutes long, and they end up being 2 hours long, because there's no focus, no drive, no structure to them. We want structure around your meetings, and if you don't know the goal of the meeting, then how do you really drive it? So you wanna make sure you have those goals in place, even if it's a mini outline, even if it's a sticky note on your computer, at least you can drive the meeting the right way. What are you trying to accomplish? Where are you trying to, to achieve? What are you trying to achieve? These are questions that you can write on this lined pad to ask yourself when you're trying to define your mission statement. And so those are the ultimate focus methods. And then, if you don't know your purpose, it's really hard to track it. So you wanna know what's your purpose? Where are you going? What are you doing? You can really get down to the nitty-gritty here, but try not to go too broad or too detailed, because then you can get lost in the noise. So make sure that you're super clear. It doesn't have to be one line, though. I know when I first started doing this work, People told me one line, just make it one line. I really struggled with that. I think you can make it more than one line, but make it, make it really clear and focused. So hyperfocus again, I keep saying hyperfocus, but hyperfocus on it. Don't get— as women, sometimes we get a little detailed in the words, and men too sometimes. But you want to really connect to what you're— where you're driving to. You want to write a definitive vision and mission statement. You don't want it vague, but you want it to be firmly written that you know exactly where you're going. Maybe for you, your vision is short-term and you wanna just look at a 3-month goal. Maybe you wanna look at a 5-year goal. You can start with the 3-month and work your way up to the 5-year or 10-year goal, but start somewhere to put it down in pen and paper. And then you could use client experience because that's one we can all use. And your mission statement can be just as simple as making an excellent client experience that's— that really sets up their client expectations. So think of it from the mindset of the client. What does the client want when they come into the law firm? And then maybe you can work your methods around that to improve client satisfaction and include all the team members that actually have touchpoints with the client all the way. Maybe along the way, maybe sometimes it's the receptionist. How can you improve that client experience right up to the paralegals, the attorney, the exiting or the offboarding person that takes care of buttoning up the matter or the case, seeing right into the, even to the accounting team, where can we improve in this workflow with your staff in office, your outsourced team? How can you collectively make this experience better? So outsourced team, the accounting team could be just managing the accounting and making sure that the client is receiving statements, making sure you're super clear on what you're gonna charge, what the fees are going to be. These are all steps that you can outline. And if you consider the fantastic client experience, just on paper, write down when will I know I'll hit success when dot dot dot, and then fill in that blank. If you consider the whole picture, maybe look at it from a client revenue standpoint, so client experience can so easily tie into client revenue.
