Does your practice have value?
When building a new business, the last thing you’re probably thinking about is how much you’ll be able to sell it for once you retire. But, maybe you should.
Mark Ellis has just sold his unregulated legal services business, specialising in employment law work, for £61million. And yet, that’s exactly what he aimed to do. He ‘was really clear, from the outset, that he wanted to build something to sell.’
Having previously been involved in an equity partnership at Cheshire law firm Aaron & Partners, Ellis had felt too much pressure to maximise billing which contradicted moral notions of fair fee and value, leading him to start his own business where he could provide great service, grow quickly and become a market leader.
Now, Ellis is the envy of many lawyers, who have been left wondering how they could add value to their own practices or business.
Is there value in regulated law firms?
The suggestion is that you can’t do what Ellis did in a regulated law firm.
While impossible in a regulated partnership law firm, where the business model is outdated and the partners own no real equity, realising value in your practice in a regulated law firm is very much achievable.
In other regulated businesses, like the financial services sector, valued client bases are able to be transferred for capital value, which means they can be sold to new providers once you retire for a capital sum. And, if regulated firms in other sectors can add value to every part of their business model, why can’t legal practices do the same?
“Build a book of recurring business in those areas where you can do so, demonstrate strong renewal rates, successfully cross sell non-fixed fee services to the fixed fee book, build a reputation as thought leaders, invest in state of the art digital marketing, build a strong flow of inbound leads, build a successful sales conversion process – to demonstrate strong new business growth that is not dependant on individual lawyers – invest in great customer relationship and case management software, and focus on quality whilst also measuring cost to serve, cost to acquire and client profitably.”
The Bamboo Platform
The Bamboo platform is a foundation for lawyers to build their practices upon, with the intention of one day selling them. Unlike your standard law firm which retains “ownership” of your clients once you retire, the Bamboo platform enables business owners to realise value in all aspects of your business and reinstates the full value back to you. From setting up your law firm, to running back-office operations to enabling you to find a buyer when you want to retire, Bamboo provides full support to you and your business throughout the lifetime of your brand.
But, that’s not all.
As each law brand on the Bamboo platform runs on the same IT systems and back-office support, it acts as an efficient marketplace for brands to buy and sell their assets. So, if you’re a lawyer who wants to discover the true value of your life’s work, join Bamboo, where you’ll find a platform of likeminded individuals you can trust to continue your hard work and client relationships long after your retirement. So you can sit back, relax and enjoy the fruits of your labour.
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