3 Reasons Why You Should Consider Adding Start-Ups And Small Businesses To Your Practice
Expand your practice by serving start-ups and small businesses.
Serving startups and newer or established small businesses can become a profit center for your practice, especially if you can handle their routine legal matters efficiently. Although there are nuanced differences among startups, new and established small businesses when it comes to marketing to them, for the purpose of this article, we’ll look at them together, from a 3,000-foot view.
Here are three reasons why you should consider adding them to your practice:
#1. Comprise a substantial market
According to the Small Business Administration, in 2014 (the most recent SBA data available), small businesses comprised 99.9 percent of all firms. That means approximately 47.8 percent—roughly 58 million out of 121 million–of all private sector employees are employed by small businesses. Small businesses contributed to 41.1 percent of the private sector payroll.
So the chances are good that some of your current clients are employed by small businesses. They may even be willing to give you a referral to the owner of that company.
#2. Exist throughout the US
Surprisingly, the Bay Area and New York City were not the metropolitan areas with the greatest rate of start-up formation in 2017. Rather, they are all over the map—literally.
According to its 2017 Kauffman Index of Startup Activity, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation reported that the top five metropolitan areas with the greatest startup activity were: Miami, Austin, Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas. The three cities that experienced the greatest increase in startup activity in 2017 as compared to 2016 were: St. Louis, Cleveland and San Antonio.
The states with the highest level of startup activity in 2017 included Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming. In terms of year-over-year increase in startup activity, the leading states included Connecticut, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington.
Even if your state or city is not listed here, it’s likely your area, too, presents a substantial and largely untapped opportunity for you to supply their legal needs.
#3. Are underserved
Given the financial constraints of many startups and small businesses, the proliferation of DIY legal online services and the propensity—especially among millennials—for such services, startups and small businesses are an underserved market.
To profitably serve that market, however, requires you to establish efficiencies in your practice such as: templates for standard documents and clauses, having access to the latest legal updates and setting up replicable systems.
Ready to get started?
You can set-up a startup or small business knowledge center on your own—or you can rely upon one that’s already been done for you by the trusted source for legal answers, Practical Law. Go here to learn more about Practical Law.
