By Chris Keller | Executive Coach to Law Firm Owners & Entrepreneurs
If you’ve been working harder than ever this year and still feel like the harvest doesn’t match the effort, this one’s for you.
I want to share something that hit me hard at church this Sunday — and the business lesson buried inside it that I’ve now shared with every coaching client on my calendar this week.
The Sermon That Stopped Me Cold
Our pastor is walking us through a series called “First Things First.” This week’s message was on intentionality, and he painted a picture I haven’t been able to shake.
Imagine a farmer with a handful of seed.
He has two choices.
Option 1: He can walk out into the field and scatter the seed wide. Some lands on rocks. Some falls among thorns. Some gets choked out by weeds. A few seeds find good soil and a handful of flowers bloom — enough to make him feel like he did something. But the harvest? Thin. Random. Unpredictable.
Option 2: He can till one row. Prepare the soil. Pull the weeds. Then plant each seed in a straight, intentional line — meticulously, on purpose. When harvest comes, that row produces a bounty. Every seed had a chance. Every inch of soil did its job.
Same farmer. Same seed. Wildly different harvest.
Which Farmer Are You Right Now?
Be honest with yourself for a second.
Are you the entrepreneur scattering effort across every field?
- A little marketing here, a little hiring there.
- A new lead magnet on Monday, a new pricing model on Wednesday, a new hire on Friday.
- Three priorities by 9 a.m., seven by lunch, and a vague feeling at 6 p.m. that you were “busy” but nothing actually moved.
If that’s you, I’m not throwing stones. That was me — running a personal injury law firm. I know what it looks like when a high-capacity operator confuses motion with progress.
Here’s the hard truth I had to accept, and the one I’ll lovingly press on you now:
Activity isn’t intentionality. And busy isn’t the same as building.
The Quarterly Planning Mistake Most Owners Make
We are weeks away from the end of the quarter. Which means most business owners are about to do exactly what they did last quarter:
- Open a Google Doc or a fresh page in their notebook.
- List 12–15 things they “need to work on” next quarter.
- Try to make progress on all of them.
- Move the needle on three.
- Feel vaguely behind by Week 4.
That’s not planning. That’s scattering seed.
The owners I coach who break through plateaus — the ones who add $500K, $1M, or $3M to their top line in a year — don’t do that. They pick one row and they plant the daylights out of it for 90 days.
The Four Lanes — Pick Only One
When my clients sit down for their quarterly planning session with me, I make them choose just one of four lanes to focus on for the next 90 days:
1. Marketing
Are you ready to plant seed where new clients will actually find you? This lane is for owners whose lead flow is the bottleneck — not enough qualified prospects coming through the door, or the wrong ones showing up.
2. Operations
Is the soil prepared to handle the harvest you’re praying for? This is the lane for owners whose marketing is working but the back end is leaking — slow intake, dropped balls, inconsistent client experience, or a team running on heroics instead of systems.
3. Finance
Do you know your numbers well enough to know what to plant? This lane is for owners flying blind on margins, cash flow, owner pay, or unit economics. You can’t scale what you can’t see.
4. People & HR
Do you have the right hands in the field beside you? This is the lane for owners who are the bottleneck themselves — wrong seats, missing seats, no leadership bench, or a culture that’s quietly bleeding A-players.
One lane. 90 days. Ruthless focus.
That doesn’t mean the other three areas get neglected — it means they get maintained, while one gets transformed.
Why “Just One” Feels Wrong (But Works)
Most high-performing owners I coach push back on this the first time they hear it. “Chris, I can’t just focus on one thing — I’ve got fires in all four lanes.”
I get it. I really do.
But here’s what I’ve watched happen, in my own businesses and in dozens of my clients’:
- When you fix marketing, you suddenly have the cash flow to fix operations.
- When you fix operations, your existing marketing converts dramatically better.
- When you fix finance, you finally know what to pay people to fix HR.
- When you fix people, every other lane runs without you in it.
Pick the right row, and the whole field improves.
Your 20-Minute Quarterly Planning Exercise
Before you do anything else this week, take 20 quiet minutes — no phone, no team, no distractions — and answer this single question on paper:
“If I could only move the needle in one area next quarter — Marketing, Operations, Finance, or People — which one would change everything else?”
Whatever answer comes up first is usually the right one. The lane you’ve been avoiding is almost always the lane that will unlock the rest.
What Happens When You Don’t Plan This Way
I’ll be blunt, because that’s what you’d want from a coach:
If you walk into Q4 the same way you walked into Q3 — with a long list, no clear lane, and a vague hope that hard work will sort it out — you’re going to end the year exactly where most owners do. Tired, frustrated, and convinced you need to work harder next year.
You don’t need to work harder. You need to plant smarter.
Ready to Plant a Real Row Next Quarter?
This is exactly the work I do with my coaching clients every quarter. We sit down together, look honestly at all four lanes, and pick the one row that will change everything else for the next 90 days. Then I hold you accountable to plant it — meticulously, intentionally, every single week.
If you’ve read this far, something in it is resonating. That’s not an accident.
I open a small number of coaching spots each quarter, and I’m currently taking applications for new clients heading into next quarter. If you’re a business owner doing seven figures or more — or you’re on the path and ready to stop scattering seed — let’s have a conversation.
Book a Discovery Call With Chris →
No pitch. No pressure. Just a 30-minute conversation about your business, your bottleneck, and whether one-on-one coaching is the right next step for you.
About the Author: Chris Keller is a former prosecutor turned personal injury law firm owner, legal marketing operator, and executive coach. He’s built and scaled multiple seven- and eight-figure ventures. Through Call Chris Keller, Chris works one-on-one with a select group of law firm owners and entrepreneurs who are ready to stop scattering effort and start building businesses that actually compound. Learn more at callchriskeller.com.
