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What Else Did Those 34 Attorneys Say About Business Development?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Attorney Marketing, Business Development, Law Firm Marketing, Marketing for Law Firms, Marketing Partners.

What Else Did Those 34 Attorneys Say About Business Development?

Since so many readers tuned in to the first 5 surprising comments on why they don’t need to develop new business, let’s look at the next 5.

6. Our practice group and office have no business development budget. – Hah!

7. What do we do with our up and coming attorneys, the future of our firm? – Get out of their way!

8. We get everything we need from the marketing department. – And how many new engagements have they brought in for you/

9. I can never get time from the marketing department. – Then go where prospects go, read what prospects read, and get to know who prospects know.

10. Our proposal format is out of date. – So get off your seat and update it.

And the next 5 are real “eye-openers” for management.

Did 34 Attorneys Really Say That About Business Development?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Attorney Marketing, Business Development, Law Firm Marketing, Marketing for Law Firms.

Did 34 Attorneys Really Say That About Business Development?

Approaching the first workshop with a new client is always a challenge. For us, the obstacles we encounter in these first meetings are based on many of these following real quotes from lawyers in our strategic business development groups. Fortunately, the ultimate successes outweigh the initial skepticism.

In this series of posts, how would you respond?

1. “We have no pipeline and no one seems to be concerned.”

2. “Just lost my largest client and I haven’t marketed in years.”

3. “We have great attorneys — clients should be calling us.”

4. “We won a great victory for a client. But it’s been 6 months and she hasn’t called us.”

5. “We always miss the major new litigation.”

Wait until you see the next 5!

Do You Really Know What "Business Development" Means?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Attorney Marketing, Business Development, Law Firm Marketing, Marketing for Law Firms.

This is the first of a 2- part post designed to clarify the differences between “marketing” and “business development.” As the term “business development” finds its way into common discussions, we find it means all things to all people. It has created great confusion as firms look to expand their client bases, grow per-client revenue, cross market more practice areas and take a larger piece of a pie that many in-house legal departments are trying to shrink.

However, with the pressures on our marketing professionals to produce collateral materials, update websites, plan and staff seminars and conferences, provide public relations to and with the media, etc., all to often the MARKETING PLAN (spoken with great reverence) sits on a shelf. If spoken of at all, it is usually at the annual partners meeting.

If an enlightened leadership wants to update the “M” plan, or (perish the thought) develop a real business development strategy, the details, time, cost and staff input is money often misspent. Stratagems abound but too few provide visible, measurable results.

Part II next time will deal with KEEPING THE END IN MIND.

Are You Winning More or Losing More New Business?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Asking for Business, Business Development, Law Firm Marketing, Marketing for Law Firms.

In our work with clients, we find they often do not take the time to evaluate what works and what doesn’t work in their prospecting, pitch and proposal meetings. Take time to consider the following:

1. Is your proposal/presentation materials format fresh and updated?
2. Have you tested different conversion approaches?
3. How carefully, and updated are the actual “talking points” and “pain points” the client is worried about?
4. Do you and your teams practice the meeting pitches prior to and conduct a post mortem after a meeting?
5. Are you sending the right team composition to the prospecting meetings?

Additional questions will follow in our next blog.

Go to our services page at www.closersgroup.com for more details.

What's Going On In Your Firm?

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Attorney Marketing, Business Development, Law Firm Marketing, Marketing Partners, Practice Group Leaders.

During our Strategic Business Development Planning, we ask clients to evaluate questions such as:

1. What is the firm’s own internal perception? What do the attorneys, assistants, paralegals, etc.say to describe the firm to their friends and colleagues?

2. Is there a consistent message about the firm being delivered to the market place? In our experience, the firm’s “brand” is rarely, if every, used by attorneys meeting with prospects. Is there a common sentence describing the firm’s differentiators used for speech introductions, bios with published articles, etc.?

3. Do you understand the differences between marketing, business development and business generation? These skills are all too often combined in a title without understanding the tactical differences and needs.

4. Are your attorneys engaged in cross marketing as well as cross selling? The first is to better educate your colleagues on the value you can bring to their clients. Cross selling is the act of recommending another practice area of your firm to help a client with a problem separate from the one you are working on.

We’ll continue with other questions in our next blog. For more detail, go to www.ownthezonebook.com.

Business Development Best Practices

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Business Development, Law Firm Leadership, Law Firm Marketing, Marketing Partners, Practice Group Leaders.

We urge clients to adapt a special set of best practices when focusing on ways to measure business development success. Some of these might surprise you but are essential to new revenue growth.

1. Designate partner-leaders for each client target. This is not the usual industry focus, or practice area niche. Rather, it means a senior partner must take the lead for each new designated target.

2. Part of the job is to establish timelines for each step leading to a final close of new business. The partner-leader must designate someone to hold each attorney and marketing professional accountable for the actions they are assigned.

3. Provide the environment to encourage greater strategy debates before investing in responses to RFP’s, or even in pursuing new contacts. A “go/no go” decision making session is a must.

4. Constantly review the failed business development efforts in formal post-mortem meetings. This discussion could be part of a “go/no go” debate. And make sure out of these sessions, you codify the steps that do lead to successful new business acquisition.

In our next column, we’ll add 4 more best practices to challenge and energize your efforts.

3 Final Steps to Re-Energize Your Firm's Business Development

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Business Development, Law Firm Leadership, Law Firm Marketing.

While there are many ways to revitalize your firm’s business development efforts, the last several blogs have covered 11 of those that we find are most insightful. Add these final 3 and you will be well on your way to a more productive, value based business development strategy for your firm. It’s what we do best in working with clients. The final 3 are:

12. Make sure you have strong links to future industry and practice group trends.

13. Continue ongoing testing and evaluation of what works what can be improved, and what should be discarded.

14. By this time, you are ready for Phase II = a powerful Strategic Business Development Action Plan.

Re-Energize Your Firm's Business Development — III.

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Business Development, Managing Partners, Marketing for Law Firms, Marketing Partners.

Continuing this series on how we work with clients to identify hidden assets and underutilized skills to grow more business:

9. Analyze existing relationships with clients, past clients, professional associations, industry associations, etc. What is the cost/value/result calculation?

10. Build interactive training and professional development programs for staff, attorneys and professionals. Multiple national studies indicate this is a key ingredient in keeping your team and in attracting laterals.

11. View your revenue levels by assignment, practice area, market trends, etc. Again, what is the cost/value/result calculation?

In the next column, we’ll tie these and a few more internal analysis business growth components together. You will be producing a Strategic Business Development Action Plan.

Re-Energize Your Firm's Business Development — II.

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Business Development, Law Firm Leadership, Law Firm Marketing, Managing Partners, Marketing for Law Firms, Marketing Partners.

This is the second of several blogs, looking inside your firm to identify the hidden assets and underutilized skills to grow more business. Working with you we also view:

5. Social media, advertising, public relations combinations and where to maximize the impact;

6. Proposals (not rfp’s) and how they are prepared and presented to prospects and clients;

7. Following up, or conducting “post mortems” after each meeting, speech, published article, e-alerts, etc. Make sure they are working for you, growing your reputation and profile;

8. In relation to the above 3 elements of review, is your firm’s research capability, assistance and priorities being coordinated with the overall business development targets?

Remember, in working with us, we always start by looking inside. You should too. Next column will cover 4 more components to re-energizing your business development successes.