RESPONSE – Don’t dwell on any one matter or even on any whole genus of legal business. Look to the pipeline to deliver a stream of alternative possibilities, some of which may not yet be on your radar screen.
RESULT – You’ll need to start making decisions about which kind of business to go after, and which to let some other law firm chase. That’s a great problem to have.
RESPONSE – Organize and attack. Your lawyers need to learn a basic business development truism: that clients and prospects don’t care about how great the attorneys are. They assume that to be the case or they would not be talking with you. Instead, they care about what those great attorneys can do for them.
RESULT – The effect of such an enhanced client service mentality will not only unearth new prospects, but develop new business from existing clients.
In the next several blogs, I’ll describe problems law firms have brought to us and solutions that worked.
PROBLEM: “Our firm has no pipeline.”
RESPONSE: Manage your speakers, greeters, authors, communicators, trainers, marketers, etc.
RESULT: Properly assigned, with concretely defined roles, the firm’s staff will become a kind of conveyor belt. All of their designated tasks will funnel toward the actual sales moment. The pipeline thereby remains engineered to support the one final moment – the closing – that justifies its existence in the first place
In order to raise and refine individual, practice group and office business development successes we:
1. Design straight-forward business development pursuit schemes;
2. Execute, follow-up, evaluate, and forecast;
3. Offer unmatched training, counseling and mentoring for all;
4. Target and pursue new business opportunities;
5. Launch, organize and schedule meetings with current and prospective clients;
6. Extend strategic relationships;
7. Enable strong links with the firm’s marketing and communications staff;
8. FOCUS ON CLOSING;
9. Build a long-term pipeline.
In our last column, the first 4 questions were presented to really understand your firm’s business development future. Here are the other 6 priorities.
5. Is your firm conducting “tactical” business development training sessions?
6. Do you provide a format for building a long term pipeline of leads and opportunities?
7. Have you maximized the impact of proposals and pitches?
8. Does your firm leadership complete a success/rejection analysis of past pitches and proposals?
9. Are you actively measuring and reporting results?
10. Is your firm closing new business at the needed rate?
Our rapid Strategic Business Plan service continues to be available. Schedule a call.
To really understand your firm’s business development potential, you need to ask a series of questions we offer based on the 7 key accelerator segments,
* Opportunities
* Communication
* Objections
* The “ASK”
* The “CLOSE”
* Results
* Pipeline.
The first 4 firm-wide Business Development questions are:
1. Are you making decisions on underperforming activities and investments?
2. Are your attorneys multiplying the use of single marketing tools to leverage wider exposure and response generation?
3. Is your firm expanding the number of attorneys actively selling/
4. Do you establish completion timelines with specific assignments to attorneys and/or staff professionals?
We’ll post the remaining questions on tomorrow’s blog. Collect them, answer them and send to us on a confidential basis. We’ll provide a complimentary assessment of your business development strategic plan options.
You now know the 5 questions to ask in order to improve your Elevator Pitch. Now you have to use it! Here are some “platforms” that may not have occurred to you. Give it :
1. To another parent on the playground or at the dog park;
2. At a charitable or business dinner where others at your table are business professionals;
3. At the first meeting with a new client;
4. To the person sitting next to you on an airplane;
5. In the courtroom hallway;
6. At the car wash;
7. At your church or temple;
8. At the supermarket;
9. Any time you have about 60 seconds to speak to another person.
Once you get the hang of it and achieve a comfort level talking to people you meet daily, you will find more opportunities to deliver your pitch. AND, don’t forget to provide an opportunity for people you meet to deliver their own elevator speeches.
www.allancolman.com
If only the President had loosened relations with Cuba sooner, many of you would be buying Cuban Cigars for holiday gifts for your top clients. Perhaps we should celebrate FESTIVUS, the new holiday established by Kramer in the Seinfeld show and make this the key celebration?
In any event, a very happy Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, and Chinese New Year to you all.
Is your firm really ready to grow new business next year? All too often we find firms where their lawyers are ready to go but the firm’s support structure inhibits growth. Our new BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT RAPID ASSESSMENT provides an overview for a firm, practice area or office of:
* What is currently effective?
* What is not utilized?
* How to enhance impact?
Within 2 weeks of your completing 15 confidential questions, our Group will provide a strategic analysis focusing on maximizing your firm’s current Marketing and Business Development:
* Structure;
* Assets;
* Underperforming assets;
* Underutilized opportunities;
* Business Growth enhancements.
A confidential written Assessment will be returned to you within 2 weeks and includes a conference call or in-person meeting. Following that discussion, we will provide a timeline with specific tactics to build new business, grow prospects and begin establishing a long-term pipeline.
For a minimal fee, your firm, practice area or office will have a STRATEGIC BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ACTION PLAN for 2015.
Click on the “contact us” button on this website, or send to acolman@closersgroup.com.
Find a “formula” that works for you. Getting “face-to-face” requires applying and refining that formula. And once you are there, and NOT on your email, the number of new case files will rise!