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We have identified Grapes of Wrath complaints about marketers from in-house counsel,” We were outnumbered and out-talked.” Pick which ever grape fits your business development style:
* Sending too many people to a meeting;
* Offering to handle what we already have;
* Not being prepared for the meeting;
* Lack of business etiquette, i.e. taking calls
* At a meeting, talking among yourselves, not the client/prospect.
Remember what Jeff Bezos of Amazon says, “Your brand is what stays in the room after you leave the room!”
How often have you heard this excuse for not marketing, “If I made 3 calls a day, I’d run out of people to call in 2 weeks?” Too many lawyers spend so much of their time working for one client that they spend almost no time building client succession planning, moving suspects to prospects and prospects to clients.
Firm leaders need to focus on ensuring that closing skills and marketing begin with the first contact and involve following up, building relationships, understanding a prospects business, brainstorming and offering ideas.
View this as a firm underutilized asset and get them going.
This is the most agonizing excuse for not marketing, “I failed once; why try again?” Stop the agony and join post-mortem firm reviews on proposals that failed. Take advantage of your firm’s business development training and other professional development programs such as client retention and client management. And learn the value of slugging away.
The second excuse for not marketing that we have heard from some lawyers is, “My partner does all the selling. I deliver the work”! It is clearly the responsibility of client relationship leaders to ensure that all attorneys build relationships with their peers at clients’ and in professional organizations.
The 2nd piece of the business development puzzle is “teach advanced tactics and process strategy, not theory. According to Chet Holmes in his Business Breakthroughs program, closing is one of the last steps to winning new business. As a marketing consultant, we find that in order to be successful in business development, there are several tactical steps that need to be taken. Understanding and using the steps to closing we include in OWN THE ZONE,are critical to winning new business.
Reminder, if you submit 5 of the 9 puzzle topics correctly, before December 1st, we will make a donation to the Children’s Cancer Research Fund in your name.
All strategies demand tactics, not broad theories. And if closing is a fine art, then the needs include marketing resources and sales (yes “sales”) maneuvers. to learn more about the Steps to Closing, go to our contact page.
What does work in the business development closing zone is a followup to our last 2 columns, what does not work in business development. We have taken a collection of quotes from successful business development professionals on what does work in the “closing zone.”
1. Major effort to communicate from the very beginning of an engagement.
2. Handle complaints quickly.
3. Refer business to your clients; or introduce clients to each other; or cross sell clients.
4. Make sure you obtain contact information for whoever attends your presentations.
5. Mine your children’s activities.
6. Set periodic review meetings re: budgets, billing, timeliness of engagement process; etc.
In a following column, we will illustrate more observations on what does work in the business development closing zone.
We are available for a complimentary 30 minute consultation on accelerating your business development successes.
– acolman@closersgroup.com
In our workshops and seminars, we are often asked “Do you know what does not work in business development?’ Collecting quotes from successful marketing and business development professionals, found on Pages 112-113 in OWN THE ZONE include:
1. Offer to handle and manage what they already have the skills to do;
2. Relying on good results but not building the relationship;
3. Offensive or off-color humorous comment;
4. Buying a table but not showing up;
5. Sending too many people to a meeting;
6. At a meeting, talking to themselves and not with the prospect or client.
More to follow in our next column.
As legal services competition intensifies, and client budgets fight to stay stable, doesn’t it make sense to look within your organization and build on what you have? The cost is low and the effort can make your law firm marketing far more effective. In our Raid Assessment work with clients, these are among the first tactics we use to strengthen business development efforts.
Preparing for the Closing Zone
(Source, OWN THE ZONE)
When you are fighting for new client engagements in the Closing Zone, it is important to recognize that you are participating in a form of sophisticated combat (i.e.see previous post). Draw on your training and strengths and you’ll be prepared to engage and win new business.
We are often asked “how do you meet marketing challenges?” Or a client asks about the likelihood of success for various sales (yes sales) approaches. The simplest answer is WORK WORK WORK. But rather than offer a definitive answer, Frank and I often draw on Jay Abraham’s (Getting Everything You Can From Everything You Know responses to hypotheticals:
* Will everything work out as well as we expect it to? Hardly.
* Will some of the things we hope for not to happen or turn out worse than we expect them to? Undoubtedly.
* Will there be some things that turn out better than expected? Probably.
* Are there more opportunities that will be uncovered as things progress? Again, probably.
The final question that is often posed offers a bit more flexibility. Will you do everything in your power to make the result of this business development opportunity an outstanding success? If your answer is YES, the response is absolutely.
Law firm marketing is no different than any other service or task. Put the effort in. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. And then work, work, work until you see the results.