What Do Firm Leaders Need to Build Sustainable Revenue Growth?
Add to the list:
1. Learn what triggered clients cancelling relationships.
2. Are they pushing internal marketing?
3. Track what competitors are doing to win new business.
Add your thoughts —
When determining whether or not your brand has lasting power, “longevity”:
1. Do you look at the percentage of repeat and referred clients?
2. Does your firm’s culture match what clients might say about the value you bring to the table?
What other questions need evaluation when looking to the future?
SENIOR PARTNER EXIT STRATEGY – Will They Cooperate?
Most law firms find it uncomfortable to tackle the task of planning and documenting an exit strategy for senior partners. The basic action is simple – determine what that partner should:
• Do more of;
• Do less of;
• Start doing;
• Stop doing?
And with each question, who should they be doing it with in order to insure client continuation?
Assuming the senior partner is cooperating and has been part of the firm’s culture of building future leaders, look toward continuing an “enduring competitive advantage.”
Is there a next level of growth that can be included in the client continuation plan? Are there changes or trade-offs needed to transition the client and their engagements? If there a risk the client might cancel the relationship, what immediate actions should be undertaken?
In the past, one of our clients was working hard to receive a judicial appointment from that state’s governor. In a brainstorming session to determine the best way to plan for his departure, I felt there was a great risk to the partner’s clients hearing about this effort through word of mouth.
A contact strategy was quickly established. Both the senior partner and the primary attorney working on each engagement were present on the calls or meetings held. A surprising side benefit resulted when numerous clients not only wanted to stay with the firm, but volunteered to contact the governor and push the nomination.
This certainly demonstrates the importance of constantly reinforcing client relationships. It equally applies to the other firm attorneys working with each client and their own need to build counterpart relationships. Their primary contacts are that client’s future gatekeepers. They too should be building that enduring competitive advantage.
As assertive and engaging as the transitioning efforts are, we find one critical area is often neglected – referral sources. Experienced lawyers often develop a range of referral sources who have led them to new relationships and new clients. In turn, the attorney has served as a referral source for them. Make sure these are identified and nurtured in the client continuation plan.
To make this all work, our recommendation is a simple OPSP, One Page Strategic Plan for each client including: focus; key objective; initiative timing, key progress indicators; and scheduled reporting to firm management. One protagonist must be charged with making this happen. A member of the firm’s executive committee should be best equipped to insure the success of client continuation.
Dr. Colman Named a Top 10 Speaker
Dr. Allan Colman has been named a Top 10 Speaker by ISN Works. His featured keynote is “GOT LEADERSHIP – Transform Your Leaders and Transform Your Business Growth.” Dr. Colman uses humor, case studies and powerful insights designed to transform your teams and open up many new business opportunities.
He utilizes 6 skills which are crucially linked to exceptional leadership, accelerating revenue growth and increasing effectiveness. The key to transforming sustainable revenue growth to productive revenue is centered in a firm’s leaders who are willing to address critical impact areas.
Colman may be reached at www.allancolman.com and ISN at 800-987-7771.
About Made For Success Publishing
(http://www.madeforsuccesspublishing.com) works with motivated authors worldwide to produce successful book-launch campaigns. By combining proven book-marketing strategies with enhanced retail promotion, Made for Success Publishing works with self-published authors on the launch of physical books, ebooks and audio books.
About the Author:
(http://www.allancolman.com)
Dr. Allan Colman, CEO of The Closers Group, is a consultant, speaker and author. He is an expert in business growth and leadership and a foremost authority on exceptional leadership. His three recent books, Crazy Impact, Own the Zone, and Lead Like A Boss are all published by Made for Success Publishing and are utilized in his seminars and workshops.
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HOME > BLOG > PRACTICE MANAGEMENT > REVENUE GROWTH AND FIRM LEADERSHIP – WHAT’S MISSING?
REVENUE GROWTH AND FIRM LEADERSHIP – WHAT’S MISSING?
August 6, 2015
How often have you heard from senior lawyers, “I’ve got lots of low hanging fruit”? Statistics over the past 8 years indicate this sounds like they are talking a good-game but are not getting out face-to-face in order to pick that crop. If, in fact, these claims are actually pursued, only 3% of the prospects are ready to buy, and the rest are either no longer interested, have retained someone else, or have moved on to other problems. That’s right, just 3% are ready to engage you, according to a study by Business Breakthroughs.
Further, every firm has a number of tools that they are not using or using ineffectively, to grow revenue. The more you look at your own firm and its business development strategies, the more you are going to find:
Underperforming assets;
Overlooked opportunities;
Hidden assets;
Under valued relationships.
And to further reinforce this challenge, 89.3% of ceo’s confirmed the need for their outside firms to build better relationships (Study by brandfog.com).
What are needed are clarity, focus and execution, starting with firm leadership. Firms need to start using tools which place more emphasis on “critical impact areas.” These will lead to clear 90 Day Strategic Implementation Maps which identify action details, timing, resources needed and leadership assignments. These lead to:
More revenue;
More clients;
More open doors.
Building a sustainable revenue path is the key to rapidly growing ROI. Those who can have the most influence in turning this into productive revenue are the firm’s leaders. Just as “marketing” has evolved into “business development,” business development must now evolve into “business generation and creation!”
Refining the roles and requirements of firm leadership need to focus on the complete picture:
1. Underutilized assets;
2. Development of suppressed skills sets of each professional;
3. Hidden opportunities, both current and future;
4. Under valued relationships;
5. Timely associations with clients and contacts.
Revealing and implementing these five avenues to your firm’s leadership are keys to achievement, growth and success. The major problem we see on an ongoing basis is the absence of holding people accountable for results. Once Strategic Implementation Maps are approved by firm management, the most potential for success is if firm leaders help others overcome obstacles and challenges.
In summary, what are needed to accelerate revenue growth in your firm are clarity, focus and execution. Take a hard look at what can be refined in order to identify those “critical improvement areas.” Place your leaders in charge of implementing each and watch the revenue grow.
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Allan Colman
CEO, Closers Group
Allan Colman, CEO of the Closers Group, is a business development executive keynote speaker and marketing advisor/coach. He has spent more than 2 decades helping law firms and professional services firms generate more revenue. His clients call him Mentor and TORMENTOR!
Made For Success Publishing Features Our Leadership Anthology – CRAZY IMPACT
According to one reviewer, “Leaders never graduate from leadership. CRAZY IMPACT provides you with usable lessons to drive crazy results.” (Bryan Flanagan).
The absence of leadership that could overcome what your firm is missing in the marketplace is the primary focus.
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MARKETING the LAW FIRM, American Lawyer Media
August 2015
Sales Speak: What’s Missing in Law Firm Business Development?
Firm Leaders!
For the past decade, business development training and coaching have been considered the standard for growing more firm business. Those who have benefited are primarily senior associates and newer partners. And certainly there have been multiple examples of real success. But with competition growing, clients terminating long-term relationships and the inability of firms to keep up with technology and market place changes, business development training and coaching have become mainly a palliative measure, ignoring the primary problem:
… the absence of leadership that will overcome what you are missing in the marketplace.
“Palliative” is defined as “relieving pain or alleviating a problem without dealing with the underlying cause.” The way to overcome the underlying cause for these and other business growth issues is to shift from the traditional business development training and coaching currently in vogue to placing more emphasis on “critical improvement areas.” To accomplish this means transforming the firm’s leadership (Executive Committee, Marketing Committee, Practice Group Leaders, Partners-in-Charge of offices, etc.) in order to transform your business growth.
Business Development Issues
Primary issues often mentioned to us during strategic business assessments include:
• Need to expand the number of attorneys actively selling;
• Number of new engagements per client is dropping;
• Resistance to transitioning clients is growing;
• Absence of cross-marketing and internal-marketing;
• Senior attorneys producing less and taking more;
• Missing hidden opportunities, i.e., building up referrals; and
• Erratic performance by practice groups and offices.
Note that those who can have the most influence in turning these issues into productive revenue are the firm’s leadership. And while business development training and coaching for senior associates and newer partners should continue, the firm’s leadership requires an organizational assessment and implementation map to accelerate the transformation of your teams to open up many more opportunities.
The key is to refine your organization to actively deal with the issues and turn them into ROI.
Business Generation
Just as “marketing” has evolved into “business development,” business development must now evolve into “business generation and creation.” Refining the roles and requirements of firm leadership needs to focus on the complete picture: the underutilized assets and development of suppressed skill sets of each professional; the hidden opportunities , both current and future that every firm has and needs to identify and use; and those undervalued relationship s and timely associations with contacts and clients that have not been fully explored and exposed to total benefits to generate new matters. Revealing and implementing these key avenues to your firm’s leadership are keys to achievement, growth and success.
Are the time commitments and costs associated with social media content being measured and evaluated? Are they attracting the readership and driving actions as traditional advertising and public relations did? What are the “openings” scores of firm e-blasts, alerts, etc.? Are attorneys assigned to follow up with those who open and read your communications on a frequent basis? Is the firm ignoring the power of an occasional direct mail piece?
Important questions include, Is your brand being used as a marketing theme by all who are face to face with clients and prospects? Or is it nothing more than an image on your home page? In other words, does your firm culture actively define the themes you want the marketplace to associate with the firm? Are your practice group leaders and PICs using group meetings to remind and refresh the needed approaches?
Leadership Accountability
Most firms today employ either a collegiate or consensus form of leadership. While there are often Managing Partners who take strong stands on certain issues, the biggest problem we see consistently is the absence of holding people accountable for results. When applied to firm leadership as defined earlier in this article, this is the area of greatest weakness. Yet, it has the most potential for success if firm leaders are reminded of their commitments, helping them overcome obstacles and challenges, and not letting them skip “next steps.”
Well-organized follow-up, using an implementation map, focuses accountability on activities that have the greatest impact and value. It isn’t necessary to revamp your entire organization; just shake up the system a bit to make it clear what the expectations, time lines, and results are for the business generation tasks assigned.
Conclusion
Think of it this way: If every “leader” in your firm generated only a 5% increase in their new business, with virtually no extra overhead costs, what a powerful impact that would have on ROI. Take a hard look at what can be refined in order to identify those “critical improvement areas.” Place your leaders in charge of implementing each, set specific timing, hold them accountable and watch the revenue grow, more doors open, and the firm’s reputation cower the competition.
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Dr. Allan Colman, a member of this newsletter’s Board of Editors and CEO of the Closers Group, specializes in Accelerating Rapid Revenue Growth for Law Firms. He may be reached at www.closersgroup.com
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Do You Really Know Your Client? I.
Starting a new series with a collection of speed review questions that are essential to knowing your client. They come from my book, OWN THE ZONE – Dominate the competition and are on page 90 at www.ownthezonebook.com
1. Who is the decision maker? Are you sure? How do you know?
2. What other firms or companies are they using?
3. When is the last time they hired a new firm or company?
4. Do they prefer to communicate by email or phone?
More next time.
Among standard business development activities, none provides a better practicum for leveraging than the presentations and speeches delivered at professional conferences, client-sponsored programs, and your own firm-sponsored seminars. Too often their participation is a one-off with none of the preparation or follow-up necessary to generate business. Conversely, mastery of the best “event marketing” practices will carry over into other marketing areas as well, helping to create a real marketing culture in the process.
There are two dimensions to every presentation: the material being presented and the business reason for presenting it. The latter deserves at least as much preparation as the actual content of the speech or panel discussion, in fact, more so, as the marketing impact depends on many careful logistics. Among those logistics:
Think of the temporal and spatial dimensions of the event in military terms. To maximize the long-term marketing impact, your own people need to be in the right place at the right time, and you need to engage the “other side” – those with whom you want to develop relationships – as strategically as possible. To these ends:
All these preparations and tactical maneuverings are for naught unless you follow up, follow up, and follow up some more. In particular:
No doubt, other best practices may occur to you. Generally speaking, if it seems they’ll be helpful to your prospects, they’re worth doing. As with all good marketing, put yourself in the other person’s shoes. What kind of outreach would you appreciate if you were an audience member? What would maximize the value of the event for you?
It’s common sense – but uncommon common sense.
Allan Colman is CEO of The Closers Group, based in Torrance. He may be reached at acolman@closersgroup.com.
These next 3 tactics to generate leads from your speeches, workshops, etc. need to occur before the engagement.
7. “Merchandise” the presentation: i.e. post the speech to your website, send it as an eblast; include it on your social media pages; and get it to journalists who may be covering related topics.
8. Circulate an internal note urging others at your firm to attend the presentation. Marketing staffers should attend as well as that can only help them to promote and follow up on the event.
9. Your firm should arrange to contact all sign-ups with a reminder a week ahead of the event. Call your own contacts a week before.
We have more coming but please share your ideas as well.