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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 Our proposal format is out of date.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.

What's Going On In Your Firm? – II.

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

Additional questions we ask during our Strategic Business Development Planning to enhance and refine a firm’s business development successes include:

5. Is anyone actively using your CRM system?

6. Can your firm’s business development structure be strengthened to have a greater impact in generating new business growth?

7. Have you clearly identified firm-wide regional needs and cultures?

8. Do you celebrate “new client acquisition” in addition to client wins?

9. What are the internal obstacles to building consensus and active attorney participation in getting face-to-face with prospects and renewing client relationships?

Your firm’s management committee, marketing committee, practice group leaders and Partners-in-Charge of offices need to carefully consider all 9 questions if they truly want to grow business.

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, II.

Written by Allan Colman on . Posted in Asking for Business, Law Firm Marketing, Marketing for Law Firms, Marketing Partners, Practice Group Leaders.

As discussed in the previous blog, pro-active organization and accountability are keys to converting your best practices into new business. Following are 4 additional tasks that complete the first steps you need to take.

5. Populate the business development program with targeting and pursuit efforts by specific practice group, sub-groups, offices, individuals — one step at a time, at first, and finally, wherever there are lawyers who really want to be engaged.

6. Assure that business development training sessions are practical, not theoretical.

7. Keep the firm ahead of economic and industry trends and build this knowledge into every client contact.

8. Make decisions on under-performing activities by either abandoning them or improving your approach in each case.

Remember, the best way to land a target is to act and pursue. If you miss, you learn. Then try again.

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.

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.

Re-energize Your Firm's Business Development

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

When evaluating where and how a firm can grow more business, we always start by looking inside. What are the firm’s current resources, hidden resources and under-performing assets? The next several blogs will present the areas we examine and you should be evaluating also.

1. Forecasting, especially estimating what an increase in cross-marketing and selling would yield.
2. Assessing (honestly and openly) your brand’s impact. Does it need refreshing, refocusing, etc.?
3. Considering your marketing tactics by industry, practice area, geographic market.
4. Supporting the new-engagement-generation efforts of those actively prospecting.
5.

6 More Quick Hits for New Business Development

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

In a recent blog we discussed what we recommend for clients who want immediate targeting, managing, contacting, meeting, training and evaluation. Here are 6 more “quick hits”:

G. Establish time-lines with individualized sequences of approach, support needed, results and evaluation including meeting deadlines and providing firm management with Success Reports.

H. Pre-test strategy and upcoming actions.

I. Evaluate contact results and follow up on a regularly scheduled basis.

J. Train and support assigned marketing staff.

K. Begin new engagements.

L. VIP, track results, challenges, etc. to get ready for Phase II.

Maximize Your Marketing Budget – IV.

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

Go back and read the 3 previous blogs to catch up on the previous 8 steps to maximize your marketing budget. The final 4 follow:

9. Get even more from your dollar invested i.e. readership information from ad placements or conference participants.

10. Assure that every business development training session is practical, not academic, and includes advisory follow up.

11. Celebrate client acquisition, not just client wins.

12. Keep management actively informed and involved.

We work with you to CLOSE MORE BUSINESS.