Business Development/Marketing…

Marketing is still far too mysterious in the eyes of many lawyers, when it is actually quite basic, and absolutely essential.

It involves recognizing the needs of clients and others in the marketplace and organising your firm to meet those needs…profitably.

For them to be more aware of their needs, and aware that you are a suitable player in meeting their needs, people have to be kept informed by you.

I have consistently found that the best way to keep people informed in a manner that doesn’t irritate them is to provide relevant helpful information about topics that may be important in their lives and/or businesses.

Simply put, you don’t need to try to sell people anything, just create “information bridges” from you to them. Happily, the need to not “sell” seems to suit many lawyers!

People who are well-informed are more likely to take action to protect their interests or take advantage of opportunities they have, and the chances that they will contact you are improved by good experiences with you in your information-providing activities.

It’s vital to recognize your different audiences and to accept that different methods of providing information will apply to them.

We all recognise that a face to face discussion may be most appropriate on an important issue for a valued client, and that to reach bigger audiences on slightly less critical issues you may wish to utilize a newsletter, or a seminar/workshop, or increase traffic to your website where you have a full range of relevant helpful material easily locatable by visitors.

Increasing new instructions is almost always a process rather than an event, and you need to plan the process for each of your target groups and execute the steps in the process consistently.

I’d always start with an understanding of what extra numbers of files you need to generate in the first stage of a Business Development plan, for each area of work, and what you hope those new files will be worth on average.

You need to know where the files you currently get come from, so you can focus on areas of most likely improvement for your time and money.

Somewhat surprisingly, even firms that recognize they need more new work often over-state the scope of their challenge. Very recently I have been told by a senior Accredited Specialist, despite an hour’s discussion, “It’s overwhelming…I simply don’t know where to start”.

That comment tends to reflect a faint hope that getting to grips with it isn’t really necessary.

That’s not the case, and breaking the challenge down into “bite-size” pieces can help greatly in making the project more manageable…facilitating getting started.

As just one example, a firm that worked out it was short by $150,000 a year in Family Law fees, for the team it currently has, should be able to identify that it needs only to average an increase of 1.25 files/month at average fees of $10,000/file to close the gap.

It is highly unlikely that the firm is doing all that it needs to be doing in building information bridges to the right people in the market...for example…clients, referrers, and the public.

With the right help the firm can identify which of the present sources of work are likely to be able to provide a small increase annually, and together meet the target total.

Simple activities are then put in place and the results carefully tested so effort and money can be redirected when it appears to be having little effect after a proper period.

The extra files needed from each of your main existing sources of work will be amazingly small…and quite easily achieved with the right level of effort.

The Internet, and things like Google’s AdWords, has to some extent created a sense that additional work should be quite immediate, and in some cases it can be, but increased volume and sophistication of competition will soon have an impact and without a firm being very nimble and investing more strongly, work can just as quickly dry up.

I certainly advocate using the Internet well, for certain types of work particularly, but in conjunction with the kind of relationship marketing through information described earlier. Well-established relationships are far less susceptible to competition from new players.

Lawyers regularly ask me where I feel that social media fits into their business development.

I see things like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn simply as more potential tools in your toolbox to utilise if appropriate in the various information-based bridge-building projects you need to have.

For some individuals one or more may be quite useful, while in other situations I would counsel that there are far more useful tools to use.

If you aren’t prepared to invest the time to careful research any one of these options, and build up your skill sets, find an affordable expert with testimonials and a track record that satisfy you, and establish and implement a simple plan with their guidance.

Monitor closely that you are actually getting more new files as a result after a reasonable period of implementation. It is also vital that you keep monitoring as good results initially can easily slide as your competition changes its approaches and increases in volume.

A word of warning…the biggest fault I see in law firms in this field of endeavour is in failing to properly monitor the apparent impact of Business Development activity on new work, and that includes careful recording of all the information you can get on new work sources, including existing clients and referral by them.

For most established firms existing clients should still be the main source of new work, and to fail to monitor the flow of new enquiries and work from them is sheer folly.

I should add that even for established firms, some types of work are not as likely to lead to regular repeat work from the same client (think Family Law as just one example) and evidence is there from the monthly reporting I get from client firms that other sources of new work, especially the Internet, may out-perform repeat business and client referral combined.

Obviously repeat referral from important referral sources is perfectly possible, and normal, in many areas of work, including Family Law. This just highlights the point made earlier about different approaches and channels for different types of work.