This is the final chapter in our series on business development priorities and tactics.

• - Remember that job performance is a key part of marketing. Be more than competent; be “a pleasure to work with.” Your co-workers may not be at the firm forever. Some of them can become clients. Others can become referral sources.
• - Look for opportunities to help colleagues at the firm develop business. They’re likely to return the favor. Such “cross-selling” requires that you be attentive to in-house contacts who may not manage the kind of work you do, but who could be useful to other lawyers at the firm.
• - Write lists and set deadlines. Prioritize tasks like the ones enumerated above and in previous columns on this topic. Try to accomplish at least one task every week.

It’s a practical agenda with specific steps any committed professional can take - simple enough steps, perhaps, to deprive lawyers of excuses for inaction.

The ever-whirling wheel of change, the which all mortal things doth sway—Edmond Spenser
 
Things change. Whether it is operational, political, financial or cultural, chances are the clients you represent are changing too.
 
Never underestimate the value of honing client retention techniques and its importance in growing your business and enhancing your overall attorney marketing plan. But be careful of a myopic view. While you’re living up to your end of the relationship, understand that keeping the client happy is like a two-step dance–keep close, but be able to step back and observe.
 
As a close counsel to your client, you are most-likely privy to inside information about the latest developments that affect their business. But are you too close to the tree to see the forest? Take an objective look at how your client handles day-to-day, week-to-week, and year-to-year challenges to their operations and approach those issues from eyes afresh. If you can help your client with what keeps them up at night, you’ll both rest easy.
 
Quick Tip: Make a Fresh Eyes Evaluation part of new associate sales training and closing skills development.

The key to maximizing every business development and legal marketing tactic you have available to you may not mean you have to reinvent the wheel. Repackaging, which simply means utilizing previous marketing activities and collateral in new ways, can save you time and your firm’s money.
 
What to Repackage?
 
Conferences and Seminars:

• Your presentations at conferences and seminars can be like a gift that keeps on giving. Reuse the outline of your speaking engagement and create an article to submit for publication in your industry newspapers and magazines, paying special focus on the latter. Newspapers are more frequent and therefore more ephemeral than magazines, which people tend to keep around for much longer, which in turn, maximizes your exposure.
• For existing clients, repackage your seminar outline into an e-newsletter. Your existing clients will appreciate your expertise and the contact will keep you at the top of their minds.
• Repackage the e-newsletter to fit the format of your website, so that potential clients surfing the Internet will gain exposure to your expertise in a particular practice area.
• If there is a video of the conference or seminar you appeared in, ask for permission replay it on your website. But don’t put it up in its entirety—break it up into weekly segments so that interested viewers must tune in for more.