As in many other industries, law firms spend good money developing their brand, and countless hours trying to develop the perfect tagline that gets at the essence of what they do. Whether or not it accomplishes this goal, the tagline is supposed to communicate a sense of the firm’s focus to clients, potential clients, and even lawyers and support staff. It is intended to give clients and prospects with a strong sense of who the firm is and what they provide.


While we at the Closers Group cannot say whether a given tagline impacts the prospects’ choice of firms to represent them, we can confidently say that – after working with hundreds of individual lawyers throughout the United States – there is a major disconnect between branding efforts and law firm business development. When asked, “Why should my company hire you,” not one attorney that we’ve talked with has used his or her firm’s tagline in their answer.


If ever there was a place in law firm marketing materials to focus their prospects on what the firm can do for them, it would be in this brief descriptor. With a solid presentation or even a brief conversation, there should always be a clear takeaway – this is an essential part of closing business in the Red Zone where attorneys are selling face-to-face with in-house counsel, corporate executives, and other qualified prospects.


It appears, however, that all of the money spent establishing a firm’s brand has not found its way into the Red Zone. Even those firms who have interviewed clients, asking them to describe the firm and its service in an effort to develop a tagline often fall short. Clients may offer responses like “reliable,” “timely,” and “helpful,” but as a recent BTI survey pointed out, only 32.1% of the in-house counsel who responded would recommend their primary law firm. “Reliable, timely, and helpful” is clearly not contributing to client retention.


Perhaps it is time, or well overdue, for law firm branding to keep the business development and law firm selling process in mind. One example of a company that does this well is Barnes & Thornburg. The firm has one campaign with the message “Take leaps,” and uses banners reminding prospects that they need legal advice that “Nails it,” and a passionate team that’s “Fired Up.” These slogans all focus on what they consider their comprehensive approach, and encourage their prospects to trust them at the beginning of an engagement and throughout the process – particularly when their case needs special attention.


Similarly, Cozen O’Connor’s messaging suggests that they have “The confidence to proceed” – but are they making efforts to utilize this messaging in their business development training and efforts? McKool Smith ads focus on “Results.” Focusing on results, particularly when similar challenges were encountered and the firm offered effective solutions, is a sound legal selling tool – but only if the firm’s prospects remember those results after the lawyer marketer has left the meeting.


Law firms aren’t the only ones within the legal industry that try to grab attention with their tagline—even industry publication Inside Counsel wants readers to know that it is “Strategic-Intelligent-Essential”. The tagline describes their goal, in order to see if they meet it, you must read the magazine yourself. Inside Counsel has an advantage here – they can offer free copies of their publication.


Attorneys, however, don’t have the luxury of free copies to back up their brand promises. But if you focus on connecting your brand to your sales process and position it as the key takeaway of a meeting, speech, conversation, or other pitch, you’re increasing the believability of your brand and strengthening your firm’s business development activities.

A recent Taurus horoscope asserts that “Your ability to adjust and do something very differently could mean the difference between success and failure.” Regardless of how you feel about astrology, the sentiment still holds true, especially when it comes to legal selling.


Being able to adjust and adapt is key to a firm’s success and survival. A comprehensive business development training program will recognize that attorneys have different levels of practice experience and different comfort levels when it comes to business development. For those attorneys who are newer to the firm, or for experienced attorneys with limited legal selling skills, having a viable personal client development plan is key to helping them get out and land new business.


Developing a personal client development plan takes the stress out of learning business development techniques by providing attorneys with a variety of tactics from which they can pick and choose. Depending on their personal preferences, attorneys can select business development elements that best suit their comfort level. A sample of techniques that attorneys could choose might include:

1. Joining and actively participating in a professional organization
2. Becoming active in a community, civic, political or charitable organization
3. Involving themselves in a social or recreational program
4. Giving speeches or presentations to classes, community groups, professional associations
5. Writing articles for publication in industry magazines or online.
6. Initiating contacts with social or business contacts met at those activities
7. Identifying potential referral sources and initiating social or business contacts with them

Think of your personal client development plan like a box of chocolates—pick one that looks good to you, and dig in—then, after you’ve savored the flavor of your success, choose another one to try. Make sure business development seminars at your firm provide the direction you need to create and maintain your client development plans, and you’ll position yourself for continued success, no matter what your sun sign!

Working with a business development consultant on an ongoing basis can help your firm stockpile an arsenal of tactics and tools for increasing its sales. However, when it comes to kick-starting the law sales process, we have found that business development seminars are extremely effective at helping lawyers make the connection between tools and tactics, and learning how to use both to gain confidence, build relationships, and bring in new business.


Seminars led by the Closers Group have both a broad and narrow focus.


Our broad approach focuses on:

• Analysis of what “understanding the client/prospect” really means
• Strategies for how to initiate and grow relationships
• Helping attorneys deal with rejection – and put it to good use in the future
• The importance of providing substantive value in the law selling process – providing insights and strategy suggestions regardless of being retained for services
• Closing skills and actually asking prospects of clients for their work

Our more narrow approach focuses on:

• Identifying concrete business development tasks that can be evaluated and improved
• Refining talking points, cold call scenarios, and elevator speeches
• Evaluating current legal, industry, and community association events to determine whether the potential contacts justify presenting or attending
• Preparing to follow up with audience members after a presentation
• Determining whether publications are worth writing for

Whether you need general support as you access your business development arsenal, or lawyers at your firm need more targeted support putting specific tools to work, the Closers Group offers seminars and workshops to meet your needs and ensure that your firm starts advancing and closing in on more sales.

Client-focused marketing should be at the center of your business development strategy.


As you stock your business development arsenal, be sure to pay attention to tools and tactics for engaging your prospects and enhancing relationships with your clients.

• Is your firm’s website generating leads?


• Would a new logo effectively communicate with your prospects?


• Is your electronic newsletter serving as a pretext for conversations with your clients and prospects who receive it?


• Can your existing marketing collateral be used as a touch point during legal sales?

Communication is essential for building client relationships. Business development training should help to provide a firm with tools and tactics that result in tangible benefits for clients. Firms should provide marketing materials – including the firm website, graphics, newsletters, and articles – that speak to the needs of the prospect or client seeing them.


Individual lawyers should focus on making a connection and building relationships. They must approach their prospects with a clear understanding of their business – using value-added collateral and client-friendly marketing activities – in order to realize success.

To be prepared for any opportunity to develop new business, firms and lawyers should have an arsenal of tactics at their disposal. Business development training sessions that focus on the experiences of those in attendance are akin to a visit to a ‘sales tactics’ armory where you can stock up on new ideas.


Attendees of business development trainings should share information about the efforts they are making to attract new clients or to win more work from existing clients. Exploration of their successes and struggles not only opens the door for feedback regarding their efforts, but also creates a spark of inspiration for others who haven’t attempted the method.


Of course, these discussions shouldn’t take place only during training sessions. Each regularly scheduled meeting of a practice group or office can include an opportunity for providing updates on business development efforts and initiatives.


Many firms who have adopted this practice find that, in addition to adding to their business development strategies, attorneys within the firm form stronger partnerships. As senior attorneys begin to recruit younger lawyers and those who are new to the firm to participate in meetings, go on pitches, and engage in other sales opportunities – they take a big step forward in forging stronger relationships, creating an increased client base, and realizing lasting success for the firm.

According to a recent article in The Professional Lawyer by Michael P. Downey, author of The Ethical Quandary blog and partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson, lawyers and staff are using online posts–and in particular social networks–to promote their services, network with colleagues, and share their lives, activities and friendships with others. Downey is quick to point out, however, that law firms can and should take steps to mitigate their risks from such online activity. Downey’s recent article provides a strong starting point that could help your firm design and implement its own online activity or social networking policy.


In our sales consulting services, we’re hearing more questions and concerns about social networking and how law firms should interact within the social environment. Keep an eye on the Closers Group blog over the next several weeks, where we’ll be posting entries highlighting this topic and pinpointing the impact that social media will have on legal selling and law sales.

ROI, or return on investment, is a business term that isn’t often found in law firm culture. But lawyers and law firms could benefit from focusing on ROI so as not to overlook prime marketing and law selling opportunities. For example, let’s discuss the ROI of a speech you recently prepared—something we talked about in our last blog post. You may have received a handful of leads as a result of your presentation, but are there other things you can do to improve the return on your investment? Yes!


Consider the amount of preparation you put into your speech, doing research and putting together notes for your presentation. By spending just a little more time with it, you can turn your presentation into an article or blog post since your research and your outline are already completed. This act alone will increase your speech’s original ROI exponentially.


But don’t stop there—use this as an opportunity to get clients involved and further build your relationships. Consider asking a client to add his or her thoughts to your article or post as a co-author, or even send a draft to your clients and prospects and ask for their comments and feedback before finalizing it. Both of these tactics are great legal selling and client relationship building approaches which may actually provide an opportunity to improve the article.


Once it is published, whether it is in a legal journal, industry publication, local business paper, etc., it’s time to squeeze even more return out of your investment:

• Ensure that a copy of the article (or a link to it) is loaded on your website
• Add the title of the article and its publication outlet to your bio
• Make copies of the article to use as handouts at future presentations
• Provide your colleagues with copies to refer to or use as a handout
• Distribute copies out to your contact list
• If your article was co-authored by a client, or appears in one of their industry publications, ask that client to arrange a presentation for both of you at their upcoming annual meeting

With just a little extra elbow grease and a strong drive for closing deals, you can boost the ROI of practically any marketing activity you can think of.

So you’ve followed all of the steps necessary to develop a killer presentation—you’ve researched a timely ”hot” topic sure to intrigue your audience, created a presentation that includes lively, captivating graphics that support what you’re saying, and have even worked with your marketing department on pre-presentation publicity. All in all, you’ve spent more hours than you care to admit getting prepared for your speech, presentation or workshop. But all that time won’t matter once the leads come rolling in after the speech, right?


Unfortunately, that’s wrong. When it comes to activities that produce solid leads, simply getting up and giving a speech isn’t likely to create the results you’re looking for. In fact, one of the most common questions we hear from our clients and lawyers who attend our presentations is, ‘Why didn’t anyone call me after the presentation I did?’ The reality is that there are some specific actions you’ll need to take if you want to boost your presentations’ lead-generating capabilities.


In our business development consulting practice, there are seven presentation elements we emphasize:

1. Make introductions: At both the beginning and end of your presentation, introduce your colleagues who are sitting in the audience. This will make it easier for attendees to speak with someone from your firm in case you are busy with other people.
2. Announce availability: Indicate that you and your colleagues know from experience that there are often people present who have questions about specific problems and that you will be at the conference, cocktail party, etc. for the rest of the day. Give them an open invitation to approach you.
3. Give an option for those who must leave: State that if an audience member has a question but can’t stay after the presentation, they should simply leave their business card with you or one of your colleagues.
4. Give a very soft sell: During the presentation, refer to one or two issues you and/or your firm have dealt with that indicate the high quality of your work, but don’t focus on them.
5. Make an offer: Refer to an article or brief during your talk and offer to send copies to anyone who leaves a card with you.
6. Thank participants: After the seminar or webinar, send an email or letter to each participant thanking them and asking them if they have any follow up questions.
7. Thank organizers: Send a written thank you note, not an email to the organizer thanking them for the opportunity and let them know you are available for future presentations.

By including each of these elements in your presentation, you’re offering your audiences much more than just your speech; you’re actually offering them the opportunity to connect with you and begin creating a business relationship. Preparing for presentations with these actions in mind is a way to maximize both your time investment and your lead-generating potential.

While Pisces’ intuition and Capricorn’s persistence are traits that benefit individual lawyers who are marketing their services, Aries’ confidence and leadership tendencies can benefit senior partners and marketing departments focused on business development. A recent horoscope for Aries offered advice that all firms should apply to their client development training and follow-up: “Dive into your work knowing what you want to accomplish.”


In our experience as law sales consultants, there is not a single example of business development training efforts that work without an end goal in mind. As a practical step, firm marketing departments, senior partners, and other firm leaders should make a commitment to their goals before sitting down with law firm consultants to set up a training agenda.


Managing partners, practice group heads, partners-in-charge, and other firm leaders must know what they hope to accomplish before they dive in, focus on training, and see attorneys develop new business.

Baseball players are trained to be aware of surprisingly strong throws to the plate when they’re rounding third base – a well-placed throw out of left field prohibits them from scoring and seems to come out of nowhere. Many lawyers have felt a similar sense of surprise when clients ask unexpected questions or change the expectations in the middle of the engagement.


Business development training that focuses on relationship building and client retention can ensure that a firm’s lawyers are prepared to close more business. Offering this type of training to your firm’s staff not only helps prepare attorneys for client meetings and requests—even those of the ‘unexpected’ variety–but also helps them develop strategies for meeting client needs.


In smaller and mid-sized firms where the attorneys are a close-knit group, senior partners and sales leaders often provide lead development programs for their attorneys. With additional training focused on client retention – understanding the client or prospect’s needs and developing solid strategies for meeting those needs – client-friendly marketing and value-added collateral are the result. When legal marketing focuses on what clients are clamoring for, left-field requests are far less likely to derail business development efforts.