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.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 5:39 am and is filed under Legal Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.