Whether yours is a smaller firm or you have multiple offices, one of the key elements of a successful law firm marketing strategy is the ability to ensure that all of your lawyers are on the same page. Even though the Closers Group Rapid Assessment and Strategic Action Implementation Programs are straightforward, there is often room for improvement by individual attorneys. That’s where our business development strategy and training phase begins.


The Closers Group offers workshops and one-on-one advising and coaching directed to setting business development strategies leading to closing new engagements.


Of course, our training services are focused on more than just the basics – and rarely are they one-off affairs. We make a commitment to providing monthly sessions for at least six months. During that time, we visit your offices to conduct training workshops, work with the lawyers in your firm to identify active clients and prospects, provide strategy and advisory sessions for each participant, and are available around the clock to take phone calls and answer questions. Perhaps even more importantly, we provide time for the lawyers to begin practicing business development techniques – both those that they already feel comfortable with and those that are more challenging.


Whether your firm is looking for support with client retention, closing skills, legal sales, or network development, or your partners and marketing leadership are looking for additional business development support, our training sessions pave the way to results. Check back for our final post in this series that will explore the results our clients have seen after implementing our three-phase approach.

As mentioned in our previous post, the Closers Group helps clients achieve results using a three-phase approach – analysis with Rapid Assessment, our Strategic Action Implementation Programs (SAIP), and business development strategy and training that builds on them both.


While Rapid Assessment identifies effective and underutilized assets, our Strategic Action Implementation Programs:

• Build on interviews with lawyers and firm management and the assessments of the current business development strategies used by the firm
• Allow us, along with firm management, to continue brainstorming client development and marketing opportunities including conferences and speaking engagements
• Develop a timeline for implementing selected action options and measuring results

Just as our Rapid Assessment phase is straightforward, so is this second phase. Our Strategic Action Implementation Programs are not only focused, but also are designed to ensure that the firm’s lawyers and marketing team are on track to complete the approved recommendations. By providing a specific timeline that includes all action items and assignments, lawyers and law firm marketing teams see targets and deadlines, and are able to measure the progress they are making.


The final phase of our approach is business development strategy and training; be sure to check back for an exploration of our training programs in an upcoming post.

One of the first questions that any firm should ask when they consider working with a business development consultant is about the consultant’s approach: What do they do differently that will help you to see real results from your lead generation efforts?


At the Closers Group, we help clients achieve results using a three-phase approach – analysis with Rapid Assessment, our Strategic Action Implementation Programs (SAIP), and business development strategy and training that builds on them both.


The key to Rapid Assessment is identifying both effective and underutilized assets. During the Rapid Assessment we:

• Interview lawyers and firm management


• Research experiences with past clients and the most frequently used firm services


• Assess current business development strategies and methods


• Brainstorm – alongside firm management – business development and marketing opportunities including conferences and speaking engagements


• Present action options for immediate implementation

Once we know what is working for a firm and have identified where there is room for ,growth, we work with firm management and marketing professionals to establish and prioritize target prospects, create a timeline action program, recommend refinements for collateral and pitch materials, and provide direction for closing new business.


If our Rapid Assessment approach sounds straightforward, that’s because it is. It serves as a first step toward lead generation, providing a platform from which clients grow. And most importantly, it provides a tool to measure progress and successes.


As mentioned, Rapid Assessment is only the first phase of our three-phase approach. Be sure to return for more information about the remaining phases – and our summary post where we share outcomes Closers Group clients have seen as the result of our methods and techniques.

What are your strategies for engaging with your prospects? How do you improve law selling?


Recently, I participated in a brainstorming session with a group of attorneys – some in-house counsel, some outside counsel. The focus of the session was on how to improve law selling. Even though the attorneys represented different areas, they all agreed on which legal marketing tactics were the most effective. As a business development consultant, I listened closely to their feedback – so much so that I have expanded our training programs to include their top tactics.


Here are five of the top tactics for engagement that the attorneys mentioned:
BR>

1. Talk with, not at! Engaging with a prospect is about more than just giving your pitch – it takes hearing your prospect out and responding to his or her needs.
2. Test your approaches with colleagues before the actual meeting or call. Practicing your pitch can help to do away with nerves and your colleagues’ feedback may help you improve your presentation.
3. Make sure that there is one “takeaway” that is clearly communicated throughout the discussion.
4. Do not repeat. In-house counsel say if they don’t get something, move on. Don’t risk turning off your prospects or annoying them by belaboring a point.
5. Utilize “active listening.” Focus on what your prospect is saying rather than on what you plan to say next, nod or respond when it’s appropriate, and ask clarifying questions if you need to.

Engaging with your prospects enables you to show your investment in working with them and is as crucial as your message when it comes to generating new business. You can learn more about engaging with your prospects and increasing law sales with one of our seminars or workshops – and you can learn more about the tactics related to adding substance to your presentations in our next post.

In an effort to cut overhead costs, many firms have begun to look into relocating support services out from their core cities and into less expensive suburbs. Rather than outsourcing these tasks to overseas firms, “insourcing” as it’s come to be called allows the firm to reduce costs while maintaining control. Most firms that have implemented this strategy have relocated their human resources or IT departments, accounting and finance, and even document review.


As a business development consultant, I can see the merits of moving some departments off-site; however I wonder how many of them are overlooking potential business development opportunities when they do.


If you choose to insource some of your firm’s services, encourage those professionals who make the move to become involved in their new community. Just as firm lawyers should make an effort to develop new business through community outreach, so should other firm personnel. Whether by providing pro bono services or serving on business or non-profit boards, these insourced members of your firm’s team can create the opportunity to generate new business.


By creating potential client relationships and increasing law selling opportunities, your firm can increase the value of the insourcing move even more.

Following a recent engagement as a marketing keynote speaker for the Beverly Hills Bar Association, an attendee asked me a question about the importance of first impressions in making law sales. For anyone engaged in legal sales or who provides business development presentations, it’s hard to deny that the role of first impressions is the foundation for an excellent question.


One of the best answers can be based on Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. The book’s subtitle – “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” – is critical to understanding the value of first impressions as you prepare for first contacts with a new prospect.


Whether meeting someone at a conference during a coffee break, sending an email inquiry, responding to an RFP, or engaging with a prospect on any level, snap decisions are made within 2 seconds. That’s right: the first two seconds can be all it takes for a potential client to make a snap decision about a lawyer, a law firm, or a legal consulting proposal. If the impression is positive, the door will be open and there will be plenty of opportunity to expand on what you have to offer. Overcoming a neutral or negative response, however, requires a great deal of energy and a much stronger legal selling skill set.


From our side of the table, it can be difficult to determine what the “blink” factor is. Therefore, if you’re looking for business development training, be sure to focus on training that emphasizes presenting your understanding of a prospect’s business within the first moments of any discussion. Identifying from the start that you want to align interests with your prospect – focusing on asking questions about the prospect’s needs and responsibilities to stakeholders – enables you to highlight your (and your firm’s) ability and set the right tone for developing business.

As a business development consultant for more than 20 years, I’ve had the benefit of speaking with a number of in-house counsel on what they’re looking for when it comes to retaining outside counsel. Most commonly, my in-house colleagues mention the same two criteria:

• Outside counsel needs to have an understanding of their business
• Outside counsel needs to realize that in-house counsel takes a risk any time they engage with a new firm

To effectively close new business opportunities, law firms must demonstrate not only a thorough understanding of the business, but must also work to alleviate concerns that in-house counsel may have. One of the best ways to show that your firm is capable and ready to provide the best solution for solving the problem at hand is to provide specific case studies that outline your firm’s unique successes. Sharing previous successes with the prospective client will help reassure them that you are capable of providing winning strategies.


While you’re delivering powerful case studies, don’t forget the power of messaging and branding. Take the opportunity to actively listen to what your potential client is saying, and then come back to them with an answer that considers your brand, the client’s brand, and their specific needs.


Remember, too, the benefit of developing a set of core messaging and bringing it into every new business touchpoint. By linking your message to your firm’s tag line–whether you’re on a new business meeting, participating in a preliminary phone call, meeting a potential client for dinner or even delivering a speech—you are taking the steps to make your brand an unforgettable one.


Take the opportunity to tie all your firm’s benefits and differentiators back to this core messaging, and the next time in-house counsel is looking for outside counsel they can count on, your firm will be at the top of the list.

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.