Continuing with our series on really getting to know your clients and your prospects, and assuming you do want to discover what makes them and their companies work, what’s next? You and your marketing support team must make time to organize, pursue and hopefully close opportunities if you do find out. Lawyers are excellent at talking, good at asking questions and only so-so at listening. Yet it is the latter two skill sets that are the ultimate determinants of ongoing success.
 
According to KLS/Gates “top of Mind” survey of senior in-house counsel, conducted in the summer of 2005, “communicating effectively” and “enjoyable attorneys” are two of the top three attributes for outside counsel selection.
 
For any lawyer who wants to “communicate effectively and enjoyably” the 60/40 rule that served IBM so splendidly for decades still applies. Client talks 60% of the time, you talk 40%. Demonstrate the knowledge you have obtained by asking strategic questions and getting them to discuss operational and management challenges.

Outside counsel can use the knowledge of how corporate law departments are beginning to produce as an opportunity to coach and guide inside counsel into opportunities to pursue similar tactics. This is a powerful yet subtle form of law firm marketing that makes your firm invaluable, cost-effective, and even lucrative. By making yourself increasingly valuable, you do the same for your client.

In order to achieve this status, you must do your research. Understand your role and that of inside counsel. Observe the dynamics of the industry. Be the eyes and ears of the department and a sounding board in which to weigh the pros and cons of litigation pursuit.

This is also a business development technique and business generation opportunity in the making. Your reputation as a must-have resource and ally, champion and revenue generator could work quite effectively in the long run.

Don’t neglect to mention this unusual deliverable technique as an example to other potential clients on your business development wish list.

Law firm business development training needs to teach who are the real people behind the title of inside counsel or executive. Do you know the decision-makers’ own strengths and weaknesses?
 
Are they worried about losing their jobs or are they deeply entrenched? Maybe they’re even being considered as CEO? In fact, back up a step: Do you know who they are in the first place? Beyond that, build a matrix of everything else you need to know.
 
There is a marketing axiom that often appears in legal journals, marketing seminars for partners, sales training programs, etc., that says, “Get to know where they go, who they know, and what they read.”
 
More next time on DO YOU KNOW?.

PROBLEM: Our practice group has no business development budget.
 
RESPONSE: Of course it does. You’re already spending money on business development at one or more ends of the spectrum. You simply need to collect the data and find out what you’re already spending. That’s your budget.
 
RESULT: Getting a hold on your current actual spending will allow you to focus resources where they will clearly do the most good.

PROBLEM: We missed the major new litigation!
 
RESPONSE: Don’t dwell on any one matter or even on any whole genus of legal business. Look to the pipeline to deliver a stream of alternative possibilities, some of which may not yet be on your radar screen.
 
RESULT: You’ll need to start making decisions about which kind of business to go after and which to let some other law firm go after. That’s a wonderful problem to have.

PROBLEM: Our firm has no business development pipeline!
 
RESPONSE: Manage your speakers, greeters, authors, communicators, trainers, marketers, etc.
 
RESULT: Properly assigned, with concretely defined roles, the firm’s staff will become a kind of conveyor belt, with all their designated tasks funneling toward the actual sales moment. The pipeline thereby remains engineered to support the one final moment - the closing - that justifies its existence in the first place.

Recently, an in-house counsel told me, “Our law firms are spoiled and dull - I want to shake things up.” If ever a clue was dropped about retention, this was it. Yet there were no outside counsel within hearing distance. When asked about what he expected from his firms, he told me that he hated to be surprised by a problem that an outside lawyer already knew about. He expected more responsiveness and information from his firms and their lawyers.
 
I asked about the internal pressures he and his colleagues are under and if he shared these with his outside firms. The response was, “they don’t ask, and many of them who earn lots of money from us, don’t even get our business.”
 
Lawyers and marketing leadership, start asking, start learning, start communicating more. Client retention is certainly based on high quality work and cost management. But you must initiate a more active communications effort to keep the relationship going.

Clients come up with the darndest questions. A recent prospect put off retaining us since they were already assembling a list of current and recent clients. And then he called and asked, “What do we do now?” Validating the real potential is the first step, not assembling the list. For each prospect, I suggested asking questions such as:
 
1. How would you define the current relationship?
2. What is the client’s satisfaction level with your work? Can you be sure?
3. Do you know what activities are considered important by your client? And how would they rank you?
4. Before approaching the client, does your relationship need reinforcing?
5. What internal pressures are on your client?
6. Who is the real final decision maker on your retention?
7. What other firms does the client use and how do you stack up?
 
There are many more questions but once they are answered fully, the pursuit and closing of new work can move along rapidly.
 
I’ll let you know how this client fares.

Use the rejection of a proposal to build business for the future. Inside counsel often have as much invested in the entire RFP process or search for new counsel as the law firm or professional services firm.
 
We recently worked with a client who lost a major proposal and, as you can imagine, was quite despondent. In responding to “what a waste”, we suggested that she call the prospective client back after 3-4 months. The main message to communicate is that your disappointment at not being selected for the one engagement does not overshadow your desire to work with them.
 
“With your OK, I’d like to keep you informed about what new strategies we’ve developed for others and how they might apply to your future engagements.”
 
Offering to continue contributing to their knowledge base, and getting their permission to do so, puts you in a prime position for future work without an open competition. And, for those of you who have that extra something, also ask how the engagement you lost is working out.
 
The client I mentioned above took the recommendation to heart and has now received 2 small engagements from that former prospect.
 
SHE MADE REJECTION WORK!