In our work with law firms, we frequently point out that new business comes from three sources:

1. Current clients


2. Referrals


3. New prospects

Of the three, the most overlooked client development resource is current clients. It is amazing how often we hear, “But how do I ask clients for referrals or repeat business without offending them?” Fear of offending your clients, however, is just an excuse – and not a very good one.

If your firm’s work has been solid and helpful and you are working on building trust-based client relationships, ask away. Introductions to a client’s colleagues in house at other firms are just a luncheon away. Ask to pick their brains and find out what they see on the economic and business horizons. Let them know you are trying to adjust your practice for the future and that their input would prove invaluable.

Worried about putting yourself on the line? Focus on the help you can provide and become a business partner when it comes to solving their problems. Suggest that your client bring in their business unit manager for a brainstorming session focused on the areas where they need the most help. You can even consider introducing them to other clients – with their permission, of course – from non-competing industries that have faced and overcome similar challenges.


Building solid client relationships and taking action when opportunities arise are critical to business development. Asking your clients for their business is a direct action – and one of the best attorney marketing approaches. Take advantage of it.

Client retention relies on the relationships that you establish with your current and prospective clients. In our business development seminars, we emphasize the importance of selling based on the client or prospect’s needs rather than the size of your firm, the number of offices the firm has, or the awards that your firm has received.


Successful law sales require a balance between the firm’s responsibilities and in-house counsel’s responsibility to their clients – the business units. Just like your law firm, in-house counsel must provide:

1. High quality work,
2. Accurate risk assessment,
3. Responsiveness, and

Enhanced communications.

As you engage during an assignment, make sure that you continue the dialogue. Continually talk with your clients about their responsibilities to their clients or customers, and focus on what you can do to align your interests with theirs. Not only will this contribute to the success of your current efforts, but also it will provide a foundation for generating new business.

On May 11, I was able to sit in on the Argyle Executive Forum 2010 Chief Legal Officer Leadership Forum event in San Francisco. One of the topics of discussion was the latest definition of “alternative fees” – information that I will be relaying during upcoming workshops and seminars where I’ll continue discussing the importance of alternative billing arrangements.


Alternative fees are one way in which lawyers and law firms are able to add value to the services that they offer clients. Providing value is, of course, just one way in which lawyers can indicate that they understand their clients’ and prospects’ businesses and is something that business development consultants from the Closers Group stress to our clients.


Our commitment to the importance of building client relationships was only strengthened after attending the conference. In attendance were over 150 senior in-house counsel members including speakers from Cisco Systems, Qwest Communications, Google, Jack in the Box, Levi Strauss & Co., the Molson Coors Brewing Company, and other equally well-known corporations as well as Partners from a number of big name law firms. The common theme was clear and simple: When attempts are being made to close sales, demonstrate your knowledge of a prospect’s business – including internal pressures and the risks they may be taking – and emphasize the “alignment of interests.”


When it comes to building relationships, in-house decision makers for law firm sales aren’t just looking for a lawyer – what they’re looking for are firms that have a demonstrated commitment to helping firms progress and thrive.

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.

In Hair, the “Age of Aquarius” was all about a time of peace, love, and understanding. While for most people, this utopian concept is long lost, many working in law firms could benefit from bringing it back.


In typical law firms, the only area where the “peace, love and understanding” concept plays out is in the realm of client services. The understanding that lawyers have of their clients’ cases leads to a working peace; the love part comes in when the lawyer wins the verdict for his or her client. But the concept has a solid place in other areas of the business, too—like business development and client retention. Unfortunately, when it comes to those areas, the understanding piece is often missing.


Both the lawyers and their marketing departments play a role in the misunderstanding, of course. Often it appears that the lawyers don’t value their marketing department’s services, many times disagreeing with the strategic business development suggestions that the marketing team provides. On the flip side, law firm marketing departments can gets caught up in a cycle of feeling snubbed when their ideas are seemingly ignored by attorneys who are busy practicing law.


Ultimately the firm benefits when lawyers make servicing their clients a top priority, as it leads to repeat business and referrals. Many times, it takes the help of a business development consultant to pinpoint how the lawyer’s focus on representing clients is best for the firm before the marketing department can recognize the benefit.


Strategies developed with the assistance of a business development consultant allow for a shift in the firm dynamic. This shift places client retention at the top of law firm marketing priorities and serves as the foundation of a lasting Aquarian peace throughout the firm.

“Emails do not end in handshakes.” That’s the headline of a recent British Airways ad aimed at getting businesspeople to head across the pond for a good old-fashioned face-to-face meeting. I think their message is spot on.

Certainly, electronic communication like email, cell phones, faxes, etc. have all made it much easier to stay in touch with your clients, but if you believe that electronic communications are the path to retaining clients and facilitating closing skills, you need to think again. Your clients and prospects would tell you that they value the one-on-one time that an in-person meeting provides. Sure, you can just click and open up a file without ever laying eyes on the sender, but to truly demonstrate your skill and ability to a client or prospect, in person communication is the way to go.

One of my business development consulting clients recently said to me, “I won that case for my client 6 months ago—why hasn’t she called me?” If my client wants to lock in more work from his client, he should get a few more lunches or in-person meetings on his schedule. And always have something planned to talk about; celebrate their successes, ask them about their plan for next year’s work, and inquire about potential introductions or referrals they may be able to make.

Email has made our lives easier, but it is only one tool in the law sales arsenal, not the only medium available. Don’t forget about the good old-fashioned in person meeting. There’s still plenty of room for it in our high-tech world.

With well-known contestants as diverse as Tom DeLay and Kelly Osbourne, it is little wonder that fans are tuning in for the latest season of Dancing with the Stars. Though much of the broadcast is devoted to the stars’ performances – after all, keeping the audience and the judges happy are major components of how contestants win – the producers take the time to show rehearsals and other “behind the scenes” events.

For lawyers focused on increasing sales and client retention, this popular show offers an important lesson: the work that you do behind the scenes is every bit as important as the time you spend in the spotlight. When you’re working with a client, it’s important to keep them happy – and to remember to continue selling throughout the engagement.

A law firm marketing consultant will remind you that thinking about future sales is particularly important if the client you’re working with needs only limited effort – especially if you see the potential for future business development opportunities. Here are some suggestions that will help you focus your client retention efforts to better ask for and ensure future sales:

• Know what’s working and what could be better. Find out by conducting regular client satisfaction visits or discussions to enhance your client retention opportunities.
• Focus on more than just what you’re doing now. Cross-selling other practice areas is a solid approach to law marketing.
• Keep adding benefits to your services. While perfoming a document review or conducting a client interview, keep notes on issues that you are spotting. Give your clients something extra by arranging a lunch to go over these issues with the General Counsel – without charging a fee, of course.
• Participate rather than just attending. Law selling success requires you and others from your firm to attend and actively participate rather than just buying tables at dinners or offering tickets to sporting events. And remember, while you’re dancing around the floor at a client-sponsored fundraiser, don’t forget to thank your client for inviting you to a great event.

Remember, when it comes to client retention, your clients are both the audience and the judges. The more that you prepare, the better your performance will be.

Hard to believe it’s Labor Day weekend already – time to celebrate another passing summer, for the kids to head back to school, and, of course, to recognize what working men and women contribute to our communities. For lawyers focusing on sales and client retention, celebrating your contributions is important – but often overlooked.


While you’re celebrating Labor Day with family and friends, consider the legal sales benefits of celebrating successes with your clients. Won a major settlement or experienced another in-court victory? Treat the client to dinner. Successfully completed negotiations for a merger, acquisition, or real estate purchase? Recognize the victory by sending over a case of wine – along with a personally written note of congratulations.


Business development training can help you understand the importance of a hand-written note when it comes to building a long-term client relationship and keep you focused on staying in touch. When it comes to future legal sales, the last thing that you want to do is to wait for the client to call you about possible future work.


Future law sales depend on staying in touch, and subtly reminding your clients of the win and the celebration. By working with a business development consultant to develop strategies for effective marketing, building client relationships and making legal sales, you’ll begin to see even more fruits of your labor.


Have a great Labor Day weekend!

No one who met Bruce Banner and the Incredible Hulk would guess that they were one in the same—after all, how could a mild-mannered scientist also be a creature with superhuman strength? Attorneys focused on business growth are advised to take a lesson in duality from this iconic comic book character, learning to play both the adept lawyer and the dedicated client service team member. Providing high quality legal services is important – but you can’t count on it to be the thing that helps you keep clients coming back the next time that they need services.


When BTI Consulting Group conducted a survey of law firm client satisfaction, they found that more than 87% of clients were willing to replace their current law firm if there were a good reason to do so. Clients surveyed who were the most committed to their firms were those who received great legal services, who believed those services offered value, and who knew the lawyers they were working with were fully on their side.


As a result, if you want to keep your clients coming back for more, it’s time to transform the way they see you. Make sure that you’re staying on top of the latest information about your clients’ businesses. Focus on keeping your clients informed and make sure that you’re up-to-date on their changing needs. Take the time to ask what your clients need when they report back to the C-Suite and make sure that you get that information to them.


The commitment that you make to your clients keeps them with you. Focus on developing great client skills and create value even when you’re not actively providing case services and you’ll find that your clients are a strong foundation for client retention.

“And where is Batman?” asked the Joker on an occasion when the caped crusader was trapped and temporarily unable to save the day. By calling into question Batman’s ability to “be there” when people needed him, the Joker created a sense of doubt and uneasiness among the citizens of Gotham.


Don’t play the role of the villain within your own business by inadvertently creating that same sense of uneasiness in your clients and prospects. As a lawyer looking to land clients, it’s imperative that you understand the importance of “being there” when your clients need you. By being available for your client, following up with clients after their case is settled to ensure that everything is still going smoothly, checking in and staying in touch at regular intervals, and making sure that your clients and even your top prospects are comfortable picking up the phone when they have a question, you can be sure that you stay fresh in their minds.


Instead, fashion your approach in a more “heroic” manner. Make sure that you always follow up to a call or email in a timely fashion, and you’ll be reminding clients of their importance to you.
Make certain that clients and prospects have a strong understanding of what you and your firm have to offer. And also concentrate on asking the right questions, determining what your clients and prospects need and focusing on creating an awareness of what you can do for them. By making your clients a priority, your reputation and closing skills will benefit.