A vital component to business generation and business development is to create an effective follow up plan. Good follow up enables your firm to fully capitalize on the opportunities that develop relationships already available to you via bar association and trade events, meetings and seminars.

Remember, good follow up starts even before you make physical contact with your target.

Preparation: The Huddle

• Organize the follow up before the event, ascertaining who your firm’s primary targets are.
• Preview handout materials and anticipate who might be attending.
• Match the right attorney with the right potential client based on practice area and expertise.

Then, Don’t Drop the Ball:

• With every personal connection you have made at the event, organize a follow up system to maximize the good will you have cultivated. Forget email in this situation. Instead, stay at the top of their minds with a personal, hand-written note sent no later than three days after the meeting.
• Conduct a post-event review of attendees, their titles, industries and buying power. Then create a checklist on how to effectively follow up on each viable lead.

Here are the type of questions to ask a client or client prospect which not only demonstrate your skill and understanding of their business, but draw out answers that will help you sell.

* Does in-house counsel have an organized, functioning early case assessment system?
* Are their business and operational units covered in this system?
* How is enterprise risk management and intellectual property protection handled?
* Are they prepared for the arduous demands of e-discovery?
* Do they need outside counsel to assist in litigation public relations or crisis management?
* Can you offer training programs in professional development for the legal department?
* Does your firm provide a shared technology system so you and clients can communicate
directly and easily?
* How will they expect you to “communicate” with them?
* How much of what you communicate with them needs to be formatted so it can be
forwarded to the CEO and Board of Directors?
* What is the best format to use and how often should they be sent?

The very fact that you are already concerned about these essential day-to-day considerations sends a very positive message about you at all stages of the selling process.

DISCUSSION OF DISCOVERY continues our series on winning communications with client prospects and clients. With research and media analysis completed, you are ready for the transition from talking to selling.

For starters, ask how the CEO and Board of Directors expect to be apprised of pending risks and prevention steps. Such questions can directly generate deliverables on your end if, for example, that CEO or Board has asked in-house counsel to provide a larger dose of prophylactic analysis of operational or business units.

If so, you’ve immediately found the critical sweet spot and possibly uncovered a future service area. At that point you can discuss related strategies that you’ve successfully implemented for other clients. If your question about preventive law does not resonate, you simply move on to the next question rather than bog down trying to sell something the company does not want to buy.

Next time, we’ll have a specific list of questions which will not only demonstrate your skill and understanding of their business, but draw out answers that will help you sell.

Following our theme of asking questions of in-house counsel, our recent article in MARKETING THE LAW FIRM is worth repeating here. “You know Susan, it’s funny. I’ve been reading these damn surveys about what’s most important to in-house counsel and I see two very different results. One of them says that understanding your business needs is the most important thing. The other says that cost-efficiency is the overriding priority. What do you think?”

Whatever answer you get will at least be helpful and may be decisive. A thoughtful buyer might even tell you how and why the two contrasting priorities are not in opposition. One response heard is that all of our business lines include cost-efficiently; so you will need to consider that.

Another answer presents an either/or situation. “If you can scare plaintiffs’ lawyers off, we don’t mind a little budget creep.” A third might be “We’re under enormous pressure to keep fees down. We need to settle these cases and settle them fast.”

In all cases, you have your answer - and perhaps a cue for further action. If, for example, you’re apprised of that “enormous pressure ” from the C-Suite or the board to hold or cut costs, offer a solution. Volunteer to meet with the CEO (off the clock) to provide long-term assessments of what a less pound-foolish approach can achieve as well as the dangers of being overly penny-wise.

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.”

By 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!

All of our business development training programs focus on bringing in business. One area of concentration is spending time understanding the pressures your current clients are under and how they might impact your engagements. One very important component is knowing who might replace your clients if they leave or are terminated, or promoted to CEO. Have your attorneys started to identify and court the clients’ future in-house leaders?