In the NFL, the Red Zone is the final 20 yards before the goal line – the area in which the defense needs to be strong and where the offense must take advantage of practiced skills and sharp thinking in order to score. For the Closers Group, our Red Zone approach is part of what sets us apart from other business development consultants. When we talk about the Red Zone with our clients, we’re referencing the time that they’re meeting with their prospects, one on one, and using the closing skills they’ve developed to win a new engagement.


One of the most important closing skills that attorneys can bring to the Red Zone is the ability to listen carefully to what prospects and clients say. This directly relates to the importance of understanding client needs (and being able to react to them) when it comes to winning contracts.


Most lawyers are great at talking and good at asking questions, but only fair at listening. For new business development, whether you’ve just made contact or you’re at the one yard line and about to seal the deal, the importance of listening cannot be stressed enough. The art of listening should permeate legal sales training, be a part of every firm’s marketing plan, and be a strategy used during every concerted law sales opportunity.


When lawyers meet with a prospect, they should focus on creating at least a 60/40 breakdown: during any business development meeting, get your prospect or client talking 60% of the time and make sure that you’re listening to and acting on what he or she says. Listening and responding to a client or prospect’s needs are imperative if you want to move through the Red Zone and score.

Some lawyers may have an uncanny advantage for marketing their practices simply because of when they were born – at least if you take personality traits of astrological birth signs into consideration. Pisces, for example, are thought to be creative, sensitive, helpful, and intuitive. All of these traits are vital when it comes to invisible marketing—and fortunately, you can hone those traits, no matter what your sign.


Business development consultants will tell you to look for every possible opportunity to market your services or your firm. The consultants at the Closers Group will also tell you to take advantage of invisible marketing techniques –to be creative, to anticipate future possibilities, and highlight your value for your prospects and current clients – to navigate legal sales.


Lead development (and eventual conversion) requires seizing the moment. If a prospect or client asks you what’s new, focus on a recent big win at your firm rather than the success of your son or daughter’s soccer team. This keeps the emphasis on your services and the way that your clients and prospects benefit from them. Move relationships forward whenever possible. If your client calls with a complaint, be sure to fix the problem as quickly as possible; you’ll be able to leverage this later by reminding the client of your fast response to their needs. This sets the stage for future follow-ups as well. When you have the opportunity, ask your client if there are other problems or concerns – and focus on resolving those just as quickly.


Adopting the Pisces profile – using invisible and creative marketing strategies, intuiting your prospects’ and clients’ needs, and offering solutions as quickly as possible – will ensure that you never miss a business development opportunity that comes your way. Good deeds and a focus on building strong relationships both become ingrained in your prospects’ and clients’ memories and will lead them to seek you out when they’re looking for services.

Snowboarding debuted in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano and has been evolving ever since. The 2006 games in Torino, Italy, saw the introduction of snowboard cross, but the thrills of the halfpipe competition are what really draw in the fans. Performing in the halfpipe requires athletes to minimize their start-to-finish times while maximizing the “air” they achieve and the artistry of their tricks.


Olympic snowboarders train extensively during the off-season and continually push themselves harder to ensure that they stay on the cutting edge, perform at peak levels, and have that extra something that will wow the crowds. Similarly, lawyers focused on successful law firm marketing will find benefits when they minimize the time invested in business development strategies and maximize their performance.


There’s no doubt that, during the last 25 years, law firms, lawyers and legal marketing professionals have made great strides in spreading the word about their services. Unlike coaches of snowboarders like Shaun White, however, law firm marketing professionals sometimes struggle to get lawyers to practice new tricks. Many also still face a key obstacle to ongoing innovation for business development: there are lawyers who don’t consistently follow through when it comes to individual or group law sales.


The challenge is that the lawyers are often struggling to find balance between business development and practicing law. One of the business development strategies that the consultants at the Closers Group recommend to address this is fairly simple: narrow the focus of what is on a lawyer’s agenda.


When a lawyer’s focus is spread across a range of tasks, the marketing department can help by cutting down the lawyer’s to-do list. A lawyer is more likely to at least begin to make an effort to get through assigned or agreed-upon tasks when these tasks are clearly defined.


Just as a snowboarder will have a more successful run when he or she is focused and in the moment, law firm marketing teams will find that business development efforts are more successful when the attorney’s time and activity are focused on tasks like lead generation and lead development.

There’s a lot to be said for using tried and trusted tactics when you’re approaching your prospects or planning a sales presentation, but when your tactics aren’t getting results, it’s time to try something new. Dave Barry had some great advice on this – referencing two famous ships:

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur build the Ark while a large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Marketing teams at law firms often think they’re the ones with all the answers, but this overlooks the fact that lawyers focused on sales and solid presentations can be even more successful when it comes to bringing in new business – especially when they have the right support.


As part of our Closers Consulting, we urge our clients to pick a new tactic and try it out, encouraging our clients to get input from others in their firms who have used the strategy. We also answer questions about the strategy and talk them through implementing it, work with them to refine it, and take the time to do a “post mortem” after they’ve had the chance to take it out into the field. Then we continue practicing and refining it until it becomes natural – all before moving on to another lead development technique and repeating the process.


Trying something new doesn’t mean that you’ll go in unsupported. Having a business development consultant on your side ensures that you’re able to form new strategies, try new tactics, and bring in new clients.

When you’re hosting a sales presentation – or participating in any other presentation or panel that can be used to draw in more business – proper planning is crucial. Not only do you need to be prepared to make your contribution, but also your firm should strategize regarding the best ways to “deploy the troops” to interact and build relationships with attendees. However, all of the preparation and tactical maneuvering that you do will be for naught if you fail to follow up after the event.


After the event has concluded, the time is right to “merchandise” your presentation. Post the content of your speech – or even a well-recorded video – to your website or send the content out as an e-blast to your online mailing list. Identify the prospects who were unable to attend the conference that would be interested in the subject you covered, and send them highlights of the presentation. If it’s possible to convert your presentation into a press release, do so and get it out to journalists who are covering related topics. Alternately, use the content to create an article that can be submitted to industry-focused publications.


Additionally, if the event was sponsored by an association or third-party, part of your follow-up process should include identifying additional ways to participate in the organization’s activities. Consider looking into other professional initiatives that the organization sponsors, identifying additional presentation opportunities, and looking for ways to offer your services on a pro bono basis.


To really seal the deal, however, you will also need to follow up with the contacts that you made at the event or presentation. Take the time to enter all contact info from the business cards you’ve collected (as well as from survey responses and event feedback comments) into your CRM or other contact database, then start building relationships. Follow up on any questions you were asked, find pretexts for making direct phone calls, and extend lunch invitations to those attendees in your area.


As with all firm marketing, put yourself in the prospect’s role. What kind of outreach would you appreciate if you’d been in the audience? What would maximize the value of the event for you? Generally speaking, the answers to these questions – along with marketing best practices that your firm has already established – can provide direction. If you can add value and be helpful to your prospects, you’ll have identified actions that are worth making!

In military strategy, deploying the troops happens when the right place and the right time have been determined – when the generals and commanders have had the opportunity to identify a strategy for “meeting the enemy where they are” in an effort to reach an established goal. In our previous post, we began to explore the challenges on the battlefield of sales presentations We looked at the importance of knowing how each opportunity should be met with a marketing strategy in mind, and the need to place members of your firm with the individuals on the “must-get-to-know list.”


Within the context of your sales presentations, deploying the troops is about two things:

1. Ensuring that the members of your firm’s staff are accessible to those in attendance.
2. Encouraging attendees to seek out your colleagues so that they can get the information that addresses their needs.

The first step is fairly easy to accomplish. There should be at least one attorney from your firm at each table if it’s at all possible. This creates the potential for every audience member to be engaged. In order to avoid redundancy – and the risk of attorneys simply talking with one another – no more than two attorneys from your firm should be seated at the same table.


Making sure that your colleagues are accessible to attendees enables attendees to easily gather more information. You can encourage this contact in a number of ways; here are some examples:

• Introduce your colleagues before, after, or – if appropriate – during your presentation to create cross-selling possibilities. If, while planning your presentation, you find yourself thinking about your colleague’s area of expertise, work it into the speech. As an example, “This whole related area of sick building litigation is also important – and it’s something that my colleague Don Jones, who is here today, specializes in. Don, can you please identify yourself in case anyone in the audience has a question for you after the presentation?” would allow attendees to identify the person best able to respond to those needs.
• Without being obviously self-promoting, be on the lookout for opportunities to mention one or two relevant successes that you and your colleagues have had during the presentation or panel discussion.

Additionally, you will want to look for opportunities to engage further contact with those who attend the presentation. Any topic-related pretext for future contact is worth pursuing. Consider distributing a survey on your presentation topic with the promise to send results to the attendees once they are compiled. Alternately, refer to an event, opinion, piece of new legislation or related matter saying, “If you want more information, leave me your card and I can call or email you with further details.” This – along with simply asking those who you meet if it will be okay to contact them in the near future – opens the door for permission-based marketing (something that we’ll explore further in Part III: Sealing the Deal).

Many trial attorneys will be familiar with Louis Nizer from reading My Life in the Courtroom. Of all of the advice that he had to offer lawyers falling in his footsteps, it’s difficult to select the real gems; however, his way with words was quite evident as he discussed the importance of preparation:

Preparation is the be-all of good trial work. Everything else - felicity of expression, improvisational brilliance - is a satellite around the sun. Thorough preparation is that sun.

While great lawyers are unlikely to enter the courtroom without familiarizing themselves with the case at hand, finding relevant procedural rulings and prepping their witnesses, many of these same lawyers who are preparing for sales presentations don’t have the same focus. Even those who prepare the content of their speech or their part of the panel discussion in advance often fail to identify the business reason for presenting and to take steps ensuring the greatest possible positive impact of the event. As a result, key logistics - like those below – are often overlooked:

• Send invitations on your own letterhead or by email even if one has been sent separately by your firm. From a marketing standpoint, this serves as a reminder of your expertise on the presentation topic. Additionally, it can boost attendance for the event as colleagues, clients, and prospects who might not attend a general institutional event may want to attend if they associate the event with you.
• Encourage attorneys from other practice areas to send invites to their clients and prospects. The presentation you’re giving may be valuable for their clients and prospects too – and recipients can pass the information along to others in their company or organization who may be interested.
• Circulate an internal memo urging others at your firm to attend the presentation. Marketing staff should attend as well – this will help them promote and follow up after the event.
• Arrange to contact all prospective attendees with a reminder a week ahead of the event. Call your own contacts with a reminder as well.
• Obtain the most up-to-date attendee list and assign each attending attorney and support person from your firm a group of “must-get-to-know individuals.” This will ensure a personal touch during the event.

Paying close attention to logistics before your sales presentation helps to ensure the success of the event. Focusing on before-the-event logistics not only strengthens the marketing impact of the speech or presentation, but also serves to help you focus on the remaining two keys to sales presentation success: “deploying the troops” and “sealing the deal.” We’ll be discussing these additional elements in our next posts.

Fans everywhere – including those who hadn’t been born when the King left the building – celebrated what would have been Elvis Presley’s 75th birthday this past January 8.


Ever wonder why his music and presence is still in such demand that it brings in so much revenue for his Estate? As far as I know, Elvis never even lost a fan. He consistently demonstrated best practices in his work that provide a great example for those focused on client retention and legal sales.


First and foremost, Elvis ensured that his music was on the minds of his fans (and, as a result, for his future fans). When he starred in a film, the soundtracks were released as Elvis Presley albums. Lawyers can follow this example. When you give a speech, make sure that it is converted to an article, placed on your website, sent to your contact list, and used as an example of why a company or agency should invite you to make a CLE presentation.


Of course, merchandising your best work doesn’t mean putting the exact piece out there time and time again. Elvis updated his songs, modified his staging, and had more costumes than anyone could imagine, but he always brought excellence to the table and let his fans know that he was giving his all every time. Within your firm, insist that your entire team give their all and provide true value in all client work. It should go without saying that this helps to build relationships, enhances closing skills, and can lead to more work in the future – especially for those lawyers who continue to interact with those who they have worked with in the past.


In business development, it is critical to go where your clients go; even Elvis toured the US and Canada to perform wherever his clients—otherwise known as his fans–congregated. If your clients and prospects will be attending an industry conference, be there to reinforce the relationship. Co-present with them, ask for introductions to their colleagues, and impress them with your work. All of these things will help you to continue to pave the way for positive recommendations for you to their co-counsel. Not only will it help them remain a “fan,” but also these steps can help to expand your “audience.”


“It’s now or never” for law firm marketing; keep Elvis in mind as you proceed.

A law firm’s growth and success is never due only to marketing. Put differently, the marketing piece of the pie is not the only aspect of a law firm’s services that will make it successful. The product – the legal services – has to be good to have clients return a second time.


Assuming that this is the case in client development, law firm marketers should realize they cannot ask their lawyers to do too much. Business development consultants recommend that by setting clear guidelines and limiting the lawyers’ obligations, a law firm’s marketing staff will make it more likely that their lawyers will be successful at sales and presentations.

For generations, the Flying Wallendas have performed high-wire tricks that dazzle audiences – in part because their acrobatic stunts seem so impossible and create an illusion that they will fail. The family now continues to push their limits and recognizes that their success depends on mastering each act of their performance one step at a time until all of the components are brought together.


Even when the Wallendas seem to have mastered a new act, they continue to review its components, raising the skill and confidences levels of the performers, and moving toward making the act an even bigger success. Your business development process should take a similar approach.


In order to ensure that all of the lawyers in your firm are comfortable in marketing situations—from your first year associates to your 20-year veterans–training and motivation are crucial. Urge associates and junior partners to test out one or two marketing tactics, evaluate their success, and identify what it will take to bring them to the next level of client development. Encourage them to focus their attention on clients and prospects even as they are attending conferences, taking part in bar association meetings, writing articles, giving speeches or providing pro bono services. Most importantly, include accountability in the process on a frequent basis.


For Karl Wallenda, the family patriarch, “Life is being on the wire, everything else is just waiting.” Similarly, for lawyers focused on growing their practices, success is focusing on marketing and business development, and everything else is just passing time.