Sales and Service Strategies: Simplicity Is the Key to Selling Legal Services

Have you ever heard the saying 'Ready, Shoot, Aim'? I am sure you will agree that this is not a good way to hunt duck, and it is also no way to hunt for clients. You would not drive to another state or into the city without first getting directions or plugging the destination address into your navigation system. So why would you even attempt to try and develop your practice, one of the single most important components of your career, without careful planning? Business development planning needs to take place in three practice-related areas: strategy, marketing and sales.

Practice Strategy Plan

Practice strategy planning entails determining the key services you will provide, the target markets that you will pursue (ie, industry, geographic, demographic, annual revenues, etc.), setting your billable rates and determining your unique value proposition (UVP) that will help to differentiate you in the minds of your prospective clients. Each of these components should be carefully considered as each will serve as the foundation for developing your practice and for developing your marketing and sales plans. Strategy is the road map that defines the broad scope of what you are trying to accomplish with your practice over time. This is in contrast to marketing and sales which can be considered the vehicles that will help you to turn your strategy into reality.

Practice Marketing Plan

A practice marketing plan should be developed to support your overall practice along with the particular service(s) that you want to promote over a 12- to 24-month period. Try not to confuse this plan with your firm's marketing plan and corporate marketing efforts, whose goals tend to be more macro-based such as firm branding and building overall awareness for the firm's broad capabilities. Components to your personal marketing plan include: target market selection, marketing mix, resource allocation and metrics. The target market selection in your marketing plan will almost always be more focused than the target market you identified in your practice strategy plan as your marketing plan covers a shorter period of time and should be focused on supporting your sales efforts for that same period. In the long run however, the target markets from your strategic plan and your marketing plan will converge. After selecting the target markets to pursue you will identify the tactics you will use to communicate with them (eg, white papers, articles, public speaking, seminars, etc.) along with the resources necessary to implement the tactics (ie, time, money and technology). Finally you will want to develop metrics to help you set goals for each tactic and a way to evaluate their results. Remember, the goal of marketing is to build awareness for your practice, to position you as an expert in your area, and to generate qualified leads.

Practice Sales Plan

The third planning component, the sales plan, is where the real action takes place. This is where you leverage all of the critical thinking and creativity you have put into your practice strategy and marketing plans and convert such efforts into prospects and ultimately clients. The sales plan begins by further zeroing in on your target market to identify prospects. Prospects come from research, networking and referrals. Initially, most prospects will come from the first two, but as your practice grows an increasing amount of your prospects will come via referrals. In your sales plan, you should specify how you will identify prospects (eg, internet or conferences) and how you will determine if they are indeed a potential client and/or a good referral source for you. As with your marketing plan, it is also critical here to set goals and metrics to evaluate your sales results. The final component to your sales plan is determining how you are going to personally improve your ability to add clients to your practice portfolio.

Develop Your Personal Selling Style

So you want to improve your ability to sell legal services but you're not sure where to start? One way would be to go online or to a bookstore and select a book or two on selling. You will find that there is no shortage of these books and that you can even find some that focus on selling services or even legal services. If you read these books you will surely learn a bit, but in the process you will likely become frustrated and perhaps overwhelmed by the many different sales approaches and the wide range of topics that authors have covered. Furthermore, it is not just knowing how to sell, but selecting the right sales approach for you. It is vital that you employ a methodology that makes you comfortable and enables you to execute it naturally. Most successful business developers learn from multiple educational sources as well as their personal experiences and blend them all together into a system that works for them. Having read my fair share of sales and marketing books over the years, I have come to realize two things: First, there is always more to learn, and second, you should avoid getting stuck in the details. It is better to come away from a book or educational seminar with one idea and add it to your sales approach than it is trying to change multiple things at once. Your likelihood for success is much greater when your improvement efforts are focused.

The essence of sales is that it is a numbers driven process. The more prospects, qualified prospects, and meetings you have, the more clients and revenues you will ultimately generate. Sales efficiency is also important. Your time is limited and the higher your conversion rates are in moving prospects though the sales process, the more time you will have to get more clients, spend with your family and practice your golf game. Look at your numbers and pick out an area that you want to improve such as prospecting, networking, meeting effectiveness or closing skills and focus on that area. Once you improve the first area, select another area in which to improve your business development capabilities. Over time you will find that the investments you make to improve your business development skills will pay themselves back many times over.

Planning and Selling

Keep to the basics, develop your personal strategic and marketing plans, invest in your personal sales style and the clients will come. Don't be discouraged if they do not come in droves at first. That's not the way it typically works. Your practice is like any business, it needs to be nurtured in order to grow. Developing a healthy law practice requires motivation, discipline, energy, persistence and patience. Commit the time and resources to investing in yourself today so you can enjoy the rewards of a solid client base and referral network in the future. It will, without a doubt, be one of the wisest investments you will ever make.

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Greg Ehrlich is a principal at Growth Marketing Strategies, LLC. He assists lawyers and their firms to create and implement sound business strategies and marketing plans to grow revenues and profits. He also provides sales training and coaching to attorneys that want to improve their business development abilities. Reach him at [email protected] or at 617-777-9997.

Keep it Simple. It sounds basic and obvious, but it is easy to complicate even the most important things. And how many things are more important than growing your practice? You certainly can be a good lawyer and provide technical excellence, but how will that help you achieve your goals for financial success and job security? Will it enable you to achieve the professional status you desire? Will you command sufficient respect within your firm and among your peers?

It is easy to complicate practice development and as a result become frustrated. Avoid two common traps and you will greatly enhance the results of your sales efforts. First, do not market your practice until you have created a clear strategic plan. Without a solid business development plan, it is easy to get lost in the quagmire of issues and options to address. Selecting a target market, determining how best to position your practice, identifying personal marketing tactics, and deciding with which organizations to become affiliated. The second trap is either having a haphazard sales method or not having a method at all. There are so many approaches to selling that it can be difficult to decide which one is best for you. Take the time to continuously develop your sales skills and style and not only will you enjoy better results, you may also find out that business development can be fun.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Have you ever heard the saying 'Ready, Shoot, Aim'? I am sure you will agree that this is not a good way to hunt duck, and it is also no way to hunt for clients. You would not drive to another state or into the city without first getting directions or plugging the destination address into your navigation system. So why would you even attempt to try and develop your practice, one of the single most important components of your career, without careful planning? Business development planning needs to take place in three practice-related areas: strategy, marketing and sales.

Practice Strategy Plan

Practice strategy planning entails determining the key services you will provide, the target markets that you will pursue (ie, industry, geographic, demographic, annual revenues, etc.), setting your billable rates and determining your unique value proposition (UVP) that will help to differentiate you in the minds of your prospective clients. Each of these components should be carefully considered as each will serve as the foundation for developing your practice and for developing your marketing and sales plans. Strategy is the road map that defines the broad scope of what you are trying to accomplish with your practice over time. This is in contrast to marketing and sales which can be considered the vehicles that will help you to turn your strategy into reality.

Practice Marketing Plan

A practice marketing plan should be developed to support your overall practice along with the particular service(s) that you want to promote over a 12- to 24-month period. Try not to confuse this plan with your firm's marketing plan and corporate marketing efforts, whose goals tend to be more macro-based such as firm branding and building overall awareness for the firm's broad capabilities. Components to your personal marketing plan include: target market selection, marketing mix, resource allocation and metrics. The target market selection in your marketing plan will almost always be more focused than the target market you identified in your practice strategy plan as your marketing plan covers a shorter period of time and should be focused on supporting your sales efforts for that same period. In the long run however, the target markets from your strategic plan and your marketing plan will converge. After selecting the target markets to pursue you will identify the tactics you will use to communicate with them (eg, white papers, articles, public speaking, seminars, etc.) along with the resources necessary to implement the tactics (ie, time, money and technology). Finally you will want to develop metrics to help you set goals for each tactic and a way to evaluate their results. Remember, the goal of marketing is to build awareness for your practice, to position you as an expert in your area, and to generate qualified leads.

Practice Sales Plan

The third planning component, the sales plan, is where the real action takes place. This is where you leverage all of the critical thinking and creativity you have put into your practice strategy and marketing plans and convert such efforts into prospects and ultimately clients. The sales plan begins by further zeroing in on your target market to identify prospects. Prospects come from research, networking and referrals. Initially, most prospects will come from the first two, but as your practice grows an increasing amount of your prospects will come via referrals. In your sales plan, you should specify how you will identify prospects (eg, internet or conferences) and how you will determine if they are indeed a potential client and/or a good referral source for you. As with your marketing plan, it is also critical here to set goals and metrics to evaluate your sales results. The final component to your sales plan is determining how you are going to personally improve your ability to add clients to your practice portfolio.

Develop Your Personal Selling Style

So you want to improve your ability to sell legal services but you're not sure where to start? One way would be to go online or to a bookstore and select a book or two on selling. You will find that there is no shortage of these books and that you can even find some that focus on selling services or even legal services. If you read these books you will surely learn a bit, but in the process you will likely become frustrated and perhaps overwhelmed by the many different sales approaches and the wide range of topics that authors have covered. Furthermore, it is not just knowing how to sell, but selecting the right sales approach for you. It is vital that you employ a methodology that makes you comfortable and enables you to execute it naturally. Most successful business developers learn from multiple educational sources as well as their personal experiences and blend them all together into a system that works for them. Having read my fair share of sales and marketing books over the years, I have come to realize two things: First, there is always more to learn, and second, you should avoid getting stuck in the details. It is better to come away from a book or educational seminar with one idea and add it to your sales approach than it is trying to change multiple things at once. Your likelihood for success is much greater when your improvement efforts are focused.

The essence of sales is that it is a numbers driven process. The more prospects, qualified prospects, and meetings you have, the more clients and revenues you will ultimately generate. Sales efficiency is also important. Your time is limited and the higher your conversion rates are in moving prospects though the sales process, the more time you will have to get more clients, spend with your family and practice your golf game. Look at your numbers and pick out an area that you want to improve such as prospecting, networking, meeting effectiveness or closing skills and focus on that area. Once you improve the first area, select another area in which to improve your business development capabilities. Over time you will find that the investments you make to improve your business development skills will pay themselves back many times over.

Planning and Selling

Keep to the basics, develop your personal strategic and marketing plans, invest in your personal sales style and the clients will come. Don't be discouraged if they do not come in droves at first. That's not the way it typically works. Your practice is like any business, it needs to be nurtured in order to grow. Developing a healthy law practice requires motivation, discipline, energy, persistence and patience. Commit the time and resources to investing in yourself today so you can enjoy the rewards of a solid client base and referral network in the future. It will, without a doubt, be one of the wisest investments you will ever make.

[IMGCAP(1)]

Greg Ehrlich is a principal at Growth Marketing Strategies, LLC. He assists lawyers and their firms to create and implement sound business strategies and marketing plans to grow revenues and profits. He also provides sales training and coaching to attorneys that want to improve their business development abilities. Reach him at [email protected] or at 617-777-9997.