Sales Speak:Stop 'Selling Stuff '

Although this dynamic is changing, external business development activity at most law firms remain the sole responsibility of the firm's lawyers. The vast majority of firms, with a few exceptions, do not have experienced sales professionals on staff and deployed into the marketplace. As such, the lawyers continue to be relied upon to be the “sales force.” Given that lawyers are not sales professionals and only spend a small amount of their time focused on business development, and given that they already have a full-time job, it's important to keep the business development approach as simple as possible. Some ideas related to keeping it simple follow:

• Use as little “marketing jargon” as possible when communicating with lawyers.
• Reference real-life examples of successes and lessons learned from failure whenever possible.
• Focus the vast majority of the business development effort on existing clients.
• Be externally focused, but not to the exclusion of having an internal marketing strategy.
• Take an industry, client-centric, approach to the market.
• Understand your client's business.
• Don't “pitch” ( see the article titled “Pitch Meetings: To Present or Not to Present, That Is the Question,” in Marketing the Law Firm , June 2014; available at http://bit.ly/14GnsJb).
• Stop “selling” stuff.

Talking the Talk?

A common theme that I've heard over the years, both as a chief marketing officer and in my current role as consultant, is that marketing professionals use a lot of marketing “jargon” as a natural part of their interaction with the lawyers. The more that you can reference real-life examples of success and lessons learned as you coach the lawyers, the more responsive they will be.

Using marketing terminology as you provide guidance to the lawyers only serves to confuse and, in many cases, frustrate them, minimizing their inclination to be “return customers” and removing any chances that they'll “tell their friends” about what a repository of meaningful knowledge the marketing department is. So, limit your use of the marketing buzzwords to the lawyers who are only the most advanced business developers and with your marketing and business development professionals.

Coaching

Coaching and training lawyers in the area of business development is becoming more prevalent in law firms, and the participants are more enthusiastic. One of the most important concepts that lawyers are finally starting to believe is that simply being a great lawyer isn't good enough to set oneself apart from the competition. You must be a great lawyer, yes, but an understanding of a client's industry and its business is essential to differentiation.

The competition is as tough as ever. There are many great lawyers out there. Convergence practices being undertaken by companies and organizations to reduce the number of outside providers they keep on their “preferred provider” lists make for fewer opportunities. These factors naturally increase competition and drive fees down, resulting in legal counsel becoming a commodity.

Who 'Needs to Know'?

In addition to external challenges, there are many internal ones as well. If there is one common theme that I see most often, it is ineffective communication. The communication breakdown occurs at many levels; across practices, between offices, and so forth. An easy way to improve internal communication is to first get away from ' and dispel wherever possible ' the notion that “every partner needs to know what every other partner does.” This simply is not true.

The effort that I see firms putting into trying to achieve this objective is surprising. The fact is, only about 5%-10% of a firm's partners need to know what value their counterparts are delivering to their clients. Although, in theory, the concept of being able to remember what 200 of your partners does and, conversely, those 200 partners remembering what you do, would be nice, it simply isn't practical, nor is it worth the effort that it would take to make it so.

When one takes an industry- or client-centric approach to the market, it pretty quickly becomes clear which 5%-10% of the firm's partners need to coordinate and communicate. In these cases, since the value proposition impacts a particular partner's clients, it is likely that the partner will remember what the other partner who serves similar clients does ' and consequently, will improve the chances that collaboration and coordination will occur. This collaboration will manifest itself in delivering meaningful value to clients and messaging that matters to prospective clients.

The Client List

The first step in improving communication, coordination, and collaboration is to create a meaningful view of the firm's client list. It's not good enough to simply have a “white space analysis” anymore. With the proper level of organization and filtering, client data can be a very powerful framework around which practice groups can “plug into the matrix” internally and externally.

As I tell my clients all the time, it's important to be viewed by clients and prospective clients as “one of them,” rather than being perceived as someone who “provides services to them.” In other words, be viewed as a “healthcare industry professional” instead of a “lawyer who advises healthcare organizations.”

To achieve this, it's necessary to become immersed in the client's respective industry; take a leadership role in an industry focused group or association, subscribe to the same industry publications (on-line or otherwise) as the clients, understand the regulatory landscape, develop and foster a network of professionals in that particular industry rather than placing so much emphasis on bar-related activities, learn to “speak their language”, etc.

You need to understand the client's business, understand what their top strategic initiatives are, and, most importantly, know how to help them overcome the obstacles that are getting in the way of them achieving their corporate objectives. That is where the value is. It's important to keep in mind that you aren't “selling stuff.” You are solving a client's business problem. If you truly understand your clients' business, goals and objectives, how they define success, how they are organized, how they are measured, and more, then you become viewed as a business partner rather than simply a lawyer or, worse, a vendor.

Being a 'Trusted Adviser'

It is virtually impossible to become a business partner to your clients without first understanding their business. How do you know when you've arrived as a business partner? When you begin solving problems for clients before they even know they had a problem, then you are well on your way to achieving business partner or “trusted adviser” status, which is the Holy Grail of relationship development in business.

Being a trusted adviser means taking a holistic, business process driven, enterprise-wide view that spans beyond the specific type of law that the lawyer is an expert in. If the employment lawyer who owns the primary relationship with the client only thinks about that client's employment issues, he/she will rarely achieve trusted advisor status at the enterprise level. The closer a lawyer can come to being viewed as a business partner or “trusted advisor” with their clients, the less likely that the lawyer will get caught up in the “commodity conundrum” facing many other lawyers whose business development strategy is to simply “sell stuff.”

In line with improved communication and coordination, firms are truly beginning to take a team selling approach to the market. “Industry experts” along with “subject matter experts” are coming together for pitch meetings with prospective clients. Compensation programs that rewarded “lone-wolf” behavior are now being redesigned to provide incentives to taking a team selling approach. Along these lines, client development teams are taking hold. Client teams are, by definition, totally client-centric. All decisions pivot from the client and the industry that they're in. Establishing formal client teams for key clients is a current trend and is the wave of the future.

The Bottom Line

It is expensive to find new clients, which is why I recommend focusing the majority of business development time on expanding work with existing clients. Client loyalty and satisfaction is critical to retention of key and significant clients. One way to ensure that you are building client loyalty is to elicit client feedback. Personal visits or telephone conversations are recommended over written surveys. Whether personal visits from the chairman, managing partner, chief marketing officer, the relationship leader, or a phone call from third-party providers, client feedback is essential to keeping the relationship on solid ground. Let's face it, nobody likes to hear negative feedback, even if it's framed in the form of “constructive criticism,” but clients like to be asked and the relationship will improve if this is done. So do it!

What is the most important thing to remember when developing client relationships? Stop trying to “sell stuff,” which takes the form of service offerings delivered through channels known as practice groups. Stop trying to market the fact that your IP practice is better than someone else's IP practice. Focus on the client's business. Become “one of them.” Think more strategically, from a business perspective, and align your go-to-market strategy with the way the market is naturally organized ' by industry.

If members of the client team are proficient in the respective subject matter area, understand the client's top initiatives, address the business issues that the client is facing, and articulate how the firm has helped others in that particular industry, you will vastly improve your odds of winning new engagements. Additionally, you will be light years ahead of the competitors who are still focused on “selling stuff.”

Bruce Alltop is a Senior Consultant at LawVision Group, LLC. His experience includes nearly 10 years as a law firm Chief Marketing Officer, and leadership positions at other professional services firms, including Ernst & Young.

Although this dynamic is changing, external business development activity at most law firms remain the sole responsibility of the firm's lawyers. The vast majority of firms, with a few exceptions, do not have experienced sales professionals on staff and deployed into the marketplace. As such, the lawyers continue to be relied upon to be the “sales force.” Given that lawyers are not sales professionals and only spend a small amount of their time focused on business development, and given that they already have a full-time job, it's important to keep the business development approach as simple as possible. Some ideas related to keeping it simple follow:

• Use as little “marketing jargon” as possible when communicating with lawyers.
• Reference real-life examples of successes and lessons learned from failure whenever possible.
• Focus the vast majority of the business development effort on existing clients.
• Be externally focused, but not to the exclusion of having an internal marketing strategy.
• Take an industry, client-centric, approach to the market.
• Understand your client's business.
• Don't “pitch” ( see the article titled “Pitch Meetings: To Present or Not to Present, That Is the Question,” in Marketing the Law Firm , June 2014; available at http://bit.ly/14GnsJb).
• Stop “selling” stuff.

Talking the Talk?

A common theme that I've heard over the years, both as a chief marketing officer and in my current role as consultant, is that marketing professionals use a lot of marketing “jargon” as a natural part of their interaction with the lawyers. The more that you can reference real-life examples of success and lessons learned as you coach the lawyers, the more responsive they will be.

Using marketing terminology as you provide guidance to the lawyers only serves to confuse and, in many cases, frustrate them, minimizing their inclination to be “return customers” and removing any chances that they'll “tell their friends” about what a repository of meaningful knowledge the marketing department is. So, limit your use of the marketing buzzwords to the lawyers who are only the most advanced business developers and with your marketing and business development professionals.

Coaching

Coaching and training lawyers in the area of business development is becoming more prevalent in law firms, and the participants are more enthusiastic. One of the most important concepts that lawyers are finally starting to believe is that simply being a great lawyer isn't good enough to set oneself apart from the competition. You must be a great lawyer, yes, but an understanding of a client's industry and its business is essential to differentiation.

The competition is as tough as ever. There are many great lawyers out there. Convergence practices being undertaken by companies and organizations to reduce the number of outside providers they keep on their “preferred provider” lists make for fewer opportunities. These factors naturally increase competition and drive fees down, resulting in legal counsel becoming a commodity.

Who 'Needs to Know'?

In addition to external challenges, there are many internal ones as well. If there is one common theme that I see most often, it is ineffective communication. The communication breakdown occurs at many levels; across practices, between offices, and so forth. An easy way to improve internal communication is to first get away from ' and dispel wherever possible ' the notion that “every partner needs to know what every other partner does.” This simply is not true.

The effort that I see firms putting into trying to achieve this objective is surprising. The fact is, only about 5%-10% of a firm's partners need to know what value their counterparts are delivering to their clients. Although, in theory, the concept of being able to remember what 200 of your partners does and, conversely, those 200 partners remembering what you do, would be nice, it simply isn't practical, nor is it worth the effort that it would take to make it so.

When one takes an industry- or client-centric approach to the market, it pretty quickly becomes clear which 5%-10% of the firm's partners need to coordinate and communicate. In these cases, since the value proposition impacts a particular partner's clients, it is likely that the partner will remember what the other partner who serves similar clients does ' and consequently, will improve the chances that collaboration and coordination will occur. This collaboration will manifest itself in delivering meaningful value to clients and messaging that matters to prospective clients.

The Client List

The first step in improving communication, coordination, and collaboration is to create a meaningful view of the firm's client list. It's not good enough to simply have a “white space analysis” anymore. With the proper level of organization and filtering, client data can be a very powerful framework around which practice groups can “plug into the matrix” internally and externally.

As I tell my clients all the time, it's important to be viewed by clients and prospective clients as “one of them,” rather than being perceived as someone who “provides services to them.” In other words, be viewed as a “healthcare industry professional” instead of a “lawyer who advises healthcare organizations.”

To achieve this, it's necessary to become immersed in the client's respective industry; take a leadership role in an industry focused group or association, subscribe to the same industry publications (on-line or otherwise) as the clients, understand the regulatory landscape, develop and foster a network of professionals in that particular industry rather than placing so much emphasis on bar-related activities, learn to “speak their language”, etc.

You need to understand the client's business, understand what their top strategic initiatives are, and, most importantly, know how to help them overcome the obstacles that are getting in the way of them achieving their corporate objectives. That is where the value is. It's important to keep in mind that you aren't “selling stuff.” You are solving a client's business problem. If you truly understand your clients' business, goals and objectives, how they define success, how they are organized, how they are measured, and more, then you become viewed as a business partner rather than simply a lawyer or, worse, a vendor.

Being a 'Trusted Adviser'

It is virtually impossible to become a business partner to your clients without first understanding their business. How do you know when you've arrived as a business partner? When you begin solving problems for clients before they even know they had a problem, then you are well on your way to achieving business partner or “trusted adviser” status, which is the Holy Grail of relationship development in business.

Being a trusted adviser means taking a holistic, business process driven, enterprise-wide view that spans beyond the specific type of law that the lawyer is an expert in. If the employment lawyer who owns the primary relationship with the client only thinks about that client's employment issues, he/she will rarely achieve trusted advisor status at the enterprise level. The closer a lawyer can come to being viewed as a business partner or “trusted advisor” with their clients, the less likely that the lawyer will get caught up in the “commodity conundrum” facing many other lawyers whose business development strategy is to simply “sell stuff.”

In line with improved communication and coordination, firms are truly beginning to take a team selling approach to the market. “Industry experts” along with “subject matter experts” are coming together for pitch meetings with prospective clients. Compensation programs that rewarded “lone-wolf” behavior are now being redesigned to provide incentives to taking a team selling approach. Along these lines, client development teams are taking hold. Client teams are, by definition, totally client-centric. All decisions pivot from the client and the industry that they're in. Establishing formal client teams for key clients is a current trend and is the wave of the future.

The Bottom Line

It is expensive to find new clients, which is why I recommend focusing the majority of business development time on expanding work with existing clients. Client loyalty and satisfaction is critical to retention of key and significant clients. One way to ensure that you are building client loyalty is to elicit client feedback. Personal visits or telephone conversations are recommended over written surveys. Whether personal visits from the chairman, managing partner, chief marketing officer, the relationship leader, or a phone call from third-party providers, client feedback is essential to keeping the relationship on solid ground. Let's face it, nobody likes to hear negative feedback, even if it's framed in the form of “constructive criticism,” but clients like to be asked and the relationship will improve if this is done. So do it!

What is the most important thing to remember when developing client relationships? Stop trying to “sell stuff,” which takes the form of service offerings delivered through channels known as practice groups. Stop trying to market the fact that your IP practice is better than someone else's IP practice. Focus on the client's business. Become “one of them.” Think more strategically, from a business perspective, and align your go-to-market strategy with the way the market is naturally organized ' by industry.

If members of the client team are proficient in the respective subject matter area, understand the client's top initiatives, address the business issues that the client is facing, and articulate how the firm has helped others in that particular industry, you will vastly improve your odds of winning new engagements. Additionally, you will be light years ahead of the competitors who are still focused on “selling stuff.”

Bruce Alltop is a Senior Consultant at LawVision Group, LLC. His experience includes nearly 10 years as a law firm Chief Marketing Officer, and leadership positions at other professional services firms, including Ernst & Young.