Professional Coaching: A Gift That Keeps on Giving

Since the last Great Recession, many lawyers are still scratching their heads wondering what they should do that they are not doing, or what else they can be doing to build and expand their book of business. Unlike the “good old days” when most lawyers could deliver a good work product, entertain clients occasionally and the legal work would just flow their way, this approach is not effective in our “new normal.”

The reality is that clients' legal budgets have been slashed, there is a diminished demand for legal services in some areas, and lawyers are not always effective in expanding work with existing clients.

Given these realities, savvy legal marketers recognize that outside professional business development skills training and coaching can be a viable solution to educate and support attorneys, to bring cohesion to their business development efforts, and to assist them in attracting new clients. Often, effective coaching can be the “boots on the ground” of growing a practice, given the level of accountability that is part of a typical coaching arrangement.

What Is Coaching, Anyway?

Many have heard the buzz about the value of partnering with a professional coach, but there is still a limited understanding of the collaborative nature of doing so, and how it can bring greater strategic focus to lawyers' practices.

The professional coach is focused solely on helping her lawyer clients assess their practices, evaluate client expansion, new business and cross-selling opportunities, and develop a targeted plan for developing their business goals. This does not happen overnight, but rather through steady, measured steps and developing a marketing mindset by becoming more aware of business opportunities. It is often in those “measured steps” (aka execution) that most plans falter. A professional coach helps her clients to follow through on stated action steps with accountability check-ins.

Rainmaking lawyers are often too busy or their personalities too formidable to ask for help or support. Yet, they could grow their book substantially if they took the time to evaluate succinctly where existing opportunities lie. A professional coach can help with that.

Likewise, a professional coach works hard to understand a lawyer's goals and target clients (and guides the attorney to develop concrete practice goals) and helps him or her to be more strategic in their approach and business development efforts. A coach offers support unlike in-house staff can, and motivates attorneys to attain their stated goals, help instill discipline to an otherwise hectic schedule, and introduce a level of accountability where there is little.

A successful coaching program will:

• Clarify client development goals;
• Create goal-focused action plans;
• Develop leadership and business development skills;
• Promote relationship-focused activities; and
• Build stronger communication, networking and presentation skills.

While lawyers endeavor to differentiate themselves in an uber-competitive legal services arena, they often falter when struggling to execute on required skill sets (which are not taught in law school or in most law firms' professional development/mentoring programs). Working with a coach can be a highly valuable investment in the long-term viability of a legal practice.

What Should Lawyers Expect?

For those who have engaged the services of a personal trainer, you understand the nature of the collaborative relationship and know there is a period of understanding the client's goals so the trainer may develop a program, which will help clients meet those goals. You understand there are new skills to learn and practice, and you always benefit from the personal attention and focus you receive from your coach. The coach and client become co-creators in achieving the client's success.

We all need some extra help from time to time, particularly in such a hard-charging, fiercely competitive environment as legal services. Working with a coach can help alleviate some of the uncertainty and stress of whether or not you are plowing forward in a smart and savvy way in your practice. After becoming more educated and sensitized to constructive business development behaviors, your lawyers will reap the rewards of integrating these new behaviors into their daily practices, which will become second nature. Legal marketers can play a crucial support role to affirm attorneys' newfound confidence in their fine-tuned instincts with existing and new client opportunities.

Applying this example, how exactly does coaching work for lawyers?

A professional coach is a strategist, the cheering section in a lawyer's practice, a sounding board, and, above all, a trusted adviser. Working together, the lawyer client and coach set the relationship pace and set the client's goals and desired outcome together. The coach provides a focused and structured working relationship, expert guidance and unyielding support.

Consider some these coaching benefits:

• It helps lawyers demonstrate their capabilities more clearly and build a stronger reputation. In light of competitive forces, it is imperative that lawyers are viewed as a skilled and knowledgeable practitioner who solves problems.
• It sets measurable goals/strategies and implement precise tactics to achieve them. We tend to do only that which is measured. In marketing, if it cannot be measured, it should not be done.
• It strengthens relationships with existing clients to convert those relationships into your greatest “sales force” of supporters and more business.
• It helps lawyers understand on a deeper level the difference between business developmen,t and marketing strategies and tactics. Thus, they can make wiser business development decisions, which moves the needle on growing a lawyer's practice.
• It helps meet commitments on marketing plans, which you and your coach develop together.
• It benefits from an experienced sounding board for business and growth ideas. A professional coach works closely with lawyers to help them understand the business of law and how to create success plans to achieve their goals.

A coach is a business partner who brings objectivity and a fresh perspective, and can be a smart investment in a lawyer's future.

Who Is a Good Coaching Candidate?

Lawyers who benefit most are those who regard their practices as their own business, solo practitioners or those in small law firms, since they often have to do everything from running the firm to being the rainmaker while practicing law. In addition: senior associates who have recognized that no one is going to hand them a partnership , junior partners who feel the pressure to originate client matters and want to be promoted to equity partner, and senior partners who want to move into the higher-tech aspect of business development are all good candidates. In short, most lawyers can benefit from a professional coaching relationship.

Lawyers will benefit from working with a business development coach when they:

• view their practice as a business;
• are willing and committed to do whatever it takes to succeed;
• recognize their practice could grow if they had a focused plan and executed it;
• have a plan but have not achieved their desired results;
• are tired of wasting time on random acts of marketing, with few or no results; and
• want to take their practice and/or their firm to a higher level.

For those attorneys who recognize that despite the genuine efforts they are expending (and their marketing departments are making on their behalf), their expectations are not being met, a professional coach can be a useful investment.

What Makes a Successful Student?

All of our coaching clients are highly skilled lawyers, successful in their own right, and are overachievers. They recognize the things at which they excel and the areas that could benefit from outside expertise. In short, they are “teachable.” These are the folks who benefit most greatly from a coach. They want to exploit every available tool to help them succeed.

Some of our clients have enjoyed a coaching relationship since they first began their legal career years ago. Over time, we have assessed their changing needs at various stages of their practice, and adapted an appropriate plan, which continues to address their ongoing efforts and approach.

One client recently stated, “Practical skills are not taught in law school and rarely within a firm, so we are left to our own devices to figure out how to develop new clients. I'm grateful I found a coach early on to enlighten me on the professional way to build client relationships and bring in new business.”

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Kimberly Rice, Editor-in-Chief of Marketing the Law Firm, is President/Chief Strategist of KLA Marketing Associates (http://www.klamarketing.com), a business development advisory firm focusing on legal services. She recently published Rainmaker Roadmap: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Prosperous Business, a culmination of her 26 years of hands-on experience. Reach her at 609-458-0415 and [email protected].