- "We would like you to run a couple of sessions for our partners on getting clients" they say
- "We don't want you to use the word 'sales' because the partners don't like it" they say
- "and the partners don't want any role play" they say
But it's not them who need to get the clients. It's the partners.
- And getting work from clients is called selling,
- Selling is a skill not a knowledge transfer exercise which means role play and
- Getting good at a skill takes time; more than the 6 hours offered.
"The training you ran was well received but doesn't seem to have changed behaviour" they say
I wonder why?
How big is your need? Your time is valuable, and so are clients. If you want a rule of thumb, 2 hours a week of your time devoted to business development (phone calls, emails etc) can create a couple of meetings a week – one with a client, one with a prospective client/intermediary.
You have to do this yourself.
As a partner you cannot delegate the responsibility for developing new clients. Others can help you with the administration (your PA) or with events (marketing) or even business planning (a marketing director, if you have one), but only you can meet the prospective client. However strong your firm’s brand is, legal services are personal. You are the product which the client buys – your legal ability is seen through the lens of your personality/gifting/charm, and the client must therefore meet you.
At the centre of your business plan is therefore the question “who would you like to spend time with?” The answer can be existing clients (if that’s where your work is expected to come from), from prospective clients (if existing clients are insufficient), or most likely from both. Working backwards, the next question is “how many meetings with people who could give you work do you plan to have in a week?” It’s your decision, but this decision is the crux of your business development plan. A plan that creates 4 meetings a week is different in scale from one that is designed to create 12 meetings or one that creates just one meeting.
Not that quantity matters more than quantity, but we need both. Not every meeting will be golden, but as Brian Tracy observed “the harder you work the luckier you get….”
There are few people in law firms who would be seen as inspirational leaders in law firms. The “Type A” leader – firm jawed, resolute, driving and engaging – is unlikely to have the skills, knowledge and attitude required to come into a profession where risk-aversion and attention to detail are the cornerstones of the training.
But it also requres a different sort of person to inspire lawyers. Lawyers don’t follow people easily. They would far rather be left on their own with a pile of client-work to get on with. Non-compliant partners are far more common than non-compliant directors in a plc, and few aspire to run the firm.
So what works? What can a law firm leader do to be really effective?
The derivation of the word leadership gives the clue. “Leadership” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word which means “to show the way”. It’s not the same as management, which is based on the French word for “hand” and involves the manipulation of processes for maximum efficiency. To lead in a law firm requires a partner to show the way in 2 key ways:
- Set the vision. Paint the picture of what we’re here for beyond the daily grind of timesheets and demanding clients. Tell your team/department/firm where the firm is going, what makes it a great place to be, and how you as a team can get there. Not in the form of a big document, but through talking to people individually.
- Set an example. Being inspirational is not only a function of what you say. If you want your people to develop business, take them with you when you do it and let them learn from you. If you want WIP brought under control, show them how it’s done. If you want them to look after their own team members, model it.
In leadership your character matters more than your gifting, because it’s your character that is revealed when the pressure’s on. Set the vision and demonstrate the behaviour you want and the firm will (admittedly slowly) change.
Too many lawyers believe that they’re special, and cannot sell themselves as others do. They believe that the combination of their expert knowledge and the specific needs of their clients makes them unique.
This is rubbish.
The lawyer is no more special than the consultant, accountant, actuary or surveyor. All provide applied expert knowledge to enable the client to achieve their business' goals. All need a good understanding of the clients’ businesses to offer high-value advice, and all are “expensive”. In fact all professions suffer from the same challenges when selling. Why is that?
The first challenge is that the typical professional has few of the characteristics you would look for in a salesman: optimistic, risk-embracing, goal-oriented, numbers-driven, socially adept and not taking rejection personally. Those who do are the exception to the rule.
The second challenge is more prevalent in law firms than in the other firms: lawyers aren’t very teachable. They look for an intellectual way to sell, look for logical loopholes in the process, look for the reasons why they cannot sell – in fact do anything rather than develop the skill of selling.
Which is a shame, because any firm could be successful if its lawyers were willing to learn to sell.
All the research I've seen shows that clients value the disciplines that good salesmen offer - incisive questions to identify problems, excellent listening, client understanding, tailoring the services to needs and building a long-term relationship.
The market is still wide-open for the firm whose partners and solicitors are willing to learn.
Lawyers know an incredible amount about their chosen speciality. And they are usually hungry to know more. This knowledge is both their biggest strength and their biggest weakness.
The strength of knowledge is evident when the lawyer is engaged on a client matter - the knowledge combined with experience enables the lawyer to get the client from A to B in the best way possible.
The weakness of the knowledge base is that it is impossible for anyone to forget what they already know, so far too often the lawyer assumes a base level of knowledge in the client which he or she doesn’t have.
Meanwhile, at the same time, the client doesn’t know what he or she doesn’t know, and can hence not offer up relevant information, or understand the background to the lawyers’ enquiries. This imbalance has become more prevalent in the internet age, with the rise of the “instant expert” - clients who have read 2 internet articles and think that they have mastered the topic. These people genuinely believe that all they need is a light steer to accomplish the legal task themsleves. A dangerous precedent.
The challenge, therefore, is to treat your client as a well-educated yet ill-informed individual. This means that you explain why what you do matters to him/her, the costs of getting it wrong, and what to do to ensure she/he gets it right. The trick is to do this without appearing patronising or overly technical.
You can often see a very stark illustration of getting it wrong when you read an article penned by a lawyer for a trade magazine. The article often builds from a non-existent client knowledge base, adds information which no reader is asking for, and finishes without explaining what the potential client should do next.
Remember that a lawyer’s knowledge is rare, and what you consider common knowledge isn’t.
How do you know that your marketing department is doing a good job? Or, if you are in marketing, how do you justify your expansion (Oh, happy days) or retention of current size (more realistic)?
It is a sad truth that most partners rate their marketing departments as poor. This is the case across size of firm, regional spread or specialisation. The typical complaints are that “we don’t know what they do”, “I seem to do everything myself”, or the perennial classic “Our database is rubbish”.
The typical defence from marketing is that the aim of marketing is not to impress the workers; it’s to do “marketing” – Stategy/Brand/Marcomms/PR etc. This is supported by the assertion that most partners are not marketing experts, whatever they may like to believe and they cannot understand the painstaking work that goes into a marketing plan which extends beyond seminars, conferences and sporting social events.
Conversely, partners would argue that they are not only the talent that the marketing team is selling (“pimp my partner”), but also the paymasters and owners of the business. If they are unhappy, it is more than a trivial concern.
The underlying problem stems from a failure to manage expectations. Firms do not know what “a good job looks like” from marketing. There are few measurable goals, and even fewer commitments from partners setting out ways in which they will work with marketing to make the whole scheme fit together. The marketing director – and team - is assessed at the end of the year based on partner feedback against the backdrop of firm-wide performance, not on his or her delivery of key objectives.
Until there is some rigour in the process, there will continue to be a litany of woe from partners and a disillusioned marketing team who are working hard without useful feedback.
Most lawyers hate discussing money face to face. They much prefer to leave the client meeting, summarise their thoughts in an e-mail, and mention money slightly deferentially towards the end of their note. The note rarely mentions the partner's standard rate; it's usually discounted in some way, even if the potential client hasn't spoken about rates.
Why is this a poor way to proceed?
1. Most people - apart from the incredibly rich or incredibly stupid - want to know how much something will cost. If they don't ask, it's not because they don't want to know, it's because they find it awkward.
2. The hourly rate is a poor indicator of how much something will cost overall. You may say "but I don't know", which is fine from your point of view (the client is carrying all the risk) but worrying from mine. Didn't you say you were an expert? Yet you can't give any indication of price?
3. There are lots of different ways of approaching payment upfront, monthly billing, success fees, blended fees, capped fees, fixed fees, bell fees (I made that last one up) - that there needs to be a discussion with the client before you can suggest something that will meet his needs.
4. If the client can't afford you, it's better to find out sooner rather than later. The time taken to write your follow up note (2 hours?) plus chasing phone calls (another 30 minutes?) could have been far better spent on other work if the client had no intention of paying your rates.
What's the better solution?
Try this.
Once you have heard the client's preferred outcome, and any other factors you consider elegant, you should be able to give a banded cost.
For example. "similar clients in similar circumstances have spent between £8-12,000 dealing with a matter like this. Is that about what you were expecting?" Then keep quiet. Say nothing. Absolutely nothing. Wait for the client to respond. Too many lawyers wait but a few moments before starting to justify their price, reduce their estimates, or promising some special arrangement for such a discerning person. Hold your fire. You are a skilled professional, not a souk trader. Be silent. When the client is ready he can then ask specific questions about what makes the prices go up or down, as well as any other pricing alternatives they want to explore. If you think you're worth what you cost, you should be confident to tell the client face-to-face, and gauge his or her reaction.
Note that you’re giving an estimate for the required service, not quoting an hourly rate. Your hourly rate is of interest to you, and your finance director, but doesn’t help me, the client, unless you are asking me to compare the quality of lawyer by using price as the measure. Which you’re not – are you? Hourly rates are required when they are asked for. Not before, or instead of a sensible discussion around value/price.
[By the way as a working guide, an upper price of 150% of the lower price sounds suitably precise. A guide of £5-50,000 is unhelpful.]
- So next time you are with a prospective client, tell him the price, and be pleasantly surprised by the reaction.
Lawyers are paid to tell clients the law. Right? Wrong?
Lawyers are paid to help clients get from A to B in the most effective way possible. Knowing the law is a given. Most clients are sophisticated enough to know the basic law in their working area. What they want is your opinion, based on your knowledge of the law, your knowledge of their business, and your knowledge of their desired outcome.
Too many lawyers:
- a) Don't know enough about the client's business to understand the bigger picture. You should be like a doctor, asking wider questions before announcing your diagnosis. The discussion is part of the client satisfaction.
- b) Presume that the client is like them, and that the client's preferred outcome is the same as theirs. The client works under a myriad of pressures, both commercial and personal, which make desired outcomes unpredictable.
- c) Refuse to give clear guidance. This is often because of (a), and really really annoys in-house counsel.
So What?
- (a) Be curious about your client's business. It's normally the most important thing in their lives, apart from themselves. OK, and their families too. Or so they say.
- (b) Ask what the client wants to happen. Don't be afraid to ask the naive question, because the client is a human being, and his or her desires may not be the strict logical ones that you anticipated.
- (c) Give a recommendation, even if you are compelled to caveat it. Remember, though, that although caveats may delight your insurers, they can send a message to your client that you aren't as good as you said you are.
First question: Who do you want to keep?
Partners find it easy to divide their team into categories - racehorses, workhorses and mules.
Where should the effort be made to motivate staff? Not the mules, who can absorb a disproportionate degree of time as they are the squeaky wheels for whom nothing is too much trouble!
Racehorses normally get firm-wide recognition. They are those few tipped for the top. Most are genuinely talented. A few are serially lucky, but as Somerset Maughn said, it's better to be born lucky than rich.
It's the workhorses you need to think about. It's them who your career is built upon - the people who deliver predictably good work in season and out of season. It's they who will, if treated well, be working with you for the next 20 years, and who must not be taken for granted.
Camerons are in the press for outsourcing their support services to Integreon. The exact scope has yet to be finalised - or at least made public.
Various people on the Lawyers's blog have voiced their concerns, but for most partners there is some double-mindedness that needs to be worked through. All law firms claim to put their clients centre stage. All firms are grappling with how to manage costs without affecting the client experience. All firms see support functions as an overhead. Oh yes they do. Look at your balance sheet. So all firms are looking at ways of minimizing support costs.
If Camerons believe that the services that will be run form a third party supplier are sufficiently generic to not compromise their strategic advantage, they will make savings by outsourcing. Recent common examples are cloud computing and servers, secretarial services from abroad or group catering facilities.
If they think that they can outsource Marketing & HR, does it not say something about the way that these people are seen by their partner colleagues? It seems to say that partners believe that their added value is less than the cost. And who's to say that they're wrong? But perhaps they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Perhaps different people with a different structure could provide better value and at less cost than outsourcing?