Business Development – How much time do you need?
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….”