Case Study
Six: Developing Business Development Skills in Potential
New Partners
Background
This law firm has long been cited as “a regional
powerhouse”, with a pragmatic management approach
and a determination to provide excellent legal advice
to a full range of clients from private client to corporate.
The firm has developed a clear competency frameworks
and associated partnership criteria. These underlined
the need for each new potential partner to present a
plan for developing a team with a £750K-£1M
turnover, as part of the application process.
Opportunity
To design and deliver an annual programme of training
to include advice on how to plan, network, get new clients,
get more work from existing clients and use client meetings
to advance the sales process.
Action Taken
Working with the firm’s HR Partner and training
manager we developed a hybrid combination of training
and mentoring for people as they come within 2 years
of a possible promotion to partner. By building on the
mentoring process we ensured that those attending were
using their real business development plans, which they
had discussed with both their mentor and line manager.
The training is in “100 minute bite-sized chunks”
which enable the attendees to mix and match as their
needs require. They are not compelled to attend any
sessions; each of the 8 sessions is run twice a year,
so they can attend just those that help them meet their
goals. The associated mentor sessions are designed to
offer the potential candidates an honest reflection
of their progress, plus ideas on what else to do. Telephone
and e-mail support is offered throughout the process.
Results
The first success is that candidates for partnership
are increasingly clear as to the criteria required.
This not only dissuades the speculate approach, but
also advances the more junior applicant who can see
that promotion is genuinely on merit. The second success
is that the culture of the firm is changing. The programme
has been running (with adaptions) for 5 years, so that
there is now a generation of partners with a sales vocabulary
and a clear numbers focus, which underpins the firm’s
ambitious growth plans.
Next >> What
do our clients say? |
