Category Archives: Business Development and Selling

How to Stimulate More Cross Selling Activity in Your Firm…..

Every firm I know wishes they could encourage more cross-selling  — keeping business inside the firm that might otherwise go elsewhere. I started a thread on LinkedIn to get views from others and here’s a simple idea that will get … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Strategy | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The BD Handbook for Lawyers – Prospects to Advocates is available on Amazon

Thanks to all of you for comments on the draft….the material is based on the training material I’ve been using over the years with partners and senior associates in law firms over the last 10 years. I know it works! … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Fee Negotiating, Networking | Leave a comment

Why Tops, Middles and Bottoms Don’t Get on in Law Firms – articled published in Law Society Gazette

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/in-business/the-tensions-between-tops-middles-bottoms-amp-customers-law-firms

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Leadership and Management, Managing Change, Strategy | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Cross Selling Doesn’t Work – the culture and rewards in most firms work against it!

My thesis on cross selling is quite simple – it doesn’t work in most firms because the culture and metrics/rewards work against it happening. One of the most fundamental influences on the culture of a law firm is the basis … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Managing Change, Networking, Strategy | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Should senior support staff in professional service firms see their role as that of an internal consultant?

I’ve run 3 different BD functions in professional service firms and tended to see the role as an internal consultancy. But this was probably because I’d spent 6 years as a management consultant in Deloitte working with timesheets and FTSE … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Managing Change | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

25 Ways to Make Your BD Efforts More Effective – including 5 specific initiatives that I know work

Having run three different in-house BD functions and having had responsibility for delivering value, I offer these ideas for improving marketing effectiveness. Some of them are high level and others are rather more specific. Some are about getting the thinking … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Coaching and Training, Fee Negotiating, Managing Change | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

To help you find persuasive client benefits when you’re pitching – consider the 5 types of benefit

To help lawyers find the language of benefits, it might be helpful to look at the type of benefits that exist. I believe there are five categories and two different recipients of the messages on benefits, as follows: The first … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Fee Negotiating, Networking | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Why should anybody buy your services? The benefits please!

I’m guessing that most of you reading this will have heard about the differences between features and benefits: Features          – Writing about you and your firm and its capabilities, typically with no references to the client ( eg We have these … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Fee Negotiating, Networking | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Developing a Compelling Sales Pitch – start with a rigorous process to ascertain the client needs

I’ve probably read hundreds of pitch documents from dozens of law firms and the biggest problem with most of them is that they don’t contain a compelling reason why the prospect should buy the firm’s services. The first thing I … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Fee Negotiating, Networking | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Latest Developments in Client Relationship Management in the Professions – based on a research study

 The advertisement from a global law firm in The Economist magazine grabbed my attention. Under a colour photograph of an archetypal psychologist’s couch, the headline read “TELL ME ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR LAWYER”. The copy continued…..”It turns out, there … Continue reading

Posted in Business Development and Selling, Fee Negotiating, Leadership and Management, Managing Change, Strategy | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment