Guest article: Joanna Gaudoin, Inside Out Image
Many law firms have only a small number of fee earners involved in business development, usually partners and even then, potentially not all partners.
This has become the case for several reasons:
— Partners have typically ‘owned’ the client relationships.
— There’s a perception that only very senior lawyers should get involved in business development.
— It’s a clear part of the role description that partners are responsible for winning work and there are usually targets.
— There’s a lack of incentivisation for others to get involved. Equity partners in particular have much to gain from bringing in work.
— Many lawyers like to focus on their core expertise and prefer not to spend their time getting involved with the ‘business aspects’ of the firm.
— Even for lawyers who are interested in contributing to business development if they don’t know what to do and don’t have the confidence and know how then they are far less likely to take any meaningful steps.
Why this is an issue?
This way of operating is both risky and means a firm is unlikely to fulfill its potential.
Consider for a moment a practice where a couple of partners are the ones bringing in most of the work. If one or both either leaves or is unable to work that could cause a significant issue for that practice, particularly if clients don’t have any relationships with the firm beyond that partner, and where other partners aren’t used to spending time on business development activities.
If a firm has more people contributing to business development, a broader range of activities can happen amongst the pressure of chargeable hours. Put simply, there are more people involved in a broader range of capabilities and strengths at a firm’s disposal. For instance, one person may be great at networking, but it might take them all day to write an article. Another person may be less skilled at networking effectively, but can write an engaging and informative article in an hour.
It’s also vital to remember that any client facing individual impacts business development in terms of existing client development. They affect whether that client is happy and, therefore, whether they use more of the firm’s services and/or refer other people.
Upskilling everyone in delivering client excellence – the ‘how’ not just the ‘what’ – is of pivotal importance. Recent Meridian West research showed that, in particular, how associates engage with clients significantly affects their satisfaction levels.
Finally, without exposure to business development planning and upskilling, it means that lawyers don’t get used to being involved in business development at a junior level so it can be a challenge to get into it later in their career.
What you can do about it
If you haven’t read my previous article on strategy (The building blocks to create a business development culture in your firm – think strategy first) then you may want to do that first. If you have then the next stage is to think about two elements.
Firstly, creating clarity in terms of expectations for fee earners at different levels so they understand how they are expected to contribute to the three ‘levers’ of business development – client development, intermediary/referrer relationships and new clients directly.
Secondly, training, with two main objectives: To ensure all fee earners understand the importance of their contribution to business development, no matter what their level; and to explain the expectations that have been set out, so they are clear. This should also start to explore what that means practically for them.
This will also help to identify what other skills gaps individuals have which combined with the topic I will cover in the next article, which is step three of the framework, will inform the business development skills training plan.
Articles on the next three stages to establish a business development culture will follow, but if you’d immediately like to think about what you need to do to grow your firm then take my Successful Business Development Indicator. It takes three minutes and within five you will receive a report highlighting what you need to focus on first, based on your responses. It is aimed at law firms but is applicable more broadly to professional services.
Joanna Gaudoin runs Inside Out Image. She specialises in helping professional advisers win and retain clients by focusing on all the required elements in her Proactive Ps framework.