Winning the Business Development Battle Part 6: The Drill Instructor
Basic training focuses on general business development skills and information that is essential for all recruits to understand before moving into the field. However, as with any type of training, up to 75% of this knowledge can be lost without the addition of regular one-on-one follow up coaching. This is where the individual battles are won or lost.
Finding the right instructor can enhance individual business development results exponentially. A good drill instructor or coach can help the troops to take the basic business development information and put it work for them to achieve their business development objectives.
Winning the Business Development Battle Part 5: Basic Training
Business development basic training for your troops should be done early and often. While it’s almost never too soon to begin training in the basics of business development, attorneys who have been practicing 4 years or more tend to make excellent recruits.
The first element of basic training should involve getting the attorneys ‘over the wall.’ In other words, they need to know that business development begins by getting out of the building and getting face-to -face with Clients and prospects.
‘Corps’ business development training should then begin with Client calisthenics. These workouts may include Business Development Intelligence or researching Clients and potential Clients to better understand their businesses and industries and learning to ask questions to help identify Client needs that they may be able to help with.
Categorizing CRM Contacts – ‘Status’ Symbols
Another way you may want to categorize CRM contacts is by contact ‘status’ or ‘type.’ This will allow you to better keep track of key individuals, segment your lists and target the audiences that you want to reach – and the ones that you don’t.
Status categories may include a number of different types of classifications. For instance, you might want to track types of Clients such as current Clients, former Clients, top Clients or at-risk Clients. You might also want to keep up with prospects who the attorneys may be targeting and who could someday become Clients.
Winning the Business Development Battle Part 4:The Troops
Of course, the most important factor when it comes to winning or losing the business development battle is your troops. They must be loyal, courageous, dedicated and prepared.
You also must be careful to select the right troops. Different battles require different deployments. For some, you may need a small army of foot soldiers. For instance, when responding to an RFP or when a potential Client has a project that requires attorneys from multiple practices or specialties, you may want to send in a pitch team. Other battles may call for an army of one.
Winning the Business Development Battle Part 3: Intel
Planning for the business development battle starts by gathering intel, or business development intelligence. You need to do your homework to gain a keen understanding your Clients and prospects, your adversaries – and even your own troops.
One way to begin gathering intel is to do research to build your business development intelligence. Find out all you can about your Clients’ and prospects’ businesses and industries. Are they expanding or contracting? Are they hiring employees or laying them off. Are they adding new locations or closing them? Are they moving forward or backward? Are they developing new products or services or acquiring them through purchases?
Winning the Business Development Battle Part 2: Battle Plans
While business development battles are often waged on many fronts, ultimate success almost always starts with a battle plan. No matter how large or how small the battle, a well-thought-out strategy can fortify your defenses and prevent unacceptable losses.
Think of business development strategy and planning as a chess game. The moves you make will depend on a variety of factors. You have to understand where you are now, where you want to be and the best way to get there.
How do you want to grow your practice or your firm? Do you want to try to cross sell to expand business with existing Clients,
Winning the Business Development Battle
I spent a day at a forum for law firm leaders where a room full of law firm Managing Partners were discussing business issues and challenges, and one of the recurring topics was business development. From the level of frustration during the discussion, it appeared that, when it comes to business development, many firms seem to be fighting a losing battle.
In a law firm, getting attorneys to take any kind of marching orders is never easy – especially when it involves non-billable time. This is compounded when it comes to business development because even the thought of having to ‘sell’
Stop Selling and Start Helping
So many attorneys are hesitant about developing business because they don’t like the concept of ‘selling.’ They bristle at the thought of picking up the big, scary telephone or meeting with a prospect one-on-one to ‘pitch’ their services or, even worse, having to ‘close’ business.
If you are one of these lawyers, I have good news for you: you don’t have to ‘sell’ to develop business. In fact, I don’t even recommend it. Experience teaches us that a sale is often just the pleasant by-product of helping a Client succeed. So instead of selling, you should be in the Client success business.
Thinking Outside the Business Development Box
Being a successful business developer often requires thinking outside the box. That’s because some things about business development may seem counter-intuitive, at least on the surface.
Think about it: the fundamental goal of business development seems to be about getting things for yourself: more Clients, more work, more engagements and, ultimately, more revenue for your firm and for yourself. It seems like it’s all about you.
But if you approach business development this way, you will often fail. This is because, in reality, successful business development is not about you. It’s all about the Client.
Slow and Steady Wins the CRM Race
To win the marathon and achieve CRM success, you have to take things at a slow, methodical pace. I often work with Clients who are so eager to roll out their CRM systems that they just can’t wait. They want to implement all the bells and whistles, integrate with all of the firm’s other technology, automate Client intake, replace the conflicts system. While we’re at it, we might as well solve world hunger.
While I applaud the enthusiasm, my counsel to them is often one word: why. This isn’t meant to be a sarcastic or snarky question they need to answer for me.
Business Development Homeruns
Business development is, in part, a numbers game. As with baseball, the more times you are at bat, the more likely you are to get a hit. In the business development game, the more interactions you have with prospects, the more likely you are to get a new Client. But focusing on the numbers is only half the game. If that’s all you do, it could take you a lot of time and work to really see results.
To really improve your business development batting average, you also need skill – and a strategy.
Client Service Stories Part 2: Apple
As you may have read in our post last week, every once in a while we will take time out from our regular discussions about building business through relationship development and Client Relationship Management (CRM) to talk about Client service, which is a core element of both. After last week’s post, I am more convinced than ever about the business development power of Client service, as I have never received so many emails and comments as I did after that post. It just proves how important it is to take care of your customers… as I recently learned that Apple does.
Client Service Stories Part 1: HP
At ClientsFirst, we are passionate about Client service. You could probably have figured that out since the company is called ClientsFirst and since we capitalize the word Client in most of our messages. Anyway, because we put such a strong focus on Client service, every once in a while we will take time out from our regular discussions about building business through relationship development and Client Relationship Management (CRM) to talk about Client service, which is a core element of both. These posts will usually involve a particularly good or bad Client service experience that we encountered that we think may be instructive for developing business and relationships.
The Business Development Scoreboard
If you are going to play the business development game, you need to keep score. This concept should appeal to most attorneys, who are often competitive by nature. But in reality, keeping score in business development is less about winning and more about improving your game. If there is no accountability, there is going to be less motivation to push yourself to move to the next level.
How do you keep score in business development? You find a way to track progress and measure results. It can be as simple as calendaring your business development activities and setting reminders to make sure that you follow up on a regular basis.
Gimme a ‘B’, Gimme a ‘D’
How can your cheerleaders help you to improve your business development game? There are lots of ways.
The researchers in the marketing department or library have access to tools and technology to help you discover what the most pressing industry issues and trends are that may be driving legal needs and purchases of legal services. They can keep you up to speed with information on Clients and help you identify opportunities to cross sell. They can even help you identify competitors’ strengths and weaknesses to give you an advantage in a pitch.
Additionally,