JULY/AUGUST 2011VOLUME 16 ISSUE 8www.ecadviser.com

FREE FALLINGTHE FUTURE FOR TRUSTEES POST-HASTINGS-BASS

YES OR NO?WILL CHANGES TO

NO-WIN, NO-FEE LIMIT ACCESS TO JUSTICE?

BRIDGE OF SIGHSHOW SOLICITORS AND CHARITIES CAN WORK

TOGETHER

Top ten misconceptions about how to preserve your assets in a divorce

Key to the door

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38 Private Client Adviser

BUSINESS STRATEGY

At the moment there are simply too many law firms and not enough work. Work no longer

just arrives; now it has to be won. If that wasn’t hard enough to swallow, the dark cloud of Clementi and Tesco Law looms, which means, like it or not, traditional private client practice could very soon have a slick and aggressive competitor that will alter massively the way the public buys personal legal services.

Pointing the finger

An easy answer would be to lay all responsibility at the door of your firm’s business development or marketing resource. However, private client is an area that relies more on trust and relationship than on technical ability. This means that your firm’s most effective promotional tools have to be the fee earners themselves, the people who will actually deliver the advice to the client.

I accept that this is going to take some seismic shift in traditional fee-earner behaviour – while no one entered the law to become a salesman, a completely different mindset is going to be required if you and your firm are going to do what’s needed to win more work, keep the clients you have and make sure those clients are referring you within their network at every opportunity.

I use the term ‘behavioural change’ carefully. The whole notion of behavioural change is contentious. It drums up touchy-feely images of emotional discovery, of counselling and personal upheaval. The truth (in a legal services’ context at least) is that it’s just

Genies in the lampFee earners could be a law firm’s secret weapon for winning new business, says Douglas McPherson

about applying some common sense to the business development activities you engage in; activities that will actually generate relationships that will in turn provide fee-earning opportunities.

The first point to bear in mind when I talk about activities is that’s exactly what you should be focusing on – activities and not results. You will never make a client instruct you, but you can take action that will increase your visibility in the right areas and in front of the right people. This will stack the odds in your favour for when the client is weighing up who to instruct.

I split these activities into three steps: get out, get on, get in.

‘Get out’ is exactly that: get out of the office. Get out and see your clients and keep your relationship going in person. As the eleventh commandment says: “Lawyers shalt not communicate by direct mail alone.” Get out and get in front of your prospective client set, whether that’s by joining local business clubs, participating in networking forums, or speaking at professional associations. Offer to chair your local independent school’s board of governors for free. Who knows who you’ll meet.

Also, get out in front of your firm’s wider client base. Cross-selling is described repeatedly to me as:

“Something we know we should be doing but never get round to.” But think about it logically: these are people who already trust your firm, who have chosen to work with your firm. If you were to cultivate relationships across your partnership to facilitate introductions that would allow you to, for example, tell your commercial clients about your private client specialisms, I know you’ll be surprised by your success.

Measurement tool

Once you are out and about, the second major change to your mindset should relate to measurement. On the private client side, BD is less a structured strategic campaign than random acts of heroic love. You need to keep a record of where you go, what you do, who you meet in the first instance, then of how many of those contacts lead to follow-up coffee appointments. From there, the next step is to measure how many coffees lead to opportunities, pitches, and ultimately new business. By doing this, you’ll see what suits you best, what generates the best return, and where you should spend time and effort in the future.

And just a word of caution before you get out there – don’t sell. When you meet someone, tell them what you do and then concentrate on building a relationship. Talk football, holidays, food and wine; don’t open with the elevator script. So many people across the professional services think a sales pitch is a starting point, it isn’t. Just focus on lead generation and the fees will look after themselves.

At the moment

there are too

many law firms and

not enough work

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lawyer/client partnership is built. And I use the word ‘partnership’ purposefully, because partnership is as important to private client practice as it is to your colleagues in the commercial department.

I was going to use this last anecdote as an example of ‘getting in’, but thinking about it, it’s much better as an example of the whole process. I have a contact for whom more than 80 per cent of his (not insignificant) client base is one very extended family. From one chance meeting (getting out) and the completion of one initial matter, he kept in touch, developed a relationship (got on) and from there he’s met cousins,

uncles, brothers, and now even the sons who are becoming of business-owning age. He’s definitely been able to ‘get in’.

While few would argue there’s a need for a level of behavioural change within law firms, the mainstay of that change is really just the adoption of smarter (and cheaper) BD activities and a system to measure the success they generate. All you need to do is to get out there, get on with people, and you’ll get in. For life.

Douglas McPherson is director

of marketing consultants Size

101/2 Boots

Private client is an area that relies more

on trust and relationship than on

technical ability

39July/August 2011

Once you have met whoever it is you need to meet, you need to ‘get on’ with them. Getting on with people is fundamental to building and maintaining private client relationships. You are hardly ever going to be involved in anything other than very personal and often very difficult conversations, so a strong relationship is key.

Moreover, if these new contacts – and, to be fair, your current clients – are going to refer you on to their family and friends, a strong relationship is absolutely fundamental. You can spend as much money as you like on advertising, sponsorship and direct mail, but I would challenge you that no marketing mechanism will ever deliver as much return as personal referrals.

Magic potion

There isn’t a magic formula to getting on with people, but I find that treating others as you like to be treated yourself is an excellent start point. According to recent research, physicians who take the time to engage with their patients are much less likely to be sued. Obviously the fact you don’t take the time to ask after someone’s wife/dog/football team won’t see you end up in court, but it could see you lose potential instructions from existing and/or new clients.

Someone (somehow) worked out that it’s eight times easier to sell to someone you know than to a new client. If that is the case, a little more getting on will see you generate more work from your existing clients and see your name passed on more readily by the people you meet.

The last part – ‘get in’ – is perhaps, on the face of it, more linked to commercial practice, but the truth is it’s equally as applicable to private client work. The aim of every private client lawyer has to be to provide a service their client can’t do without, to be the first person the client thinks of when advice (and over time this could be on any subject not just the law) is required.

It’s 25-odd years ago since David Maister wrote The Trusted Advisor but that position should be no less coveted as it has to be the platform upon which any

Magic touch Fee earners are integral to a law fi rm’s success

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