It’s a well known fact that when it comes to law firms, Business Development is different firm by firm, but in reality what do Business Development Managers have to achieve in a law firm? It’s the Partners role to sell the services of the firm, the Associates role to complete the work, so it must be the Business Development Managers role to market the firm, right? But how? What makes you ‘buy’ legal services – it’s a very ‘on-demand’ product rather than something you always need – for most people anyway.
I’ve worked with law firms for years, I’ve even been approached to work for several, but every time when I asked them what the role would be, the reply back was ‘Business Development’. So a sales role? ‘No’ they would say. Well I’m not a marketeer as many of you know, I hardly believe in traditional marketing, or even a sales pitch for that matter. If your product is high quality and there’s a tangible need then there’s no need to ‘sell’ as people will naturally want it.
It’s an approach towards ‘sales’ that I’ve always used. Tell people what your offer is and how it will help them, add in some human qualities, politeness and actually sound like you give a shit and the sales will come. A lot of the time price doesn’t come into it. People buy people.
If I asked you to think of a Manchester-based lawyer right now who do you think of? Answers on a postcard please. Now, why did you think of that lawyer, was it because of their website, because they were top of the Google searches or was it because you know them, met them, a blog post of theirs, a friend said they were the best, or because you’ve seen them on social feeds like LinkedIn and Twitter?
In truth, all of the above is crucial to any business, no matter how well you know the person, how well recommended they are. If their website is crap then you’re not going to use them. Think of a website like a first impression, same with LinkedIn and Twitter – as, lets face it, most will search a person before we meet them.
Social Media and Law Firms
Looking back to when I first came to Manchester, four solicitors stand out in my mind as I knew them all first through Twitter. Jennifer Smith and Marc Yaffe of JMW, Steve Kuncewicz of Bermans and Chris Longbottom of Aarons & Partners. All four work in different areas of the law, employment, litigation, social media and divorce, yet all four have created a niche and loyal following through Twitter. Should I ever need anyone in these areas, they’ll be the first I think of. Note none of these have anything to do with business development.
Now, I’m not for one moment suggesting that all solicitors nationwide create twitter accounts and begin pitching business through it, although I could name a few firms that have told their staff to do this. There’s a key word in ‘Social Media’, the social part, be social, tweeting or posting on your LinkedIn profile things like, ‘XX Solicitors offer the best employment law advice’ is not social – it’s boring and you’ll do more damage than good.
When I’m talking to clients about Twitter, there’s a common phrase I use, ‘On twitter you’re only famous for 30 seconds, the average person follows 2,000 people, if 2% tweeted within 10 seconds of you then there’ll be 40 tweets above yours’. People may ask what’s the point of tweeting, based on those numbers and my response is to tweet something people want to read, get into conversation with them, ask them about what they do, you know, the sort of thing you do when you meet someone for the first time.
On LinkedIn the above stats are even worse, with over half the people in your network you probably don’t know, don’t trust, and have never met. It’s great for keeping note of contacts but unless used correctly, completely useless for communicating your message.
Now back to my original theme of Business Development in a Law Firm, where should the BDM’s come into social? A few options, create content for the partner to circulate to their followers, train them on best practices with all forms of social media, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Facebook – everything. Give the firm a personality through social, respond rather than just push out a message, give your followers a reason to follow you.
Branding and Law Firms
As we’ve witnessed, brands in law firms won’t save them from collapse. Take north west firms such as Semple Fraser, Cobbetts and most recently, Pannone. All three were brilliant firms, proactive in their marketing and in my opinion, respectable brands with good people. What went wrong I’m sure we could debate forever but could they have been saved through a re-brand. Not just the font of the name over the door, I’m talking about the mentality of the people that worked for the firm, the message portrayed by them, how they got business, how they maintained it.
Saul Peake, from brand agency Cube3 commented:
“Are brands as valuable as case loads? Does the recent merger and acquisition storm in Manchester and the presumption that those outcomes were somehow “wrong” ignore the fact that brand equity has both pros and cons in the legal sector?
A law firm with a strong brand is always going to be a tougher acquisition for the buyer (unless they’re smart) because the norm is to usurp the old name and subsume the case load. Pannone had a reputation but was it as strong as their client base? Wasn’t that why that got sliced up – because their case load was more attractive than their brand?
But what if that was the board level exit strategy? What if selling off the parts made the equity partners more money? What if strengthening their brand would have simply made them harder to sell?
Let’s not forget, the vast majority of law firms are run unlike any other commercial enterprise – with equity partners, decisions by committee and little or no understanding of (or respect for) marketing. I doubt whether branding would have changed these stories because I doubt whether branding would have been given the credence to even be a consideration.”
In too many businesses, not just legal, people are only interested in speaking to potential new clients, taking their eye off the ones they’ve battled to secure as customers in the past. One of the best sayings I’ve ever heard was,
“It’s easier to maintain existing clients then win new ones”
An obvious saying I know but so often not taken notice of.
Now, would it be the Business Development Managers role to make sure relationships are maintained by prompting the partners to put a phone call in, invite to dinner, send a quick note, drop in for a brew.
Print Marketing and Event Sponsorship
Now, I know I work in a digital industry so naturally you would think that I’m not going to overly advocate print marketing or sponsorship. However, I have my reasons, let’s start with sponsorship. For a few thousand pounds, you get a table at a dinner for 300 people, you get your logo on a ticket, and on a projector screen throughout the dinner, you get an advert in the dinner brochure and you get to present an award, and in some cases you get to judge. Now I’m not saying sponsoring awards is a bad thing, Neil Walker Digital Group sponsored the City of Manchester Business Awards last week, put on by Downtown In Business, I’m only going to say that people don’t make the most of them. Adverts and logo’s, people become blind to, and they certainly don’t normally remember who presented the awards.
The best example of a business that took full advantage of a sponsorship was Melbourne Server Hosting at the Mancoolian Awards in October last year. They went all out with headline sponsor so branding was everywhere – and I mean everywhere. They even went to the extent of giving every person that attended a branded lollypop, and whoever took the best picture with them got a special prize. On top of that, to every winner of an award they gave a solid chocolate, 30cm, Melbourne branded lolly, which I think people valued more than the actual award. As well as all this, on the night, Melbourne thought about before the event, hosting a BBQ for all the sponsors, and afterwards, hosting a dinner for all the winners.
All I’m saying about sponsoring awards is find out what you can do differently, and do it. You’ll make more business connections before and after the event, than you will on the night. Believe me, I’ve seen it many times.
If a firm, especially a legal firm chooses to use print media then it needs to be interesting. A bit off the boil but take the Mini advert after the Tesco horse meat fiasco, “Beef. With alot of horses hidden in it.” This couldn’t be anything but print, and, it caught eyes.
Back to a Business Development Manager of a law firm…they’re not designers, so we can’t expect them to come up with ideas like this. So who does? Do you need to employ a design agency, or do we stick to boring, unimaginative adverts.
The Future of business development in Law Firms
I read a piece over the weekend that talked about the future of both marketing and business development roles within companies in general. It talked about how we no longer want or need a salesperson to come and describe the features and benefits of a product, we have that information available online. Today’s buyer needs someone to guide them and help understand how they’ll meet their goals. This is best achieved by putting yourself in their shoes at the earliest possible opportunity, at that point the salesperson is a welcomed contact and respected authority.
This, in my opinion, is the future of Business Development for law firms (and most other businesses), relationships, problem solvers, advisors, people we want to go out for a beer with. People buy people, be someone you’d want to buy off, become that person that I can only think of when it comes to your product or service.