Professional Services Accounting ARTICLE -

How to Build Better Business Developers

Target Audience: Legal Professionals, Professional Service Firms, Law Firm Partners, Law Firm Accounting

Eye on associates

No one attends law school so they can go into sales. Yet, for most lawyers, effectively selling their firms’ services and their own legal expertise — otherwise known as business development — is essential to a thriving career. Unfortunately, finding clients and maintaining those relationships aren’t skills that come naturally to most attorneys, so your firm needs to provide associates with networking advice and rainmaking tools.

Voice of experience

Start with your firm’s mentoring program. Experienced partners already are accustomed to advising rookies about firm practices and procedures, time management skills, and career development. If they aren’t sharing their rainmaking secrets, they’re doing only half a mentor’s job.

Associates are unlikely to know where to start, so mentors should explain how they overcame their own anxieties about soliciting business and share some of their greatest successes — as well as stories about the client that got away. Mentors can help associates get their foot in the door by introducing them to current clients, inviting them to tag along on meetings with prospects and even asking them to join their own social or athletic clubs.

Internal and external networking

Associates should be encouraged to take advantage of networking opportunities — inside and outside the firm. Internal efforts generally involve getting to know attorneys in different practice areas who may need to refer existing clients to other members of the firm.

External networking is much broader. One of the best ways for lawyers to meet potential clients is to use the social connections they already have, such as membership in alumni organizations and fraternal, religious or affinity groups, as well as community interaction at, for example, school board or neighborhood watch meetings.

Volunteering to speak to these groups about a pressing legal issue can be a particularly effective way to get the word out. Lawyers also need to tell other professionals they know and patronize — including CPAs, bankers, business brokers, financial planners, insurance agents, and even doctors and dentists — that they’d welcome client referrals.

Increasingly, the Web is a business development opportunity no professional can afford to ignore. Associates can begin to make a name for themselves by regularly posting about their own niche expertise or hot-button topics on legal forums or their own blogs. And social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter make it easy to keep track of current and prospective clients and their activities that might call for legal advice.

Setting and reaching goals

Of course, having a conversation or getting someone to “friend” you on Facebook is only the beginning of the business development process. It can take years before a prospect walks through the door as a client. So associates need to set short- and long-term goals for themselves and persist until they reach them.

Make the most of events

Industry conferences, association meetings, charity fundraisers and social events all provide lawyers with excellent networking and business development opportunities. How do you make the most of the situation? Follow the three P’s:

1. Plan. You can’t attend every event, so carefully choose the ones you do. If, for example, your firm is hoping to attract new real estate transaction clients, attend a conference for brokers and mortgage bankers that provides plenty of meet-and-greet time.

2. Prepare. Find out who’ll be attending and where you can find them — for example, teaching a workshop or playing in a golf tournament. Prepare your introduction so you’ll know how to engage your prospective client when you actually meet.

3. Pursue. While an aggressive attitude is likely to put people off, you do need to be assertive and persistent. Don’t hesitate to talk to strangers at events — you never know where it might lead. And be sure to follow up any conversation with a phone call or e-mail inviting the prospective client to lunch, and by adding him or her to your firm’s mailing list.

Find out how our expertise in professional services accounting can add value to your business. Email us or call us at 1 (888) 875-9770.

related links