Tag Archives: performance

10 Ways Lawyers Can Find Time to Market

When lawyers fail to market, time (lack thereof) is often mentioned as the primary reason. The pressure to do billable work will usually trump investing time in developing new clients. The long term danger of this approach, though, is that by not purposefully pursuing new clients who meet pre-selected criteria, the attorney and the firm fall into slack client acceptance standards. By taking a more progressive position, one is empowered to churn some bottom rung clients in favor of a stronger client list. Yet, the challenge of where to find the time persists.

Sally Schmidt is a national leader in law firm marketing and shared some principles of better time management for client development in a recent article. What you will find below are slight revisions of her list, with some added commentary.

  1. Follow your professional passion. Instead of trying to do marketing in a niche that does not interest you, identify what you most enjoy and find organizations that serve that niche. Once you find the right organizations, research different ways you can become actively involved.
  2. Cultivate synergy. Most attorneys do marketing in either isolation or cliques. Instead of going to a meeting by yourself or attending but hanging out with people from work, find someone strategic with whom you can participate. Whether it is serving on a committee, writing an article, or making a presentation together, you should consider inviting a prospect or center of influence who may also have an interest in the organization to join you.
  3. Explore overlaps. An overlap occurs when one activity performed in one setting complements a desire to be involved in something else. Schmidt gives the example of a construction attorney who volunteers with Habitat for Humanity or similar nonprofits tied into the industry served by one’s section.
  4. Integrate marketing into life! Whether you are pursuing a hobby or hanging out with friends, it is easy to deepen your connection with your targets if you intentionally invite them to join you. (Or, find out what they are into and join them–if it fits your interests as well.)
  5. Develop and follow a plan. Set goals for activities like entertaining clients, writing articles or client alerts, or meetings with new prospects.
  6. Be consistent. As the saying goes, “the race belongs not to the swift, but the persistent.” Starting well, with enthusiasm is good. Finishing what has been started through self-discipline is better.
  7. Choose what to pursue. Instead of just taking any and all opportunities that come your way, be choosy. Establish criteria as to what–or who–you are targeting, why, and in what ways. When considering whether to pursue an “opportunity,” remember that many requests are not strategic for you to honor.
  8. Chunk your time. Put marketing and client development activities on your calendar like you would an appointment with a doctor–not easily changed unless rescheduled. Set aside days of the week, and/or times of day to focus on marketing and client development. Break down projects into tasks that can be accomplished in one sitting.
  9. Lead! Don’t just be a participant in an organization. Look for the chance to serve or head a committee, be on the podium as speaker or facilitator, or take a board role. You’ll get more “bang for the buck” with your time.
  10. Establish yourself as a subject matter expert. If you get the opportunity to speak, or write, tell people about it. Work with your marketing folks to get you some recognition via website, press release, microblog, or LinkedIn updates.

You can be a better marketer as you learn how to overcome the time objection and become intentional about your activities.

PMP Up Your Client Development

If you are a lawyer or CPA–or know one–chances are high that you are very familiar with the age-old pattern of billable professionals doing the work that is on their desks, then wondering why not enough new work is coming into the firm. Or, the enlightened professional  realizes that, while work is still coming in, the client quality is not what would be preferred. In order to have a book of business that is challenging, rewarding, and constant requires time consistently invested in client development. Client development, while generally discussed as a firm-wide initiative, is a very individualized effort when most successful.

When I am advising my professional services clients, I automatically ask whether the partners, managers, associates, consultants, architects, engineers, etc have developed a personal marketing plan (PMP). The PMP is the foundation of client development. Principally, a well-executed PMP allows the practitioner to develop a clientele that is fulfilling to serve, makes work interesting, and motivating through increased compensation.

Your PMP Components:

  1.  Definition of success, backed up with objectives and tactics
  2.  Well-articulated target market with strategies to create market share
  3.  Thought leadership plan to build credibility and referability
  4. Client retention process

Conduct Personal Due Diligence

Tracy Crevar Warren always asks her clients to begin the PMP process by first taking stock of where they are currently. She finds that many are already engaging in a number of successful practice-growth initiatives without being aware of it. By asking the questions below, she helps CPAs think about their baseline.

  • Do you have a clear focus for your practice? 
  • What does success look like? 
  • What do you want to be known for in the industry? 
  • What gaps can you fill in the industry?

Having answered these questions to your satisfaction, you may then begin the planning process. Success is relative to the individual, but its definition should answer the question, “if we were sitting here three (or five) years from now, what would need to have happened for you to feel successful?” Being able to envision a favorable outcome fuels the creative process of putting together strategies and tactics to arrive at the desired destination. Set goals that are SMART — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-sensitive.

The PMP must, at its core, define your target market. Think about the characteristics of your best clients. How can you get more new clients similar to them?  Who else is going after your prospects? How are they doing client development, and how can they be beaten? Crevar recommends storytelling to demonstrate your competitive advantages. 

People will be more likely to select you instead of the competition if you seem more credible. Thought leadership is established through cultivating the respect of your peers, clients and prospects by sharing knowledge. Whether your sharing is done through writing, public speaking, or service, it is important that you have a way to differentiate yourself from the competition by being the one whose values and knowledge resonate the strongest with the target audience. If no one has heard of you, that won’t happen.

A focus on client service, evidenced by specifics in how you make sure you are providing value, is the best way to retain clients. Retention means you don’t have to secure as many new clients each year to replace those who churned because they did not feel valued. Educational workshops, personal visits for which you bill no time, taking an interest in the personal and community lives of clients are all ways to demonstrate your care.

Plan, But Do!

Simply writing down what you intend to do is only a first step. The follow-through is your trump card that will allow you to win market share and enjoy greater personal and professional success.

 

From Think to Execute

“The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.”
– Henry Ward Beecher

It is not enough to simply have a good–or even great–idea. Ideas are plentiful. I have them. You have them. The bum on the downtown street corner has them. People whose faces grace the covers of business magazines have them. Why are they on the cover and not us? Quite simply, they have become very proficient at executing their idea(s).

Brad Feld, of The Foundry Group and TechStars says that he gets emails all the time from would-be entrepreneurs with the latest software and internet ideas:

Often these entrepreneurs think their idea is brand new – that no one has ever thought of it before. Other times they ask me to sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect their idea. Occasionally the emails mysteriously allude to the idea without really saying what it is. These entrepreneurs think their idea is special and magic. And they are wrong.

The great entrepreneurs are already focused on the implementation of their idea. They send me links to their website or software. They describe the business they are in the process of creating (or have already created). They point me to what they’ve done to implement their idea and show real users who validate that the idea is important. And they quickly move past the idea to the execution of the idea.

Google? Not the first search engine. Facebook? Not the first social network. Groupon? Not the first deal site. Pandora? Not the first music site. The list goes on. Even when you go back in time to the origins of the software industry: MS-DOS – not the first operating system. Lotus 1-2-3 – not the first spreadsheet.

The products and their subsequent companies became great because of execution. First, they had to execute on building a great product. Next, they had to execute on building a great business. Finally, they had to execute on scaling, sustaining, and evolving a great business.

Notice what Feld says…

  1. Execute on building a great product. As you move from Ideation to Conceptualization, it is important to vet the commercial and market value of the idea. Determine whether the “back of the napkin” math shows that the idea has promise to anyone other than yourself.
  2. Execute on building a great business. Creation is the process of doing one’s initial research and development, followed by producing a prototype or beta version of the product or service. The work done here will reveal what not to do and what to do as you go about determining what you plan to take to market.
  3. Execute on scaling a great business. Evaluation of your strategic plan and markets, validating them and building a strong team around you will allow you to grow with less problems down the road.
  4. Execute on sustaining a great business. Preparation for the launch and Commercialization of your product or service require thinking through what you plan to do with a systems and process mentality so that procedures can be developed that help the business to run itself.
  5. Execute on evolving a great business. Commercialization looks differently at later stages of business growth. Sales organizations and operations must change and  as market data is analyzed and new opportunities for competitiveness emerge.

Be someone known for execution rather than ideas–even if you are not trying to impress a venture capitalist, you will meet with greater success in all that you undertake!

 

Retool for Catalytic Success

Business macrotrends are illuminating. With sufficient data, organizations like BCG, McKinsey & Bain can advise their clients better as to thought leadership positions, best practices, and optimization. As the national economy has improved from recession to stagnation or slow growth, businesses have shifted their focus from expense reduction to growth. Increasing revenues is important to companies providing goods, services, or non-profit benefits.

When Bain performed a study last year, 80 percent of the executives believed innovation to be important than cost reduction for long-term success. Also, 68 percent of respondents believed that taking care of customers and employees should come before shareholders. Bain’s interpretation: executives realize that growth depends on having happy, productive employees and satisfied customers. Shareholder returns will be the natural byproduct.

Growth Catalysts:

In the Bain survey, popular management tools were rated by respondents. Of 25 total tools, the top 3 were:

  • open innovation (expanding the sources of breakthrough products)
  • scenario and contingency planning (testing the “what ifs” to plan for the future/minimize risks) &
  • price optimization (addressing rising commodity prices). 

Social media was seen as an additional emerging tool of choice. Whether websites, micro-bogging, or online communities, there has been a growing commitment to explore the value of the medium to enhance relationships–internally as well as externally. “While only 29 percent of all respondents say they used social media in 2010, usage is expected to surge to 56 percent in 2011. Even so, executives tell us they’re uncertain about how to measure the effectiveness of this tool.”  

The standard approach with the introduction of new tools is to make a limited investment to vet the value of the tool, then make a more sizable commitment if it proves to have merit. Bain study leaders felt that this approach presented two risks:

First, while it’s understandable that companies do not want to make major investments before they fully understand how a tool will work, we have found that using tools on a limited basis consistently leads to lower satisfaction, so caution may inadvertently result in failure. The second risk we have found: companies start using a tool because their competitors are using it, or because it’s the hot topic in the business press, but if they do not fully understand how and why to use it, the experience ends up in failure.

Think of business process reengineering, where we witnessed an inverse relationship between usage and satisfaction rates when it was the hot tool of the 1990s. We witnessed reengineering drop from the tool with the fifth highest satisfaction rate in 1993 all the way to 21st in the late 1990s. It was only after usage rates declined that satisfaction began to improve again. Any time we see high usage but low satisfaction, there is cause for concern.

What Tools Work & What to Degree?

Benchmarking made a comeback a couple years ago and displaced strategic planning, a perennial No. 1, as the tool of choice. In addition to benchmarking, the most widely used tools during the recession period were strategic planning and mission and vision statements. These tools have rated in the Bain top 10 for usage over the years, regardless of the economic climate.

The survey found the least used tools included open innovation, decision rights tools and rapid prototyping. One tool that was surprisingly unpopular was mergers & acquisitions. During a downturn, M&A deals often create bargains that give the acquiring company increased scale and broadened scope. Yet in each recession we see relatively few deals. 

Among the  preferred tools, strategic planning was the tool with the highest satisfaction rating. Other tools with above-average satisfaction scores included mission and vision statements, total quality management, customer segmentation and strategic alliances. On the other end of the spectrum, downsizing, outsourcing and shared services centers–despite being seen as expense reduction tactics–were three of the five tools with below-average satisfaction scores. The other two tools with low satisfaction ratings were knowledge management and social media programs.

Task Tyrants Steal Success

When one of my friends invited me to a continuing education luncheon offering credits I did not need, I debated whether to attend. Once there, I was engaged by strong networking and a guest speaker whose subject matter was very familiar to me–professional services marketing. However, his approach was to talk about the predictable objection of time availability. The challenge to the audience was to think about their schedules in a different way. When he pulled out Covey’s four quadrant model for time management (below), I was right at home as I use the tool often in mentoring on a variety of subjects.

If you are unfamiliar with the model, allow me to briefly explain. When performing tasks and crossing off “to-do” lists, too many people spend the majority of their time in quadrant #4–the items that are urgent yet not important.  Quadrant #1 activities demand our attention and get done. What suffers, however, are quadrant #2 tasks, which are often the last to be done but can make a huge difference in overall execution of business goals.

Jeff Nischwitz was the guest speaker and what he said next was very revealing. He said that most billable hour professionals know that marketing (or business development) should be something we place in #2, but our behavior usually places it in #3. As a result, our best intentions are not realized because we never place the appropriate priority or value on what fills our pipeline. He went on to say that, until marketing becomes a quadrant 1 focal point, our organizations will falter and stagnate rather than grow and flourish.

Pause and think about that and evaluate your use of time. If the things that matter keep being put off in favor of what commands our attention today that may not be as important in the long run, we are not managing ourselves well. The message that is sent to a new prospect, for instance, when a proposal is turned in the last day possible, or a call or email is returned much later that desired is that the relationship is insignificant because we already have enough (too much) to do.

Challenge yourself to be better–do what is important on a daily basis as though it were urgent!