I have met several times over the last several months with law firm client development professionals and I worked closely with the client development professionals in my old firm. If you are a firm client development professional, here are my tips for you.
Know what makes the profession (law, accounting, consulting) of your firm different – industry knowledge.- Understand your firm “culture”.
- Develop a firm client development strategic plan.
- Treat your professionals the way they treat their clients.
- Spend lots of “one-on-one” with your professionals – it’s a contact sport.
- Convince management to have a Client Development Committee consisting of leading producers and meet regularly with committee and develop actions plans.
- Know everything you can about the firm’s top 100 clients (pick a number).
- Balance between being supportive and not saying no, with sticking to the strategic plan.
- Know more about the blogging, podcasts, and social media tools than your most knowledgeable professional.
- Encourage professionals to see things from their clients’ point of view.
- Create a client development coaching program for senior associates and junior partners. Set an ambitious goal for the group and then help them achieve it.
- Finally, and certainly not last, come up with innovative ideas and be prepared to defend them against “we’ve never done that before.”