Hone juniors’ business development skills early to build long-lasting client relationships
Developing great business development skills is one of the most important weapons in a lawyer’s arsenal. As such, the earlier in their career that a solicitor can hone these skills and start building those all-important relationships with clients, the better.
In my experience, helping junior lawyers foster BD skills by involving them in client interactions from the outset is a win-win for everyone involved. This creates better lawyers and encourages longer-term, more profitable client relationships — both of which can only be good things for a firm’s bottom line.
Yet in the legal sector, there is still often a reticence to involve junior lawyers in direct client BD — coming from both this cohort and senior colleagues — which, from what I’ve seen, is driven by various factors.
All too often, the focus for those starting out in their career is on billable hours, with BD pushed firmly to the back of the queue.
As digital natives, the Gen Z generation also often tends to email rather than pick up the phone, or schedule online meetings over face-to-face ones. While it is important to communicate in the way that best suits an individual client’s needs, nothing can quite replace meeting in person and talking over the phone for building relationships.
BD can also seem like a very daunting task — after all, it isn’t something that is taught at law school. It is a skill that needs to be learnt and developed over time, especially for those who are naturally more introverted. It is precisely for this reason that I am a huge advocate of developing juniors’ BD skills early.
So, what can law firms, and marketing teams in particular, do to encourage junior lawyers to take part in client BD? From my experience, these are some things that work well:
- Develop a culture that recognises and priorities the importance of client service and BD’s role in this. A large part of this comes from the more senior members of the firm leading by example and involving junior lawyers in their BD activity so they can learn by osmosis
- Equip lawyers with the tools and training they need to develop BD skills from day one — such as providing individual matrices for each member of the team, from trainees right up to partners. Offer additional support for those who need it, such as regular check-ins and providing mentors, and allow junior lawyers to ‘buddy up’ and conduct BD together if it gives them the confidence they need
- Empower lawyers to find their own style so that it is authentic and natural. Some people would much rather write a thought leadership piece to share directly with clients than attend lots of events — that is absolutely fine, so long as they are doing something
- Encourage the use of LinkedIn from day one as a trainee. Once they have been shown the benefits of it for building and maintaining client relationships and creating their own profile, it is easier to get them to build it into a daily habit
- Make sure they have relationships with the marketing team and know that we are here to help
- Make BD activity measurable by including it as part of the annual review process as an objective from the outset
Despite a lot of BD having moved online on the back of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is now a notable resurgence of people valuing real opportunities to connect. The most successful lawyers are those who build strong relationships, which all comes down to being interested, asking questions, and listening and acting on their answers — and developing these skills will get you far in your career.
Moreover, your colleagues of today may well be your referral sources or clients of tomorrow, so it’s important to start building those connections now. By creating a supportive, encouraging environment where BD is valued and good training is provided at all levels across the firm, everyone will reap the benefits.
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