Bringing the client voice into BD: an untapped source
As we recently learned at this year’s Briefing MBD Leaders event, getting firms to fully appreciate the value of MBD is a challenge that’s been giving leaders massive headaches over the years, and one which continues to be prevalent.
Considering how prominent this pain-point is, it was no surprise therefore to see it brought up by the MBD leaders who joined us for one of our recent supper clubs, co-hosted with Litera. In between delicious morsels and catch-ups between industry friends, several expressed the trials and tribulations of getting lawyers to move past preconceived notions about sales — mainly surrounding cold calls and hard sells — and embrace the power of sales and marketing.
While educating partners on the value of MBD is, of course, still a key item on leaders’ agenda, some attendees noted that bringing the client voice into firms’ BD strategic planning right from the beginning — rather than after the strategy has already been set — has also become an increasing priority. After all, the goal is to deliver excellent service — so how can you do this without taking into consideration what the client wants and needs?
It means that regular interaction with clients to understand their real needs is imperative. Several attendees confirmed they are pushing their firms’ lawyers to gather more information about clients on a regular basis, which can be used both to tailor MBD activities and shape elements of service delivery to meet their needs.
While one leader noted that the marketing function is starting to make progression convincing partners to complete this “recon task”, there’s still a long way to go to get everyone on board. This is why some experts suggested that offering incentives, including financial ones, could be a way to encourage more lawyers to gather client information for BD use.
Making the most of CRM
No conversation about sales and marketing would be complete without bringing up CRM — a solution that, according to the experts in the room, is not used and properly managed as it should be.
The reason — once again — comes down to misconceptions around this piece of tech’s purpose, as lawyers often assume such solutions are only useful for marketing activities such as managing thought leadership content and events. As such, one attendee suggested simply renaming the system something like “revenue manager” might effectively demonstrate its broader role in law firm business management, and thus get more people to buy into the BD mission.
However, rebranding CRM won’t magically solve any issue with it — after all, one doesn’t buy a tech solution just for its name. The MBD leaders noted that for firm-wide success, a solution must be easy to use, accessible and beneficial for all parts of the firm. And as getting a system in place that pools data and delivers insights to all areas of the business does not come cheap, finding the CRM panacea is a tough gig.
All in all, educating partners on the value of MBD activities in a law firm continues to remain a priority for those leading on it — and while it seems that some progress has been made, there is still plenty of work to do.
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