Grow Your Practice - the client-centered approach to business expansion
We've not met many firms that did not want to grow their business. And why not?
Sadly, here's the bad news:
"Just because you have a legal right to exist - you have no legal right to the support from clients required to sustain your existence..."
...John Wilmshurst, The Fundamentals and Practice of Marketing, 1st Ed. (1973) Butterworth Heinemann.
John's quote is worth re-reading. Made nearly 4 decades ago - but just as relevant when Mac and John collaborated on their 4th Ed. (2002) and onwards to today. Perhaps it is still more pertinent in these recessionary times? Here's how you win that 'client support'...
Sadly, here's the bad news:
"Just because you have a legal right to exist - you have no legal right to the support from clients required to sustain your existence..."
...John Wilmshurst, The Fundamentals and Practice of Marketing, 1st Ed. (1973) Butterworth Heinemann.
John's quote is worth re-reading. Made nearly 4 decades ago - but just as relevant when Mac and John collaborated on their 4th Ed. (2002) and onwards to today. Perhaps it is still more pertinent in these recessionary times? Here's how you win that 'client support'...
First, recognise 'marketing' is a 'management function'
Which means...
- Don't be skillful in making a client suit the interest of the practice...
- Make sure you have the right people with the right skills to do the right job...
A Professional Management Approach to Marketing your Practice starts here
The essential first step in developing the business of your firm is not:
That said - there are a number of ways to build your practice:
- A glossy brochure
- 'Bells and whistles' web page
- Short-term cost cutting
- Really understanding what your clients think about your firm and the service it provides
That said - there are a number of ways to build your practice:
Make a Plan
Here's five ways how you could do it:-
Here's how we can help you succeed:-
What we do know is, even if by some chance the plan was good, however it was conceived, it will fail through poor implementation - a poor match between the market and the firm.
So, let us start at the fundamentals: there are only two things to know about to really succeed in legal practice:
Want to get a better plan organised and implemented? (Contact us)
- Do nothing. As time unfolds your plan emerges as you track fees against previous periods - a bit like driving your car at night with the lights off, only illuminating the road behind, just cursory glances over your shoulder at the road ahead.
- Get the Partners into a 'coven' and debate the issues - decide what you'd like to achieve. And it's done! (Don't write it down, tell others in the firm - as you don't want to be questioned - yet berate people to keep their hours up).
- As time unfolds launch initiative after initiative trying to capture opportunities as they come about.
- As Partners do '2' above, but this time write it down over several pages based on an irrefutable 'gut-feel'* for the market, put it in a drawer and forget about it until you decide to wonder what went wrong. Keep it secret from all employees irrespective of position. (*We call this gut-feel: 'gut-rot'!)
- Pay a top consultant to do one for you (or to you) where the value is measured in inches - its thickness!
Here's how we can help you succeed:-
What we do know is, even if by some chance the plan was good, however it was conceived, it will fail through poor implementation - a poor match between the market and the firm.
So, let us start at the fundamentals: there are only two things to know about to really succeed in legal practice:
- Your market for legal services - what it is that clients will pay for?
- Your people - how motivated, able and confident they all are to meet those needs?
Want to get a better plan organised and implemented? (Contact us)
Here's how to succeed: Start with really knowing your market
A question: "What is really important to your clients and how do you perform against your competition"?
If you have substantive answers to both parts of that question, and are not resting on the fallacy of past success, please accept our apologies, we can't help you - you must have more work than you know what to do with and we wish you every success.
If you have any doubts about either parts of the answer, we invite you to read on...
Importance/Performance Matrix - your bespoke solution
There will be services you provide, things that you do, that clients will view in one of three ways in the decision to brief you compared to your competitors. The 'importance to clients' may be:
If you have substantive answers to both parts of that question, and are not resting on the fallacy of past success, please accept our apologies, we can't help you - you must have more work than you know what to do with and we wish you every success.
If you have any doubts about either parts of the answer, we invite you to read on...
Importance/Performance Matrix - your bespoke solution
There will be services you provide, things that you do, that clients will view in one of three ways in the decision to brief you compared to your competitors. The 'importance to clients' may be:
- of less importance, not considered necessary
- things they expect you to do to 'qualify' for inclusion in a shortlist of firms
- those things that you must do for you 'win the business'
- worse than competitors
- the same as competitors
- better than competitors
Figure 1. Importance-performance matrix showing where there is an 'excess' less needs to be done, whereas urgent action is needed if performance is worse than competitors in an 'order winning', high importance area.
Once you know what your clients think, you can build a map to improve the management decision-making (and business planning) that drives business improvement initiatives, see Figure 2.
Figure 2. Importance-performance matrix showing one firm's situation across eight key service areas
In this example, the firm is viewed as 'technically' brilliant yet it is failing to win as much as they could. Sponsorship is an 'excess' and less needs to be done, whereas urgent action is needed in 'client care' and 'value' performance of the firm; these are worse than competitors in two crucial 'order winning', high importance areas. Also, the case management system needs to improve - but only after the other two areas have been properly addressed.
You'll know what fees you do make from which services. But do you know what fees you miss? Where should you invest to give the best return? We can build a matrix for your firm to help inform your management decision-making. (Contact us)
Want a ready-made successful solution?
Perhaps your situation requires a more straightforward solution.
Our 'Profirma' Client survey programme gives you everything you need to find out about your clients' view of your firm. Professionally. Conveniently. In confidence. Supplying vital information to help you improve your service - and your marketing - to clients.
How the Profirma Client Survey programme Works
We send you a pack containing 400 questionnaire forms together with guidance notes. You distribute the forms to existing and recent clients. They complete the questionnaire (which only takes 10 to 15 minutes) and return it to us using our FREEPOST facility. Clients' responses are confidential - they do not have to give their names and addresses.
" ...several of the clients who received questionnaire forms were pleased that their views were being sought."
Partner - 8 Partner firm, South London
We input the responses using dedicated software and then produce detailed results plus a helpful commentary. We will also provide a comparison with other firms that have already undertaken the survey.
You remain in control by selecting the clients who do (and do not) receive the questionnaire but you are relieved of the time consuming burden and cost of preparing the questions, printing the forms, providing return postage or collating the responses. You specialise in law, we specialise in market research.
Question and report commentary
Q.9 "How often was the telephone engaged?"
Your Firm - "Occasionally" - 68%
Average of All Firms - "Occasionally" - 33%
"...This is a high proportion. At best it represents mild frustration, at worst lost business..."
Need to know what your clients really think? (Contact us)
You'll know what fees you do make from which services. But do you know what fees you miss? Where should you invest to give the best return? We can build a matrix for your firm to help inform your management decision-making. (Contact us)
Want a ready-made successful solution?
Perhaps your situation requires a more straightforward solution.
Our 'Profirma' Client survey programme gives you everything you need to find out about your clients' view of your firm. Professionally. Conveniently. In confidence. Supplying vital information to help you improve your service - and your marketing - to clients.
How the Profirma Client Survey programme Works
We send you a pack containing 400 questionnaire forms together with guidance notes. You distribute the forms to existing and recent clients. They complete the questionnaire (which only takes 10 to 15 minutes) and return it to us using our FREEPOST facility. Clients' responses are confidential - they do not have to give their names and addresses.
" ...several of the clients who received questionnaire forms were pleased that their views were being sought."
Partner - 8 Partner firm, South London
We input the responses using dedicated software and then produce detailed results plus a helpful commentary. We will also provide a comparison with other firms that have already undertaken the survey.
You remain in control by selecting the clients who do (and do not) receive the questionnaire but you are relieved of the time consuming burden and cost of preparing the questions, printing the forms, providing return postage or collating the responses. You specialise in law, we specialise in market research.
Question and report commentary
Q.9 "How often was the telephone engaged?"
Your Firm - "Occasionally" - 68%
Average of All Firms - "Occasionally" - 33%
"...This is a high proportion. At best it represents mild frustration, at worst lost business..."
Need to know what your clients really think? (Contact us)
Outcomes-Focused Regulation
The 2011 code from the SRA sets out outcomes for client care, such as:
"clients are in a position to make informed decisions about the services they need, how their matter will be handled and the options available to them"
Outcome 1.12, Code of Conduct, Solicitors Regulation Authority, 21st June 2012
From the code:
"Indicative behaviours (non-mandatory) set out how you might go about this, eg. agreeing an appropriate level of service with your client".
Compliance will need to be demonstrated - for example:
"Through customer satisfaction surveys, analysis of client complaints, the results of internal file audits.
This will enable firms to take greater responsibility for their professional conduct and quality assurance.
But much less prescriptive - and more flexible..."
So, client satisfaction? The way we have done it for one firm in Birmingham was seen as a 'bench-mark for LSC work'.
What can we do for you? (Contact us)
"clients are in a position to make informed decisions about the services they need, how their matter will be handled and the options available to them"
Outcome 1.12, Code of Conduct, Solicitors Regulation Authority, 21st June 2012
From the code:
"Indicative behaviours (non-mandatory) set out how you might go about this, eg. agreeing an appropriate level of service with your client".
Compliance will need to be demonstrated - for example:
"Through customer satisfaction surveys, analysis of client complaints, the results of internal file audits.
This will enable firms to take greater responsibility for their professional conduct and quality assurance.
But much less prescriptive - and more flexible..."
So, client satisfaction? The way we have done it for one firm in Birmingham was seen as a 'bench-mark for LSC work'.
What can we do for you? (Contact us)
Know your People
Staff Audits
"With every employee I hire with a pair of hands - I get a free brain..."
Henry Ford, on how he could sell the Model 'T' so cheaply. (He asked the people that built them how they could improve their work...!)
Employees are (potentially) a tremendous source of information on how to improve your firm but it is rare to find a firm that does much (professionally) about it. Rather than simply a 'temperature taking' process, the employee surveys we administer are used to identify areas of needed improvement that have a high impact on a firm's performance.
Many firms say 'our most significant asset is our people' yet make the mistake of under-investing in and under-valuing that asset.
What can we do for your people? (Contact us)
"With every employee I hire with a pair of hands - I get a free brain..."
Henry Ford, on how he could sell the Model 'T' so cheaply. (He asked the people that built them how they could improve their work...!)
Employees are (potentially) a tremendous source of information on how to improve your firm but it is rare to find a firm that does much (professionally) about it. Rather than simply a 'temperature taking' process, the employee surveys we administer are used to identify areas of needed improvement that have a high impact on a firm's performance.
Many firms say 'our most significant asset is our people' yet make the mistake of under-investing in and under-valuing that asset.
- Most lawyers (as employees) we meet are discontented.
- We audited a 47 employee practice (NE London) and found five separate, uncoordinated teams - little chance for clients to get what they wanted.
- One modest south coast firm used DAW to audit their 167 people to uncover why staff turnover was so high, the firm regularly losing talented people - we found fifteen reasons - plenty to correct to save the hidden cost of missing staff and the direct cost of recruiting replacements!
- An Associate Solicitor in Milton Keynes, annually billing nearly 4 times his salary, was described as 'sub-optimal' on an email circulated to all staff listing fee-earner performance (as he had not met his August target). But then, he was on holiday for two weeks that month with his family!
- Two thirds of solicitors we meet on our SRA Management Course Stage One - who tend to be just within 3 years PQE - do not want to progress to Partnership (in any firm) at some stage in their career. Why should that be?
- Want to track what hundreds of your staff across many offices think about how your firm can get 'Fit For the Future' - we have the solution.
What can we do for your people? (Contact us)
A Personal Service
Jan Mackay - Research Director
Working as part of the DAW team, Jan has had a wide and recent experience of market research being involved in managing and conducting focus groups, telephone and face-to-face interviews, as well as the development, distribution and evaluation of questionnaires to audiences of many thousands.
She has project managed many assignments and conducted interviews with the legal sector supporting local firms and major corporate clients, and administered projects nationally for such as the Immigration Advisory Service and firms serving the banking sector. She also has first hand experience working with veterinary surgeons (various), General Practitioners (care of the elderly, nephritis), Hospital Pharmacists (oncology) and Consultants (alphacalcidol), and other health-care professionals.
"Talking to senior management from other businesses with different dynamics and drivers can provide you with some valuable insights..."
Adrian Russell, MD of freight distribution firm Pall-Ex
Quantitative Studies
Questionnaires in small batches evaluating individual case-workers through to thousands in a major national study. One became a 'bench-mark for LSC work'.
Qualitative Studies
One-to-one interviews with key client decision-makers - over the phone or face-to-face; locally in the UK, from the South Coast to Edinburgh, or internationally... they tell us things they might not tell you (as they don't want to spoil the relationship with you!)
Focus Groups
Clients discussing their experiences and opinions together - not for the faint hearted and not meaningful if not properly managed. But revealing! Especially when they are considering your best marketing efforts...
" It took just 5% of my budget to see how to stop me wasting the other 95%..."
Partner - Connect2Law practice, North West
Want to know more? (Contact us)
Working as part of the DAW team, Jan has had a wide and recent experience of market research being involved in managing and conducting focus groups, telephone and face-to-face interviews, as well as the development, distribution and evaluation of questionnaires to audiences of many thousands.
She has project managed many assignments and conducted interviews with the legal sector supporting local firms and major corporate clients, and administered projects nationally for such as the Immigration Advisory Service and firms serving the banking sector. She also has first hand experience working with veterinary surgeons (various), General Practitioners (care of the elderly, nephritis), Hospital Pharmacists (oncology) and Consultants (alphacalcidol), and other health-care professionals.
"Talking to senior management from other businesses with different dynamics and drivers can provide you with some valuable insights..."
Adrian Russell, MD of freight distribution firm Pall-Ex
Quantitative Studies
Questionnaires in small batches evaluating individual case-workers through to thousands in a major national study. One became a 'bench-mark for LSC work'.
Qualitative Studies
One-to-one interviews with key client decision-makers - over the phone or face-to-face; locally in the UK, from the South Coast to Edinburgh, or internationally... they tell us things they might not tell you (as they don't want to spoil the relationship with you!)
Focus Groups
Clients discussing their experiences and opinions together - not for the faint hearted and not meaningful if not properly managed. But revealing! Especially when they are considering your best marketing efforts...
" It took just 5% of my budget to see how to stop me wasting the other 95%..."
Partner - Connect2Law practice, North West
Want to know more? (Contact us)
