Strengthen the law firm's relationship with its clients? What options does he have? Business development is by far the most relevant area of work.
Business development is a fairly recent term in the world of lawyers. Coming from the Anglo-Saxon business world, the term designates marketing, communication and partnership actions which are carried out with the objective of developing the economic activity of the firm.
Concretely, this involves deploying the firm's strategy in targeted communications actions on qualified contacts of partners or the firm, in order to win new cases within the firm's clients or to win new clients.
1. Business Development begins with defining its strategy
What is the added value of the firm? What is its strategic positioning? This question is the keystone of the Business Development strategy. If you want to develop your VSE/SME clientele, it is not the same approach as a clientele of individuals or large accounts.
For this, support from a professional can be useful. However, identifying the specialties and interests of the partners, coupled with an analysis of the competition in these segments, already makes it possible to target the main actions to be carried out: customers to be favored, pricing, expertise to be strengthened.
2. Business Development then involves communication
Indeed, the step following the definition of the firm's strategy is to implement it. This involves communication and marketing, although these are poorly considered words. Applied to the case of law firms, it is simply a matter of thinking about the most suitable ways to make your services known to the clients and prospects you are targeting!
The main communications actions are then as follows:
- maintain a contact database
- distribute a newsletter (monthly initially)
- organize small events (breakfasts, workshops, etc.) and invite your contacts
- have a presence on social networks
- ...
3. CRM, a key tool for monitoring exchanges with contacts
Thanks to a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool, you are able to send personalized messages to groups of people or individuals among your contacts. In this way, you can send targeted emails or send personalized invitations.
If your expertise is in industrial trademark law, what could be better than offering workshops, events or simply legal information to your contacts, prospects and clients?
Finally, by following via a news feed the actions carried out with a contact by the entire firm, you identify the right time to intervene with your contacts.
Without CRM, it is impossible to follow and address hundreds or thousands of contacts in an organized and long-term manner.
4. Quality contacts are essential to Business Development
Do you have 2.000 contacts? 10.000? Quantity does not equal quality and, when choosing, quality is more important. Having 2000 contacts that are not updated, poorly entered or inaccurate will not do you much good.
On the other hand, having 500 perfectly up-to-date, well-informed and qualified contacts allows you to send relevant and effective messages.
The subject is therefore, as you will have understood, to have both: a voluminous AND qualified contact base. How to achieve this? You won't be able to do this easily alone, because the search for information is difficult. An intern or an assistant from the firm can try it but it will be time-consuming and uncertain.
Specialized companies, such as Nomination, exist and allow you to update and, above all, keep your contacts up to date. It is then a suitable investment to launch your Business Development approach.
We will not deal with the very complex subject of sharing or not the contacts of partners within the firm. The governance rules vary and both options have their interest.
5. Link Business Development and firm management
Once your contacts are qualified, your CRM software allows you to follow up, follow up and offer opportunities to your contacts.
The additional and essential step is to connect your CRM to your management solution. You can thus keep your customer's information and the offers you have made to them over time.
This interaction is offered natively in Jarvis Legal, since the CRM module is part of the solution. Additionally, thanks to the Jarvis Legal API, you can plug in your email marketing solution (like Mailchimp) or contact update (like Appointment).
From then on, you have an integrated process for managing your contacts and your business opportunities.
6. Associates are the main Business Developers
Associates do Business Development without knowing it... Indeed, the role of the associate is to lead a network of clients to bring business to the firm and its teams. It has therefore always been within its remit.
Within the firm, pno one knows their clients, their projects, their budgets better than them. It is therefore quite natural that they are the firm's Business Developers!
No need to make an internal revolution or relearn your job. Understanding the new tools, making them their own and, above all, using them will allow partners to strengthen their knowledge of their clients and thus develop the firm's activity.
7. Measure performance: upsell, cross-sell, new customers
What return on investment should we expect?
On average, a global business development approach (strategy, communication, CRM, contact qualification, management solution like Jarvis Legal) allows you to expect a 30% increase in your turnover!
The legal needs of your clients are varied. You can answer some of them, as long as the customer knows.
First, the notion of upselling: offer additional services to your customers, managed by your team. The expected gain is 10% of turnover
Then that of cross-sell: offer additional services to your clients, managed by the firm's other teams. Here again you can aim for a 10% increase in expected turnover.
Finally, new clients: as your image improves, your contacts become aware of your specialties, you also increase your turnover by 10% with new clients.
Implementing a business development approach within the firm is not an option, it is your priority! The development of your activity will quickly and largely compensate for the investments made. In addition, you will attract high-level collaborators and associates who want to work with a forward-looking firm. Finally, you will be able to “choose” your customers, thanks to your business growth.
Thanks to Jarvis Legal's integrated CRM, management and reporting solutions, develop your business!