ResultsPath®
Converting Partners' High-Potential Contacts Into High-Margin Clients
Converting Partners' High-Potential Contacts Into High-Margin Clients
| Why Is ResultsPath Sales Training Important to Law Firms' Futures? A Changed Profession Demands New Skills For over 100 years, law firms enjoyed the fruits of sustained demand and a seller's market. Law firms expanded, adding partners and associates as if it would last forever. But industries mature, and corporate mergers, acquisitions and failures reduced the number of buyers. The late '80s recession squeezed corporate profits and changed the corporate mindset. The legal services world changed forever. It is now, and will remain, a buyer's market. With the exception of some "hot" practices—Employment, Intellectual Property and some specialized corporate practices right now—the legal services category has matured, and is subject to the same over-capacity and pricing pressures as other mature industries. Clients no longer marry your firm. They've learned the value of leveraging their purchases by distributing their business among many firms. Large corporations use an average of 60 law firms, and they entertain sales contact from twice that many more each year. They favor more limited, transactional relationships. Also, corporations are investing in and developing their internal legal staff, hiring outside counsel for highly specialized work of finite purpose and duration. Competition among law firms is fierce, and continues to intensify. Clients must be resold constantly. Each time a need arises, you must demonstrate greater value and more compelling reasons to hire your firm. Increased competition means that firms can no longer afford the luxury of partners who are solely skilled legal technicians. "Service partners" must now develop business, where previously they could succeed through fulfillment only. Lawyers need to maintain high annual billings and originate business, but billing pressures can create a disincentive to spending time selling. To balance these dual obligations, lawyers need professional selling skills to recognize and efficiently exploit opportunities to sell additional services to existing clients and develop new clients—while remaining billable. Wrong Client Syndrome In the current boom economy, many lawyers say they are so busy that they literally couldn't handle one more client if delivered on a platter. Why would they need to sell better? If you probe these "too busy" lawyers, you learn that at least a third of their clients don't belong in their portfolio. They pay slow, or challenge every bill, are unappreciative or make unreasonable demands in relation to their economic or strategic value. These are the clients that were never chosen, but were accepted in reactive fashion. These lawyers can't afford such clients. They would be well served to learn how to define, profile and target a more desirable market segment and pursue work that is more professionally stimulating, economically valuable and emotionally gratifying. As more of their work comes from this targeted segment, they will be able to "fire" less desirable clients, or hand them off to other lawyers with confidence. Continue... |
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