Building business development cultures that thrive.
Hello S-Curvers,
Finder, Grinder, Minder, Binder and Miner: what makes business development work in law firms? What is the expectation of business development in law firms, and does the legal sector need a structured business development curriculum to fill the gap not met by universities?
The findings from my participatory action research that I completed in 2021 show that clarity of structures, lines of accountability and role boundaries are essential for business development to thrive in law firm environments. They provide what’s known as ‘emotional containment’ around the business development task and decrease the anxiety and loneliness that many lawyers feel about business development.
It was a shock to me to discover through the research how anxious and lonely lawyers feel about business development. Much of this was not on the surface, but emerged after 1:1 conversations and work role drawings. The idea that business development expectations were ‘accidentally traumatising’ lawyers emerged. I realised that workflows, structures, clear expectations are essential because they set out what to do - a clear process.
I’ve listed six of thirteen initial research findings in a table below: ‘What aids business development?’ and ‘What hinders business development?’ You can rate your internal program against these findings to see how well your firm’s BD program is performing.
Business development competencies and checklists are important parts of the BD process.
In this note I want to make the argument for ditching wishy-washy marketing plans that usually skip the step of market research anyway, which we all know is vital for a marketing plan to be effective. Instead provide structure and step-by-step processes using business development competencies and checklists. These tools work on many levels: firm, team and individual.
The beauty of business development competencies and checklists is that you do the thinking once, then you can use them multiple times. They work for Rockstars and Introverted Professionals alike.
You can develop your own competencies and checklists, but why reinvent the wheel? I’ve developed a set of precedent checklists that I combine with business development competencies that do the work for you. I walk people through how to use them in my ‘Closing the Gap’ seminar. I provide templates that you can tailor yourself, or with my help as part of the seminar offer.
I’ve created these tools because they are what I would have wanted when I was in-house but never had the time to create fully, and I truly believe they are vital to levelling-up performance across teams around business development. By that I mean the step-by-step process supports understanding and therefore results, that is you don’t just have 1 or 2 people excelling at BD, you can have the whole firm knowing what to do, contributing according to their level of experience, and feeling OK about it.
May is ‘Rem Season’ in many law firms where performance goes under the microscope and fee earners and fee burners alike feel one of two things:
Great! Because you’re ahead of budget, in fact you smashed it and exceeded expectations therefore you’re (almost) looking forward to an opportunity to speak to your achievements at your performance review.
Anxious! Because for a multitude of reasons outside of your control you’re behind on budget, or you’ve failed to meet MBD expectations, and you’re dreading the scrutiny a performance review will bring.
Make 2024/25 your year to nail business development and start working with competencies and checklists now so you can feel good about the work you do and the business you bring in. This applies whether you are a lawyer, or a marketer & business developer.
Thank you
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