This is a guest blog written by Joanna Gaudoin, consultant, trainer, speaker and author at ClientWise. You can watch the video summary of this article below:
Winning new work is the lifeblood of revenue and profit. When firms grow, they can reward people more effectively, invest in technology, and attract and retain skilled professionals.
Markets change quickly, and it is easy to fall behind. Without a strategy and plan, it’s difficult to generate work when it’s needed. If the plumbing isn’t in place, you can’t simply turn on the tap. Additionally, law firms typically experience lower levels of repeat work than professions such as accountancy, making a structured and sustainable approach essential.
Repeat work isn’t always possible, but where it is, nurturing client relationships is vital. Research from Thomson Reuters shows that client loyalty is declining: five years ago, 75% of clients would return to the same firm; today, that figure is around 50%, and it is forecast to drop to 35%. Clients can now switch firms more easily than ever if their needs aren’t met. If a structured approach to business development is in place, even if a client is lost, there is a plan to replace that work.
Business development remains essential even when firms are busy. While many firms currently face capacity constraints, it is worth reflecting on how time is used. If each client-facing individual committed just one or two hours a week, business development progress could be made. Support and incentivisation are key to making this happen.
Law firms are typically full of bright, capable people. Yet many are not maximising the number of clients they could help, which in turn holds back sustainable, consistent growth for their firm.
Business development is challenging for many law firms. Activity is often unstructured and concentrated amongst a small number of individuals. By identifying gaps in their approach, many firms could achieve stronger results by utilising their existing teams.
The struggle with BD for Law Firms
Business development is an area many lawyers find difficult. There are several reasons for this.
- Business development isn’t covered in legal training, so it’s rarely seen as a core part of a lawyer’s role from the outset.
- As a result, many firms don’t clearly position it as part of the job or consistently invest in developing these skills at senior levels, let alone at junior levels.
- There is a common assumption that strong technical expertise alone should be enough to attract new work.
- Lawyers naturally prefer to focus on legal delivery rather than activities they associate with “selling”.
- Historically, business development has been treated as a Partner’s responsibility, rather than something for all client-facing professionals.
- Some believe they don’t have the right personality for developing relationships and work.
- Time pressures play a major role, as business development is non-chargeable and many firms prioritise billable hours.
- It often gets confused with marketing and is therefore seen as that function’s responsibility (read about the difference here).
- Many simply aren’t sure what to do, and why should they know, without support or guidance?
How to achieve success with BD
Many of the above barriers can be overcome by focusing on the following areas:
• Mindset – Reflecting on the importance of the client relationship is key. Due to the nature of legal services, prospective clients often want to engage with the person or people who will be working on their matter when they are deciding who to choose to support them. In many cases, legal services are an emotional purchase, even in business-to-business contexts. Ultimately, lawyers solve a problem, reduce risk, or help a client be in a more favourable position. It’s rare for legal work to be purely transactional, even when it involves a transaction.
With the right knowledge and skills, combined with legal expertise, lawyers are best placed to articulate how they can help prospective clients and to nurture relationships over the long term, turning them into repeat clients or referral sources.
• Involvement – Engaging lawyers earlier in their careers helps utilise available resources, reduces risk, and avoids missed opportunities that arise when firms rely solely on Partners and senior lawyers.
• Being realistic about time – Quick wins can happen, but business development is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires consistency, patience, and perseverance.
In the short term, spending two hours a week on business development can feel expensive, particularly if it’s viewed as “lost” billable time. Yet over the medium to long term, that investment can deliver a significant return.
For example, imagine a lawyer spends 6 billable hours over a month building a relationship with an accountancy practice, equating to around £1,800 in foregone fees. If that relationship then leads to a new client generating £3,000 in fees per month, the value of that business development time becomes clear very quickly.
• Approach – Setting out a clear approach motivates individuals to prioritise business development. With limited time available, any time allocated needs to be focused and productive. Without a clear strategy and plan, activity tends to be inconsistent, fragmented, and unlikely to deliver positive outcomes or encourage perseverance.
Playing to your firm’s strengths
It’s also important to use people’s strengths when thinking about how they contribute. This is not about everyone attending networking events; it’s about using individual capabilities.
Keep in mind, there are three key levers to generate more work. Breaking business development down in this way can be helpful to create focus. It may be appropriate to work on all three, or fewer, depending on the practice area and context.
- New clients directly – Often the most attractive route, as it brings the satisfaction of introducing a “new” client to the firm.
- Introducers – These relationships can be extremely productive. Introducers are typically other professionals who work with a similar client profile but address different needs. Investing time in a small number of well-chosen introducer relationships can generate several new clients each year from a single source. This approach needs to be strategic and focused on building relationships with those who see the value in collaboration.
- Existing clients – Frequently an underutilised goldmine. With an established relationship already in place, there are three clear opportunities: doing more of the same type of work, introducing clients to other departments and gaining referrals to new clients.
Fundamentally, lawyers need to understand why business development is important, how valuable their contribution can be and what that looks like for them, to motivate them to embrace business development.
A simple framework for successful BD
Some firms have a structured approach to business development - I call this having a Business Development Culture and may simply have some gaps. Others will lack the core foundations required.
My proven framework, The 5 Ps of Proactive Business Development©, explains what’s required for business development to be effective. All five elements are essential.
1. Positioning
What this is: Clarity on the services each department wants to focus on and the ideal type(s) of clients for each.
Why this matters: This creates focus for all business development activities.
2. Profile & Presence
What this is: Ensuring individuals build their personal profile and market presence.
Why this matters: People buy people, so individuals need to become known and consider how they are perceived.
3. Prospecting
What this is: Building a plan of business development activities that will generate the right work with the ideal clients (as defined in Positioning). This plan needs to take into account the three business development levers mentioned earlier, break activities down into manageable steps, allocate responsibility and a timeline, as well as specify how progress will be measured.
Why this matters: Without focus, time is wasted on ad hoc, unfocused activity, or nothing happens at all.
4. People Skills
What this is: The ability to build trusted relationships internally and externally overall and have the skills to implement business development activities such as networking.
Why this matters: Relationships drive choice, loyalty, and referrals.
5. Politics
What this is: Navigating differing values, assumptions, and agendas.
Why this matters: Assumptions, values and agendas differ. It’s vital to be able to consider different people and navigate those relationships well, whether internally to generate cross-referrals or externally with multi-party clients and intermediaries.
What's next for your firm?
Consider how your firm is doing and whether you could be doing better business development to achieve more.
Use The 5 Ps of Proactive Business Development© by department to see what can be improved.
Download my free guide The 5 Ps of Proactive Business Development©: The key elements to win more of the right work to give you more information and help with that exercise.
To get a clear on where your business development structure can be reshaped to really work for your firm. Book your no-obligation 30-minute review session with me. And let's identify or address the gaps that are limiting your opportunities.
Joanna Gaudoin is a trainer, speaker and consultant who helps professional services firms and their people take a structured, skilled and people-centred approach to business development. Through her company ClientWise, she supports individuals and teams to develop the confidence, strategy and skills needed to grow client relationships. Joanna’s work spans consulting, facilitation, training and coaching, underpinned by her proven framework, The 5 Ps of Proactive Business Development©. She is also an experienced speaker and has over 14 years’ experience working with firms across law, finance, accountancy, and consulting.
She is the author of Getting On: Making work work and co-author of Business Development for Women Lawyers, Time Management for Lawyers and Essential Reads for the Modern Lawyer, published by Globe Law and Business.