How It Works...
Lift-Off:
We begin with a live initial presentation to all your lawyers at a group meeting. It is essential that a member of the trm’s top leadership introduce the program and emphasize its importance to the trm. A show of support from the top will get the program off with an emphatic start.
Our presentation will focus on practical nuts-and-bolts tactics that the attorneys can use directly in business development. Following are topics we will cover:
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Group discussion: The most difficult business development challenges you face.
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Generating new business from clients.
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Getting new business through referrals.
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Group exercise: composing your 30-second commercial.
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Penetrating an organization of clients.
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Identifying and pursuing targets.
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Group discussion: solving your most difficult business development challenges (as identified in the morning) using techniques taught in the presentation.
Before the presentation each attendee will receive a proprietary four-page Business Development Planning form. This will organize your lawyers as they pursue business development activities.
Personal Coaching:
After the presentation we meet with each lawyer for an hour to offer a coaching, direction and advice, using the Business Development Planning form. At the end of each coaching session, each lawyer will have:
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A plan he or she wants to carry out.
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A list of individuals to visit at clients.
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A list of referral sources to cultivate.
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A target organization to commit to.
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A list of target companies to pursue.
Lawyers will commit to spending at least 200 hours per year on business development. This is a readily-achievable target of four hours per week. By meeting a client for coffee, visiting a referral source over lunch, and attending an association meeting, a lawyer can easily fill four hours.
The firm should create a special “Apollo” client-matter number for your lawyers to record their time. This is important because we’ll want to check whether your lawyers are devoting time to the effort.
Continuing Curriculum:
In our experience, training programs wither away after the initial excitement wears off, unless there is a ongoing training. Apollo includes training throughout the program via video-conference or web seminar.
These follow-up programs will be held regularly – such as the second Wednesday of every month --and will be tailored to the unique challenges of your lawyers. Typical topics include:
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Building your professional reputation.
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Purposeful business networking.
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The elements of a persuasive speech: making every speech a group sales call.
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Marketing through the client’s eyes, including a panel of executives from several of the trm’s closest clients.
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Preparing for a client meeting.
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Elements of successful proposals and “beauty contest” presentations.
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Effective follow-up to client pitches.
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Leveraging civic and trade associations
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Listening your way to more business: how to inquire about legal needs.
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Using competitive intelligence to unseat a competing law firm.
Marketing Roundtables:
In addition to the regularly-scheduled curriculum, your lawyers will also meet in periodic roundtables facilitated by your trm’s marketing professionals. At each roundtable, a lawyer will be asked in advance to describe a success or challenge he or she faces in their business development efforts. Problems can range from novel ways to create a value proposition for a potential client to finding the right words to say during a meeting with a prospective client. The group will work together to develop a practical solution.
Follow-Up Calls:
Business development training will change behavior, generate activity and produce leads. However the actual business development results will only come through follow-up calls that we will make. In this way, we can continue to motivate your lawyers to take acton, and help them in their efforts.
Each lawyer will get a regularly scheduled call from us, and we will summarize the activities to management each month. The approach gives management control, because the
trm will identify the go-geters and the non-performers. It also allows the trm to provide encouragement for lawyers who are having trouble getting started.
Your Investment
The systematic approach to business development described here will yield the results you want. Our unique approach succeeds because all the individual elements that lead to new revenue are ted together.
We offer to carry out this program for a 6-month period for $3000 per attorney included in the program; for larger groups, the cost can be lower. That’s 1/100th or less of the revenue you can expect to generate. Any travel and lodging expenses are not included in the fee, and will be billed separately.
Services
Launch the Next Wave 