Make More Rain : partner agreements, marketing

Managing Partners' Little Black Book on Marketing

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Paula Black knows graphic design. John Remsen, Jr. knows marketing. The author of The Little Black Book on Law Firm Branding and Positioning has teamed up with Remsen to create The Little Black Book on Law Firm Marketing and Business Development.

The layout of the book has the trademark of a graphic artist - plenty of variation of font, paper type and thickness. This is no dry business book!

The content is, of course, what matters. The book takes a mixture of survey findings, anecdotes from several managing partners representing mid-sized firms, and a simple formula for marketing success:

Build a plan;
invest in the plan;
implement the plan;
measure the results.

John Remsen founded The Remsen Group in 1997 to help bring effective and cost-efficient marketing and business development programs to commercial law firms of all types and sizes. The Remsen Group provides services ranging from developing firm-wide marketing plans to helping firms plan firm retreats. The Remsen Group also organizes and presents the managing partner forum.

For more information or to purchase the book, click here.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

How Should a Law Firm be Selected?

Admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 19:45:00 GMT

Robert (Bob) S. Burns at Brouse McDowell's office in Akron, Ohio recently authored an article for Of Counsel Magazine titled “An Ongoing Saga:The Still Imperfect Relationship Between In-house and Outside Counsel. “ Among other subjects covered, he asks the question—“So how should outside counsel be selected?”

Answering his own question, he wrote: “I believe that a business should consider the ‘Five C's’: (1) competency; (2) capacity; (3) commitment; (4) communication; and (5) cost.” The summary below is his explanation of each of his Five C’s:

Competency: The key word here is quality. Simply enough, the firm must be able to competently perform the work. The difficulty of the work should be the main driver. If it is a "bet the company" issue, a client needs the best firm it can afford. But for commodity type work, a client does not need a senior partner at an American Lawyer 100 firm. Basically, a client should only pay for what it needs.
Capacity: The key word here is quantity. The firm must be able to completely handle the volume. The amount and location of the work should be the main driver. The firm must have enough attorneys, locations and affiliations to handle all or most of a client's needs (locally, regionally or globally, as well as functionally and specifically).
Commitment: The key words here are dedication and collaboration.…, Clients expect you to know their people, know their business, know their industry and know their problems. Outside counsel are always convinced they know their clients, yet clients are rarely convinced that that is the case.
Communication: The key words here are speed and clarity. The lack of both gets more firms fired than anything else. You never want a call or message saying "I can't ever get hold of John…Where are we on this?" Do not try an impress the client with your knowledge of Latin phrases or sub-sub-sub-section references to regulations. In other words, do not talk like a lawyer. Quite often, in-house counsel's greatest value-add is to translate the Company's business language into legal language for outside counsel and then to reverse the process. If there is no in-house counsel, make sure your clients understand by encouraging them to ask, "What do you mean by that?"
Cost: The key words here are cost and value. Budgets are becoming the norm. Both sides should sit down before any major project to evaluate ways to reduce legal costs. Here, however, outside counsel should also emphasize any and all "value-added services" they can provide. ….. While law firms are touting their expertise and working hard to strengthen relationships, clients are focusing on costs and value added services. Therein is the biggest and longest running disconnect between in-house and outside counsel.

You can read Bob Burns’ entire article in PDF format here. His five C's are a useful outline for organizing your presentation to new business prospects. They can service as a guide for the firm's team to live by. Outside of the legal community, business leaders are quick to say "it all starts with sales". For the law firm business, "it all starts with the client"--getting them and retaining them.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.

Tips for the Law Firm Rainmaker

Admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:51:31 GMT

Recently, Guy Kawasaki’s blog “Let the Good Times Roll” has shown up on the radar screen. His postings are frequently referenced by other blogs.

His blog is packed with tips and sound advice for the would-be rainmaker. He is clearly a master sales person. While not directed toward the legal profession, his blog Let the Good Times Roll – by Guy Kawasaki deserves to be on your reading list.

I tell our folks that we were given two ears and one mouth with the intention that we use them in that proportion. Guy Kawasaki says it so much more eloquently:

"Ask good questions, then shut up. The mark of a good conversationalist is not that you can talk a lot. The mark is that you can get others to talk a lot. Thus, good schmoozers are good listeners, not good talkers. Ask softball questions like, “What do you do?” “Where are you from?” “What brings you to this event?” Then listen. Ironically, you'll be remembered as an interesting person." Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, and a columnist for Forbes.com. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc., where he was one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh computer. Guy is the author of eight books including “The Art of the Start”, “Rules for Revolutionaries”, “How to Drive Your Competition Crazy”, “Selling the Dream”, and “The Macintosh Way”. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA, as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

CRM for Law Firms

Admin — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:12:47 GMT

CRM, customer relationship management, is a concept and a discipline; don’t confuse the need for CRM with the need for software.

CRM software can increase the efficiency of a law firm’s customer relationship management program—but it can’t create one. CRM and CRM software are not one in the same.

It is clear that the most important and largest potential source of future revenue for a law firm is its existing clients. Capitalizing on that potential requires the law firm to actively engage in revenue-increasing relationship building with the existing clients of the law firm. It is that activity that constitutes a firm's CRM or customer relationship management program. CRM software arrived on the scene to increase a firm’s efficiency in carrying out that vital function. It promised to help us track our activity with the client. It promised data mining capabilities that would facilitate cross selling. It was a big step up from 3 by 5 cards and Rolodex systems. Some law firms are good at customer relationships, some are “so-so” at it, and others are just plain bad at it.

Unfortunately, the “so-so” and bad firms outnumber the good ones. CRM software has gotten a bad rap because most of the buyers have been law firms who were not good at customer relations to start with. The problem with most CRM system implementations is that they have violated Einstein’s law of simplicity. Einstein said, “Everything should be as simple as possible but no simpler”—or something close to that.

Consider the comments of Ellis Mirsky with The Network of Trial Law Firms, Inc. of New York as reported by Law Technology News in their September 2005 issue. Ellis reportably said, “CRM should more appropriately be called CRAP. It’s just another example of a simple idea gone haywire because techno geeks can’t resist creating a nuclear power plant when a simple campfire will do.”

CRM systems are wonderful tools in the hands of people who are good at client relationship management. CRM systems are blank sheets of paper. They are what you make them. If your reach is too far beyond your grasp, you will destroy its value.

So the lesson is become good at customer relationship building. When you are, you will also be a candidate for a CRM system.