Developing your legal business can seem daunting and time consuming, but is ever more essential as straitened times continue. Help is at hand in the expert form of Nick Davies, former barrister and specialist trainer in business development for lawyers.

They tell us it’s going to be a tough year this year; that business will be hard to come buy, that no one will be spending any money, that everyone under 25 will be without employment and that we may experience either a ‘mini’, ‘midi’, ‘minor’ or ‘wee’ recession - the so called ‘double-dip’.

Which means only one thing for lawyers...

You’re going to have to get good at developing business and do so pretty damn quickly because your competitors have got marketing, advertising, events and BD mangers on board who are targeting the people you want to do work with as well as your existing clients.

I’ve spent the past 12 years working with lawyers, and even was one once and understand, therefore, how daunting many of them find it to go out and win more instructions.

For all too many lawyers developing business is about seminars, networking events and trotting out the now ubiquitous elevator pitch:

‘We’re a full-service, commercially-focused, partner-led firm, boasting strength in depth, offering a proactive, strategic approach to providing legal solutions to a range of market-leading clients. (Oh and we’re fun to work with.)’

Which, will no longer suffice if you are to stand a chance of wooing potential clients – or keeping existing ones; for that matter.

You need to get smart when it comes to selling your wares.

Every sales person I’ve ever met, trained or worked with (I’ve been in sales for 23 years, aside form my brief foray in to law) is a lazy sod. That’s not to say that they are scared of hard work; far from it, but they do always want the fastest, most efficient way to sell as much stuff in as shorter time as they possibly can and that means they work smart, rather than hard. And you need to do the same because in today’s market, you simply do not have the luxury of messing about.

So, where to start?

Well, a few years back one of my clients asked me what my ‘model’ was for developing business, to which I replied, “I don’t have one.”

He, however, insisted that I did and asserted that because I had been selling all my life, I did what I did instinctively. He asked me to go away and think about what it is that I do to generate work, so I did. I sat in Starbucks on Fleet Street, opposite the RCJ, clutching a ‘Tall Black Guatemalan’ and within 20 minutes realised that in pretty much every single instance I...

- TARGET
- CONNECT
- MEET
- ASK

Whilst FOLLOWING UP at every stage.

Selling is about making it easy for people to buy. They you are, that’s what selling is. 24 years of sales-experience and that’s the whole lot summed up in ten words.

I suppose you could stop reading this article and look for other stuff on the site?

‘Selling’ is a dirty word

At the start of my business development courses, I sometimes ask the delegates to shout out words, phrases and images that come to mind when they hear the word ‘sales’ or ‘sales rep’. Below are the things people say (up and down the country)

- Smooth (but not in a good way),
- Don’t listen
- underhand
- pushy
- shiny suits,
- second hand cars
- dodgy and
- ‘Making you buy something that you don’t want.’

Not good is it? And unsurprising, therefore, that people feel uncomfortable about going out there and promoting their goods or services: with those kinds of feelings associated with sales who would feel comfortable about selling anything!

In addition, clients also go on to describe an experience they’ve had at the hands of a sales person who has behaved using some or all of these characteristics.

The one that really annoys people, however; the one that always comes tops and with which everyone else in the room agrees, is the salesman’s inability or reluctance to listen to what they, the customer wanted or needed.

Once I have allowed them to vent their spleen and disgorge themselves of all this pent up anger and frustration, I then go on to ask if they can recall a time when they were sold to and it was a good experience.

Thankfully, most can do this and once again, I hear the same positive characteristics repeated.

The good sales people: 

- listened to me
- were polite
- were genuinely interested in what I wanted
- knew their stuff
- were able to give advice
- suggested things that I’d not initially thought of
- were helpful
- took time with me


We have all experienced these kind of sales people and quite likely left their company with less cash but very comfortable with the whole experience and our purchase but they exemplify something I said earlier – they made it easy for you to buy!

‘People buy from people’. Some of you will be familiar with that phrase and it’s true. To be more accurate, one should add …’they like’ or perhaps, ‘that they warm to.’

If people do buy from people, then to which people should be making it easier for? In other words, who are we going to target? And it’s that which I’ll deal with next time.

Nick

Nick Davies is the author of "How to be Great at Stuff You Hate" and really enjoys his coffee.