How to choose your Ideal Client - Key Criteria
A good client development programme is a process of refinement and commitment of resources and effort. As time goes on, deliberately focus resources on targeting,
winning and nurturing ideal clients that are on strategy and which meet the firm's key criteria. In 5 years' time, your ideal clients will be the backbone of your firm.
First - define your ideal client in terms of your strategy - whether that is to be, say, the firm of choice for growing businesses, the most innovative online legal services
provider or family lawyer for high net worth individuals. In each case, the ideal client self selects: a growing business, tech savvy person with a legal need, asset rich/time
poor person who needs help with their personal affairs.
This is a good time to sense check your strategy! How many of these clients do you have already? Is your strategy based on delivering more effective services to a core of
profitable clients?
Then define and refine key criteria that flesh out what you are looking for in an ideal client. Different firms will have different criteria. For instance, if your ideal client is
a growing SME client, you might be looking for those who are active in a specific sector or at a certain stage of development (so you can help them get AIM listed, for
example). On the other hand, your ideal client might be a middle aged couple, with elderly parents looking to downsize and invest their savings wisely.
Criteria
Strategic alignment
Financial criteria
Strength of relationship
Strength of client interest
Size of the opportunity compared with the
cost of acquiring it
Questions to ask
Describe the ideal client bearing this
criteria in mind
What is our strategy?
What we do we want to know about our clients?
e.g creditworthiness, turnover, profitability
How well do we know them? How integrated are we in what they
do? How necessary are we?
What is the client’s attitude to us?Are they interested in getting
to know us better?
What is the lifetime value of this opportunity?
How much will it cost us to acquire this client base?
Consider, conflicts, delivery methods, resources, marketing costs etc
Analysing and understanding client worth:
Account management, defending profitability and pricing
www.richmontewells.com
Analysing and understanding client worth:
Account management, defending profitability and pricing
www.richmontewells.com