3 essential tips for lawyers who want to win new commercial clients...
“The majority of legal practices, faced with increasing pressures from not only an economic
downturn, but also the spectre of ‘Tesco Law’, may be forgiven for thinking that they simply need to
spend more money on advertising...wrong”.
Firstly, your marketing budget won’t give you much bang for your buck against the backdrop of
value-driven messages from the new highly-branded and well-financed corporate ‘big boys’. In the
foreseeable future, they will be snatching away your clients using tv adverts – can your budget match
this?
However, this isn’t the only reason why your new competitors will succeed. The principal reason is
that they will be following some well established rules of developing new business:
1. They have a value-proposition – They don’t just offer legal services. They offer solutions to their
clients’ problems. When you read their marketing literature, you will be impressed by how they have
transposed the (rather dry) and intangible concept of legal services into an exciting and appealing
product.
2. They talk their clients’ language – The majority of commercial consumers of legal services want to
be satisfied at three levels:
i.
ii.
iii.
They want to know that they are getting good VALUE – is it a good deal for the business?
They want CLARITY in terms of costs and service level – will there be any hidden surprises?
They want CERTAINTY – can I rely upon my lawyers to deliver the outcomes I want?
3. They are reaching out and winning new business – Your new competitors have never sat back and
waited for the customer to approach them. They will be using any and every means available to them
to deliver their compelling, value-driven messages to win new clients.
Your clients!
To succeed, law firms must adapt. They need to shed the antiquated values of their predecessors and
embrace the commercial realities of a market which no longer affords them oligopolistic advantage.
Lawyers need to ‘sell’ their services and to achieve this, they need to pick up the ‘phone and talk
about 'a value-driven, tangible product’. Tailoring fixed-fee packages of legal services, aimed at
commercial targets within specific market sectors, is an elegant and innovative method of reaching
out and connecting with new commercial clients.