You may have seen the commercial:  The banker bumps into his client who tells him that he is taking his business to LendingTree.com.  The banker, surprised, says, "But we've been your bank for 20 years."  To which the client replies, "Oh, since your bank is in the network, you get a chance to compete too.  And, so you know, I am pulling for you."  With a condescending slap on the arm, he finishes: "Good luck, buddy."

The idea, of course, is that the competing banks will give the client the lowest price and thus the best deal.  Relationship means nothing.  Is that truly representative of the way business works?

I don't think so.  Any marketing professional will tell you that client development is nurturing and maintaining relationships.  Without relationships, you can't hold on to business.  However, there is no denying the rise in competition in gaining legal services based on price.  The key, I believe, is to prove that the value of your firm is better than the value of another firm.  How you do that will prove to be the difference between increasing your client base and losing opportunities.

Here are some ways that your firm can show value:

• Showcase your talent.  You have superior talent - make sure others know.  Have attorneys write articles, speak at seminars, write blogs - market their talents to the widest audience.
• Never Eat Alone.  Attorneys should be entertaining clients and prospects whenever they are not doing billable work.  Industry conventions, meetings, etc, should always have representatives of your firm in attendance.
• Highlight your commitment to quality service.  Take a page from value-billing firms:  highlight in your bills the fact that calls were returned promptly, how much you saved the client, and how much you appreciate their business.  Don't take their faith in you for granted.
• Don't wait for your client to fire you.  You don't want to be that banker.  Don't wait for your client to tell you they are shopping.  Conduct surveys and follow up - if a client has an issue, correct it and make sure the client knows you corrected it.
• Justify your high fee.  Don't devalue your services:  JUSTIFY IT.  Case studies, testimonials, high value cases, have them all available for clients to read.  Don't be afraid to talk about your rates.  Explain what goes into them.  Many clients lament fees because they don't know what the dollar figure represents.  Explain, with confidence, the investment you have in technology that gives your firm a competitive advantage to better represent them and helps contain costs so that you can be more efficient.  Show how the investments you make have a direct effect on the quality of services you provide.  Make sure they know what the fees represent:  the culmination of dedication to the highest quality legal services by someone who cares about them personally and professionally.

What other ways can attorneys build and maintain relationships with clients so that they don't shop around for the lowest price?

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Tom Collins and I were discussing the relationship between legal professionals and non-lawyer employees of law firms. Following up our conversation he sent the comment to post:

I will never forget the time I spent on the site of a one law firm. The entire five-person accounting department shared one windowless office. Desks were pushed against one another. The accounting staff worked in chairs with missing arms, torn upholstery and busted springs. Their mismatched desks looked to be recovered salvage with missing drawers and loose veneer. This was an extreme case, but it is standard operating procedure for many firms to treat their non-professional staff as second-class citizens.

The non-lawyer support staff in a law firm has a lot of influence over the success of the firm's legal professionals—they can spoil the soup. How they feel about the firm is reflected in how they deal with law firm clients and prospects.

Excellence in client services starts with excellence in how the firm treats its own people.
 

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In a recent post, I wrote about improving social skills when it comes to composing e-mail. Too often, the cold “only the facts” quality of an e-mail conveys an unintended attitude to the reader. To the reader, your well-intended email can come off as arrogant, insincere, or cavalier. But by adding a greeting and closing, you control the feeling of the message. Starting your e-mail with a simple “good morning” or "good afternoon" and closing with a “thank you” transforms an otherwise no-nonsense message into an empathic and helpful response that reinforces and builds your relationship with the reader.

Now that we have dealt with the social aspects of e-mail, let’s consider the challenges presented by another aspect of our modern world—leaving a voice phone message. Use the wrong tone or emotion, and the listener will be quick to press the delete key.

Listen to the recorded answering message of the person you are calling and match the style and tone of your message to that recording. If the recorded message is happy and upbeat, your message can be equally enthusiastic. If the message is informal, you can be informal. If it is deliberate, so should your message be. If it is formal, your recording should be strictly business. If the caller talks fast, so can you. If they speak slowly or softly and you come on too strong and fast, the caller quickly determines you are not the kind of person they are going to be comfortable with.

The advice for leaving a recording message applies equally to face-to-face meetings. Listen to and observe the other person. Match their temperament and style. If you try to be informal and familiar with a client or prospect with a formal persona, don’t expect to win their confidence or business. Likewise, take the strictly business approach coupled with a dark blue suit and striped tie, and you will likely turn off the founders of the next Google. They will keep looking. People want to do business and build relationships with people like themselves.

When it comes to relating to others, remember the advice, “It isn’t all about you!” It is just good old fashioned manners to make the other person feel comfortable. You can make your prospect or client comfortable or uncomfortable by how you come across to them. The secret is to match your e-mail, voice message, and face-to-face temperament to that exhibited by your prospect or client.

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.
 

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I was drawn to Robert Cialdini’s book INFLUENCE: The Psychology of Persuasion by an article in the August 2006 Harvard Management Update by Martha Craumer

Look for advice about rainmaking and the experts will let you know it is about relationship building. Ask how to build relationships and they will tell you it is about giving. That is often described as being of value to others. Robert Cialdini puts it in even simpler terms. Doing something for someone gives you power and influence over them. Craumer directs us to “Do a favor—even a small one”.

In her article, Craumer reports that Cialdini’s research shows that the size of the initial favor has little bearing on the size of the favor we feel obliged to perform in return. Further, she notes that “the study shows that in spite of the uneven quid pro quo, we also seem unable to refuse the favors of others.”

A favor is a powerful influencing tool, one easy for the influencer to exploit. The exploitive power of a favor comes from what Cialdini calls the reciprocity rule—the obligation (or propensity) to receive in combination with the obligation (or propensity) to repay.

Martha Craumer’s article is about management and leadership—tactics for getting your point across subtly when traditional direct approaches do not work. The practice of doing favors (doing something for others) is a rewarding habit to develop.

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.
 

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While meeting with the executives of a privately held corporation last week, the president related a story that should convey an important message to law firm partners.

He was not a happy man! The corporate president had contacted his usual law firm concerning a patent issue. Since that law firm did not handle patent matters, the relationship attorney recommended an alternate law firm specializing in Intellectual Property. Following an initial conference call, the patent attorney disappeared from the radar screen. The president explained that he has been waiting for the promised follow-up information and nothing has come forth. He called the law firm a few days earlier and no one has returned that call. The president asked me to suggest a replacement law firm!

There are two important lessons here.

The first lesson is, “Never recommend and just forget.” When you refer your client to another law firm for specialty work, you will be judged by the company you have been keeping. If that recommended law firm turns out to be unresponsive or gets poor marks for service quality, it will be a reflection on you. Make sure that any firm you recommend has a good track record. Make sure that the recommended law firm understands that you will be following up. Make sure they understand that future references will depend on the satisfaction of clients you have referred to them. Then make darn sure you keep your word. Follow up with your client and follow up with the law firm you recommended. Be upfront with your client. If you can’t vouch for the service quality of a firm you are suggesting, tell the client this information. Tell the client you will stay involved in an effort to assure that the recommended law firm is being responsive.

The second lesson is for all of us. If you don’t communicate with your clients, they will not be your clients for long.

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.

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Instill these concepts in your young team members, and they will increase per-partner income and firm success.

Opportunity Wedge: There are two certainties in life:

• Change is constant.
• We are always judged by others.

What we are is determined by how others see us. The Opportunity Wedge illustrates that life is a journey involving constant change.

At birth, our opportunities are the greatest. We can become a bum or a great achiever. Our final destination is determined by our own decisions and actions. As we journey through life, one decision after another narrows the alternate opportunities available to us. For those who have already sacrificed their best opportunities through bad decisions, the opportunity wedge is an unpleasant and fatalistic concept. Thus, I am always reluctant to introduce the Opportunity Wedge to an audience. But for the young associates entering the firm, it is an important concept for their mentor to convey. Where the associate goes from here will be determined by the associate’s own decisions and actions. Make the right decisions, and the future is a bright one. We are the captains of our own destiny.

It is an organization’s culture (its core beliefs) that gives that organization its character and personality. The Opportunity Wedge is a part of ours and the following catch phrases and short descriptions identify others. I recommend them to you.

Make My day: You are the person who decides what kind of day you will have.

Pros Play Hurt: Show up and play your best.

Keep on the Gas: Don’t let up just because you are almost there.

Presentation Counts: A cake is one thing; one with icing is altogether another.

Finish, Don’t Quit: Achievers bring things to a conclusion.

Listen to be Heard: Great conversationalists ask and let others talk.

Dress for Success: Clothes may not make the man, but they make an impression.

It Is All About Giving: Relationships are built by helping others.

Two Words to Use: “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “I’m sorry.”

People Bank: Save them; they pay a great return.

Smile: People can hear yours.

Humor: It is disarming.

Miss Manners: Behavior counts.

Persevere: Never throw in the towel.

Standing 8: Take the time to refocus.

Play Offense: Act, don’t react.

True Believer: Be a “can” vs. a “can’t” person.

Practice/practice: Stars aren’t made—they practiced.

We, Not I: Great things are accomplished through others.

Collaboration Trumps Competition: Personal contribution is valuable, but it took collaboration to build the Pyramids.

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Things do not stay the same. No matter how secure your relationship with a significant client, it can quickly unravel if your contact changes. Your contact can leave your client or take on new responsibilities within the same organization. At the family level, legal needs can shift from your long term client to their children or spouse.

Anchoring the firm’s relationship means extending it beyond a single contact point. To better understand the firm’s client and their needs, spend non-billable time with those next to your main contact. For a business or organization, ask for a copy of the organization chart. Over time, make sure you know and are known to the powers around your contact. Make them part of the network of contacts who consider you helpful. You will know when you have been successful if those contacts are people you can comfortably call and have your call returned.

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.
 

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I mentioned my C drawer in a prior post and promised to write about it in a future post. This is it.

I believe that the most important aspect of time management is what you don’t do. Granted, lawyers serving clients and accountable to ethical rules and calendar mandates face a different problem than most of us. I can’t address that area, but I can talk about the portion of time that managing partners devote to their management duties.

Managing time is more about what you do not do than it is about being efficient at doing things. It is the classic battle of two concepts, effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness is more important because it is about doing the right things. Efficiency is about doing things faster even if you are doing the wrong things. Likewise, one of the greatest timesavers around is the word “no”. You have to pick where you invest your time. Saying no when you are asked to volunteer, attend, etc., means that time is still available.

An effective manager takes the time to identify the 4 to 8 main things that the success of their area depends on in relationship to firm-wide goals and objectives. Once you have decided those main things, delegate the responsibility for achieving them to yourself and delegate as much of everything else to everyone else.

Let me get back to the C drawer discussion. If your day is like mine, the mail dropped on your desk is no small task, nor are the e-mail messages that are waiting for you when you arrive in the office and keep pouring in as the day goes on. Don’t forget the faxes and express deliveries that arrive as the day progresses and the folks lined up at your door.

All that stuff is confirmation of Parkinson’s Law—work expands to fill available time. Since time is the most valuable thing you have, you have to constantly fight that natural progression. You have to delegate, ration, and most importantly of all, you have to diligently simplify and eliminate.

The time management technique used by most people involves prioritized to-do’s—dividing them into A’s, B’s and C’s, for example. My point is: C’s do not deserve your time. And for effectiveness, you should not allow anything to be a B. Items are either A’s that deserve your attention or they are not. C’s should go in your C drawer in case they come back later as A’s. However, you will quickly learn that most C’s never rise again, and by ignoring them, you have used your time effectively.

For efficiency, handle everything just one time. That means handling “A” with a no-return policy. Take care of it or solve it; don’t just treat symptoms. Most A’s turn out to be opportunities with a few problems thrown in. Most C’s and would be B’s turn out to be problems that usually get resolved, are of little consequence or seldom reoccur. Excellent managers concentrate on opportunities. They operate on the basis that not all problems deserve to be solved, and of those that do, most don’t need to be solved by them.

Concentrate on the “main things” your success depends on¾that is where the payoff is. That is where increases in per-partner income come from. Those B’s and C’s are for people who major in minors and get great satisfaction from accomplishing tasks of little importance just for the rush of checking something off of their to-do list.

Now, I recognize there is a problem in the above approach. Sometimes your C is someone else’s A. Depending on who they are, it will have to be your “A” too. That is just life. Nothing is perfect.

P. S.    You will need to empty your C drawer periodically. Don’t be tempted to revisit the contents. They go in the trash. They have been out of sight for some time. They haven’t come up again. They are not “main” things.
 

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I was talking with a member of a large corporate legal department and was struck by a statement he made. He said, “A law firm’s budget for a case is not just a target, it is a promise.”

Targets are benchmarks, guides, bull’s-eyes from which we measure the distance by which they are missed. Promises are something else. When you break a promise you damage your credibility. You weaken the trust others place in you.

That corporate council’s statement relating how he felt about a law firm’s budget should tell you just how serious corporate clients are about predictability. Predictability is more important than a discount. It is more important than cost. It is more important than a long-standing relationship.

When you give a public company a budget, it is a promise, not a target.
 

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