Sales Lessons We Must Learn from the Global 1000

Panelist
Bill Flannery, WJF Institute

Prepared by
Brooke Lubsen & Janine Colyer of Jones Day
On behalf of the Metropolitan New York Chapter, Legal Marketing Association

Bill Flannery of the WJF Institute spoke at the monthly luncheon of the Metropolitan New York Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association on January 18, 2007.  His focus was on business development lessons law firms must draw from leading global companies to thrive and effectively compete in an increasingly converging and competitive marketplace. 

These leading companies have specific leadership structures, marketing strategies and tactics; they employ well-trained teams with well-defined roles.  They seek feedback from their clients and then, in turn, measure the progress and success of their marketing programs and compensate team members accordingly.  Flannery believes that law firms can adopt and adapt these same ideas to develop business. 

Flannery said that business development professionals should not presume that success equals skill as lawyers often do not know how to sell and therefore need guidance.  They will allow their fear of failure prevent them from selling productively and need to be encouraged to take risks.  Flannery said that it is important to “reward success, reward failure, and punish inaction.” 

He continued by saying that client relationship management is of the utmost importance.  By focusing on key clients, firms can increase their profitable market share with current clients.  He said it’s important to strengthen these relationships since as much as 95% of business opportunities lie with existing clients.  Flannery maintained that while it takes approximately ten hours to secure a new client, it only takes one hour to grow the revenue of a current client.

Flannery, who is a well-known marketing, sales and business development guru from Austin, Texas, stressed the importance of forming client-focused teams that communicate regularly with clients and have well-defined goals.  They should be globally-focused, while executing local strategies.  He said that industry groups are not the ideal way to organize, since what works for one client does not necessarily work for another in the same industry.  Flannery said the best strategy is to develop several teams that focus on key clients.  Lawyers need to strengthen communication with their clients and branch out to more contacts so they can get a well-rounded idea of their clients’ needs. 

Flannery summarized by saying that marketing resources should be deployed for ongoing lawyer training, client-focused teams, client-service training for support staff, client opinion surveys and to increase face-to-face meetings with clients.  Focusing on key clients will create firm-wide client loyalty and will drive the effective use of the firm’s resources by clients.