Time for Business Development?
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
Last week in Female Lawyers’ Club, we were joined by the lovely Eileen Donaghey of Donaghey and Chance, a business development consultancy. Eileen delivered a masterclass on “How to Create a Business Development Plan.”
Eileen’s session was so useful – we agreed that most law firms simply don’t teach you how to do business development. If you’re lucky, when you’re junior, you’ll be able to follow a senior lawyer round and see how they do it, but that’s usually about it. Yet if we don’t learn how to bring in new business, how are we ever going to get ahead in our careers? I want to make information like this readily available to female lawyers so they can forge a great career on their own terms.
I have set out some of my takeaways from Eileen’s session below.
The slogan of Eileen’s business is “people buy from people” and this is a great reminder that business development is not about selling; it’s about developing relationships. Ideally, we want to be found, understood, and remembered by the people we most want to work with.
There are many ways of going about bringing in new work. The key is to identify what will work for you. If it makes you feel awful, you’re not going to want to do it! So try and find something you enjoy doing (e.g. delivering a workshop, writing articles, attending industry events etc).
It’s essential that we can clearly articulate what we do. We shouldn’t assume people know what our job titles mean or how we can help people. We should try and craft a succinct elevator pitch so we can clearly explain what exactly it is we do and how we can help people.
Before embarking on a business development activity, identify a goal. What are you trying to achieve?
Think about your most enjoyable type of work and your most profitable type of work, and aim to attract more of that!
Ask yourself key questions:
What’s your budget?
How much time do you have to dedicate to business development?
At what time of day can you attend events?
What do you enjoy doing?
Before delivering a presentation at an event, ask the organiser if they can give you a professional photo of you speaking (if you know they’ll have a photographer there). The photo will boost your credibility and you can use it for future marketing projects.
The easiest way to get more work is often from existing clients.
Consider what corporate entertainment if any, you will do. If you have the budget, this can be great for existing clients and it can allow you and the event to really stand out in their mind. Clients love to be taken out and they won’t forget a day at Wimbledon or the Chelsea Flower Show, for example.
When reengaging with past clients, don’t “self-reject” if you don’t hear back from them straight away. They may not have seen your email or may have been busy at the time. Don’t be afraid to follow up. They may appreciate the reminder.
Associations can be great sources of work and introductions. Can you work with an association relevant to your area of specialism and jointly host an event, for example?
Before attending a networking event, ask the organisers if they’ll give you a delegate list. They may not, due to GDPR. If they won’t, can they at least give you a list of the company names who will be attending? This will allow you to do some important research before the event, which will help you to clarify your objectives. You could post on LinkedIn that you’re going to be attending an event – are any of your contacts going? LinkedIn may also help you to identify who has attended the event in the past.
You don’t need to set huge goals before an event, especially if you’re junior and/or nervous: it may be just to challenge yourself to speak to one person who you don’t know.
Make sure you always follow up after connecting with people after an event. If you don’t, you may as well have stayed at home!
If you’ve delivered a training session, try and really make the most of your work afterwards e.g. post a picture of you delivering the training online, send the slides to any prospects who may be interested, offer to deliver in house to clients, adapt the content into an article etc.
Writing articles can be a great way of getting in front of new clients. Your article could be specifically aimed at solving their problems. You could approach a group of companies and mention that you’re aware of this upcoming issue, and ask if they can spare five minutes over the phone or via email to tell you if they agree or if there are other issues they are experiencing. Once you’ve written the article, make sure you send it to them and then keep in touch.
Don’t give up and do nothing if you don’t have a lot of time. Just do bitesize pieces of networking.
Don’t overthink it. It’s can just be a welcome email and an introduction, explaining what you do and how you can help.
Enjoy the rest of your week.
Rachel