November 09 National Newsletter   Sink Your Teeth Into Delivering Value   Written by   Ric Willmot, Executive Wisdom

Meet Ric Willmot

 

During the Festive Season, I managed to break two teeth. The result of crunching on scrambled eggs or some similar culinary delight. Unsurprisingly, it’s impossible to secure a dentist during the Christmas break. The first opportunity was 10:00am on January 13th. Now there is an omen if you ever wanted one.

 

Arriving for my appointment, I sit in the waiting room. A few feet away is a door, behind which lurks a madman waiting to get his hands on you. From behind this door emanates discomfiting muffled noises. To allay your suffering you pick up the No Idea and read the latest gossip: Will Charles Wed Diana?

 

At 10:25 the dentist finally calls me in to his chamber of horrors. A happy little white clad nurse sits me in a chair that is NASA surplus from the 2006 Space Shuttle missions. She ties a bib on me, which states pretty clearly I am going to bleed. You know you’re not there to eat lobster. Secretly she presses a button and I am instantly reclined into a most prone and vulnerable position.

 

The dentist walks on over to a cabinet and removes a draw of instruments, and empties them into my mouth … the whole draw. With a mouth full of sterilised stainless steel, he thrusts in both latex covered hands and asks all manner of questions. But the dentist understands me as he studied open-mouth speak at university.

 

Finally, he makes the prognosis: “Ric, I need to make an extraction, would you like novocaine?”

“YES! I want novocaine.” Mind you, I am forgetting the pain in getting the novocaine. You know how it’s administered don’t you? A needle is pushed through the roof of your mouth and out the top of your head!

 

The rest is a blur until I get the invoice from the receptionist on the way out. “How do you wish to pay for this, Mr. Willmot?” My jaws drops wider than when he pulled the tooth. Nobody carries around that amount of cash. I hand over the titanium card so I won’t get caught going over any credit limit.

 

Imagine if you ran your business on the dentist’s model. How long before you would go broke? It’s difficult to get to see him, he’s late for the appointment, you’re put in a vulnerable position, doesn’t really listen to what you say, inflicts pain and then charges a princely sum for the pleasure!

 

So, why do dentists not only survive but also thrive? One reason, they focus on the value, as the client perceives it. They do nothing else except improve the client’s condition. They take away the pain of a broken tooth, they improve the smile with teeth whitening, they prevent further problems by filling the cavities, etc.

 

Imagine if you will, how most law firms are continually writing-off fees and discounting, even before the client says anything. Bargaining away profitability in the hope of not losing the client. “I can do it for less money, I can do it in less time, I can add this for free,” and before you know it they’re washing the clients’ windows and paying them for the honour. Businesses are focussing on the negative, on the objections. What does the dentist do? He focuses on the value, not on the objections and impediments.

 

Will you continue to hear objections when you focus your client’s attention to the value you have to offer? Certainly, but don’t lend yourself to it, by focusing there first. The good news is, you know what the objections are that you will hear and so you can be prepared for them in advance.

 

Be prepared to answer the objections with what seem like extemporaneous responses. Write out the most common objections you hear from clients, and then write out how you can overcome these stumbling blocks.

 

So, how can a legal firm get traction in new markets with new clients? This is just one of the common challenges for the legal profession, but a challenge that did not necessarily limit the growth of a firm in the early stages. During the early growth, the networks and repute of the partners and key associates drove the top line. But why, once the early growth phase is over, is it so difficult to achieve worthwhile and valuable business development growth in a law firm?

 

My observations in consulting to law firms in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Dubai, Singapore and Jakarta are the same all over.

 

1. Senior partners are no longer committed or enthused themselves in business development other than within the safe confines of their existing networks. Growth in a law firm however, requires significant self-reinvention among the key executives.
2. The firm’s structure pretty much guarantees that business development will not be as successful as it could otherwise be. Business development is usually an afterthought to the organisational structure of the practice. Nearly every firm that’s engaged me to work with them are able to show me how precise and fine-tuned their measurement systems are for client billing. No such metrics really exist for marketing or business development.
3. Business development is seen as the province of associates and newer partners, aka middle-level people. Consider what message that sends to prospective new clients. “Talk to my mid-level people and if we deem you worthy, we will let you speak with some senior people down the track.” The senior partners are usually the best people to close the deal and capture new clients. Delegating the technical legal work is then pretty simple and appropriate.
4. The wrong people for the wrong job. A law firm will recruit BDMs in an attempt to attack the problem of increasing the client base. These fine people are specialists at chasing business, but unfortunately not specialists in law, in the culture of their specific law firm, or in the areas of expertise of the people in their specific law firm.
5. All of this then impacts upon the brand, image and repute of the firm in the marketplace. And, whether you want to or not, your brand, image and repute are being developed in the minds of your market, industry and peers by what actually happens, not by what your website, marketing collateral or advertising says about you. It is by far the least understood and the most dangerous threat to any firm’s future growth.
6. At some point then, all of us seem to take our clients for granted or, worse still, fail to identify the opportunities to increase revenues from satisfied clients. And, law firms rank as the highest offenders, preferring to wait for the business to walk in the door to them. Some law firms in Dubai and Singapore do implement specific client retention strategies, while others here in Australia have just a defined philosophy about customers.

 

Today’s marketplace is highly competitive in ways it has never been before. Ask your clients, especially your corporate clients, how many times they’ve been approached by your competitors and pursued aggressively. Can you continue to be sanguine about customer relationships?

 

Sophisticated professional services firms have deep intelligence information on who their clients are, what are their needs, and how to address those in marketing approaches. If you don’t have that same information and dedication to client relationship management, you’re in danger of losing that client.

 

Do an audit of your business today:
 

1. Who are your best clients?
2. What characteristics do they have in common?
3. Is that something you can use to improve your results?

 

Are you building real wealth in your practice? How? Are you doing it by leveraging your existing clients? Are you providing a level and type of service that differentiates you from the competition? Rather than just acting for your clients, are you able to create a model that captures those clients and their loyalty? What avenues of growth and expansion can you create for your law firm?

 

Being in business and offering value is a noble cause. You’re in the legal profession to serve your clients so that you can serve yourself and your loved ones. To succeed in all of these endeavours we need, like my dentist, to be improving the client’s condition.

What are you doing right now to deserve your client’s business? After all, there’s few of us that have access to novocaine.

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Ric Willmot is a global consultant and mentor working with Partners, CEOs and Owners to successfully reach their corporate objectives. Subscribe to his free monthly newsletter, The Executive Wisdom Times at www.executivewisdom.com. And, learn more about Ric’s Executive Management Association at www.executivewisdomsociety.com.