Client-centric Law Firm

Fight the future

Digital transformation is not about technology.

A recent survey of directors, CEOs, and senior executives found that digital transformation (DT) risk is their #1 concern in 2019. Yet 70% of all DT initiatives do not reach their goals. 

Of the $1.3 trillion that was spent on DT last year, it was estimated that $900 billion went to waste. 

Why do some DT efforts succeed and others fail?

https://hbr.org/2019/03/digital-transformation-is-not-about-technology

Marketing is not Business Development

Several years ago I worked with a partner in a law firm who had an incredible marketing output. She would publish more articles, present at more conferences and pitch more ideas to the media than almost the rest of the firm combined. Problem was it just wasn’t translating into work.   

She couldn’t understand why, when she put in this amount of effort, it didn’t generate more clients and more work. With the exposure she had and the positioning she had created in the market, surely her phone should be ringing off the hook?

When I asked what business development activity she undertook, she started to recap recent articles she had written, a presentation she hosted with over 100 attendees, and so on.

It’s a common misunderstanding that marketing and business development are the same, and the terms are frequently used interchangeably. While there are endless definitions to explain the difference, my preference is to simply think of marketing activities as ‘one-to-many’ (articles, press, seminars, conferences etc) and business development activities as ‘one-to-one’ (client coffees, meetings, whiteboard sessions, etc). 

The key difference is that with business development there is an individual interaction and the focus of that interaction should be on the client’s business or issue.

To be effective in growing client relationships and revenue, professionals need to ensure they include elements of both marketing and business development. Marketing helps establish your credibility and expertise; business development is how you’ll turn that into work.

If you undertake some marketing activity, think about how you can get that idea or content in front of someone on a one-to-one basis. For example, if you present at a conference, pick a couple of the attendees that you’d like to build a closer relationship with and get in touch and generate a conversation. Ask them what they thought of the idea, give them an example of how it is relevant to their business/role, or ask them for a coffee to discuss the implication in more detail.

Understanding the difference and finding ways to leverage your marketing into business development activity dramatically improves the return you get from all of that effort.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/marketing-business-development-brenton-anderson/

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