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Being a successful lawyer requires more than just providing great client service. It also involves developing and expanding client relationships to bring in new business.
Womble Bond Dickinson Client Service Director Steve Bell was one of the legal industry’s first sales professionals and has helped drive the conversation of attorneys as salespeople for legal services.
In a new JD Supra Perspectives article, Bell joined Melissa Croteau, Chief Business Development Officer at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, and Paul Mickey, currently an employment lawyer and legal marketing consultant and previously Marketing Partner and CMO at Steptoe & Johnson, for a conversation on legal marketing. The trio discussed such topics as:
- What it’s really like at the point of sale, and how buyers make buying decisions;
- Creating a firm-wide sales process and vocabulary;
- The importance of a differentiated client-centric value proposition; and
- Tactics for keeping lawyers focused on sales.
Bell said, “In order for law firm staff professionals to provide optimum sales support for their lawyers, it’s important for them to be at the point of sale themselves as often as possible. Law firm sales professionals are of the most value to their firms when they can handle sales tasks that don’t require legal acumen, and, among these tasks are initiating meetings with buyers and ensuring great follow-up.”
In terms of keeping lawyers focused on sales, Bell said, “In the end, the best methodologies are ones that focus like a laser on two items: what’s the last thing that happened, and what’s the next thing that must happen, by when and who is responsible for it. In the end, keeping lawyers on task is the métier of sales and marketing professionals.”
Click here to read “Transforming Lawyers Into Salespeople - Law Firm Alchemy” at JD Supra Perspectives.
