In-House Counsel, Partner Issues

The Road Not Taken: Sell Me A Story (Part 1)

What's the best way to pitch your firm to an in-house client?

By  
on

meeting business meeting sign signing signature meet and conferI had the opportunity last week to be on the receiving end of sales pitches from law firms. The experience was described by more than one person like “speed dating for lawyers,” and the comparison was apt. I felt exhausted and insecure by the time the morning was over.

Even though I was on the receiving end of the sales pitches, I learned a great deal about presenting a pitch for a law firm. I saw good and bad pitches presented by people who were both skilled and unskilled in the art of the speed dating pitch. I will be the first to say that it is easier to critique than to do the thing that is being critiqued. I give full credit to all the people who put themselves and their services out there to solicit business and make the most of the opportunity they had in front of them. They were the ones doing the hard work, not me. From their labor, I took away the following highlights of business development and share them with you. The first two of my list of five highlights are:

1.  Be Prepared

So easy, right? This is the most obvious rule of them all. It’s on the list for a reason. It’s easy, it’s basic, do it. If you can’t be prepared with information about your customer, you can be prepared with information about yourself. You should always be able to answer the question, “Tell me about yourself and your firm,” without hesitation or having to make up an answer.  

It is wonderful if you know enough about the potential customer to tailor your short pitch for that customer, but sometimes you can’t. If you can’t, you can still say something that, hopefully, can turn into a discussion of the potential customer’s needs and how you can meet those needs. You can’t have that discussion, however, if you can’t say much about yourself or your firm.

2. Listen to Your Potential Client

You’ve made it past the first awkward seconds of the communication. You gave your short summary of yourself and your firm. Heck, you even knew a little about your potential customer. You are firing on all cylinders and the origination fee is going to be yours. You can taste it. You can see the conversation with your friends, they look at you with awe and envy as you tell them how you bagged the biggest client of your firm. Will they change the firm name to include yours? Maybe not immediately, but give it a couple of years.

Sponsored

Wait a second — what’s that noise? Oh, it’s that person talking. What have they been saying? Better contribute with something witty and impressive. “Our litigation group is very strong.” Nailed it.

At that point, as the potential client, I have to sigh and figure out how to extricate myself from the conversation. It’s a pity too — the conversation started out well and I was intrigued by the lawyer selling himself to me. However, it quickly became clear that he either didn’t know what he was talking about or simply wasn’t listening to me. I don’t have time, nor do I care to figure out which is which. Both are unacceptable.

Don’t start planning your second summer home before walking away. You have to be present during the interactions with your potential clients for two reasons: (1) to show them you are interested in them and their organization’s needs; and (2) you have to listen to them. Really listen. You can’t listen if you are fantasizing about what you are going to do with their money.

Just like, “Be Prepared,” “Listen to Your Potential Client,” is an obvious directive. However, I was surprised by how many people I spoke with checked out of the conversation or, perhaps more frustratingly, seemed to participate in a completely different conversation than the one I was having with them. I think it had to do with trying to move the topics into an area where they felt comfortable with what they had to sell. However, if they had been listening to me, really listening, they would have learned the reasons I wanted to find out about other areas of their firm’s expertise and what my actual needs for legal services are.

In contrast, the interactions I had with people who were prepared with at least information about themselves and their firms and who listened to what I needed were exciting. I learned about firms I may not have considered because they told me about themselves and they heard my needs. Some firms could meet my needs, others couldn’t, but I learned about them and they will be in my memory in the event I need something they could do for me in the future.

Sponsored

Next week, the rest of the list.  

Celeste Harrison Forst has practiced in small and mid-sized firms and is now in-house at a large manufacturing and technology company where she receives daily hugs from her colleagues. You can reach Celeste directly at C.harrisonforst@gmail.com.

Topics

, , , , , , , ,