Rainmaking And Relationship-Building: 5 Proven Strategies

If you feel business development is not receiving the attention it deserves in your practice, you’re not alone.

You’re practicing law, but are you also making it a priority to build your practice? If you feel business development is not receiving the attention it deserves in your practice, you’re not alone. From senior partner to junior associate, many attorneys struggle to prioritize developing new business among the day-to-day challenges they face.

Yet there are partners whose practices seem to be thriving and junior associates who are becoming consistent rainmakers. How do they do it? It’s not like they have more time in the day. So what’s their secret?

According to the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute State of the Legal Market 2017 Midyear Report, successful firms grew their investment in marketing and business development at a rate of 4.6%, versus only 1.8% at firms that struggled to grow their profits.

These firms understand that it’s not about simply working harder. It’s about working smarter, and investing the right tools in to enable them to deliver their best work in less time and with less effort so they can focus on more strategic activities.

Below are five proven business-building strategies using Thomson Reuters’ Practical Law to help you grow your practice in 2018.

Strategy #1:  Get in front of prospects and gain the trust of clients

Presenting free seminars on a current legal topic relevant to your prospective client is a proven way to showcase your experience while getting in front of more prospects. Offering complementary workshops on legal issues that concern your clients is an effective method that positions you as their trusted advisor, helping to deepen your relationship with them.

Researching topics on your own and preparing seminars, workshops and pitches from scratch takes time that you do not have. Practical Law’s ready-to-use presentation materials and plain English guidance can help you integrate this effective business-building strategy with a minimal investment of time.

Strategy #2: Understand and empathize with your prospects and clients

The most effective new business pitches are prospect-centered. You have to understand your prospective client’s business and what keeps that prospective client up at night. You have to demonstrate you care about them and that you are the attorney who will solve their legal problem. That same understanding of, and empathy for, your prospective client’s business can also help you deepen your relationship with your existing clients in that same industry.

It can be a full-time job to develop and maintain the industry expertise that enables you to demonstrate this understanding to clients. Through tools like What’s Market, Practical Law can reduce the time and effort necessary to do so.

Strategy #3:  Cultivate prospects and be top-of-mind with clients

A regular e-newsletter that a prospect or client has opted-in to receive is a great way to demonstrate you understand and care about the current legal issues that keep both your prospects and your clients up at night. It also helps position you as that trusted legal advisor.

Keeping up with legal issues germane to your prospects and clients on your own is impossible, unless you have the right tool. Practical Law keeps you abreast of the latest legal issues on a weekly or monthly basis.

Strategy #4:  Provide superior client care

One way to consistently provide superior client care is to respond to your clients’ requests for legal advice quickly, efficiently and accurately. In doing so you help strengthen your position with your client as a trusted partner while improving your profitability — even in fixed fee arrangements — by freeing up more time.

Responding to client requests quickly and thoroughly can be challenging and time-consuming. Practical Law’s plain English summaries, expert analyses, and research tools can help you become an “instant expert” on any topic, helping you respond quickly and in terms your clients will understand.

Strategy #5:  Expand your client base

Two good ways to expand your current client base are to either find complimentary industries to your current clients or niche practice areas that would further benefit your current or future clients.

Practical Law can help you rapidly and thoroughly research businesses and industries that are adjacent to or outside your current wheelhouse, expanding your expertise and enhancing your ability to compete for business.

See for yourself with a free trial

To better understand how Thomson Reuters’ legal answers can drive practice efficiency and enable your business development strategy, please request a free trial of Practical Law.