Check Your Business Development Vital Signs

You know by now (did you ever not?) that it takes more than your business card and an open door to draw clients into your law office. And while you may have devised your marketing plan and work it to the best of your ability, January is still a good time to pause and check your vital signs when it comes to getting clients.

Are You Operating at Your Peak?

Each year, when you visit the doctor for your annual physical, she checks the basic indicators — blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, reflexes, heart rate — to get a read on your physical health. Today, let’s look at some basic indicators of a healthy business development program to see how ready you are for a successful 2017.

  • Your niche. Do you know how you want to spend your work life — what kinds of problems you want to help solve and who you want to work with to solve them? Have you used that knowledge to narrowly define your target market? Do you know, then, which organizations you should frequent, which publications you should follow, which venues are best for your speaking efforts and where it makes sense (if at all) for you to advertise? If not: You may be wasting much valuable time marketing to everyone everywhere when narrowing the field could power up your efforts — and the results. 
  • Contact list. Do you scrupulously keep track of current contact information for any and all you’ve come in contact with? If you or your firm haven’t invested in contact management software, are you at least keeping the information in a spreadsheet? Are you including categories (industry, Zip code, etc.) that will let you quickly sort to create an invitation list for a specific seminar or briefing on a change in the law? If not: You may be spending more business development time looking for names and addresses than speaking directly with exactly the right people for the situation.
  • Resume database. Do you have a single spot (Word document, paper file folder, spreadsheet, shoebox) where you keep historic information about your career and accomplishments — speeches given, honors received, advisors’ names, opposing counsel, positive client feedback and more? No, you won’t dump all that minutiae into your resume. But you will draw on this treasure trove for the details of exactly the right background items to use for a specific proposal, pitch or biography. If not: You probably spend too much time looking for information and invariably produce descriptions of your qualifications that are far from complete and not nearly as effective as they might be.
  • Personal and practice descriptions. Every time you turn around, someone is asking for your bio for one good reason or another — website profile, seminar speaker description, introduction to a potential client. So, when that call comes, are you able to simply click on the “Bio” file on your computer desktop and zap one to whomever needs it? (Of course, you've got several versions to choose from, each highlighting different aspects of your career and practice, right?) Next to that file icon, there should also be one titled something like “Headshots” containing good business images. Note, though, unless the most recent photo in that file is less than a year old, it’s time to get a new photo takenIf not: You aren’t taken full advantage of the opportunities to tell your market about yourself.