I see it frequently in many firms: very few people are contributing meaningfully to business development. I always find it interesting that lawyers are typically risk-averse, yet they run tremendous risk when it comes to BD.

Firms always hope it won’t happen to them, but in reality, people become unwell and people leave. That’s the negative perspective; the positive is to think about all the additional opportunities that can be created when you’ve got more people contributing to business development.

There are many reasons why most firms don’t have the majority of lawyers contributing. I’m going to go through five of them and suggest action you can take to deal with them.

The top 5 reasons lawyers struggle with BD

1. Lack of leadership focus on BD being important

How to tackle: If your firm wants to grow, ensure there is partner buy-in to this vision and what that means in terms of behaviour and action. Getting different results means taking different action. The leadership of the firm need to not only role model good BD behaviours but also encourage and support others to engage through time and incentivisation.

2. Lawyers don’t understand why they need to do it, especially as it isn’t part of qualifying

How to tackle:

a) Get them to consider the services they buy and how important it is to know, like and trust the person who will be doing the work for them. Legal services are often an emotive as well as rational purchase, even when they are on behalf of a company. Therefore, potential clients want to feel valued by the people involved in their work and trust that there will be ease of working together and strong communication. It’s about more than technical expertise.

b) Ideally, your firm would have a team approach to BD by department. This means a BD strategy and activity plan where everyone has a role to play in the fundamentals of building their profile and network, as well as specific tasks that contribute to overall BD activity.

c) Even juniors can support senior lawyers to make some BD activities happen, such as researching other professional services people the senior lawyers should meet to build relationships and develop introduction opportunities.

3. Don’t know what to do

How to tackle: BD can feel like a nebulous topic for many lawyers. Therefore, it is vital to consider which services you want to focus on delivering for clients, as this informs the BD activity plan that the team puts together. This then provides clarity on the specific BD activities that need to take place. For most, there will be some granular tasks to implement to support the overall activity.

4. Don’t know how

How to tackle: If an individual has responsibility for an overall BD activity or even a granular task, check that they have the know-how and skills to do it well. A simple example is individuals only going to networking events if they have the skills and confidence to navigate the room and build relationships that may lead to opportunities over time.

5. Lack of accountability

How to tackle: Ensure individuals are accountable for specific elements of the BD plan and that there is both a timeline and specific review points so progress can be assessed. Without accountability, BD will always go to the bottom of the list. BD should also be a key part of performance reviews.

What about your firm?

What is the main sticking point in your firm? Is it one of these or something else?

Understanding what is standing in the way of business development being done by more people, more effectively, to achieve better outcomes is an important consideration. Firms need to understand the barriers and have an approach in place that delivers positive outcomes in both the short and long term.

If you’d like to explore how to break down the barriers to achieve better business development outcomes, contact me to arrange a conversation.

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