DemandTrigger

"Show Me (More Than) The Money"

Recently, a friend emailed me David Maister’s article Doing It For The Money, which takes law firms to task for using money as the sole or primary motivation to drive additional sales/marketing behavior.

I agree with David that economic monomania is counterproductive – as with any form of monomania, it lacks perspective.  I also agree that people need a reason to do anything, and that that reason has to be their reason, not yours or mine.  In the case of business acquisition, the firm functions a marketer and seller of an idea, i.e., the idea that “limiting our business-generation engine to a handful of rainmakers is short-sighted and dangerous.”  Marketers of anything who fail to learn prospective buyers’ motivation are doomed to fail.  My assuming that you share my motivation, whether economic- or psychic, is just an ego-centric way for me to avoid doing the hard work of learning what you value.

During the individual planning component of our ResultsPath™ sales training program, we ask each lawyer to describe a recent engagement that they would walk through fire to replicate, i.e., that satisfied all three categories of need: 1) Practical – the work itself was stimulating and rewarding; 2) Economic – the fees were sizable, paid willingly and timely, perhaps with a bonus or premium; 3) Emotional – the client “gave the love,” i.e., expressed appreciation and respect for the lawyer’s work product, commitment and contribution.  We then analyze the origin of such desirable engagements and assess which industry segments are more, rather than less, likely to exhibit such demand without the problem already having matured to the point of price sensitivity.  Over the past 15 years of training and coaching more than 3500 lawyers, we’ve learned that unless the “carrot” (as defined by the lawyer) is sufficiently attractive, the likelihood of the lawyer expending effort in pursuit of it is virtually zero.

Now, I would like to challenge one bit of language in David’s article that doesn’t resonate. 

Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard for me to be sensitized to this, but when David (and many others) refers to “selling,” there seems to be a pejorative tone, intimating that selling behaviors are somehow anathema to the relationship principles about which I’ve already agreed. While the sales concepts of legacy trainers such as Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins and Brian Tracy reflect what I consider outdated “seller-acting-upon-the-buyer” language (targeting, prospecting, qualifying, presenting, closing, overcoming objections), conducted professionally, selling is almost never a negative experience for buyers.  On the contrary, we argue that the “lawyering” skills that partners already trust and that reliably produce positive interactions between lawyers and clients are precisely the skills that professional salespeople use when managing executive-level, business-to-business opportunities of consequence.  Ironically, perhaps, and certainly from a different perspective, we end up agreeing with David’s assertion that firms do need to “find out, partner by partner, what kind of work turns each partner on and what kind of clients each partner could actually get interested in,” and further that firms “do not need to teach (their) people how to sell.”  They do, however, have to teach their lawyers how to apply their trusted skills to the realm of business acquisition.  Otherwise, they will struggle to bridge defining desirable work/clients and getting them; that requires a reliable process. 

We believe that the reliable process is to apply their “lawyering” skills to:

1. investigate what business problem drives demand for the optimal service relationship to which the lawyer aspires (DemandTrigger™),

2. help the client assess that problem’s relative operational impact on a scale of irritant-to-imperative; and thereby

3. determine which problems obligate them to take action because the cost of not doing so is unacceptable;

4. offer solution options and explain the ramifications of applying each;

5. make solution recommendations based on understanding the business situation;

6. ask the client to decide which he favors; and

7. help the initial stakeholder achieve alignment among all stakeholders to allow decision and action.

This is our definition of professional selling.  To date, every lawyer exposed to it has agreed that it is identical to the ethical practice of law and is an interactive process with which they are already familiar and comfortable.  They merely need to apply their lawyering skills before they get hired – at which point it’s called “selling.”

Rudderless Ships

The volume of debate and activity around law firms’ evolution into sales organizations continues to ramp up.  There are lots of opinions – and accompanying solutions for sale – around every aspect of this emerging business function.  Want to look into sales training, client teams, coaching, sales planning, sales support, associate training?  Pick an industry event and there’s a good bet that it will be on the agenda.  More simply, a Google search will produce more results than you could read in a lifetime.  Law firms have invested or will invest in many, if not most, of these.  And most either will fail or will fall far short of expectations because of a recurring and glaring omission:  management oversight/leadership.

Where the hell is law firm management in this mission-critical sales evolution?  Too often, in my view, they are embarrassingly absent.  MIA.

Oh, they get involved in the sexy part, i.e., evaluating the potential solutions and –providers, deciding on the cash commitments, the visible program launches and kickoffs, the declarations of grand aspirations.  Then comes the hard work: making sure – every week – that those expected to generate the business that sustains the firm are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. 

For the most part, they have almost completely abdicated their responsibility.  This lack of oversight (unintentionally) communicates that it’s OK not to do what you committed to do.  As former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner wrote in Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?, his book about the IBM turnaround, “What gets measured gets done.”  Given that most lawyers have more obligations than they can reasonably fulfill most days, it is human nature to prioritize according to what gets measured.  What gets measured in a law firm?  Primarily, billable hours. 

What doesn’t get measured?  1) Volume and appropriateness of marketing and sales activity, effectiveness.  2) Pipeline and progress.  3) Use of coaching and other invested resources.  4) Cost of sales.  5) Adherence to and progress against sales plan.

Lawyers in our ResultsPath sales training/coaching program establish a weekly time budget to execute their plan.  Most say they will commit 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 hours per week to the specific plan we’ve created together, with 3 being the statistically dominant choice.  How many do so, every week?  We have some idea, but I’ll bet that few of their firms could answer with any confidence because they don’t check.  All the action items that lawyers “commit” to in their biz dev plans:  How many get done?  Once again, we have an informed guess, but we’d also bet the ranch that the firms haven’t a clue.  Why?  Because few leaders check up on the lawyers in whom they’ve invested money and expectations.  They seem to hope that somehow the partners will make sales a priority and follow through.  Or, worse, they delude themselves into thinking that writing a check for training will solve the sales problem.

Law firm leaders, unless you remain visible and continually make it clear that sales is important enough for you to check on all the time, your sales programs will remain rudderless, compromising your firms’ results, your lawyers’ development and, ultimately, your credibility with the next generation of lawyers.

Sales Organizations-To-Be

Slowly, law firms are evolving into sales organizations.  Ready or not psychologically, that’s where they’re heading.  However slowly (agonizingly to some, perhaps), it’s going to happen.  Why?  Because they have no choice.  The immutable laws of the market demand that all products and services mature, which means that eventually, they all get so good that there are no meaningful differences among offerings.  When everyone’s “product” is great, who gets the business?  It comes down to the relative effectiveness and impact of their respective sales forces. 

In every mature category, every company has good products.  Look at the new car category.  The least expensive, bare-bones new economy car has the whole package – power, steering, suspension, braking and overall performance, and fit and finish – that 20 years ago were found only in elite European luxury cars.  Despite the demonstrable excellence of virtually all automotive products, a lot of manufacturers are hurting.  They have proved that no product, no matter how good, sells itself, and the best product doesn’t always win.  (Remember Beta, acknowledged by engineers to be the superior video format?  The “inferior” VHS made them extinct because they marketed and sold VHS better.)

Professional services are different, you say?  Let’s see. 

Whenever lawyers or legal media put together “Best Of” lists, the implication is that there is a meaningful difference between #1, #20 and #50 in a category.  Take M&A, for instance.  In terms of legal capability, what AmLaw 100 firm couldn’t handle 90% of corporate acquisitions or divestitures?  I’m not trivializing anyone’s skill, dedication, focus or commitment.  I’m merely recognizing the fact that we have lawyers in our ResultsPath training program in firms of virtually every description throughout the U.S. – not just in financial centers such as NY, Chicago or Boston – that have been selected by Fortune 500 companies to assess, guide and execute those transactions. 

Even if you argue that above a certain transaction value, say $50 billion, the list of firms that are legitimately considered for such work is small.  OK, let’s call it a half-dozen.  Within that elite tier, buyers know that if they had to, they could throw a dart at the list and use a randomly chosen firm without worry.  So, where’s the product differentiation, the basis for buyer preference?

Let’s look at the four remaining Big Accounting/Consulting firms.  What does PwC know that Deloitte or KPMG doesn’t?  Is there any actual risk in selecting KPMG instead of Accenture? 

That lawyers have escaped this harsh reality for a little longer than accountants, bankers, IT consultants, etc. has merely been accidental good fortune – emphasis on past tense.  It is arguable, however, that the day of reckoning is nigh, if not already here.

The only controllable, sustainable basis for differentiation is the excellence of your sales force – and by extension, your sales support functions, e.g., marketing, research, intelligence gathering, data mining, etc.  Yeah, you have to keep up, quality-wise, but it merely keeps you in the game.  To win, you better get serious about creating a sales force that can make a difference.

So, what do you think?

Raindance 2005 Now In the Rearview Mirror, Yet Still Resonating

LSSO’s second annual Raindance conference concluded Wednesday (with our Coaching for Coaches workshop – more on that later). Acknowledging our potential for bias due to our sponsorship of the event, I will say flatly that the programming was unquestionably the best – across the board – that I have experienced at any law industry conference in the 14 years I’ve been around the biz.

Congratulations to LSSO’s founders, Silvia Coulter, Beth Cuzzone and Catherine MacDonagh, for their yeoman yearlong effort that produced such a credible and interesting faculty. I suspect that we also benefited from the fact that “sales” is a new category in law firms and, therefore, inherently a fresh topic. The program rooms were filled with early adopters and innovators in this “sales” category, which assured stimulating conversation, sometimes intense debate, and an overall sense of “intellectual comraderie,” if that is not too puffy an expression. It was fun.

For the first time in a long time I came home both abuzz and mentally tired. Damn – I had to pay attention for 2-1/2 days! I’m used to firing far fewer synapses during these things. My brain was tired. At the same time, I can’t wait to resume some of the rich conversations started with so many different people who brought diverse perspectives to our shared challenge. So much for the dreary old conference “follow-up,” eh?

Selfishly, we were particularly gratified with our Coaching the Coaches experience Wednesday morning. Typically, the 8:00 a.m. time slot on the last half-day of a conference is the Death Spot. Most people have gone home and the rest are partied out and disinclined to drag their bad selves out of bed to listen to yet more talking heads at Oh-Dark-Thirty. I admit that my partner, Pat Sweeney, and I were anxious at breakfast, wondering if we would outnumber attendees. Potentially worse, a revered client, Bob Reffner, Marketing Partner at Brouse McDowell (Akron, OH) had flown in Tuesday night to co-present with us. I dreaded the prospect of his having wasted his time on an audience of five.

At 7:45 we walked in to finish setup, etc., only to see a half-dozen people already seated at the table. Still, the other dozen or so empty chairs loomed large. By 8:00 the room was virtually full, and over the next half-hour or so I found myself repeatedly fetching chairs from a fast-diminishing stack in the corner and creating space around the table for the newcomers. [Hmm. Facilitating and chair-fetching. We law firm sales coaches are nothing if not versatile.] By 8:45 we were sharing what would otherwise have been a head table with late-arriving guests; it looked like there was a six-person panel presenting.

Now, don’t worry about our hat sizes expanding. We’re not deluding ourselves that we were sufficient draw to get 25-30 senior people to stick around for the final half-day and rouse themselves before the first SportsCenter aired. These people get it. Whether inside or outside, CMO or BDO, everyone is a coach, and coaching is the current and future big challenge in our game. A forward-looking topic was the draw for forward-looking people.

We had fun facilitating a very lively discussion and, at the risk of getting booted out of the Consultants’ Club, learned a few things ourselves. Bob Reffner surprised and delighted more than a few folks with his direct, candid, unvarnished view of the obstacles and opportunities we face – as seen from the law firm executive suite. Heads were bobbing like rear shelf car dolls.

OK, those are the well-deserved plaudits for Raindance 2005. Now I’ll acknowledge the elephant in the room and deliver a brickbat.

For years I have heard – and commiserated with – senior law marketers and biz dev folks lamenting conference programming that they found irrelevant or marginal. [LMA acknowledges that its biggest challenge is re-attracting senior people who have become disenchanted with the utility and value of its annual conference programming.]

I’ll confess that in recent years I have become one of those people who go to law biz conferences solely to make contacts, reconnect with old friends and be seen as still connected to the market – but have resigned myself to programming that will be a pleasant surprise if it’s any good. Usually, I pay the steep entry fee, read the session descriptions and blow them off as not worth the time.

In fairness, LMA programming is constrained by the organization’s legacy obligation to provide basic “how-to” functional instruction, cultural assimilation and operating context for the hundreds of new people entering the industry each year as law firm marketing and biz dev functions grow. However, there is no excuse for the disappointing caliber of programming found at recent Marketing Partner Forums, with 2005 being a particularly egregious example.

Mike O'Horo, The Coach  Email

Law Firm Sales? You Betcha.

June 12-15 in Boston, a couple of hundred nascent law firm sales types (more on that definition in a bit) will gather for the second annual Raindance conference, which bills itself as “the legal service industry's only leadership conference exclusively focused on driving revenue and building client loyalty."  [Full disclosure: My company, Sales Results, Inc., is a sponsor of this event.] 

The inaugural event last year was populated by a heavy dose of like-minded sales folks who’ve known each other for years within the law firm industry, plus an equal number of other early adopters.  It will be interesting to compare this year’s group to last year’s, e.g., size, profile, reason for attending, etc.

Last year we learned that despite the historical revulsion that lawyers have had for “sales,” events have finally forced the law profession to bite the bullet, swallow their bile and accept (kicking and screaming in some cases) that it’s necessary – and not a necessary evil, as some hidebound law firm elders might continue to sniff.  Raindance 2004 was populated with adherents to the view that Sales is a core business function for every enterprise worldwide, so why would law firms be an exception?

From the conference, and the year since, it is obvious that how firms approach the whole “sales” thing is as varied as the policy-makers and practitioners who embrace it.  Some argue that the lawyers must do all the selling, a position that warms our hearts, since we’re in the business of training lawyers to sell.  Others argue that, ultimately, we’ll see a professional sales force in law firms, whether made up of lawyers who no longer practice law or non-lawyer sales professionals.  This argument, particularly the non-lawyer part, scares a lot of people, so I guess it has merit if only for creating that welcome effect.

We think that both camps are right, in a hybrid sense.  We believe that law firm sales will resemble technology sales, in which a decision process expert who provides the sales credibility teams up with a topic expert who provides the technical credibility.

What do you think?

Mike O’Horo

The Coach

Introducing Demand Trigger – and DemandTrigger

Welcome to DemandTrigger, our new blog.  The name refers to our belief that that concept (explained below) and its many applications serve as the central organizing principle in both marketing and sales, and as such should serve as grist for a robust and sustained conversation with those of you invested in the emerging “sales” debate, either from within law firms or from the perspective of having law firms and lawyers as clients.

The Demand Trigger concept was born by accident ten years ago.  I was advising a firm’s Product Liability practice group when the head of the Banking/Finance practice asked if he could spend a few minutes telling the PL group members what the B/F group was doing these days.  [This is what passed for cross-selling in 1995.  Hmm, I guess not much has changed, really.] 

The B/L head explained four or five recent developments, the expectation clearly being that the PL lawyers would respond with, “Oh, I should intro you to client XYZ.”  Unfortunately, at their conclusion, his remarks were met with silence from his colleagues.

I was seated immediately to the B/L lawyer’s right, and was feeling uncomfortable on his behalf, sort of the way you feel when an earnest, likable comedian bombs.  My innocent attempt at a rescue prompted a naïve question:  “I don’t know anything about banking/finance or product liability.  How would someone like me recognize who needs your services?”

Off the top of his head, the B/F lawyer immediately cited a handful of business problems or circumstances that, if present, reliably suggested the need for a B/F lawyer.  To my pleasant surprise (and his, I’m sure) the PL lawyers around the table began chattering, mentioning this client or that, to whom they now recognized they should introduce the B/F lawyers.

Thus was born the Demand Trigger, i.e., the underlying business problem, circumstance or opportunity that triggers demand for your category of service.  [The run-together form, DemandTrigger, is our brand and trademark.]  We now had a simple way for lawyers to recognize opportunity within their clients for other practices in their firm, and to quickly qualify a sales Suspect and eliminate dry wells:  No Demand Trigger, no sales conversation.

Some of our clients now organize all their marketing decision-making around the Demand Trigger, leading us to conclude that this may be a beneficial basis for the vibrant sales conversation that is just picking up steam in our industry.

We will use this forum to vent, opine and occasionally provoke stimulating responses from others in this biz.  Please join us, and take the opportunity to do so, too.

Mike O'Horo

The Coach