Thought leader

By Cherie Olland, global director of business development and communications, Jones Day

When I first stumbled into the then nascent world of legal marketing many years ago, one of the curiosities that was most striking to me was the amount of time I spent talking to senior-level partners about white space, font size, brochures, mailings and the like. With experience came insight, so it didn’t take long to understand that the lawyers’ apparent obsession with ‘stuff’ – brochures, tombstones, newsletters – was a classic example of self protection. By chronically defaulting to the tangibles, they were insulated from the scary (mostly interpersonal) unknowns of business development; affording themselves abundant opportunities to embrace a permanent state of terminal hesitation.

Deferring true business development, the things that actually have the potential to translate into new business, put many squarely into their safety zone. If one can say that they cannot meet with a client or potential client unless they have a pristine brochure in hand, and can find ways to delay the final approval of said brochure for months or even years, how cool is that? He or she can sit in their office, red pen clutched tightly, adding and deleting commas into the next millennium. Meanwhile, real opportunities slip away and the great business-development ship stays moored firmly to the dock.

How do we get that ship launched? How do we get our lawyers to trade in their nubbly red pens for their toe-tappin’, red patent leather business-development shoes? A little bit at a time.

I soon realised that expressing frustration at lawyers’ immersion in details about which they had little knowledge (and often, little talent), like graphic design, was not moving anything forward. We shouted our mantra of ‘Leave it to us. We can handle the stuff. You go do your thing,’ into the wind. Our lawyers needed a clear understanding of the difference between business development and marketing. And that understanding needed to be anchored with cold, hard dollar signs. I don’t mean the kind of dollar signs that involve complex ROI measurements. I mean the most basic of dollar signs: what makes money and what costs money.

Of course, true business development is not only about revenue and relationships. It is about much, much more: it is client service; knowledge of the firm; knowledge of the legal landscape; and, knowledge of our clients, their markets and their challenges. It is face-to-face events and calling programmes; it is listening, following up and doing great work. But most of all, business development is leaving the ‘stuff’ behind, getting into the game and, once in there, executing like hell – over and over and over again.