Try it, you might like it

Although business-development professionals may often feel that fee earners and partners are mainly interested in maintaining and building on existing client relationships, there’s arguably nothing quite so exciting and rewarding as hunting down then winning new business.

By Damian Taylor, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP

There is a book by Dr Seuss called Green Eggs and Ham with which you may be familiar. The story is straightforward. Sitting reading his book, our protagonist, whose name we never discover, is disturbed from his scholarly reverie by a character called Sam-I-Am. This strange little creature quickly makes his presence felt and asks if our man likes to eat ‘green eggs and ham’ – our man confirms he does not. There then ensues around 15 pages where Sam-I-Am comes up with a different way that this gastronomic delicacy might be enjoyed … to no avail. “I do not like them in a box. I do not like them with a fox. I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam-I-Am.” However, by the end of the book, there is a shift. Amidst the wreckage of a train crash that has fallen under the sea (it’s complicated), as Sam-I-Am implores: “Try it you might like it,” our hero does just this. From that point forward he is an evangelist, who won’t stop extolling the product and, indeed, Sam-I-Am’s virtues.

I am sure, by now, this is sounding familiar. In our line of work, persistence is key. Quite often partners see us just as Sam-I-Am is portrayed – a funny little animal with funny ideas, popping up out of the blue with a seemingly random request, while they are in the middle of something much more important. Their hope is that some carefully chosen platitudes will send this creature away to wherever it sits, but it keeps coming back until the easiest thing to do, is to do what it wants.

While many of us have progressed acceptance of our roles as marketers beyond paid annoyance to strategic or trusted advisers, there is an accepted wisdom that the easiest way to get a partner’s attention is to talk about existing relationships. In other words, majoring on the quickest possible route to delivering their contribution of billings works a treat. There is a lot of common sense in this view, but it’s very short term.

‘New, new’ business
All the client-relationship-management (CRM) methodologies and key-account programmes in the world cannot replicate the excitement of winning new business and in particular, revenue that comes from a cold start or what we could call ‘new, new business’. Creating and channelling this excitement is something that we should play an active part in; it can drive the growth of the firm and change the cultural environment of your workplace.

There are lots of reasons why going after new business makes good commercial sense. Many firms’ revenues are predicated on some very strong client relationships but if you’re doing it right, you will inevitably reach a point where major growth is no longer a possibility. Equally, this means that such relationships are not treated with masses of enthusiasm by the firm – even bread and butter goes stale. But just taking a ‘care and maintenance’ approach can put accounts at risk. Additionally, it’s generally accepted that there is more consolidation afoot in the legal marketplace. While big client relationships obviously give you leverage in a merger deal, a good spread of clients at varying degrees of growth potential is also important. In a post-Clementi era, this is also precisely what analysts will be looking at when assessing the performance of listed law firms.

Above any rational reason is the idea of the excitement and energy the pursuit of new business can bring to your overall business-development activity. Yes it is hard to do, and no, not everyone will thank you for it, but there is nothing like the feeling of bringing in a new name and fresh revenues to your firm. Partners and associates love it. Your business-development people will also love it. Established wisdom says that courting, for example, a FTSE 350 client from cold is going to take around three years’ effort before you get to a sizeable instruction. Driven business-development professionals accept and love this challenge because they get off on winning business. This strategy is a retention tool if nothing else.

As business-development professionals, it is our job to make it feel like a rewarding experience for those involved. I am not suggesting that this replaces the CRM activity you already have in place, rather that, no matter how big or small your marketing function is, a percentage of your time is dedicated to the pursuit of the new. So where do you start? Well at the risk of teaching grandma to suck (green?) eggs:

1) Look at your markets, look at your strengths, look at your people and develop your campaign;
2) You could argue that there is no such thing as ‘new, new, new business’. Every decision maker has worked somewhere before, and if not, studied at the same university as other people. Or failing this, has their hair done, knows your auntie’s best friend – whatever. Make the connection;
3) Reverse reciprocity is another tack. Your business uses suppliers every day from air conditioning to catering. Can you honestly say that you have shamelessly tapped these companies for some legal work?
4) When was the last time you looked carefully at your database? All kinds of gems are no doubt sitting there waiting to be unearthed. A business-development function is there to connect the dots, to make a firm realise what it can achieve when it really joins up.

So, the opportunities are either product related – for example, you have done the same thing somewhere else; client related, as in something you have done before or other interesting things have been completed for similar businesses; or, industry prowess – for example, all the top names are working with us but you’re our notable omission – why is that?

Other more eminent commentators are better placed to advise you on the whys and wherefores of making the perfect call. But before you get to this point, one final hurdle to clear is some of the excuses you might hear. ‘I’m a lawyer not a salesman’, ‘I have perfectly good clients who already like me’, ‘We’ve growing existing clients, we don’t need new ones’, and ‘I’m too busy’, being a smattering of the more tame ones you’ll come across. But for creatures like us, this is all in a day’s work. You know best. Ignore them, persist, be the Sam-I-Am figure. Do everything for them so that all they have to do is make the call. When it comes to new business, the message applies to you as much as the fee earners you work with – try it, you might like it.

Damian Taylor is head of business development at UK firm CMS Cameron McKenna LLP. He can be contacted at damian.taylor@cmc-cmck.com