It's also critical to use data to understand where you are losing buyers in the awareness journey, whether via Google Analytics’ website bounce rate, gauging client alert reads and forwards and A/B testing emails, or honing the live/in-person messaging that doesn’t resonate.
Likewise, encourage attorneys not only to speak, but to also write or record thought leadership pieces that can show their personalities. After all, people buy from those they like and trust. Plus, people want to see that you are at the forefront of thinking through their specific problems. There’s no better way to lose a prospective client than for them to visit your bio and see that you haven’t developed thought leadership in two to five years. Again, if it’s not on your webpage, it didn’t happen — and you’ll be out of the game before you even knew you were in it.
AUDIT THE PITCH AND PROPOSAL PROCESS
The rough math on this one is staggering. If partners ($800 per hour) are spending three hours on a pitch or submission, and staff ($143 per hour, based off $100,000 per year) are spending 10 hours on a pitch or submission, law firms are potentially leaking over $375,000 annually by recreating the wheel (to say nothing about the lack of customization that occurs with last-minute pitches).
To improve your pitch win rate (and win more awards), law firms must build efficient and effective processes around crafting drafts, leveraging design, integrating analyst and reporting information, etc. This involves building a “go/no-go” strategy that is followed throughout the firm, managing expectations for both big RFPs and quick turn pitches, creating an RFP database for commonly asked questions, building time for customization and research, building an escalation process for “top client” pitches, tracking win/loss rates, rehearsing for oral presentations, and making data-driven decisions to improve future pitches — to name just a few. By soliciting feedback from clients, staff and attorneys, law firms can gain valuable insights into areas that need refinement and steps that can be streamlined. Further, implementing changes based on this feedback can lead to more compelling pitches that resonate with clients and increase the likelihood of success.
To improve your pitch win rate (and win more awards), law firms must build efficient and effective processes around crafting drafts, leveraging design, and integrating analyst and reporting information.
In this area, it is mission-critical to centralize all of the firm’s experience; properly code it (industry, attorney, client/matter number, jurisdiction, practice, issue, etc.); and write it in a consistent way across the firm. If your firm is still sending “pardon the interruption” emails every time there is a new business opportunity, you’re more likely losing more pitches than you’re winning. Another key is to develop an RFP/pitch answer bank of the most commonly asked questions. While this seems intuitive, it’s my experience that small and midsize firms are lacking in these low-hanging areas.
This becomes especially important for boutique and smaller firms that are trying to compete upstream with large opportunities, as they will be facing massive marketing teams that have all this data ready at their fingertips. The solutions can be basic to start and build proof of concept for investment (i.e., even in Excel), but ultimately tying these descriptions to the financials can help in attorney resourcing and pricing and will facilitate the gap analysis necessary to find cross-selling opportunities while also helping teams to audit and develop missing descriptions on attorney bios and practice pages.
The key is streamlining these processes so you can win more today, tomorrow and the next day — and so your firm won't continue to increase reputational risk and lose business.
Hear More About Process Optimization with Legal Management Talk!
Mike Mellor recently joined Legal Management Talk to discuss how firms can improve their information-gathering processes to help attorneys communicate better and win more pitches. Tune in today to learn more!
