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Creating a BD plan for your firm that works
If you have the right goals, clear motivation and a good plan in place, your chances of achieving your goals are much higher, writes Ben Paul.
Ben Paul
At the start of each year, everyone starts to plan to make this year even more successful than the last one. Most people approach the new year with an initial sense of excitement, a tinge of resentment over having to come back from the beach and a feeling of Groundhog Day, when it comes to tackling their BD partner or client development plans for the year ahead. It feels like you’ve done this year on year, completed the paperwork and the forms and then filed it away, to the senior leadership and in one of your drawers – which should be labelled “Ignore”.
Like any New Year’s resolution, if you really want to make it work, you need to be motivated to want to do something different, you need to be committed to seeing your plans through and you need to be honest with yourself. A great deal of your plans will involve doing fun or enjoyable tasks, and no doubt, the successful outcome of winning the work you enjoy is a great reward in itself.
However, a lot of the activities and rejections along the way will be painful, and some of the new skills you’ll need to learn and adopt might seem quite scary at first. Therefore, realise that there will be tough times during the year, commit to tackling them head on and make sure you see them through.
If you have the right goals, clear motivation and a good plan in place, your chances of achieving your goals are much higher. It also helps to have support and guidance from others. To help you get started, the advice below will support you in making this year the one when your client development or BD plans actually have an impact on what you do, and what you achieve.
Make the plan your own
Templates are helpful and guide us through a clear process, and they help us to consider areas we may otherwise neglect or not be aware of.
“There are things known, and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” – Aldous Huxley
However, blindly filling in a form can become a passive activity. Answering the questions, filling in the blanks so you can finish the task. It can be satisfying in the sense that the task is now off your to-do list, but pointless if you haven’t really committed to the plan. Instead, break the template, and mould it to be your own.
Ask yourself the right questions before you commence planning
To get your plans off on the right foot, make sure you ask yourself the right questions before you start. Align them to your motivations and use them as a guide to help you plan what you will do and what you want to achieve. Examples of the questions you need to ask yourself are:
- What does success look like for me this year?
- What do I want to achieve by the end of the year?
- What matters or types of matters do I want to work on this year?
- What does my dream client look like?
- How much time will I commit to doing business development each week?
- How will I remain focused on my BD plans?
- Why is doing business development important to me and my career?
The questions above help uncover your motivation and your reason for doing business development, tied into your real passions. You’re a lawyer, your passion is the law and helping clients, BD is simply an enabler of doing this.
If you get it right, you’ll be able to build a repeatable way of winning work alongside building strong relationships with your clients, which will lead to an ongoing sustainable pipeline.
Focus on three key things
Most plans fail because they are either unclear or unachievable. Sometimes, sadly, they are both. Hone your plans for the year down to the three key things you are going to do. It could be you are going to have six client relationship meetings a month, or you will host/present at six seminars this year. Whatever it is, make it clear, make it actionable, and make it something you will follow through on. Successful people have a laser-like focus.
“Smart people focus on the right things.” – Jensen Huang
For busy lawyers within a law firm having to deliver a certain amount of billable work per day and per week, BD and client development work can easily drift when time is limited to focus on it. If you are not focused in the time you do have, it is likely you’ll procrastinate and achieve very little.
Ask for help – it’s a sign of strength, not weakness
You may be a leading expert in your field of law, but it might be the case that stepping into the world of BD and marketing makes you feel uncomfortable. In this case, getting help from a colleague, an external consultant, or even both might well be advantageous.
“I am here just to learn, to improve, to help my team improve.” - Pep Guardiola
A good mentor or coach will encourage and also nudge or even push you along the journey, helping you to do the actions you committed to, acting as a sounding board for your concerns and offering new ideas or options on how to approach the next step.
You can achieve all this alone, you could ask ChatGPT for advice, but for the best and quickest returns on your time investment, nothing beats being guided by an experienced coach.
Don’t wait, do
The last part is simple. Carve out the time today. Complete your plan and get into delivering and doing those actions as soon as possible. In my experience, the lawyers who talk to clients and prospective clients early in the year and ahead of others tend to win the race.
“Don’t think about your errors or failures; otherwise, you’ll never do a thing.” - Bill Murray
Just remember the main focus of your partner, BD or client development plan needs to be that you create a plan for you, that makes sense to you, and is one that you will follow through on. If you do that, I have no doubt you will be successful.
Ben Paul is the chief executive of The BD Ladder.
