New Partner, Leading International Law Firm
The Issue
A relatively recent partner in a large international law firm sought out coaching on their business development strategy because their book of business was lagging behind expectations.
The Process
First, I helped the client perform an in-depth analysis of their BD activities to date, to identify which existing strategies were working well, and which needed refinement.
Second, I helped the client to draft a business plan. This relatively simple document set objectives for the different components of the client’s sought-out mix of work, along with milestones within each of these categories that would help to focus their BD efforts.
In addition to targets for the number and value of cases they hoped to bring in over the next few years, the business plan included more granular targets for different BD activities (networking, publications, etc).
Drafting a business plan further spurred my client’s thinking about the existing BD strategy: weak links and missing elements became clearer once everything was in writing.
The Outcome
With the business plan clearly laid out on paper, the client was better able to assess which aspects seemed reasonable, and which might need adjustment. The client could also more easily identify BD opportunities that were best tailored to the desired results. Armed with a clear strategy, my client was better able to resist the temptation to always push BD activities to the back-burner when emergencies came up.
Soon after we started working together, my client became less stressed; having more specific BD goals made the process feel less overwhelming. It was easier to measure progress against intermediate goals instead of simply facing a binary assessment of either new work coming in or no work coming in.
Ultimately, the client ended up revising their BD goals upwards because they reached their initial (already ambitious) goals much more quickly than expected.
Curious How Coaching Might Work for You?
Schedule a no-pressure conversation in just a few clicks below, or email me at jon@passaro-coaching.com so that we can explore what it would be like to work together.