Law Firm 4.0 Blog

Experience management projects and why they fail in law firms.

I have written many posts on this blog about effective experience management as a mission-critical, business imperative for a law firm.  Without relevant experience to evaluate, buyers of legal services will not hire you.  

It's that simple.  That's how urgent it is.  That's why you should have a mandate around experience collection and organization that starts with your firm chair and executive committee.  

At lunch today with Peter Vogel, Internet/information technology partner at Gardere Wynne Sewell and veteran blogger (Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog), we discussed IT projects and how to avoid failure.  The three major reasons we have seen failure in experience management projects are:

1. These initiatives are difficult.  We work with clients to make them less complicated, often resetting expectations, streamlining workflow and ensuring that the focus is on the most important things (saving time and making more money). Nonetheless, they are challenging. This fact should not be allowed to impede progress, however, or prevent a firm from investing in an experience management program.
   
   
2. Turnover in the project team.  Project leaders and team members make decisions about project structure based on what they believe they need to make the project successful. When those people leave the project or firm, others with different ideas enter the equation. They want to reconfigure things so it meets their needs and expectations.  Such changes aren't always bad, but they will cause delays and generally raise project cost.  It's important for the first team to document their decisions and rationale for future team members who might inherit the reins. Understanding the reasons for the original choices is a positive step forward, enabling the new team to leverage investments made by the first crew on the project.
   
   
3. A commitment that wanes.  It's no different than a diet, it's hard to keep the same level of commitment on day 30, 60 or 365 that you had on day one.  Whatever keeps you motivated and going to the gym (feeling better, fitting into skinny jeans, a doctor that fist-pumps you), do the same with your experience database project - the fact that you will save time and make more money should be a strong motivator. Your job will also be infinitely easier, because business development preparation, RFPs and proposal responses, reporting and tracking, will all be EASY compared to how you manage it today.

Below is a guest blog post by Peter Vogel.  He offers excellent advice for marketing technology and IT managers pondering  these and other business development/marketing tech implementations. It is based on Infoworld's 2013 report entitled, "11 signs your IT project is doomed."

How to Avoid Doomed IT Projects

Successful IT projects are rarely noticed, only the disasters which can generally be avoided by having detailed contracts that spell out exactly what will happen, and who will do what.  Involving a lawyer with IT experience at the earliest point of IT planning (before the RFP is issued) can make sure that all things that can go wrong are spelled out in the contract, so when those things actually go wrong, the parties have already decided what will happen.

If you observe enough IT projects it becomes easier to identify critical signs that an IT project may be doomed.  Infoworld’s  2013 report entitled “11 signs your IT project is doomed” is a pretty good outline of what to watch out for:

Red flag No. 1: The project has launched without senior buy-in

Red flag No. 2: No detailed project plan exists

Red flag No. 3: Meetings have been scheduled without concern for team member availability

Red flag No. 4: Users have had little (to no) early involvement

Red flag No. 5: The project targets the minimum specs

Red flag No. 6: Testing is an afterthought

Red flag No. 7: No recovery plan is in place in the event of failure

Red flag No. 8: Expert recommendations have been rebuffed without testing outcomes

Red flag No. 9: The go-live date is a weekend or holiday

Red flag No. 10: Expectations have not been set

Red flag No. 11: Skimp on training

When lawsuits and trials occur because of failed IT projects, no one is ever happy with the outcome.  Of course the cost of a failed IT project is always more than a successful IT project.

  

To win more business, don't underestimate the value of visceral appeal.

For more than two decades we have known that corporate counsel and other buyers of legal services have two levels of decision-making. They make an intellectual decision when creating their short list, evaluating expertise, perceived technical skill, and other features that are important to them - geographical reach, depth, rates and more.

But when they are choosing the one lawyer or firm to hire, they make an emotional decision - formulating do I like this person, do I trust him, do I feel good about him.

Task-oriented lawyers (the overwhelming number of lawyers) struggle with this - they want to be hired because they are the smartest people in the room, not because they are the nicest.  They are frustrated when they have presented what they feel is the most compelling sales pitch about their relevant qualifications that they know are better than the competitors' quals . . . yet they lose to a "less-qualified" contender.

Three Belgian researchers completed a study that analyzed "The influence of ad-evoked feelings on brand evaluations: Empirical generalizations from consumer responses to more than 1,000 TV commercials."  You might wonder why I'm including this in today's blog post - I am, because it reinforces the point that emotion matters more than empirical data when it comes to someone feeling good about you.

If you watched the SuperBowl and stayed for the commercials, you know that the snarky, sleazy ads that have been so popular the last few years were mostly missing.  The feel-good ads that included puppies, horses, America, patriotic music, soldiers and children/families struck a chord with consumers - they made them go "awwww," made them laugh, or cry.

We like connecting emotionally to things, even if we don't want to admit it.  In a Booz & Company Strategy+Business article, The Power of Positive Advertising, the author writes about this Belgian study:   

The authors surveyed more than 1,500 Belgian consumers whose demographics were representative of the country’s overall population. The participants collectively weighed in on more than 1,000 commercials for actual products that were shown on national TV networks during a recent three-year time span. The ads covered more than 150 product categories, allowing the authors to test whether people’s emotional response varied depending on the type of product or service being advertised.

The Belgian study found:

Strikingly, the benefit of taking a positive approach in advertising persisted across industries and endured regardless of the product’s value to a consumer. Whether the commercial advertised a durable item (such as a refrigerator), a short-term product (such as soap or soda), a service (such as a cell-phone subscription or haircut), or merchandise (such as furniture or clothing), the findings were consistent. They showed that “compared to ads that elicit less pleasant feelings, ads that elicit more pleasant feelings may trigger more positive beliefs and thoughts about the brand, which, when integrated into summary evaluations, would result in more favorable brand attitudes,” the authors write.

Given how few business-to-business law firms engage in traditional advertising after the financial crisis, firms are relying instead on their websites, e-alerts and face-to-face business development activities (meetings, speeches, trade shows, etc.).  But few of the nation's largest firms tap into the visitor, listener or readers' emotion, regardless of the media.  Rather, they present a sterile summary of facts, figures, experience and other qualifications designed to land them on the short list.  This is important, by the way - your website must accomplish this.

But, on websites, and certainly in person, this is a missed opportunity to do more. Find ways to humanize your bio, breathe life into your stories and what you write about your practices and firm.  Identify ways to show that you're also nice to do business with. 

Being on the short list is terrific.  But you can only build a career if someone likes you enough to hire you.

 

A champagne toast to a grand 2014 - and my one piece of New Year advice

Many law firm consultants, prognosticators and pundits have written long blog posts and articles with predictions for law firms in 2014.  Given that website visitors don't read (they scan), I prefer tiny bites of information and opinions, as opposed to having to scroll to China.

I have several predictions this year, but I am going to offer only one here - and it is all  about experience management.  Nothing paralyzes marketers and lawyers more - and nothing inhibits effective selling and cross-selling more than not understanding what you've done and for whom you've done it.  

Invest what you have to to get it right in 2014.  Firms that are fully and culturally committed to experience management will win more work (and more good work) in 2014 than firms that don't. Period.

For other predictions, this Make More Rain blog post has a thoughtful list of small bites written by lawyers and consultants. I don't agree with all of it, but it is worth reading and considering. http://makemorerainblog.com/2013/legal-predictions-2014/?utm_source=so

I hope that you reflect happily on 2013 and that you are committed to taking positive steps forward in 2014.  Thank you for reading!  A champagne toast to YOU.

 

A big year of awards and enhancements for Content Pilot

As the founder of Content Pilot, I am proud when the company and team I have built does well. Our biggest test of success is how our clients feel about us.  Every engagement - regardless of size or client - means the world to us, and our mission is to deliver superior strategy, technology and design solutions and deliver them with respect, warmth, authority and joy.

2013 has been an extraordinary year of client work, new product developments and awards:

Awards

1. National Law Journal:  2013 "Best of Legal Vendors" Readers Survey
   ---#1 for Proposal Automation and Experience Management (we also won #1 in this category in 2012)
   ---#1 for Website Design
   ---#3 for Branding Design
   
   
2. National Law Journal:  2013 "Legal Business Trailblazers and Pioneers" - The NLJ chose 50 people for its inaugural list who publisher Ken Gary describes as: "...people who have truly 'moved the needle' in facilitating the changing ways that law firms conduct business. Whether it be technological developments, operational efficiencies, marketing & business development breakthroughs, or research – we think this list embodies the spirit that will shepherd and shape modern law firms as a business going into 2014 and beyond."
   
   ---Deborah McMurray, CEO and Strategy Architect of Content Pilot, was named as one of the Trailblazers and Pioneers in the category "Communicators."  Here is a link to the NLJ Magazine that describes all 50. I am proud to be in such good company.  Several Content Pilot clients were honored and friends, as well.
   
   
3. Legal Times:  2013 "Best of Legal Vendors" Readers Survey
   ---#1 for Proposal Automation and Experience Management (we also won #1 in this category in 2012)

Website Launches

1. Doerner, Saunders, Daniel & Anderson - www.dsda.com. Read the case study and see the site before and after.
   
   
2. Chambliss Bahner & Stophel  - www.chamblisslaw.com.   Read the case study about Chambliss and see its before and after.
   
   
3. Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan  - www.sutherland.com.  The Sutherland engagement consisted of a very large website, plus a mobile site, 12 public and private microsites (and growing) and 4 blogs.
   
   
4. Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby - www.wglaw.com.   Paul Fires, the managing partner, said, "Let me thank you for an awesome web site.   We get nothing but praise, and it both looks great and is very user friendly.  Congratulations on a job very well done!"
   

Major Proposal Pilot Enhancements

Proposal Pilot is a centerpiece product of Content Pilot, with the earliest iteration launching in 2005. Many updates and enhancements later, today's Proposal Pilot is the industry's most robust and user friendly platform available today.  Used by more than a dozen AmLaw 50 firms, it integrates with SharePoint, time and billing, document management systems, InterAction and other CRM tools, HR databases, data warehouses, and other systems, and is configurable to ensure that it is the most responsive to what the law firm needs.  In the planning process, we analyze the marketing/business development/proposal team/lawyer workflow and recommend ways to improve and streamline processes and efficiencies.  

It is currently used by marketing/BD and proposal teams in dozens of offices around the world.  

1. Alternate languages.  Content Pilot clients have offices around the world and the lawyers, marketing and business development teams are operating essentially 24/7.  Clients can easily manage content and create beautiful branded proposals in Eastern and Western languages.  As long as all main body content is contained in Proposal Pilot in the languages desired, the output in multiple languages occurs with ease.  During proposal creation, a user can set the output to have all the standard headers, titles, labels, etc. to be in any language the firm wants to support.
   
   
2. Enhanced InterAction and CRM integration.  Firms that are heavy InterAction users want to save time and get even more value from their system investments.  Because Content Pilot personnel are former law firm marketing and IT professionals, we seek ways to help our clients streamline workflow and processes.  One example is automatically posting a new proposal, pitch or RFP as an activity on the company records - saving users several steps each time, and ensuring that the full range of client/prospect touchpoints are effectively captured.
   
   
3. Content Sets.  Employing best practices in project management inspired us to create the new "Content Sets" module.  This enables users to create groupings of content, which can form the basis of a standard proposal for a particular service area, practice group or industry segment.  These Content Sets expedite proposals and pitches for lawyer teams that are heavy business developers.  In Proposal Pilot, the Content Set is moved into a module where users can tailor the proposal with additional descriptive material, short or long bios and specific experience.  This all takes a matter of a few short minutes.
   
   

4. Multiple Element Page Designs. The world's largest and most sophisticated law firms are designing "magazine-style" proposal templates in Word - portrait and landscape - and PowerPoint.  Working closely with our clients, we are helping them to spice up their proposals with the inclusion of graphics, quotes and accolades, infoGraphics and other images, and more. We have enhanced Proposal Pilot's ability to handle the inclusion of these beautiful and memorable elements.  These content elements can be stored in Proposal Pilot or added to a proposal by surfing to the network location where they are stored.  Additionally, the grouping of elements can be pre-configured so that they are added to a proposal in one quick click.
   
   

CP Deals and Cases Tool Enhancements

This tool is an integral part of Proposal Pilot, but is also a stand-alone experience management system.  As I've written in several blog posts, effective experience management is one of the most strategic investments and commitments law firms can make.  Yet we see more paralysis around experience gathering and curating than with most other initiatives.

We employ a best practices approach - working with our clients to understand their firm culture and structure, knowledge management and information sharing, workflow and business development goals. Then we recommend processes and a project management approach that will help them introduce efficiencies, and increase the integrity of and organizational trust in the data.

1. Managed Matter Lists.  Many firms have already created lists of matters in highly specific areas of expertise.  Our CP Deals and Cases  Tool makes it easy to find and output a list of this experience through the creation and administration of Managed Matter Lists.  As a new piece of experience is added to CP Deals and Cases, it can be tagged to as many practice area lists as desired.  New lists can be created with quick searching and tagging of the experience records.  When outputting into a format, such as a table, tombstone or narrative listing, the user simply selects the Managed Matter List and "voila!" - all data is packaged and available for printing or emailing to lawyers and clients.  It is also available for inserting into proposals and pitches.
   
   
2. Leveraging Data in other Firm Systems.  CP Deals and Cases makes it easy to access data that is stored in other data systems across the firm.  Saving time and money is a goal of all Content Pilot tools.  We find ways to leverage and curate data from other firm systems - time and billing, CRM, data warehouses, for example - through strategic integrations. This limits marketing/business development or KM team input of data, and enables users to use the data that already has an official “owner” somewhere else in the firm.  Through use of our API tools, the system be configured to reach-out to other systems and import what the user selects.
   
   
3. Experience On-the-Go.  A lawyer's experience is the one thing that makes him or her unique - it's the fingerprint of their careers.  We have designed an "On-the-Go" feature that puts your highly focused experience  at the fingertips of lawyers and marketers - in a minute or two.  A user generates a document by going to the On-the-Go module and selecting the output format desired (bullet point, paragraph, table, tombstone, etc.), searching and selecting the experience records or adding a Managed Matter List, and clicking "generate." Your colleague can quickly be out the door with a branded, tailored document that is fully responsive to requests from clients, prospects and laterals.
   
   
4. Velocity - our mobile cross-selling app.  We launched Velocity more than a year ago as a simple app to help lawyers cross-sell the experience of their far-flung partners around the nation and world.  Accessing it on your Smart Phone or tablet, it pulls data from CP Deals and Cases to facilitate relevant conversations with prospects when they occur - in a taxi, over a drink  or lunch, at a ballgame, in a meeting.  Mobility and relevancy are married in this tool - critical for lawyers who want to compete at a higher level, and who want more business development wins than their competitors.

 Read Law Firm 4.0 Blog posts about effective experience management:

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/02/experience-management-its-been-elevated-to-mission-critical.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2013/01/experience-managementdatabases-best-practices-in-content-gathering.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/11/experience-management-and-databases-the-results-of-a-survey-of-cmos.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/01/experience-databases-if-you-build-it-will-they-come.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2010/07/do-you-know-what-you-dont-know-a-post-about-km.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/08/how-law-firms-can-grow-revenue-in-a-more-client-friendly-way.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/12/2013-advice-for-law-firms-to-ensure-a-bright-future.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/02/3-geeks-review-our-cross-selling-mobile-app-velocity.html

For more information about Content Pilot's work and enhancements, contact Keith Wewe at [email protected] or me at [email protected].

Wishing you a happy and prosperous 2014!

 

Good advice about lawyers' productivity, but marketers are getting a bad rap

Jack Bostelman wrote a blog post about Wells Fargo's Q3 law firm financial survey and the AmLaw 200 firms' weak showing in 2013. Here are the results in a nutshell: 

• Gross revenue increased 2.5%
• Expenses also increased 2.5%
• Total hours billed declined 0.75% and hours per lawyer declined 1.1%
• Effective rates increased 3.6%

The Citibank third quarter survey posted similar results. The conclusion continues to be "tepid demand and excess capacity."  We know this.

Bostelman shares a few ideas that practice and industry teams (even energetic and take-charge individual lawyers) can do to help firms improve productivity and profitability.  But, at the same time, he (I presume unintentionally) disses marketers.  Here is what he said:

"Matter experience database. Involve the lawyers in collecting a small amount of basic information about every completed matter in the group. The Marketing Dept.’s efforts are too frequently inaccurate or incomplete. Use the data to find comparable matters for purposes of benchmarking fees, finding internal experts, staffing and finding documents."

In our experience working with marketing departments from AmLaw 10 to 200 firms, there are no more conscientious hunters for and stewards of this data.  Lawyers often don't care about it until the last minute - when they are walking out the door, quickly preparing for a pitch or wanting to be included in the latest Chambers survey. 

The reason experience management initiatives fail in law firms is because they aren't approached strategically.  We have seen it wither entire business development teams, paralyzing them because firm leaders don't understand the mission-critical value of having this information at their fingertips. It takes very smart planning, streamlining processes and understanding ultimate end-users.  I agree with Bostelman's recommendation to invest in an experience database.  But don't blame the marketing and business development team for incomplete, inferior or inaccurate data. 

Success starts at the top. 

 

 

What law firms can learn from my weird service experience at Del Frisco's in Dallas

Well, Del Frisco's has done it again. It's once more the subject of one of my "What law firms/lawyers can learn . . . " posts, and not in a good way.  My earlier post about the Del Frisco's in Manhattan is one of the most-read posts of this blog. The experience I am writing about today is worse.

Two friends and colleagues, Allen Fuqua and Eric Fletcher, and I schedule regular "steak nights." It's our excuse to get our red-meat and good-red-wine fix and talk about everything on our minds - ranging from legal marketing and business development trends, personal milestones to deconstructing the latest Aaron Sorkin HBO series, "Newsroom."  Dallas has no shortage of excellent steakhouses, and we have tried most of them. Our most recent steak night was late August at Del Frisco's just north of Dallas in Addison.

After we were seated, a waiter greeted us and asked about beverages. I asked his name and he said, "Peter."  He brought our drinks, I said, "Thank you, Peter," and he said, "Oh, that's not really my name." I asked, "So what is your name?"  "It's Bush."  (I'm wondering why a waiter would lie about his name in the first place.) "Bush?" I asked. "It's my last name - no one calls me by my first name." (Which, by the way, isn't Peter.)  Our waiter was easily in his 50s - or older.

Bush then looks at my engagement ring, grabs my hand and asks, "OMG - How do you hold your hand up?!" And he continues to lather-on remarks about the size of it. I happily chirped that I just got married. He high-fives me and said I'd hit pay dirt.

I should add at this point that I told him early on that I was the host for our evening together.

As the dinner wore on, he high-fived me at least six more times (he never high-fived Eric and Allen, and who does that anymore?!), shook my hand an additional six times (occasionally shook their hands, too) insisted that we order certain menu items and continued to interrupt our conversation with inane and inappropriate comments. He also made cloying observations about the always-nattily dressed Allen, commenting on the GQ fashion statement he was making.

But the crowning moment came when the waiter started chatting at the men at my table. Allen, Eric and I were sharing stories about being happily married, when he interrupted us and said they - especially Allen - should have a girlfriend, too -- wink-wink. He continued for another comment or two as we were staring at each other in disbelief. Looking around the dining room, we saw mostly a roomful of businessmen. The ratio of men to women was 4 or 5:1. We wondered if the women in the room were, in fact, "girlfriends," and felt like we'd been cast in an episode of "Mad Men."

The service experience quickly transcended from weird to creepy.

What can law firm leaders learn?

1. Completely understand the culture of your firm.  Know that your culture is worn on the shirt sleeves of every person who works there - and it is transmitted to others the minute your employees walk in and out of your door. Do your lawyers and others reflect the values of your firm? Do they reflect (and respect) the values of your clients?
2. Just because partners are of a certain age doesn't mean they automatically know how to effectively handle business development and beauty contest situations.  There is hesitation to "train" seasoned partners, believing they know what to do.  In a recent conversation with a senior Big 4 accounting firm partner in the firm's national office, he spoke of the beauty contest prep he recently did with a client pitch team and two experienced marketers.  For a one-hour meeting, they were coached individually and rehearsed six-hours.  The Big 4 team included two of the most senior and experienced partners in the entire firm.
   
   It is never too late to train someone how to act better. 
3. I have never been militant about male/female dynamics in the workplace, but I am always aware and alert. Know what these dynamics are in your firm - and unearth whether you have men (or women) who exhibit bad behavior.  Ignoring it with a "boys/girls will be boys/girls" casualness will come to haunt you at some point. And it will, over time, sully your reputation.
4. Know your audience. It is stunning to me in late Q3 2013 that firms don't always know who the buyers of your legal services are.  It's not a corporation.  For important matters, it is a person surrounded by other smart people who all influence the decision.  Each buyer brings a history of good and bad experiences with lawyers (and restaurants) to the table, and that person is waiting for you to land in one column or the other. It's entirely up to you where you land.

Del Frisco's emailed a survey to me following our meal.  I filled it out and shared a couple of these stories, including the girlfriend comments. I received this response from the General Manager:

I just received your email regarding your dining experience with us on Wednesday 8/28.  I would like to apologize to you and your guests for the lack of professionalism we showed you that night.  I am truly sorry, we got "too comfortable" and had a lapse in judgment.  Please know this type of service is not what we typically do and it will not be repeated in this restaurant.  I thank you for the feedback and sharing with me your experience.  

That was the right response. But we won't return. The steaks weren't all that great anyway.

 

 

 

The future of CMOs - according to FORBES

A Forbes blogger posted an article called, "Is the CMO Role Dying or Thriving?"  Here is how it starts: 

What’s happening to the CMO role? This question has been hot for a couple of years. Some suggest the role is nominal and “dying” while others suggest it is bigger, more complex, and more important than ever before.

I would love to know who claims it's dying.  According to executive search firms that serve the legal industry, there have been more law firms seeking highly qualified CMOs in 2012 (and now in Q1 2013) than there were in the previous three years combined.

Blogger Kimberly Whitler conducted a quick survey of CMOs before she appeared on a panel at the CMO Exchange conference.  She admits that the survey was more directionally interesting than methodologically sound - and it turns out that what she found in this survey is consistent with what I believe is happening.  Her panel was called "The Evolving Role of the CMO."

Whitler's survey respondents described their CMO world as "moving" and "changing" (not "shifting" - which seems a little hair-splitty to me) in tsunami-like proportion.  She says, "Consumer beliefs have radically changed with 76% of consumers not believing that companies tell the truth in advertising (Yankelovich 2005)." 

She's talking about consumer skepticism here - but what do we know about the beliefs held by clients of law firms and how they've changed the last few years?  We've read the stories, conducted the satisfaction/loyalty interviews, and understand fundamentally that there is less work to go around and less across-the-board loyalty awarded by clients to their law firms.  And our law firm CMOs are the ones on the front lines figuring this out. 

Whitler says, "CMOs have often been the leaders who harness this understanding and lead the requisite internal change to adapt to the market. If the market, consumer, and environment are changing dramatically, it’s a foregone conclusion that the CMO’s role is as well."  Amen.

So - what are some of the changes that Whitler and her CMO respondents predict?

1.     "The technology revolution has led to the CMO role revolution. Gartner, in fact, recently suggested that by 2017, the CMO will manage more of the IS spend than the CIO will."  Proving Whitler's statement about Gartner, I found this written by a Gartner researcher, "Marketing is purchasing significant marketing-related technology and services from their own capital and expense budgets – both outside the control of the internal IT organization and in conjunction with them." 

As the CEO of a company that sells marketing and business development technologies for professional services firms (websites, mobile sites and apps, experience databases, proposal systems), we are on the front lines of this trend. The law firm CMO is leading these initiatives with very specific and measureable goals in mind -- to save time and grow revenue. There is no other administrative or functional role in the law firm - outside of the lawyers - who has responsibility for client retention, expansion and revenue growth as does the CMO.  A deep understanding of technology processes and tools is critical.

2.    Whitler states that "If current CMOs don't change, a new breed will surpass them."  She continues, "Radical change requires significant growth in knowledge, skill, and competency.  Big data requires math, stats, and problem solving skills. A technology revolution requires an appreciation for systems, technology, and process.  Consumer belief and behavior change requires a thirst for – and knowledge of – stats, research, and deep, unique insight. Significant integration between technology, finance, and marketing requires superior leadership and strategy skills."

Smart law firm leaders are seeking CMOs who can rise to this level, who can effectively manage teams that cover the broad gamut of historical marketing communications and business development initiatives, and who can find, understand and synthesize financial and other data that gives the firm a competitive advantage. 

Whitler concludes by suggesting that the people who predict that CMOs are "dying" are those that are trying to cash-in on their demise in some way -- consultants and vendors perhaps.

I see 2013 and the next two - three years as the most exciting for our industry's smartest CMOs. Enormous amounts of work to do, but the possibilities for success will be tangible and measureable - more than ever before.

 

 

Experience management/databases - best practices in content gathering

Gathering and managing content that is relevant to a firm's buyers of legal services is the bane of every marketer's existence.  I've seen this one activity paralyze entire departments.  The team is flummoxed by finding the most efficient way to engage lawyers so they provide the information that marketers need for pitches, proposals, Chambers, Thomson League Tables and other rankings/listings.

In my last post about experience management, I wrote about focusing on your top three use cases and on the people who will use this information.  Your clients are the ultimate consumers of experience data - how are they evaluating you?  What do they need to know about you to make the decision to hire you?

Effectively managing content requires the perfect marriage of people, process and technology.  But, as I noted in my last post, don't start with the technology tool.  Answer these questions about content contribution:

1. What processes do you currently have in place?  How are they working?
2. Who inputs new matters into your experience database?
3. How many fields per matter are too many (a barrier to entry)?
4. Post-launch, how much lawyer time is required for each new matter?
5. Who is the ultimate owner of the experience database, and who ensures the efficacy of the data?

In the Lex Mundi Americas experience management survey of CMOs that I conducted before a November presentation, the vast majority (nearly 80%) of respondents said the marketing/business development team own the process and database.  Lawyers own this process in several firms, as well as paralegals in others. 

Lawyers must "own" this data or they won't use it, but we still recommend that the marketing/BD team is the ultimate facilitator and controller of the technology and process. 

In the CMO survey, I asked the question: How many people on your team are directly involved in managing experience and keeping it current?  58% of the respondents said 1-2 people, but 32% said 3-5 people.  The right number depends on firm size, but we believe that larger firms should have several content contributors and managers.  Effectively gathering the right information is a sleuthing exercise and it's time-consuming.  Having more people dedicated to this mission-critical task is better - especially on the front end of a project implementation.

Lisa Simon, CMO of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and former international LMA President, is a long-time advocate for effective experience management. We worked together to implement an experience database at her firm and she says the firm has seen the enormous benefits.  Lisa has this advice for managing the content:

1. Less is more - having some data on a lot of matters is better than having lots of data on only a handful.
2. Stakeholders are not always partners - Paralegals and secretaries/admin assistants are as important to the process as the attorneys - their buy-in is key.
3. Look beyond the obvious sources - Utilize resources outside your own systems to begin generating content.  Sometimes you get more info from your clients' press releases than your own lawyers.

Interestingly, according to the CMO survey, some firms have a database, but they don't give lawyers access to it. I believe it's a best practice to let lawyers be hands-on - to pull data, sort and parse it.  Once again, if they see its utility, they'll engage with it, and be invested in its success and health.

I asked the CMOs whether they give lawyers access to the database to enter new matters. More respondents did not have lawyers enter content.  At Brownstein, we created a web form for the corporate/securities group - they were clamoring for it, wanting to populate the database themselves. They use the form several times a day and now other groups want forms for their practices.  Brownstein will launch these forms for its five main practice teams.

In other posts, I've written that lawyers don't trust the efficacy of the data if they don't own it. Brownstein has figured this out - the lawyers enter the data, and the marketing team reviews it before it goes live (on the website or for pitches/proposals). Lawyers trust it, so they'll use it, and they'll keep contributing to the Deals and Cases Tool.

In the CMO survey, I asked whether firms were adding the matters of lateral hires.  As I noted in my last experience management post, effective lateral integration remains one of the greatest challenges firm leaders have today. While it is challenging, I believe it's a best practice to merge laterals' experience with yours as quickly as possible.  There are easy ways to tag their experience, so if they leave, you can easily sweep it from your system.  Half of the Lex Mundi survey respondents merge laterals' data into their tools and half do not.

Finally, it is early January 2013 and you might be in a position to make the business case for an experience database. Whether a new one or continued investment in an existing database, the arguments for it are compelling:

1. It is guaranteed to increase revenue and make cross-selling/relationship expansion more effective.
2. It creates practice and lawyer stickiness to your firm.
3. As the owner of the experience database, marketing has more power than ever (knowledge really is power) - it leads to respect.
4. No more emails! (Does anyone know anyone who  knows anyone who does XYZ?) For 25 years or more, lawyers have been sending these dreaded emails.

2013 advice for law firms to ensure a bright future

My friend and colleague Leigh Dance published a terrific article in AmLaw Daily structured as advice for global law firms.  But most of it applies to law firms of any size.  I've linked to the article here, but I have also pulled the key points so you can scan them.

Leigh's advice comes from more than 20 years consulting to corporate legal departments in multinational companies and global law firms.  In addition, she recently conducted a major study for World Law Group with survey respondents from more than 30 countries.  Her "to-do's" are designed for law firms with international offices and how they can best serve domestic clients abroad and foreign clients at home.  For firms with local, regional and national practices, take this advice and extrapolate to find the nuggets that will work best for you.

1. Inhabit your client's world; they want you there.  "Your clients in corporations around the world are busy rethinking and reworking every aspect of making and delivering legal services. While they’ll proceed with or without you, they’d like to have their preferred firms at their side. Unfortunately many of you are simply not involved enough in their world. Their focus is not just the legal part—it’s how legal advice is sourced and delivered in the company."
   
   Spend the time and money to meet your clients on their turf.
2. Build project management tools, including financial accounting ones.  "Your clients want more certainty. Clients still love what you do for them, but many want to manage smarter so they can use you less. To nourish the relationship, your numbers must show you can deliver on your promises. Most of your firm’s financial and account management exists to give you (and The American Lawyer and the banks), productivity and profitability info. What’s in it for the client?"
   
   Clients want to know how you will ensure that you won't under- or over-deliver.  And they want to know this on the front end of a matter or engagement.
3. Use knowledge management and IT across borders to reinforce client relationships.  "Trust is a relationship thing, and your clients long ago stopped thinking of relationships as one-to-one. In multipolar business, relationships between international law firms and corporate clients are inevitably multipersonal. Across the time zones, organizational structures, legal systems, and compliance frameworks, trust is a network constructed with information and project continuity that supports good personal relationships."
   
   Law firms of all sizes struggle with client relationship and experience data.  Many are paralyzed because of inefficient processes - or even knowing what to do with the data when they capture it.  I'll write much more about this in 2013, but here are two recent blog posts that will further the discussion in your firms.  http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/11/experience-management-and-databases-the-results-of-a-survey-of-cmos.html and http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/02/experience-management-its-been-elevated-to-mission-critical.html 
4.  Demonstrate international know-how.  "Your firm should provide specific and compelling proof of your knowledge of laws and regulations across the diverse places where your clients are selling, buying, sourcing, or investing.  It seems so basic, but global clients say their most pressing concern in high-growth markets is: understanding local and regional laws and regulations. Hello? Big Law, step up to the plate."
   
   If your lawyers are effectively collaborating across practices and geographies, then you are heads and shoulders above your competitor firms.  This is what it takes to make your global clients happy with you and your firm. 
5. Show off your multicultural strengths.  "Since many of your clients are worldly, they can quickly discern your lawyers’ and your firm’s ability (or failure) to get things done with a diverse cultural mix of stakeholders, executives, employees, and regulators (many of whom have not mastered your language). Clients active in multiple new markets recognize that service styles and practices vary across cultures. They also know that great short- and long-distance service can be as important as technical legal skill in giving valuable counsel."
   
   Brilliant legal technicians who don't care about the human side of the relationship are not a good fit for many clients - domestic or abroad.  The human and cultural understanding are what causes firms and lawyers to get hired - and without it, fired.
   
6. Figure out what you do that's better or different and emphasize it.  "Big Law has aced the task of providing expert lawyers who speak brilliantly on their subject matter. It’s far harder, yet more important now, for lawyers to present the firm’s advantages in a way that resonates with the particular client. To do that, you need to understand better what your key clients worry most about, for the issue at hand. Is it meeting a deadline, managing a far-flung legal team, compliance monitoring, reducing costs, cross-border coordination, getting along with a prickly regulator? Only then can you present a differentiated offering that addresses the client’s specific needs."
   
   Your marketing and business development department can be a great asset here.  But, in addition to people who understand positioning and messaging, it requires effective processes and the right technology, such as experience management and proposal generation tools. 
7. Make your global brand real by aligning it with how you serve clients. "Given point Number 6, it frustrates me that many firm marketing efforts travel poorly to clients (and the firm’s own lawyers) around the world.  Global law firm branding tends to overemphasize visual identity and underemphasize how specific services and the firm’s resources are discussed with and delivered to clients. Many firms send promotional messages that don’t make sense across cultures and thus mean little to the clients you are trying to win." 
   
   Clients will see through "brand" messages that are distinctly different than lawyers' service delivery.  Ensure that your key messages resonate with buyers of legal services across all borders.  While your messaging might be aspirational, it surely won't ring true.

Here is Leigh's byline and a link to the World Law Group summary of the study. 

E. Leigh Dance is president and founder of legal services management consultancy ELD International, based in New York and Brussels. She speaks three languages fluently, and for more than 20 years has worked with global corporate law departments and law firms. The study referred to is the World Law Group Global Agenda 2012: Issues & Priorities for Senior In-house Counsel Worldwide, conducted in conjunction with LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and ELD International. Download the study report on home page of www.TheWorldLawGroup.com.

 

Experience management and databases - The results of a survey of CMOs

Experience management and how to get one's arms around it surfaces in every conversation that I have with firm leaders and senior marketers.  As I noted in a February 2012 blog post "Experience Management - it's been elevated to mission-critical," cross-selling and revenue growth are the two top concerns of firm leaders as they see a future of shrinking demand for legal services and higher expenses.  These issues remain at the top as we approach 2013 - but firm leaders are no closer to having a handle on how to cross-sell more effectively and otherwise drive new revenue.

According to Altman Weil's MergerLine(tm), through the 3rd quarter there have been 68 law firm mergers completed.  In Q4, there are several high profile and notable ones in the works - Fulbright's merger with Norton Rose and SNR Denton's three-way merger with Fraser Milner and Salans are two that will create literally thousands of laterals.  Lateral integration is also at the top of firm leaders' list of concerns - how do they quickly embed and inculcate a few laterals into the fabric (and client base) of the firm, let alone many hundreds? 

The simplest answer is effective experience management.  Sure, but how?  It's not easy, but it's not nearly as paralyzing as you think.  Reframe your thinking about how to go about it - don't start with the lawyers and their many and assorted lists of deals and cases; start with the clients - the buyers of legal services.  What do they want and need to make buying decisions in your various practice and industry areas?  When your planning starts with the end in mind, it ensures that your focus, and consequently, your action is relevant.

To prepare for a recent experience management presentation to a Lex Mundi Americas group of senior marketing and business development professionals, I surveyed the group about their hottest button issues and concerns, wanting to understand where they were in the experience management life cycle.  Most of the 19 respondents were in mid-sized to large law firms.

Here were their burning questions:

1. What is the limit of experience information that can be published that doesn’t affect the confidential client information?
2. How can we motivate the lawyers to keep the experience database updated?  How do we keep it current?
3. How do we handle it when there are several practice areas working in one transaction? Is it better to consolidate as one big transaction, a transaction with different points of advice or several different matter entries?
4. Is it common to ask the client if the experience information can be published?
5. What is the best way to demonstrate the benefits of such a system to the attorneys, especially as an offset to its costs?
6. How are people doing this effectively? How do people connect to time and billing, follow-up, self-service, website, proposals, etc. What accountability share is there - lawyers vs. admins vs. BD/marketing staff?
7. Best practices, what systems are out there in the market, usability of system (lawyers, BD staff)?
8. How can we do this cheaply, but effectively?

I asked the senior marketers what their greatest challenge is regarding experience management:

1. Keeping the information updated
2. Leveraging data from other systems via integration
3. Getting the lawyers to cooperate
4. Which matters to highlight and capture
5. Convincing firm of the need for such a database
6. Resources to plan and implement it
7. Managing all the reports, rankings, pitches, web, etc. that need this data – and getting the right data to them all
8. Getting lawyers to think beyond the work they do (cross-sell)
9. The ability to capture specialized/unique skills
10. Disorganized process and incomplete data

Nearly 60% of the respondents do not have an experience database.  These firms are struggling with multiple data sources - Microsoft Word documents, mini-databases, Excel spreadsheets - and many of these documents are closely-held by the partners.  The ones that responded that they do have one are mostly "thinking about it" or are in the earliest planning stages.

Because the process of gathering thousands of matters into a single, flexible location is so debilitating, I thought it would be helpful to share best practices that we have developed for the launch of  a successful experience database.

Start Here.

1.    I previewed the secret above:  Start with your ultimate end users (your clients) and work backwards >> your lawyers >> marketing/BD team >> IT.

2.    Identify your top three use cases for your experience database (a few examples below).  Choose only three to start - you can always expand it post-launch.  Building a tool that satisfies the needs of all your use cases will take years - and the goal here is to get a workable tool launched in a matter of months - six months is average, depending on the quality of the data.

• Client pitches, proposals, RFPs
• Client expansion conversations – cross-selling
• Website – bios, practices, industries, more
• Surveys – Thomson League Tables,  Chambers, other
• Lawyers – KM
• Lateral integration

3.    Lawyers must use it or they won't keep it current.  They won't care about it if, in some way, they don't own it.  Build it to be used by everyone in the firm - not just the marketing department.

4.    Successful experience management is the perfect blend of people, process and technology.  Don't start with the technology tool. 

People.  Who needs this information? Who must be involved?

1. Clients – ultimate users of the information
2. Lawyers – practice group leaders, users of the information
3. Practice group marketers – consultants to the project for their practice/industry teams
4. Marketing/BD managers - users of the information for pitches, proposals, reports, surveys, rankings
5. Project manager in your firm – day-to-day oversight and accountability
6. Vendor partner – strategy, best practices, day-to-day project management, guidance, training, launch and post-launch.

Process.

1. Gather all the experience lists you have – scour pitches, proposals, website, personal matter lists – don't get bogged down in the formatting; different formats are OK
2. Analyze the efficacy of this data – do lawyers trust it?  (if they don't,  you can't move on to any of the next steps.  They have to trust the data first.) 
3. Create consistent presentation styles for matter and narrative format for your proposals, web, reports, case studies, surveys, etc. for the experience you have
4. Develop your strategy: Who will use it, for what will they use it?
5. Meet with your vendor/IT partner to review all of the above and plan your tech strategy/approach.

Technology and Integration.

1. Build v. Buy - 58% of the marketers said they are or are planning to build it in-house compared to 25% buying a third party tool.  In an ILTA survey we did in February 2012 of IT professionals, the results were the opposite - the majority planned to buy it.
2. What third party vendor to choose?  Choose a vendor partner who intimately understands what lawyers do, law firm project strategy, and the process and the people aspects of such an endeavor in a law firm.  This will make a huge difference in how smoothly the project goes and how much consulting value they can bring to the table.
3. Functional requirements - Your vendor partner will create these for you, and will design them based on your use cases and conversations with your IT team.
4. Integration – where does important data live?  It’s all about leveraging trusted data that lives elsewhere - time/billing, CRM, document management system, conflicts, website, HR database, etc.
5. Mobility – experience on-the-go - The most effective cross-selling takes place spontaneously, when lawyers and clients are on the move.  These opportunities are lost 80%+ of the time, because experience data lives somewhere back in the office.  Lawyers need it at their fingertips when standing in a movie line, riding in a cab with a client, and having lunch or a drink.  Velocity(tm) is the answer to this - it puts this trusted data into your lawyers' hands via their smart phones or tablets.

The next critical piece is content - who contributes to it, who owns it.  That will be my next post.