It was a full house (including Marketing Executives from some Magic Circle law firms and Big Four accountancy practices) at this week’s PM Forum full day training session on “Growing your role: The Proactive Marketing Executive” which was kindly hosted by Withers solicitors in the shadow of the Old Bailey in the City of London.
We cover an awful lot of material during the course of the day – strategic marketing, tactical marketing, managing people, working more effectively with fee-earners, getting closer to clients and even a little bit on marketing careers. And there were plenty of group exercises to support peer networking – including some drawing and mind mapping activities.
In a bit of a departure from usual, we ended the day with some role plays of how to pitch an idea to different types of partner. This generated lots of laughs but also provided some good lessons about listening, empathy, adapting and ensuring that the right benefits are communicated.
It is always interesting to hear what the delegates found most useful and it was cheering that most were focused on improving their contribution to their firms and learning how to progress to the next level of their careers.
Amongst the key takeaways were:
- Consider your own strengths and weaknesses in your role, your team and your firm as well against marketing executives at other firms
- Set goals for your own career progression and take responsibility for your own development
- Remember that fee-earners are extremely busy people struggling with enormous pressures on their time so ensure that every communication is concise, aligned, focused, clear and adds real value to their business development aims and activities
- Find more creative ways to bridge the communications gap that sometimes occurs between fee-earners and marketing/business development professionals
- Act like a consultant to learn about and understand each partners’ needs, challenge the brief and add value to the relationship
- Rise above the maelstrom of day to day “busyness” to look to the future and invest time in learning about how clients’ needs are changing
