Proactive Marketing and Business Development Executive

December 8, 2024|Accountants, Kim's Blog, Lawyers, Marketing, Relationship Management|

It was a full house at PM Forum’s “Proactive Marketing and Business Development Executive” online full day workshop with 18 enthusiastic delegates. They asked lots of brilliant questions and generously shared their insights and experiences with each other. Some were new to their MBD roles while many were considering how to develop and progress further in their careers. Many of their questions were about building relationships, gaining internal engagement, maintaining buy-in from fee-earners and encouraging fee-earners to adopt different attitudes and behaviours. One delegate provided an excellent summary of the session (see below). Proactive Marketing and Business Development Executives – Engage and Educate

Engage fee-earners

Some firms have fee-earners who are highly engaged in marketing and business development ((MBD). These firms have become sophisticated in their MBD which makes life easier for MBD professionals. The culture in other firms lags behind a little and the fee-earners need to be persuaded to engage in MBD. They may lack awareness of the need to participate in MBD. They may need to be persuaded to adopt new methods of raising awareness, sharing data and engaging clients. In the latter situation we have to work harder to engage our fee-earners. And we must be patient.

We can’t expect all fee-earners to have as much knowledge and interest in marketing and business development as we do. Some delegates reported that their fee-earners were dismissive of marketing and business development as they saw little value in it. We have to earn their trust, time and attention. We need to tailor our approach depending on their thoughts, feelings, personalities, styles and clients. We need to develop empathy to understand their world – the pressures they face in serving client needs. An introduction to emotional intelligence (EQ) and empathy (Video)

We need to guard against making assumptions about what fee-earners know, believe or want. So we must engage them in conversations to explore what they know and what they want to achieve. This is hard when fee-earners are so pressed for time. We talked about the value of face-to-face interaction. We must show interest in their clients and services. And ask them questions so we improve our understanding of what they are trying to achieve. This way we can develop our confidence to share our thoughts and offer our ideas. Questions on confidence at work and Confidence – How to get a word in when people keep talking.

When we engage fee-earners in conversations we have an opportunity to share information. We can reassure them about their concerns and demonstrate good MBD practice. And then we develop ideas and work collaboratively to build plans together. So they are bought into the MBD planning process from the outset.

And we have to maintain their interest and engagement throughout campaigns – so that the communication effort is sustained throughout the client buying cycle. Some fee-earners may need help in knowing how to engage with clients when they meet at networking events and how to follow up effectively. Simple plans and timelines will help them break down their MBD activity into manageable bite-sized pieces.

There’s lots of material on achieving stakeholder engagement and buy-in:

Achieve more engagement and buy-in March 2024

Campaigns, thought leadership and project management June 2023

Influence and persuasion skills with Aristotle and Knights and Dinosaurs May 2023

The Proactive M&BD Executive – Culture shock, marketing models April 2023

Seven thoughts on stakeholder management, engagement and buy-In April 2021

Animal magic of buy-in and stakeholder engagement (Video) September 2020

all about buy-in in professional services (Manchester and Dublin 2019) March 2019

And if some fee-earners remain resistant to new ideas: fixed views and closed to new ideas (dealing with stubbornness)

Educate fee-earners

Many of us have to encourage busy fee-earners to change their thinking and behaviour – whether it’s to maintain client data in the CRM, adopt a more strategic approach to business development or share relevant content with clients. And for this we need to educate fee-earners.

Many firms invest in marketing and business development training for fee-earners. Find out what is available and encourage fee-earners to participate. And keep handy the guides, toolkits and checklists that are provided in those sessions.

We need to provide evidence of the most successful MBD activities such as:

Market data to show the different segments and groups of potential clients
Client listening data to show what clients want
Satisfaction ratings from clients on the information, events and service delivery they appreciate
Analytics to demonstrate what attracts interest on the web site and through which channels
Share information about how competitors are approaching the same markets
Successful case studies of what has worked for other fee-earners
The value of tracking data to show how clients prefer to seek and absorb information
Alternative ways and tools to achieve awareness or lead generation goals
Research evidence on the most successful business development strategies (e.g see Rainmaking best practice in professional services firms (Selling))

We looked at lots of MBD case studies that can be used as part of the education process:

Marketing and BD case studies in legal, accountancy, consultancy April 2024

Case studies: Marketing and Business Development at law November 2023

Professional services marketing/BD case studies August 2023

Being more strategic – Case studies and insights (Ireland May 2023) June 2023

We also talked about the role of business development coaching to help with education Business Development Coaching Insights – Kim Tasso

Delegates’ views

Most memorable image:

Georgie’s AI masterpiece (fee-earners and MBD dancing – see above)
B2B buying journey illustration
Diagram of future of AI and marketing
Kim’s word map gave me a good model to define how I wanted to be perceived and what skills I want to develop

Key ideas:

Data is becoming increasingly important
Adapt to generational differences amongst fee-earners with regards to business development
Manage fee-earner expectations
Marketing and BD have parallel roles
Learning how to become more of an ‘adviser’ to fee earners
Ideas on the future development of BD
Consider closer relationships with clients
The various career discussions
Experiences of stakeholder management in different sectors
Reflect about contingency planning strategically
Think about succession – five years before fee-earner retires
Be visible in the firm
Enjoyed hearing the different groups’ thoughts about different areas of marketing – really insightful
Loved hearing about everyone’s career journeys and aspirations- some very inspirational stories
AI data cleaning tool for CRM Marketing technology system review – Clean contact data with Cirrom
Look to find what I most enjoy to steer progress in my career
Hearing others’ experiences – we all experience similar things

Planned action:

Outline clear objectives of any project as well as timeline
Build my confidence and put forward more ideas to my team and to fee earners
Look at our crisis management plan
Build a BD and sales plan to share with fee earners on how to network more effectively
Research sales knowledge further
Prioritise short term tasks and long term projects
Research target clients
Do the colour personality assessment Discover Yourself Four Color Mini Assessment
Read the strategic tendering book strategic tendering
Study the BD coaching case studies
Developing more comprehensive marketing plans for all service lines closely connecting it to revenue targets
Ask for more time with my fee-earners to better inform my plans
Use materials provided here (especially professional services marketing handbook Book review: Professional Services Marketing Handbook)
Learn about theories I can apply to my career development
Look into free mentoring with PM forum Mentor Match – PM Forum
Connect with peers in this group
Give myself a reliable bank of materials to share ideas and guide my planning in future
Create a BD toolkit to support fee-earners when they follow up campaigns
Find time to prioritise strategy and research

As well as many “Thank you” messages, delegates signed off with other thoughts:

This was really helpful.
Very insightful!
Very informative
It was great

I was delighted to see this post on LinkedIn from delegate Finn Tait of Burges Salmon which summarised the session:

“I am pleased to share that I attended a course with the excellent Kim Tasso around the shift to being a proactive Marketing Executive. This comprehensive session has provided valuable insights into several critical areas, including:

– Strategic Marketing: Understanding the integration of marketing, selling, and relationship management, along with the client journey and marketing audits.
– Tactical Marketing Techniques: Enhancing knowledge on digital PR, content management, campaign development, and MarTech in professional services.
– Managing Marketing Programs: Effective crisis management, developing briefs, managing suppliers, and balancing priorities.
– Internal Client Relationships: Building trust and positive communication with fee-earners, dealing with difficult people, and influencing buy-in.
– Client Engagement: From marketing to business development, including pitching, tendering, and understanding sales processes.
– Career Development: Exploring marketing qualifications, team structures, and career paths.

This course has been an excellent opportunity to deepen my understanding and enhance my skills in marketing, planning and execution. This also supported my goal of expanding my BD toolkit and building confidence in my role. Having not come from a marketing background, this was a great session that broke down marketing theory in a digestible format and created a great platform for discussion with individuals from a variety of backgrounds. An empowering session”.

Delegate poll results

Delegates appreciate seeing their poll responses so they can compare and benchmark themselves against their peers.

How confident do you feel in your role?

Confidence (10=high)	Start of session	End of session
1
2
3	12%
4
5		6%
6	12%
7	41%	24%
8	29%	41%
9	6%	24%
10		6%

Do you have any marketing qualifications?

53% Yes
47% No

Is your role mainly:

12% Strategic marketing
24% Tactical marketing/communications
6% Information management/analyst/administration
18% Selling/pitching
24% Relationship management/development
18% Something else

Delegate comments included:

I do a good mix of both, but lately it has been lots of BD, especially getting directly involved with networking
My role is quite evenly split between all of those options
Differs based on the campaign we have running
direct marketing and events
It depends on the need and the stage of the need
My role is very varied as well, help out on creds docs/research/events/internal comms
When discussing how much time they spent being proactive: most answered 10%-20% and a few 30%. Key reasons why they were so reactive included: busy workload, lack of information, lack of foresight on challenges, last minute requests, culture (lack of planning, lack of ownership, lack of flexibility), capacity and self-doubt

There were also questions about salary guides:

Ambition Salary Guides · Ambition

Marketing salary survey 2023 – PM Forum

Which segmentation approaches are used in your firm (multiple choice)

94% Market/industry sector
63% Size of business
56% Amount of revenue generated
50% Job function
69% Geography/region
63% Nature of relationships

Do you have marketing/BD plans for (multiple choice)

82% The firm
88% The markets we serve
82% The products/services we promote
47% Each territory/region
24% Individual fee-earners

How well does your firm track/monitor the source of leads?

6% Really well across the firm
31% Good in some teams
38% OK
25% Not very well

A delegate asked if anyone in the group used PitchPerfect or other pitch building software? Is it useful/would you recommend? Answers included:

We’ve had PitchPerfect but stopped using it, and use BH and have done for a while and seems to work well
I use Bighand PitchPoint – it has its own challenges in the build phases but has really streamlined our process
We have recently revised our pitch follow-up/success tracking which has positively led to new insights and status updates from partners

pitch insights – M&BD adding value, pitch processes, knowledge base

The growth of MarTech in professional services – an overview

Pitch development system (Iphelion)

Marketing Technology – To automate or not to automate legal pitches? (Enable’s PitchPerfect system)

When asked about preferred systems and tools