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We spoke with Will Eke from Passle about the importance of content sharing the right way in professional services, what good content sharing looks like, and what we consider to be ‘thought leadership’. Will is an SVP on the commercial team at Passle and joined the company in 2018.  He is responsible for showcasing and successfully implementing the Passle tool into a number of top 200 law firms globally.  Prior to his current role, Will has held commercial roles in technology companies covering a wide range of sectors including automotive, FMCG, Technology and retail.  For those who don’t know, Passle is an expert-to-expert marketing platform. Passle makes it incredibly easy for busy experts to publish useful, client relevant insights that can be shared to multiple channels all within minutes.  Given Will’s experience talking to a wide variety of clients in the professional services sector, and having seen many good (and bad) examples of content sharing, we are excited to host this session with Will. Interview Covers Balancing authenticity and professionalismConvincing lawyers to share more authentic contentWhat content should we be sharing?Thoughts on ghost bloggingExamples of bad content sharingAward & Rankings announcementsPersuading junior lawyers to write contentWhat is thought leadership really? Roundtable Session Covers Role of BD in content draftingExamples of impactful contentUsing content management systemsRepurposing old contentTips to get partners to write and share more content

We spoke with Ben Paul, Founder of the BD Ladder, a BD & Marketing consultancy based in New Zealand.  Ben has a wealth of BD experience having worked in Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, Kensington Swan, and overseeing them combining with Dentons and rebranding to Dentons Kensington Swan. Ben started out his professional career back in London as a B2B sales executive, selling into the C-Suite. He began his career in professional services with Grant Thornton, as they were looking to hire BD Managers who could coach and advise their partners how to sell. Ben’s background in sales was different to their previous hires and helped change the way BD interacted with the partners as he could advise from a position of having made cold calls and closed deals. This led to him moving to NZ and a career which has seen him work with many law firms. Throughout his career he’s provided practical BD / Sales advice to many legal practitioners. The discussion covers: Lack of BD training for lawyersWhat not to talk about in client meetingsTip 1 – Get them talkingTip 2 – ListeningTip 3 – Confirm next stepsAdvice for BD teams preparing coaching/training sessions

We spoke with Andrew McGrath, Founder, Green Light Consulting, a Hong Kong-based recruitment company, about the ins and outs of establishing and maintaining key client programs for law firms Andrew is a qualified lawyer with 20+ years’ experience working in professional services marketing. The discussion covers: Why develop a key client program?Starting from scratchLetting clients know about the programUsing client fees on client development initiativesHow to keep up momentumAdvice for BD teams managing client programsFollowing through with feedback

We spoke with Amy Burton-Bradley, Consulting Director and Partner, Julian Midwinter & Associates about how we can better collect, manage, and select credentials for our proposals. With over 15 years of experience, Amy is an expert in tenders, proposals and pitches for professional services companies. Discussion Content: Structuring and maintaining a bids libraryTagging bids and credentialsUseful file naming conventionsParts of a bid libraryBD teams understanding flagship dealsQuestions to ask partners when starting a proposalWhat to include in a proposalWhat to leave out of a proposal

In this session we spoke with Stephen Revell and Philipp Thurner about why law firms should take referrals seriously, steps they can take to expand their existing referrals network, and how BD teams can help implement change. Stephen Revell worked for Freshfields for over 41 years and led its “StrongerTogether” law firm relationship program. We will hear about the lessons he has learned from his experience leading this initiative and talking to hundreds of law firms over the years. Stephen is also the founder of Making Change Happen, a law firm management consultancy focused on change and specializing in various areas including business development. Philipp Thurner is the CEO and Founder of NEXL, a lawyer-to-lawyer community helping to build stronger referral relationships. He has helped build a community of over 3,000 lawyers and we’ll learn his best tips for strengthening existing referral relationships and building new ones. Interview Covers Why firms need a referral system Taking on a deal counsel role Developing a list of preferred firms Best Friends vs. Good Friends relationships Outbound and inbound referrals Importance of tracking referrals How to reach out to firms you don't know Roundtable Session Covers Overcoming cultural changes Converting lawyer contact to firm contacts Getting lawyers to participate Tips for what information to track Handling old data Following up on lost referrals

We spoke with Katherine Mountford about building the ideal legal BD and marketing team, what skills are in demand, and how we can upskill our existing teams.  Katherine is Principal and Owner of KM Talent, a recruitment, career coaching, and personal development consultancy. Katherine was a professional services BD & Marketing manager before moving into recruitment 15 years ago. Discussion Topics How have law firms reacted to COVID?Support roles vs value-added rolesDifference between marketing and business developmentQuestions to ask intervieweesTrending competencies in the legal industryOutsourcing BD functionsChanges in job descriptions and requested skillsHow to handle the workloadSourcing candidates from other industries Connect with Katherin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine… Visit KM Talent at: https://kmtalent.com.au/

If part of your BD role is to manage legal directory submissions like Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners, you’ll want to listen to this interview with Danielle Vidigal, Director of Vidigal Marketing, a legal marketing boutique based in London. Danielle is a former Chambers and Partners researcher and we spoke with her to get a behind the scenes look at what researchers look at when evaluating a submission and what best practices we should adopt in our firms. Discussion Content: 0:00 Introductions0:48 Starting work at Chambers2:15 Why we should participate in submissions4:57 Paid profiles vs non-paid profiles7:00 What happens after we submit12:25 What to add in the practice group description15:25 Writing matter descriptions19:00 How to manage the submission process22:40 Getting in touch with Danielle23:26 Q&A session with BD Roundtable members Get in touch with Danielle at: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellev… Website: https://vidigalmarketing.com/

We spoke with Steve Tyndall to discuss how law firms use digital client data to support business development efforts and enhance client relationships. Steve has previously led the IT function for national law firms Lander & Rogers and McCullough Robertson in Australia. Ahead of founding Client Sense, Steve was the Managing Director of NextLegal, a legal technology consulting firm, providing legal technology strategy and advice to law firms. Steve has a strong IT background, but believes strongly that technology itself is of little value if it is not solving real problems or creating real opportunities. Discussion Content: IntroductionsReasons CRM systems fail in law firmsCan data really tell the whole story?The key metric to measure and focus onHow the BD teams can support lawyers to follow up with clientsFrequency of communicationAdvice for people analyzing client relationships Get in touch with Steve on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steventyn… Visit his company’s website at: https://clientsense.com/

We interviewed Mark Gustavsson, an Australian lawyer who recently put his very first paid webinar. The interview covers Mark’s motivations for doing a webinar, how he went about setting the price and collecting payment, and what he will do differently for his next webinar. You can get in touch with Mark on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markgusta…