Jon Whittle

This Precedent Business development and marketing budget for law firms can be used to produce a business development and marketing cash budget and a time budget. The marketing team will take a lead role in developing the business development and marketing budgets for the firm overall and also for various teams (whether sectors, departments or offices) and for monitoring expenditure. There will be both one-off projects as well as on-going expenditure in this budget.

This Precedent Business development and marketing manager—role profile sets out a comprehensive role profile for a business development and marketing manager in a law firm. It covers role scope, responsibilities, reporting lines and governance. It also explains how the role supports business development strategy, planning and delivery.

This Precedent Business development and marketing plan is intended for law firms. It will support a law firm’s business plan and overall strategy—it may need to address business development activities at a firm-wide level, eg what infrastructure is in place with regards to client databases and marketing resources, but may also need to include plans for each region, office, sector or legal department.

This Precedent Business development strategy will help you to capture key information which will inform your firm’s strategy. When crafting a business development strategy many law firms make the mistake of focusing on entirely internal issues and the desires of the partners. It is important to undertake analysis and look outside your firm to the external environment and the market. To craft a strategy, you need to make some strategic decisions about what you are intending to do overall. This Precedent can be used to capture your thoughts to enable you to make these decisions.

This Precedent Business development—external market analysis indicates the types of information you should consider collecting when undertaking detailed external market analysis. Before developing a business development and marketing plan, you should conduct a marketing audit to gather all relevant information about your own firm and the external market. There is a separate Precedent for conducting an internal analysis of your firm’s position.

This Precedent Business development—internal analysis outlines the types of information you should consider collecting when undertaking a detailed analysis of your own firm. Before developing a business development and marketing plan you should conduct an audit to gather all the relevant information about both your own firm and the external market. There is a separate Precedent for external market analysis.

Business planning and strategy are often a consideration when starting a new business. However, you should think of business planning as an evolving process which should be reviewed regularly in order to measure progress and encourage others to invest time and effort in the business. This Precedent can be used to record your review.

This Precedent Competitive landscape exercise is intended for use at a law firm strategy away day. It will encourage delegates to think about a variety of factors that impact on the competitive environment in which the firm operates so you can identify challenges and opportunities.

This Precedent should be completed at the end of your strategy away day to record what you have agreed to be the firm’s key strategic aims. The headings are suggestions only but cover most critical areas of the business. Once the document is agreed it can be dated and the word ‘Draft’ removed. There is also a sample version to give you some ideas of what the final document might look like.

When meeting with a prospect it is important to have some knowledge about the person and the business they represent. This plan can be used to help a lawyer prepare for a business development (BD) meeting.

This Precedent can be used at the start of a strategy away day. It is intended to encourage delegates to think more creatively right from the start of your strategy away day. Without such an exercise, delegates tend to focus on obvious and immediate issues.

This Precedent Pipeline management spreadsheet can be used to record key information and data about any potential new clients in the pipeline. Capturing all of this data in one place will help to make your pipeline management process more efficient and provide you with assurance that you are on top of managing your new client pipeline.

This Precedent Pitch team kick-off—meeting agenda can be used by a law firm to help structure a pitch team kick-off meeting to set out what needs to be done, who will do it and by when.

This Precedent Preparing for a tender presentation—meeting agenda can be used to help prepare for a tender presentation and provides an outline agenda to structure your pitch team’s preparation meeting.

This Precedent is an example of a final strategic aims document for a law firm. It is intended to be a a maximum of two pages long and will be implemented by and dovetail with a separate business plan. A blank version of this Precedent is also available.

Lawyers can become more confident business developers if they understand how the sales process works and are empowered to try different approaches. This Precedent sets out some top tips for selling and can be given to your lawyers to help develop sales skills and build confidence.

These Sending the right signals—guidelines are intended for law firms. They will help to ensure an effective presentation can be given to members of the tender team to ensure everyone is clear about what they should, and should not do, to ensure an effective presentation is delivered.

This Precedent encourages you to structure the way in which you implement your strategic aims. It requires you to set specific objectives and actions, assess resources and feasibility, appoint someone to take responsibility for each area and impose deadlines to ensure you move forward. The other key way of implementing your strategic aims is via a more detailed business plan.

This Precedent business plan is designed for commercial firms to set out how they might achieve their business objectives.

This Precedent business plan is designed for consumer—facing business, like law firms, to set out how they might achieve their business objectives.