The October BD Round-up

The October BD Round-Up contains a wide variety of amazing content from a host of authors and global experts. It’s a magic combination of seven articles covering different topics and advice.

This month we cover off how to overcome your fears of promoting yourself, what the future of Net Promoter Scores is, how to have better client conversations, as well as a look at how to maximise your digital paid advertising efforts.

There’s also a look at how to use data effectively and also a survey showing trends in legal pricing over the last 18 months.

Lots to read and absorb as always, welcome to the October BD Round-up

The October BD Round-up articles

Are You Self-Promotion Avoidant? by Cate Gregory, Consultant – Trusted Advisor Associates

This is brilliant. It is one of the chief reasons why many in professional services struggle with really unlocking the power of their personal brands. Yet we all enjoy reading and seeing others sharing their stories. Cate provides some really spot-on tips on how to overcome your fears. I particularly like “Focus primarily on what sharing your accomplishments provides others”. If you struggle with promoting yourself and your team, I’d recommend that you read this.

Net Promoter 3.0 by Fred Reichheld,  Darci Darnell, and Maureen Burns

Net Promoter Scores (NPS) have been widely used by many firms for a number of years, and as the authors point out, when used correctly they provide a great insight into how well a firm’s customer service and experience is being delivered. Over time this metric has been less effective as it has been ‘gamed’ by some and confusion around it has grown. The team at HBR have created a new metric explained in this article, linking in financial metrics.

The secret of highly-effective sales conversations by Amy Franko

It is vital to make the most of every client conversation and relationship building opportunity. This excellent article by Amy Franko provides a highly effective pre-conversation, in the moment (the conversation), and follow-up plan, which is well worth reading and adopting.

Paid Advertising in Professional Services: Which Platform is Worthwhile? by Ashley Bailey, Hinge

Many firms rely on organic results and do not invest in as much paid advertising as perhaps they should. A lot of this is perhaps due to a confusion over the myriad of options that are available. It can be a minefield knowing where to start. Thankfully, Ashley Bailey has explained all the options, what they mean and how to use them, succinctly and expertly in this fantastic article.

2021 Pricing Insights from 800 Law Firm Leaders by Big Hand

 The results of Big Hand’s “latest industry survey, with over 800 responses gathered from senior legal finance roles, Managing Partners and LPM from firms of 100+ lawyers in the UK and North America.”.

From a firm perspective, it is fascinating to see that 94% of firms experienced a delay in settling bills, and 54% have seen write-offs escalate. From a client-focused perspective, “46% of firms have provided greater visibility of the pricing breakdown at the start of the matter over the past 18 months.”

There’s a lot of insights in this study, and also trends that are well worth being aware of especially for those in the legal industry.I suspect these trends will also be similar in other professional services firms.

The Problem At The Heart Of Personalization by Adrian Swinscoe

For both customers and advertisers there is a real desire for more personalisation and targeting within advertising. To achieve this, as Adrian notes, it will require marketers to “not only collect more data. But also to seek out better data.”. 

Data Matters for Legal Market Growth by Heather Suttie

Heather is absolutely correct with her assessment, more and more, all professional services firms will need to understand their customers and the data they have better if they are to gain a competitive advantage. For many this will mean actually capturing and holding that data in a way that can be accessed. It is important to do this as Heather is bang-on when she says “using data as the foundation for direction and decisions is a sure-fire accelerant for value creation and market growth.”.

The October BD-Round up Conclusion

What a great month of content October proved to be. The above will really help you get the most out of the last quarter of the year. Next month Elizabeth Petersen is back selecting her favourite articles from November. I hope you enjoyed the October BD Round-up. I’ll be back to complete the 2021 round-ups.