Client relations and business development drive a law firm’s growth and long-term success. Building strong relationships with clients fosters trust, leading to client retention and referrals, which are critical in a competitive market. Effective client relations requires understanding clients’ evolving needs and offering proactive legal solutions.
On the business development side, these skills enable lawyers to identify new opportunities, attract potential clients and expand their practice areas.
By combining reputation with business acumen, law firms can ensure sustainable growth, enhance their reputation, and maintain a steady pipeline of work.
Our Range of Client Relations and Business Development Courses
All clients have advisors, those that they use regularly and those that they use on an ad hoc basis, but how do you move from being ‘just another advisor’ to a ‘Trusted Advisor’, someone who sits at the client’s table when the strategic decisions are being made? This training course will help you to identify whether you are already a ‘Trusted Advisor’ to your clients and if not, how you can become one. It will look at the benefits to you and your law firm for developing these relationships and the obstacles that may stand in the way.
Objectives:
- Recognise the role and practices of a ‘Trusted Advisor’ and identify whether you may be one
- Learn the benefits that being a ‘Trusted Advisor’ can bring to yourself and to your law firm
- Identify the obstacles to gaining trusted advisory status and how to alleviate them
- Create a path to becoming a ‘Trusted Advisor’
“A really engaging presenter speaking on a really interesting subject. Very good course.”
This training course will assist you to build positive working relationships with your clients. As competition is fierce, clients expect their lawyers to be motivated and give them 100% commitment. This is not always easy but can be achieved if a good positive working relationship is established. It is far easier to retain an existing client than win a new client and so having a positive relationship with your clients will result in retention, referrals and years of loyalty. This training course will help you build strong relationships with your clients by recognising some of the, sometimes difficult, personalities you encounter and learning to overcome the barriers that creates. You will learn how assertiveness impacts on client relationships and discover why trust is a crucial element and a foundation to any meaningful relationship.
Objectives:
- Identify how barriers to building relationships can be overcome by recognising attitudes and behaviours in yourself and others
- Understand the importance of trust in a relationship / identify methods of developing trust
- Recognise the difference between assertive, aggressive and passive behaviours and how these impact on client relationships
“Provided techniques that I will implement in my day to day work.”
Client excellence is crucial in any client-facing role. As a lawyer, client excellence means building and maintaining rapport with your clients, listening to their needs, empathising with their situation, and supporting them as well as you can. It is easy to underestimate the value of client service when you have a mounting to-do list and limited time. But by creating a valuable relationship you will generate and retain more clients, reflecting in your success as a lawyer. This course will explore the importance of client excellence as a lawyer, and techniques to implement to provide exceptional client interactions.
Objectives:
- Clearly identify the do’s and don’ts of client service and measure yourself against them
- Recognise the importance of being client-focused in ensuring your success
as a lawyer - Learn how to build your client brand, fill gaps in service and develop methods of creating a great client experience
- Understand clear techniques to help manage difficult client issues effectively
“Re focused my mind on BD and marketing and how to move forward with a plan.”
It’s easy to rush incoming calls in favour of an alternative task. However, each telephone discussion could be a potential client. We have all felt ‘too busy’ at some point or another, but it is important to realise that usually the phone call is where the client relationship begins, or ends.
It is crucial to understand how to maximise every enquiry, not only to convert the call to a client, but to promote a positive impression of both the firm and yourself.
This training course will equip you with the ability to convert calls into clients, building rapport from the very first conversation.
Objectives:
- Identify the opportunities of incoming enquiries
- Evaluate your current process of handling incoming enquiries
- Articulate typical user profiles
- Create a user journey for handling incoming enquiries
- Understand the key performance indicators of call handling
“This validated the issues I have struggled with, constructive actions on how to improve.”
One challenge that is faced by us all at work is managing the expectations of our client, both internal and external. Taking time to talk to them from the outset, explaining to them what the priorities are, while considering what they think the priorities should be, and identifying a communication time frame and method that is acceptable to both of you allows you to work more effectively and provide a better service.
This training course will provide you with the tools and techniques required to effectively work with your clients. It will help you to adapt your own approach to work in such a way that you can develop a positive relationship with your client which, in turn, will improve your personal skills and make you a more effective fee earner.
Objectives:
Learn what ‘managing expectations’ is, and what it isn’t
Learn how to identify the key challenges to managing expectations
Learn how to understand the needs and expectations of your clients
Understand how to exceed expectations to achieve ‘Trusted Advisor’ status
“It was helpful to understand the science behind when you should be productive.”
This networking skills training course will help your participants build a professional reputation and develop a network of connections through the two key methods available to them; face-to-face and online.
They will discover how to effectively combine these two approaches and create a strategy for networking success that will generate their own community and actively grow their personal network. This will result in an improved performance in their approach to networking and consequently provide opportunities and prospects that will increase their business success.
The training provides them with the tools and techniques to both plan a successful, strategic approach to networking and develop their personal communication skills, which will ensure they build effective business relationships.
Objectives:
- Understand how to develop a successful networking strategy
- Learn to maximise your effectiveness with face-to-face/online networking opportunities
- Learn to improve your approach, attitude and behaviours when networking
- Learn how to create a plan for networking that will help you meet your goals
“Excellent ‘toolkit’ provided and covering range of aspects in respect of networking.”
This training course will provide you with the skills necessary to develop a successful sales approach and assist you in enhancing your overall performance when pitching.
Objectives:
- Understand what makes the best lawyers good at sales
- Learn how to set personal goals and follow them through to sales success
- Learn some useful and practical sales skills to increase your selling potential
- Practice your newly learned skills
“Gave more confidence in the subject.”
Ensuring your client feels listened to is key in your role as a lawyer. Whether it is a house purchase, drafting a will, getting a divorce, or a debt matter, these situations are often stressful for the client. As a result, they often require a considerable amount of emotional support from their lawyer. This in turn, can have an impact on your own wellbeing and stress levels.
This course is designed to look at both sides of the coin. How to compassionately support your client, without them becoming too needy, while managing your own stress levels. This can be a difficult balance to strike.
Objectives:
- Effective strategies to reduce stress for both you and the client
- How to remain resilient when emotions ‘spill over’
- How emotions affect the decision-making process
- What is Emotional Intelligence?
- Why Emotional Intelligence can really make the difference
- How to care and manage expectations
- Discuss signposting strategies
“Some good concepts to discuss and relating to the business in practice.”
