Sales training: Is it worth your while? Part 4 of 4

Two examples of institutional change

The ALM/ Brand Research 2006 “Law Firm Business Development Practices Survey” went far beyond sales training to ask questions about business development strategies, resources, staffing, client feedback, and growth targets. They reported that 66% of the participating firms had added business development staff last year.

Anne Malloy Tucker, Chief Marketing Officer at Goodwin Procter, put it this way: “If you are training people who have acted a certain way for their whole life, it’s unrealistic to hire a consultant to come in once a year and expect massive institutional change.” That’s why Goodwin Procter hired an in-house Manager of Business Development in 2004. Allison Nussbaum is a lawyer with extensive experience in sales. Her role includes coaching lawyers, linking the sales training provided by outside consultants with the strategic business plans of practice areas and the firm, and more.

Says Tucker: “At the core of what we are asking attorneys to do in sales training is to move from a rational, data driven approach to business development to a more emotionally-based process (relationship building, establishing trust, communicating value, listening, the importance of chemistry...) In many cases, this takes people out of their immediate comfort zone.” One implication is that “Firms that look for a quick and easy fix will be disappointed.”

Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, a firm founded in Winston-Salem North Carolina in 1876, has taken a more radical approach to institutional change, under the leadership of Mark Whitley, the Director of Strategic Development and Marketing. In 2001, Womble became one of the first law firms to publicly use word sales when it hired Steve Bell as Director of Sales. Bell came to the firm with over 15 years of experience selling professional services at Price Waterhouse and as a partner at Grant Thornton. The approach has worked so well that Womble has since expanded the inside sales staff to six people, each of whom has 10 to 25 years of prior experience selling to large clients.

Sales staff initiate client meetings and participate in them. They also offer lawyers sales training in classes, individual coaching, and on-the-job training in meetings with clients and prospective clients.

“Sales training does not transfer easily to the real world,” says Bell. “In training a lawyer learns that in a sales meeting he or she is supposed to listen 80% of the time and talk only 20%. But often when lawyers go on real sales calls, they revert to talking about themselves the whole time. At Womble, we offer regular sales training, but we also make sure that our sales professionals are at the point of sale with the lawyers, so they can help bridge the gap between training and reality.”

However, he emphasized that “Sales training is a tiny commitment of time and resources when compared with the real work that follows. Many law firms lack the infrastructure to follow up” including staff, secretarial and IT support, research budgets, travel and entertainment, office budgets and more. Womble Carlyle has made that commitment, including “top management's clear instructions to marketing that they are the sales support organization.”

The future

What does all this imply for the future?

Does Womble Carlyle’s success imply that every large law firm will soon be hiring an outside sales staff? Of course not. One size does not fit all. As Catherine MacDonagh notes, the details of successful programs will vary because success is “completely driven by the culture of the firm.”

Sales training for lawyers is here to stay. It may not be called sales training, but it will include coaching and follow-up. As the programs mature, the approach to sales training is likely to develop as it has in other industries, where in-house staff play an increasingly larger role. Outside consultants will provide expertise for critical initiatives, and develop course materials which are customized for each firm.

Whatever the training is called, at least for the short term the emphasis will be on what Dave Milberg at Schiff Hardin calls “The holy grail for lawyers… to become a trusted advisor.”

And as law firms become increasingly sophisticated about client service, the bar of client expectations and demands will go up. Law firms that are slow to adapt are taking a significant risk. When one law firm succeeds in training its lawyers to get new business, it usually takes the work away from a second firm. In this environment, firms may find it difficult to recover. “Once you lose the trusted advisor role,” Barrett says, “you are on the outside, and it could take five years to get back in.”

As Catherine MacDonagh summed it up: “This is do or die, folks…It is an absolute business imperative for law firms to take a serious look at sales and service. The ones who do will uncover incredible opportunities. The ones who don’t may not survive.”

This four part series is an expanded version of an article that I wrote for the most recent issue of Law Firm Inc (Nov/Dec 2006, p. 30). To see the abridged version that appeared in print, go to the free resources section of our web page.

Comments

[Peter - Sales Trainer]

Jim, I have only just come across your well written and well researched site. A credit to you.

It is really interesting to read your old coments on sales training for the legal profession. The legal profession is considered a good role model by many sales people because of their ability to ask professional insightful questions and to actually listen to all the nuances of the answer.

You are right - one day a year will never achieve a huge amount as most of what is learned will never be put into practice. If you cant work on an emotional level then you won't cut it in sales.