CRMs and tracking sales activity – the view from the trenches

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was organizing a new quarterly Boston Roundtable on Legal Business Development for senior biz dev people from the largest firms in Boston.  We limited this “invitation only” group to seven firms to maximize discussion, and simply invited firms in order of size, based on the number of Boston lawyers. 

Well, we had our first meeting on February 6, and I was amazed at how candid people were.  The roundtable was attended by senior business development people from seven firms with a total of 4,800 lawyers:   Choate, Goodwin Procter, Goulston, Holland & Knight, K&L Gates, Nixon Peabody, and Nutter, McClennen & Fish.

The topic was “How To Track Business Development Opportunities, Activities, and Results:  What Works and What Doesn’t.”  We started by discussing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, since most of these firms had adopted either Interaction (used by 52% of law firms with CRMs in a survey printed in the January 2008 issue of Law Practice) or another of the leading packages.  Regardless of which system they used, their success was underwhelming.  One participant said she thought her firm was using “about 5%” of the functions in the software.  Another said its most valuable benefit to date was in “getting out the holiday cards.”

The problems started with resistance to the CRM.  Sometimes it came from powerful secretaries who “hate everything.”  Other times lawyers resisted, for as many different reasons as there are lawyers.  My favorite was the lawyer who was upset that the CRM required him to use two letter abbreviations of state names, such as MA.  He insisted that the correct approach was to write out the full state names, such as Massachusetts.  When reminded that the Post Office insists on two letter abbreviations, he said, “I don’t care what the Post Office wants.”  In the end, the simplest approach with this particular lawyer was to disconnect him from the CRM, so that he could continue to maintain his address book in the form that he wanted.

Most firms appointed “data stewards” who spent many hours cleaning up data, to reconcile differences between lawyers and assure that each client appeared in the system only once, regardless of how many different ways her name was spelled.  Several marketing departments reported that the best way to get accurate data into the system was to do it themselves – they had developed a variety of systems for marketing staff to collect data from lawyers and also took responsibility for data entry.

On the positive side, once it works, lawyers love the CRM because:

1. It is an easy way to quickly get valuable information about a current client or a potential client, especially about who knows who.  The larger the firm, the harder it is to keep track of relationships, and the more valuable a working system is.
2. It helped lawyers to look smart at “pitch meetings.” Nothing is more embarrassing for a lawyer than to try to pitch a client, only to learn that other lawyers from the firm were there last week or last month, going after the same work.

That led to a brief side discussion of what a terrible term “pitch meeting” is.  It encourages the idea that when lawyers meet with prospective clients, their task is to pitch, to hurl, to throw out information.  In fact, any successful sales person will tell you that instead of pitching, you should be catching: listening to what clients have to say at least 50 to 80% of the time.  One firm has managed to banish the term and replace it with “prospective client meetings,” but most of the legal world continues to call them pitch meetings, and continues to talk too much and listen too little.

Some firms are making progress in making pitch meetings more efficient and more likely to lead to new business.  One has created a library of “pitch letters” on its intranet, including background on how each letter was used, and how well it worked.  When a lawyer wants a letter to approach an emerging company, or to go after a particular kind of tax issue, or to contact a hedge fund, she can start by going to the firm’s confidential intranet and customizing letters that have already been written and tested.

Several people agreed that one of the most successful tactics for encouraging biz dev activity is to stimulate friendly competition between practice groups, offices, and/or individuals.  One firm issues a monthly “STAR” report – the Sales Tracking Activity Report – summarizing statistics such as the number of needs analysis meetings, the number of face to face contacts, and the number of RFPs considered and responded to. 

Others invited lawyers to write up their sales activity in any way they liked, and simply included these accounts in their reports.  One firm includes summaries of new matters on the intranet home page so that whenever a lawyer starts up his computer, he sees a headline about someone else’s new business success.  These stories also sometimes enhance coordination, when a lawyer sees a story about Company X, and thinks:  I work with Company X.  Why wasn’t I mentioned?

Participants agreed that graphs and visual representations are especially important.  A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.  So if a potential client has been targeted for more face to face meetings, nothing shows progress, or lack of progress, more clearly than a month by month chart of the number of meetings.

Lawyers are competitive by nature, and anything that channels that competitiveness into business development is likely to ultimately lead to more revenue for the firm.