Shortly after arriving at a new sales job at an AmLaw 100 firm known for white collar litigation and an emerging-technology practice, an acquaintance was swamped with requests for help. A Boston litigator had a lead on a standalone product liability case in Eastern Kentucky involving a television that had exploded and caused a house fire. A lawyer in Atlanta was chasing a merger involving two viatical companies. A Tampa partner wanted to pitch the real estate development work of an Ohio-based grocery chain that competed directly with a grocery chain client of a DC partner.
It was great that the partners wanted new business, my acquaintance thought, but in pursuing it this way, they were revealing a profound lack of targeting discipline. More accurately, they were simply responding to unexpected inbound opportunities. Meanwhile, finite business development resources were about to be expended on efforts not likely to succeed and, in some cases, not advisable to pursue in the first place.
The firm eventually crafted a coherent firmwide strategy, which provided much-needed clarity. It enabled the creation of a comprehensive target list that made sense and, importantly, gave client developers the leadership-backed standing to turn down assignments that did not meet criteria established in advance. The new strategy did not completely quiet the cacophony, but it was a great leap forward.
Recently, there has been a resurgence of discussions in marketing and business development circles about targeting discipline. In following these discussions, it occurred to me that most law firms have long had a process in place that could help: Client Intake.
Before a firm agrees to represent an individual or company, it checks ethical and business conflicts, asks whether the work fits the firm’s practice areas, evaluates whether the matter is economically viable, considers the client’s reputation and its effect on the firm’s own reputation, and requires a responsible partner to sign off. All of this happens before the firm commits significant time and money to finalizing the engagement letter and beginning work.
The interesting thing is that firms impose this rigor at the point of client acceptance, where risk is obvious, but often apply almost no comparable discipline at the point where business development resources are first deployed. Yet the same concerns are present: conflicts, economics, strategic fit, reputational impact, and opportunity cost.
So here is the modest proposal: Not only when deciding which companies to accept as clients, but also — and maybe especially — when deciding which companies and individuals to pursue, firm leaders should adapt the language and logic of the Client Intake process and apply it to targeting.
In essence, a firm would declare, mirroring its own Client Intake criteria, that it will not sanction the expenditure of client development time and resources on the pursuit of individuals or companies with possible conflicts; whose work does not fit the firm’s practice areas; that would not be economically viable; that would not advance the firm’s reputation; or that have not received sign-off from a responsible partner.
Of course, there are other criteria that might be added to both Client Intake and our proposed Target Intake policies. Drawing from its own strategy, which theoretically specifies — at least tangentially — the client base of the future, a firm might include factors such as a potential client’s industry, size, geography, growth trajectory, and understanding of large-firm economics (i.e. won’t complain too much about the size of bills).
Installing a Target Intake discipline would make client development investment more efficient and productive, reduce the waste associated with poorly aligned pursuits, and help ensure that the firm’s client base is the result not of happenstance, but of strategic execution. As a welcome side effect, it might also make the Client Intake Committee’s downstream work considerably easier.
Until firms apply something approaching the same discipline to target selection that they already apply to client acceptance, a meaningful portion of business development investment will remain inefficient almost as if by design.
A few closing questions: Can targeting discipline truly be accepted in an industry owned and governed by peers? What are firms doing to address the bad-target problem? And is the Client Intake process already — or could it become — part of the orientation and training for client development professionals? What’s your take?
Steve Bell is a principal in the Sales, Business Development & Growth Practice of LawVision. He helps law firms generate strategic target lists and develop disciplined sales processes. Call him to chat about how targeting excellence can benefit your firm. He can be reached at sbell@lawvision.com or 202.421.5988.
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