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Best of Law Marketing- April 24th, 2006 |
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Join today by visiting http://www.lawmarketing.biz/SignUp.asp | From: Cecilia Alers
Subject: Marketing Tax Practice
Can anyone share with me, on line or off, ideas and strategies for marketing tax law practices?
Cecilia Alers
Cecilia Alers Consulting
Melville, NY
516.680.0219
cecilia@alersconsulting.com
From: Vickie J. Gray
Subject: Marketing Tax Practice Redux
Prior to joining my current firm I was marketing director for a high end ($700+/hour/sr. partner) tax boutique in Washington DC. The firm was very young and had numerous large clients that had been with the senior partners for decades before they founded the firm. New business development and cross-selling was not a big priority (getting qualified people to do the work was the greatest challenge). However, I can offer a few observations based on my experience at that firm (and a few other firms with tax practices).
There has been a lot written recently about lawyer personalities, and how the qualities that make a good lawyer are often the opposite of what is needed to make a successful rainmaker. Multiply those qualities about five times, throw in knowledge of the current US Tax Code, and you have a pretty accurate picture of a corporate tax attorney. These guys (and there are very few women in this area) are really really really smart, great abstract thinkers who can create sophisticated solutions to complex tax problems. However, most of them are true tax nerds, as they freely admit. Marketing is so far out of their comfort zone they can't comprehend it, much less attempt it.
My point is that if you want to help these lawyers develop business you have to be prepared to take opportunities to them. Have as much detail as you can about a proposed initiative. Research, research, research. Spoon feed them your ideas a little bit at a time. Leave the big picture behind and focus on the steps involved to accomplish what you are proposing. Follow up faithfully. Keep your expectations small - baby steps. What may seem like a frustrating cop-out to you may be a huge step for a tax lawyer who has never done any marketing in the past. The good news is that once you do get buy in from a tax lawyer on a project they are usually very good at keeping deadlines and staying on track. Most of them ("them"?) are well organized and appreciate an organized approach.
 Specifics for practice development -- decision makers at Fortune 1000 corporations are usually tax directors or financial officers. The best place to find these folks is through TEI (Tax Executives' Institute). Though lawyers in private practice cannot join TEI they of course have conferences and meetings with numerous social and sponsorship opportunities that give you a chance to get in front of their members. Most of the tax directors have tax counsel from large prestigious firms, and have worked with them for years. There is not a lot of opportunity for newcomers so if you are targeting this group you are in for the long haul. Like other mature practice areas the best way to gain entry is through niche or specialty marketing. There are certain subspecialties like transfer pricing, and tax issues involved in large bankruptcies, where you can market a narrow area of expertise with some success.
If your firm has a practice with a more general mix (real estate clients, small tech firms, local businesses, wealthy individuals) probably the best you can do initially is to make the other lawyers aware of the firm's tax capabilities. Though aggressive cross-selling is often problematic, it's probably safe to assume that if a partner has a real estate developer, or entrepreneur, or wealthy executive going through a divorce he/she will call in the tax lawyers for any related tax problems. The best first step is to make sure your internal audiences are aware of these capabilities, and to make sure they know that your tax lawyers actually WANT more work (given the personality quirks noted above, the latter may be harder to discern than you might think). How about doing some sort of internal assessment to see what types of work are available with current clients? At least you'll know the landscape, and if you can identify one or two possible new tax matters you have something to shoot at. Good luck.
Vickie J. Gray
Director of Marketing
Jorden Burt LLP
Washington, D.C.
Tel: (202) 965-8121
E-mail: vjg@jordenusa.com
From: Larry Bodine
Subject: Re: Marketing Tax Practice
When I was in-house at Sidley, I was asked the same question. The problem was that the tax practice was a side service of the firm's major practices.
New business for a tax practice is going to come from referrals and cross selling. The partners in the practice need to develop a network of bankers, financial advisors, insurance agents and other lawyers who can refer tax legal work to them. This is accomplished by examining all your current tax clients and looking up all the other financial advisors the clients have. Then the lawyers must proactively seek them out and set up referral arrangements.
If your firm has other practices, you should concentrate on tax practices. From the accounting department, get the list of the firm's top 50 clients. Identify the ones for whom the firm does no tax work. The tax partner then must ask the responsible attorney for those clients for an introduction.
Best of luck,
Larry Bodine
Glen Ellyn, IL
Tel: 630.942.0977
Web: www.LarryBodine.com
Strategy | Coaching | Retreats
From: Jaffer Manek
Subject: Marketing Tax Practice
Tax partners are "techies". You will not be able to change their mind set. However, joining a proactive international network (can I plug Affilica International?) can be great way forward since members of such networks refer professional work to each other.
Jaffer Manek FCCA -
CEO & Originator Affilica International
+44 (0)20 8445 2223
JM@AFFILICA.com
www.AFFILICA.com
From: Hale T. Chan
Subject: Re: Marketing Tax Practice
And herein lies the challenge: "The tax partner then must ask the responsible attorney for those clients for an introduction."
Even when I give them a list of the appropriate internal partners that they should speak to for an introduction to their clients, they won't cross the hallway to do the asking ... so imagine when I ask them to cross the street to try to meet someone new.
We are having a meeting next week to discuss this business development issue (or lack of it) so I'm open to suggestions on how to make this happen.
Hale Chan
Marketing Communications Director
Willamette Management Associates
Chicago, IL 60631
(773) 399-4339
From: Larry Bodine
Subject: Re: Marketing Tax Practice
Hale,
Firm management must make it mandatory or create an incentive for the internal partners to introduce tax partners to their clients. The same onus/incentive must be placed on the tax partners.
Management must also require each lawyer to file a personal marketing plan, which must include cross-selling. If the lawyer fails to seek or offer an introduction, they should be held accountable in their compensation review. If they indeed seek or make an introduction, they should get a financial reward for it.
It's the only way to make cross selling count.
Larry Bodine
From: Mark Merenda MARK@SMARTMARKETINGNOW.COM
Subject: Re: Marketing Tax Practice
Hale, you said there are financial incentives....some firms pay an “origination” fee to the lawyer who initiates the business, whether or not that lawyer performs the work... Am I correct that you have tried something like this,
and found it doesnąt work?
Mark Merenda
Smart Marketing
Naples, Florida
(239) 403-7755
From: Hale T. Chan
Subject: Re: Marketing Tax Practice
Ross is right.
We have financial incentives is place but evidently that isn't
motivation enough.
But I have to disagree somewhat with Ross's comment, "Most lawyers would not even know what questions to ask to identify whether a tax opportunity exists and they're not going to risk looking stupid to their good clients by trying to sell a product they don't fully understand." Even when I give them a list of probing questions they are still uncomfortable with broaching this identification of other possible services that they might need from us with their clients.
From: Larry Bodine
Subject: Re: Marketing Tax Practice
The firm's culture and compensation must also hold lawyers ACCOUNTABLE for cross selling. First, lawyers need to write out personal marketing plans where they specify exactly what cross-selling activity they propose. Then the compensation committee must deny them a bonus or cut their income for failure to carry out the plan.
I actually found a Chicago law firm that does this and you can hear all about it in a short podcast at http://pm.typepad.com/professional_marketing_bl/2006/04/holding_lawyers.html entitled "Holding Lawyers Accountable for Marketing."
Larry Bodine |
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