BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MARKETING TEAMS

Marketing Team Development

2009-03-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

DBT runs a series of workshops and training events to ensure that your teams work effectively. These workshops are built on a bespoke basis for each client and can encompass the full spectrum of sales, marketing and new business development as well as specialist training in creativity & innovation, leadership skills, strategy and business development.
We also provide mentoring and coaching services for senior and developing marketing executives.

Marketing teams

2009-03-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

By Mark Beese, the Marketing Guy (yes, that is actually his title) for 350-lawyer Holland & Hart, based in Denver, CO, and 13 other offices. He is author of the Leadership for Lawyers blog, and is a widely-renowned marketing and business development expert. He can be reached at (303) 295-8000 and mbeese@hollandhart.com.
There is a new professional roaming the corridors of law firms today with the amorphous name of “Business Development Specialist” or something like it. As law firms grow in size and sophistication, so too are marketing departments expanding to serve them. Many firms are hiring business development (“BD”) specialists to assist attorneys and practice groups attract and land new clients.
The role of business development staff varies from firm to firm. In some firms, the role is similar to a salesperson. The business developer is actively networking among prospective clients, develops and qualifies leads, participates in an initial meeting to ascertain the client’s needs, wants and preferences, and, at the appropriate time, introduces an attorney to the process to make a proposal, advance the discussion, or close the deal. In these firms, business development professionals are often paid a base salary and a bonus based on the volume of new business they generate. While quite the buzz a few years ago, only a handful of firms have actually found a way to make this system work today.
Business development is a consultative role
Most business development professionals play a consultative role to attorneys, providing a range of services that help attorneys fulfill their business development obligations and opportunities. A typical business development job description would include:
Individual and group business development training and coaching.
Assistance with writing individual and group business development plans.
Research on prospective and current clients, as well as industries and markets.
Creating prospective client lists and relationship tracking systems.
Proposal and presentation preparation.
Marketing and business development strategy.
Traditionally, law firm marketing departments are focused on activities aimed at increasing awareness and brand positioning, including:
Branding through advertising, web sites and direct mail.
Public and media relations.
Events and sponsorships.
Direct mail and email newsletters.
CRM and database management.
Brochures.
Law firm marketing directors are finding they need to re-tool and re-structure their marketing and business development teams to serve their attorneys better and manage an ever-increasing demand for services.
Structuring an efficient BD/marketing team
At Holland & Hart, we developed an in-house agency model. Initially we created the role of the “account representative” to coordinate the various traditional marketing activities for each of our internal “clients” – the attorneys and industry/practice groups of the firm. The account representative position (also called a marketing or business development manager) has evolved from being a coordinator of services, such as seminars, sponsorships, advertising, media relations and micro-web sites, to becoming an internal business development consultant responsible for creating business development plans, coordinating coaching and training, and assisting with competitive intelligence, custom proposals and presentations.
Our account representatives are aligned with practice and industry groups so that they can be intimately knowledgeable about the firm’s clients, the services we provide and opportunities for cross-serving clients. They are responsible for providing competitive intelligence and client research as well.
Like many firms, we created a centralized functional marketing team that provides services such as graphic design, web design, events, sponsorships, media relations, internal communications and proposal development. While some of our lawyers work directly with the functional team, the account reps are usually the single point of contact responsible for coordinating the services.
We’ve found that attorneys expect business development specialists to:
Understand the industry and its key issues.
Understand the communication channels and flow of information used by the clients in the industry, and develop ways to participate in that channel.
Build partnerships with industry associations, informal networks and other organizations.
Attend industry association events and get to know the key players.
Seek out targeted and innovative marketing and business development opportunities.
Use industry knowledge to target prospective clients.
Coordinate with the in-house functional marketing experts to best support the group’s marketing and business development goals.
Provide appropriate research and competitive intelligence on clients, prospects and markets.
Coach them through the sales process, from the initial interview through proposal, follow-up, advance and closing stages.
Know about the other clients of the firm to suggest and facilitate cross-serving opportunities.
Tips for business development professionals
Treat your lawyers like clients. Lawyers and practice groups vary widely in their need for BD and marketing services. Get to know your internal customer and understand their needs and expectations for marketing and business development services. Some lawyers may need or want basic marketing services, and others may become intensive users of business development services. Memorialize expectations in a memo so that both parties agree on expectations.
Learn their business, industry and clients. Become a subject matter expert in your clients’ (internal and external) industry. Learn the market forces that cause legal and business conflicts. Attend an industry association conference or trade show. Interview clients or prospective clients to understand their business. Set Google news alerts (or the like) to track news of key clients and issues.
Business Development and Marketing Pros must act as a team. Avoid the “us” and “them” mentality. Regardless of how your firm defines the roles of marketing and business development, both functions must act as a team to be effective.
Consider using consultants if they bring value to the process. Business development training and coaching is time-consuming and requires a high level of responsiveness, insight, experience and interpersonal skill. Consider using outside consultants for projects like training or coaching so that your business development professionals can focus on revenue-enhancing projects.
Titles, reporting and compensation
Titles for business development professionals vary from firm to firm. In some firms, phrases like marketing, business development and client service can and are interchangeable and are tied to the firm’s culture, history and expectations. In many firms, business development professionals claim a manager or coordinator title, often tied to a specific practice group, department or industry, such as “Energy Practice Group Business Development Manager.” Regardless of title, roles of BD and Marketing professionals must be clearly defined to avoid confusion and turf battles between team members.
In many firms, business development professionals are part of the marketing department, often reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer or Marketing Director. Large firms may have a separate group for business development operations, reporting to a Director-level manager.
When business development professionals act as salespeople, and compensation is based in part on origination credit, issues of compensation can get thorny. In most firms, however, BD professionals are compensated on a salary basis, some with bonus potential, like other marketing professionals.
Conclusion
In sum, there is a definite place for marketing as well as business development in law firms. Lawyers expect business developers to understand a client’s industry and issues, build partnerships with industry associations, and seek out new business opportunities. The key to success is to treat your lawyers like clients and ferret out their expectations so that you can meet them.

Business Development & Marketing Department

2009-03-10T18:59:00.000-07:00

Cranfield University is a world-class institution, famed for its applied, market-facing research and development and its high quality teaching. We are the Academic Provider to the Defence College of Management and Technology (DCMT), a constituent part of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. DCMT and Cranfield University, together, offer both students and commercial partners a unique opportunity to access current research, especially in the defence and security sectors. We also provide bespoke consultancy service in these areas.

Cranfield has a long history of working closely with industry, having built lasting relationships with the business world. We remain committed to collaboration with industry, and welcome opportunities to increase our reach.

The Business Development Team at Shrivenham offers a high quality, professional support service to our academics and our industrial partners

First impression is Last Impression

2009-03-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

Project a professional image, from the first telephone call to the content and appearance of your company's capability statement. Locate the right people Discuss potential contracting opportunities with the small business, contracting and program office staff identified on HUD's website and in HUD's Forecast of Contracting Opportunities. Contact the HUD grantee procurement officials listed on HUD's website to learn about contract opportunities. Participate in events and meetings attended by your target audience; Attend trade fairs in your company's discipline and meet with your targeted representatives. Capitalize on your past experience Elaborate on previous related experience; Mention any awards and recommendations from highly regarded sources that support the quality of your product or services; Emphasize unique capabilities that your company can provide and how your company would be a valuable asset to the HUD project and program office; When marketing to federal agencies, tell your potential clients what procurement provisions can be used to "reach you". (i.e., Are you certified as an SBA 8(a) Business, Small Disadvantaged Buisiness or HUBZone firm? Are you on the GSA schedule?)

About business marketing

2009-03-10T18:43:00.000-07:00

sIn the latest article on my pet project Legal Marketing Reader is now live. Getting Marketing and Business Development on the Same Page, authored by Robert Buday, Bernie Thiel, Susan Buddenbaum, and Tim Parker (from the Bloom Group and the Alterra Group), maps out how business development and marketing folks can be more effective through collaboration and distinct roles.

The issue, they say, boils down to this:

“Regardless of their marketing and business development models, most professional firms are not playing the same game on the same team, using the same game plan, or keeping the same scorecard. By game plan, we mean they aren’t pitching the same services and bringing the same “point of view” to market at the same time.”

Clearly, collaboration is critical to marketing and business development effectiveness. But how?

Solving the problem, they say, begins with creating a multidisciplinary team that is organized around a specific campaign that brings to market one point of view at a time.

The team for the most successful firms looks something like this:

A marketing generalist skilled in managing large-scale programs and events who can act as the overall project manager of the campaign
Editors and writers who are experienced in communicating management concepts and writing about them in a compelling way
A public relations professional who can communicate the point of view to appropriate media and analysts
Digital media experts who can leverage Internet-oriented channels
Business developers who sell services covered by the campaign or who can act as a liaison to the broader business development community
Fee-earning professionals who are knowledgeable about the content on which the campaign is based
For a wonderfully in depth explanation of this approach, based on their own research, please check out the full article here: Law Firms: Getting Marketing and Business Development on the Same Page.

In tough times, it is the firms that invest in integrated marketing systems that will benefit in the long run.

As the editor of Legal Marketing Reader, I send the authors at big “Thank You!” for contributing this article.

Importance of Public Relations Business

2009-03-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

A public relations business has become a requirement for the success of any kind of media firm, marketing and communication professionals, advertising decision makers, and brand managers. As no business can grow without the help of marketing and media so the public relations business has become very important today. As a public relations business owner, you not only deal with the media but you have to provide all types of information. Being a type of media activity, a public relations business requires the skill of interacting with public.
Every Business Requires a Different Public Relations Strategy:
A good public relation strategy can help a business in reaching out to prospective customers and clients. It can mean establishing better communication channels for the growth of the business. However, a business development tip for the public relation business is that they should adopt different approaches when they deal with different kinds of businesses. What may be the best public relation strategy for one business may not work as effectively for another type of business. You should be able to offer a variety of public relations services to suit the different type of clients. You should have access to the latest happenings in every type of industry as it can make a great difference to your clients. Furthermore, if you can provide the views of some experts along with the latest news, that may be even better for the clients. Providing these services is very crucial because almost every business today has become information driven.

leadership development tips

2009-03-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

While leadership is easy to explain, leadership is not so easy to practise. Leadership is about behaviour first, skills second. Good leaders are followed chiefly because people trust and respect them, rather than the skills they possess. Leadership is different to management. Management relies more on planning, organisational and communications skills. Leadership relies on management skills too, but more so on qualities such as integrity, honesty, humility, courage, commitment, sincerity, passion, confidence, positivity, wisdom, determination, compassion, sensitivity, and a degree of personal charisma.

Some people are born more naturally to leadership than others. Most people don't seek to be a leader. Those who want to be a leader can develop leadership ability. And many qualities of effective leadership, like confidence and charisma, continue to grow from experience in the leadership role.

Leadership can be performed with different styles. Some leaders have one style, which is right for certain situations and wrong for others. Some leaders can adapt and use different leadership styles for given situations.

People new to leadership (and supervision and management) often feel under pressure to lead in a particularly dominant way. Sometimes this pressure on a new leader to impose their authority on the team comes from above. Dominant leadership is rarely appropriate however, especially for mature teams. Misreading this situation, and attempting to be overly dominant, can then cause problems for a new leader. Resistance from the team becomes a problem, and a cycle of negative behaviours and reducing performance begins. Much of leadership is counter-intuitive. Leadership is often more about serving than leading. Besides which, individuals and teams tend not to resist or push against something in which they have a strong

involvement/ownership/sense of control. People tend to respond well to thanks, encouragement, recognition, inclusiveness, etc. Tough, overly dominant leadership gives teams a lot to push against and resist. It also prevents a sense of ownership and self-control among the people being led. And it also inhibits the positive rewards and incentives (thanks, recognition, encouragement, etc) vital for teams and individuals to cope with change, and to enjoy themselves. Leaders of course need to be able to make tough decisions when required, but most importantly leaders should concentrate on enabling the team to thrive, which is actually a 'serving' role, not the dominant 'leading' role commonly associated with leadership.

Today ethical leadership is more important than ever. The world is more transparent and connected than it has ever been. The actions and philosophies of organisations are scrutinised by the media and the general public as never before. This coincides with massively increased awareness and interest among people everywhere in corporate responsibility and the many related concepts, such as Fair Trade, sustainability, social and community responsibility (see the ethical leadership and ethical organisations page). The modern leader needs to understand and aspire to leading people and achieving greatness in all these areas.

Here is (was..) an Excellent 30 minute BBC Radio 4 Discussion about Modern Leadership - (first broadcast 2 Sept 2006, part of the 'Sound Advice' series). Its mere existence is evidence of changed attitudes to leadership. Such a programme would not have warranted BBC airtime a generation ago due to lack of audience interest. Today there is huge awareness of, and interest in, more modern leadership methods. The radio discussion highlighted the need for effective modern leaders to have emotional strength and sensitivity, far beyond traditional ideas of more limited autocratic leadership styles. I'm sorry (if still) this linked item is unavailable from the BBC website, especially if the recording is lost forever in the BBC's archives. If you know a suitably influential executive at the Beeb who can liberate it please contact me.

14 Business Development Tips

2009-03-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

1.Identify the appropriate market and target the appropriate segments within the market -- Deep pockets; ability to leverage core product from one segment to another without major design/development changes.

2.Make sure there exists a market problem/pain that currently demands a solution. Is the problem large enough to justify the price of your solution? Is someone with P/L responsibility willing to pay for the solution? Test: Are you able to clearly delineate a value proposition that gets a customer’s attention?

3.Solve the customers problem, don’t just build cool technology. Value is always in the application of the technology, not technology per se .

4.Have a clear understanding of your value chain. Know who are your partners, competitors, and customers – it isn't always obvious .

5.Understand where you are in the market cycle, from a timing perspective: new technology, competitors entering, segmentation, consolidation, solutions offering, commoditized, etc.

6.Don’t fight the market and where it is in its life cycle – you will lose .

7.Price based on value of solution, not to undercut competitors. Compete first on functionality, not price. If you truly are the only one solving the customer’s problem, you should be able to price your offering based on value of your product/solution to the customer You compete on price only after the product/solution has become a commodity – end of the life cycle .

8.Techies should never hire sales people; they don’t know what skill-sets and personality traits to look for. Test: If it's someone who is too aggressive and a person techies don't want to hang out with, it's probably a good sales guy .

9.Identify the end user of your product or service before you start thinking about Business Development. Even if you do not sell directly to the end users, you should know as much as possible about them. Don't be fooled by the misconception that your target market is "everybody".

10.Write a detailed plan of action. Prioritize your opportunities and consider partnering with proven and profitable businesses first. It is very common to see announcements of strategic alliances between companies with so-called "ideas" and not solid business models. Don't invest much time talking to your suppliers or companies you have to pay money to. It is their job to give you the best deal. Always assign a monetary value to the deal before exploring it. Form alliances with companies that will bring you revenue first.

11.Learn as much as you can about the potential partner and their competitors before you contact them. Determine how your deal can make your partner's company more profitable. That is, list all the ways in which your proposed joint agreement adds value your partner's business. What holes does it fill in your partner's product/service line? How does the deal enhance your partner company's core business? How will your product attract more customers to your partner company's business? How does "doing the deal" brace your partner against the trends of the industry, for which they might otherwise be unprepared?

12.Identify the personal issues. What are the personalities of the people who will be influential in the decision to sign the agreement? What are their personal motivations? Growth/expansion? Hot buttons? Family? Loyalty and commitment to the company they represent? Business process simplification? Eventual merger/acquisition?

13.Identify the PR potential of the joint agreement. Why is it hot news? To whom, in particular? How can you leverage these PR possibilities in negotiating the deal? How do they add value to the overall equation? Be careful in announcing so-called "strategic alliances" where only a purchase of equipment or services was made.

14.To insure that the partnership will successfully evolve, commit the necessary resources to insure that the deal is implemented and periodically evaluated. Set guidelines and performance metrics as part of the deal. Involve senior management in every step of the way. Assign a single point of accountability for the deal.

15.Business development is much more than simply going to trade shows and being a wheeler dealer. Business development is hard work and you must stay focused on the long term. Hopefully the above tips will help you whether you are experienced in biz dev or if the role of business development was thrust upon you due to layoffs, firings or other factors.