A Fact Sheet on the Fair Labor Standards Act

If you have employees, it is critical that you are always abreast of current labor laws. Employees should be aware of labor laws for protection purposes as well. To learn more about the Fair Labor Standards Act, read more in an article written by yours truly.

'Tis the Season for Peace, Equality - and Providing Value

This is the time of year for celebrating (or at least aspiring to) things like peace on earth and equality for all. In that spirit of the season, I’ve included this week’s holiday business development quote with a message from Hanukkah.

May the lights acts of Hanukkah business development usher in a better world for all humankind your Clients. 

This slightly embellished quote from an unknown author shows the similarities between the spirit of the holiday season and the spirit of successful business development. To summarize the sentiment: To develop business, find ways to help your Clients and give first before you ever expect to receive.

This means you don’t walk into the meeting with the glossy multi-color brochures that talk about all your fancy offices and pedigrees. The minute you leave, they go right in the circular file. Don't talk about how great your firm is: “the smartest attorneys from the best schools with the most expertise in most every area of law and the most offices to serve the most prestigious clients with the most difficult problems..."

Enough with the fa la la blah blah blah. They’ve heard it all before, and frankly it doesn’t differentiate you from the other firms they are talking to. Instead, to set you and your firm apart, focus on consistently providing value to Clients and prospects before you ever expect to get something in return. Here are a few ideas:

Instead of a brochure, carry a folder to the meeting that contains an article you’ve written on a topic this is relevant to the person. Brief them on a change in the law that will likely affect their company. Provide ideas for avoiding potential risks. Find ways to improve efficiency. Suggest sources of financing. Most importantly, ask questions about their issues and needs in the upcoming year – and come up with solutions that you could help them implement.

If you just do a few of these things with a spirit of giving, without expecting anything in return, you will often find that that the prospect will want to work with you. See, sometimes it really is better to give than to receive…

Nailing Events with CRM

There is often no better way to develop business than getting face-to-face with Clients and prospects. This may explain why so many law firms spend so much time and dedicate so many resources to events. 

While the types of events are diverse – lunches and dinners, cocktail parties, seminars, roundtables, golf outings, sports tickets, political mixers, charity projects, open houses – the challenges are the same: distributing the event details, sending invitations, gathering RSVP's, assembling attendee lists, printing name tags, scheduling follow up and, in a perfect world, tracking business development progress with prospects who attended.

As a result, successfully managing events can be extremely complex and challenging. It requires a significant amount of effective communication and coordination. Hmmm, sound familiar? Yes, you guessed it: exactly the things that CRM does really, really well.

As with other types of communications, CRM allows the attorneys to quickly and easily contribute contacts to the firm’s central CRM database, where those contacts can be deduplicated to prevent sending multiple invitations. They can also be categorized and added to event lists, or lists can be generated by searches of contacts who meet certain criteria like: people with HR Director titles to be invited to an employment seminar or people in the Hospitality industry to be sent an invitation for a roundtable on hotel financing options.

Before the event, invitations can be emailed to relevant lists of contacts directly from the CRM system or the lists can be imported into the firm’s email software for distribution. With advanced analytics, the firm can track who received the invitation, who opened it, who RSVP’d and who actually attended. At the event, attendee lists and nametags can be printed for check-in. Activities will then be added to each contact record automatically so that end users can see the status of each invitee. 

After the event, reminders can be set in the system and assigned to individuals who will be tasked with following up with prospects or leads. With additional CRM modules or modifications, these leads can be turned into opportunities that can be assigned to individual attorneys and tracked through the business development cycle or pipeline. All with CRM. See why there is often no better tool than the CRM ‘hammer ‘when you need to nail down events …

Every Day 'Tis the Season for Business Development

"Peace on earth Plenty of Clients will come to stay, when we live Christmas business development every day."

This is a great (and slightly modified) holiday quote from Helen Steiner Rice – and it couldn’t be more applicable. To be successful at business development, we have to focus on it literally all the time – even during the holidays.

Every day, we have to make the time to build and maintain relationships. One of the reasons that business development requires such a consistent and continual time commitment is that research shows that it often takes more than seven interactions to turn a prospect into a Client. Yes, I know that sounds like a lot. The good news is only 10 percent of people are willing to commit that time. So really, all you have to do is hang in there and 90 percent of your competition will give up. Persistence really does pay.

We also have to take the time to reach out to Clients and prospects we haven't connected with in a while. Here’s a little something sobering to think about while drinking your eggnog: any Client you haven't spoken with in six months or more may not actually be your Client anymore. If we don't take the time to nurture our Client relationships, someone else will be more than happy to. 

So forget the fruitcakes (or other only slightly more thoughtful gifts) - break out the mistletoe and get close to Clients (ok, maybe not that close). Just pick up the phone and wish them a happy holiday. Or better yet, connect with them in person. Take them out to dinner and thank them for their business. This can also be the perfect time to arrange end-of-year reviews. Talk to them about what next year may bring. If you ask the right questions and share information about how you can help them, you may even discover an opportunity to work together in the new year. What a nice present...

Pounding Out Communications with the CRM Hammer

When it comes to issues with firm communications, the CRM hammer hits these challenges, well... right on the head. CRM is an excellent tool for helping a firm plan and execute marketing campaigns and distribute all types of communications.

First, CRM allows all of the professionals' contacts to flow into the system directly from Outlook, which means there are very few changes to their business processes and they don’t have to use – or be trained on – new software. Then, CRM systems provide tools to allow contacts to be more quickly and easily standardized and deduplicated. This ensures that contact information is consistent and complete and prevents multiple communications from being sent to the same recipients.

Finally, contacts can be easily categorized and added to lists. This allows the firm to segment contacts to make sure, for instance, that the firm’s alerts are sent to all Clients and prospects, while at the same time preventing them from being sent to competitors. Contacts can also be sorted by industry or practice to make sure that they get the communications that are relevant to their needs and interests.

Additionally, after each e-mail or other communication has been sent, an activity can be automatically associated with each contact so that the professionals and other users can simply open a contact record to see who received what, and when. And if you think CRM is great for managing communications, wait ‘til you hear how it can improve event management…

5 Ways to Boost Your Productivity

Productivity levels are a common topic of discussion for businesses of all types and sizes, because productivity impacts a plethora of other aspects of business, including the bottom line—profitability. Increasing personal productivity levels can help secure your job position, get you promoted to the next level or help your business flourish if you are an entrepreneur; but sometimes that is easier said than done. Check out the following steps for easy ways to increase your productivity.

1. Optimize your schedule. Most people have a certain time of day when they are more productive than others. Whenever possible, try to schedule the time when you work alone on projects and various tasks during your highest period of productivity. For instance, those who love the morning should try to leave mornings open, and schedule the bulk of their meetings in the afternoon. Although the morning person will need to be productive all hours of the workday, he or she can also boost productivity for the afternoon by being extra productive during the morning hours (ie. brainstorming a list of talking points/ideas in the morning to increase productivity during afternoon meetings).
2. Prioritize your “to-do” list. Have you ever had a day where you were seemingly extremely busy, but accomplished nothing of substance at the end of the day? Prioritizing your “to-do” list can help eliminate this all-too-common problem. By prioritizing your list, you will complete the most important tasks first, and the less important tasks if you have time remaining in the day. Prioritizing you list will also make sure you are not tempted to complete easy tasks on your list first, which typically leaves more complex (and important) items for the following day, week or even month.
3. Get rid of distractions. Email, telephone calls and other distractions are a necessary part of doing business. However, these distractions can severely decrease productivity levels. Designate a set time for answering emails and making telephone calls each day. Of course, you may want to answer incoming telephone calls as they come in, but setting a specific time to respond to emails or missed telephone calls will enable you to work on tasks with virtually no interruption. Working without distractions eliminates constant starting and stopping of tasks that can make it difficult to complete anything of real substance. If you work in an office setting, let your co-workers know when you prefer to have “Do Not Disturb” periods so you can concentrate on important tasks, making it clear that you are available for emergencies or important last-minute issues that arise.
4. Delegate tasks. Although some of us would like to think we are, no one in your office has the title of Super Man or Super Women—so stop trying to do everything by yourself. If you have a task that would be better completed by someone in another department within your company, or by multiple people, rather than just you, don’t be afraid to say so. Delegating tasks can help you feel less overwhelmed and increase overall productivity.
5. Change the words “have to” to “get to.” Believe it or not, changing the way in which you view your daily tasks can actually help increase your productivity. If you approach all of your daily “to-dos” with a positive outlook, you will look forward to completing them, and possibly complete them in a timelier manner. Rather than “I have to complete these marketing brochures,” say “I get to complete these marketing brochures.” Automatically, your mind will be taken to a place where you see the endless opportunities and future growth that your business will experience through the completion of your sometimes-tedious tasks.

J. Mariah Brown is the owner of Writings by Design, LLC. To learn more about how Writings by Design, and our extensive business writing and administrative services, please visit us at www.writingsbydesign.com, email your question to inquiry@writingsbydesign.com or call 866-937-2361.

'Tis the Season for Business Development

As the holiday season kicks off, the sounds of the season are in the air and everywhere (including the almost unlimited commercials that make me want to hug my Tivo). After being subjected to a multitude of mundane messages and monotonous Hallmark moments, I started to wonder if some of them might actually have some value for helping my Clients to develop business. So for the rest of the month, I’ll be looking at a few of these little ‘gifts’ to see how they might be helpful for improving our business development efforts and keep on ‘giving’ all year long. 

"Christmas Business Development is doing a little something extra for someone."

This quote, borrowed (and slightly improvised) from Charles Schulz, seems a particularly relevant message, since true business development is all about doing things for others – and often, it really is the little things that count.

Business development is all about building relationships – authentic relationships. To establish these types of relationships, the potential Client has to feel that you are putting their interests above your own self-interest. Conveying this impression is almost impossible to fake (that's why they are called authentic relationships, right?) One of the best ways to build authentic relationships is to do a little something extra.

Like what, you may ask? Well, here are a few ideas you can try with potential Clients: spend a few minutes of non-billable time to answer an important question, send a personalized e-mail or note with an article on a relevant topic, give some money (or even better, time) to a charity that they care about. People will forget that animated e-mail holiday greeting with the canned jingle in about 4 seconds, but they rarely forget these types of things.

So stop spending all of the time, money (and anguish) that is often wasted on the holiday cards and instead focus on building relationships. If you do this, not only will you grow your practice, you might even start feeling that holiday spirit all year long.

A Bucket of CRM Nails

Law firms often have buckets of issues that are particularly ‘pointed’ and for which there may simply never be a substitute for the trusty (or some might argue rusty) old CRM hammer. These types of issues come in many varieties, but they almost always involve communication, coordination, collaboration, Client service or, most importantly, business development.

Over and over again, I hear marketing professionals and attorneys complaining that they invested a significant amount of money in this or that CRM system and all they got was a mailing list or a ‘glorified Rolodex’. To address this complaint, I have to say that most of the people who make these types of claims have never actually had to do a law firm mailing themselves.

In fact, every single time I discuss CRM success with managing partners of firms of all sizes, from 27 attorneys to more than 1000, the number one frustration that they unanimously articulate involves the inability to communicate effectively with Clients and prospects. They just don’t understand why the firm can't seem to compile a current, correct and easily updated list of Clients and other contacts and why they can't seem to effectively execute something as 'simple' as an e-mail campaign. These issues can be a source of tremendous frustration in law firms...

Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

Millions of people spend an insurmountable amount of time trying to get out of the rat race. Whether you are s six-figure salary earner or a struggling waitress making minimum wage, the simple fact is, the only way to gain true wealth is through self-sufficiency—in other words, the obtainment and maintenance of your own business.

Entrepreneurs are made from a different stock than their “9-to-5” counterparts. While gumption is a trait that must be present for all successful business people, entrepreneurs must be go-getters on a new level to experience true success and longevity—especially in a sub-par economy. If you think you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, read the following to see how your characteristics match up. When you are finished, check out the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Assessment to determine whether you are ready to start your own business.

Patience to Weather the Storm

Most people would agree that the majority of the good things in life take time. That said, how will you know if you’ve put in enough time and effort into your business where you should be experiencing profitability and growth? According to the U.S. SBA, the majority of small business owners do not make a profit until their fifth year in business—that’s if you make it to your fifth year, as 95 percent of small businesses close within the first five years. Are you willing to wait five years or more to see a profit? How will you sustain your lifestyle in the interim?

What about the lucky few businesses that experience profitability almost immediately? Whether it is due to low overhead costs or a revolutionary business idea, if your business makes money from the beginning, congratulations! While this is a great accomplishment, all roads to success, no matter how short or long, have dips and valleys. Successful entrepreneurs must be prepared to handle slow periods and should have a sound plan to do so.

Having an Extrovert State of Mind

While it is not necessary for entrepreneurs to be true experts, for the purpose of launching a business, having an extrovert state of mind can be beneficial.  This simply means that you must be willing to spread the word about your new business through networking. While you may plan to use expensive advertising and elaborate marketing techniques, nothing is proven to be more effective than good old fashioned word of mouth. Even in the beginning stages of your business (before you are ready to sell anything), making an effort to network with key players in and outside of your community is critical. You never know who you might meet that could possibly springboard your business to success. If you are proud of your new business, why not shout it from the rooftops?

Flexibility

Having a solid plan is critical to success, so you have a step-by-step guide to lead you through business operations. These plans come in the form of business plans, strategic marketing tactics and public relations strategies. However, successful entrepreneurs must be willing to deviate from those plans when necessary. Just because a tactic has worked in the past, doesn’t mean it will be successful the next time around. Responsible entrepreneurs know the importance of monitoring the effectiveness of all tactics utilized, so they can abandon the less-effective tactics at a moment’s notice.

Passion

Lastly, you must have a true passion for your small business. Without passion, walking away when the journey gets a little rough will always be an option. Passion will also create an inner sense of optimism that is essential for all entrepreneurs. After all, if you don’t believe in what you’re doing, who else will? While it’s wise to always have an exit plan, it should be your last resort, not amongst one of the first options. Only those with passion will last through the storm, and reap profits on the other side.

Taking U Out of Your Cross Selling Alphabet

There is probably no objective that law firms put more emphasis on achieving – or that they fail more frequently at than cross selling. This may be because many law firms or lawyers don’t really understand what cross selling is all about.

Sure, some attorneys will do the work to figure out who could help them. They will identify other attorneys in their firm or professionals outside the firm whose Clients could be excellent potential sources of business for them. A few will even pick up the big, scary telephone and call these people. The real go-getters may even set up a meeting to talk about what they do and how the other person may be able to help them do more of it. And then they sit back and wonder why almost nothing ever comes of all this time and effort.

OK, here is the secret to why cross selling fails so often: like everything else in business development, it’s not about YOU. It’s not about how you can get the other person to help you. Cross selling is about figuring out how you can help the other person. This may sound counterintuitive, I know, but it’s still true. So start by removing you from your cross selling conversations...

The CRM Hammer

If we are going to think or talk about CRM as a tool, I think it begs the question: which tool would CRM be? In the wide world of tools, I think a lot of people would say that CRM is most like the hammer. It’s been around for a really long time. It can sometimes be big, clunky and even a bit unwieldy. It’s definitely not sexy. And if you don’t pay attention to how you swing it, you can certainly cause a lot of damage – and with CRM, it can be way worse than just smashing your thumb.

Additionally, since the dawn of the hammer, which is a pretty long time, there have been quite a few new electronic tools invented, like ERM, blogs and social media, to name only a few. So it makes sense to ask, with all this cool new stuff, do we really even still need the hammer?

Frankly, all of these shiny new tools are great problem solvers - until you are faced with a problem that looks like a nail. This is why none of these new tools have really 'replaced' the CRM hammer as a staple in any first-rate tool kit…

Betting on Your Referral Sources

Obviously focusing on referral sources is a really smart bet, but if you want to improve your odds for success, you have to be willing to up the ante and invest the time to educate them.

To really improve your payoff, you need your referral sources to say great things about you. Not just broad generalities, like that you’re a really smart lawyer who works with really great companies and who went to a really good law school. While all of that may be nice, it doesn't set you apart - and it's not likely to get you hired, especially by sophisticated buyers of legal services in the current hyper-competitive legal marketplace. In this game, frankly, being qualified is table stakes. Getting hired requires value – and value is about helping people.

So your referral sources have to understand the value you bring to the table. They should know your area of specialty, your ideal Client, your target market and any niche expertise you may have. Even better, they should be able to convey how you help Clients find creative solutions to challenging problems or achieve superior results.

You also want them to communicate not only that you are a great lawyer, but also that you are a great person to work with - someone who understands the Client’s business and industry, is responsive, provides great service and doesn't overcharge. Ultimately, this will position you as a trusted - and there is no better position to be in. 

CRM - Alive and Kicking

And yet, despite all the challenges in the past, people are still investing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in CRM systems. In fact, in recent years, the worldwide CRM market revenue has actually grown 12.5 percent, according to leading technology research firm Gartner. Based on this, CRM still seems be very much alive and kicking.

Why is this? Perhaps it could be because CRM is the essential tool for enhancing communication, coordination and client service. Despite all of the new technological developments, when it comes to managing the myriad relationships that are essential to developing – and growing – your business and practice, there is no better tool for the job.

Focus on Referrals

So why would you take the time to focus on referral sources when there are other business development activities you could be spending your time on? First, it’s often much easier to get business from a referred prospect. In fact, research suggests you are almost twice as likely to get business from referred prospects. This is because they have essentially been pre-sold on your services by someone else who presumably had nothing to gain by making the referral.

Leveraging referrals may also be the most cost effective way to get business. Some business development experts have suggested that it may cost up to 400% more to get business from a prospect who has not been referred. It can also take up to twice as long to get business from a prospect without a referral because you haven't yet received that third party endorsement. As a result, unreferred prospects will often require you to demonstrate your experience, participate in a lengthy proposal process, provide a number of references or jump through other hoops, substantially lengthening the business development cycle.

Finally, when cultivated and cared for, referral sources are likely to stay with you longer, utilize more of your services and ultimately spend more with you. And they will often end up being most loyal Clients you have. Oh, and referrals are also free. All in all, it's hard to think of a reason not to focus on referrals. They are as close as you can get to printing money.

CRM On the Shelf

It’s easy to question the relevance of CRM now that there is newer technology on the market or because of the CRM implementations that failed to meet expectations in the past. What is more difficult is to take some responsibility for CRM’s past failure. 

CRM is about people, process and technology – and when systems failed in the past, it was largely due to people and process issues, not the CRM technology. CRM requires a fundamental change in the way firms think about and manage relationships, and a lot of firms just weren’t prepared to deal with the change. CRM also requires significant resources in terms of time, money and people, and many firms weren't ready or willing to dedicate the necessary resources. 

Another problem in the past was that people’s expectations for CRM were sometimes unrealistic. They tried to do too many things too quickly. Many firms bought CRM systems thinking they would solve all the firm’s communication and relationship management problems. Guess what… they didn’t’. 

Some responsibility should also be shared by any of the CRM providers who touted all of CRM’s bells and whistles and trotted out the dogs and ponies during demonstrations, or the ones who recommended that firms roll CRM out firm-wide as quickly as possible so they could sell the most licenses in the least amount of time. Both of these strategies often backfired, resulting in a lot of CRM systems becoming shelf-ware – and a lot of customers becoming dissatisfied...

Preparing Your SBA Loan Application

If you need a business plan to jump start your company's funding initiative, contact Writings by Design today!

Referrals – Across the Street or Across the Hall

Once you have determined to focus on referrals, the next step is to figure out how to make them effective sources for developing new business. Help them help you... literally.

To actually refer you business, your referral sources have to be able to articulate good reasons for people to consult with – and ultimately hire – you. To do this, they actually have to know what you do. While this may sound obvious, I've seen plenty of attorneys who refer work across the street because they have no idea that another attorney, who just happens to be right across the hall, is well-versed in the same area of law that one of their current Clients has a need for. 

Think about it: do you have more than cursory knowledge about the practices of all of the other attorneys in your firm? Do you know the types of Clients they work with, the issues they help to deal with or the types of results they achieve? If you don’t, then don’t assume that other attorneys know your business...

Is CRM Dead?

It might appear that the development of all of this new relationship management technology could make the old CRM seem a little, well… tired. Let’s face it, it does seem like CRM has gotten a little long in the tooth. Some people might even say it needs to have some serious work done.

As a result, one question I’ve often heard asked is, “With all of new products, services and technology that are available for managing relationships, is CRM still relevant?” Taken to the extreme, we could even ask: is CRM dead?

It makes sense that this question would – and should – be asked considering the millions of collective dollars that have been spent on CRM systems over several decades – and the disappointing results that many people have reported as a result. In fact, at one point, pundits had proclaimed that more than 70% of all CRM implementation failed to meet expectations. So this question certainly deserves an answer – and some attention…

Referrals - The Gift That Keeps on Giving

So what is the key to getting business from referral sources? First, like most everything else in business development: you need to give before you can expect to receive. If you want people to refer business to you, you should start by making referrals yourself.

The great thing about referrals is that they are the gift that keeps on giving: when you do nice things for people – like send them business – they often will be eager to repay you in kind. 

So start looking for opportunities to make referrals. They should be plentiful. As a trusted advisor, and a pretty smart individual (you made it through law school, didn’t you) it only makes sense that Clients and friends may come to you for advice on all sorts of issues. Find ways to help them – while helping the individuals you refer – who later may then help you. Look at it as a win-win… win.

The Evolution of (X)RM

Law firm business development is all about relationships. So it is not surprising that there has been a continual and ongoing search for technology and tools to assist firms in discovering and leveraging these crucial relationships.

For decades, the relationship technology tool of choice for law firms was CRM (Client Relationship Management). A large number of firms spent large sums of money attempting to deploy these systems to gain relationship intelligence and enhance Client communication, collaboration and service. But time has shown that CRM success can be challenging. In fact, some research indicated that over 70% of CRM implementations may have failed to meet expectations.

Then came ERM (Enterprise Relationship Management), a technology that promised to reveal vast numbers of relationships with minimal effort required from attorneys. But as powerful as ERM may be for discovering relationships, it wasn't a complete solution to help firms leverage those relationships.

Lately social media is all the rage – and we have new and sexy SRM (Social Relationship Management), technology touted to assist us with monitoring and managing these social networks and relationships in the hopes of increasing ‘engagement’ and ultimately, revenue. With the advent of all this exciting new technology, it’s not surprising that some people have questioned whether CRM is still relevant…

Small Business Administration Certifications

There are two great assistance programs available to small business owners through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) that could help give your business the boost it needs during tough economic times. The assistance programs, the small disadvantaged business (SDB) certification program and the 8 (a) business development program, can be an asset to any type of business, regardless of length of operation. In addition to increased funding and training, becoming classified as an SDB or 8 (a) business can substantially increase your chances of receiving government grants or federal and state contracts.

The first step in becoming certified is to understand what a small business is, and then you must know the difference between each certification/classification. According to the SBA, a small business is defined as an independent business having fewer than 500 employees, although the definition used for government programs and contracting varies by industry. If you qualify as a small business, in order to receive SDB or 8 (a) certification, the owner of the business must be economically and socially disadvantaged. However, the key difference between the two classifications is the owner’s personal net worth (I’ll talk about this more later).

In order to be considered socially disadvantaged, the owner must “have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias because of their identity as a member of a group,” according to the SBA. Typically small business owners who are Hispanic, Native American, Asian or African American meet this requirement. There is also a broad statement saying that “other individuals can qualify if they show by a preponderance of the evidence that they are disadvantaged.” Due to this rather ambiguous language, many women small business owners can be considered socially disadvantaged as well if they can prove that they have been a victim of long-term gender-based discrimination. For example, if a woman faced discrimination from professors and administrators at a military college due to the fact that she went to a predominately male school, she could claim that the discrimination hindered her ability to form a business later in life. Women who have previously filed sex discrimination cases are more likely to be able to qualify as socially disadvantaged. Contrary to popular belief, White males are also not excluded from the “socially disadvantaged” group. If a White male has a disability or is handicapped in any way, there is a possibility he could qualify as socially disadvantaged. Those suffering from mental health issues, such as depression, or those who may feel as though they are socially disadvantaged due to religious preference could qualify, but must prove that they were discriminated against solely for those reasons.

Now that you know whether you would be considered a socially disadvantaged individual, you must figure out if you can also classify as an economically disadvantaged individual. This is where the difference between SDB certification and 8 (a) business certification comes into play. Small business owners can qualify for SDB certification if their personal assets are worth less than $750,000. If a small business owner’s personal assets do not exceed $250,000, he or she can qualify for the 8 (a) business development program. Please note: The SBA does not consider home equity as a personal asset. If a business is classified as an 8 (a) business, it is automatically SDB certified. However, all SDB businesses are not 8 (a) businesses due to the personal asset qualifier.

If you believe you qualify for either the SDB or 8 (a) SBA programs—or both—do not hesitate to apply to the programs. For more information, visit www.sba.gov.

To learn more about how Writings by Design can help your business apply for funding or certification programs, or connect with customers, clients and other key stakeholders, please visit us at www.writingsbydesign.com, email your question to inquiry@writingsbydesign.com or call us at (866) 937-2361.

In Referrals We Trust

People often say that word of mouth advertising is incredibly powerful. We know this must be true because almost every survey of buyers of professional services ever undertaken suggests that a personal referral is always the primary driver of the selection process. 

Referrals are incredibly credible and, even better, they're free. And as social media has gained in popularity – and influence – the power of referrals has become amplified. As a result, referral sources should always be included in your business development planning.

When thinking about potential referral sources you should consider current and previous Clients, friends, colleagues, other types of professionals with complementary practices, members of associations or organizations you are active in or anyone else who likes you and values the service you provide. 

One category of potential referral source never to forget is other attorneys in your firm. It’s not uncommon for attorneys to refer work across the street instead of across the hall because a potential referral relationship hadn't been cultivated. This is the worst kind of lost opportunity. 

Data Quality Depression - Get Help…Somewhere

So what do you do if you feel like you are drowning in CRM data quality problems and you just can't seem to get help from within your firm – or if you don’t have months to spend manually cleaning and deduplicating your data?

One solution is to pay a data quality company to clean and deduplicate your data. During this process, data is typically matched up electronically against a postal database to append and standardize mailing addresses. The output generated is typically a very large spreadsheet of potential duplicate matches, which then must be manually reviewed and validated by someone on your team. After the review, data can be fed back into the CRM for deduplication. The entire process can take weeks or months and can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars or more. However, if you consider that manually standardizing and deduplicating the same data could sometimes take a full-time data steward almost a year, sometimes the cost and time savings can seem justified.

Alternatively, there are now outsourced professional data stewards you can hire to assist you. These data quality professionals can work with your team on a full-time basis – or just lend a hand part-time when you need additional support during a rollout or to assist with a project. You can hire one or several data stewards and have their help for as long or short a period of time as you need. While outsourced data stewards function as members of your firm’s team, you don’t have to deal with hiring or managing them - and the cost can be significantly less than hiring a full-time internal data steward.

One final note: while data quality depression can be serious, you don’t have to face it alone. Reach out to colleagues, peers or industry organizations for help. Additionally a CRM success consultant can often provide you with information, ideas and best practices. Feel free to call us anytime for data quality assistance or outsourced data quality professionals. But if you don’t get help for data quality depression from a CRM Success consultant, get help… somewhere.

Business Development Targets

When I ask some attorneys to describe their ideal Client, I often hear, ‘one that pays.' This response is mildly amusing… but rarely true. Not every Client is a good Client. And what makes a great Client for one firm or professional might be a nightmare for another. So a big part of your business development planning process should start by defining your ideal target Clients.

A good place to start is often with your current Clients. Focus on the ones who have growth potential and who are not utilizing your firm to serve all of their existing needs. The reasons to start with current Clients are pretty simple: they are already writing you checks, so presumably they like you – and would be open to discussing the possibility of working together with you in other areas. Plus, it costs significantly less to develop business with current Clients than to pursue prospects with whom you don’t currently have a relationship. Additionally, if you are new to initiating business development conversations, often it can be less intimidating to begin a dialogue with people that you know.

Be sure to also make your ‘inactive’ Clients a top priority. These are the people who you consider to be Clients but with whom you haven't had a meaningful conversation in more than 6 months. These people also have another name – non-Clients – because frankly, if you haven't been in contact with them in this period of time, there is a good chance that they aren’t your Clients anymore. Call them… soon.

Additionally, one of the best ways to develop business is to help Clients solve problems, so another category of good potential targets is people with problems you can help with. Look for target Clients in businesses that you have experience with, in industries where you may have particular expertise or at companies that have issues that are similar to those of your current Clients. This will allow you to initiate a compelling conversation about how you have helped similar Clients deal with these types of issues successfully. After you have put together your list of targets, you may want to enlist a little help from your friends…

Preventing Data Quality Depression - and Rolodex Rejection

So how big a problem is data quality depression really?

In the past, some firms neglected CRM data quality as a minor issue – to their detriment. In fact, poor data quality can become a serious problem, especially during an initial rollout because the attorneys can quickly lose confidence in the system if the data is a mess. After all, attorneys are trained to find fault – and when they do, they may jump to the conclusion that if the data is bad, the system is not trustworthy. Then adoption and usage will stall.

Additionally, until the data is properly cleaned and deduplicated, the value of your CRM cannot be fully recognized. Until the entire firm is rolled out, the attorneys can't leverage relationship intelligence to identify ‘who knows who’ relationships. Until comprehensive contact information is collected and compiled and contacts are categorized (how’s that for alliteration?), it’s almost impossible to accurately distribute mailings, invitations or other communications. 

As a result, the longer the data cleanup process takes, the more marketing and business development opportunities are lost - and the more time and money are wasted. So ultimately, if you don’t focus on data quality, you could end up with what many firms refer to their CRM system as: a glorified, overpriced rolodex. 

Shotgun Business Development - Ready, Fire...Aim!

Effective business development starts with a plan. Without a plan, business development can become unstructured, unproductive and expensive – with limited or no return on investment.

We commit random acts of golf or lunch – inviting the same people who have never given us business. We spend weeks preparing for presentations for groups of attorneys – who are competitors instead of potential Clients. We spend hours writing long-winded white papers – for obscure, scholarly publications instead of industry or trade periodicals. We pay thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, for sports and event tickets – that end up unused or used by our associates and their friends. We give ‘til it hurts – to charities and causes with no ties to our strategic business development objectives. We don't prepare before the meeting or measure results afterwards. In short, we fail to plan, which is a plan for failure.

Without a plan to follow, it’s just too easy to fall into the habit of doing what we've always done or what we are comfortable with and hoping we might be successful. Doing what we have always done and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. And hope is not a strategy. And this scattershot approach is not a good way to develop business.

For successful business development, the ‘shotgun’ is not the weapon of choice. Instead you want a rifle with laser focus in your arsenal. Stop settling for doing the same things. You need to focus on the right things. The key is to make your business development efforts as effective as possible and get the highest possible return on the time you invest. Take the time to set your sights and really aim. But before you aim, you have to have the right target...

Annual Evaluations

The end of the fiscal year is a primary time for organizational evaluation. Whether you have a start-up operation and have been in business less than a year, or are a veteran; annual evaluations are not only beneficial to all organizations, they are a necessity.

During an annual evaluation, you want to assess your entire operation. First, start by examining your annual revenue against your cost of doing business. Were your profits as high as you had expected or hoped they would be? If not, why didn’t you make as much as you wanted to? Was it due to a lack of or faulty marketing efforts? Did you lose customers or clients? Did you spend too much time and money training employees with a high turn-over rate? If profits were higher than expected, first take a moment to celebrate your good fortune; then get back to business. Why were profits so high? Did you gain an unexpected amount of customers or clients? Did you efficiently train employees, and therefore had a low turn-over rate? Did you increase free publicity through effective public relations efforts?

After examining your revenue, move onto your organizational structure. If you planned well from the beginning, your structure should be fairly flexible to meet the current needs of your business, while having room to grow as your business matures. Do you have enough employees to meet current demand? Do you have too many employees? Are the current positions meeting organizational needs? For instance, a company may have a Human Resource Director and a Human Resource Assistant. As the company expands and begins to receive more business, it may be necessary to incorporate a Project Coordinator. Rather than hiring someone new, the Human Resource Assistant can probably make a very good Project Coordinator (during the annual review the company discovered that the Human Resource Assistant did not have a lot of work to do).  Moving employees rather than hiring new ones can help your organization save time and money. Sometimes a change in title and scope of duties for one employee is all an organization needs to do to substantially increase productivity for the entire operation. This is also a great time to conduct individual employee evaluations.

At the end of the day, most businesses have the end-goal of growth. What did you company do in the last year to expand? How are you staying in touch with new and loyal customers and clients? How are you reaching people who may have never heard about your business? What is your current publicity/marketing strategy? How much time are you spending executing it? Based on your answers, should you consider outsourcing?

While product quality and assurance should be an on-going process, a year-end evaluation should also include an assessment of your company’s products and services. How do your products and services match up to the competitions’?

It is important to take note that whether the news is good or bad, you must always search for the reason why in your annual evaluation. If your company performed poorly, you will need to understand what went wrong so you can fix the problem. If your company had a stellar year, you will also want to have a thorough understanding of why so you can repeat and improve on those results for the next fiscal year. Once you discover what your company did right, and what went wrong, take the time to make a new plan for the upcoming fiscal year. This is a great time to bring out your business plan as well and make any necessary revisions.

To learn more about how Writings by Design can help your business connect with customers, clients and other key stakeholders, please visit us at www.writingsbydesign.com, email your question to inquiry@writingsbydesign.com or call us at (866) 937-2361.