Verbatim: What Clients Say
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Increase Your Firm's Market Share in a Slow to Zero-Growth Economy
"The downward trend has been unrelenting," writes New York Times reporter Alan Feuer in "Bleak Day at the Bar: Major Law Firms Are Forced to Shrink (June 7)."
"Citi's fourth-quarter 2008 Managing Partner Confidence Index provides further evidence of this growing pessimism," says Dan DiPietro of the Law Firm Group of Citi Private Bank, in the May issue of The American Lawyer.
"The primary reason respondents (110 law firm leaders) gave for their pessimism was lack of demand."
When demand is flat the only way to increase business is to grow market share.
To accomplish that, clients must view your firm as the best value compared to your competitors. They won't move business from another firm to yours without a substantial reason.
Strategic Client Interviews will give your firm the advantage it will need to grasp onto more market share. These interviews will reveal:
What clients want from your firm
What problems you must address to improve your client relationships
How to enhance your relationships and keep clients loyal to your firm
Clients' perceptions of your firm, compared to other law firms
The opportunities that could increase your firm's business with its clients
"The need for bold action and innovative thinking is upon us," DiPietro concludes.
Firm leaders have a chance to fix a broken model - a model that relies too heavily on leverage and billing rate increases to derive profit growth, thumbs its nose at the concept of pay for performance, especially at the associate level, and assumes clients will continue to accept the billable-hour model.
"These are times that cry out for boldness and innovation. But the window will not stay open for long. Who among you will be the first to act?"
Step One is due diligence; listen to your clients.
Verbatim is published electronically by JKS & Company LLC/Strategic Client Interviews. For more information on Strategic Client Interviews, contact Joyce K. Smiley at 561-775-9755, or jsmiley@jkscompany.com. On the web at jkscompany.com.
Copyright 2009 JKS & Company LLC. All rights reserved.
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email: jsmiley@jkscompany.com
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