We have come to the end of our series on how a critical friend can help professionals and organisations maintain a continuous cycle of improvement. In this final post, Martin offers readers advice on how to set up the relationship with your chosen critical friend in just the right way.

Previous posts covered:

What is a critical friend? 
Who might use a critical friend?
Can critical friends support teams as well as individuals?
How might I find a critical friend?
How do I get a critical friend arrangement in place?

​If you'd like to read these posts in order, start here. But if you are ready to get started, read on MacDuff...

So, you've found your critical friend. You've interviewed a couple of likely candidates and selected the one you feel has the best fit of experience, skills, contacts and personal qualities. You feel comfortable that he (or she!) is going to challenge you and bring new ways of looking at things to your business. Above all, you feel that you can tell your critical friend the unvarnished truth - and that in return they will do likewise. You are ready to go.

As with anything new, bringing a critical friend into a firm for the first time may not be easy. So if you’re keen to introduce this approach into your firm, it may help to look for a time-bound opportunity. Indeed, the sort of opportunity where a critical friend would be helpful – such as a new project or a specific period of change, or to support someone new in a senior role. This way, the engagement need only be for a set period of time, during which the approach (and the specific critical friend) can be tested for its applicability to your firm’s culture and needs.

​You may also need to explain the role to colleagues, if for example, the critical friend is to attend project meetings. Colleagues may be reassured to hear that the critical friend is there for their benefit and to ensure success of the project, not to supervise them or do the work for them. Indeed, the critical friend may wish to set this out an at early stage and to clarify other roles and responsibilities within the group. 

The remit of a critical friend relationship should be defined at the outset, particularly if their role relates to a project team. With individual relationships, define specific areas that the discussions may focus upon, if only to give some structure to the start of the process – if the relationship develops, then the remit is likely to refine itself. It is a good indicator that you have found the right type of person to be a critical friend if they volunteer to take you through this defining process at the start.
The ‘right price’ to pay for a critical friend will vary depending on the value and experience of the individual, the situation of the engagement, and the size of the firm and what it perceives to be value for money. But whatever the situation, it is better to agree a fixed fee, say on a monthly basis, rather than a simple hourly rate for time spent. The fixed fee should cover regular one-to-one meetings, but also come with the understanding that, within reason, the client can access the critical friend whenever they need, including ad hoc phone calls or Skype conversations between the usual meetings.

​Whatever the terms of your engagement with the critical friend, it is good practice to insist upon a mid term review - a pot half way in the project or agreed term when the critical friend sits down with his or her client to review progress against agreed criteria. Especially when the relationship is fairly new, it is a good idea for both parties to consider carefully what is working, what is not working and what could be done in a different way - in fact, to apply the same analytical improvement skills to the relationship that the critical friend will bring to your business.

In short, a critical friend will provide the perfect balance of unconditional support and unconditional critique that is hard to replicate within the business. Their focus is entirely on your success - and what you need to achieve to make that happen. From individual, to team, project or organisational board, the critical friend brings a wealth of experience, skills and contacts to bear for their client.


Richmonte Wells offers a full suite of executive individual and team development: coaching, succession planning, Board Development, Strategy and Away days, high performance team building, First 100 days and Lateral Hire Support. We also work with Senior and Managing Partners, CEOs and Practice Directors and their teams either through mentoring or Critical Friend support. If you would like to know more about Critical Friend support for you or your team, please contact Martin Griffiths.

​NB this blog post was originally published in a slightly different form as an article for Managing for Success in April 2017. If you'd like to see the full article, click the thumbnail that you will find here.

We have taken some care in our previous 3 posts to explain what a critical friend is, what their role is, who could benefit and the right time to involve a critical friend in your business. (If you want to read these posts in order start here.)

​When my article on this subject was published in April, we know of at least one coach who received a call from a client saying "This. This is how I want us to work together". And no wonder: the benefits of working with a critical friend for a business leader are measurable in terms of the improvement and focus they will bring. Unlike a pure coaching relationship, the critical friend is an independent expert, a source of suggestions, ideas and examples and a means of leveraging external networks.

So where might you find a critical friend?

A critical friend is bound to come from outside the business, as they are expected to bring an external perspective. 

Yet they will be someone who ‘understands and is sympathetic to the purpose of the [firm], knows its circumstances very well and is skilled in offering a second opinion about an issue’ (David Woods and Tim Brighouse, The A-Z of School Improvements: Principles and practice, Bloomsbury Educational, 2013). 

This would tend to suggest that a critical friend for, for example, a law firm should have, at the least, considerable experience in the professional services sector, if not experience in the legal sector. This might be in contrast with the non-executive director or chief executive appointments that a number of law firms have made in recent years, where they specifically want to bring in wider business or commercial experience and knowledge. 

But it’s not just a professional background you’re looking for – a critical friend needs to have the right personal skills. These include being a good listener, reflective, good at asking questions, capable of being frank and challenging, and unconditionally supportive of the individual / firm. But one thing sits above all of these personal skills: trust. The critical friend must either already have, or rapidly build, the trust of the individual or group they are working with – a trust based on confidentiality, knowledge and experience, empathy and understanding. In fact, this is much like what you would expect from a close friend. 

These are qualities that may be possessed by someone who is, for example, a coach, management consultant or former managing partner, but just because they have that experience does not necessarily mean they are critical friend material. There is no right way of going about identifying potential candidates – suggestions may come by word of mouth, through one’s own network, or through recommendation by colleagues or other advisers and consultants. But it would be sensible to meet at least two or three ‘candidates’ before selecting your critical friend. You need to find someone who is a good fit for the person or team they will be working with, but who is also able to see things differently from them, and willing and able to challenge them. 

If you are a coach or consultant considering offering a critical friend service, there is good news. Both Sally and I enjoy working as Critical Friends - it’s very much part of our ethos at Richmonte Wells, both in terms of the relationships we build with clients and our commitment to make change happen for them. From our perspective, spending time understanding the client and their drivers is well worth the investment. From our client’s perspective, having access to the full complement of skills, experience and contacts that goes beyond a pure coaching relationship adds considerable value to the time we spend together. The quotes scattered throughout our website are a testament to the benefits of a critical friend relationship, but if were to choose one it would be this.

In the final part of this series we will look at how to set up a critical friend arrangement. 

Richmonte Wells offers a full suite of executive individual and team development: coaching, succession planning, Board Development, Strategy and Away days, high performance team building, First 100 days and Lateral Hire Support. We also work with Senior and Managing Partners, CEOs and Practice Directors and their teams either through mentoring or Critical Friend support. If you would like to know more about Critical Friend support for you or your team, please contact Martin Griffiths.

This is a bit like asking - who needs a friend? Answer: everyone.

As we said in the second part of this series, a critical friend comes closest to what may be termed "true friendship" - a successful marrying of unconditional support and unconditional critique. Someone who is on the side of the person they are working with, who encourages and supports them and also provides truthful and constructive feedback. Feedback that might be difficult to hear but is designed to help you maintain continuous improvement towards your goals.

In a business setting this sort of feedback and support can be invaluable, especially for the obvious group of typical law firm managers we talked about in the first part of the series: namely, senior managers such as managing partners, chief operating officers, department or team heads. In truth, anyone in a senior role in a legal business could easily justify the business benefits of having a critical friend.

​There are some particular areas where having a critical friend can be invaluable:

,Like some of the very best oxymorons - "working holiday", "open secret", or even "living dead", "critical friend" seems at first sight to be a bit, well, confusing. But once we know what it means, no other phrase comes close to explaining in such depth what this relationship involves.

In our first blog on this subject, Martin Griffiths explained why a business, team or individual might have a need for a critical friend. In this one he answers the question "What exactly IS a critical friend?"

​Like many business techniques adopted in the professional services, the concept of the critical friend
 was first developed elsewhere. The term was coined 
in the education sector, where this approach is often used in the context of a research project, where the critical friend supports and challenges the project by bringing an informed external perspective to the work. A critical friend is also often used in this sector as part
 of an improvement process, where the approach brings an external perspective to, in this context, the school or college. Having gained an increasing profile in education in the 1990s, the term ‘critical friend’ became more widely used throughout the UK public sector, having been strongly promoted by the strategy unit of the Cabinet Office during Tony Blair’s time in office.


To those unfamiliar with the approach, the term ‘critical friend’ may not make sense,
 as it appears to contain an inherent conflict or contradiction. John MacBeath, professor of educational leadership at Cambridge University, explains this contradiction and how the approach works: ‘Friends bring a high degree of unconditional positive regard. Critics are, at first sight at least, conditional, negative and intolerant of failure. Perhaps the critical friend comes closest to what might be regarded as “true friendship” – a successful marrying of unconditional support and unconditional critique.’ (No Quick Fixes: Perspectives on Schools in Difficulty, Falmer Press, 1998).

So, a critical friend is someone who is
 on the side of the person they are working with, who encourages and supports them, but who also provides honest and often candid feedback that may be uncomfortable or difficult to hear. In short, they are someone who agrees to speak truthfully but constructively.

There are many parallels between a critical friend and the use of mentoring 
and coaching. These take a non-directive approach, at which conversation is at the heart, that helps an individual explore issues and possible options, supporting them to find the best solutions themselves. But the role of the critical friend goes beyond the facilitation role of a coach; they will be an independent expert, a source of suggestions, ideas and examples, and a means of leveraging external networks. In other words, the approach can be more directive; it is 
key to the role that they are able to openly and frankly challenge both the thinking and actions of those they support.

This technique helps professionals and organisations maintain a continuous cycle of improvement and is increasingly being adopted by professional service firms that want to develop their business.

In future posts we will look at;

Who might use a critical friend?
Can critical friends support teams as well as individuals?
How might I find a critical friend?
How do I get a critical friend arrangement in place?

Richmonte Wells offers a full suite of executive individual and team development: coaching, succession planning, Board Development, Strategy and Away days, high performance team building, First 100 days and Lateral Hire Support. We also work with Senior and Managing Partners, CEOs and Practice Directors and their teams either through mentoring or Critical Friend support. If you would like to know more about Critical Friend support for you or your team, please contact Martin Griffiths.

NB: this blog post originally appeared in a slightly different form in Managing For Success April 2017

.Today's law firm is constantly looking for new ways to provide better service and client experience, reduce cost, and improve, or at the very least maintain, profit levels. Firms are focusing on efficiency and cost savings, and looking for new strategies to maximise revenue and profit, such as outsourcing both legal and support work, reviewing pricing, and addressing process management – and even using artificial intelligence.
 
But at their core, law firms are still people businesses, and they can only maximise the output of their human capital (the value of their investment in people) through paying constant attention to developing, supporting and encouraging their people in everything they do. Firms are already doing this through the development of professional knowhow, the building of career paths for their lawyers, and increasingly focusing on the training and development of the lawyers and other professionals who manage the increasingly complex businesses that law firms have become. 

And in the same way that firms are looking to improve efficiency in the way they undertake legal work, they must always look to improve the way they manage the business, through building the skills and strengths of those in their management teams. We usually assume that senior managers such as managing partners, chief operating officers, department or team heads are experts in their jobs, and as such need little support or guidance. But often their role is a lonely one: there is no one at the firm with whom they can talk to openly, no one they can easily share problems or ideas with. If these people, whose role in the firm is so fundamental, can be helped and supported so that they are even more effective, the impact on the firm can be as significant as that of any of the processes that are used to improve the delivery of legal work. 

This is where a critical friend comes in.

In future posts we will look at;

What is a critical friend? 
Who might use a critical friend?
Can critical friends support teams as well as individuals?
How might I find a critical friend?
How do I get a critical friend arrangement in place?

Richmonte Wells offers a full suite of executive individual and team development: coaching, succession planning, Board Development, Strategy and Away days, high performance team building, First 100 days and Lateral Hire Support. We also work with Senior and Managing Partners, CEOs and Practice Directors and their teams either through mentoring or Critical Friend support. If you would like to know more about Critical Friend support for you or your team, please contact Martin Griffiths.

Yesterday evening I attended The Great Legal Reformation, an event organised by Shaun Jardine of Brethertons. The very fact that the event was organised by a law firm rather than say, Legal Futures or a bank is unusual. Add to this Mitch Kowalski as the main attraction and a venue change due to sheer weight of numbers and you will start to see that this was a special event.

Mitch himself is a great speaker. Relaxed, assured, knowledgeable. He can see into the crystal ball and what he sees there is exciting: a vision of teams of people working together to solve clients' legal problems efficiently and effectively, supported by cool technology. Mitch and the panel of experts (including Stephen Mayson, Amir Ali and David Gilroy) were equally clear on the direction of travel and what was going to be required to get there. During the polling part of the evening and the Q and A, everyone agreed: the Great Legal Reformation is coming, it will be driven by technology, will invite non lawyers into the inner sanctum and will result in prices being driven down to a point where the pent up demand for legal services will be released. The business model is dead! Long live the law firm of the future!

And yet.

Ah, and yet. There were two very interesting polls. One showed that law firms are well aware of the challenge facing them: over 60% of the law firms in the room said that their management knew and were well placed to address the challenge. The other poll said that the people in the room thought the changes would take place between 3-12 years from now. Does this mean that the people in law firm management have existing plans in place that will completely transform their businesses over the next decade? Certainly, some brave leaders are doing exactly that and Shaun is one of them. But many, many aren't. Many law firms are doing what they always do, using the rear view mirror as a guide for the future and waiting for someone else to go first. Someone, Anyone. As long as it's not a major competitor (and as long as they don't get it right!). The feeling seems to be that we'd all much rather someone else tried and failed so we can learn from their expensive mistakes.

Which is a bit daft to be honest but completely understandable. After all, as I explained in a blog post for Lexis Nexis, we'd all much rather die than let go of what has brought us success so far.  Change is hard work, expensive and not much fun. If you are a partner fewer than 12 years away from retirement, slogging away at the day job, why would you sign up for that? You won't reap the benefits after all.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. The law firm business model IS broken. Nobody seriously disputes that anymore. The only remaining question is what is stopping firms from changing? Time, resource and money are excuses rather than reasons - there's always enough time, resource and money to do the things that partners want to do. During the chat afterwards over a glass of wine, everybody agreed that the elephant in the room is partner resistance.  And the hard truth is that firms struggling with partner resistance have perhaps two years to sort that out before they become sitting ducks. 

Why two years? Well, because the change will start in three. If they want to have any chance of keeping up with the Joneses and surviving the GLR, those firms with recalcitrant partners need time to implement whatever change they can afford during that year. So their management team's strategic planning will include preparation during years one and two for year three when they can actually get to do what they need to do right now.

During those two years the world will change. The economy, the global political situation, climate change, consumer confidence.  In the legal market, heavyweight commercial firms are on the GLR already, working closely with their deep pocketed clients to fund the enormous investment in AI and smart technology that the future delivery of legal services demands. They will then be willing and able to fish in other ponds - the Bank panels will shrink as the City demonstrates how the AI they invested in enables them to do more for less. Smaller, more agile firms and virtual firms are already changing the game for everyone else by concentrating on what makes money, refusing to do the rest and attracting external investment. At the end of those two years it may already be too late for some. 

If this is the situation you are faced with, what will it take to get the partners onside? And how quickly can you do it? It's going to take great leadership, for sure. Persistence. Communication, negotiation. And money. There also needs to be a grown up recognition that what worked in the past is not going to work in the future. Specialist technical expertise is required in law firm management these days, be that process management or pricing. Both partners and management might benefit from a further and more open separation of the "management" function of a partner from the "ownership" function, especially (and here's the important point) if the ownership were to survive retirement. What's more, ownership of this nature allows you to engage partners in the discussion about how the changes would benefit their income over the longer term, provide them with a connection to the firm that has been theirs for so long and allow them to come to a more modern understanding of their legacy. In our experience, partners don't resist for the sake of it, however it may seem sometimes to the frustrated management. Obviously, changes such as this are also pretty difficult but they can be made and the results, the sense of engagement and potential are tangible. 

Two years. It's not long, is it?
​

​I am sensing a new mood. Over the last 10 days I have engaged as many new clients, all with a stated intent to change. All want help to prioritise resources and to make the change count. The question they are asking is: what change can we make that will have the most significant and positive impact on our business?
 
Traditionally this has been the excuse for a good old-fashioned “away day”: an excuse to generate new ideas, make new plans and above all, create a warm fuzzy feeling that the uncertainty of the future has been wrestled into, if not a paper bag, then a well-crafted paper. Unfortunately, too many strategic planning processes are ill-defined with very little preparation or research and little or no bottom line impact. As a result, very little changes.

I don't know about you but I spend the first week back hungry. By the second week, mince pies are a distant memory and reality sets in. By week three, New Year's Resolutions start to feel like hard work.

Now is the perfect time to review business plans with a cold eye, consider where you are against target and deliberately refocus.

Here's a link to the process we use to do just that. Feel free to download it and share it with your team. As always, I'd like to know how you get on with it and how useful you find it. (We haven't uploaded the notes as we think it's pretty clear, but let us know if you'd like us to talk you through it).

Before you start though, here are two pretty obvious points:

To do a Business Plan Review you need a Business Plan

Preferably one that has numbers in it about how much money you want to make this year. Anything else is at best a vision document, at worst a work of fiction. Feel free to use words like "passion", "solution" and "client facing" but the Business Plan is a tool to help you focus on how many and how much. 

Give me a call if you need a pro forma business plan designed especially for professional service firms. The process document I'm giving you here can be used with any Business Plan (not just ours).

Doing a Business Plan Review is only the start​

Just as with any New Year’s resolution, setting goals down in writing makes success more likely (I've got proof if you need it). But more than that – it takes real commitment and determination and being clear about what you are not going to do. Give yourself a break and make sure that you have the time and resources necessary to things differently.

With that in mind, download the process document, have a look and get started!

The 10 key steps to successfully refocus on your business goals are:

1. Start with the end in mind - what is your strategy? Make sure you have that front of mind and stress test any objective against it.
   
2. What MUST you have done by the end of this year to achieve what you want to achieve? Be SMART but also be selective - 3 to 5 goals maximum.
   
3. Check out the gap between what you said you would do and what you have achieved so far - how big is the gap?
   
4. Are your goals still relevant and useful? If not, ditch them in favour of goals that will drive your business forward.
   
5. Be honest - what are the reasons for not achieving your goals? What can you do differently now to achieve your goals that you haven't done up to now?
6. Commit to your goals. Be clear about what will happen if you don't meet them (consequences) as well as what will happen if you do (rewards)
   
7. Break down larger goals into manageable bite-sized bits - set out positively. e.g. “action to achieve at least 1% incremental improvement in profitability every month between now and year end” 
   
8. Decide when you will review progress - weekly is probably too often, monthly not often enough. Get a colleague to review with you and act as a critical friend.
   
9. Write it down. Put it on your wall. Add reminders to your phone. Do what you need to do to get those goals in your line of sight every day so you can’t ignore them.
   
10. Celebrate success!

Whether your business plan is personal, Departmental or firmwide, this process will help you refocus on what needs to be done.​

We are offering all our clients a 2 hour Business Plan Review before the end of February. The Business Plan Review will also include a Brexit survival checklist and planning tool. If you are not yet a Richmonte Wells client but would value a Business Plan Review, give us a call on 0117 403 2424. It’ll be a sound investment of 2 hours.
If not, may I wish you every success with your New Year Resolution. 

​Happy New Year! No, I’m not going to talk about new year resolutions or diets or cutting out alcohol. You’ll get enough of that elsewhere during January. Instead I’m going to talk about what it means to be a human being.
 
Woah! That’s a bit heavy, isn’t it? Bear with me. We’ll soon get back onto the subject of how to better manage a law firm in 2017.
 
So – being a human. What’s that all about?

​“More for less” is the mantra from clients, challenging law firms not just to cut their costs but to deliver more and better services. This productivity challenge, on top of everything else, could leave managing partners wondering where to start.

​Of all the staff in a law firm, secretarial support tends to be a “legacy” workforce. What we mean by this is that recruitment of secretaries has tended to be by individual (looking for chemistry “fit” with the person they are going to be working for, even if that person has since left). In the boom years, the demand for secretaries to fill posts in law firms meant that the role of “legal secretary” eroded to mean simply a secretary working in a law firm, rather than a secretary with specialist knowledge and skills. Very few so called “legal secretaries” are members of the Institute of Legal Secretaries and Pas and the days of sewing affidavits are long gone! Not only has the demand for legal secretarial skills reduced – so has the demand for secretaries. With improved IT, the banks of typists who once bashed out emails as quickly as their fee earners could dictate them have gone.
 
What’s more, there are few career paths for ambitious legal secretaries, who instead tend to become paralegals or take on additional qualifications such as ILEX. More recently, law graduates have taken secretarial roles as a means of entering the profession, only to move on as soon as better jobs or a training contract present themselves.
Secretaries who have loyally stayed in post for a long time have often developed codependent relationships with partners who are not as IT literate as their younger colleagues. When the partner retires, his secretary may not find it easy to transition to a new role, especially if she finds herself “demoted” to a “float”.
 
This general downgrading of the role of legal secretary has meant that over time the secretarial team have found themselves viewed as an overhead and vulnerable to cost cutting, rather than an important part of the delivery team.
 
However, as firms that have cut their secretarial team have found, often the loss is felt by clients and lawyers rather than support level. It is not the typing that is missed necessarily but their ability to move things along. Secretaries form an important part of the business: the “glue” that makes the individual lawyers work better together. Secretaries are good at productivity and project management: “have you called, you need to…”. They will be the enforcers of firm policies and informal “naggers”. They are also often the first line of contact for your firm: the person the client knows he can speak to to get through to lawyer.
 
But times have changed and just as the role of lawyers and the part they play in the firm needs to be assessed, so does the role of the secretary. It is a given that secretaries can type (so can most lawyers these days). Additional skills and attributes required are attention to detail, project management, people management, client handling etc. In this current environment where change is the new constant, emotional resilience is also key – ability to deal with change, willingness to accept new IT solutions and ways of working. So here’s the first challenge: Do your staff fit this bill? The place to start then, is an honest skills and attitude assessment of your secretarial team: how well are they placed to meet the challenges of the future.
 
The second and related question to ask is, how engaged is your secretarial team? Given that we have worked in firms where the secretaries effectively ran the business, their influence cannot be underestimated. A disengaged secretarial team can disproportionately affect not only the culture of the firm but also its revenue and profitability.  How can you tell? We have a standard questionnaire but a quick glance at your HR statistics will help: if sickness/absenteeism is on the increase, the chances are they are disengaged. Why does it matter? Whilst any organization going through change will expect a dip in engagement, businesses do well to reengage their staff as soon as possible. A Gallup poll conducted across nearly 24,000 business units found that those with engagement in the top quartile averaged 12 per cent higher customer advocacy, 18 per cent higher productivity and 12 per cent higher profitability. There is no reason to think that law firms are different from their clients on this measure.
 
The third question to ask is: do the secretarial team know what is expected from them? Nothing affects morale like confusion over what is expected. A recent survey into what secretaries wanted from their jobs in one law firm confirmed this to be true. Focus group discussions and survey responses revealed that secretaries want to:

• know what's expected of them
• receive sufficient training and guidance to be able to deliver expectations
• do a good job
• get things right first time
• be treated fairly and equally
• feel part of the team and be involved in the work of the team
• the opportunity to impress and be praised/rewarded

 
The problems come when there is insufficient role clarity. In the same firm, secretaries were asked "are your fee earners doing work which should be done by a secretary?" 44% said yes.  Lawyers were also asked "are you doing work which should be done by a secretary?" - 73% said yes.  The tasks that fell in the gap were:
 

• e-filing
• filing
• expenses
• diary management
• minor tweaks to documents

 
But perhaps more importantly, both lawyers and secretaries knew that the lawyers were doing tasks that should have been done and could have been done (perhaps better and more cost effectively) by a secretary. The lost opportunity cost of having expensive staff doing admin work rather than bringing in work or fee earning dwarfs the savings to be made in cutting overheads.

​The role of the secretary has changed over time. In a modern law firm she will be partly:
 
Typist
Receptionist
Client manager
Lawyer manager (expert upwards delegator/influencer)
Document checker
Project manager/hub
Stationery/procurement expert
Induction trainer for new fee earners/support staff
Fee earner/paralegal
IT/photocopier engineer
Meeting Organiser
First point of contact

​If you were designing in this role from scratch, where would you start and what would your priorities be? Would you decide, for instance, that this is a luxury that you can not afford? Or is it one that you see as critical to the development of the firm? Would better training for the lawyers or fine tuning systems result in a better outcome?
 
Just like any other overhead cost, secretaries must either be critical to the business (“without them the business could not exist”) e.g. professional indemnity insurance or else positively contribute to the firm’s profitability. Firms can and do exist without secretaries, so consequently it must follow that the reason that they are employed is to improve profitability. We suggest that secretaries can be productivity enablers – people who can both increase revenue of the business and profitability. If they are not in that box, then either you have the wrong secretaries or you are using them in the wrong way.
 
The question then becomes – what do you want secretaries for? Asking this question usually elicits a number of responses which can then be grouped into boxes:
 
To provide the admin support so I can do my job better
To do stuff I can’t be bothered to do
To do stuff I don’t know how to do
To do stuff that is my job but she can do better/more cheaply
 
And so on. You may also find yourself at this stage asking questions about your legal team and whether and how they use their secretaries in the right way! 

​Roughly £27. This is calculated as follows (figures taken from a case study):
 
Cost of direct employment – £31,500 (average salary, £24,500 plus NI, statutory training, pension, recruitment costs, entertainment budget) although this will be more in London and less in some areas. We divided this figure by 228 working days (assuming 4 weeks holiday, 8 public holidays and no sick days) and 7 hours per day per week (assuming one hour for lunch and no coffee breaks). This gives us £20 or so.
 
It does not take into account time lost through days off sick, time spent at the printer, chatting or making coffee. If we assume an activity figure of approximately 80% across the year – i.e. your secretary is actively engaged in productive work for 80% of the time –then the per activity hour cost increases to £25.
 
However, this £25 does not take into account the indirect costs of employment – office, IT, equipment, heating, lighting, support (HR, IT etc), additional benefits, bonus, maternity cover, sickness cover, insurance etc which amount to an average additional cost of £3,000 per secretary. The total cost per hour is therefore closer to £27.
 
And then there is the opportunity cost – could the resource (money or space) be used for something else?? If you had a spare £34,000, is employing a secretary absolutely the best thing you could do with that money for your business? If your secretaries are not properly trained in client service – what is the cost of that to your business? Do you know?
 
We think that if you are deciding to spend £34,000 per secretary per year in direct and indirect costs, that you should at the very least be clear about what the return on investment.

Back to that Gallup poll again. We are looking for an 18% improvement on productivity and a 12% improvement in profitability.
 
How do you achieve that? Very carefully is the short answer. This is, after all, a job redesign process and you will need to take the lawyers and secretaries along with you as you forge a new way of working.
 
It is also a very sensitive process – it sounds easy on paper but has the potential to destabilize a firm quite quickly if not carefully handled. The secretarial team may feel threatened by the changes being made. The lawyers also need to be able to see that the job redesign process will leave them doing more interesting work, rather than removing their support. For both, the clear goal is to use their talents more effectively and remove day to day frustrations. For the older members of staff and partners, the process can be very emotional and difficult, not least as it challenges old relationships and ways of working.
 
Part 2 of this paper will explore how best to manage this process. If you would like us to help you to explore how to improve your productivity and profitability and the the best way to harness your team’s skills and enthusiasm email us on sally.calverley@richmontewells.com

This week we talk about pricing and I am going to give you a number of ideas about how to arrive at the best price and avoid leaving money on the table. 
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Nine times out of ten a dissatisfied client will cite “price” as being the reason for their dissatisfaction but this rarely turns out to be the case. Lack of communication is the number one reason for dissatisfied clients and frequently lack of communication on costs. So the first tip is to keep the client informed about progress and about costs – clients don’t like surprises any more than we do.

So, how do you go about setting a price for a piece of work? Easy, you estimate the hours to do the work the client needs and then apply the charge rate (the one you set at the start of the year) and bingo you have a price. OK but no one ever pays full charge rate so you knock a bit off. Sound familiar?​

There are a number of drawbacks to this approach:

• The price arrived at using this calculation does not take any account of the value of the matter to the client
• Partners tend to view this as the top price from which they discount down 
• It does not recognise your innovation, creativity or ingenuity
• It does not align reward to results
• It places all the risk on the client and 
• iIt also limits your income potential!

Here in 10 easy steps is our guide to a completely different approach:​

Step 1   Establish what the client wants 

You already have a good idea of what he needs because you’re an expert in that field. Let's say the instruction is a corporate takeover. You know what is involved and what the client must do. What you don't know is what it looks like from the client's perspective. Take the time to find out. You may want to ask:

Is the business profitable? 
What’s the downside if the transaction aborts?
How important is this transaction to the client?
How much experience of these types of transactions has the client had?
What are the key measures of success?
What are the timescales?

Listen and ask open ended questions – use the 80:20 rule - spend 80% of the time listening and 20% talking. You will then be able gauge what it is the client really wants and values.

Step 2   Work out how you can deliver the work as cheaply as possible 

What are the absolute minimum number of tasks required? This doesn’t mean compromise on quality, but it does mean working out the basic steps, the absolute bare minimum, to deliver what the client wants. Let’s look at an airline – Virgin Atlantic flying from Heathrow to JFK offer a standard ticket for £547.06, a flexible standard ticket for £903.56 and a first class flexible ticket for £3,739.56 (with chauffeur!). The minimum requirement is to get the passenger from A to B and every price does that. Virgin offers options to the traveller, be it flexibility to change their dates or additional comforts and benefits but all at a price. 

Step 3 Work out what else may be required and price those activities as well

You are now moving into the realms of offering the client options as to how the matter is conducted. By giving each option a price tag and letting the client choose the options he wants, you are reducing the likelihood of the price coming under pressure and maintaining profitability.

There may be other aspects that arise during the course of the matter. Let the client know what they might be and that you will price each of these as they become known. The client can then decide how he would like to proceed at each point. By doing this, you are not only giving the client an idea of what the end cost might be but also demonstrating your expertise and project management skills and future proofing your budget!

Step 4   If possible, plan the matter together with the client

If you have now split the price down into tasks and maybe even phases, it is more difficult for the client to question the price overall. Even better, if you get the opportunity try and plan the matter with the client's involvement as this will gain even greater buy-in.

Step 5   Take a step back and ask "does this look reasonable?"

If not the look again at the resources you are using. Is there a way to restructure the tasks?Could more junior staff do some of the work? Do you really need so much partner time? David Maister carried out two year study and found that some 50% of senior time could have been delegated. Look again, or ask someone else to.

Step 6   Check that you have priced in your client's value points 

Remember the first meeting? What did your client really want? If they require 24/7 access to your team then of course there is a cost attached but make sure you let the client know that that is what they are getting and what the options are.

Step 7   Time to let the client know what the price is for what he wants

Prepare carefully for this discussion. You need to be sure that you have understood exactly what the client wants from you and how he wants it and then present that information back to him in a way that reflects your understanding. Use this opportunity to illustrate the value you are delivering. Then tell him your highest price and (importantly) pause - give him time to consider this. Do not talk yourself out of the highest price!

Step 8  Give your client options so he can make a decision

Give the client your lowest priced "bare minimum" option. Be very careful in explaining what it  does not include and to highlight the impact of that for him i.e. it does not include 24/7 access but a weekly thirty minute update conference call. This will allow you to reassess the client's real value points - those he is willing to pay for - and help you decide where to pitch the final price. Be careful not to "throw in" value points for free!


Your final price is the going to be somewhere between the top price and the bare minimum and it is for you to judge from the clients reaction where the sweet spot for him is.

Step 9   If the client asks for a discount - pause!

Don't just say yes. Explain to the client that you will need to go back to your matter plan and identify which areas could be reduced. In doing so you are demonstrating that your price has been carefully calculated and is not just a "finger in the air" open to discounting.  Maybe the client could undertake some of the work and reduce the cost? The key is to match the price to the value delivered.

(Even better would have been to prepare for this question in advance and know how to answer the discount question before it is asked! Maybe next time).

If you do have to give a price reduction then negotiate something back - we would be willing to give a £2,000 reduction if you agree to settle our bill within seven days – could be a response. Try and avoid percentage discounts as clients often expect the same level of discount on the next matter. Make your price reduction specific to the work in hand and not an on-going arrangement. If you do have to give a discount avoid multiples of 5% as this gives the impression that it has not been fully considered. If your gut feel is for a 10% discount then offer 8% instead. Remember any discount given impacts significantly on your profit.
Step 10   Communicate to the client as you go

Remember when you told the client there would be choices to be made? Don't forget to give him advance notice of when they are going to happen and to present the options clearly. Throughout the matter on a regular basis remind the client what was agreed and how your billing reflects that agreement. Use this opportunity to build the rapport and trust between you, that will lead to a happy working relationship and future business.

Of course there is much more to pricing but these are a few tips to get you started. The client segmentation that Sally mentioned when she talked about understanding what your clients value will impact on your approach to pricing as will the improvements that Rob mentioned last week.

Finally, law firms often lose money where additional work outside the original scope is undertaken, mainly because they do not go back to the beginning and develop options for each additional element and agree the course of action and price with the client. Remember a service delivered is never worth as much as a service required – price in advance of starting the work.

We have developed a number of techniques and pricing models that can be used to help you not only price your matter but also present that price to the client. We have helped clients with their pricing approach for tenders, both private and public sector, for consortium bids and for individual clients whether corporates or individuals. We’d love to help you too.

If you would like to read more about our approach to pricing, here is a copy of an article that Sally and I wrote for Managing Partner magazine which appeared last month. 

If you would like to discuss how you put in place a more robust approach to pricing for your firm we would be only too happy to hear from you. Our approach results in happier clients (through better communication and more choice) and improved profitability (through increased prices and improved staff morale). It really is a win-win approach!

Of course, half the battle is understanding what your clients really really want and Sally covered that last week in Part 2 of the programme. I'm going to take that idea further this week - it's critical to understand that from the client's perspective there are some mission critical parts of your service that absolutely have to be delivered in the same way on time every time. If you mess up on the mission critical parts, there's a real problem. If you like, there's a sort of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that can be applied to what your client wants from you - we've made it easy for you and added a free download to our site for you so you can see what we mean. You can also use this download to map out the mission critical parts of what your clients want from you.

But this programme is called the Profitable Growth Programme: we advocate growing business that is profitable. So you will see that we have marked on the download a reminder to map your own critical business requirements. 

Let's look at sending a letter. How much are you prepared to pay for it and what are the most important element of the service? If you want to send your mother a birthday card, you probably want it to arrive on time, unopened. The cost? First class - 62p. But if you have a letter that absolutely must arrive tomorrow morning before 9.30, that you can track it and make sure that someone signs for it - well, that's £6.40.

Here the client is paying extra for the additional service and the peace of mind that goes with it. The same client might very well usually pay 62p to send their letters. The trick is to know if your 62p client is one who will sometimes really value the ability to pay £6.40 for the same thing - getting his letter from A to B! - or is always going to be a 62p client.

But let's face it, even here, the client is only ever going to pay a 1000% mark up if they are convinced of 4 important things:

• you will deliver it on time
• you have the processes in place to make sure you will deliver it when and how you say you will
• the experience will be markedly different from the 62p service
• the benefit of the additional service far outweighs the cost of it
• and crucially, they know about the service and how to use it

How can you tell what clients value?

Ah! Good question.

Value is entirely subjective - only your client can tell you if they think your service delivers good value or not. You can tell them what it costs and how wonderful the benefits of it are: but he's never going to pay £6.40 to send a card to his mother, no matter how much you stress the benefits of her being able to sign for it before 9.30am!

There are 5 things you need to know about value from the client's perspective:

1. There are good things and bad things ("benefits and detractors" in jargon) that will happen while you work with this client, some of which you can control. Some not. Understanding which elements of your service are critical will help you to protect the benefits where possible.

2. Value changes over time, so that features he was initially impressed with are now just service standard - especially if competitors bring out better offers. We see this in the mobile phone industry all the time.

3. Value has nothing to do with the cost of providing the service.  This works both ways: popcorn literally costs pence to make but cinema goers will pay £££ for it. Equally, as Peter Drucker puts something is not quality just because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money "This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else"

4. Value points may not be consistent across all services even for one client. What your SME business client wants from your litigation team is different from what he wants from the property lawyer pulling the deals together.

5. What they value about your service is affected by their experiences elsewhere in the world: other legal providers as well as non - legal services they have experienced (e.g. the ease of being able to look something up on Google means that many clients are more informed than they were).

All this means that law firms in 2015 are locked in a constant drive to improve what you are offering balanced with a need to build profitability. The two are not mutually exclusive (as we shall explain next week and in week 4 of this programme) and can work together very well.

Yes, but that doesn't really answer the question. What do clients value and how do you know?

You can do two things: find out ("client research") and make educated guesses based on types of clients ("segmentation"). Client research means gathering as much information as you can from the client themselves, preferably face-to-face or over the telephone. When I was in-house I believed the client research part of my budget was by far the best spent in terms of return on investment and I still think the same today - only these days I am the one visiting law firm clients and asking the questions. 

Segmentation means dividing your client base into types of clients: here's a link to some slides I created for Legalex on this topic last year. Since then we have also adopted a pioneering software tool that allows us to show private client law firms not just who their consumer clients are but also what car they drive, what papers they read and to predict with a great deal of accuracy how they will buy services. 

Whichever approach you use, understanding what your client values about your service is critical to protecting your future growth. 
 New news!
We have three pieces of exciting news to share with you:

We launch our Retail Strategy for law firms at Legalex on 13th and 14th May at ExCel, London. 

Do come and find us on the Conscious Solutions stand: together with other top professionals of the legal world we will be sharing our expertise and networking with like-minded business people. I will be speaking on both days in the Conscious Solutions theatre.

By attending this event, you can be part of discussions that shape the future of the industry, be involved in seminars that can help you make practical changes to your operations and gain valuable insights into all areas of legal business.

If you haven't your ticket already, then don't miss the chance to claim your FREE ticket today!Rob Heaton has joined us as Head of Business Transformation 

Rob is passionate about helping clients achieve operational excellence. He loves the excitement of seeing business transformation happen and is happiest when rolling his sleeves up and working on the ground to get the best results. Previously at Eversheds and New Law, we are delighted that Rob has chosen Richmonte Wells.

To find out more about Rob and how he can help transform your processes so that consistent delivery is the norm for your firm, click here.

Rob will be writing the next newsletter which covers how to make the changes necessary to deliver what your ideal clients want efficiently and profitably.

Who is my ideal client?

Good question. And the answer is, it depends on your strategy and what your key criteria are. A good client development programme is all about a process of refinement and commitment of resources and effort. As time goes on, deliberately focus resources on targeting, winning and nurturing ideal clients that are on strategy and which meet the firm's key criteria. In 5 years' time, your ideal clients will be the backbone of your firm.

So the first step is to define your ideal client in terms of your strategy - whether that is to be, say, the firm of choice for growing businesses, the most innovative online legal services provider or family lawyer for high net worth individuals. In each case, the ideal client self selects: a growing business, tech savvy person with a legal need, asset rich/time poor person who needs help with their personal affairs.

This is a good time to sense check your strategy! How many of these clients do you have already? Is your strategy based on delivering more effective services to a core of profitable clients?

When I ask this question in training sessions and away days, this is often the point when partners start to shift uncomfortably in their seats. Usually it's because I have been slightly unfair. At the start of the session I ask a different question: what sort of clients make your firm the most money? The answers come thick and fast: clients with repeat legal needs who fit neatly in with the firm's culture and aspirations, pay their bills on time and refer others. As soon as we get into the realms of strategy, these reliable, supportive clients disappear and in their place appear shiny, new (entirely fictional) clients  that the firm has yet to meet!

If this describes your firm, I suggest you have another look at the strategy before moving onto your ideal client. If on the other hand, your strategy document also describes your ideal client in detail, then read on..

The next step is to define and refine key criteria that flesh out what you are looking for in an ideal client. Different firms will have different criteria. For instance, if your ideal client is a growing SME client, you might be looking for those who are active in a specific sector or at a certain stage of development (so you can help them get AIM listed, for example). On the other hand, your ideal client might be a middle aged couple, with elderly parents looking to downsize and invest their savings wisely.

If you click here you will find a one page download which will take you through how to define your ideal client. Let me know how you get on!

In the meantime, here are my five top tips for identifying your ideal client:

1. Always consider the lifetime value rather than a one off opportunity however exciting it appears
2. Look at the potential of a client on a cross department, cross regional, cross discipline basis 
3. Beware pet clients, trophy clients and important clients - the ones who distort resources and profitability because they are so "famous" or are too big to lose. Instead look out for flagship clients - the ones who reflect positively on your business because you work for them and are active contributors to your profitability.
4. Be aware that there is no such thing as a loss leader - only a loss.
5. Watch out for the seedlings - the ideal clients of the future.

Oh and if you need help reviewing your strategy, give us a call. In part 2 we will be looking at ways of understanding what your ideal clients value about your firm and how that changes over time. 

Take the iPod. Sony, realising that people wanted to take their music with them, developed the Walkman in 1979. 20 years later, the cassette had given way to CDs and everyone expected MP3 players (based on a hard drive) to take over as the means of storing and sharing music. But it wasn’t until the spread of broadband, better memory capacity and the launch of the iTunes store in 2003, that the iPod really took off – leaving the shady world of MP3 players in its wake. Apple, the computer company, had succeeded in disrupting the music business.
 
Or take the car.  In 1898, the first Urban Planning Convention in New York asked “What will New York look like in 1998?” The biggest problem facing the global economy then was the constraints of the bi product of horse transport. The planners broke up a week earlier than expected, apparently overcome by the prospect of a city buried under mountains of horse manure and carcasses. (For a full assessment of the problem at the time see here). Just one year earlier, the Benz made its first inter city journey. 10 years later Ford launched the model T, by 1912 there were more cars than horses in New York City and 1921 saw the first motor car traffic jam.
 
Think Amazon and the publishing industry or for that matter solar power and the global energy industry.
 
There are many reasons why disruptive change often comes from outside. One is that people already involved in an industry find it difficult to accept disruptive change let alone create it. In fact, they are so wedded to resisting change that they will do so even at their peril.
 
The classic study for this is Karl Weick’s article in 1996 “Drop your tools: An allegory for organisational studies” in which he looked at why all but 3 firefighters in the Mann Gulch tragedy in Montana died within reach of safe places. In this terrible tragedy, a speed of just a few additional 6-9 inches per second would have seen them to safety. All died with their tools at their sides.
 
Apart from physical reasons (the noise of the fire, dehydration, carbon monoxide poisoning) there are additional, less obvious reasons:
 

1. Fear of the unknown - unfamiliar technology seems riskier
2. Unwillingness to admit failure
3. Unreasonable belief that all will be well despite the evidence
4. Unwillingness to accept loss of control
5. Perception that fear is not widespread and that there is no cause for alarm – even if you are afraid
6. Unwillingness to be the first one to admit failure
7. The tools are closely tied to a sense of identity – so being told to drop the tool, is like being asked to drop your sense of self.
8. To drop a tool is to admit to a terrible reality – that the fire is out of control and that you are trapped

 
In the Mann Gluck disaster the foreman survived, thanks to the “escape fire” he set. Unfortunately his crew either did not trust the technology – or him – sufficiently and so he was the only one who was saved by it.
 
To create innovation in the legal industry, rather than simply wait for others to do it for us – or to us – we have got to learn how to drop the tools. To stop looking at how to remove the piles of horse manure stacking up around us. 

That in a sentence is the challenge facing us all. And not least because what the clients want and how they want it is changing. And what they see as value is changing too.

Over the last few months, Richmonte Wells has been asking everyone we meet what they need to help them meet the challenge. Most people said “more time", some people said “ideas”, some said “knowing what other firms are doing”. This guide is a result of that feedback: a series of weekly emails organised by themes that will give you practical tips, ideas and the know how you need to drive profitable growth in your firm. All in short, easy to read, Lego sized blocks.

This approach is based on the British Cycling team’s theory that one percent marginal gains add up to championship performance over time. Everything is open for improvement; nothing is assumed. If you take on one or more of our suggestions, it will result in a tangible improvement in either profitability or growth. We are giving you real insights into our methodology and processes and more is available on our website.

Over the next 6 weeks, Im going to take the New Year’s Resolution and pull it apart. In each weekly email I will explain how to shape up the resolution so that it means something useful to you and your firm. The idea is that you will start the New Year with a fresh approach to how to grow profitable business and ready to learn more.

We will also be sending you links to resources and information that will give you the opportunity to find out more or to embed the practices into your firm. And finally, we will set up an online discussion group for those who are on board with the challenge and want to find out more or share experiences with their counterparts at other firms.

If you would prefer not to receive any of these emails, simply reply with the words “no thanks” and I will remove you immediately, with my apologies!

Each email will be no longer than 5-6 paragraphs, relevant and useful and we aim that it should take no more than 3 minutes to read. If you choose to click the links and read on, then that may take a little longer. 

Feel free to let me know what you think about the emails and how useful they are. Our plans for future series include: 
​
How to grow your pipeline and get it running smoothly

• What are the key steps in setting up a pricing strategy? 
• How to avoid the mistakes firms make in streamlining processes
• How to win more business by closing sales more effectively 

But let us know if there is something specific you would like us to cover instead!

​In Part 1, I looked at why disruptive innovation often comes outside and suggested that those who resist change do so even at their own peril – literally, sometimes, in life and death situations. So it is hardly a surprise that even whilst espousing business transformation, lawyers resist the very changes they aspire to.
 
Of course, the legal services industry is not life and death. And no, I’m not going to make the Bill Shanklin jest about it being far more serious than that. Except, sometimes it is.  Sometimes human liberty, even life, can be at stake. Sometimes it does not even need to be so dramatic for a matter to have a life changing impact: being removed from accommodation unlawfully or having a judgment entered against you. With the withdrawal of legal aid there is a pressing social need for legal services to be made cheaper and more readily available to the poorest and least able in society. 

We know that that’s not likely to happen for a while. The ipod wasn’t made to be cheap – when first launched it cost $399 and the first model T Ford cost $xxx (at a time when annual income was xxx).  What happened in both cases was
 
Innovation first
Process and price improvement second
 
First find a solution that works for the people rich enough to play and pay. Then, move into mass production. The same is true of drugs: first the research and development that creates a cure, then the generic version available to even the poorest in global society. Once the innovation becomes readily available, if the design and functionality are not compromised, it is likely to become “sticky” and so lead to exponential change.
 
So process improvement and innovation that starts with reducing the price as the imperative is missing the point. The point is to find a cure: whether that is for a disease, music on the go or a means to travel from A to B with the worry of having to look after and clear up after a horse.
 
In other words, stop looking at the huge pile of horse manure and wondering how to move it more efficiently. Instead, start observing and understanding what clients want – not what we think they want, or even what they say they want. But what they really really want.  For now let’s agree that the following is going to be true for most:
 
When we come across a problem we want it sorted as soon as possible
We don’t want to come across a problem too late
We want the answer to be quick and easy and straightforward
Overall, we’d like it not to get in the way of what we are doing
 
These boil down to the following:
 
Access
Understanding
Speed not just of response but resolution
 
Already we can find a lot of useful information with a Google search, but that’s not enough. What we want is to be able to type in a problem situation and have the answer back – on the way to a meeting, without caveats about context or the need to take “proper” legal advice.
 
Make no mistake, somewhere out there is a technology that will change the face of legal services forever once combined with an understanding (not of how law firms run, or how to better streamline their services) of a powerful consumer demand and how it can be met.
 
Already the legal process is being chopped into lego-sized pieces and reassembled. Artificial intelligence is being developed that will be able to read a piece of text and apply rules to it – essentially what a lawyer does. Is this rent review notice valid, yes or no? Is this contract compliant? What is the best way to protect my interest in this business?
 
To begin with this technology will probably only be available to a few: the insurance companies, banks and other large scale businesses that rely upon huge numbers of repeat transactions. Already they create contracts by automatic assembly: in the future they will be able to assess whether the contracts are valid. Over time this technology will become more readily available and applied to consumer led applications.
 
The truth is uncomfortable. We need to drop the tools. We need to drop the tools that keep us aloof and distant and get on with providing consumers with the answers they want, when they want them, how they want them and in the format that they want. However counterintuitive it may seem, an “escape fire” may be the way to go.

​You have an opportunity to sell to a client. You have prepared for the occasion, done your homework and understand the client’s fears, needs and desires. Your pitch is word perfect...And yet. You could still walk out of the meeting room (or put down the phone) with no sale.
 
Unless you understand how to help your client buy. It is as simple as that: stop selling and help your client to make the right decision. Here’s how.

Before the meeting
 
As part of your preparation for the meeting, have a think about the questions that you might ask if YOU were the client. Make sure you have answers for them, but also make sure that you encourage the client to ask in the first place. Yes, of course, it’s great to look as if you have thought of everything – but didn’t your mum ever tell you that nobody likes a smart alec? What’s more, by allowing the client to ask, you show your consideration for their concerns and allow them to feel more involved in the process.
 
During the meeting
 
Some people call this “preparing for yes!” I think it just makes sense – and makes the sales process more of a conversation. In my experience, most lawyers find this method much more comfortable.
 
Remember – this isnt a lecture or an exam
 
You arent being tested on your knowledge, you are explaining something to someone who has (a lot) less knowledge than you. So, you need to find out what they know and check that they understand your explanation as you go along.
 
Questions to ask: “What have you heard about us?”, “What do you think so far?”, “Does that make sense”, “Any questions so far?”, “Can you see how that might work for you?”
 
You are looking not just for an encouraging answer but also encouraging body language. If you think that the answer is not really “Yes I completely get it, please go on” then stop, ask some more questions, backtrack and then move forward only when you get the green light again.
 
Help the client to see how having you on board would really make a difference to them
 
In my book, it’s shortsighted, stupid and simply unethical to sell something to somebody that they really don’t want or need. In doing so, you rob yourself of the opportunity to sell them something wonderful at a later date! So, take that pressure off yourself – you are going to make this sale only if the client really wants and needs it. Your job now is to get down and dirty with the details of what the client is looking for so that you don’t miss the opportunity if, in fact, this is exactly right in a Goldilocks type way.
 
Questions to ask: “What do you need to achieve?” “What’s on your ‘if only’ list of features?” “What is it about us that really appeals to you?” “You mentioned x, why do you need that?”
 
Listen carefully to the answers and how they are answered. Check with the client that you have understood the issue. Look for opportunities to confirm how your service will fit the bill, but not
 
before the client knows that you have really paid attention to their answer. “Bank” their understanding by checking yours: “So you are saying that you really need a service that delivers x”, wait for the agreement and move on.
 
Then you can start to help the client envisage how your service would fit in their business and answer their needs. Ask questions that are encouraging and positive.
 
Questions to ask: “Can you see how this might work for you?” “What do you think about [feature]? Can you see how that would benefit your business?” “Would that be useful to you?” “What problems would this solve for you?””Is this the sort of thing you were looking for?” ”Which aspects do you think would be of most benefit to you?” “Which of these optional extras would you prefer?”
 
And finally...
 
Questions to ask: “What haven’t I covered that you were interested in hearing about today?”
 
All this is intended to make the final part of the meeting easier.
 
At this point, if you have asked the right questions and listened carefully your client will now understand as much as they need to in order to make a good decision. Equally, you should by now be an expert on how your service will work in their business, what the downsides might be and how you will have to overcome them.
 
You will know by now if the service is one that your client needs – if not, thank her for her time, offer a referral and ask if you can send her details of your service in case her needs change.
 
If it is, you move from role as expert explainer to one of facilitator. You are going to help the client work out what she needs to do to buy.
 
Questions to ask: “If you decide to buy from us, what do you need to do to get this in place?” “If you chose us, is there anything that might stop you from signing up?” “What do you need from me to make this happen?”
 
Once you have the answers, you can help her problem solve to the solution. Offer to give her the contract, if possible already personalised. And always arrange a next step – when will you see her, talk to her, write to her next.  People buying experience stress at the moment of decision – by actively helping her to buy and by moving the action forward past the sale, you help to diminish that moment of stress.
 
Then celebrate a job well done. You have helped a client buy something that is not just excellent but which meets their needs and desires. Well done!
 
Sally Calverley