Olivia Watson
Olivia C. Watson is the Marketing and Business Development Manager at Ackert Inc. She has experience in diverse industry settings including environmental non-profits, financial services, fashion and SaaS. She is a versatile, creative marketer and B2B business developer with a talent for developing original content and initiatives that drive business growth.Olivia C. Watson is the Marketing and Business Development Manager at Ackert Inc. She has experience in diverse industry settings including environmental non-profits, financial services, fashion and SaaS. She leads the marketing efforts at Ackert Inc. and contributes significantly to the company’s business development. Her written work has been featured/quoted by various publications including Strategies Magazine, JD Supra, PM Magazine, and the American Bar Association.
Nobody ever said being a lawyer was easy. In this hypercompetitive landscape, lawyers are being pressured to bill more hours than ever, stay at the office later, and somehow manage to fit in time for business development.
If you’re reading this blog, you most likely appreciate the value of business development, especially as it pertains to leadership. You only get to be equity partner if you source new clients. And even if you don't aspire to a leadership role at the firm, you're still better off developing your network so you have some career mobility down the road.
So how can business development and billable hours coexist within the limited number of hours in the day? Billing hours is not a scalable activity. And if you’re already feeling overwhelmed, closing new clients will only give you more to do.
The answer is to find a scalable solution within your firm. Cross-selling is your path to more free time and (possibly) an even bigger paycheck.
Delegate to the extent possible, scale back on billing hours, and invest that extra time in business development. Attend networking events, write articles, ask the marketing department to track online engagement with your content, and follow up with those leads. Identify their business needs and recommend the services of one of the partners at your firm. When the origination credits start rolling in, you’ll have even more freedom to spend more time making rain and less time billing hours.
Use your Practice Pipeline dashboard to stay in touch with the clients, prospects and referral sources who have cross-selling potential. Consider adding additional Referral Source tiles for the partners at your firm to whom you could cross-sell, and make a point of learning more about their practices so you can speak confidently to their expertise.
Watch the video below for more ideas on how to cross-sell effectively.
