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December 20, 2006
Associate Reviews: "Dude, if you can't steal our clients, you're fired."
There are lots of suggestions out there on standards, guidelines and take-aways for year-end associate reviews. Two are (a) letting staff evaluate co-workers and partners on specific inter-office skills in writing, and (b) reviews of staff based on specific client service standards which ALL employees must buy into (i.e., pay increase for well done client service; hit the road, for the unwilling, clueless).
Here's another one--and it's been my firm's for over ten years. But first, expand your mind for a brief moment and pretend that you're NOT a lawyer, accountant, MD, broker, consultant, salesperson, retail clerk, Alaskan fly-fishing guide, or other alleged service-provider (it's most people that work in any job these days!), that you are passionate about what you do, that you love your clients and customers, and that you want more of that business and income stream.
Ready?
Every day, the client service by associate and paralegals should be good enough to permit those employees to actually steal any client, and take them to another law firm (use "transport" for the foregoing, if you need the PC professional services term), if they were to leave your shop tomorrow morning.
Period.
Fact: that's what we want at our firm, and that's what we tell associates.
If you are not, in effect, willing to go that far with your own employees in instituting and daily demanding client service, you are neither confident about client loyalty (not to mention employee loyalty) nor really serious about delivering outrageous client service to your clients. A true client service culture has to be that "extreme". So folks, let "them that can" whisk those clients out of your firm with a phone call or two; after all, that's only fair to the clients, if they so decide. If you find this idea preposterous, radical or just too disturbing, please think very hard about what you are really doing at your firm, and your real commitment, to build and lead a true client service culture.
At your shop, is "client service" just drinks-and-dinner b.s. for the clients, and website-and-brochure lip service for the public? Or is it real?
And wouldn't it be wonderful if the service were that good, and the atmosphere at your firm fun, lucrative and engaging enough that those employees just had to stay?
Posted by JD Hull at December 20, 2006 09:16 PM
Comments
I LOVE THIS APPROACH! For years I've been coming at it from the other way around with my Rainmaking Clients, telling them that "If one of your associates leaves & steals a client, you deserved it!"
The fact of the matter is that "owning" a law firm is one of the biggest lies the equity partners of law firms tell themselves. When your most valuable assets are free to walk out the door, take your best sources of revenue with them and leave you holding the bag with a long-term lease and expensive overhead you don't "own" the firm, the firm owns you!
Harsh reality, I know. But here's what to do about it. . . cultivate relationships between your firm and its clients. Offer clients something they couldn't get if they went somewhere else. Be a 21st Century Law Firm Manager and give your associates and support staff too for that matter, something no-one else is smart enough to do for them by taking a realistic look at the balance of power and adapt the job to so perfectly fit their needs that they couldn't possibly go anywhere else. And don't hire losers just because you need to get the work done. Losers may never steal your clients. They'll do worse. . .they'll drive your clients into the waiting arms of your competition.
This advice applies equally to support staff. I know of several support staff who have a bigger book of business than some fairly successful lawyers out there. There's just no good reason your secretary shouldn't be able to steal your clients too!
By the way, if you want some practical tips on how to cultivate relationships between your firm and its clients, I suggest you check out How To Have A More Enjoyable Small Law Firm.
Respectfully,
RJON ROBINS
www.HowToMakeItRain.com
Helping Lawyers In Small Firms Make ALOT More Money
Posted by: RJON@HowToMakeItRain.com at December 20, 2006 04:20 PM
I like it! Great post! Have a wonderful holiday!
Posted by: Leo Bottary at December 21, 2006 02:40 AM
Sorry for coming so late to this party, but just seeing this for the first time. BRILLIANT. I love it.
I was talking with the head guy at the Shanghai law firm with which we are affiliated about our plans to put another American (this time a young one) lawyer in the office there. I talked about how he would connect perfectly with Shanghai's 30-something ex-pat crowd driving so many of the deals there. The Chinese lawyer then said that the problem would be that he might steal the clients. We three American lawyers all then said that we cannot worry about that because if that happened that would be our own fault because it meant both that we were not paying him enough and that we were not key factors in his bringing in the work. Just like Rjon Robins said above. Next time we have this discussion, I will say that is exactly what we want to position him to be able to do.
Posted by: China Law Blog at March 5, 2007 06:21 PM
Holden,
I'm not sure why this post popped up in my blog reader today, almost 10 months after you first published it. I think it's a great approach, with parallel applications in other areas: instead of protecting our little fiefdoms, we should be challenging others to make us better by trying to invade. It makes them better, and makes us better.
But here's a quibble: the problem with the expression "stealing clients" isn't that it's un-PC, but rather that it fosters the (incorrect) perception of clients as property. If clients were property, we wouldn't be so concerned about delivering outrageous service to them.
Posted by: Mark Bennett at October 9, 2007 08:56 PM
Thanks, Mark. And we see your point about clients as not being property. In fact, "steal" is probably just short for "take our clients to another firm if you quit". Point taken.
Posted by: Holden Oliver at October 12, 2007 11:08 AM
This is exactly the approach I take with our good associates -- my goal is to build them and train them first to service clients that I bring them, and then how to get their own and keep them.
It's a five year plan: The first two years are for being lost and bewildered, fearful that they aren't good enough and never will be. The third and fourth year are for finally starting get it, and becoming so big in their britches that they start to think they don't need me. And in the fifth year we see if they can fly.
It's an odd paradox: If the young lawyer has been able to develop a portable book of business, and the skills to build on that book of business, then he doesn't need to leave for greener pastures elsewhere. He's got a good thing going here. Having a few of his own clients will give him internal power within the firm, and point him toward partnership; the money will follow from there.
So many law firms approach this from the opposite perspective: This guy is such a goof, he'll never be able to steal my clients. Who on Earth would want that kind of person filling the halls of the firm? And yet they do.
Posted by: Brendon Carr at October 13, 2007 10:00 AM