The map to a successful pitch

Within the legal profession, there is an unspoken acceptance that a pitch is when you get invited to a prospective client’s premises to stand up in front of some senior managers and lecture them on how you will meet their legal requirements.

In today’s commercial environment, this is no longer the case.

A pitch is any opportunity you have to promote your firm’s expertise to a prospective client or a recognised figure within your market. Admittedly, this could the type of ‘beauty parade’ situation outlined above, but equally it could be a phone call, an informal coffee meeting, a team-on-team roundtable or a chance meeting at an event.

Whatever the context is, you have one objective: engage with your audience. If this sounds like lame training speak, that’s probably because it is, so what does ‘engage’ really mean?

1. Get on with the person you’re speaking to

We are repeatedly told one of the primary drivers in any lawyer client relationship is personal fit. While you can’t make people like you, there are a couple of things you can do to stack the odds in your favour:

• Don’t lecture on law: People want to have a conversation, not a technical legal update. Keep it light and if specific legal topics do need to be covered, keep it brief and leave out all jargon. If more detail is required, you have the perfect reason to get back in touch and keep the conversation moving forward.
• Ask questions about them: On my very first day of sales training, I was told you have one mouth and two ears because that is the ratio in which they were designed to be used. To build real rapport (and find out what you should actually be pitching – see point 3), you need to ask open questions. Ask about your contact, their business, their lives, their plans and the difficulties they face.
• Know a little about a lot: You will frequently be faced with conversations about things you neither know nor care about, but unfortunately the likelihood of your pitch succeeding is inextricably linked to your ability to join in. The good news is that between the BBC and Sky, there’s enough out there to make sure you have a passable knowledge of pretty much anything. You just need to find a little time to stay up to date.

Together, these three simple tactics will give you the map to follow to increase your contact’s interest in what you can do for them.

And remember, personal fit cuts both ways. If you feel the client isn’t right for you, be prepared to either suggest an introduction to a colleague or walk away altogether.

2. Be relevant

People want their solicitor to be informed, clear and to the point. This means from the first point of contact you need to make sure what you are saying is straightforward and relevant, and that you and your firm are credible within the areas being discussed.

• Stick rigidly to what’s being discussed: Don’t wander off on a tangent or muddy the focus of your conversations with unrelated examples. If you have nothing to say, hold back and listen, interjecting only when you have something of note to add.
• Examples of work you’ve done for similar clients in similar areas: Nothing mitigates the risk of instructing you for the first time like familiarity.
• Know your firm’s client value proposition: What do you do for clients? What benefits will clients enjoy as a result of instructing you? What do you do over and above the brief? This is not about differentiation or unique selling points (or indeed unicorns or leprechauns); it’s about hard facts and should be totally consistent with the promises made on your websites, in your collateral and by your colleagues.

The more relevant you are, the more credible you will appear, and there is a direct (and proven) correlation between credibility and instruction.

3. Concentrate on helping, not selling

Overt selling (including the hateful and outmoded ‘elevator script’) is not an attractive method of operation. Instead, always try to leave your audience with something that will be of immediate benefit to them. This could be:

• Highlighting key points the client’s brief may have missed or suggesting an alternative way of approaching the task at hand.
• Picking up on the question outside the agreed agenda that keeps cropping up and answering it comprehensively.
• Offering an introduction to the colleague or professional contact best placed to tackle an issue of concern.

Again, it just comes back to listening and being flexible enough to react to what you are hearing. SJ

Douglas McPherson is a director at Size 10 1/2 Boots

@sizetenandahalf