What's your individual value proposition?

Large law firms typically go to great lengths to define and promote their organisation’s value proposition, investing heavily in advertising campaigns or other external marketing activities, and often expending considerable internal firm resources as well as substantial sums of money in the process. Yet all of this effort, time and money can go to waste if lawyers in these firms do not fully understand and embrace their firm’s institutional marketing efforts.

In order to take advantage of the power of a law firm brand, lawyers of all levels need to be able to effectively communicate their individual value propositions in a way that is aligned with the efforts of the firm overall.

So what specific steps can you take to maximise your personal business development efforts? Listed below are five suggestions.

1. Recognise the difference between ‘institutional’ and ‘retail’ marketing activities

Institutional marketing efforts can be viewed as the broad range of activities taken on behalf of the firm to increase brand awareness and elevate its profile in the client marketplace. By contrast, retail marketing efforts consist of activities conducted by lawyers on an individual or group basis to build client relationships, with the ultimate goal being to develop more business.

Keep in mind that institutional marketing efforts on their own do not, as a general rule, create business opportunities. Rather, they serve to solidly establish the firm’s value proposition in the minds of current and potential clients. Ideally, you should seek to utilise that general firm awareness at the retail level, developing personal relationships with clients who may be predisposed to view the firm and its lawyers in a certain way based on the firm’s institutional marketing efforts.

2. Understand your firm’s value proposition to clients

Before you can effectively take advantage of your firm’s positioning platform, you must grasp the firmwide value proposition – essentially, this equates to the firm’s set of unique qualities that differentiates it from competing firms.

If a lawyer has a message that is in direct conflict with how the firm portrays itself in the external marketplace (or how the firm is actually perceived), this may create confusion in the mind of the client or potential client. It is much more beneficial for the lawyer to understand the firm’s general positioning platform, so that he/she can use and convey that information in a constructive way.

What if you don’t know your firm’s value proposition? I recommend you ask a senior marketing professional in your organisation for clarification.

3. Determine your ideal target clientele

What is the makeup of your typical client base? Do you generally work with clients in a particular industry or sector? Do you find that you often deal with CEOs, CFOs or other members of the C-suite, rather than in-house lawyers? These are all questions that you should consider before you begin to refine your individual message.  

4. Define which elements of the firm’s value proposition are most relevant to your target market

After you’ve identified which type of clients you wish to target, you should select those qualities of your firm’s value proposition that you believe would resonate most with your audience.

Perhaps you are focused on a primarily local clientele that doesn’t see much value in using a global firm. In that case, you might want to focus more on the local capabilities or strengths that you and your firm can provide, rather than promoting the global aspects of your law firm. In other cases, having regional expertise in many different countries may be a strong selling point. The key here is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach that works in every situation.

5. Communicate your personal value proposition to clients and contacts

These days, it is not sufficient to simply focus on being a great lawyer. In order to win new business from current or prospective clients, you must be able to persuasively communicate a personal value proposition that is: a) aligned with that of your firm; and b) most relevant to your target audience.

At the end of the day, if you can communicate your value proposition in a compelling fashion, you may be able to stand out from others in the marketplace that have equally impressive credentials.