TRP 275: Growing Key Clients: The Low-Hanging Fruit of BD with Kevin Wheeler

[00:00:10] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by high-stakes headhunter, author, and professional speaker, Scott Love. Hey, this is Scott Love, and thanks for joining me on The Rainmaking Podcast. If you're new to this show, make sure you spend time and scroll through some of our past episodes, because I promise this is something that's going to help you.

[00:00:35] My style of interviewing people is to get right to the point, because you're busy, I know you don't want to waste your time, and you only want to get content from people that have solid credentials. And all of this is delivered to you through this show. I'm really excited about this particular episode today. We've had Kevin Wheeler on the show once before, and it's always great to follow Kevin. By the way, if you want to see some really cool hiking photos in Scotland, make sure you follow him on LinkedIn. We put his LinkedIn link on the show notes so you can connect with him.

[00:01:04] His ideas are solid, and today we're talking about Growing Key Clients, The Low-Hanging Fruit of Business Development. Now, Kevin has been advising professional services firms on all aspects of strategy, marketing, business development, and client relationship management, and key account management for more than 30 years. I know you're going to get some solid ideas that you can take back today and see results from.

[00:01:28] As always, this show is sponsored by SurePoint Legal Insights, formerly known as Leopard Solutions, turning legal intelligence into opportunity. Also, this show is sponsored by The Rainmaking Magazine for the intellectually driven and results-focused professional that wants to grow their book of business. Visit therainmakingmagazine.com today to chart your course to greater rainmaking success.

[00:01:54] Thanks for listening, and I hope you get some great ideas from my conversation with Kevin Wheeler today. Hey, this is Scott Love with The Rainmaking Podcast. Our special guest today is Kevin Wheeler. He's been with us before, and our topic is Growing Key Clients, The Low-Hanging Fruit of Business Development. Kevin, thank you for coming back on the show. Thank you very much for inviting me. Absolutely right, Kevin. And I'm excited to have you here because I really think that you have good credentials and depth, especially within the legal industry,

[00:02:22] even though the topics we're talking about aren't specifically for legal. But let me ask you this, where should we begin our conversation? What are some of the main focus areas that you think help partners and others in professional services grow key clients? I think the sort of fundamental issue is that most firms sit on a big untapped reservoir of new business opportunities, and those are their existing clients.

[00:02:49] So rather than going out and trying to win new clients from scratch, which is what you find most firms doing, firms should be looking at their key clients, their largest, most prestigious clients, the clients where they see growth opportunities, and they should be focusing in on those. Right. Why do you think they don't do that? I mean, I know it's pretty exciting, pretty sexy to get a new client. Why do you think that is? They just don't look miserable?

[00:03:13] Well, bizarrely, one of the reasons why it doesn't happen is that partners get paid for originating clients. So if you are a partner looking to increase your originations, you need to go out there and win new ones. There's very little financial incentive to work with other partners' clients and help generate business from those,

[00:03:40] because in a lot of situations, partner amelioration systems reward the originating partner. The partner who originally brought that client into the firm. I've heard that in some firms, you know, partners who originate clients continue to benefit financially from those clients, even after they've retired. So, you know, I do a lot of coaching with partners, helping them with business development. And a lot of them tell me, you know, I've got to go out there and win new clients,

[00:04:09] because then they go on my roster and I'm responsible for originating them. And I then continue to derive personal revenue from the revenue streams that flow from those clients. So it's a bizarre one. You don't find it in, say, the big accountancy firms, where there is a drive to institutionalize the client and to work across the firm and deliver the various service lines that that firm provides into the client.

[00:04:38] You know, the more services you can provide to a client, the more practice areas that deliver work into that client, the more loyal the client is, the more institutionalized the client is, so that, you know, one partner can't just up and leave and take that client away. There's more of a team effort. And sadly, you know, you just don't find that in that many law firms at the moment. That's really interesting. Do you think firms have thought about changing that?

[00:05:06] I mean, kind of looking on a strategic focus level with that whole concept? Well, I've been involved in professional services, marketing and business development for nearly 40 years and law firms for over 30. And during that time, you know, I've dipped my toe into the market and carried out surveys to assess where firms are in this area.

[00:05:33] And, you know, there's no doubt that today firms, law firms are putting more effort into and are better able to deliver key client programs than they were 10, 20 years ago. But we did a survey a couple of months ago where we looked at the key client programs, the key account management practices amongst the major law firms, certainly those based in the UK, based in London.

[00:06:02] And only 24% of those firms on our diagnostic, which we use to assess what firms are doing in this area, only 24%, so less than a quarter, have what we would consider to be sort of really robust, sophisticated key client programs in place, which is quite a low figure. Right. You know, that's among the biggest firms. So, you know, you'd expect the biggest firms to be more sophisticated than the smaller firms.

[00:06:31] So I don't know the figure would be much less amongst them. So do you think the responsibility in a firm environment, whatever professional service, is it something that an individual contributor can make a difference in, in harvesting business from existing clients? Or do you think that needs leadership support with a real clear directive to push that initiative? What do you think about that? It's got to come from the top, Scott. If you have not got commitment to a key client program from the top of the firm, it's not going to happen.

[00:07:00] You know, it's got to be a strategic initiative led by the board with the backing of the managing partner and the rest of the board. Because if they're not behind it, it's not going to happen. Yeah. So I think that people are busy. They've got their own focus areas. What do you think? Yeah. And sadly, I've seen lots of marketing and business development directors who know that this stuff's important have tried to implement programs, but they've not had that support from the top. The senior leadership team have not been behind it.

[00:07:27] And, you know, even though they, you know, use their best endeavors to get these programs up and running, invariably they just fall away because there's no push from the top to make it a priority. Linked to that, of course, is that rarely, in fact, hardly ever do I find law firms or other professional services firms rewarding client relationship partners. So these are the partners who've been allocated responsibility

[00:07:55] to take over responsibility for managing and growing a key client. They don't link the attainment of specific objectives, you know, increases in fees, increases in profits, increase in service penetration, increases in client satisfaction. They don't link these sort of client-specific objectives to the remuneration that that partner receives. So you and I both know that if you're not rewarding somebody for something, they're unlikely to do it.

[00:08:26] If you're just rewarding them for, you know, personal billions or group billions, they'll go out and they'll work in their silos and generate as much work as possible, but they won't actually work collaboratively with their colleagues to try and, you know, deliver services across the board for the benefit of a specific client. And that's where a lot of these programs fall down. They just don't support the program by incentivizing the partners who are responsible for managing these key clients to actually deliver.

[00:08:54] So, and unless you fix that over the long term, you're not going to, you're not really going to get much change. And what's interesting, I've seen law firms, because that's my niche, recruiting corporate and finance partners in big firms. Those law firms that are most successful in recruiting have leadership support. In fact, some of them, if the chairman or could be chairman emeritus has carte blanche authority to make offers and get people on board, they can really get some attractive groups and get things done. If it's when you have too many cooks in the kitchen, nothing gets done, which is what law firms really are.

[00:09:24] And I would imagine the same thing applies to business development. If there's a firm that gives legitimate authority to a senior level executive where there has trust that's already been earned, that person can actually do something and move the ball forward. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think unless it's a main priority of the firm and it's got commitment from the top and there's some reward being given to the personal person for driving it forward

[00:09:51] and achieving specific client objectives, it's unlikely to fly. The other thing that I find lacking, certainly in law firms, is they try and do it all in a vacuum. So if they're going to run a key client program, you know, they'll get the client team together so a couple of partners and some associates who work on the client. And they try and come up with an account plan. So what do we know about the client? What do we know about their needs? That's right. They try and plan.

[00:10:20] What they don't do is they don't go and talk to the client. So, you know, one of the key components of getting this stuff right is actually going and getting the views of the client. So doing comprehensive client listening, you know, and not by the partner going out and talking to the client. Get somebody who's independent from a client relationship. It doesn't necessarily have to be an external consultant like me. It might be somebody internally from the BDT. Let me ask you this for a second then.

[00:10:46] Kevin, if we're going to look at the main components of this kind of initiative, if we could put those, let's say, here's the big rocks in the bucket, so to speak. One of those, like you're talking about, is getting client feedback and what you were describing, somebody talking to the clients. What would you call that part of this initiative? That's basically a camp planning. So once you've identified, well, you've identified from the top that it's a strategic imperative for the firm to be focusing on its key clients.

[00:11:16] You know, a lot of firms, it's the old 80-20 rule. 20% of the clients represent 80% of the revenue and profits. And therefore, it makes sense to focus on those 20% and have a structured program for managing and growing those clients. They are so important to the firm. You know, the last thing you want to do is lose them. You don't want to lose these clients, so you better get your act together to just retain them. And then you probably ought to start thinking about what you're going to do to grow the revenue from those clients.

[00:11:46] It's important that you have as a strategic imperative the recognition that your key clients are important. The next step is to decide which partners are going to take a lead in managing those relationships. So, you know, I used to work in the county and we used to call them lead partners.

[00:12:05] But I found that the concept of a lead partner didn't translate very well into the legal sector because other partners didn't like one partner being referred to as the lead partner and then being not the lead partner. So, in the legal sector, we use client relationship partner. But effectively, that is the partner who is responsible for overseeing and managing the totality of the relationship between the law firm and the client.

[00:12:31] So, you need to put those in place and you need to get the right guys or gals in place. You know, you don't appoint somebody because they're the one with the longest relationship with the client or they went to school with the GC or, you know, they've done work historically.

[00:12:47] You need to appoint somebody who obviously has the contacts of the client that the client gets on well with, somebody who understands the nature of the client's business, but somebody who's good at motivating a team, is good at building relationships. All the key components that you'd expect for a client relationship partner.

[00:13:07] And so, let me ask you then, is this usually someone that, are they looking at people that are grouping their batches of clients, such as an industry focus area? This is our music and entertainment focus area. Yeah. And we know there's going to be all sorts of practices. Is it going to be that kind of perspective or more of a practice-focused perspective? It's going to be a client-focused perspective. Oh, okay. Go ahead.

[00:13:33] Sector programs are great for positioning the firm to build a reputation and a profile in a particular industry sector and for generating what, for one of the better word we might call, marketing collateral. So, we're going to market through sector groups. Traditionally, law firms have gone to market through practice areas. So, we have an employment team selling employment advice. We have a corporate team. We have a litigation department.

[00:14:00] Here, we're talking about going to market through specific clients. So, it's a specific client focus. And what you're looking to do is appoint the best partner to manage that relationship. And he or she will have, you know, a deep insight into the client, the workings of the client, but also the sector as well, I would think. Right. Let me ask you, can it be one partner that might be doing this with multiple clients?

[00:14:30] Have you seen that before? Most people in these positions as client relationship partners are only dealing with, at most, a couple of clients. It's such an intensive responsibility. What you want is to ensure that the partner who's carrying out this role is highly focused and spending a lot of their time on. These are key clients. You know, if you've got a partner who's looking after five key clients, that's not going to work because that person's going to be spread too thinly. Yeah, I see.

[00:14:59] It's unusual to find a client relationship partner dealing with more than one or two. And so, tell me, what are they actually doing with the client? What are the, you know, actions that they're taking in building these client relationships? They are responsible for ensuring that the appropriate team is assembled. So, I said, you know, it's about making sure it's driven from the top. It's about identifying which clients are key clients.

[00:15:25] So, there's a big exercise around segmenting clients and working out which your key clients are. You've then got to appoint the appropriate partners into those client relationship partner roles. They're then responsible for bringing together a team of lawyers. In this case, we're talking about law firms who are going to be responsible for delivering the service needs of that particular client. And you should have on the team not only people who are currently delivering services to the client,

[00:15:53] but ones who might get involved because there's been an identification of a need and we want to introduce somebody into the client because the client's not using someone currently or more likely is using another firm. So, part of our client development strategy is to identify those services being provided by other law firms and developing a strategy to displace those incumbent firms.

[00:16:20] And this is all part of the client relationship partner's role. Another part of the client relationship partner's role is to ensure that the work is allocated to the appropriate people to monitor and make sure that work is being done to the level, the high level that the firm expects. But importantly also, that partner is responsible for making sure that, as I said, this client feedback loop is in place that, you know, on a regular basis,

[00:16:48] the firm is going out to the client using somebody who's independent from the relationship as I said, somebody like myself, an external consultant or a B person to get feedback on what the client really thinks. You know, what are they thinking of our services? Are they happy? If they're not happy, what are they not happy with? What are they identifying as areas where we can improve? You know, what are then, you know, looking down the track, what are their plans?

[00:17:14] What's their strategy and plan and how will that affect the sort of advice that they want? And which other law firms are they using? You know, one of the things I do when I go out and talk to clients on behalf of my law firm clients is actually talk to them about how much they spend on external law firms. How big's the pie? And, you know, what percentage of that pie goes to my client? And, you know, if my client's only getting 20%, that's 80% of the client's spend that's going to other law firms.

[00:17:43] And then you ask the client, well, who else do you use and what are you using them for? And then the killer question is, well, my law firm can provide that sort of advice. Why historically have you not used them to provide, you know, employment advice or litigation or whatever? And you won't be surprised to know that often the question comes, the answer comes back, well, I just didn't know they did that or I didn't know they were in that part of the world. You know, and that's why I call it low hanging fruit.

[00:18:11] There are lots and lots of opportunities out there if only law firms were proactive and actually engage their clients and ask the right sort of questions. This is such a smart way to do it, Kevin. It really is, you know. And so have you seen when you're in that role, you're part of that client feedback loop, you're talking with the client, you've been able to get more business and bring that back to your clients, the law firms. I've done hundreds and hundreds of interviews with clients, GCs, finance directors, chief executives,

[00:18:39] asking them these basic questions. I don't think I've ever done an interview with a law firm client where I've not been able to go back to that law firm and say, I've got something, you know, there's something here that we can action that will put us in a better position than before I went and asked the question. So areas of service improvement, new business opportunities because the client has highlighted that they're unhappy with a particular firm. You know, it really is a no-brainer.

[00:19:07] But you find quite a few firms where partners are very reluctant to allow outsiders, even internal BD people who they would consider to be outsiders, to go in and ask questions of their client. They're just so protective of their client. They don't want other people coming in and asking those sorts of questions. And the ones that complain the most, I find, are usually the ones who've got the most to hide.

[00:19:36] And so kind of reviewing this in our strategic initiative, we have significant leadership support. We have a clear directive. We have those, we can't call them lead partners. We call them client relationship partners. Those people are identifying those clients. They're reaching out to them. They're making sure that the work is getting done well. They're getting feedback from the client. And then someone like you, an independent advisor hired by the law firm,

[00:20:03] meets with the client, talks with them, makes sure, gets more intel, sees if you can capture more work. Are there any other major components of this sort of initiative, Kevin? The main one that I would say is, you know, tying all these threads up into an account plan. You know, if you've got a big, complex client that you're servicing internationally around the globe through your different offices, delivering any number of different services to that client

[00:20:31] may well also be a complex client relationship at the client end in terms of the decision makers that you're interfacing with. And, you know, you need a plan in place to pull this all together, something that sets out some overarching objectives for the client. You know, what are we trying to achieve with this client? Are we trying to increase turnover? Are we trying to increase profits? Are we trying to increase service penetration?

[00:20:59] So there are specific services that we think we ought to be delivering into the client. Are there certain jurisdictions where we think we should be doing more because we have, you know, good people on the ground. We just don't have the relationship. So any number of different metrics in the plan. And not forgetting things like client satisfaction. Very few law firms go out and undertake really in-depth, comprehensive client listening.

[00:21:25] And, you know, if you're doing that, you should be recording your client satisfaction metrics and you should be setting targets to improve those. You know, you need to have a plan in place. And we work with firms. We run what we call our key client workshops where we work with a team of, in this case, let's say lawyers working for a client. We workshop with those lawyers, the people in that team over a half-day period,

[00:21:53] all the different components that they need to consider in order to build a robust client service plan. And those include looking at the client's business. So if we analyze the business of the client and identify what their needs are. I've talked at length about the client listening piece. Do we really understand what the client wants from us? Do we understand where we need to deliver improvements?

[00:22:20] Have we identified by asking the client where there are opportunities for us to displace other law firms that are there? We do something called relationship mapping. So we identify all the key decision makers at the client and the authority they have for use in external law firms. And then we map across to our lawyers who knows them and how well they know them. And if we've got gaps, we need to plug them.

[00:22:45] So for instance, we may find that the human resources director has autonomy when it comes to appointing external employment lawyers. But if our employment head, our employment team don't even know this HR director, one of the things that we need to put into our plan is a way of actually getting that introduction to be made from our existing relationships. That's what we call relationship mapping. So we're looking at the links and trying to find the holes and see how we fill them.

[00:23:15] There's a lot of depth and complexity, and we're pretty much running out of time for our show today. I'd like to have you back on in the future and continue our conversation on this just because it's very deep. But for people listening today, check out Kevin's contact information. We're going to put his link and his bio link and then even information about these workshops that he does. But Kevin, if we could kind of summarize what we've talked about so far, what are three action steps? A law firm or professional services firm leader, no matter what capacity they're in,

[00:23:44] what are three action steps they can take to really get started with some of the initiatives that you talked about? Right. The first thing is you've got to get buy-in from the senior leadership team. You've got to get them to recognize and understand that having a structured approach to managing and growing the firm's key clients has to be a priority. It has to be a strategic imperative. So you have to get that in place. The second thing I would do is you've got to go and carry out client listening.

[00:24:13] You have got to, on a regular basis, be getting feedback from the client on where they want improvements and what their needs are. Thirdly, you've got to attempt to try and make some sort of link between the way client relationship partners are remunerated and their delivery on these key client targets. Because really, if you don't start to address that, I don't think you'll get the change in the behavior and the actions that you need further down the track unless you've got that in place.

[00:24:41] So those are the three things that I would stress that people need to try and achieve. That's great. Thank you, Kevin. And then tell us more about your offerings. What do you have? What do you do that you'd like our listeners to know about? And as I mentioned, for everybody listening, go to the show notes. You'll be able to connect with Kevin directly. I've been in professional services marketing for my entire career, which is now approaching 40 years. And I started off in-house.

[00:25:07] I was a marketing director at one of the – sorry, I was in the marketing team and business development team at one of the big four accountancy firms. I was a marketing director at a top 10 London law firm. I dabbled in private equity for a while. And I've been a consultant for the last nearly 30 years. And I badge myself as a BD consultant and also a BD coach.

[00:25:32] So I work with partners in large and medium-sized professional services firms, helping them to manage and grow their key clients and also win new business as well. So that's in a nutshell. That's what I do. That's great. Well, we're going to put your info on the show notes. Thank you for being here, Kevin. And I really do appreciate you sharing your wisdom. And I know that our listeners are going to benefit when they implement this. Thanks so much. And we'll have you back on the show in the future. Thank you, Scott.

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