The 20th Annual Survey of General Counsel published in the August 2010 issue of Inside Counsel (‘What’s Happening in Legal Departments Today’) has some important advice for IP legal services professionals who want to attract good clients and keep them. on board for years.

First, he identifies IP legal services as one of 5 practice areas that increased in volume despite turbulent economic conditions, with the comment “IP has become more important to everyone, be it GM or [its employees] are authorized to use the word Chevy… or my company protects the creative rights for fashion.” – Lorraine Koc, Vice President and General Counsel, Deb Shops.

Second, the figures cited highlight the opportunities for IP legal services professionals to attract really good clients IF they take steps to address some of the concerns that in-house lawyers have. Key figures to consider include:

1. Only 40.9% of law firms understand their business. Truly shocking! I’ve written a bit about needing to know the conversation going on in your prospect/client’s mind, and I suspect this number is low because too many lawyers don’t have proper processes and systems in place to find out what their clients are really looking for. Worse still, they probably don’t make any effort to learn about their customer’s business.
2. Nearly 65% ​​of in-house lawyers do not believe law firms are actively looking for ways to cut costs. Many IP legal services professionals do not want to cut costs because of the time they spend on various activities for which they want to bill. However, if PI legal services professionals were to systematize their client engagement activity (for example), some of the costs they quote later could be reduced due to reduced overheads. By proactively discussing costs with clients, PI legal services professionals can stand out compared to those who simply don’t want to be flexible enough to discuss costs.
3. 51% of law firms do not recognize their clients’ budget constraints. First of all, I want to repeat something that I have mentioned below. You don’t want to be the IP legal services professional known as the lowest priced service provider on the market. That will kill your reputation and your business. Clients will always pay for value, but intellectual property legal services professionals must take into account the tight budgets many clients have. Providing a hybrid model of hourly billable and fixed pricing plans, and perhaps thinking more about multi-year managed services options, gives savvy PI legal services professionals the opportunity to show their willingness to explore various pricing options. prices.

If you haven’t read the report, please do so now. The key figure to remember, and which highlights the opportunities available to lawyers, is the fact that 31.5% of in-house lawyers are not satisfied with their current relationships with the law firm.

It’s not clear how that breaks down for the IP legal services sector. But if we assume, and I appreciate this is a BIG assumption, that 30% of in-house lawyers are looking for a new IP legal service provider, then clearly there is a lot of business that needs to be won. Remember, IP legal services is one of the top 5 growth best practices according to the survey.

If that’s the case, you need to be smart about the way you try to win new IP legal services business. Repeating old mistakes like cold calling, holding seminars to prospects you haven’t built a relationship with, or failing to build trust by providing information your prospects are looking for (without providing direct legal advice, of course) will mean you’re simply repeating the mistakes you’ve made. . by law firms that many companies are no longer happy with.

And this extends to smaller companies that still need advice from crucial IP legal services, but where the relationships are with the owners themselves, or where there is no in-house legal counsel to deal with. With smaller prospects and clients, the problems associated with budgets are multiplied many times over. They just don’t have the huge corporate budgets to play with, and relationships here can be even more personal.

What this survey highlights is the need to understand customer lifetime values ​​and make sure you have systems and processes in place to manage the various stages in the relationships you have with prospects and customers. How you win customers determines the value they place on their relationship with you. So what are IP legal services professionals to do?

1. From the very beginning, you need to uncover the conversation going on in your prospect’s mind and provide them with information that will point them toward a solution or show them how they can get rid of any frustration they may have.
2. You need a platform to streamline your communications with prospects and allow them to give you feedback so you don’t make assumptions about what they need. This allows you to build trust with prospects and allows them to learn about you through reports, seminars, newsletters, etc. You want them to make an informed decision to select you over all other options available in the IP legal services marketplace.
3. You have to create a value proposition that takes into account the budget constraints that many potential/current customers have. Think about the value of having a managed services offering, which guarantees rates for a set period of time and helps you better plan for the growth of your practice. This means changing some internal structures so that you outsource non-core activities and focus on the things that customers value most. After all, that’s what he trained for. For many IP legal services practices and freelancers, outsourcing of certain functions/activities is a great opportunity to reduce costs. All of this, however, comes from understanding what your customers really need and making sure you have the flexibility, without killing your business, to provide great service.

Is all this simple? No, but the key to remember is this. Great marketing isn’t about coming up with the latest, greatest idea. You need, to be frank, proven systems that have already worked. Most importantly, however, success does not come from simply reading about such systems, but from taking steps to implement them. Once you have them in place, you’ll spend twice as much time dealing with clients who want to work with you, and subsequently increase your income.