Thanks to the pandemic, law firm marketing, sales, and business development (BD) efforts took a massive hit in 2020—much like other commercial functions. As the latest 2021 LexisNexis InterAction Marketing & Business Development Survey reveals, 66% of law firms found their BD and sales to be more difficult, requiring professionals to devise new strategies to win new business and retain existing clients. Interestingly, the firms that overcame challenges and found growth approached marketing differently versus the firms that found themselves in the status quo camp; i.e., those that achieved no business growth.

It’s official­—marketing is of strategic importance to law firm leadership

They say every cloud has a silver lining, and perhaps the good news for marketing and BD professionals is the conclusive recognition that marketing is core to their firm’s overall strategic direction. A whopping 79.7% of law firms stated that marketing was an important piece, with 60% of high growth firms agreeing that marketing and BD leaders drive strategic outcomes in their organizations. Noteworthy here is that only 45% of firms that saw no growth last year believe the same to be true in their organization. Perhaps because no growth firms don’t necessarily have a long-term strategy (29.7%), are challenged by insufficient investment in marketing technology (21.6%), and have the wrong kind of systems that don’t support their processes (16.2%).

Digital is the way to go

Given the fully virtual business environment last year, it’s no wonder that eight out of the top 10 marketing techniques used by firms were of a digital nature, including things like websites, social media platforms, webinars, virtual events, podcasts, and video content. Interesting to note is that high growth and no growth firms used the same techniques, but the former utilized some of the methods—like webinars, virtual events, video content, and podcasts—more frequently than the latter. Clearly, the high growth firms were proactively showcasing their thought leadership, confidently participating in live events to establish relationships and build trust. Perhaps this is something for the nogrowth firms to consider?

Value of marketing metrics shone bright

An area in which high growth and no growth firms differ significantly is tracking marketing metrics. High growth firms are more strategic in their approach to marketing, continuously evolving their program, where it would appear that the slower growing firms were simply executing. To illustrate, 54.3% of high growth firms use historical data for goal setting and 42.9% determine patterns that lead to success and adjust processes accordingly, versus only 37.8% and 24.3% respectively of the no growth firms. The results showed that 77.1% of high growth firms were successful in their marketing efforts, compared to 59.5% of no growth organizations.

Predictably, law firms cite competition as their top challenge in 2020 when it came to both winning and retaining clients.  In fact, no growth firms were harder hit (56.8%) by competition at retaining clients than high growth firms (37.1%). It wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that no growth firms faced competition from their peer-group firms as well as the high growth firms (who have larger budgets, of course, but are also more agile and nimble), based on the metrics-led approach to marketing. Again, maybe a leaf to be taken out of high growth firms’ marketing handbook?

Direct correlation between CRM and tracking metrics

In turn, metrics-led marketing is more likely to be successful with the right technology tools. Firms that saw high growth (more than 20%) were four times more likely to track metrics for marketing and BD efforts. Furthermore, CRM technology users track the metrics of their marketing activities almost three times more than non-users. It’s not hard to see why! Typically, law firms store and manage marketing and BD data in the CRM system, and these applications offer rich functionality for everything from data quality management through contact management, engagement scoring and relationship intelligence, and more, making tracking metrics an intuitive and “business as usual” activity. The survey findings reinforce this view too—nearly 66.6%  of law firms that did not grow don’t use a CRM system.

Marketing spend is on the up in 2021

With the year of unprecedented change that 2020 was, judiciously, firms of all sizes expect to increase their marketing spend in 2021 by an average of 15%. Breaking this down, high growth firms plan on raising their marketing spend by 38% versus 10% (still respectable) by no growth firms.

After seeing the positive impact that marketing can have on client retention rates, winning new business and firm growth, marketing heads must take the opportunity to robustly make the case for their function, restrategize, and invest in tools and approaches that have proven to deliver success in a hugely disruptive and challenging year gone by.

Do these findings resonate with you? How did your firm perform? What kind of changes did you make to your marketing and BD function? How has the pandemic changed your approach to marketing for the future? We would love to hear from you!

As attorneys, we understand the general concept of trust accounts, and that misuse of the same can cost us our bar cards. But, do we really trust ourselves with trust accounting? Attorneys who receive retainers from their clients take on the role of a fiduciary, per their state bar’s rules. Up to and until the attorney has worked that case and billed the client for said work, the money in that IOLTA (also referred to as a trust account in many jurisdictions) is the property of the client. Misuse of those funds is, in essence, theft.

The bottom line is if you are accepting advance payment for your fees, or if you are otherwise receiving money on behalf of your client, you must maintain a trust account. Even more imperative, you must maintain a compliant trust account, which means that you will need to properly account for the funds therein and adhere to local rules and regulations.

Here, we’ve included an overview of trust accounting that will help you get comfortable and stay compliant!

Why do I need a trust account?

As discussed above, the money in your trust account is not yet yours. In addition to a trust account, an attorney will have an operating account. The goal (and ethical rule) is to keep your earned (operating) and unearned (trust) fees separated at all times. If you pull money from the trust account and deposit it into the operating account before you have earned those fees, you are in violation of your state bar’s rules. This means your license to practice is now in jeopardy.

A trust account is necessary to protect both your clients’ funds and your bar card.

State bar considerations

Every state bar promulgates a set of rules and/or regulations that govern your trust account. For instance, some states require that you utilize a bank that has physical locations within your state. Others obligate the IOLTA bank to report any overdrafts of your trust account to your bar.

All state bars require you to do some sort of accounting and reporting regarding your trust account. To properly accomplish this, you must maintain a record of all receipts and payments of funds for each client. This includes things like bank statements, bank documents, instructions or authorizations from a client, and records relating to quarterly and monthly reconciliations. More is always better when it comes to retaining documents related to client funds.

Employ the right software

So, how do you relay this information to your state bar? You can keep a paper log for each client and manually track the funds going to and from your trust account. You can imagine this can get a little crazy if you have more than a few clients. You can also move this to a digital format and keep an electronic spreadsheet to log the funds. This still allows for human error, however, as not everyone is technologically savvy enough to properly input formulas into the spreadsheet, and/or they will not double check the work being done.

The more efficient option by far is to use a software program designed specifically for trust accounting. This makes the tracking and segregating of client funds a lot easier. Essentially, once you set up a client in the system, reconciling their account and running a report for the state bar is as simple as clicking a button. The amount of time this saves an attorney cannot be overstated; free time is a precious commodity.

Use the right payment processor

If you want to take credit cards or eChecks for your firm, you will need to utilize a payment processor. However, not all processors are equipped to handle the specific needs of attorneys, namely keeping their funds properly segregated. To ensure compliance with your state bar, look for a processor that specializes in the legal industry and understands the rules that you are required to follow when it comes to your trust account.

Remember, a trust account violation can land you in sanctions territory with your state bar, so it is imperative that your processor is cognizant of the ins and outs of IOLTAs.

When you went to law school, passed the bar, and started practicing, chances are trust account compliance was not high on your list of priorities. However, this is crucial to your firm, and to maintaining your license to practice law.

As attorneys, we spend so much time on non-billable issues and live in constant fear of accidentally triggering an ethical issue in our practice. That’s why it is such a relief to find software out there that can alleviate apprehension and maintain compliance with your state bar. For instance, the partnership between LexisNexis^® Juris^® and ClientPay^® means that I no longer have to obsess over compliance or accounting. I get to reclaim some of my life back.

Trust accounting can be tedious, but if you utilize the proper tools, the entire process can be made painless.

Jordan Turk is a practicing attorney in Texas and is also a Legal Content and Compliance Manager. She earned a B.A. in Classics, History, and Religious Studies from the University of Texas, and went on to earn her law degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law. Prior to her role as a Legal Content and Compliance Manager, Jordan worked with a high-asset family law firm in Houston, Texas.

We get it. Updating your software just isn’t high on the priority list. You see the red dot attached to your mobile app that indicates an update is available. A pop-up appears on your computer screen that the new version of your software is ready to install. You get an email that the latest version of your software has been released with amazing new features. This is what can happen:

Ignore.
Ignore.
Ignore.
Ignore.
Annoying POP-UPS.
Frustratingly SLOW.
CRASH.
LOST DATA.

We often ignore update notices because our software continues to work just fine. At least that’s the way it seems. But the truth is, by ignoring updates, we put our software and data in danger. In fact, most data breaches and hacks are related to outdated software. Remember when the ultra-secure credit agency Equifax got hacked? Actually, the company is very secure. But there was an update for their software that hadn’t been installed, which left the company vulnerable to viruses and hackers.

Here’s a quick but very important overview of why you should keep your software and apps up to date.

Maintain Security
While it appears that your software is working correctly, missing an update leaves it vulnerable to malware and viruses. As part of updates, programmers include security patches that protect against these intrusions. But without these patches, you may start to see pop-ups, be redirected to different web pages than the one you are trying to access, have spyware installed on your device without knowing it, or your app may crash each time you try to open it.

Protect Data
Installing the latest updates also helps keep your software in synch with the latest technology that’s designed to be more secure. For example, LexisNexis^® Juris^® 3.0 is built on technology actively supported by Microsoft^®, which means your software will be compatible with new versions and updates of Windows and SQL server. Without the proper updates installed that include the latest security, your data could be in danger. Outdated software and apps are vulnerable to spyware; hackers could gain access to sensitive data or you could lose data if your device gets infected with a virus.

Ensure Compatibility
One of the reasons why it’s easy to ignore updates is that our software and apps appear to work normally—even without some updates. So why go through the effort? Because appearances can be deceiving, and your software probably isn’t working the way it should. Eventually, features start to become sluggish and after some time may stop working altogether.

Also, as your computer or mobile device’s operating system goes through periodic updates, if you don’t update your software, then compatibility issues may affect the performance of your app. In fact, it can get so bad, that your app or program stops opening (crashes) until you update it.

As smart and advanced as technology has become, it’s not perfect. Often times, updates fix bugs in our software that ensure features work properly and that the software stays compatible with other apps, third-party software, or even your overall operating system. In addition, as mentioned above, you’ll want to make sure your software is always updated so it’s compatible with the latest technology and security features.

Updating your software keeps it running at peak performance with full compatibility.

Enhanced Features
The most obvious reason to update software is taking advantage of new features that make your software or app more user-friendly. If you use your software for work, updates can help make your day-to-day operations easier and more efficient, add more functions, reduce the number of clicks between operations, and boost speed and performance—any number of items that are designed to add convenience to your job.

Update Effortlessly
If you have paid-for software or an app for work, then updating should be effortless. With help from your IT department or the software support team, you won’t have to go through any complicated steps or dive into technological details. Simply email your IT department or call the customer support line for the brand of software you’re using. There are no reasons to wait and plenty of reasons to update today.

Have you updated to Juris 3.0 or Juris 3.1 yet? If you haven’t updated to at least Juris 3.0, please contact your Juris Professional Services team via email at JPS@lexisnexis.com as soon as possible to avoid compatibility issues and software interruption. Our team will make updating simple and easy.

For law firms, how we bring in new business continues to change and evolve. While COVID-19 adds additional considerations and even challenges, it certainly wasn’t the catalyst for the changes that have been taking place in our industry’s business development processes. There’s increased competition, new channels for marketing, easier access to reviews, and the ability to make much more informed decisions, thanks to a worldwide web of information at our fingertips.

Because of this, more and more firms are recognizing the value of planning and tracking their marketing and business development efforts:

• 59% are investing more into business development
• 66% of firms say marketing and business development leaders are becoming a strategic part of the firm’s operations
• 80% have defined a business development process
• 85% are using a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to help them understand, analyze, and leverage relationships across their firm

While a high percentage of law firms recognize the value, only 43% of firms identify their business development efforts as successful. This disconnect highlights why it’s essential for firms to identify where and how their business development strategies, operations, and processes can be improved. To help law firms improve the success of their efforts and bring in more new business, LexisNexis^® InterAction^® developed the Maturity Model.

Understanding the LexisNexis InterAction Maturity Model

Our Business Development Maturity Model not only reveals where your firm is on an efficacy scale, but it also provides a tangible roadmap for achieving greater returns and value from your marketing and business development activities. Using pre-set benchmarks, your organization’s methods and processes are assigned one of the six “maturity levels”. Firms with operations and processes that measure higher on the Maturity Model scale are more likely to gain the greatest returns on their business development investments.

The Maturity Model Levels

1. Ad Hoc – Needs organization and formalized business development
2. Reactive – Reactive; inconsistent; tactical not strategic
3. Developing – Some formalized business development; inconsistent usage
4. Managed (Efficiency) – Formalized business development used throughout most of firm; beginning to use trends and data
5. Optimized (Quantifiable, Actionable, Integrated) – Standard business development process adhered to by all of firm; process documented and measured; use quantifiable data; CMO/CBDO play strategic role
6. Differentiated (Predictive, Proactive) – Standard business development process consistently monitored, refined, and improved; uses quantifiable data as well as predictive or automated technology; CMO/CBDO empowered to innovate and drive strategic outcomes

To determine your firm’s maturity level, benchmarks are categorized by seven dimensions that are standard throughout all businesses.

The Maturity Model Dimensions (Benchmarks)

1. Organization – Leadership, staff, culture
2. Process – Methodology, policies, documentation
3. Relationships & Client Experience – Process, outcomes, client satisfaction
4. Enablement – Skills, coaching, tools
5. Focus – Targeting, qualifying, strategy
6. Oversight & Accountability – Goals, KPIs, tracking
7. Analytics & Intelligence – Benchmarking, effectiveness, insights

Finding Where Your Firm Falls on the Maturity Model

Most legal professionals estimate that their firms fall into the Optimized category with developed processes, measured results, and well-formed and well-supported strategies. But the reality is, most law firms actually fall somewhere between Reactive and Managed where some business development processes are in place, but adherence is inconsistent and plans are more tactical than strategic.

Industry trends show that law firms are enlisting the help of marketing and business development professionals and defining processes. But they have been slow to combine those initiatives with data and relationship intelligence for a holistic approach to business development.

Larger professional service firms are embracing this more holistic approach with improvements and cohesive business development models that engage all of the dimensions listed above. In these cases, the higher-performing firms are able to reach the Optimized level, which shows significant maturity in business development and the ability to bring in new business using processes that are strategic, proactive, and successful.

Taking Your Firm to the Next Level

Reaching a higher level on the Maturity Scale goes beyond “leveling up,” because it means your firm is implementing and following processes and strategies that lead to successful business development practices. That means increasing business as well as increasing your firm’s bottom line.

Most firms recognize the importance of, and have started to improve, the organization, process, and relationship dimensions listed above. But where we see more advanced firms differentiate themselves is in these dimensions: enablement, focus, oversight and accountability, and analytics and intelligence. What does it take to reach the next level in each of these dimensions?

Enablement

High-performing (Optimized) firms invest in the right skillsets, tools, and technology to empower their sales teams with everything they need to succeed.

To get to the Optimized level, you’ll want to implement a sales methodology that is customized and coincides with your firm’s processes. Reinforce your sales methodology by providing coaching and training for your sales teams to help ensure practices are understood and followed consistently.

Part of coaching and training should also include the adoption of technology and how to use it as a tool for business development. One survey showed that three of the 10 challenges to successful marketing were related to the use and deployment of technology.

Focus

Optimized firms have a clear, targeted, and segmented strategy so that sales teams plan their marketing activities using reliable industry and customer intelligence instead of being restricted to reactive or tactical approaches.

Optimize your firm’s focus by implementing processes that connect firm goals to the targeting and qualification criteria. By consistently following these processes, you’ll reinforce the importance of strategic business development with better success rates and higher ROIs versus tactical methods which are less effective and less cost-effective.

A well-rounded understanding of your technology and how to make the most of its functionality will also help you here. Use the functionalities in your CRM to help you mine data to identify areas of potential growth: opportunities won within industries, relationship strength with clients, variety of work projects with clients, etc. With the information you collect, you’ll know where to target and segment your business development efforts.

Oversight & Accountability

Firms that score high on the Maturity Scale for this dimension use a top down approach when it comes to planning, and all activities are tracked and measured.

Once your firm’s objectives are set, base your business development and sales objectives on the goals that your firm is trying to achieve. This, along with tying your pipeline and opportunities back to the overall objectives, will ensure that strategies stay aligned throughout the year and lead to the most optimized results possible.

Track the progress and results of all of your initiatives with CRM data, business development KPIs, and financial reporting. Tracking allows you to make adjustments throughout the fiscal year or use the end results for planning next year’s initiatives.

Analytics & Intelligence

After tracking technology is in place for Oversight & Accountability, advanced firms collect and analyze the data for planning, and measure results against standards for ROI, client lifetime value, and referral rates.

Make sure the right technology is in place to track, collect, and report on data from your firm’s objectives and business development initiatives. Interpret your data and discover insights by looking for trends and comparing current performance against historical benchmarks.

Share as many of the results as possible and communicate successes, making any necessary adjustments to plans. With transparency, teams will understand what is happening and why, driving efficiency and consistency with activities that are working and course corrections as needed.

Build a Path to Greater Maturity (Business Development Success)

While implementing the processes discussed above will help improve your business development, the best place to start is by taking the Maturity Model assessment. Find out your firm’s maturity level for each of the seven dimensions, learn how your firm compares to your peers and competition, and map out the best path for bringing in new business. This is your way to make business development a smooth-running, proactive, and efficient process for your firm.

People are paying a lot more attention to creating reports these days, especially with all the new technology available to collect more and more data. Now it seems like there’s a different report for every aspect of your business along with a variety of solutions for pulling reports, showing reports, and interpreting reports. Firms are discovering how important it is to utilize the information that your reports can provide, so that you can operate your law firm or any type of professional services firm as a successful business.

In the past, firms may have been able to get by using their balance sheet as the main source of financial reporting. But the data in your financial reports is useful for so much more than balancing your income and expenses. In fact, insight into your finances is essential for a range of activities—from day-to-day operations to marketing and budget planning.

It may sound like more work, but you don’t have to be a reporting genius to make the most of your data and reporting solutions. You just need to implement the right reporting technology, then reporting becomes simple and effective. Luckily, the LexisNexis^® Juris^® Suite Reporting module has you covered. It makes reporting something to look forward to, not be afraid of.

Types of reports that firms use:

Balance sheet
With insights into financial trends, a report showing your balance sheet can provide a snapshot into whether your firm is growing at a particular moment in time or growing annually. You can also use your balance sheet report to help you know which business plans are working and which are not.

Cash flow
Like the balance sheet, cash flow can give you a snapshot into your current financial situation. You can use cash flow to help determine on-the-fly changes in direction based on industry changes, such as day-to-day operations, processes, staffing, etc.

Budget vs. Actual
Reviewing your Budget vs. Actual report is like reviewing history. What do you want to repeat and what do you want to avoid? This report can also help you determine which business activities were successful and which were not.

Revenue per attorney (timekeeper)
Use this report to ensure that your firm’s attorneys are making the best use of their time and billing for work with that brings in a high enough revenue stream. Revenue per employee can also help determine staffing during economic setbacks.

Those are just some of the reports that you can rely on to ensure your firm is a profitable business. The right technology allows you to take the data you’ve collected and create intelligent reports for your firm—efficiently, conveniently, and easily—right when you need them. The right technology will also empower you to run reports that are tailor-made for your firm and help you present the data in a way that’s easy to digest and understand.

Choosing the right technology means having:

Reporting options
Reporting should come with multiple views on Accounts Receivable, Timekeeper Productivity, Collections, Accounts Payable, and more. With a variety of reports necessary for operations and planning, you’ll want to optimize accessing and using reports from a solution that houses every report you’d need in one place.

Automation & Flexibility
A person’s role in the firm can help define who has access to which reports and which data. With the right reporting solution, you can set these parameters and send out the reports automatically to internal or external people via email or transfer to a secure network location.

Customization
From simple modifications to writing a tailor-made report, a customizable solution will help you get the kinds of reports you need with the specific information you want. The process should be as simple as point-and-click options or calling a reliable support team.

Performance & Reliability
Running reports with large amounts of data can take a long time. So it’s important to have a solution that can handle those large amounts of data while delivering reports in a shorter amount of time. It’s also important to have access to your reports when you need them, without interruption from updates or server interruptions.

Support
Any technologically advanced solution should come with a reliable and knowledgeable support team. With reporting, it’s possible to find solutions supported by services teams who will write customized reports based on the direct needs of your firm.

Making better business decisions with financial and productivity intelligence are at the forefront of ensuring financial stability and growing businesses. The right solutions are essential to pull your reports and help you interpret data.

Juris Suite Reporting contains hundreds of different reports to display the data you need at any given time, while also offering you the ability to customize those reports to show as much or as little information as required to be successful in today’s world. For access to optimized, updated reports for the dependable performance, additional features, and full technical support you rely on, contact your sales representative today.

For more information on Juris Suite Reporting, download our brochure here.

Cash flow is critical to any business, and for law firms, growing the bottom line is always a concern. With profits under pressure across the legal industry, improving the invoice payment cycle and streamlining the payment process are more important than ever.

Many law firms are looking to their accounts receivable (A/R) departments for ways to increase their finances, in particular with improving cash flow through a more efficient invoice-to-cash process. However, firms will struggle to collect on invoices and bolster cash flow if they still rely on paper-based invoicing and payment processes. To strengthen cash collection efforts and keep cash flowing, technology and automation are key.

I had a discussion with A/R experts at two law firms that have turned to technology and automation as a way to improve their invoice-to-cash process, increase the amount of cash on hand, and more easily adjust to industry changes.

Benefits of Embracing Technology and Automation

Get paid faster

Linda Junco, an accountant with Eckberg Lammers, found that one way to do this is embedding a payment page into the firm’s website, which allows clients to pay their bills online anytime that works for them.

“With the simplicity of going online and paying on our website, we get paid at the clients’ convenience,” Junco said. “They can go online on weekends or evenings, whereas before they had to call us between 8 and 5 just so we could take their credit card information. Now that it’s online, I see clients pay at 10 or 11 at night when they’re doing their bookwork. It’s especially convenient now when people aren’t using checks all the time.”

Increase convenience

Embedding the LexisNexis^® Juris^® and ClientPay^® option in your payment process bridges technology with client service. Giving clients the ability to choose ClientPay^® allows them to pay their invoice later while you receive your payment within two business days of invoice approval. For clients, embedded technology makes paying invoices as simple as clicking a button.

Strengthen client relationships

Paying bills can be a time-consuming and tedious process—you probably won’t find anyone who enjoys paying invoices. By offering your clients a quick and painless payment process, you’ll help reduce their frustrations and foster stronger client relationships.

As Linda Junco mentioned above, paying online is one option. But having technology-driven options to pay via website, credit card, phone, online check, bank ACH, or ClientPay^® makes it easy for clients to pay their invoices through their preferred option and move on to their next task.

Before Linda’s firm implemented online payment options, she continually played phone tag with clients when they wanted to pay by credit card.

“Now, when people call and tell me, ‘Go ahead and pay on my credit card,’ I pull up their name, hit enter, put in a dollar amount, and we’re done,” Junco said. “Even conversations with clients are shorter. They don’t have to give me their address or credit card number because I have it all already.”

Collect payments more securely

By implementing payment technology, Cindy Bouve, finance manager at Hamilton Stephens Steel + Martin, was able to meet the strictest of standards set by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) for accepting credit cards as payment and storing card data.

“From a security standpoint, I feel much better knowing that we can accept credit card payments without having to manually store the credit card data ourselves, thanks to today’s payment technology,” Bouve said. “This makes payments a much safer transaction. We have a responsibility to protect our clients and their data even when they don’t know they need protecting!”

Go paperless

Bouve uses Juris technology to drive efficiencies, including exporting invoices in batches to the legal assistants who send their attorneys’ invoices.

“Going paperless was really great,” she said. “We previously printed paper invoices and gave them to the legal assistants, who would then scan and email them to clients. With the batch exporting feature in Juris, our billing efficiency has increased—being able to grab PDF invoices out of an exported folder and email them right away has been a tremendous efficiency gain for the firm, not just for the accounting department.”

Embracing technology has enabled her to improve efficiencies firm-wide, and Bouve says the impact of investing in and implementing technology is invaluable.

“When you have one success and it helps the firm move forward, firm leaders place more trust in you and the future solutions you suggest to make improvements,” she said.

With all the challenges law firms face in today’s market, from battling the effects of COVID-19 to offering more convenience, firm leaders need all the help they can get. By embracing technology and making the most of its features, A/R professionals can support their firms by improving efficiencies and increasing cost savings.

It’s time to leave paper-based processes behind.

For more information on how firms can strengthen their invoice-to-cash process, download the eBook, Embracing Technology to Streamline the Collections Process.

Cheree Omtvedt is a Business Development Specialist for ClientPay®. She is a charismatic relationship builder with an extensive background in technical sales and support with over 10 years of experience in eCommerce. She specializes in payment processing platforms for legal, accounting, and other professional service firms. In her free time, she enjoys spending time outdoors with her family camping, hiking, and fishing, but during the cold Midwest winter months you will find her curled up inside watching a Disney movie or history documentary while her kids build a snowman.

In a year when most marketing plans had to completely change, it can be daunting to think about planning your 2021 marketing. COVID-19 altered the landscape for most industries, including the legal industry in 2020, and it’s not clear how long those effects will last. Is it even possible to come up with a good marketing plan at this point? How can we ensure marketing strategies are going to be successful if we aren’t even sure what our economic situation is going to be in six months?

Actually, it is possible to develop a quality marketing plan that prepares your firm’s marketing strategy to deliver results and weather the storm of economic upheavals. Not only is it possible, but it’s also important to have a marketing plan to guide and track your business development efforts.

To support law firms’ marketing planning for the year ahead, the LexisNexis^® InterAction^® team released a law firm marketing guide, A 5-Step Guide for Law Firm Marketing Planning in 2021. With reliable information and peer interviews based on research conducted in October 2020, you’ll want to use this guide as a blueprint throughout 2021.

Before we reveal the five steps, there are a few key considerations to keep in mind as you head into next year …

Remember, marketing plans and data are important every year

The importance of marketing at law firms is becoming more and more recognized, with eight out of 10 firms creating marketing plans. Having a marketing plan supported by business development initiatives is important when things are going well. But, firms should realize that plans are just as important, if not more so, when things are uncertain in the economy.

At the same time, we’ve also realized how important it is for data to support and measure marketing plans. During normal times, data reveals which business development efforts we should continue or change based on goals and objectives. When things are uncertain, having current and reliable data can be crucial for adjusting plans quickly if needed and as the market changes.

Firms want to increase leads with fewer resources

Next year, there will be an even bigger push to bring new leads for business, and every dollar spent doing so will be scrutinized to justify the ROI. Though efforts will increase, it’s still likely that firms will operate with fewer staff and decreased budgets due to cutbacks intended to minimize the economic impact of the pandemic. And networking will continue to happen virtually, as will a lot of legal work and billable hours. Because of this, there will be a heightened interest in data integrity for tracking and automated processes, which will make it possible to work through just about any condition.

Traditional planning is out. Agile planning and data tracking is in.

For successful planning each year, marketing teams must align their goals with the firm’s overall business objectives, prioritize department initiatives for the year ahead, allocate resources in an efficient way, and define the metrics used to assess progress.

But in 2021, marketing teams will not only have to achieve what’s listed above, they’ll also have to be prepared to adjust each one of those steps along the way based on immediate or changing trends in the legal landscape. Therefore, teams will have to set goals that are agile while collecting and interpreting data to determine new directions for business development if necessary. It may seem like more work than usual, but this InterAction report makes it easier and guides you through a process that’s simpler to follow with just five steps.

The 5 steps to creating your agile 2021 marketing plan

The law firm marketing guide by InterAction, A 5-Step Guide for Law Firm Marketing Planning in 2021, is your key to creating agile marketing strategies with the data necessary to achieve successful results and build your business next year. We’ve included a quick overview of the five steps, but you can read the full report here.

Step One: Plan Your Objectives

Start out by aligning the marketing department’s goals with the firm’s overall business development objectives. Law firm marketing experts also warn that a common mistake they see is to jump straight from strategy to tactics, without investing the time to first determine what will constitute success at the end of the year.

Step Two: Manage the Initiatives

Looking ahead to 2021, legal marketers advise that this is the time to be more targeted in the development of tactical initiatives, moving away from the “spray and pray” approach that many firms have favored in the past. Establish the specific tactics you want to take to drive the pursuit of your strategic objectives.

Step Three: Track Your Opportunities

In today’s uncertain times, things change rapidly. Be prepared to monitor the progress of each initiative and adapt on the fly. Measure the specific data points that will allow you to track the right numbers.

Step Four: Understand the Results

Law firm marketing teams in 2021 need to be engaging with data analysis experts to create and produce progress reports that are informed by sophisticated data science. Present findings using clear and concise reports, produced in user-friendly formats.

Step Five: Discover Insights

Learn what is working and what isn’t by uncovering key insights from the results you are able to surface from your data. Embrace agile marketing planning by identifying areas for opportunistic marketing initiatives and modifying the tactics in your original plan.

For more detailed information on the five-step guide, download the full version of the InterAction blueprint, A 5-Step Guide for Law Firm Marketing Planning in 2021.

To find out more about leveraging today’s technology and using it to build your business development activities, contact your account manager or visit us online. For Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific, please visit www.lexisnexisinteraction.co.uk. For the Americas, please visit www.interaction.com.

Strategic business development (BD) is critical to support firm growth and achieving individual objectives, but BD techniques are typically not taught in law school. At its core, BD is about building and proactively managing authentic professional relationships. Now more than ever, technology can help support and facilitate a more systematic approach to business development.

LexisNexis^® InterAction^® is teaming up with the Bunnell Idea Group (BIG) to deliver relevant and pointed guidance to InterAction users that will help them refine their tactics, strengthen core relationship-building and commercial capabilities, and make the most of their CRM data.

Today, I have the privilege of talking to Mo Bunnell, the founder of BIG and the person behind the development of their GrowBIG^® technique.

What is the partnership between LexisNexis InterAction and BIG about?

I think our partnership with InterAction is about blending the best CRM technology with the best behavioral science practices. Let me explain with sports as an analogy: Recently, I got to interview Kelley O’Hara, the number-one defender on the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. It was an amazingly insightful interview!

Kelley clearly wants to have the best in sports technology—the best soccer cleats in the world, high-tech conditioning and recovery tools, and expert training techniques—to prepare for global competitions such as the Olympics and World Cup.

But all of that doesn’t mean much if she doesn’t know what to do with it or how to use it. This is where behavioral science comes in and why it’s equally important. Kelley has to know what to focus on, what actions to take, and how to apply her sports technology in order to be one of the best athletes on the planet.

It’s the same when we think about LexisNexis InterAction and our training method, GrowBIG^®. InterAction has some amazing technology that helps so many lawyers and business development professionals around the world stay organized, keep their tasks top of mind, keep all of their records safe, and make sure information stays up to date.

GrowBIG^® takes all of that a step further and blends it with best practices so that BD professionals know how often they should reach out, the best ways to make contact, what will grow their relationships (from the customer’s point of view), how to grow their book of business, and actions that will advance their careers. We educate professionals with proven behavioral science techniques, then show them how to turn that education into actionable items.

When you combine data and behavioral science, you get a very, very powerful partnership—like the one we have with InterAction.

How can the InterAction and BIG partnership assist with challenges that firms face?

I think one of the biggest challenges that law firms encounter is being able to actually focus on business development. There are two reasons for that:

The first is that almost every force in a law firm (or really any professional services firm) pulls the experts away from BD. Billable hours take priority, special projects and committees take up time, working directly with clients takes effort, and so on. These forces pull people into short-term actions and away from longer-term efforts such as business development.

Which brings me to my second reason: behavioral science shows that people are drawn more to things that give immediate satisfaction. So, while those forces I previously mentioned draw us away or distract us from longer-term BD goals, we are also very willing to be pulled away. Think about how easy it is to pick up that smartphone and start scrolling Facebook, searching for that next hit of immediate gratification. We are surprised and delighted when a post from one of our preferred news sources pops up, or best friends and relatives acknowledge our online activity.

Business development is exactly the opposite. An hour can go into crafting the perfect email to send to a prospect. But there’s no immediate payoff: It could take months—or it could never happen at all. And this is why it’s so easy for experts to say “I’ll send that BD email tomorrow,” and instead answer a request from a colleague that will have a quick “Thank you so much!” coming back almost instantly. Another day, another BD task kicked down the road. Those little actions add up—day over day, week over week, and pretty soon, so much time has passed that they don’t feel comfortable reaching out to that contact at all.

InterAction helps you overcome the challenge of knowing who to focus on and why. We’ll help you overcome the challenge of staying focused by teaching the practical skills of outreach and how to keep follow-up top of mind, with techniques that keep you proactively engaged. Knowing where you stand in the process and having actionable items takes away the waiting-in-limbo feeling and helps keep lawyers and BD professionals focused throughout the business development timeline.

What do you want others to know about the BIG partnership with InterAction?

I think the biggest thing I want others to know is that this is a long-term partnership and that we are all in this together—InterAction, BIG, law firms, professional services firms, and BD professionals. This is a breakthrough for our industry, and, to my knowledge, has never been done before. We’re going to help firms grow bigger with three improvements right out of the gate:

1. Embedded 30-second videos inside InterAction itself to coach users
2. Training the amazing InterAction Client Advisors on the GrowBIG^® methodology
3. Providing complimentary training to InterAction users, including the business development professionals and the lawyers within the firm

We’re also putting together a steering committee of C-Level industry professionals to get feedback that we’ll use to continually improve our partnership and what we offer.

What do you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to business development?

The biggest misconception is that you’re either born with the talent to be successful at BD or you’re not. A lot of people encounter a pro with 10, 20, or 30 years of experience successfully executing BD strategies and think, “How am I ever supposed to do that?” But what they didn’t see is all the work that the business development pro put in over the years.

BD is one of those complex, broad ideas made up of hundreds of micro skills. It’s about proactiveness, helpfulness, how to ask questions, how to follow up, how to use insight and intuition, when to ask for the business or when to just be helpful, helping the right people and prioritizing them, developing content that draws people to you, overcoming objections, talking about money, then finally getting one deal and expanding from there.

There’s so much involved, it’s easy for younger people or those starting out in their career to think, “Man, I could never learn that. There’s no way I could do what ‘Sue’ does.” But the fact is, Sue worked hard and has crafted her strategies, her effectiveness, and increased her abilities over 10 or 15 years.

With GrowBIG^®, we break all that down, and we can share that knowledge while coaching BD professionals. There’s a science to it: when the steps are decoded, we can typically give someone 10 years of expertise within 10 months of training and coaching. No one has to be born with it—how to execute business development strategies can be taught in a way that will feel authentic and helpful and make professionals successful.

What is something usually overlooked in business development?

There’s an interesting idea around the quality versus quantity of interactions. A lot of professionals get really hyper-focused on the quality of the interactions—that the content they’re sharing has 100% chance of being novel, insightful, and important to the recipient right now. But we shouldn’t underestimate or overlook the idea of the quantity of interactions.

There’s a science called the “mere-exposure effect”—that the more we see something, the more we develop a preference towards it. I believe this quantity element is every bit as important as quality. Several small outreaches can add up to a tremendous amount of feeling on the other side. These could be a quick text asking how the meeting went with their boss, an email letting them know about a webinar we’re leading, or sending them a book we think they might like. This might or might not be the “perfect” content for that moment, but it’s thoughtful, showing proactiveness and sending a strong “you are important to me” message to the client. No nagging here—we’re just going to be proactively helpful to the people that are most important to us. When you do that, it earns you license to reach out even more, and that is going to spell success over the long term. Quality matters for sure. But quantity is important too. It keeps you top of mind.

Is there a way for people to get your content at no charge?

Yes. We have a fantastic complimentary course on Business Development Habits that includes videos, downloadable tools, a how-to overview poster, and more. People love it! Not only can an individual sign up, but we’ll even host a 30-minute live video session for groups of 30 or more. Those really bring the learnings to life. It’s all at no charge and a great way to get started. People can sign up at BDhabits.com.

What’s something people may not know about you?

A lot of people think I’m really, really crazy process-oriented. But I’m really not. I love process, and I love systems. But they are actually a crutch for me, because I’m easily distracted. Look, there’s a squirrel! I go to great lengths to create systems around me to help streamline all aspects of my business and personal life. It makes things go faster; and since I’m not naturally rehearsing steps in my mind, I need these systems to help me be efficient and effective.

What’s your favorite movie or food?

I really like making craft cocktails, and it is so fun for me to share that with others. My favorite craft cocktail is one from a New York restaurant that I ended up reconstructing at home. It’s a smoky,
bourbon-y hot chocolate with a touch of mint. It’s so good, we call it “Because We Can.” I also love grilling out and cooking over an open fire. I have about 20 chili recipes, so on some weekends, you can catch me cooking chili outside. If it’s cold and we’re outdoors, my wife and I just might have a craft cocktail too, well, because we can.

Have a question or want to learn more? Reach out to your InterAction Account Manager or connect with us on Twitter @LexisNexisLegal or LinkedIn @LexisNexis Legal.

About Bunnell Idea Group

Started by Mo Bunnell, the Bunnell Idea Group (BIG) has helped over 15,000 organizations improve their business development with GrowBIG^® training methods, consisting of proactiveness, being authentic, and being helpful. At the core of Bunnell Idea Group, we believe that BD skills can learned, with science and steps to guide us; BD can be loved, with proactive caring, abundance, and helpfulness at its core; and people that pair BD skills with a deep, core expertise will be the ones making the biggest difference in the world, be the most financially successful, and have the most fun doing it. Anyone can sign up for BIG’s powerful complimentary training on Business Development Habits at BDHabits.com.

About Mo Bunnell

Mo Bunnell, the founder of Bunnell Idea Group (BIG), has trained over 15,000 seller-experts at over 400 clients, all over the world. He helps complex organizations grow by scaling BD skills across their organizations and creating a growth-oriented culture. BIG’s clients have used Mo and his team’s GrowBIG^® training to give their experts a system for growth that creates raving fans with a comprehensive business development framework, and is, dare we say, fun to use.

Need some Data Quality inspiration? I’ve recently witnessed a 180° turnaround by one of our clients.  Their results were so inspiring, I knew immediately I needed to share their journey. For those of you who know you need to do something about your data, here’s a success story and some perspective on the reality of getting it done. Will it be easy? No. Will it be fast? Not really. Will it be a hell of a climb? Yes. And I promise, the view is worth it. You have all the tools you need to make it happen.

See if You Can Relate

1.4 million contacts. 190,000 tickets. At one point, there was only one person working on tickets, merging duplicates, and managing bounce-backs. InterAction had never been rolled out to fee earners, and for years the firm was synchronizing all contacts from users—yes, ALL of them. In addition, the firm had been importing duplicates directly into marketing lists just so contacts could be mailed to (since users weren’t aware of and couldn’t contribute to lists).

Like most firms, IT resources are pulled in many directions, and for a time, log files and processes were not monitored as closely as they are now. Therefore, the CRM team wasn’t aware of any technical issues, let alone able to troubleshoot them along the way.

Sometimes these things happen. Priorities shift, fires come up. But their CMO had goals and understood the role an accurate CRM would play in those goals. She proceeded to give the team the resources and time they needed to gear up and begin the climb.

They were looking to roll out CRM to their fee earners and support staff in the not-so-distant future, so they created their own deadline. That deadline was a driving factor for them to get organized, lay out a plan, and move forward.

Location: Basecamp

First, wanting to make sure they prepared for this effort, they worked with a LexisNexis® InterAction® Client Advisor on a Health Check. It was the first time they could see the big picture of what they were dealing with.  They used it “like a bible.”

Second, after absorbing the information from the Health Check and doing some work on their own, I came in to workshop with them on the big three things I encourage all clients to start with every time they approach data cleanup:

• Archiving/deleting irrelevant contacts (using searches) to get rid of the noise and the clutter
• Adjusting DCM rules so they were getting tickets for only the most important things
• Tackling existing tickets methodically and ruthlessly

 GOLD STAR MOMENT: After spending a couple days with them, they had a different mindset. They were well on their way to confidently reducing their contact collection and tickets by 50%.

REALITY CHECK: According to the team, “The first couple of weeks were 24/7 deleting!” Don’t get me wrong, deleting/archiving 700K contacts and processing 95K tickets aren’t the quickest processes. But for motivation (and out of curiosity), they did some calculations. They noticed, when deleting contacts for example, the system would be able to delete about 20 contacts/min. Slowly but surely that count improved to 25/min., then 30/min., etc.

WORDS OF WISDOM: Slow and steady wins the race.

The Ascent: Blizzard Warning!

Next, after carving away the extraneous contacts and tickets, they started working on the remainder of existing tickets. Keep in mind, they’d already scrutinized their DCM rules, cutting back on Review tickets.  Things were either important enough for a human to look at (Submit), or they weren’t (Accept).

Now, one might think, “I’ll start with the easier tickets to get a sense of accomplishment.” But let’s face it, the more daunting the task, the harder it is to get started. Seeing progress would be key to their motivation, so they attacked the high number of more difficult tickets. They knew when a big task was done, it would feel good and they could say (and show) they made some good progress. As they put it, “If you’re climbing a mountain and you can’t see the summit, it can get discouraging.” If you’re in a better position and managing day to day, I recommend doing easy tickets first, but in this case, completing a large, difficult piece was necessary to show progress, stay motivated, and feel better about the easier work to come.

GOLD STAR MOMENT: Just a quick mention of the color-coding, spreadsheets, and metrics involved in making this project a success. Documenting their plan was integral for them to stay organized, focused, and motivated, and allowed them to report their progress. The tactical management, coordination, and execution by their Marketing Coordinator (their sirdar on the mountain) and the whole team was amazing. Bravo!
REALITY CHECK:  At this point, the commitment from IT with greater support/resources were going to be put to the test. Contacts started coming back in from the users. There were log file errors that needed to be addressed. They also began to realize the implications of the 250K contacts that had been imported directly into marketing lists over the years. These were likely duplicates, and to make matters worse, those contacts didn’t have accurate/any who-knows-whom information. One step forward, two steps back. This is what happens to best-laid plans but that didn’t dissuade them. They adjusted their plan, upgraded hardware, and made sure the latest InterAction software versions were implemented, addressed each situation as it came along, and kept climbing.

WORDS OF WISDOM: The best view comes after the hardest climb.

Skies Are Clearing!

So, they cleaned up the contacts. One and done, right? No. After finishing a task, they knew that task needed to stay on the radar if they were ever going to successfully manage this in the future. As they built searches to find and clean contacts, they made sure to keep those same tasks top of mind by adding them to their Favorites folders: duplicates, candidates for deletion/archiving, incomplete information, etc. By having them in Favorites, the team could dedicate a little time, here and there, running them weekly to make sure data was staying clean as they continued cleanup in other areas.

Different people were assigned to different searches and folders. It reminded them: “This is what I own.” They run those searches, watch for trends and spikes, and make sure they are staying on top of it. Is anyone falling behind? Does one area need more help, while another area doesn’t need as much focus right now? Little by little, this would become the norm—consistency and accountability, modeling how the new process(es) would flow, transitioning from a mindset of reactive cleanup, to proactive management.

 GOLD STAR MOMENT: They established benchmarks, and incentivized users based on those benchmarks. To keep up morale, they provided pizza lunches, gift cards, etc. and because their work was going to fall across the holiday season, they knew it would be a good time to get a lot done. Leadership heavily incentivized ticket work during those slower times for the firm. They’ve kept the team together through it all and it’s created a camaraderie, a sense of pride and accomplishment as a team.

Reaching the Peak

REALITY CHECK:  Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you, a global pandemic!

This firm had a leg up in terms of getting started before the world was turned on its head. But they’ve continued their efforts through many other challenges, stabilized their contact collection, and reduced their ticket count to zero (and maintained it!). Because they started early, they’re now in a better position to handle situations like this in the future, and the firm is in a better position to keep and grow their business with a reliable CRM. Regardless of external factors and trajectory of the firm’s plans for CRM, they are beginning to yield the rewards of proactive data quality management.

WORDS OF WISDOM: Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

And speaking of the trajectory of the firm’s plans for CRM, that deadline signaled a shift toward rolling CRM to their end users. They know that it will be a culture change at their firm (a task in itself) and they also know aligning with their data now will encourage and strengthen engagement in a system that’s clean, organized, and trustworthy.

Speaking of trustworthy, we can look at the success of their efforts with qualitative measures, too. An important question to ask is if we are giving Business Development (BD) and Marketing more valuable intelligence? Are they seeing a difference? According to the firm, “…BD managers have more confidence in the lists that are being used for targeted mailers/invites … they trust the [Who-Knows-Whom] reports that we are producing.”

Everything may not be completely rosy, but it’s a much brighter shade of pink for this firm. There will always be things they want to do. They still want to take a closer look at what they can automate. They still want to create an integration with their time and billing system, and those things require the cooperation of other departments. So, in the meantime, they’re taking it one step at a time and controlling the things they can control.

Enjoying the View

One might say data integrity IS the basecamp of a well-run CRM. And if so, this firm is now up there, enjoying the view where growth opportunities for the firm are more visible and actionable. This is why they started this climb.

For many of you, unlike this firm, your users are aware of your CRM. They actively contribute to it (though, maybe not as much as you’d like). But if you’re in a position where you know something needs to be done with your data, remember, it’s like climbing a mountain—it’s always daunting until it’s done. There’s no way around it, you just have to start climbing. But know that others have gone before and you can learn from their challenges and victories.

LESSONS LEARNED: The less content you have, the faster EVERYTHING runs and works.

• “You don’t need a slew of people for CRM …” (others can help with work during peaks).
• Focus on what’s most important (high traffic contacts).
• Focus on what you and your team can control.
• Don’t jump around from task to task. You work more efficiently when your mind is focused on doing one thing.
• A deadline is a blessing.
• Benchmarks with incentives are an important combination.
• Just do it! Do the big, boring, overwhelming stuff first (it’ll feel so good when it’s done!).
• Color-coding/spreadsheets (and Admin reports in InterAction) help you stay organized and provide visuals/metrics of all your hard work.
• You can’t do everything at once and that’s okay.

As I write this post, the future is unclear and things are in flux. Sometimes it feels like many of us are hanging on by our fingernails. But this firm secured a good grip when they decided to turn it around. They didn’t let go—they fought their way up that mountain and now they’re standing proudly upon the peak. Let this firm be your sherpa. They’re throwing down the rope and saying to us, “Get up here, you gotta see this view!”

If the idea of pulling business intelligence (BI) and analytics from your customer relationship management (CRM) data leaves you feeling like you’re in an unfamiliar place, you’re not alone. But don’t worry—it doesn’t take a CRM superhero to make the most of your data.

However, even superheroes such as Spider-Man find themselves in unfamiliar places, feeling far from home sometimes. In the movie Spider-Man: Far from Home, Peter Parker, better known as Spider-Man, just wanted to be a teenager and enjoy his class trip to Europe. When trouble arises and it comes time to fight the villain, he found himself unprepared both mentally and physically. But with the support of Nick Fury and others, Spider-Man is victorious.

When it comes to battling the unfamiliar territory of BI and analytics, you have the support you need built right into your CRM and BI software to conquer any concerns and turn your data into actionable insights. This means implementing marketing and business development efforts that are victorious (just like Spider-Man) and bring in better results. And soon, you are the hero!

Beginning the Journey: Data Collation

CRM tools are an essential platform for any business. Whether you are using a sophisticated tool or simply a Google® account or Microsoft® Outlook®, you are already embarking on the CRM journey of managing your contacts and interactions. Many believe that CRM is just a software tool to help collate customer data, but there is no greater asset to your organization than your customer data. It’s the power source of your CRM strategy, and requires care and nurturing.

According to DiscoverOrg, win rates are roughly 25% higher for organizations that have accurate and clean data, and organizations can generate up to 70% more revenue with marketing efforts based on clean data.

Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben was known for the guiding principle, “With great power comes great responsibility.” When given his superpowers, Peter was not thinking about responsibilities. He did not know what to do first. He needed to learn how to use that power. Before he could fight for the greater good as Spider-Man, Peter Parker had to learn to shoot webs and jump off of that first building.

Similarly, before CRM data can work for the greater good for your firm, it’s essential to build a plan—to know how  to use the power of that data.

On the Journey: CRM Maturity Curve

When CRM is implemented, the first step is to focus on contact management and marketing automation. At a minimum, a CRM system will help you to collect and organize data about your clients and potential clients, provide you with the latest status, automate processes, and make it easy to share information across the firm. Arming you with necessary information, similar to when Peter Parker makes his Spider-Man suit, arming him to become a crime-fighting superhero.

The next step is to understand who your firm’s clients and potential clients are, and who among those are the decision-makers and influencers. Business development is largely about relationships, and relationship selling to decision-makers and influencers is critical to the success of any law or professional services firm.

According to a Gallup study on customer engagement, fully engaged customers bring in 51% higher revenue and sales than disengaged customers. They also spend over 23% more, on average.

These steps are part of a natural CRM progression called the CRM maturity curve (see Figure 1). This curve is a high-level summary of the CRM journey. Several organizations have developed CRM maturity models which, according to BDO Digital, are blueprints for defining your phase in the CRM lifecycle—tools and strategies you need to get to the next level. You can refer to those models to understand the milestones and develop a plan to move to the next phase.

To make CRM truly valuable, continue to move your marketing efforts up the curve to business development, BI, and finally strategic analysis.

Figure 1: CRM Maturity Curve

Villains Along the Journey: Reporting

We are often so focused on collecting, cleaning, and maintaining the data in our CRM that reporting becomes an afterthought. Like the villain in a superhero movie, reporting can become a problem if ignored. We know reporting is always going to be a part of the broader plot, so we should include it in our plans from the beginning.

We need reporting to show us how many readers we have, who is responding to our communications, and who to invite to our events. We also need reporting to show us how effective our marketing and business development efforts are, what activities we should continue to do, and where we may need to reallocate resources.

Let’s take a second look at the CRM maturity curve, this time with reporting (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Maturity Curve Graphic with Reporting

Everything we do in CRM affects how we report, including how we collect and maintain the data, how we manage our processes and record actions and touchpoints, the process and the information we need for business development, and analytics.

Initially, we may build basic reports such as lists of contacts, touchpoints, and relationships. We may also include some summary information such counts and percentages and even build some simple charts using summary information. But simple reports like these don’t provide a full understanding of the business. Just like in Spider-Man: Far from Home, when Peter discovers there’s more to the story than a monstrous villain attacking cities. BI and analytics reveal the true story behind your data.

The Journey Not So Far from Home: Business Intelligence & Analytics

CIO describes BI as a strategy that leverages software and services to transform data into actionable insights. These insights can then be used in your firm’s strategic and tactical business decisions. In other words, BI is a way for us to study data to understand trends and gain awareness. While it’s important to generate lists, summary information, and statistics, it’s also important to pull as much insight as possible from that information.

While BI tells you what is happening right now or what has happened, business analytics is predictive and prescriptive. Knowing what is going to happen helps you plan what your firm should be doing (or not doing) to create better outcomes.

The table below shows some examples of reporting requirements and the difference between BI and business analytics (see Table 1).

Table 1: Sample Report Requirements

Peter Parker just wanted to be a teenager and enjoy his class trip to Europe, so he was unprepared for the challenges that appeared along his journey. But unlike Peter, with the right support, you can be prepared to provide meaningful information for improving marketing and business development efforts for your firm.

Spider-Man had a lot of help from Nick Fury and his team; they provided him with intel, equipment, and support. You get the same type of support from us. When helping our customers move their CRM implementations forward, we tap into our personal knowledge and our extensive network of experts and professionals who have years of experience managing marketing, business development, and general CRM initiatives.

One of the questions we get often, as firms are pushing past the business development phase is, “How do I use business intelligence?” In other words, “What do I do with this information?” Our advice is to start by asking questions about your marketing and business development processes, such as “Who is reading our publications?”, “What is our return on investment for our annual events?”, and “Who are the most valuable contacts to the firm?”

The answers to your questions lie within the data. Like Spider-Man learned to use his powers to fight crime, learn how to use the power of your data to inform the business. Remember, data is the power source of your CRM initiatives, which require care and nurturing, so don’t make reporting an afterthought. It can be a villain if you are not prepared.

The data you collect, and the way you collect and store it, will dictate the reporting and analytics you can accomplish in the end. Pursue the maturity curve and move your CRM initiatives forward. Don’t just ask “What happened?” but ask “What will happen if I do this?”, and “What should I do to make this happen?” Don’t be afraid to go on a journey. With the right support, you’re never really far from home.