The golden rules of pitching

With in-house counsel working against strict budgets, even incumbent law firms cannot afford to rest on their laurels as clients increasingly ask firms to tender for work. A good and well-practised approach to pitching will go a long way to helping firms win deals in a competitive market. By Philippa Dempster, Freeth Cartwright

Pitching for work does not come naturally to many lawyers, whose success lies in a combination of technical expertise and the ability to build long-term one-to-one relationships with clients. A good pitch, however, relies on the skills of the lawyer or lawyer team to sell themselves and the firm. Success requires a multifaceted approach, which may take some time to develop, but the following provides step-by-step advice for getting it right.

Appoint someone to lead the pitch
That old saying, ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’, is certainly true in pitching. Yes, you need input from others, but it is important that the pitch is approached in the same way and there is consistency of approach and language.

Respond promptly and enthusiastically to the opportunity
Don’t be afraid to ask questions to clarify what is wanted. In some circumstances, it may be possible to meet the head of legal or the finance director to flesh out what they want before you pitch. This can be invaluable, not just because you have a better understanding of what is wanted, but also because you are demonstrating interest and building rapport.

Project manage the pitch
Far too often, pitches are done at the last minute, without attention to detail or to what is actually asked. We found the best way to solve this is to give responsibility to a dedicated person, whose specific role is to co-ordinate, organise and produce the first draft of the intention to tender or expression of interest. Going back three or four years, there was a tendency for the partner who generated the opportunity to run the pitching process. But this was very inefficient (the wheel would constantly get re-invented) and there would be the inevitable last-minute panics as client demands always took precedence. The quality of the pitch/tender was also variable and lessons weren’t learnt from prior experiences.

Brainstorming
Having a dedicated person preparing the pitch (or more than one person as we now have) shouldn’t mean that all the responsibility is on them. Indeed, if you just leave it to one person, then however good they are, the pitches will have a tendency to look and feel the same and, to be honest, become rather stale.

Brainstorming what should go in the tender and how to approach the pitch is invaluable. You need to fully involve the people who have the expertise in the sector or the discipline concerned, especially if you are going to innovate.

By way of example, during one brainstorming session someone asked: “We have been given a 30-minute slot for our presentation to include questions, so why are we preparing a 20-minute presentation? Hadn’t we better ask how long they want for questions first?”

When we asked we were told that questions were to take 20 minutes, so we had to re-jig our whole presentation to get it into ten minutes. That is quite a tall order and not one we were used to. Once again brainstorming was very powerful here – how do you distil your pitch into just ten minutes? We had to get to what would be the key buying decisions and how we could demonstrate/satisfy them and forget the rest.

Research your target and sector
While this is obvious it can be overlooked. It is important to know what the potential client has been doing, is planning to do, industry trends etc, not only so you can build this into your pitch, but also so that you can mirror some of the industry language. Research is also useful for questions – not just anticipating their questions but being able to ask some of your own.

Research is available from a variety of sources now and no longer does it just mean viewing the target website. Specialist companies can assist in getting detailed information.

Content of pitches
Ask yourself:

What issues are important to this particular buyer? What are they looking for?
What features of our product or service best illustrate that we can cover these issues/provide what they want?
What advantages do these features have?
How can the benefits be expressed to give maximum appeal, that is, what benefit will it be to them?
How can we demonstrate what we say?
What synergies are there between our organisations – how do we perceive we will work well together?

Remember the target organisation is a buyer… the people on the panel will be feeling uneasy and insecure. They will be concerned about how they choose the right firm: is it just sales pitch? How do I know if they will do what they say? How do I tell them apart? They may be feeling exposed about certain aspects of their business where they are encountering problems and need help. At the end of the day they are looking for lawyers that they can work with, who they trust and who they believe will do a good job for them. It’s not much different to how I would buy electricity or a new car. So put yourself in their shoes. What would make you choose your firm?

Play to the attention span of the audience
While the opening has to be strong because we all know that we make pretty instance decisions about whether we like people and whether we can work with them, research shows that the attention is best about three minutes in, when the audience has stopped shuffling their papers and has got over the ‘not another presentation’ feeling.

The next five to ten minutes are critical. You have to engage them and get their interest. As you get close to the time for questions, then the attention starts to wane again – this time because they are starting to think about questions. So don’t always leave your best point to the end – it just might get missed.

My personal view is that a presentation should be no more than 20 minutes, unless you have a very good reason to make it longer.

Practice makes perfect
However many tenders that you have been involved in, there should be no room for complacency. It’s easy to say “we don’t need a run through, we know what we are doing”, but how often do you come out of a tender and think you could have done better?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing… Ensure that you go beyond the benefit of hindsight, by properly assessing past performances and learning from the good and the bad.

As over 50 per cent of the impression you give is through your body language, then each presenter needs to ensure that their body is talking the right language. Eye contact is particularly important; engaging the audience and not just talking to one of them, being open and honest, and not hunching or fiddling with pockets, rocking or messing with pens. It sounds easy, perhaps elementary, but these mistakes happen and most of the time the people doing it are not even conscious of it.

Handling questions
There are a number of pitches that we have won or lost on answering questions.

I suspect this is the same for many firms. The question session is the one area where it is easier to judge one firm from another.

So it’s very important to practice questions. Brainstorm the sort of questions that you are likely to get.

Get one or more of the team to fire questions at the presenters and analyse how they could be answered better. It’s amazing how often these come up.

Feedback the questions you get asked to a central point or bank so you will be ready for them next time.

Field the right team. I never think it is satisfactory to say: “I am sorry we can’t answer that, we haven’t brought along the employment specialist.” Yes, you can say that you will go away and answer the question and come back to the head of the panel after the presentation, but that is a poor backstop. You really need to anticipate the type of questions you are likely to get from those that are on the panel. I always suggest that we ask for the areas for questions in advance and for the scoring matrix (if we can get it), so we know the rules of the game we are playing before we kick off.

If questions are asked during the presentation then I believe that they should be answered there and then. If you have the audience interested then keep them interested. They might guide you to what they really want to know. Pick up on what they are saying; listen hard and answer the question. Don’t waffle. Check whether they are satisfied with your answer and perhaps how it accords with their thoughts and experiences. Don’t forget that they are trying to simulate real life. They know the presentation should be polished because it’s under your control. But, the questions are their way of testing how it would be if they were your client. So don’t be afraid to treat them as a client, ask questions back if you need more information.

Value-added services
The trick is to work out how you can add value. What can you do outside of the legal service that will, at nil cost to the buyer, enhance your overall package and differentiate you from others? This is not always as easy as it sounds unless you know the organisation well. Also, many of the value-added services are now pretty commonplace. Few firms do not offer free seminars, newsletters, bulletins, free secretarial and fax, lead partners, and CRM. So what else can you add that will be valuable? IT connectivity is important to some, as is the achievement of process and workflow improvements. In-house teams often like support lawyers to be available for their use too, particularly if their own support systems are limited. Each potential client is different and the trick is to tease out what might be useful to them.

Secondments and trainee posts seem to be coming back into fashion, holiday cover can also be helpful where there is only limited in-house resource. Bespoke knowledge shares and training are now much more sought after than the general course or bulletin. Clients are looking more to see how you can make their life easier and, for example, how you can match their style of reporting.

By way of example, several years ago we became involved in our first partnership with a client. We were one of the first firms to pioneer this concept. The client described themselves as ‘searching for a soul mate’. Basically they were looking for a partnership rather than just a typical panel relationship. From this came the concept of providing an in-house team, but in our offices; a truly flexible resource that knows what the client wants and how they operate. The partnership has seen us sharing staff, through secondments and joint trainee contracts; covering one-off meetings because of sickness or holiday commitments; building up some team spirit and know-how; sharing precedents and training sessions; sharing non-legal resources; discussing process and workflow improvements; designing bespoke reporting and instruction processes; and even looking at opportunities for the two organisations to benefit from going forwards. A relationship like this takes a lot of time and commitment.

For the law firm, it is very easy to give lip service to this concept but slip back into the traditional model where you wait for an instruction and then carry it out.

In this kind of partnership, you have to be much more proactive. The onus is on you to come up with new ideas, identify cost benefits and create the right environment for your team and the in-house team to work together. There has to be ‘give and take’ and it is not all chargeable.

Innovative cost models
For many years now law firms have been more inventive than just relying on ‘traditional hourly rates’.

We have seen blended rates, discounted hourly rates, fixed or capped fees for certain work, no-win no-fee arrangements, special arrangements for abortive contracts and ‘free’ added-value services.

What the future holds is far from clear. Will there be increased use of internet tendering? If so, will that be more for commodity services where the price may well be more important than the quality or the personal service, or will clients use it to provide quality but at a cheaper cost?

Cost savings and balance-sheet protection are key drivers for many businesses, but focus on hourly rates is too simplistic an answer for these drivers. How do you know how long a job will take and hence what the cost will be unless you have target costs? The law firms looking to innovate are those that understand client drivers and seek to mirror them in their own offering. Those law firms are willing to take a risk and not tie themselves to be paid for each hour.

In the construction industry, for example, there are framework arrangements where contractors work on a cost-plus basis, that is, being paid their basic costs and an agreed percentage profit on top and, in addition, some work on target costs. If one comes in below target, then both share the gain and if the costs are above the target, both share the pain. In these scenarios, the contractors are rewarded for saving cost… an interesting and novel concept for lawyers.

It is harder to offer this type of concept to new clients where you have no knowledge of their risk profile and behaviour.

Other ways to reduce overall cost or hedge cost risks can be found in some insurance products. In the employment area, for example, you have been able for a number of years to insure all your claims – either to cover just the costs of defending or to cover compensation and costs. Where there is sufficient volume of work, firms can effectively self-insure. You can, for example, offer a fixed price for a particular type of unfair dismissal claim, knowing statistically that some will cost you more and some less than this figure, but overall you should make a profit. However, many law firms are just not ready for this yet and don’t carry data to identify the typical cost of a kind of case or transaction. Also, many don’t like the idea because they feel they would have to give a lesser service to make a profit.

But costs are not just about how much the solicitor’s costs will be. Costs should also be looked at in the round. Investing upfront in good risk management, including effective training, should bring the overall costs to the business down. Here law firms can add most value and can demonstrate year-on-year savings to the business (not just in pure financial terms but also in terms of reducing the amount of management time involved in resolving disputes).

Law-firm partnerships
What the future brings is uncertain. At the moment, the more traditional hourly rate with discounts, blended rates and in some cases fixed or hourly rates subject to a cap are still the norm. Clients are, however, more prepared to choose a number of law firms as ‘horses for courses’. So they may choose a City firm for plc and listing-based work, major corporate activity and strategy, but a mid-tier firm for the more run-of-the-mill work. I have seen this happen with several of our key accounts and, to be frank, we welcome it.

It seems to me that there are good opportunities out there for firms to follow Lovells’s Mexican Wave approach and to form some alliances to offer a range of cost options. Having worked at a large City firm, I know that often smaller cases were a bit of an embarrassment because they just couldn’t be done cost effectively. It makes sense to work with a lower cost partner to undertake such work. n

Philippa Dempster is a member and head of commercial services at Freeth Cartwright LLP, based in the Midlands. She can be contacted at philippa.dempster@freethcartwright.co.uk