BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Proposals, RFP Responses, Pitch Meetings and Beauty Contests
Before starting my own consulting business in 2003, I served as the Director of Client Development at four very large firms for twelve years. During those years, I produced hundreds of winning proposals—including responses to RFPs in convergence exercises and DuPont model/partnering proposals, helping the firms garner millions of dollars of new business and new clients.
As a consultant, I have helped clients strategize, design, produce, rehearse and deliver winning proposals, including a mega-proposal that combined the responses from 15 international firms into a winning pitch for global businesses.
I recently attended the Academy of Competitive Intelligence in Cambridge, further honing the skills necessary to turn research into actionable knowledge, and to create proposals based on solutions and strategies that clients value.
I help my clients:
- Determine whether, when and how to propose to work with clients and prospects
- Decide which RFPs to avoid
- Become short-listed for proposals
- Interview their clients and other coaches
- Create a winning strategy, theme and message
- Rehearse for success
- Debrief and follow up
Recent examples of engagements include:
- Consulting with a large Chicago firm, leading them through strategy and message development as well as rehearsals prior to a completely successful meeting with a key client resulting in the firm’s broadening the scope of its work with that client
- Consulting with the lead firm and 15 additional firms from a global affiliation of law firms in a successful RFP response to garner global work from an international company
- Consulting with a firm on several additional proposals for new business, helping them develop more powerful collateral material and to deepen their understanding of client needs
- Advising a 100-lawyer North Carolina firm on strategy, message, and tactics for the face-to-face portion of a convergence process their second-largest client was running (the firm was successful in retaining all its then current work from the client and in opening the door to an extension of the relationship)
- Training and coaching the above firm on the face-to-face portion of another convergence process (the firm was successful in retaining its current work and expanding its engagement with the client to include a larger and exclusive geographic territory)
Related Articles:
Winning Beauty Contests—Article in ABA’s Law Practice Management, March 2006
Helping Hands—Cross “Helping” Tactics That Pay Big Dividends — Article in LMA’s Strategies: The Journal of Legal Management, January 2005
From the Horse’s Mouth — Better Writing With Attorneys — Article in LMA’s Strategies: The Journal of Legal Management, October 2004