Business Intelligence: The Checklist......Strategies for Getting Smarter About (and Impressing) Your Client

In my coaching work with lawyers, I spend a great deal of time discussing the value of financial fluency, business acumen, and industry and sector expertise, both to assure the delivery of superior legal work and to generate business. I spend even more time suggesting ways to acquire and demonstrate all three. (for purposes of building both lawyering skills and revenue)

It would appear that pretty much everyone in our profession has accepted the immutable rules of engagement for lawyers wishing to develop self-sustaining practices. Your clients and prospects want and need lawyers who understand their business: how they make money, the challenges and opportunities unique to their circumstances, the market and industry within which they compete, and their growth strategies. And when they're dreaming of the perfect counsel, they imagine that most celebrated of trusted advisors, who sits shoulder to shoulder with them, scanning the horizon, and helping to spot --and prepare for-- what’s coming.

And yet, much to my surprise, I find that many lawyers don't (which basically means "won't") make the time to do the reading, questioning and listening essential to accumulating and maintaining deep client knowledge.

Some law firms have business intelligence and/or business research teams to help them stay informed about their clients and prospects and the industries in which those companies and individuals do business. Rarely, however, will your firm's resources be sufficiently robust to assure that you are able to monitor news, events, and issues of concern to your clients and key contacts in sufficient depth and on a routine basis. And your access to those resources may well depend too much on your standing and power within the organization.

If you're serious about building knowledge to drive revenues, then you need a personal strategy finely tailored to your practice and your goals. Handbooks, online certificate courses (e.g. the HBX CORE Program) and CLE programs can help bolster your knowledge of accounting and finance. Social media and other internet tools, strategically deployed to gather and curate knowledge, can be immensely useful. And visiting with the client—in person and by email and phone, posing good questions, and listening, hard, to the answers is absolutely essential.

The most important tool you have, however, is your own curiosity. If you have it, you're ahead already. (Were you one of those kids who read the How Things Work series at bedtime?) If you feel like you're a bit short on the spirit of inquiry, you've likely convinced yourself that:

• It will take commitment to get more comfortable in the world of commerce (yes, but you can't afford not to make the time), or
• It requires a B-school degree to really "get" it (no, no, rocket science it is not, that joint degree was too pricey, and you still get to be the lawyer, not the CFO),
• You'll never be "nimble" enough to "ramp up" and "actualize" your mastery of the irritating business buzzwords so essential to building a "scalable" "innovation ecosystem" or --and this is "mission critical"-- discovering the "secret sauce" ... and so on (handy perhaps, but definitely not rocket science, if you can spell Investopedia).

Even the archetypal humanities major who chose law school over organic chem has no excuse whatsoever for being overtaken in practice by colleagues with a better "knack" for numbers or those who actually read the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times.

You need to understand your client's financial statements, not prepare them. You'll win points by being able to appreciate the pros and cons of an acquisition the client is considering. But you won't be asked to generate the pro forma projections. And you need to understand the valuation calculations provided by your expert, in order to develop the smartest litigation strategy--and explain it properly to your client. You don't have to actually be an accountant.

To be successful, to bring in business and not depend on the kindness of the big dogs, you must be financially fluent.

So, to help you "up" your proverbial game, I've shared below the checklist series (like my hero, Atul Gawande, I love checklists) I developed to guide my clients in gathering deep knowledge about new or existing clients. The benefits of this tool, and the substantial amount of time and effort required to use it effectively, will come in the form of superior legal work, deeper relationships, and enhanced client loyalty and competitive advantage. If you make time to gather and demonstrate business intelligence, you will expand your brand as an industry expert and thought leader and improve the quality and effectiveness of virtually all future business development activities. In short, you’ll get smarter. And smarter is always, always better.