Apply New Business Development Skills:Coaching Combats the “decay Rate” of Many Training Programs.
If you build it, they will come. Traditionally, lawyers have taken this approach when the conversation turns to the subject of business development. In other words, just do your job well and the work will come to you.
Today, the stakes are much higher. In a highly competitive marketplace for legal services, the traditional approach no longer works. Today, law firms expect that all of their partners will venture into the marketplace in active pursuit of new revenues.
How are law firms bridging the gap between the skills and behaviors lawyers learned in law school and those they need to learn in order to develop new business?
Many law firms believe that they can solve this problem by bringing in sales trainers for intensive sessions, often at an annual retreat, that generate enthusiasm, raise awareness and teach some client development skills. Being good students, the lawyers quickly realize the value of what they are hearing. They leave the session eager to apply their new knowledge.
One month later, most lawyers have forgotten nearly everything they learned. Studies show that the one-month “decay rate†for the knowledge gained in an isolated training program ranges from 67 to 91 percent. Obviously, much of the time and money that law firms are investing in free-standing business development training programs is going to waste.
What causes this remarkable rate of decay? It is due to the difference between how we acquire knowledge and how we make enduring changes in our behaviors – transforming knowledge into understanding and sustained action. Without reinforcement, lawyers quickly slip into old behaviors once they return to their established work situations.
This is where a coach with experience in the legal industry can make a difference – by helping lawyers apply their new knowledge in real situations over an extended period of time. Research shows that six months is the shortest amount of time needed for a lawyer to form new, more productive business development behaviors.
Using a coach does not mean that you have a problem. Do Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan or Andre Agassi have a problem? Using a coach means that you have innate talents that can by systematically strengthened to help you win new business.
Coaching is an effective method in the acquisition of many skills – for example, golf, piano or dance. Individuals may be born with innate talent, but without training, they will never learn how to hit a ball, play a tune or assume the fifth position.
However, training alone is not sufficient. To function at a professional level, these individuals must practice their skills consistently over time under the expert guidance of a coach. The higher an individual progresses into the elite levels of a fields, the more he or she can benefit from coaching.
A firm’s investment in either a training session or a coaching program can be significant. Compared with the often-wasted investment in training, however, law firms participating in a good coaching program can achieve averages returns of at least 800 percent on their investment. Coaching makes this difference by institutionalizing new client-development behaviors throughout the firm.
Using a wide range of tools and techniques, customized for each client, a coach reinforces what has been learned, helps to interpret and adapt this knowledge to real situations, and provides encouragement, feedback and course-correction. Practice can indeed make perfect – when guided by a skilled business development coach.