Case study 1: The technically great professional
Our client, a highly successful partner, was technically very good but he had never had an opportunity to develop any of the other aspects of his professional life.
He had always performed extremely well for clients but was slowly finding that his regular clients were moving jobs and that the ones who stayed in situ would shop around for legal services rather than just calling him automatically as before. His professional life had become very competitive over a short period of time.
He felt it unfair and that his good service to clients in the past should have been enough. He was even starting to query his professional competence.
We explained that in the current business world, previous hard work simply is not enough and that he would have to go out and WIN business in order to develop or even maintain his client base.
We put together a programme to provide him with the necessary skills as quickly as possible. Initially, as one would expect when changing the habits of a career, it felt alien to him to call clients, chase work persistently or follow up on conversations. We helped him to strategise his client base, focus on profitable business and position himself for the years ahead.
We continue to work with him for refresher sessions from time to time and see him go from strength to strength. We have to accept that he is now so busy that occasionally he cancels our sessions - secretly, we take great pleasure in this!