BD Roundtable

We spoke with Will Eke from Passle about the importance of content sharing the right way in professional services, what good content sharing looks like, and what we consider to be ‘thought leadership’.

Will is an SVP on the commercial team at Passle and joined the company in 2018.  He is responsible for showcasing and successfully implementing the Passle tool into a number of top 200 law firms globally.  Prior to his current role, Will has held commercial roles in technology companies covering a wide range of sectors including automotive, FMCG, Technology and retail. 

For those who don’t know, Passle is an expert-to-expert marketing platform. Passle makes it incredibly easy for busy experts to publish useful, client relevant insights that can be shared to multiple channels all within minutes.  Given Will’s experience talking to a wide variety of clients in the professional services sector, and having seen many good (and bad) examples of content sharing, we are excited to host this session with Will.

Interview Covers

Balancing authenticity and professionalismConvincing lawyers to share more authentic contentWhat content should we be sharing?Thoughts on ghost bloggingExamples of bad content sharingAward & Rankings announcementsPersuading junior lawyers to write contentWhat is thought leadership really?

Roundtable Session Covers

Role of BD in content draftingExamples of impactful contentUsing content management systemsRepurposing old contentTips to get partners to write and share more content

We spoke with David Sayce, Director at Paper Gecko about Google’s upcoming Web Vitals changes and what firms need to do to get ready for them. David is a leading expert on SEO and on website audits. He uses data and 20 years’ experience to join up your digital marketing efforts.

Discussion Content:

Page one click through rates vs page twoWhy Google rankings are important nowDigital transformation in law firmsWhat are web vitals?InteractivityLoadingVisual stabilityImpact on professional service firms

We spoke with Sam Burrett about why law firms would want to start a podcast and all the work that goes on behind the scenes to set up, promote, and produce a podcast. 

Sam recently started his own podcast, The Leading Lawyer Project, about how the world’s top lawyers are forging new careers, winning the best deals and shaping the future of law. He is also an Associate Commercial Director at Plexus, a company using advanced technology and flexible access to world-class talent, to free lawyers to focus on higher value strategic work.

On this group call, we demoed some of the SEO basics that law firms can use improve their content reach. We drilled in on how to research keywords and longtail keywords with KeyWord Planner, learned about website search traffic with Google Search Console, and how to better optimize content in WordPress.

What are keywords?Using Google Keyword PlannerCompetitor researchWhat to do with keyword information?Longtail keywordsOptimizing contenting with keywordsRich snippetsOptimum article lengthTargeting by geographic locationUsing Google Search ConsoleOptimizing content on WordPressStructuring content properlyInternal linking and duplicate contentHow to link to content on LinkedIn

Connect with Greg Hamblin and Kauship Prakash if you have any questions or join us on our Slack channel.

We spoke with Ben Paul, Founder of the BD Ladder, a BD & Marketing consultancy based in New Zealand. 

Ben has a wealth of BD experience having worked in Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, Kensington Swan, and overseeing them combining with Dentons and rebranding to Dentons Kensington Swan.

Ben started out his professional career back in London as a B2B sales executive, selling into the C-Suite. He began his career in professional services with Grant Thornton, as they were looking to hire BD Managers who could coach and advise their partners how to sell. Ben’s background in sales was different to their previous hires and helped change the way BD interacted with the partners as he could advise from a position of having made cold calls and closed deals. This led to him moving to NZ and a career which has seen him work with many law firms. Throughout his career he’s provided practical BD / Sales advice to many legal practitioners.

The discussion covers:

Lack of BD training for lawyersWhat not to talk about in client meetingsTip 1 – Get them talkingTip 2 – ListeningTip 3 – Confirm next stepsAdvice for BD teams preparing coaching/training sessions

We spoke with Ben Paul, Founder of the BD Ladder, a BD & Marketing consultancy based in New Zealand. 

Ben has a wealth of BD experience having worked in Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, Kensington Swan, and overseeing them combining with Dentons and rebranding to Dentons Kensington Swan.

Ben started out his professional career back in London as a B2B sales executive, selling into the C-Suite. He began his career in professional services with Grant Thornton, as they were looking to hire BD Managers who could coach and advise their partners how to sell. Ben’s background in sales was different to their previous hires and helped change the way BD interacted with the partners as he could advise from a position of having made cold calls and closed deals. This led to him moving to NZ and a career which has seen him work with many law firms. Throughout his career he’s provided practical BD / Sales advice to many legal practitioners.

The discussion covers:

Lack of BD training for lawyersWhat not to talk about in client meetingsTip 1 – Get them talkingTip 2 – ListeningTip 3 – Confirm next stepsAdvice for BD teams preparing coaching/training sessions

We spoke with Andrew McGrath, Founder, Green Light Consulting, a Hong Kong-based recruitment company, about the ins and outs of establishing and maintaining key client programs for law firms Andrew is a qualified lawyer with 20+ years’ experience working in professional services marketing.

The discussion covers:

Why develop a key client program?Starting from scratchLetting clients know about the programUsing client fees on client development initiativesHow to keep up momentumAdvice for BD teams managing client programsFollowing through with feedback

We spoke with Andrew McGrath, Founder, Green Light Consulting, a Hong Kong-based recruitment company, about the ins and outs of establishing and maintaining key client programs for law firms Andrew is a qualified lawyer with 20+ years’ experience working in professional services marketing.

The discussion covers:

Why develop a key client program?Starting from scratchLetting clients know about the programUsing client fees on client development initiativesHow to keep up momentumAdvice for BD teams managing client programsFollowing through with feedback

We spoke with Amy Burton-Bradley, Consulting Director and Partner, Julian Midwinter & Associates about how we can better collect, manage, and select credentials for our proposals. With over 15 years of experience, Amy is an expert in tenders, proposals and pitches for professional services companies.

Discussion Content:

Structuring and maintaining a bids libraryTagging bids and credentialsUseful file naming conventionsParts of a bid libraryBD teams understanding flagship dealsQuestions to ask partners when starting a proposalWhat to include in a proposalWhat to leave out of a proposal

We spoke with Amy Burton-Bradley, Consulting Director and Partner, Julian Midwinter & Associates about how we can better collect, manage, and select credentials for our proposals. With over 15 years of experience, Amy is an expert in tenders, proposals and pitches for professional services companies.

Discussion Content:

Structuring and maintaining a bids libraryTagging bids and credentialsUseful file naming conventionsParts of a bid libraryBD teams understanding flagship dealsQuestions to ask partners when starting a proposalWhat to include in a proposalWhat to leave out of a proposal