Law firms
Questas works with the very large through to provincial law firms and with individuals and teams at all levels including partners, associates and newly qualified solicitors.
Law firms face ever increasing competition, particularly in markets like London where there is no shortage of qualified solicitors. Many are under pressure from clients, particularly in the public sector, to reduce and control fees. Organic growth is tough and lateral hires bring their own challenges. Mergers often demand high levels of management time to be devoted to integrating cultures. Differentiation, other than with very specific niche services, has become increasingly difficult. There has been an increasing demand from senior management for professional staff to win more work without necessarily embedding the right processes, skills and behaviours.
Business Development Challenges
In our experience law firms, large and small, face some or all of the following challenges:
Time
There is an enormous amount of pressure on individuals to meet targets as well as manage teams and deal with reporting and other non fee earning activities. As more people are being tasked with playing a part in BD the challenge to keep the multiple ‘plates spinning’ becomes more difficult. See Maximising your time.
Confidence
Many of the people we work with are extremely confident when discussing their area of expertise either internally or with a client who shares that knowledge. Asking some of these people to sell can often take them way out of their comfort zones, the impact of which means that they will simply choose not to engage in this activity. See Sales confidence.
Skills
Quite often we come across organisations who are asking people to engage in sales activity who have had little or no development in this area. Many organisations believe selling is simply about doing a good job which will result in follow on work. We don’t disagree that this is vital but it should be viewed as the thing that earns you the right to discuss more and different projects not the be all and end all of sales. See Selling skills training.
How Questas can help
Questas builds the confidence and ability of your partners and fee earners to enable them to become effective business developers making a significant contribution to revenue generation. We provide them with the tools, skills and confidence they need to develop ‘trusted advisor’ status with clients (see Consultative selling skills training). We help you to define a structure and approach to winning work that includes a number of individuals working together towards a common objective formulating a clear strategy to target and win work from new clients (see Business development training). We equip your people with the skills and behaviours needed to strengthen relationships with current clients (see Key account management training) in order to identify new opportunities by understanding client’s ‘horizon issues’ and without resorting to ‘old school selling’.
“Questas work with our Lawyers from trainees through to Partner. Those people who have been through the training have a clear and effective business development activity plan along with an increase in confidence and ability to turn ‘chats’ into instructions.”
Ray Black, Partner & Chief Executive at Barlow Robbins solicitors
About Us
We are a business development consultancy which is passionate about helping our clients develop processes, skills and behaviours that will result in increased sales and improved margins. 
