When I discuss the opportunities that cross-promoting varied practices that a single firm offers, most legal professionals latch on to the profit potential. While that’s certainly true, and a desired outcome, there is a subtler and potentially more important result, client engagement. Bringing all the offerings a firm has to bear to a client is a powerful vehicle to becoming an irreplaceable partner. Cross-promotion is advantageous for the additional profits but even more valuable as a means to solidify client engagement.
The power of cross-promotion became clear to me years ago while I was working with a small law firm. They were looking to grow their revenue but were concerned about retaining clients and brining in new business. Most of the attorneys had little time for business development because they were managing client accounts. During a strategy meeting we went though their core services. There were two, bankruptcy and tax law, any other services they offered were subcontracted out and not profitable enough to focus on. It turned out that ninety percent of their business came from bankruptcy cases.
The natural question was, “Why is only ten percent of the profits coming from tax cases?” Most of the attorneys admitted that they were used to managing the bankruptcy cases they had under contract and rarely discussed financial planning. So as a group every attorney made a commitment to discuss tax law services with their top ten clients.
Months later when we reviewed results, I was blown away, Seventy-five percent of their clients decided to hire them for some aspect of tax law. Several of the attorneys actually had clients leave other firm's services to consolidate their account in one place. The overwhelming feedback the attorneys got from their clients was that the clients had no idea they offered any tax law expertise and would prefer to get tax law advice from someone who already knew their personal situation.
While these results were uncommonly positive based on the preexisting relationship the attorneys had with their client, it’s a good illustration of the power of cross-promotion. The surface level advantage is that the firm brought in additional revenue from its existing client base. The deeper advantage is that it laid new inroads into the client relationship and strengthened the client engagement bond. The stronger the client is engaged with a firm the more critical that relationship becomes. firms that have cross promoted their products and services have less client attrition because they are bringing all their benefits to bear as a valued partner, not just a vendor of a single product or service.
