By Helena M. Lawrence, Marketing/Business Development, Orrick

A pandemic is an uncomfortable time for clients both personally and professionally. This is an opportunity for you and your firm to demonstrate how your client service is a differentiator. Businesses are anxious and want to talk about how to manage during a pandemic outbreak.

Show your commitment to building a strong relationship with your clients and prospects by demonstrating how you deliver strong client service and value adds.

•   Communicate
• • Make a list of your clients and prospects, consider their resources, sophistication and vulnerability, and pick up the phone and call them. Do not sell, give them an opportunity to vent and talk. Listen and offer ways to be helpful and generally a resource during uncertain times. These calls should be complementary – true value adds.
  •  Reach out to clients and notify them there will be business continuity via remote working so there will be to disruption in your service and let them know that their legal needs will be meet. Proactively offer them resources that they may find helpful.
  • Check in with your referral network. Emails should be brief and friendly. The point is to make sure they think of you, not to sell to or inform them.
  • Turn scheduled in-person meetings into video meetings to enhance connections. You will stand out compared to your competitors who used the phone.
• Connect
  
• • Introduce your contacts to resources and people who can help them with their new and unplanned business needs.
• Create
• • Aggregate and create resources that help clients navigate through the pandemic such as a mini website. Post the date that the content was last updated so folks visiting know how current the information is in a fluid situation. Give your contacts a reason to bookmark your firm. Smart sales start with useful awareness marketing.
• Community
• • Create communities for similarly situated companies/geographies/positions to share information and support each other. This can be phone or video calls, or virtual communities such as Facebook or LinkedIn private groups.
  • Buy your future client gifts now by purchasing local business gift certificates and keeping them to give at the holiday season. It communicates you value your clients and care about your community.

Remember to show sensitivity and compassion and your concern for all your communities – firm, clients and larger society. While we will get through a pandemic, the future looks uncertain and everyone reacts differently. Lead with your heart and good things will follow.

Take care of you and yours.

About the Author

Helena Lawrence took the road less traveled and it led her to a career in marketing and business development in Washington, D.C. She provides strategic guidance, thought leadership, and recommendations for innovation, product development and marketing, client service, business development, and marketing initiatives. Helena is the Strategic Marketing Lead on Orrick's award winning GDPR Readiness Assessment Tool and global marketing campaign. Helena and the team from Orrick received the 2018 LSSO Sales & Service Team Award.

Contact Helena at helenalegalmarketer@gmail.com or visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenalawrence/.