Have you ever written a marketing or business development job description (JD)? If you are a hiring manager for business development and marketing roles, then the answer to this question should indeed be ‘yes’.

Now ask yourself: Is your JD an effective marketing tool? One that communicates with impact and is on-brand? If not, it’s a missed opportunity. I outline some do’s and don’ts to help you answer ‘yes’ again.

Don’ts:

• Putting everything into the JD. Seems intuitive, but in fact it sends a message to the reader of the JD that you don’t know or understand what the priorities of the role are. Additionally, it can send the message that the team is not well staffed or structured so everyone in the marketing and BD team does everything.
• Churning out the previous JD. Chances are the role description will be similar to its previous version (assuming it’s not a new role), but it won’t be exactly the same. Responsibilities and team members change constantly. Ensure to revise and update the JD each time you’re recruiting for the role. This refresh will help both you and the candidate you’re trying to attract.
• Being too specific on the qualifications for the role. If you list a certain amount of years or a specific degree that this person has to have, then unless that is set in stone, list these criteria as being flexible. For example, I’ve seen very good and capable candidates be turned off a role because they don’t have the “JD preferred” or they have 9 years’ experience rather than the “must have 10+ years experience”. Many candidates do take these requirements literally.
• Sending an unbranded or word JD. The JD is another marketing opportunity for your role. Take a moment to brand it with your logo, font, colors and style. And always PDF this document. It should only take 15 minutes. And it sharpens the document and elevates it to a new level.

Do’s:

• List the priorities of the role. List the top 3-5 priorities of the role over the first 12 months, and no more. This piece tells the reader you know exactly what the role will be doing. And the candidate’s expectations are managed. If you don’t yet know this information, challenge yourself: are you truly ready to recruit for the role?
• Include information about the greater team. Most organizational charts are confidential documents, and I’m not advocating you reveal them in a publicly available JD. But do provide some context around the role. This can include where it sits in the team, who it reports to, and who it will have reporting into it. Geographical locations of team members are also helpful to people, particularly if you’re recruiting in a satellite office.
• Virtual collaboration and travel. Most marketing and BD teams are geographically dispersed across numerous offices. Include some brief information on how the team collaborates and discusses projects given these geographical challenges. I get asked this question by just about every candidate I work with currently. It is a reality and candidates simply want to know how this works in your team – especially for sole managers in a satellite office. It might be as simple as saying how frequently the team catches up virtually or in person (or both).

Some bold ideas:

• State the salary range. Some will disagree with me on this point. But I’m a firm believer in being transparent on the salary range. You know the range, so state it. In this tight market and with the change in salary history laws continuing to come into play across the US, this piece will affect hiring managers more and more. It saves you a lot of time wasting at the end if everyone is not on the same page. Additionally, it makes you think and ‘rank’ your candidates according to where they fall within that range, which you should be doing as a matter of course in any event.
• Write with personality. Yes, JDs are formal documents. But that doesn’t mean they have to be boring, or ignore your team’s culture. This is a chance to recruit a new colleague, so capture who will enjoy working with your team for the long term, and market it accordingly.

I personally love writing and collaborating with clients on JDs. They are an opportunity to frame and shape a role that will have a lasting impact in your team. They make you think critically about your needs, the team structure, and how best to deploy your team. Take the time to get them right, and they will pay dividends down the road.

Updated 9.19.19

You will have likely seen the recent news that the unemployment rate in the US is at record lows. The current unemployment rate is 3.7%. To give you some quick context, five years ago at this time, it was 7.3%. Post-financial crisis it was almost at 10%.

Regardless of your view on whether these low unemployment rates are a positive or a negative on the economy, this tight market certainly affects our pocket of the world. It is much harder for firms to find enough quality BD and marketing professionals.

Below I share some insights for both firms and candidates on how to deal with recruiting good quality BD and marketing professionals in this tight market. Both perspectives are equally important, and different insights apply whether you’re recruiting or being recruited.

For firms:

• Waiting for people to notice your role? Some market conditions allow firms the luxury of being passive when they are adding to their BD and marketing teams. If there are more great candidates than open roles, typically a passive approach still means you can miss a large percentage of candidates but still be successful. That is not true now. My best advice to you given the current tight market is to find a way to proactively and purposefully go out into the market and recruit the right person for you.
• Move quickly and purposefully. Executing efficiently is even more necessary in a tight market as other firms typically have the same hiring needs as you. Waiting too long to secure the best candidates will likely see you missing out on good people. Consider these tips: plan out the interview meeting process and don’t let it run over 2-3 weeks from start to finish, don’t involve people who are too busy to quickly and meaningfully participate, and, know which of your interviewers have upcoming time away from the office (and plan accordingly).
• Manage your candidate. Frequent and purposeful communication with your best candidates will keep you constantly tapped into their timeline and what else they are dealing with (read: other pursuits or offers they have). You want to be fully informed and ready to move quickly when you need to. Ideally, you want a relationship with your best candidates. Frequent check-ins and updates are a great way to achieve this status with them. Remember that other firms have these practices and candidates are influenced by this.
• Be good to those who already work for you. Are you at risk of losing your top BD and marketing professionals? Think about which BD and marketing professionals in your current team are likely to be approached in this tight market. Do you have a good read on who is fulfilled, challenged and, ultimately, happy? Are you looking after your top performers? If its been a while since you talked about these issues, now is the time to address these questions with your team. They are likely being approached by other firms and you should be nurturing them and letting them know their value in your team and your firm.

For candidates:

• Know how to handle a recruiter call. You’ll likely have to deal with recruiters calling you. And it helps to know a few quick, effective and professional ways to handle these calls. Like any professional reach out, a quick response goes a long way. Whether that response is to express your interest, or to let the person know you are happy and not looking for a career move at that time, people appreciate your engagement. And, if you feel you’re being unnecessarily bugged, simply say “Thank you, I appreciate the call, I’m not looking to consider a move for at least two years, so please note that going forward”. You can control the level and amount of interaction if you wish to.
• Leverage the situation, but beware. As a BD and marketing candidate, you know your immense value in this market, and you know you are currently highly sought after. Most savvy people leverage this situation, particularly when it comes to salary negotiations. But be careful here. Firms have competitive ranges they work with, and they know when someone is over-priced. Firms do get turned off (and remember) when you set the salary bar too high.
• Ask the right questions in interview meetings. In these market conditions, it’s easy to be flattered. If you are entertaining a role that a recruiter or firm has reached out to you about, ask the right questions. You need to know if the opportunity is right for you and the right next career move; versus entertaining the role because it is easier to be flattered in this market. Consider these questions: find out more about the senior leadership at the top of the marketing and BD team, find out about the cultural aspects of the team, the likelihood (and prior history of) internal promotions, people management responsibilities, and a thorough breakdown of the technical components to ensure you are both on the same page.
• Don’t move just because its easy to. One of the first things I ask a candidate when they’re looking to move is: why? Keep in mind that you have invested so much in your current role and firm, and the first thing you should be looking to do is to seek out internal promotion opportunities if they exist. Now, if those internal opportunities don’t exist, it’s a different conversation. But, moving just because the market might be friendlier to you, in my experience, doesn’t get you where you’re going any faster.

​
Summing up     
 
Whether you are recruiting, or being recruited, there are different factors to take into account in this tight market. Deploying a few easy and quick methods to adapt to this market is key. And, importantly, if you as a firm or a candidate need help with these factors in this market, your search professional knows how to handle these issues on your behalf to still generate a successful search or career discussion.

Best practice recruiting involves two things: a sound strategy, and good execution of that strategy.

Earlier this year I outlined an approach to ensure best practices are applied when recruiting the interpersonal roles of professional services marketing and BD people. I now share some key factors to help implement that approach.
​
Recap on strategy
             
By way of a quick cap, an effective best practice recruiting approach to attract the right marketing and BD professionals includes:  

• Conduct meetings, not interviews
• Plan out the meetings
• Set your candidate’s expectations
• Include the key people from the start
• Have one meeting out of the office
• Ask questions that give you the right information

 
Effective execution

Here are some ways you can ensure effective execution of this approach. Keep in mind that all of these require only minimal planning, and will ensure a seamless, sophisticated and thorough interview meeting process for all involved:

• Assign different questions and discussion points. There will likely be marketing and BD team leaders, HR professionals, and partners all involved in these meetings. Whoever is coordinating the touchpoints with a candidate should assign different questions and discussion points between these people. This ensures candidates aren’t being asked the same question multiple times throughout. And importantly, you can learn more about your candidate as each question will have a different focus, allowing you to gain a complete picture of the candidate.
• Consider the logistics. Consider any interruptions to the meeting process. For example, who is going on vacation and can’t participate, who is traveling to other offices and will be hard to reach and follow up with, and who is simply too busy. Plan this going in, and then talk to your candidate about the logistics and timing.
• Who is assigned with the follow up. Someone needs to take the lead on communicating with the candidate. Particularly when there’s marketing, BD, HR and partners all involved, often everyone assumes someone else has the lead. The candidate deserves to have a central point of contact and also to understand where they are at in the process. I see too frequently candidates getting disengaged from the process as the firm forgets to do these simple updates. And that’s when candidates will look to other firms who do have these best practices in place.
• Interview training. Most people don’t conduct interviews as a part of their daily lives. Particularly partners in law and accounting firms. When people are not used to conducting interview meetings, they can be unnatural or overly formal. Others mask their own unfamiliarity with either aggressive tactics or by talking too much. The role of the firm here is to prepare people who will be speaking with the candidate on how to conduct an interview meeting. It should involve these things: information gathering, information sharing, testing on technical abilities, and cultural alignment discussion points. Attempting to ‘catch the candidate out’, or proving you know more than them aren’t conducive to an effective interview meeting.
• Formal v informal. Hopefully time permits for you to have one interview meeting out of the office. Mirror the circumstances of these meetings with your style. For example, an in-office formal interview meeting will naturally be more structured. An out of the office coffee meeting should be deliberately more casual, trying to build rapport and get a sense of who the candidate is as a person. Find out what they do outside of work, what community efforts they’re involved in, what sports they like to play. All of this tells you more about the candidate and who they will be each day in the office.
• Share as much as you ask. Candidates often have just as many questions as you do. They have thought at length about the potential of the opportunity (and how it fits with their personal career goals), your team structure, the firm leadership, and the future goals and trajectory of the firm. Don’t make the mistake of thinking these meetings are just for you to gather information. Purposefully make a point of allowing a good amount of time to ask them what you can share with them.

 
Summing up     
 
Interview meetings, and the whole process of conducting these meetings, is not easily done. There’s planning, logistics and effective execution to all happen at the right time. But importantly, you, at your firms, have to judge a candidate and make a call about whether they are right for you while they are doing the same in return. If you follow this approach and execute effectively, this hard decision does become a little easier. Make it as easy as you can: arm yourself with the right information and plan accordingly, involve the right people, and ask the right questions. You will then feel fully informed to make the right decision. 

Co-authored with Trisha Daho, Founder & CEO, Empowered

What confounds Managing Partners?

In so many conversations that we have with accounting firms, law firms, and similar professional services firms, managing partners seem confounded by a series of challenges affecting their firms:

• How do we grow sustainably and create a powerful brand presence in our market?
• Once we have a strategy, how do we make sure it’s implemented well?
• Who is going to do all the work to make sure we are accountable as a firm to our vision?

Stopping the cycle

Many firms, even smaller to medium sized firms, have contemplated how to best attract the clients they most want. They get training on business development, they go out into the market, and they hustle to put into practice what they have learned. Sometimes. Until they get busy. And then, marketing and business development fall quickly off the table for a while. By the time most firms come up for air, they are hitting another dip in revenue growth, and the cycle starts all over again.

In order to create sustainable, long term, vibrant growth, firms (no matter how small), need to focus on creating a brand that is clear, desirable to key target clients, and executed with precision and diligence. Few firms manage this to an outstanding degree. But it is absolutely possible and the best firms have already figured that out. It all starts with a strategy. 

The importance of strategy

Firms must create a strong and compelling vision, one that speaks to every single stakeholder. Clients, of course, but also targets, networking partners, alliances, and their own team. This can seem daunting, but with the help of a strategist or management consultant, firms can determine how to communicate a vision that sings directly to their ideal clients and targets.  

Once a firm creates that vision, the work of living it begins. This means creating a strong brand presence in exactly the right market. Most firms see this phase as “marketing,” but it is so much more than creating a website and some marketing collateral. In professional services firms, every single person, from the janitor to the managing partner, must be living a clear, consistent brand for that firm every single day. The firms that do revel in their successes, and experience exponential growth. Those that don’t, flounder. And because most humans tend to focus on what they are extremely good at most of the time, those of us in professional services firms don’t focus on making strategic decisions about how to live our brand. We’ve got billable hour requirements, after all. 

How to move this forward

So, what to do? Hiring an expert who can knowledgeably drive the bus on execution is a powerful tool for professional services firms of all kinds.  But you have to do it in the right way for it to make a real difference in your results.  

For example, if you hire a marketing director or manager and then give that person no real authority to do a great job, it’s going to a be a giant disaster. The firm leadership must be comfortable with full empowerment to these people in these roles, especially with leading the strategic marketers that they hire. If this doesn’t happen – put simply – firms are wasting their dollars on these valuable assets. One of the most common reasons we see why senior marketing professionals leave their firms is because they lack the necessary authority and empowerment to do what the firm has asked.

If your firm is committed to creating a role for a person with the muster and acumen to execute a clear strategy, partner with the top brass of your organization on evolving that strategy over time, and inspiring the execution of that strategy by everyone in your organization. Then you really will have a powerhouse.  

You’re creating history in your firm

Think about this: When you’re hiring this powerhouse with the strategic vision required for your firm’s future, you’re creating history in your firm. And the effect of this is more so when you’re a small or medium sized firm. What you’re doing actually sets the scene for years to come. The pressure to get this right, and to get it right on the first try, is huge. You’re hiring someone who will set the pace and progressiveness of the overall marketing function.

Taking this one step further, you’re hiring this powerhouse to set the marketing culture in your firm. Many have (unfortunately) experienced a negative firm culture and know all too well the long-lasting effects a bad culture can have on the day-to-day reality and perception of working and living in a law or accounting firm.

Creating the right effect
​
The effects of a good or bad marketing professional can be felt more significantly in a smaller firm. First-time Marketing Directors have a big role to both curate and create. But both big and small firms always struggle when hiring the wrong person at any level of the marketing ladder.

The most important consequence is that the firm partners and leadership lose confidence in the marketing function and what it should be. They ultimately back away from investing in the function because they ‘have been burnt’ and are not sure how to course correct. Common consequences we see on this include creating a marketing culture that is only reactive in nature, a ‘yes’ machine, or a function that wrongly resembles something that is more administrative or junior in nature than it should be. More junior marketing roles often are administrative in nature, but the senior roles can and should be far from this.  Again, without a real and executable strategy, and without understanding what the end game looks like, this can be an expensive debacle.

Firm leadership is often not equipped with the knowledge to empower their senior marketers; so, they partner with a consultant or search professional to know what to look for and – importantly – what it should look like in their own firm.

How important is partner involvement?

Partners need to be involved from the very first steps in adding to or implanting the marketing function. This function should report into a marketing savvy partner who can advocate and help them in their success. The most senior marketing professionals in a firm need to have the eyes and ears of the firm leadership so as to help with accountability, empowerment and progress.

Partners must also get comfortable in hiring these powerhouses who they can learn from. Counter-intuitive to some, but absolutely necessary to give the authority to these worthy leadership roles.

Is resistance inevitable?

Given we should know all of this, why is there still some resistance from partners when working with marketing professionals on implementing and setting the marketing strategy? Is it because this function is still not a bona fide function of the revenue of the firm? Or is it that unless and until marketing roles are considered and remunerated with equal importance as the billable hour, they will always take a back seat?  

Whatever the justification, these perceptions must change. Business minded and client centric professionals – as marketing professionals are – have cemented their value in most firms. Firms and their partners who resist this are risking the future of their firms and undermining the value these respected players have earned.

In conclusion
​
These issues go to the very heart of your firms. It affects their structure, their culture, and their future. Non-accountant and non-attorney roles in these firms are here to stay and are gaining momentum at a significant pace in most large and global firms. The most successful firms already know this quite clearly. Hire the right professionals to help you get these leadership roles right from the start, and then enjoy the rewards. Trust us, they absolutely come.

As featured in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin on July 19, 2018

Attorneys and accountants are undergoing a seismic shift from being technical specialists to business problem-solvers. Professional services marketers — like Esther Bowers, Director of Client Service Initiatives from Barnes & Thornburg LLP, and Brian Duffy, Regional Sales Leader, Midwest market, at Grant Thornton — are helping their firms accomplish the former. Below, they share their perspective and advice to others facing this challenge.

The need to be client-centric

Attorneys and accountants are trained to be technical, subject-matter specialists. They advise and provide counsel on specific issues and are trained to solve a specific problem or mitigate a specific risk.

These specialized technicians are now being challenged to apply their expertise in a new way: to become more generalist in their approach, and to be a “business solutions provider” who can predict, analyze and solve a client’s business need, ideally before the client knows it is an issue.

They have to change the way they brand and describe what they do, both internally within their firms and externally to their clients. What they do has to speak to and resonate with their clients — who are the ones demanding this change — not just to an attorney’s or accountant’s own insider language.

Being a business solutions provider is what these technical professionals must be. This is a profound shift for most attorneys and accountants. And few are making the shift with ease.

Role of marketers in this change

As a professional services marketer, you are primed to help your technical professionals be a business solutions provider. One of your main roles is to help them refocus to be client-centric and help them achieve that status.

Barnes & Thornburg is a law firm with nearly $400 million annual revenue, more than 1,000 personnel and 14 offices in the United States.

Bowers was one of a few chosen professionals to lead and instill client-centric efforts. This has seen Barnes & Thornburg through higher and consistent revenue growth than many of its AmLaw peers, despite a mostly flat market for legal service buyers.

Bowers said the key to this success is offering clients practical and holistic problem-solvers who are successful because they are “asking, understanding and then communicating the client’s business and legal objectives and keeping them front and center with everyone who touches that client.”

Grant Thornton is an audit, tax and advisory firm with $1.74 billion annual revenue, more than 8,000 personnel and 59 offices in the United States.

Duffy contributes to the firm’s go-to-market strategy and how a one-firm approach is part of instilling a client-centric approach.

He said his professionals need to be “problem-solvers for their clients’ most challenging issues. Whether it’s compliance (i.e. they don’t have a choice) or about strategic and organic growth, we must distinguish ourselves in the marketplace and assist in managing threats and risks within their business.”

Being client-centric is not a choice, it is the way attorneys and accountants need to behave in order to keep their clients and attract potential new clients.

Bowers points out that a “team-based and collaborative approach with the firm provides the best opportunities for client institutionalism.”

Duffy notes that they’ve moved beyond fee discussions with their clients, to a place where clients “trust us as fiduciaries of their money” to be out in front of their business challenges and help them avoid potential risks.

While some firms have already completed this transition, few empower their marketers to be an active participant on that client account. Simply maintaining or reacting to a potential client need or lead is not the same thing as helping to steer and control the experience a client has with the attorneys or accountants.

How can we move this forward?

Duffy said that at Grant Thornton it is about instilling a behavior: “On the journey to get to that point of trusted adviser status with our clients, one thing we do and instill in our people, is the importance of being engaging listeners. We teach them to ask thoughtful questions that are relevant to their business and their challenges.”

He said anyone can have a pleasant conversation about something generic. But there’s “an art to being conversant in relevant topics and tying that back to their business.” This behavior is now part of the Grant Thornton culture and helps with its one-firm approach at the frontline with clients. This allows the firm to deliver to their clients the best resources in the firm to address their needs.

Bowers says that Barnes & Thornburg have similar practices, and transparency from both sides is fundamental: “There is an overwhelming need for both firms and clients to share more information and have enhanced communication to deepen relationships.

“The two groups desire more collaboration but the first step is greater transparency which can lead to innovation and solutions.” This practice allows each side to share, learn and ask the right questions to achieve the client-centric model.

She said this means that a “client management approach includes understanding the primary drivers of value for specific clients and what we are doing to deliver.”

Practical takeaways

What does all of this mean for professional services marketers?

Bowers offered this:

• Have a holistic, team approach. Educate and empower everyone at the firm to be focused on the client’s business and creating solutions that contribute to meeting their business objectives — this is what enhances the overall “client experience.”
• Leverage firm resources and talent. Think outside of the day-to-day services your firm provides, and offer flexible solutions, resources, technology and data that your clients need to advance their goals.
• Check to see if it’s working. Conducting value audits and having an accountable feedback loop, which all ties into individual and firm performance, is essential to maximum effectiveness.

Duffy offered this:

• It all starts with the firm culture. Instill, encourage and reward behavior that digs in deep and creates a culture of client-centricity.
• Learn from your efforts. Learning from the firm’s overall efforts, which includes the wins and the losses, is an essential piece to constant course correction.
• “One firm” — clients don’t think of the numerous segments or practices that form a firm. Nor should they. When speaking to and asking questions of a client, it has to be a one-firm approach.

And I’ll add this for the marketers who are less experienced than Bowers and Duffy:
Whatever approach or practice resonates with you and your current environment, you can always rely on certain questions to help shift an attorney’s or accountant’s mindset to refocus on client-centricity. Help your attorneys and accountants with these ideas:

• Become more knowledgeable about your client’s business plan. Get them to share this with you and get your key professionals in the room when they are having strategic sessions on this plan.
• Facilitate issue-spotting and problem-solving. Asking open-ended questions without knowing the answer creates uncertainty: You may not know the answer or be able to solve the dilemma. But that is not the point of this task. The point is you are learning about their business and its challenges.
• Know who your client’s top business advisers are. And this can involve introducing other professionals to your client so they have business solutions providers from a range of services.

​
Being a business solutions provider is the next frontier. You, as professional services marketers, are perfectly positioned to help your attorneys and accountants reach this client status.

On June 28, 2018 I had the pleasure of discussing professional development for business developers and marketers as part of the Legal Marketing Association's regular Podcast. This Podcast was done in conjunction with the May/June 2018 issue of the LMA's Strategies magazine.

In this Podcast, I discuss everything from what firms want from their business developers and marketers to today's current trends and unique challenges legal marketers face with this task. I also contrast this to professional services business developers and marketers in both the accounting and A/E/C sector.

​To listen: http://blog.legalmarketing.org/podcast-episode-32

Resumes are highly individualized documents that share the highlights of your professional career to date. They should be brief and concise, be a chronological account of your different roles, and be written in your voice.
 
I see a lot of resumes given what I do. And I love reading each and every one, as every person is different and tells their story in their own way. Sometimes, sadly, they say “I’m not a good candidate”.
 
They are not necessarily easy documents to write. But, there are some common mistakes I see all the time which I feel can be easily rectified with minimal effort.
 
What should your resume actually say?
 
Your resume should say only the following:

• Your name and personal information you feel comfortable sharing (email and phone number are standard).
• A brief summary of who you are as a professional and what you’re looking for. Very good resumes have 2-3 sentences that tells the reader who you are, what your experience is, and what you’re looking for. Don’t underestimate its impact, so take the time to get this important introductory piece just right.
• Your education and relevant qualifications.
• A brief chronological account of your roles, including duration (years and months), and what your general remit was in each role.
• Any internships or prior work experience.
• Any personal or professional associations, volunteer work, or hobbies you wish to share.

 
Triple-check. You might be surprised to hear that most resumes I read contain some sort of error. Many people have looked at it 20 times and are unable to see the mistakes. When I can point these out prior to representing you to a firm, it is fine, as you get a chance to fix them. But when you’re submitting your resume directly to a firm, they notice this and will likely not move forward because of a perceived lack of attention to detail. My advice: read your resume out loud, or, read it while pretending that you’re reading someone else’s document with the intention of looking for errors.
 
Style versus substance. If you’re going to seek feedback on your resume, ask only for their substantive comments. Its really important your style and voice stays in the document. And many people make the mistake of correcting on style only (because substance involves a higher knowledge base).
 
Brevity. Be brief and concise. A resume is not a place to list everything and hope something resonates. It is a summarized version of your professional self that is tailored exactly to the role you are applying for. (The interview is the place to elaborate and hand pick great stories to show your experience.)
 
FAQ’s:
 

• Should I use a resume writing professional? If your writing ability is not crucial to your role, and its impacting your applications, then consider it. But, generally speaking, as a marketer or business developer, you are likely already a natural communicator. And my view is that using a resume writer can dilute your voice. It is important to have your authenticity and style in your resume. After all, that’s how you will naturally write in your new role, and employers like to see this.
• I’ve heard a resume shouldn’t be longer than one page. There are no hard and fast rules about length. But, remember whoever is reading your resume for the first time is likely skimming it, and one page is easier than three pages. (And this is where the executive summary comes into great use for the busy resume readers.)
• I’ve asked 5 different people for feedback on my resume, and I’ve got 5 different answers… Resumes are highly personalized, subjective documents and everyone will have a different opinion as a result. Simply ask 1-2 people that you know and trust their judgment. And, make sure at least one of them is someone who challenges you, not just someone who will agree with what you’ve written.
• Do I put hobbies or personals interests in my resume? Not mandatory, but recommended. You are a unique person with hobbies or interests that may provide an interesting talking point during an interview. At work, people see your professional and personal self, so begin early by showing both of these sides. And sometimes there are hobbies which show particular determination or an initiative that can impresses the reader more than you might think.
• I’ve used different colors, fonts and images to stand out. What do you think? I think professional services firms – particularly law and accounting – like a very conservative resume. They don’t like a lot of different things going on in the document. Even if you’re a creative type, if you’re applying for a role in a law or accounting firm, keep it simple, plain and factual.
• I got laid off and don’t know how to deal with this gap in my resume. Many people have at least one gap in their working life. Acknowledge it and move on. If you don’t acknowledge it, it creates a negative perception as to why you didn’t. And don’t fudge the dates to try to cover this up; honestly is always the best policy.
• I worked in a different sector and have left that off this version of my resume because it just doesn’t relate to the role I’m now applying for. In most situations, my advice here is to keep all of your professional experience in your resume. Sub-headings are really useful when differentiating different careers or sectors. Acknowledge your prior work and highlight transferable skills. I can always tell when someone has had a ‘life before their current role’. And often there’s something they have learned that is relevant to their new career. It all adds up, and it all makes you into the professional you are today.

Not every firm has marketing people. While many firms – typically the larger and global firms - have had significantly sized marketing teams for years, by contrast, smaller firms have not necessarily had this need. Until now.
 
Smaller firms, whether they have had a certain amount of success on their own, or, whether they might be newly formed and contemplating their marketing efforts, are now starting to re-think marketing for their firm.
 
As a partner in a law or accounting firm, consistent revenue growth year on year is now not a given. And for most firms, it’s a challenge. This is because you need to work at differentiation and showing value, and more specifically, being solutions-focused to your clients. And all of this against the backdrop of a competitive and often slow-to-respond market.
 
This is where marketing and business development comes in. These people are solely focused on helping you achieve your revenue targets, growth goals, and differentiation and value to clients. They can also help you achieve the elite status of business-solutions advisor.
 
But where do you start? And why does it seem hard to take the plunge to hire your first-time marketer?
 
It’s hard because there’s no precedent, no comparisons, and no history on a marketing function or person in your firm. You don’t have the benefit of hindsight of seeing the function work effortlessly and from learning from prior mis-steps (they do happen, frequently). So, the stakes are higher for hiring your first-time marketer. After that, and down the road when you look to build out a marketing function and team after your first-time hire, the challenge is much less so. You will have learnt, seen and feel more educated as to what marketing is, what it can do for your firm, and how it has actually impacted your firm’s bottom line.
 
Given these factors at play, there are several key things to get right in order to make the first-time marketer for your firm work and be effective in both the short and long term. Below are my top three tips to start you off along the right path:
 
Do you have consistent and confirmed expectations?

The most important thing you can get right when hiring a first-time marketer for your firm is knowing exactly what it is you need, and ensuring all key stakeholders are aligned on this. Unless you and your partners can agree on the specific expectations for this role, it is - in my experience - unlikely to be a long-term success. This takes some time at the outset, but it is well worth the end result.

For example, ask yourself and your fellow partners these initial questions and see what answers you all have:

• What type of marketing role will you have? No two marketing roles are the same. We use a framework to tailor a bespoke role for your firm based on what you and your partners need.
• Who is driving the case for the first-time marketer, and why? Motivations and context are particularly key in getting the long-term success of the role right. Firms are full of individuals sometimes with competing interests or certain politics at play. We deal with these issues in a way that makes sense for your firm; no firm is immune from these issues.
• Do you have consensus on a prioritized list of capabilities? I’ve seen firms time and time again set unrealistic goals and capabilities for their first-time marketer, and then wonder why their marketer can’t get everything done. You need to figure out what is key and needs to be done in the first 6-12 months, and what can wait for year two. Understanding these differences is essential and brings the role away from a just a job description and into a real, functioning role.
• How will the marketing role be measured? In the same way you, as a partner, have individual and firm KPIs to meet and exceed, the same must be set for your marketer. 

 
What will be the seniority of the position?

Because you are hiring your first marketing role, this single person must be at the right level of seniority. In a larger team, a combination of ‘doers’ and ‘strategists’ will often form an effective team. But in a single person team, you need to find the right balance in just one person.

There is often a correlation between experience and preference for acting as a doer versus a strategist. Less experienced recruits may tend towards being a ‘yes person’ or an administrative function (creating perception problems around what marketing can actually do). Similarly, there are also risks in hiring someone with too much horsepower who pushes the partners too far too fast (creating problems around getting the right pace and buy-in for the role). Of course, every candidate is unique and firms should not use ‘years of experience’ as a direct proxy for ability or working style.

In thinking about the seniority, also take into account who this person will mostly work with: key partners or even clients, and also what barriers may be in place for this person. In setting your new marketer up for success, they need to know both the good things and the challenging things about the role to have the best chance at getting all the elements right. Think about the challenges you as a partner have; you’re better equipped to deal with them once there’s transparency in place.

And at the risk of laboring this point, this is all particularly important because this person will be (probably for a while) your sole marketing function. This person will shape what marketing is at your firm and will literally go down in your firm’s history as to what marketing is and does for your firm. Over the years, I’ve seen firms really struggle with shifting a (wrong) perception of marketing once its in place. Getting it right at the start is essential.

What are the reporting lines and budget:

Carefully consider who this new marketer reports to. Marketers will prefer to report into a key partner, typically an office managing partner or the firm partner. Reporting into the firm leadership as a whole is another option, but, if this happens, who is the single person with the ultimate authority and responsibility on this role?

You will also have to consider what budget needs to be set aside for this person. Of course, a more junior person is less expensive than a senior person, but cost shouldn’t be your main driver. More often than not, you get what you pay for. Additionally, educate yourself on what a marketer will cost at your firm. Their salaries are structured differently to your administrative employees’ salaries. We advise firms on this constantly. And as you might expect, it is different based on size of firm, type of firm, remit of role, geography, and seniority of position.

Closely tied to the issues of reporting lines and budget is how your new marketer will show their worth and value: their return on your investment. Bring your new marketer in on this conversation so you’re both in it together. For example, ask them to create a bi-annual report to show what they’ve worked on and how that has contributed to the revenue of your firm. The more senior the person, the easier this is to show. Get them to tie their efforts into the overarching goals of the firm and how that fits with the trajectory you both discussed at the outset.

Final thoughts:
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It might seem hard to embark on a first-time marketing role because it is an unknown to you. But most firms who haven’t had a dedicated marketing function are now taking the plunge. Keep your firm, your partners, and your market position as it should be and let us help you embark on this challenge together. This is literally all that we do. In our experience, firms that follow the above steps commence their search from a stronger foundation and have greater success with their new marketing function. 

I recently offered my top tips to the Firms and Hiring Managers of BD and marketing people at the offer stage (see previous blog). Now, I offer similar tips from the perspective of the candidate:

BD & Marketing Candidates:

• Know your value in the market. Understand your market value, considering both technical background and softer skills. There’s a lot of information available to you, but balance everything that you read. And, talk to your search partner about your value and, importantly, where you fit in the range. (Typically, firms set a salary range for each role based on seniority and experience.) Understand what factors you have (or don’t have) that push you to a certain end of that range. Candidates often put themselves at the top end of a range, but may not have the skills, both technical and soft skills, to prove their worth at that top end. So, understanding the range is one thing, but where you fit in that range is another - and will differ depending on the role you’re pursuing.

 

• Disclose your salary expectation early. Share with the hiring manager or HR professional what your salary expectation is right from the start. This is easily done if you know your value in the market. (Note: disclosing your salary expectation is not the same thing as disclosing your salary, which in some states and cities is now banned; see earlier blog addressing this issue) This puts everyone on the same page from the get-go. Additionally, go one step further and inquire as to whether your expectation matches the range the firm has set for this role. Its important to have this discussion early on.

 

• You shouldn’t need to negotiate. Because you know your value and have disclosed your salary expectation, when the offer is communicated, there shouldn’t be the need for any negotiation. Everyone should already be on the same page. (Of course, if the above steps haven’t been followed, get ready to negotiate.) The only time negotiation is warranted – in my view – is if something has changed with your salary expectation along the way, for example, you may have been promoted. And, even if this happens, it should be communicated to the hiring firm straight away. There should be zero surprises at the offer stage.

 

• Accept promptly. As you are now both aligned on salary expectation and where you fit within the range, the offer that comes out from the firm will typically meet your expectations. Firms do for the most part want to offer competitive salaries and want to meet your expectations. So, accept promptly. Its reasonable to take a day or two to consider the offer and inquire as to the full benefits, but then don’t keep people waiting. It’s in both of your interests to close out the deal in a timely fashion.

 

• Counteroffer. Think about whether your firm may make a counteroffer. Some firms make the strategic call to do this, rather than try to hire ‘another you’. Know what your response will be and how you will deal with this scenario before it happens. Your search partner will also be experienced in dealing with these issues. Keep in mind that the firm who has just make you an offer will be very sensitive to game-playing when it comes to counteroffers. Be honest and act promptly during this time; again, its in both of your interests to close this out promptly. And remember, you sought out this opportunity for a reason. I see too often people stay for a counteroffer and then regret it down the road.

 

• Be professional and responsive. The stress of the offer stage does wear some people down. And typically it follows a pretty thorough meeting and interview process that has been going on for some time. Remember to continue to respond quickly and to always be professional, even if the people you’re dealing with in your new firm at the offer stage aren’t the people you might be working with. People’s true colors can show during times of stress, and I’ve seen unnecessary negative impressions being formed by both sides because of the stress during these times.

The offer stage doesn’t have to be daunting. If the right information is shared at the start, and the right conversations are had to ensure expectation alignment, the process can, and will, go very smoothly. These are exciting times for both the candidate and the firm; do them correctly and they will be enjoyable.

When a hiring manager has found their perfect BD and marketing person, they embark on the offer stage. This stage should be quick and easy. So why isn’t it always that way? The offer stage is a key part of the whole process, yet it is often mismanaged by both the firm and candidate.
 
First and foremost, BD and marketing candidates have a lot of choice available to them right now. That context needs to be remembered in all of this; it is typically a product of the current market, not by demanding candidates. And when it is a buyer’s market, early transparency by both sides is the key to having the offer stage go smoothly.
 
Below are my top six tips to hiring managers in firms on how to conduct things in the offer stage to help a successful joint result. And next week, I will offer similar tips from the perspective of the candidate.
 
Firms & Hiring Managers:

• Have a conversation about the salary range at the start. This is critical in order to line everything up smoothly at the end. You will have been given a range, and you can communicate that range to your candidate. Similarly, your experience will tell you if the candidate has over-priced their own salary range expectation, or is simply too pricey because they’re too senior. Either way, this conversation needs to happen at the start so expectations are managed and aligned. Candidates also need to know if they’re in your range; this is one of the biggest mis-communications I hear about. And remember, you are very used to dealing with these sorts of conversations, as you have them all the time. Candidates are not and can get awkward dealing with this highly confidential information and may need a little hand-holding. (Note: for what questions you now can and cannot ask on salary, see my earlier blog.)

• Deliver the offer in a positive way. I’ve seen many offer conversations or offer letters which are completely devoid of any emotion. Your offer is impacting a person’s career and life and there should be a balance between professionalism and excitement. Revamp your offer letter if need be. And, when communicating it verbally, remember to show enthusiasm and positivity even if it’s something that is a little more mundane to you. Candidates feed off that vibe and can be impacted by it.

• Put a deadline on the offer. Many offers come verbally first, and then are followed up with a written offer. Put a deadline on accepting both the verbal and the written offers. It gives both parties certainty and doesn’t leave it open ended. Its reasonable for a candidate to ask for a day or two to consider everything, but if a candidate is asking for more than that, there’s typically other factors at play. Know what they are so you can address them quickly.

• Know your stance on any counteroffer. We’re in a buyer’s market, and you can expect firms to counteroffer in an attempt to retain their top talent. So, your best strategy is to put your best offer in front of the candidate. This may not be your traditional approach, but that’s the reality we’re currently in and it saves protracted negotiations in the event of a counteroffer. In my experience, candidates are rarely applying for a role simply to get more money from their existing firm. Almost all candidates are very keenly pursuing your role for a reason, so they want to accept your offer.

• Benefits and bonus questions. Once an offer is communicated, most candidates have questions about the benefits, policies and bonuses. Have the right people lined up to answer these questions, for example, your Benefits Director and the person the candidate will be reporting to. I’ve seen acceptances held up because of a lengthy game of phone tag between the right people on these issues. And, consider disclosing the benefits and bonus potential much earlier so it’s one less thing to deal with at this point. With bonuses, candidates always know that any potential bonus is subject to their personal performance, or even team or firm performance, but if they have some approximate ranges to go by, they will appreciate that information.

• Any hesitation? At the point of communicating your offer, the candidate should be anticipating it (or at least hoping for it) and they should be excited. Put frankly, if they are not, something isn’t right and you should have an honest discussion about why. Any hesitation, lack of energy or delay on a candidate’s part means they are stalling for a particular reason. Sometimes its easily resolved, other times it can get complicated. Either way, tackle it head on so you’re addressing the issues. Use your search partner here as they are used to dealing with every issue at this point of the process.

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Next week, I will offer similar tips from the perspective of the candidate.