Consider how competition and legislation affect your firm providing legal services for intellectual property. IP legal services professionals must do much more to prove their worth to attract and keep clients because of the rising need for client-centric services and the pervasive belief that attorneys are not interested in doing what is best for their clients.
You might now be one of the many professionals working in IP legal services who find themselves engaged in a never-ending series of transactions and, more often than not, tedious tasks. Take the ongoing submission of revisions to patent applications as a simple illustration. This is highly typical, and if the process takes longer than anticipated, there is always conflict with clients when attempting to agree on the terms and conditions and associated charges. As a result, your ability to handle crises on a transaction-by-transaction basis determines how you interact with your clients.
The following are the main drawbacks of this scenario:
Besides competing on price, which negatively affects your bottom line, you have fewer options to keep customers from switching to a competitor.
Customers typically view you as one of several potential IP legal services providers they can select to conclude a deal.
As there is no assurance that clients will continue to use your services in six or twelve months, it isn’t easy to forecast revenue growth.
Due to their busy schedules and the regular flow of clients willing to pay for the filing of patent applications, some IP attorneys may believe that they are successful enough to practice in such circumstances (as per the previous example). If this describes you, you should evaluate your current activities to see if they assist your business’s growth. Indeed, you can do more of this if you are fortunate enough to attract more business, pay more people to cover it, and enjoy yourself. There is probably not much I can do to change your opinion if that is how you define success.
But, because I place a lot of emphasis on fostering relationships, I’m more intrigued by strategies that raise the lifetime worth of a customer. What can IP legal service providers do to strengthen connections with potential customers and clients and get reimbursed for the added value they provide?
When you focus on lifetime value, you make every effort to develop, evaluate, track, and consistently improve systems that encourage customers to consider the advantages of using your services. And none others.
To begin, you must first complete the following three steps:
Take a look at your existing clientele, and…
See how long they’ve been your customer and how much they’ve paid you.
Determine how many times you had to bargain rates to keep people on board or how many times you had to have price discussions because of the amount of work you do.
Find out how they chose to collaborate with you and what factors they considered. Have you surpassed their hopes?
Inquire about their opinions of your services and the things they are not pleased with.
Create a value proposition for a subscription-based or managed service based on the input you have obtained. Essential components of this should be:
A set price or range of rates for a predetermined time (for instance, one to two years) during which you describe the goods or services you will provide. The client will then know the costs and advantages of using your services upfront. Always remember that customers will pay if they believe they are getting a better deal than alternatives. You don’t have to offer low rates because this will affect how customers view the service you want to provide.
Communicate with clients regularly to keep them informed about important matters affecting them or to assist with any questions. Also, this needs to be systematized and does not need to send a special message to every client. These methods—newsletters, email updates, webinars, etc.—work effectively. Make careful to understand how your clients want to get information.
The advantages customers will experience from the managed/subscription service and how this is far more cost-effective than paying per transaction are clearly explained. This is possibly the most crucial stage; DO NOT IGNORE IT!
A review of the responsibilities in your company will enable IP legal service providers to concentrate on client interaction and delivery while delegating or outsourcing other tasks. The managed service/subscription business model pushes you to consider providing top-notch services without incurring extra expenses. Ensure you don’t overcommit resources to produce results for clients if you aren’t compensated by the hour.
As though there was no tomorrow, keep an eye on customer feedback. This makes it easier to keep track of expectations and gives you an idea of the information you should regularly provide (using a systematized communication process) to minimize client discomfort and annoyance.
Just the current clients are listed. What about the future?
I’ll reiterate what I said in my earlier article.
The value that clients place on their interactions with you and how long they continue to use your IP legal services will depend on how you find and win them.
All of the material you give prospects after they join your sales funnel as leads must point them toward that end goal if you want to draw in high-caliber clients and encourage them to consider the value they would receive from your managed IP legal services. If you are too afraid of losing older, transactional-focused clients, attempting and concentrating exclusively on acquiring new clients for managed services could seem more straightforward. This is untrue. Trying to adjust your behavior and IP legal services practice to deal with managed service-type relationships while keeping a substantial portion of clients on the outdated business model will be a headache.
Although a hybrid model that blends the two kinds of partnerships will be the norm, you should go to multi-year contracts that will improve your ability to manage your finances and relationships. It should be the aim even if you don’t accomplish it perfectly.
Some IP legal services professionals will find what I’ve mentioned above painful, and quite honestly, it will deter them from attempting to make necessary adjustments to their procedures. You must consider the external pressures you encounter and how you respond to them as specialists in IP legal services. The status quo is under attack from many angles. Therefore, you must prioritize focusing on customer lifetime value.
It won’t help to think about it, either merely. It would be best to act; this will set the winners apart from others who simply muddle along and wonder why they put in so long hours for so little payoff.
All of your client attraction (and retention) efforts must serve your end goal, starting with the target niche you choose, understanding what is going through your prospects’ minds, developing a position of authority, running campaigns to point people in the direction of the information they need, and ending with the strategic services you offer that they will want to hire you for.
Don’t assume your IP legal services practice is exempt from the lifetime customer value concept. It does and ought to. For your clients to WANT to continue working with you in a reliable, profitable relationship, you owe it to both yourself and them to deliver excellent experiences and results.
Eria focuses on client attraction strategies that do not necessitate cold calling of prospects to assist IP legal services professionals in developing profitable practices. He has seen some businesses grow strong relationships with their options long before they become customers, thanks to his extensive experience in the IT sector.
He has also seen the misunderstanding of IP law many businesses have and the poor choices some have made based on their presumption of knowing about IP law. His desire to assist IP legal practitioners in strengthening their prospect education and relationship-building methods is motivated by this. Also, they can develop a successful firm by turning more leads into high-value clients without expending unnecessary funds or resources.
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