In this series, we speak to new partners about the realities of making the step up.
Ben Willows, Partner at EIP, talks to Gemma about the shift in responsibility that comes with partnership, why BD without a structured plan is just noise, and how using the right technology can stop good leads from slipping through the cracks.
Gemma: What would you say the biggest shift was for you when you moved from Managing Associate to partnership?
Ben: There’s a lot more of an emphasis on BD as you move to partnership. I think really it’s fully taking responsibility for driving yourself in a way. You’re given the freedom to do whatever business development you want and what you think is appropriate. So it’s about fully taking control of what you’re doing, directing others, and helping guide more junior people with their BD efforts.
Gemma: Did you feel like there was a different level of pressure once you made partnership?
Ben: Yes, I think so, in a way. Generally, within our firm, we’ve had a bit of a BD drive over the past few years. We’re assessed against seven categories, and business development is one of them from day one. Each tier in the firm, from trainee through to partner, is assessed against the same criteria. It’s just that expectations differ at each level.
It’s to show that everybody is doing the same thing, everybody’s assessed against the same criteria. It gives you an idea of what you’re working towards, and we’ve got clear tenets and examples of the behaviours associated with them as well.
Gemma: Would you say that you had training before you made partner?
Ben: Me personally? Minimal. When I started in the profession, I was trained in private practice at quite a small firm – six attorneys, I think, maximum. From that point of view you’re thrust into BD from an early stage because everybody’s got to be doing everything. But there wasn’t any formal training. It was just – come along to an event, attend events yourself, write some content for websites. No formal training.
I then spent some time in-house, so BD wasn’t really an issue there. Then coming back into private practice just over five years ago, to be honest, I was too busy for BD quite a lot of the time. It’s one of those things — the pressure of chargeable, billable hours. It’s quite easy to get yourself into the hamster wheel of chargeable work and BD kind of gets pushed to the side quite easily.
Now there’s much more of a focus — it’s okay to carve out time in your calendar to do BD and to try and stick to that. I still think we could do more, in all honesty.
So something I raised as part of the partner promotion process was that nobody had any sort of formal BD plans. One of the things that’s been trialled amongst the salary partners at our firm is developing a BD plan. They call them VTOs — vision traction organisers. It sets out your 10-year goal, your 5-year goal, your 3-year goal, your 1-year goal, and then it also has these 90-day rocks — action points that you’re going to hit within the next 90 days.
It forces you to think about things like what are you going to do BD-wise within the next 90 days? Who’s going to assist you with it? What are the problem pinch points? Really setting out more of a structured approach. We are trialling that at the moment and it’s especially useful for more junior people who don’t have a plan.
Obviously, the end goal is to bring in work, but that’s just too wide, too far-reaching, too far in the future. Having a VTO that breaks things into smaller, more actionable steps — like revisit my LinkedIn profile and find 10 contacts — is quite manageable when you break it down. But if you just give somebody two hours in their calendar to do some BD without a plan, it’s like, where do you start?
You don’t fully appreciate that the journey can actually take several years. It’s a case of keeping in touch with people, being engaged with what they’re doing.
Gemma: What kind of BD works for you? Do you have specific tactics that you go to?
Ben: I don’t know if there’s one tactic. It’s kind of just trying to stay in contact with people all the time, keeping in touch. Because quite often, especially when you’re more junior, you think you need to bring in a client immediately. You don’t fully appreciate that the journey can actually take several years. People don’t often need your services there and then. It’s a case of keeping in touch with people, being engaged with what they’re doing and what they’re interested in, and posting on things that might pique their interest. Just keeping you in the back of their mind. Relationships, really. And generally just doing good work for people as well, because that sticks in people’s minds — that’s when you get good referrals.
Gemma: And things you’ve tried that haven’t worked?
Ben: When you think of BD, lots of people just default straight to conferences or writing articles. The conversion rate on conferences themselves is often neither here nor there, though obviously, you have to be in the right places to meet the right people. It just depends on who you go and meet, speak to, and keep in touch with afterwards.
Same with article writing. Sometimes it can just be a case of churning out content, and realistically, it’s few and far between that you actually get anything back from that. If you took a few little extra steps — sending it onto somebody that you’re nurturing — that’s more likely to result in something than writing an article for a trade magazine and just hoping.
Gemma: You mentioned technology. Are you using anything to help stay on track?
Ben: One of the things that’s working quite well at the moment is we’re using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and that’s interfaced with our CRM. It makes things quite nice and straightforward. If you come across a lead on LinkedIn, you can plug it straight into the CRM, which is used to set up touchpoints — you’ll get a Teams message saying, ‘ Have you contacted so and so? ‘ You can try and ignore it, but it will remind you quite heavily.
Trying to make use of technology just to keep you on track. In the legal profession, to-do lists are often pages and pages long. It’s a lot easier to do something when you’ve got something buzzing and telling you, have you done this?
Gemma: Do you think it’s important that senior partners are visibly demonstrating BD day in, day out?
Ben: I think so, definitely. Even just the case of more senior people taking you along to meet clients and prospects from an early stage — that really does have an impact. Otherwise, you can just be a bit left in the dark. In the IP profession, patent attorneys can sometimes just get pigeonholed doing foreign associate work, sat there waiting for instructions to come in, churning the handle and never getting away from their desk. Senior folk taking it upon themselves to think, we need to be bringing you forward a lot more — that makes a big difference.
Even the case of taking juniors to conferences. I’m not saying conferences necessarily work all the time, but seeing how people interact — how they identify people who might be worth speaking to, how they engage with them and then keep in touch — the cost of doing that is minimal, but people don’t tend to do it very often. There’s often this knowledge gap, and suddenly associates who’ve never really done any BD or been to a conference are thrust into it and expected to learn very quickly.
Gemma: Is there anything you wish you’d focused on earlier in your career?
Ben: BD generally — definitely. Having a break in-house, you’re completely out of that mindset. When you come back into private practice, you’re just kind of like, oh yes, sorry, that is something I need to do. By that point, you’re a bit out of touch, a bit out of practice. You’ve had a few years’ gap and it’s a bit alien to you again.
Definitely earlier, structured engagement with BD. I had engagement with BD from the start, but there was no structure to it. It was just, come along to this event, go to this event yourself, and you’re just a bit like… yeah.
Gemma: And finally, if you had to give one piece of advice to somebody looking to make partnership in the next couple of years, what would it be?
Ben: Speak to people. Find out what you need to be doing, what the expectations are. Sometimes people can just sit there and silently think, I’ve been here a while now, I should be made a partner. That’s kind of a misconception. Becoming a partner is all about what value you can add to a business, because nobody wants to make you a partner unless you’re going to bring value to the partnership. Being open and engaging with people, finding out where can I add value, what areas do you think the business needs to focus on, trying to find your niche in a way that you can differentiate yourself and add value there.
From the BD front as well — engage with it. Don’t forget about it. It’s one of the easier things to push to one side when you’re busy with chargeable work. But as soon as you do that, it’ll just get forgotten. Carve out that time in your calendar and stick to it if you can.
Ben Willows is a Partner at EIP, specialising in consumer electronics, aerospace, power electronics, autonomous vehicles, image processing systems, and computer systems and software. He previously spent three years in-house at Dyson.
