Peer to Peer Magazine

The Pricing Experts Reflect on Their Innovative Roles How do you measure success? Do you quantify the impact your group has on your firm's profitability? Toby: I measure success first by getting work into the firm. Pricing is about finding the right approaches to make clients happy and bringing the work in the door. Within the firm, we provide regular reporting on the types of pricing arrangements we are seeing, by practice and industry. Of course this includes dollar amounts. prove the value you are adding. Try not to do anything that isn't tied to the firm's strategic goals. Get in front of people; there is no replacement for face-to-face interaction. Partners generally will not ask for your help in front of their peers. Stay positive and cheerful, and get to know your lawyers so they remember you better. Don't get down if people don't immediately adopt your ideas; change is hard, and it takes a while for law firm culture to change. Chris: We have many approaches to measuring success. An important one that generates business is measuring profitability and volume. We track the profitability of the matters we are involved in against the matters we aren't and strive to generate significantly higher margins. We manage to do this — and to solve client spending reduction goals — even though most of the engagements are very fee constrained. We also measure client satisfaction. Think big, start small and scale fast. Vincent: We measure our success based on client satisfaction, winning new business and ensuring existing business volume remains sound. We're positively impacting firm profitability and the bottom line, and clients and partners rely on us for pricing, innovation and quality financial reporting needs. We also measure and quantify firm profitability and client satisfaction impacted by the group. Toby: Having been at three firms in this role, the most critical aspect is having access to leadership, so I would have pushed for that much sooner. Partners always appreciate my assistance, but when leadership is pushing the agenda, they are more likely to reach out and to follow my counsel. Leadership support also ensures you get the resources you need. These roles are expanding and, without the right resources, you get stretched too thin very quickly. Don't be afraid to ask for what you need. Stuart: Profitability for key clients and matters is one way we measure our success. Assessing our impact as part of client negotiations is another. For instance, did we reach a fair deal for both parties? How did this differ from our planned positions? We also look at client feedback at the relationship and matter-specific levels, and we track the level and nature of the support requests we receive. If you could go back to when you started in this role and change anything, what would it be? What advice do you have for newcomers to the field? Stuart: I wish I had put metrics in place right from the start! To the newcomers: Think big, start small and scale fast. Get some successes on the board quickly, and have a number of sponsors. Chris: Although I want to say start small, I am not sure that would work. I think you may want to figure out a few things you can do really well, and sell it strong and wide. Be prepared to be busy, and always look for the next place you can add value. As you become successful, you will get additional support from the firm. Create systems to support you as you go, particularly for the timeconsuming tasks. Stay in Excel as long as needed, but upgrade to something real when you can. Monitor everything you put in place from day one, and capture metrics on it; you often have to Vincent: In addition to the critical aspect of having access to leadership, I would have this role play a part in the compensation process. For example, a partner brings in a new client, and several years later the relationship renders a large matter, positively impacting firm volume and providing utilization for several timekeepers. That new client eventually becomes a marque client for the firm. As it stands, firms operate and compensate on a yearly basis, but I believe this may change in the future. Reports on the investment for a given relationship and its results can offer leadership innovative ways to view the business pipeline and client development, with new methods of compensation following suit — keeping partners happy, maintaining a strong firm nucleus and offering an excellent motivator for new business development. Reap Rewards with Pricing As the trends of aggressive pricing and AFAs continue to grow and evolve, so too will the role of the pricing professional. Recognition of this opportunity will reap rewards for you, your firm and its clients. Peer to Peer 115

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