'I trained to be a lawyer – not a salesperson'; 'selling is like stalking'; 'we have a marketing department – isn't it their job?'. Such are the typical refrains when lawyers are told they have to develop their business.

If they are not natural rainmakers – and there are not too many of those – most lawyers pray for the good times when work flows in. Then they can do what they were trained to do – deliver excellent technical advice to clients who they know want to listen to them.

However, work flowing through the door does not come as easily as it used to. Economic pressures and the increased sophistication of clients mean lawyers have to compete for work.

The stages of the economic cycle result in changes in workflow and a greater need for business development in the down periods.

An increased focus on profitability means that success as a lawyer requires success in business development.

In short, lawyers are no longer confined to oak-panelled rooms – they have to get out and get business in.

But, for the non-rainmakers, there are a number of barriers which make business development difficult and uncomfortable.

Time constraints

Business development takes time – presentations, writing articles, networking, seminars, lunches, conferences and corporate entertaining all take time away from client fee earning – time that is not billable.

With an increasing number of firms setting (or setting by expectation) annual targets upwards of 1,400 billable hours, the time available for business development is put under pressure. Client demands, internal management, administration and time-recording,
coupled with a desire to avoid selling, often pushes business development down the to-do list.

Tailored training

The defence of many lawyers – that business development is a natural skill and cannot be learned – is not true.

Almost anyone can develop their business, but the strategy and skills deployed need to be tailored to the style and expertise of the lawyer and to the clients they target.

All too many firms take a sheep-dip approach to business development training, ticking the box with a half-day off-the-shelf course. Too many courses are full of platitudes and processes, both of which lead lawyers to resist with the mantra 'it doesn't apply to my clients' – and they might be right.

In addition, too much training tends to focus on the processes rather than attitude and confidence.

The dreaded sales pitch

Business development is seen by many lawyers as the dirty side of the job. Various descriptors are used – pushy, stalking, peddling and plain inappropriate. In a recent course run by the authors, delegates were asked to 'describe a salesperson'. The venom was palpable.

Lawyers tend to be cautious by nature, focused on facts and they dislike being put on the spot.

Business development often feels superficial; it requires small talk, talking about non-legal issues and thinking and responding on their feet without the chance to check beforehand.

Fear of failure

Many lawyers are introverted, reflective and dislike self-promotion. Pushing themselves forward in a networking event, standing in front of an audience and socialising with people they do not know can be deeply uncomfortable.

Such events raise the spectre of social discomfort and rejection. The reality is that this rarely happens, but the fear of being unsuccessful is sufficient to keep them away from profile-raising events. Fear of presenting can be crippling for even the most technically confident lawyer, as they are under the spotlight and they might get it wrong.

So what can law firms do to move their lawyers from business development resistance to rainmaking? There is no single answer. The shift needs to be at all four levels and led from the top.

Partner involvement

Partners shape the culture and behaviour in a law firm. If they want business developers they have to be business developers themselves and encourage this in others. Any programme to drive business development, whether as a marketing project, training or client strategy needs partner support.

Without this, learning and development/marketing might as well be shouting into the wind (which shouts back: 'if the partners don't, then why should we?').

Also, lawyers need to be educated that business development of professional services takes time. Research tells us that potential clients need to be contacted, in some way, nine times before they are likely to instruct. This can take years. Most lawyers contact three times and give up for fear of being seen as a stalker.

Building confidence

As a bare minimum, business development courses need to be tailored to the law firm and to the department. Ideally there should be a series of modules tailored to the firm that build the ideas, skills and techniques around individual business development strategies.

Courses should focus on building confidence and belief. A manual which drags lawyers through the seven steps to a sale is likely to take seven steps to a dust-gathering shelf.

A course which enables lawyers to recognise that they are a client asset with valuable expertise gives them confidence. Confidence leads to change. Modular business development training, building the wide range of skills required, will have more impact than a one-off course.

Client rapport

Lawyers need to understand that they are not selling in the true sense – they are demonstrating experience and expertise which lead clients to feel safe with them, they demonstrate a commercial sense which makes clients trust them and they create a rapport which makes clients want to work with them.

Indeed, they should not 'sell', they should ask questions and use these to spot and open opportunities to demonstrate their worth. Pulling interest instead of pushing for work is more comfortable and never pushy.

No law firm should try to change the personality of their lawyers. However, firms would do well to help them raise their confidence in the techniques and skills of business development.

We have seen nervous presenters transformed by personalised presentation training and patchy pitch teams turn into impressive promoters of their firm. Anxious networkers find that working the room can be enjoyable as well as rewarding, and lawyers with no idea where to start come up with focused business development strategies. It is all about confidence, technique and self-belief.

In short, business development is a must-do activity in any law firm. Lawyers will always find blocks and barriers – most of these are personal rather than structural.

However, all firms can help their lawyers to create the time, ideas, techniques and confidence that is necessary to build, grow and develop their business and, in doing so, become the rainmakers of the future.

Gwenllian Williams and Michael Farrell run deWinton-Williams Business Consulting.