Monthly News

Recruiting a Business Development Manager – a good idea?

If you have looked at the Law Society Gazette in recent times you will have noticed that a) it has shrunk dramatically, although the jobs section has started to expand rapidly in the last few weeks, and b) the editor appears to be concentrating on marketing and business development rather than legal practice.

 
Why recruit a Business Development Manager (BDM)?
 
1. If you have asked solicitors the question in the article above during an interview, you are probably already considering one without realising it.
2. The BDM spends his/her whole time on generating work, new ideas for business streams, marketing and sales.
3. Your lawyers spend their time doing legal work.
4. BDM’s get paid on performance (you would be mad to employ one who was not). Lawyers do not tend to like this type of arrangement.
 
Business development manager is also known as a business planner. A BDM will devote his/her attention to business development and exploiting the business opportunities that are presented. 
The business development manager must have considerable sales experience, be an organized and strong negotiator, and be aware of and responsive to economic trends, government policies and currency fluctuations.

The business development manager works to expand a company’s product reach and profit revenues. They do this by identifying new markets and attracting new clients. The business development manager therefore researches new business opportunities, identifies likely sales points, develops strategic plans and sales strategies, and undertakes presentations to and negotiations with prospective customers.

Responsibility of a Business Development Manager

  • Investigate the economic conditions surrounding your business activity such as industry trends and competition.
  • Conduct extensive market research and continue gathering information throughout the life of the business.
  • Prepare a detailed business and marketing plan so you will not lose sight of your goals and objectives.
  • Secure sufficient financial resources for future development or expansion.
  • Network with other business people; establish a support group, attend BNI and similar meetings, and build up trade.
  • Attend workshops, trade shows, and seminars to keep up-to-date on changes in the industry.
  • Adopt a team approach; work with others in pursuing common goals.
  • Understand the skills and qualities you bring to your business.
  • Develop a situation analysis of your company including its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to assist in the development of a strategic plan for the future of the business.
One of the best ways to recruit a BDM is to find one who has been successful before in another industry, offer them a reasonable basic salary, with a percentage bonus based on work generated and give them 12 months.
 
A good BDM will easily pay back their salary and generate a good profit. You will spot a poor BDM very quickly, as they will spend too much time doing administrative work and not enough time creating sales, marketing and looking at new opportunities.
 
If you would like to recruit a business development manager, Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment can assist. Register your Vacancy Online. Please note that we do not assist with commission only posts for BDMs – we do not have any candidates prepared to work on this basis.
Monthly News

Legal Job Market Summary 1st March 2010

February 2010 has been a reasonable month, bearing in mind the effect the weather has had on the resurgence in recruitment, and we are quite optimistic at the moment that things are going to pick up over the next 3-4 months. At the start of the year we were very confident that the market was picking up – we have been getting a steady stream of vacancies in from firms all looking to either expand or replace, and this is very good news indeed for jobseekers.

If the weather had not been so bad earlier in the year I think the market would be a lot more busy than it is now, but still we are seeing a gradual improvement day after day.

We have had over 25 vacancies in during February, the majority of which have been from good quality firms with definite salaries, plans and stability.

All the research coming out of the recruitment industry is pointing to a slow but gradual recovery, and I think the legal market unfortunately is going to remain one of the those longest hit by the recession.

We were one of the first markets to get the full effect of the tsunami wave of redundancies and drop off in work, and also going to be one of the last to recover.

Recruitment is done in waves, and the recent wave is getting towards its peak after a short drop off over February half term. The next wave will continue until the end of March, picking up again in mid April. We expect a busy period towards the Easter break at the end of March.

We are seeing conveyancing and commercial property posts again, including both permanent and locum. However to put it into context, 2 years ago we were regularly registering over 100 vacancies a month, and placing conveyancing and commercial property solicitors at a rate of knots….

Recent vacancies in – Family/Education Law – Colchester, Civil Litigation – Tunbridge Wells, Wills & Probate – Maidstone, Employment Law – Guildford, Company Commercial/Commercial Property – Central London, Duty Solicitor – Wrexham, Family – Plymouth.

www.ten-percent.co.uk/weeklyreport.htm

Monthly News

Jobs Market to pick up in 2010

Figures released today show that the UK economy has come out of recession with a reported growth of 0.1 per cent in the last quarter of 2009.

This slight recovery could further boost employer confidence and accelerate the already increasing demand for both permanent and temporary staff, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).

The latest REC JobsOutlook showed that employer confidence was already starting to rise with one in five businesses planning to increase their permanent workforce over the coming year and a huge majority (over 90 per cent) not intending to carry out any more job cuts. 

This followed the latest REC/KPMG Report on Jobs which showed permanent staff placements growing at their fastest rate for 18 months and  temporary staff assignments rising  at their sharpest rate for 30 months.

Commenting on today’s economic news and the outlook for jobs, Roger Tweedy, the REC’s Director of Research said: “The UK jobs market has shown positive signs of recovery for several months and today’s news will further boost employer confidence. It is also likely that this will lead to  some fluidity returning to the labour market as more workers currently  in employment feel confident enough to look at new opportunities.”

Monthly News

Should Legal Course Providers downsize their operations?

There has been an announcement today that the government withdrawal of funding for higher education is going to result in a lot of university places being withdrawn in the coming 12 months. This may or may not affect legal departments.

 
Some commentators will view this as a good thing,including ourselves. We see so many students who are going to spend approximately £20-25,000 getting through the LLB and LPC to find that there is no suitable work, that it must be time to restrict the numbers coming through the academic stage in order to improve the chances of those who do get through.
 
Often the arguments in relation to law students not finding work tend to miss one rather important element – is the student actually suited to a career as a lawyer, and what steps have they taken to discover this? Very often, the answer is no and none, and it is this type of student I suspect any reduction in funding will affect, not those who are genuinely going to make good lawyers (and law students).
 
Perhaps the funding reduction will have a positive affect on the legal profession?
Monthly News

Professionalising Recruitment – does it matter?

You may be surprised to read this, but firstly recruitment agencies have a professional body who regulate their conduct, and secondly it is possible to qualify as a recruitment consultant, up to graduate level. The professional body is the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, http://www.rec.uk.com/ and members sign up to a professional code of ethics.

At the end of the day, does it matter if agencies are a) regulated and b) professional? After all, very often employers are looking for people to fill vacancies and will go with the source able to provide them.

As a Member of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals, I can say that in order to pass the Certificate of Recruitment Practice, I had to study for about 5-6 hours, do an exam, and undertake CPD every year which consists of attending training courses or reading articles, in the same way solicitors do. As someone who has completed the LPC, the LLB and an LLM, as well as other qualifications including the IFA FPC 1 and 2, the Recruitment Professional qualification is by far one of the easiest I have experienced.

It did however make me stop and think of the service we provide to clients. Very often, existing and older clients will call from the middle of a partners meeting and ask me to give salary ranges for a particular type of candidate, to give market research advice into the current state of the market, or to discuss strategies for longer term recruitment. If someone has a professional qualification linked to that advice, it can only be a good thing in terms of providing quality information, advice and service to clients.

Monthly News

67% of the Public think Will Writers are Solicitors

The Fellowship of Professional Willwriters and Probate Practitioners have released a survey showing that consumers are completely confused by will writers, with 67% of them thinking that to write a will you need to be a qualified solicitor.

The main feature of this is that as lawyers the profession has remained pretty hopeless at marketing, thanks to the various restrictions that remained in place until recent times, and this has resulted in firms not being able to market their unique feature in the wills market place, which is namely that you can almost guarantee the price for writing a will will be a perfectly reasonable one, rather than some of the ridiculous figures some will writing companies come up with.

A few years ago, an elderly relative called one of the will companies from a local newspaper advert and had two wills drawn up (for assets of about £75,000), with no requirements at all in relation to beneficiaries etc.. and for this the will writer spent an hour at the house selling a number of different insurance products, as well as add-on services. The total cost was about £400 for the wills and about £250 a year for storage charges. The elderly relative was convinced he had got the will prepared by a solicitor, as the salesman had given him so many membership details he had sounded professional. The will looked appalling – it was almost as if the salesman had been into WHSmiths and photocopied a “Write your own Will” pack.

It is this point that perhaps solicitors and other lawyers have a genuine advantage over non-qualified will writers – the marketing point has to be precisely this – price, which will be less due to regulatory restrictions, professionalism and quality.

I appreciate that there is a market out there if you intend to overcharge for services not required, but surely this must apply as well to people in genuine need of a will being written professionally and at a reasonable price.