Expertise and knowledge are what differentiate Professional Services firms. No matter how large or small the problem, the first choice supplier for a client will be the firm that demonstrates the best understanding of the client's problem and its solution.

Taking advantage of this fact and setting your fee earners up as thought leaders, was the subject of Linda Orton (CMO, Alvarez & Marsal) & Connor Kinnear's (CMO, Passle) talk at LMA 2020.

Connor began the discussion by looking at the science behind why thought leadership is so effective in Professional services. The highlight of this was the Edelman Trust barometer, again showing in 2020 that a firm's technical experts are the most trusted sources of information.

Linda went on to detail her strategy and how Alvarez and Marsal had built a successful program, positioning their fee earners as go-to experts within the space. Fee earners were coached, enabled by technologies such as Passle and supported with advertising. Linda shared that the firm was directly able to attribute over $8m in revenue and numerous requests for proposals to efforts in this space.

Linda rounded off her section of the session by offering some advice on how to make sure that your firm sees the value of these posts. She took us through a case study format that she uses internally to let the wider firm know the benefit for being part of the authorship program, this study also lets the business as a whole see the value that marketing brings to the table.

Finally, Connor finished by noting that there is a huge opportunity for firms willing to take this authentic and expert-led approach to content. When Passle examined the top 100 law firms in the US, we found that the average fee earner only writes 1 insight every 2 years. You can get that research here - along with an option to request a customised report comparing your firm to the competition.

The video below covers a section of the presentation, make sure to head to blog.passle.net and subscribe to see the full presentation when it is released.