Growing a business is challenging at the best of times. To do so amidst a global pandemic certainly shifts the goal posts! 

Within the world of professional services, the resources available to marketing and business development teams was cut dramatically - with their budgets down on average by 70% (Acritas). Despite this, in 2020 we saw the rapid transformation in professional services firms shifting to digital. Furthermore, with everyone reacting to our work from home environments, we witnessed clients continuing to excel, growing new practices, meeting key deliverables, and expanding successful initiatives.

With 2021 posing many of the same challenges, how can you produce greater results with less resources and less budget? 

Building on the Law Firm Marketing Summit's thematic discussions (linked below), I would urge you to leverage the power of the Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule. This is the common phenomenon that 20% of your effort produces 80% of your results. 

Think about the top 5 tips from the Law Firm Marketing Summit and how you can use them to become more effective: 

1. Be Creative with Business Development - your clients are overwhelmed with information, produce insight that is relevant and valuable. As Alessandra Almeida Jones, Director of Marketing at Baker McKenzie, points out - marketing teams need to be agile based on a good solid strategy. The winners will be those who can think deeply as well as move swiftly.

2. Content that helps (with no sales agenda) - further requests coming from in-house legal teams wanting their lawyers to deliver insight which helps them grasp issues quickly. Applying the Pareto Principle, try creating content that takes 20% of the time but holds 80% of the value. Be to the point. 

3. Understand your Clients - ask better questions to build understanding. Listen carefully so that you can acquire a fuller picture of their business landscape and requirements. Furthermore, as James Batham, Partner at Evershed Sutherland, suggests - invest in both the business and personal lives of your clients in order to forge deeper relationships that will last. 

4. Be Relevant to your Business - develop and deliver unique insight. Hone in on where you can provide and offer value to your teams internally. Leverage data to make these insights actionable and measurable. 

5. Don't ease up on Diversity and Inclusion - continue to foster diversity and inclusion as a central tenet to the programs you are running. Focus on inclusion to to ensure your diversity has longevity.