It’s often challenging to fully illustrate what differentiates a law firm to the market. Being able to articulate the unique value a firm offers is a key element of the role of the CMO.

Today on the CMO Series, Charles Cousins is lucky enough to dive into this topic with Suzie Williams, National Director, Marketing & Business Development at McMillan.

Suzie and Charles discuss:

• Suzie’s journey to her role at McMillan and the specific moment differentiation became a key consideration
• The importance of client listening and feedback
• How to demonstrate the talent and experience within your firm in an authentic way 
• The role of the marketing team in building diverse teams
• Advice for others trying to build a point of difference for their firm

Transcription: 

Charles: Welcome to the Passle CMO series podcast where we discuss all things marketing and business development. Today, we're going to explore how firms can differentiate themselves in the market. The difference between law firms are often difficult to fully illustrate to the market, being able to diff differentiate and clearly explain the value of the firm is important and usually this falls under the remit and one of the jobs of the CMO we're lucky today to jump into this topic with Suzie Williams, National Director, Marketing and Business Development at leading Canadian law firm, McMillan.

Suzie, welcome to the podcast.

Suzie: Thanks for having me Charles.

Charles: And you're dialling in from Toronto, is it or you're just outside?

Suzie: Yeah, I'm in Toronto, the GTA. So, yeah.

Charles: OK, brilliant. Well, we've had a few folk from Toronto recently, Lisa Azzuolo from over at Bennett Jones, Judith McKay from McCarthy Tétrault and Tamara Costa from BLG.

So we're really getting some great insight straight out of Bay Street. So it's a pleasure to have you on. 

Suzie: Thank you.

Charles: For the benefit of our audience, Suzie. Could you take us through the journey of how you came to be in your role at McMillan. And was there a specific point in your journey when differentiation of the firm became a key consideration?

Suzie: Sure, as I look back, I actually started my career in sales and since I was compensated almost 100% commission, I learned pretty quickly about sales principles like the law of averages. And that if what you're selling isn't clearly addressing a need, you know, you better find another gig. So I moved from sales to customer service and eventually on to marketing where I pretty much kept my teeth in professional services. I started at a pretty small law firm that was acquired by a larger street firm. And then after that merger, there were seemed to be two leaders of many roles including marketing. So I took my experience to another national firm and I had the opportunity there to lead their marketing team. Now, I would say I had some ownership aspirations, but I'm not a lawyer. So law society rules don't provide a path to partnership for non-lawyers.

So I made another move to an engineering firm where I actually had the opportunity and achieved becoming a global equity partner. And I think this was kind of valuable point in my career because it was one where I could demonstrate that as a partner, I had true skin in the game as a marketing professional where I was really making marketing investments, not just marketing spends where members of the organisation are like “What's marketing doing with their money now?” Well, it's not our money, it was my money as well. So working to invest it wisely. About a dozen years later, after the resource market changed the opportunity to lead the marketing and business development efforts at McMillan came up and I was fortunate to be selected for the role. So here I am.

Charles: That's a pretty interesting journey. So started in sales and then operated as a global equity partner in your marketing role and shaping the marketing direction. I like what you said about they're not marketing, spend their marketing investment and really you know, making that strategy work for the firm and the growth of the firm.

Suzie: Yeah, indeed, like when you are able to bring a different perspective in terms of where we're investing and how we're spending our marketing and business development dollars, the internal clients that we're servicing, look at things a whole lot differently, Right? So that really helped on recommendations and setting directions and opportunities that we intended to pursue. 

Charles: So in terms of understanding when that point was where you realised that differentiation of the firm was a key thing you need to work on, was that something that you sort of already had at play at that point or was that more when you sort of came into the legal space?

Suzie: No, actually it started early on and I would encourage all to do a stint in the customer service department of their organisations because when I was in customer service, this is where I had the opportunity to hear direct from the clients, what their issues were, what their pain points were. And I was able to actually see an evolution in a product when I was working for a conference service provider. At the end of the conference, the speaker's papers were put into a binder and of course, the binders would break and the pages would fall out and the folks would complain to the customer service and this feedback sort of led in part to a product innovation where with the feedback from the clients and of course, the insight of like a great marketing mentor of mine, they were able to address it by creating a new product and they took the conference papers and they perfect bound them into a paperback book. And not only did they make them available to the attendees, but they also sold these paper-bound books as a new aftermarket revenue stream. And at the time, perfect binding was different than any other conference provider. A definite differentiator in the marketplace.

Charles: Well, it sounds amazing what you can learn from just by listening to your clients. And when we talked about this topic before when we were discussing this podcast, and you mentioned the importance of client listening to feedback, and that's a great example. How are you incorporating the voice of the client in the positioning of McMillan?

Suzie: Well from that experience, that was sort of my earliest intro. And then over the years I have learned and come to understand the importance of formally being open to listening, having some empathy around understanding the pain points and the opportunities that clients raise and working to capture all that feedback and implementing it, taking it from insight to action to help the business, right? We know the marketplace is pretty competitive. As a national law firm, I would naturally say we've got outstanding lawyers who are racking up the accolades not dissimilar from a number of firms in our competitor set, our lawyers and others do great work to win the business. But you know what with client feedback, we feel that we can do more and we are doing more now to invest in tapping into those feedback sources. And when we looked at things, we saw that there are actually a number of different sources to obtain client feedback. Of course, our primary source is to ask the client with our client feedback program in the face-to-face interviews, we've gone sort of beyond the satisfaction questions to involve our clients in some of the business driver decisions. And those things include gaining their perspective on our brand positioning and the value of ESG to their business. We also on a day-to-day basis, our lawyers collect informal feedback that's harder to capture and put into a database where we can make that feedback, actionable. So tapping into and building the formal feedback process goes a long way to helping us to make some change.

There are a couple of the other sources of client feedback that we're focused on, at the conclusion of a proposal, we do post submission debriefings, both whether we win or lose. We don't just, you know, we're not just looking for the good news or the bad news we're looking to learn and asking the clients is a great opportunity to do just that. And you know, looking around as marketing professionals, of course, we have marketing automation tools that provide us with a wealth of information, everything from what bulletins they're reading, what invitations from us that they've accepted. Each of these things I would say is an indicator of what our clients and our prospects might be facing in their businesses. And it's great information, but it's only worthwhile if you're able to take those insights and turn them into action. In this case. If you, you know, if a client is reading about a particular issue, the action would be to work with the lawyer to actually outreach so that we can share how we can help them. 

Charles: I like that idea of turning insights into action. And one of the things you mentioned there that obviously you've got these great sources of the formal sort of client listening and feedback you mentioned about the informal stuff, getting feedback, the lawyers getting their feedback. Is that something you have to train them in doing or make them aware or is that something that naturally they've been quite good at? It just struck me as something.

Oh, that's impressive that the lawyers are remembering to do that.

Suzie: Yeah, I think it's two things. The lawyers, some are natural at that, you know, checking in with their clients highlighting any issues or opportunities at practice group meetings.So it works well there, bringing some formality to the process. it presents the opportunity to address the issues on a broader scale, right? So that we're not just asking one in two clients, we're we're checking in across a broader range of clients. And we're, you know, looking for trends and opportunities so that it's not just a squeaky wheel, it's sort of an experience design change to, if we need to make change, we're not doing it necessarily just for one, we're looking at how we can improve our processes and the way that we interact with our clients.

Charles: Talent and experience are often what separates one firm from the other. So how can firms show in an authentic and effective way that they're the best choice?

Suzie: Well, I think it's just that like start with being authentic and most importantly because we don't sell widgets, we sell intellectual capital, we need to invest in our people. And at our firm, I would say, you know, we continue to work with recruiting to identify, groom, grow very talented and a diverse group of law students to season practitioners who come apart as lateral hires. These folks, we feel, you know, you're looking for people who sort of share your same philosophy is around client focus to be solutions oriented, to appreciate the firm culture. So, on the talent side, you bring the folks that are most aligned with your thinking and as focused as we are on client centricity. That is a starting point. Sometimes we have to do work in terms of finding outside of the law schools, finding in inspiring talents through different sort of grassroots organisations and community programs, to introduce the ideals of a career in the legal industry. As in we found through our affinity group work and such in underserved communities, they may not even be aware that becoming a lawyer is a possibility. And I can say from a marketing professionals perspective, I do remember a time when a professional marketers themselves weren’t aware there was such a career as marketing for law firms. And all I can say is look at us now.

Charles: What you've just said it is essentially you don't know what you don't know. So actually reaching some of those people that wouldn't have considered a job in this sort of field, purely because of the fact they didn't know it exists. And that's something that resonates with me and in a previous life before my role at Passle, I worked in education and one of the things I found with kids and when you're speaking to them about what they want to do and their aspirations when they're older. And, you know, I'm in my mid-thirties now. So I sort of know what's on offer but you speak to kids at that age and obviously they just don't know all those opportunities out there. So, yeah, that really resonates that idea of, you've sometimes got to go out and seek that talent and show them what opportunities exist.

Suzie: Yeah, that's it. Exactly. We're in it now, but yeah, people don't necessarily know. So we take that opportunity to educate where you wouldn't normally or necessarily look. So, it's a great, you know, it opens up a great new pool of talent and it's something that you're working to inspire people over the longer term, right? It's not just we need the recruiting team to hire somebody now, but it's over the long term, which is I think, very fulfilling.

Charles: Yeah. And we obviously, we've touched on it just there about reaching maybe people that are underrepresented in the legal space. And we also discussed it in the preparation for this call about how diversity and inclusion are becoming central to the client experience. What do you think the role of the marketing team is in building these diverse teams?

Suzie: Well, I think we play can play a couple of roles actually. Firstly, many of us are actually talking to our clients going to forums where a general counsel are setting and articulating expectations about what they expect to see from their legal service providers and who's on their team So taking that perspective, those expectations, the what general counsel are looking for, first and foremost, taking that back to the firm and sharing that, “hey, this is the expectation.” It's not just what we as a firm believe to be the right approach, but guess what it lines up with the the client expectations. We're also seeing an increasing trend in the number of proposals, credentials, new business opportunities that now include questions about EDI or EDI practices our staffing our makeup of lawyers on the file. So our proposal leads and teams are responding to that. But we are also working with our HR teams and our EDI committees who are leading that effort to gather some of the specific information and to make it accessible so that we can share it with our clients.

Charles: And it sounds like you guys already internally were doing lots of great things and I guess that having that expectation from the GCs you're working with, it just helps hold you accountable to the things that, you know, you're trying to achieve internally anyway. So I guess that can only be a good thing.

Suzie: Yes, because they're holding us accountable because they too want to, you know, have a reputation and a brand position in the marketplace that they want to be able to share and celebrate in the marketplace about their own EDI practices. So it's pretty much a synergistic relationship when you can recognise it.

Charles: Brill. Well, now it's come to that time in the podcast where we're gonna jump into the quick-fire round. So this is a chance for the listeners to learn a bit more about you. And so we'll jump into it.

Suzie: Sounds good.

Charles: So, the first question I've got is what is your favourite business and non-business book? So you can have two if you wish. 

Suzie: Okay. All right. Well, I would say my favourite business book is ‘The Agile Marketer’ and it's focused on turning customers' experience into your competitive advantage. It's written by Roland Smart and pretty much as I look at it, you know, it's pretty dog-eared, it's got my sticky notes and it's pretty much within arm's reach of my desk because it's a book that's both sort of foundational and practical and it really takes you on, you know, that sometimes very lengthy journey to recognise the importance of adopting client experience. 

Charles: So definitely one for all budding marketers to pick up and put in their library.

Suzie: Yeah, I would say so. And I guess on the non-business side, I'm reading a book my sister gave me and it's called, ‘No Bootstraps When You're Barefoot’ by Wes Hall who's born in Jamaica where my family's from and it's pretty much a Rags to Riches Memoir. I haven't finished it yet, but if you haven't seen him on Dragons Den, Wes Hall is often recognised as an influential entrepreneur investor and champion of combating anti-black racism. I'm finding it really quite inspiring so far.

Charles: Fantastic. I'll have to check that one out and that's ‘No Bootstraps When You're Barefoot’.

Suzie: That's right.

Charles: Fantastic. What was your first job?

Suzie: My very first job was a summer job in the office that my neighbour hired me into. It was Canada's version of the performing rights society. And yeah, when I went to the office, actually, that's when I realised that she was the president and it actually gave me the opportunity to see a great woman leader in action and able to sort of meet some great Canadian musical artists like Carole Pope, Salome Bey, you know, you just don't realise who sometimes your neighbors are. This is a woman that we gardened with and shovel their snow and to see that she was so respected by her people and celebrities at work. She was kind of a great role model.

Charles: That must have been such a formative experience for a young Suzie Williams.

Suzie: Yes. Yeah. It was you know, a far cry from working over at the CNE and the candy shop, and that sort of set me on the path with the business world.

Charles: What makes you happy at work?

Suzie: Well, we do spend a lot of time at work. So I would say first, you know, you gotta love what you do and you have to believe in the purpose. And at least I'm very happy to say that, those things are true with me. But really, it's the people that I work with, right? I have a great team.We work together to try and move the needle and we have great people around us from my peer leaders to not just the lawyers, but I spend time with our LAAs our Legal Assistants who often help me get through to our lawyers.And I would say,you know, not just our department, but it's a real people ecosystem that sort of makes me happy at work.

Charles: Well, it sounds like a wonderful place to be.

Suzie: Indeed. 

Charles: What are you listening to at the moment? This could be a podcast, music, audiobook.

Suzie: You know what, I'm really not too picky here. Usually, I'm listening to old-school reggae or R&B playlist when I'm, you know, on the treadmill or doing the dishes. I like that old-school reggae.

Charles: That's what I was brought up on. My mum, whenever she was doing the housework, she would put on her reggae music So, yeah, brilliant stuff.

Suzie: That's it.

Charles: And where is your favourite place to visit and why? 

Suzie: I would have to say there really isn't one particular place. You know, there's been many sort of memorable ones and I can think of, you know, in almost your neck of the woods when we were sightseeing through the streets of Monaco, which, you know, we were taken by a driver and as a formal formula one fan, you know, when that driver tells you, you're on the, the track that Lewis Hamilton raced on, you know, that made Monaco that much more exciting. When I was travelling to Jamaica, which is home for my family, and being able to swim with the dolphins, that was memorable. And I guess the point is that when you have a great experience and you love the people that you're with, which in those cases were with my family that makes it a favourite place to be. So that experience and the folks that you're with that brings it all together for me.

Charles: Wonderful. And I bet that was good fun swimming with dolphins in Jamaica and racing around Monaco in the back of a taxi was that?

Suzie: Yes. Yeah, it was, yeah,it was pretty cool, for sure.

Charles: Brilliant. So, to wrap up the podcast, we end all the podcasts this way, what would be your one piece of advice for others trying to build a point of difference for their firm?

Suzie: I would start with first, just take time to listen to your clients, understand their circumstances, their goals, their motivations and their pain points and then really just be agile to effect change to address them, not just as a one off, but work to do it systematically. 

Charles: So I wrote down the take time to listen to your clients be agile to make the change and then work systematically to achieve it. Does that sound about right?

Suzie: That's it. Exactly.

Charles: That's brilliant. A brilliant three points to end on. Well, Suzie, thank you for coming on and sharing your thoughts on how law firms can really differentiate themselves in the market. It sounds like you're doing some great things at McMillan and I wish you smiles and success for the rest of 2023.

Suzie: Thanks very much Charles and to you.