Charlie: Welcome to the CMO Series podcast, where we talk all things marketing and business development in professional services. In this special installment, we're taking you back to an insightful session from CMO Series Live in New York, held this past summer. Joining us are two leading voices in the world of legal marketing and business development, Kelly Harbour, the Chief Business Development Officer at Goulston & Storrs, and Terra Liddell, the Chief Marketing Officer at Finnegan. Cam Dobinson was joined on stage by Kelly and Terra to dive into the importance of standardizing data within their firms and how they use that in their marketing business development strategies. They both discuss how they leverage data as a key strength within their firms and offer actionable insights on how to begin this crucial journey. So let's jump straight into the session. Enjoy.

Cam: We're going to run, go straight into it now and Kelly I'm going to direct this to you first of all, because I think you're a little bit earlier on in the process, but we're going to start by establishing for our audience where you both are in your journey when it comes to data collection, what you are currently doing and what are your goals with it?

Kelly: Sure. So people who don't know me, I have a background as a business analyst and IT project manager. I did a lot of technology implementations of marketing technology specifically. And so I have a pretty good understanding of what the capabilities of data are. And I'm very excited to introduce it into my role. I have over, I've been at Goulston for, it will be 10 years in November, which is kind of crazy to think about. It's gone by pretty quickly. And what we've done during that time is upgrade or replace a number of the core systems that we're using for business decision-making.  So we have CRM, ERM, email marketing, all experience, all of those core systems are in place. And we have begun some helpful integrations with things like our financial system, which we use Aderant. And so we are at a very good place with a solid foundation. We are about to announce that we have signed a contract with Entegrata. They are a provider of data lakes. So we're going to essentially be pushing all of our core data elements into the data lake, and then Power BI sits on top of that. So we can get even better without having to do what you would think of as sort of a spaghetti approach to integration, which is many systems integrated with many systems. You push everything into the data lake, and then you have much more of a hub and spoke model. So we are just, again, the announcement should be coming out very soon, next few days, that we are going to go down that path. So what we have, again, are a very solid foundation with core systems. We are able to answer questions that we have about effectiveness, strategy, all of that. What I am looking forward to in the shift, the next phase for us will be, what are the questions I don't know I should be asking? And what types of modeling and analytics can we put into place to surface the things that I should be paying attention to that I'm not aware of? The questions that, again, I don't know I should be asking.

Cam: And Terra, you're slightly further down the line. 

Terra: Yes. I actually think it's quite lovely that we have this positioning right now. So one, for background, if you don't know me, you don't have to be from IT or the business side, information business side of the house. My prior life, I was a graphic designer. I have been within legal marketing for a long time. We're the 20 years at Finnegan now. But again, you just have to be yearning for the information and figuring out how to get to it, build that, build that foundation through information and intel itself, the people around that, and then systems in place. But I do think many think Finnegan, and we have been at this a long time or further along, but like literally Kelly and I are right at the same spot right now. I mean, we signed with, and we're not here to talk about Entegrata, we signed, happened to be with Entegrata as well earlier this year because you've got two firms that are at the same point in recognizing the value of data and working across across multiple systems and recognizing the need to get to a data lake for that. And so, again, you could have been at this for 15 years and every day, and when Kelly raised her hand, like, she's still doing this. You know, when we ask the question, like, every day you're just looking for that next step. Within Finnegan, when I look back in time, what we really started with and the reason we did it is, I mean, I hated answering the same question over and over again and redoing that eight hours of work over and over again. And it's hard to stop and try to find a way and time to say, how can we harness what we did yesterday and not have to redo the work again tomorrow? So building that time into your day and understanding, you know, I think it was Connor this morning that of said start small, like a value of Passle’s is, start small. It really is start small. Find one question that you don't want to have to look up again the next day or a week from now and recognize where is that coming from and how can I rely on this consistently so I don't have to recreate the wheel and then continue building upon that. In our prep, we were talking about whether we do, you know, slides or visuals or not. And it's like, oh, we could sort of look back in time. And I'm I'm like, well, that's boring and antiquated now that I look at it because it's like, here are some spreadsheets. How fun is that? But again, it comes from recognizing what you are trying to harness. And centralizing that and making it as consistent as possible. A big important point for Finnegan in that was the people around that. And we talk about, I think later, just sort of when you look at technology and when to bring it in, that's much later in my mindset. You always want to understand what you're trying to answer for and get the right people who actually have to be at the front lines in answering that day in and day out committed to how we're going to solve for this moving forward. You know, but like Kelly said, we also have the foundational systems in place. We had a CRM that we loved and cherished and relied upon and really mapped out the way we were tracking every touchpoint we could possibly. And we switched CRMs in 2019. And it's been a world of a difference, you know, instead of having to sort of like figure out what pockets and how you could track for something and use a notes field here so that you can understand that story of a relationship in the pipeline that's growing, it was great to be able to now have a tool that does that more efficiently. But, you know, again, across the systems, you know, tracking the work and business experience of the firm, tracking the contacts and relationships, and that might be through CRM and ERM, as well as understanding the marketing and communications data. And if we were just next door, any of us in session one, I think Sadie's point was spot on. The communications and the brand impact are hand in hand with the business development. And so you have to, and to be able to harness that, because that was really an intangible for so long and so many years. Again, coming from the design background of my life, I knew that I was up against, why do you want to spend the money on redeveloping a brand? This is how it's valuable to you, but you didn't have the data behind it. We do have the data behind the communication impact and brand impact that you have in the marketplace. So really pulling all of that together. 

Kelly: And if I can just pick up on something that Terra said around starting small, because I'm a data person and I really love it, I tend to fall in love with the concept of collecting more and more and more and more data. And I have to pull back and remind myself, what are we going to reasonably be able to capture accurately and completely, consistently over a long period of time. Because if you can't do that, then the data that you're trying to make your decisions based on is insufficient, and you're at risk of making the wrong decision based on the incompleteness or the inaccuracy of the data. So making sure that before you continue to expand, that you're really focused on what can you capture consistently and just protect it and understand across the different functions of the firm. If I'm pulling revenue data into our CRM system, am I using the same collections figure? Because there are four collections figures in our Aderant financial system, making sure that it's the same one that the CFO puts in front of the attorneys so that we are singing the same from the same song sheet and that we both have enhanced credibility and a visible collaboration as opposed to, well, why is the CFO's number different than yours? Because, of course, they're going to believe the CFO over me. So making sure that you're really synced up on those two. 

Terra: Yeah. And I would just add on two quick points and what Kelly was saying. When you start earlier in your process, you do have to be ready and prepared to change along the way. And so I remember 15 years ago, we were looking to boil the ocean because we wanted to be able to answer for any question that had come our way. And let's make sure we're solving for that. We are in the process of moving our, you know, sort of work and business experience into our CRM and into the cloud. And at that point, we went back through and cut about half of what we thought we needed to track, but we had not routinely tracked as effectively as we thought we could. And then also recognizing that in today's day and age, especially when we hear every step of the way, well, is it automated? Did you get AI to do this? I might be booed off this stage, but I'm still a firm proponent of let's do it right the first time. And that might be manual. So like this is an iterative process. And if in that first year, we just need to understand and know and the people who know that information are embedded in the firm and know we don't have a tool that we can integrate and just feed in and automate the information yet. But let's start playing around with how valuable that is if we're getting it in manually. So you should always keep in mind the tools that you can connect to and automate the process and move away from as many manual processes as you can. But please, please don't let that be the stall or the hurdle for starting this all together, because there's no perfect tool out there and there's no perfect data system out there. Even the ones you will ultimately rely on are not 100% accurate. And so just recognizing that it's a marriage of the people and the information.

Cam: I guess you've got to be able to consistently capture that data and also analyze or act upon it because if you if you can't I guess it's pretty irrelevant it sort of takes us on to the next point here and Terra you've mentioned it's really important that people come first, in terms of adopting technologies to help with this how does that sit or actually how do you know when to turn to technology and how did you find that experience?

Terra: Yeah, so I do think I probably come to it a little later in the stage than maybe others. I am an incredible proponent of always staying connected to your community through things like this, actively involved in Legal Marketing Association. We've got more involved in ILTA. The only way we're going to know about the tools that might be possible for us are just listening and learning. But we do not start a project at Finnegan based on a tool. We start it based on the goal that we're trying to solve for or, you know, a hole we're trying to fill. And again, hearing about it from the people who are on the front lines and what they're trying to solve for, they also need to be able to either support the technology that we ultimately implement or, you know, are, of course, along there for the ride in a very positive manner. And so to me, that comes sort of in what you're solving for can be different timelines. So, you know, it could be you could have gone to market with a technology tool implementing in, you know, one to three months. And it's like, great, we have something to use. And then you're spending the next six months to learn how you're going to use it, what you're going to use it for, and so forth. Or you like reverse that timeline and you use that first whatever cadence of time, six months, a year to figure out how would we do this? What would tools would we use to do this? And then you start the conversations along the way. Again, that might be, you know, something that feels archaic now, but it's proved well and successful for us. 

Kelly: I feel exactly the same way. You have to ruthlessly focus on the business problem. The technology companies, some of whom are in the room, are making really great pieces of software, and they're slick. And if you're in a demo, you will see possibility if you're somebody like me. And if you don't come back to what Terra is saying, putting yourself in the shoes of the person who is usually someone that you don't have a carrot or a stick to engage somebody in adoption of a particular technology. And I was in a presentation by Josh Kubicki at the Legal Marketing Association conference this year. And one of the things he said is in the absence of a carrot or a stick, you have to demonstrate a 10x improvement in the person's life to get them to change something that they're already doing. And that I think about that now almost every single day because we don't we don't have a characteristic in virtually anything. So thinking about if I am an attorney and I am tracking my contacts in a spreadsheet, of course, my department needs a CRM. We have to have one in order for them to adopt. It has to be 10x better. And I know it's 10x better for me if they track all their stuff in the CRM system, but you have to be able to demonstrate that to them. And it is not a commentary on the state of the technology of CRM systems in the legal industry. It is really that behavioral component that is the most difficult hurdle to overcome and just the inertia of what people are used to doing. And they're in law firms, they're making lots of money, and they're perfectly fine and happy for the most part. And if they can come to people like Terra, and me and our teams and say, can you tell me X, Y, and Z? And we go and look in the systems and find that answer for them. Is it 10x better for them to look at themselves for those answers? That is the thing that you have to keep coming back to is, is it hitting that mark? Because if it's not, it's just a real slog for adoption. How do we get the constant challenge for legal marketeers, I guess? How do you get the attorney's little black book into an online document?

Terra: Before we move on, Cam, one point I wanted to make when Kelly was mentioning, you know, and I had acknowledged, like, stay engaged with every single technology partner that you see out there today in the community more broadly. And the idea of, you know, participate in demos, consistently learn and understand what they're out there talking about. Because even as you're internally bringing the right people and processes together, it's going to influence how you think about it. You're, of course, solving for the business need and business goal and whatever setup internally that you're in. But creatively, you want to be able to learn from others and engage in that conversation and bring that inside. Again, even if the demos might not work exactly like that when you go live, I find a lot of value in bringing that to the conversation and the planning process around the people who are putting the solution together. 

Kelly: Right. And just to give an example of the 10x, and we're not here to talk about Passle, but the problem we were trying to solve for is getting our attorneys to generate more content. And, you know, Phil and Sadie did an amazing job talking about their journey as well. And the old process was the attorney is looking at a blank piece of paper or a blank Microsoft Word document with Times New Roman. And there is they are thinking about the legal update and they have to read whatever the legal, whatever the change in the law is, and then think about what they're going to say. And what Passle allowed us to do is we know they're reading the news every day and we know they're thinking about the way it impacts their clients. And so with a simple browser extension, I'm already reading the article. I hit the browser extension and I pop and I can write a couple hundred words and it gets out as opposed to starting with that blank Microsoft Word document. So that was an example where we saw a substantial uptake because it's not that they're not interested in being more visible for the most part. Some of them are. But the smart ones, the savvy ones are interested in it. And it's just daunting to look at a blank Microsoft Word document. So you're tying into a behavior that's already there, a thought process they're already having and trying to reduce that friction of going from I read this and now I have to go to the blank Microsoft Word document.

Cam: Thanks, Kelly. I'll get you the $10 for the Passle plug. I'm going to come to you again, Kelly, just to talk about how you are using data to predict pipeline and also how you're using it to help shape your campaigns as well.

Kelly: Yes. So we have been experimenting and to Terra's point, we're doing a lot of some of this to a lot of this manually at this point, but thinking about out, we are tracking, of course, our opportunity pipeline. And we are also looking at where we think demand is going to go and where we have the white space with our clients and where we are going is in the direction of accelerating the aggregate of the external pieces and where demand is likely to be with the white space that we have and getting to a place where the business development team can action rather than sifting through data and reports.The other pipeline that we think about is around client teams and the depth of talent that we have supporting those client teams. This is also a manual process. And for my tech company friends, I would love to figure out a way to build this into a product. And what we're doing essentially is looking at for each of our key client teams, from senior partners to junior associates over a three-year period, what does their engagement with that client look like? How consistent is it? And how does that depth chart look? Where are the vulnerabilities where we have a partner or a senior partner, but we don't have a consistent associate who is going to be stepping up to that mantle? So it's a manual process, but it is an important pipeline for us to be thinking about retaining these clients from generation to generation. It's a way of having visibility into what that looks like and making sure that we're not missing a gap there. And we're doing it more broadly with the practices as well. So we use the SALI-aligned legal matter specification standard to tag our matters, and it gives you a pretty granular look at the different types of services and areas of law. And we're looking at the, again, the depth of talent for each of those through the practice management team and working with legal talent to see where do we think long term the growth areas of the firm are with respect to strategic planning, and then making sure that we have the right number and type of associates coming up, again, to sustain and grow this practice across generations.

Cam: And Terra, I'm just going to jump on to the next point here, because I know you wanted to speak about this in particular. How do you avoid being siloed and then, well, I guess to get started and then once started, how do you give feedback? I know you sort of spoke about the importance of providing 10x sort of feedback. How do you do that on the impact to partners? 

Terra: Yeah, so… I mentioned to Cam that I'd like to speak about how do I avoid being siloed because I always think I do a good job at this. I'm like, oh, let's get everybody in the room. You know, let's change how we're talking about things. It's not because it's a department project. It's an initiative, a business goal of the firm. And this year, I don't know how many times my COO has been like, Terra, did you get everyone in the boat yet? And I'm like, no, it's not ready. I'm not ready for everybody to be in this boat. I wanted it to have five seats, not four. You know, and he's like, just get them in the boat, Terra. And so you always have to work at it. And I will say that, you know, having tried doing this for a long time and having been in a position where I could not have to worry about the silos and just sort of comfortably work within the marketing and BD space because no one cared about it. And it was like, great, I'll get all this data super clean and look at all this amazing insights that we can talk about at these meetings and, you know, other chiefs and partners who are managing different areas of the practice are like, this is fascinating. Yes. And, but then when you actually do need to work with others. So, you know, we built the bridge between finance and marketing and BD a long time ago, you know, and we've got those data points, but really actually when you're all going in on a project together, that's a very different thing than just getting access to their information or, you know, which data points are we all talking about? Or you're talking about that one because collections is more meaningful for you than the production, which is more meaningful for me at this point or whatever. Right. And in the past two years, that's been a significant change for Finnegan. Part of it's with the idea that we were moving to wanting to embrace and move to a data lake structure. Part of it is just because if you've got any technology solution right now, you should be and will probably be being told that it needs to move to the cloud. And a lot of that means you've got to get all of those departments in that proverbial boat much sooner than I generally have felt comfortable with. So again, I've never felt pushback from the other teams and departments. So in my mind, I'm like, oh, yeah, we don't worry about silos at Finnegan.

We're very collaborative. But then this year and a half, I've had a much finer point on, I have to be comfortable with that. It's okay that it's not perfect and that others can see that it's not perfect. And everybody, let's roll your sleeves up and get in that boat together. Now at the beginning, it can be challenging, I would say, day to day, because we all know that we have to fit this in on top of our day job. And people's day jobs look different from one to another. Some have never wanted to do this outside of their day job and feel the burden. And it's a burden in their mind that they now have to do this on top of other things. And then some are not comfortable with, I was just having a conversation, you know, again, across a team of like 25 of us, four different departments involved. And it's just been sprinting day after day on a project that we're on. And one day goes well, and the next day doesn't. And everybody's ready to give up. And when you're not truly their direct supervisor or their manager, you do have to find other ways of keeping people motivated. And again, I don't think I have a magic solution, but very realistically that day I said, we're going to have incredibly muddy days. We're all putting our waders on and walking through this mud together. Tomorrow, it might not be raining, and we will have an easier slog through the ground we're traversing. But we have to come in every single day and be ready to do this together. Again, you're going to get, if you've got a team of 20 on a huge project, you know, hopefully a core of five rotating through that you can rely upon. But really clearly outlining roles for everybody in that, and that it's not a department project. It's a firm-wide, you know, initiative. On the back end, in terms of messaging that to the partners and the attorneys and getting them engaged, I think it's really important that they do see voices from the different business functions of the firm because some are more interested in sort of the Marcom side of it or the business piece of it. Some are just straight up, what is this to the bottom line? Why did we spend this money and what are we getting out of it? And so empowering those voices. And then some are like, why aren't we using the best technology at the front of the line of everybody else? We are, Finnegan is mainly an IP firm. We represent the best of the best in terms of technology. So why don't we have that there? So having a voice from all of those perspectives on why this was the right fit for Finnegan.

Cam: And I remember something that stuck with me when we were prepping. You said sometimes discovery beats strategy. And I feel like with the sort ofmuddy days, that's really important. Kelly, did you have anything on the silo advice?

Kelly: Yes, I would say that I think it's true that a lot of marketing business developmentdepartments operate from a posture of yes, starting with yes. Is there a way we can accommodate this? And within reason, of course. And not every department, in my experience, operates from we'll start with yes. So paying attention to the what's in it for me, probably everyone has heard the story of the janitor who works at NASA and somebody asked him, what are you doing? ,And he said, I'm putting a man on the moon, reminding people that, again, you don't have that authority over from a hierarchical perspective, what the purpose is and how it's helping the firm. It's not a silver bullet, but it is a way of saying, I know I'm asking for your time. And this is in service of growing the business, which is important to everyone who wants to keep a job here. So that is, you know, another thing that I try to do is remind people of the big picture. Be mindful that they have other priorities and projects and tap into that empathy. Acknowledge that you're asking them to do something that is outside of perhaps their, you know, what they would want to be doing on that particular day. 

Terra: Yeah. And as you were talking, I was thinking, Kelly, about how we, most of us who have been within the, you know, marketing or BD space. You've had to be able to, so coming from the yes perspective, you've had to be able to answer questions that solve for a problem and or also be able to know and be comfortable with the fact that that may go directly to the client. You know, you're not providing a legal service to the client, but you're answering a question that an attorney may say, great, that's also why I'm telling the client we're growing in this way or we're opening an office in this market. And having the data behind that. Most of the colleagues that you're probably going to work with in terms of avoiding the silos and moving forward have not had to be in a position where they have to stand beside the answer they're given. Outside of the C-level, many, many others are just working on their day job. They don't even know how the information's being used. They don't even know why a system and was being used. Who cares if somebody's logged into it or not? Or I don't care if 20 people can't access it today. My boss didn't tell me. The C-suite person did not tell me. So I don't need to solve for it. So again, just understanding the original business goals of not only supporting the business in the long run, but it is solving for X. We know that you don't work with X every single But all of us need to make sure that X is going to be working and or providing the information that we won't physically be there to share verbally or electronically with that person. And so really trying to take a step back and explain that end goal, because so many people in so many important functions across a law firm never, ever get to see that end goal. And we've been lucky all along in really being able to see those opportunities at the end.

Cam: Yeah, I guess a key takeaway there is always coming back to the bigger picture, conscious of time. And there's been a lot of pieces of advice and takeaways. But Kelly, I'll start with you. If you had one piece of advice for our audience in terms of how they can go back to their office and start using data to drive business growth, what would it be?

Kelly: It's really hard to pick one. I do think the concept of starting small, figure out what your most important question or problem is. And we have thousands of data points, many thousands of data points in our law firms, and most of them don't matter to whatever you're trying to solve all for that is your most important. And so if you can isolate those pieces and have a plan for capturing them consistently, accurately, completely, that is, if I had to pick just one, that's it.

Terra: Yeah, it is very, very tricky. And I actually think mine's not that different from Kelly's, except I will acknowledge a hurdle that I've experienced. So while I've been at Finnegan for more than 20 years, I've been in the role of CMO for eight years now. And coming from a design background, I really cherished the fact that Finnegan for the longest time in our department structure was very generalist in how we approach things. It allows for people to cross over and experience things that are not your specific role. But then you get to a point where that's ineffective and inefficient, and you really need to start to develop the expertise across core functions of what we're all here to do to service our attorneys and the firms, but you ultimately also, again, start creating silos. And so when I think about a key piece of advice, data is for everybody. So as a former designer, there is a reason I need to know and understand. Who's engaging with the designs I'm creating and what was successful or what wasn't. So if you sit on a comms team, you know, you're not looking at where's the data team and what are they going to do with this? Certainly building a team of data scientists is fantastic and a tool that can be leveraged and resourced, but embracing data in every single role. And I haven't done this. I just literally thought of it while we're sitting here, but I'm going to go back, my key takeaway away from myself is I'm going to challenge my core functional teams to think about if they were going to be presenting on data and how it's impacting how they service the firm, what is that for them? And some of them, it's going to be easy. It's what I do every day or, you know, and then others are going to say, Terra, why are you asking me to think about data? But I really think that all of us need to understand that we have a role in it and it is what answers and helps us solve for the business decisions moving forward. 

Kelly: Can I sneak in one more? One more quick thing. So I'm looking at Rachel Merrick Mags and I got an email from Litera that said that emails that are opened on Fridays have a higher open rate. And so my last little nugget here is don't get into the trap of confirmation bias. Always be looking at what the data actually says because that email knocked me off my chair because I always thought, well, we should never send emails. But it was actually a noticeable difference in readership. So that is my other little piece of advice is beware of the confirmation bias and go with what the data actually says.

Cam: Thank you very much for being a very engaged audience and a massive thank you.

Charlie: That's all for this episode of the Passle CMO Series podcast. You can subscribe to the series via your favorite podcast platform. And to learn more about how pastel makes thought leadership simple, scalable and effective visit passle.net. Thanks for listening.