Will: Welcome to the Passle CMO Series podcast, where we discuss all things marketing and business development. My name is Will Eke, and today we're going to be talking about a very interesting topic, actually. Why legal marketing needs a shake-up. And we're going to be taking lessons from a CCO. Today's episode, I was really thrilled to welcome Halina Kochanowicz. She's the Chief Commercial Officer at IPH Limited. Many of you might not know who IPH are, but we're going to delve into that. And Halina's going to explain a bit more about that. Today, we're going to be taking a deep dive into Halina's journey from leading marketing efforts from Magic Circle law firms all the way through to her current role as CCO. We're going to also uncover Halina's experience and explore some of the key lessons that law firm marketers can learn from outside the industry. We're also going to discuss the core issues plaguing legal BD and marketing and how these functions compare to other industries and the emerging trends that might sort of disrupt and reshape the future of professional services marketing. 

Charlie: The CMO Series Podcast is brought to you by Passle. Passle makes thought leadership simple, scalable and effective so professional services firms can stay front of mind with their clients and prospects when it matters most. Find out more and request a demo at Passle.net. Now, back to the podcast. 

Will: Without further ado, that was quite a long intro, but Halina, welcome. 

Halina: Thank you, Will. 

Will: Great to have you on. We discussed this before, Halina, and it was a really interesting topic because I don't think anyone's covered it. And from your angles, it's a really interesting stance. And it's around a sort of legal marketing that needs a bit of a shakeup. And before we get into that, I wanted to ask you if maybe you could share a bit more about your career journey to let the listeners sort of know and what led you to become the chief commercial officer at IPH?

Halina: Yeah so I started off what now feels like a different life being a lawyer, a corporate M&A lawyer and I started working for the firm that was later taken over by Allen & Overy and so the way that you get into law in Belgium is you do five years at university and then you need to do three years training on the job. So I was a lawyer, I was going along with a partner to a lot of the meetings. And I always thought what the clients were talking about sounded so much more interesting. Plus, at the firm, there were no female partners at the time. And I'm talking, this is the 90s, right? There were no female partners and all the male partners had a second degree. So after a while, I thought, yeah, I probably need to go and get that. And I went and got my MBA. And it's one of the sliding doors in life. I had every intention to go back into law, but did my MBA, was introduced to the world of marketing, business development and sales and thought that was very interesting. And given my background in selling leather sofas, I knew a little bit about what was happening there. When I finished my MBA, the business school was doing a project with the European Commission to sort of promote entrepreneurial or female entrepreneurship. And one of the professors asked me if I was interested in leading that project. And from there on it was a career into BD sales and marketing so after doing that for I think it was two and a half years I got approached by Linklaters and they were merging at that time, all their European firms within the alliance and asked me to join them. So I started working for Linklaters in Brussels. And then after a few years, I was asked to go to Brazil because they had just gone into a joint alliance with a Brazilian firm. And given I had just been on holiday, I thought it was all great and wonderful. And I was very excited with the opportunity to go and work in Sao Paulo for a year. That year turned into two and a half years. While I was there, I got promoted. And then my boss asked me to go to New York and start managing the region from New York. So take on North and South America. And then the global financial crisis hit.

And so Linklater's was restructuring. And it was a good time for me to get a bit closer to home. My father had passed away. So I went to London and thought it would be interesting to be now part of the mothership. And then in London, I met my husband one night in New York while I was working in New York. And we had dinner with a joint friend. And when I moved to London, we started dating. So when we had our first child, we decided that life would be better for the children in Australia. Moved to Australia, joined King with Malisons, then joined Corrs to be their CMO. And then my kids were at an age where they were starting school. There were a few health problems that one of the children had. And so I did a bit of consulting and was working with Elevate, the law company. So not really a law firm, but still working with lawyers as clients. And they asked me to join them to set up their legal flex business called Elevate Flex, which I did. And I enjoyed my time immensely at Elevate. I kept saying to my boss in LA, don't worry, I'm not going to go anywhere. But then IPH came knocking and I didn't know IPH at the time. But when they explained that they were a holding company and they were having quite a few IP firms in their portfolio, some of the brands rang or were very familiar. So Spruson & Ferguson, I had heard of, I had heard of Griffith Hack. And so IPH is that holding, which had all these IP firms in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. And since I've joined, which is now three and a half years ago, we've been acquiring businesses in Canada. So that's a little bit about my career.

Will: Wow. Yeah, it's really interesting to hear. So you've been to some of the bigger firms, more traditional firms, but also not the route that everyone's taken, obviously coming from a lawyer's side. It's really interesting how you then elevate, sorry, sort of seen as maybe a disruptor. And I think that's probably where you've described IPH now as well in the market, which is a pretty cool position to be in. And it leads me on to the next question, which from all that experience, you know, when we spoke previously, you mentioned or you described business development and the marketing function in law firms as being a bit broken.

Halina: Yes. 

Will: Why do you say that and sort of what are the core issues that you've seen? Can you explain some of those to us? 

Halina: Well, it's not something that's sort of new in a new idea. What I have always found difficult working in business development in law firms, when you talk to recruiters or you talk to friends and you're telling them you're doing business development, the first question is always, so what is the kind of business you've brought in? What are you responsible for in terms of KPIs of bringing in revenue? And that's always a very difficult question to answer when you're in a law firm, because basically business development is everywhere else, and I have friends in business development in banks, it's sales and everyone has revenue targets.

And in a law firm, because it's so relationship-driven, what you're really doing is supporting the partners very often in that relationship game. The reason why I say it's broken, if the revenue goes down in one year, no one is going to hold the business development department accountable, right? No one is going to come knocking on the door of the CMO and say, right, what are we going to do differently to turn this around? And being at Elevate, where I was bringing in revenue and where I was working very closely with the VP of sales and now, at IPH, it is very much seen as my responsibility. If the market share goes down, the CEO will come knocking at my door and not just on my door. He will talk to the heads of business development and see what can be done to turn the ship around. And while we're still working with the fee earners on their clients, it is still very much seen as you are the experts. You tell us what to do to change this. And so having worked now in that environment, I think, well, what is business development in marketing, right? It's becoming a bit of a convoluted term. And I think that's sometimes a problem as well. That's why functions, business development functions, sometimes struggle in gaining that credibility with the fee earnest. And I'm being generalist here because I do appreciate that individuals have strong credibility. But as a function, it's sometimes very difficult to gain that respect unanimously. And that's why I say I think that BD title, there is a broken link, really, in the legal world. 

Will: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point because we're often told, you know, what everyone is, we would like marketing BD a seat at the table. But of course, if you're not accountable for anything, then it doesn't really make a difference. So to your point, you know, it's seen as a partner generated revenue or growth in the business. So if media marketing are accountable, then of course, it lends itself, the department having more say, more validity, right? 

Halina: Yeah. And my KPIs, I mean, I have a balanced scorecard and it's definitely linked to client acquisition. 

Will: Yeah, that's a firm target,  and doing it myself, I know, yeah, I know exactly the accountability and what it, what it makes, makes you do. In terms of, you've mentioned it a bit, you've talked about your friends in banking and other industries. I mean, how, from your perspective, how do the marketing and BD functions in most law firms compare to other sectors and what, what do you think maybe law firms could do to enhance those strategic impacts of the marketing and BD functions in their firms?

Halina: Well, I think the first thing is that respect, building that respect. And I wouldn't even put that accountability on the teams. And I've been part of that, right? So it's first and foremost, the partnership who needs to realize that there are other people managing the business and making the business a success. And while they are the client-facing people within a firm, there's professionals in BD, in finance, in HR, who all contribute to the success of the firm. And I think if you would ask any random partner about that, they probably would tell you what you want to hear. But do they truly believe it? I don't think so. I think partners in law firms very much see the success as being solely in their hands. And again, I'm making blunt statements and I know it's more nuanced, but what I've seen the difference in working in a corporate is you come in and you are respected as a professional in your own right and everyone works together, understanding that we're all elements in a chain that needs to close, right, to make it sing. 

Will: In what you've described, and you've worked in the more traditional law firms, currently, if we come to the present day at IPH. You did talk to me previously about some, not unconventional, they're not unconventional per se in terms of outside of law, but they might be seen as unconventional by people listening to this. 

Halina: Clarify, the IP firms are seen as unconventional?

Will: No, as in some of the methods, like sales representation, for instance, that we talked about, it's not unconventional to someone like me who's in sales outside of law, but it could be seen by other law firms. Tell us a bit more about that sales representation, what you've done and what the results have been. 

Halina: Well, so we've tried a few things. So when I sort of first joined IPH, and this is very much under the leadership of a CEO who has a great vision, we quickly started a conversation around sales offices. And I think the way we go to market as an IP firm is different from your average law firm, because as an IP firm, we have the same kind of clients that law firms have, which are these international corporations. But we also have other law firms, so other law firms abroad. So we are reliant on law firms in the U.S. Mainly as clients who have the work of their American clients and then have to make a decision around where they will file some of that IP work and in which jurisdiction. So our client segmentation is slightly different. And so in that world, you can probably adapt a few more methods which are seen as not something that you would immediately do in a law firm. So we started building sales offices. Now it was early days and I will say it was during COVID. We had someone in the US, we had someone in Europe and that didn't always work well. And I think the fact that it was COVID, that our principals, we call them principles rather than partners, still have that same kind of attitude to clients around client relationships. So those client offices didn't always work and what we then were looking at, well, how can we replace that? If we're so reliant on business coming from abroad and our own people in Australia can only do so much travel, how do we want to make sure that we continuously build that pipeline?

And so one of the ideas was, well… Other sales companies use this sales representation, which law firms probably would call cold calling. But these professional companies who do that wouldn't see that as cold calling because it's based on research. It's based on target lists that we provide them. So we started this program on the sales representation with the goal of them really sort of working through our target listing and getting us some meetings. And they promise you that, right? When you sign a contract with them. They give you a certain number of meetings that they guarantee they can get for you. And I remember saying to them, God, if you were to get us a meeting with this client, then that would be a great success, thinking that that would never be possible. And the first meeting they got for us was this big target. And so it worked. And as I said to our CEO, it's not that they're bringing in the business. They're opening the door. They set up the first meeting. And then it's up to us to work our magic. And take these clients through the sales methodologies and ultimately close business with them. And it's not something that we continuously do. So I would assume that certain organizations who are very reliant, especially in the B2C world, on building that pipeline and constantly getting new clients, for them that's probably programs that they do throughout the year and year in, year out. We sort of run certain campaigns to build the pipeline and then take it from there because the sales cycle in our world is still long and the conversion can be very time consuming and so once we have a meeting we then need to start working our magic another thing we've done is sort of work on playbooks create these playbooks for our teams to sort of get a certain consistency in the way that all our brands go to market and that's worked well as well.

Will: It's really interesting to hear that and it does make sense it marries up with. What's a lot of research and everyone that knows the space very well it is hard for the fee earners the principals the partners whoever they are in the firm sometimes to get their foot in the door because they're not necessarily that salesy are they so that makes perfect sense to get the foot in the door and and then bring them in. 

Halina: And as you would know will I mean it's a sales methodology right so there's steps that you go through and there is there is method to the madness and you need to let that play out before before you can win business and I think if law firms would embrace that a bit more sort of that structure around sales maybe it would become less of a dirty word. 

Will: And maybe they'll start using CRMs more? 

Halina: Yes.

Will: You'll see the holy grail for nearly every marketer or BD person I speak to. We talked about disruption at the start and again from what you've told me about IPH I know Elevate reasonably well as well I see them as sort of disruptors. You talked about, you know, legal marketing is ripe for disruption. Let's talk about technology and other trends. What do you think will help drive disruption and change and how should law firms adapt or IP firms? 

Halina: Well, I think legal marketing is another one of these fields that is rapidly changing, and it's becoming increasingly technical. And I can see that within my own team. And look, how long have I been in legal marketing? It's more than 20 years. And I'm one of these people who started off their career more as a generalist. But if I look at the really good people in my team, it's people who are very savvy with the technology, who are savvy with CRM, who are savvy with the direct mailing list, who are savvy with the analytics that sit behind some of the thought leadership that we send, but also who are savvy not only posting on social media, but then looking at the analytics. And who are savvy at launching campaigns through different channels, then looking at the return on investment on some of these channels, then closing some of those down, putting more effort in some of the other channels. And so I think the days of legal marketeers setting up seminars and organizing client events are disappearing. If you don't have that technology savviness, then legal marketing is becoming very difficult, I would think.

Will: Is it also fair to say with some of the techniques and things that you've done, you would say don't be scared to try new things, which can sometimes be a big thing with law firms, right? 

Halina: Yeah, but not only don't be scared to try something, but also don't be scared to bring in people from other sectors. Because I remember the first time I hired a digital marketeer, I learned through the recruitment process with a colleague, and we probably had the wrong end of the stick. So what we thought sort of a digital marketeer looked like is what we've learned very quickly through the recruitment process, that there were people who had applied to the job with this very heavy content creation background. But then there were other people who were applying with this very strong channel management background. And so bringing in people from different sectors who are more advanced in this is a good thing because we need to learn from them. So it's not only not being scared of trying new things, but also not being scared of bringing people from completely different sectors. And I think law firms traditionally have not been good at that.

Will: With some nice sort of quickfire questions, what are you listening to if it's on a podcast or an audio book, or what are you actually reading at the moment?

Halina: Well, so I'm listening at the moment to our own podcast. So we launched about three years ago, a podcast around innovation. And we've just, well, we've launched a third season and we've just released an episode with an amazing innovator who talks about his ideas and his innovations. And we're using an Australian journalist who is an ex-IP lawyer and who's worked in BD at Herbert Smith Freehills. Her name is Lisa Leong, and she is the podcast host. That's what I'm listening to. And I just started reading a book this morning, actually, being in Toronto, coming from Australia, being jet lagged. I started reading a book called A Gentleman in Moscow. and the reason why I'm reading that is because a friend of mine in Belgium sent it and thought that I would like it.

Will:  Wow I like the plug very good as well and then you've gone yeah very multicultural someone in Moscow over to Canada into Australia brilliant what was your first job of note that you can remember?

Halina: My first job oh that I can remember my first job was selling leather couches at these fairs that are taking place in Europe during the summer. And so that was my first job. I was a student. I was studying law and I was a hostess at the university. And what that meant is that we had to help the university whenever they had people coming from abroad to show them around in Leuven. I studied in Leuven. And from that job, I think they were contacted one day asking for people for the fair. And I ended up just working with one of the people who was holding one of the stands and started selling leather sofas.

Will: There we go. We've had some weird and wonderful ones, but Leather Sofas is quite a high ticket item, I imagine, for a first sales job.. Personally and professionally, what is the one piece of technology at the moment that you can't really live without?

Halina: Oh, it must be AI, right? And I know that a lot of people would say ChatGPT, and I use ChatGPT as well. But the ones that I prefer more is a tool called Perplexity, which is a bit like ChatGPT. and I like working with that. It's sort of a bit less American and I use Microsoft Co-Sales Pilot. And I think those two tools have really changed my working day, especially being a non-native speaker and having to communicate through emails. Sometimes starting from scratch can be a bit of a challenge and ChatGPT, Perplexity, all those kinds of tools that are now in the market are making it so much easier. Although I am a big believer that you should never just copy and paste and that you need to do a bit of work to make it your own and to make sure that it's in your own tone of voice. I've seen emails that always start with I hope this email finds you well and I think that's a dead giveaway that it came from ChatGPT. 

Will: Yeah good advice I'll have to check out Perplexity. I haven't heard of that one but yeah you also could fall foul of the reverse AI tools that people now use as well to put those summaries in. Good advice on that. What's a small habit that you have that you think you know would help others, your peers?

Halina: I make lists, despite despite having a profile an mbti profile that's enfp so you wouldn't think that I make lists I the one thing I do on a friday afternoon is making my to-do list and I have two columns one for work and another one for just my private life, you know, because with two kids and a husband who works full-time, it's always busy life. So I just make lists on my phone. So I don't write anything down. I just make the lists in my notes and to make sure that I don't forget anything. And I do the same just before I go on holiday because I find it very easy to start work, to work on all these projects and then go on holiday.

And then the first day you think, right, what am I supposed to do? So my list always helps me out.

Will: Everyone needs a list. you talked about holidays, where's your favorite place to visit and why?

Halina:  Oh, that's a very difficult question. We bought a house in the Blue Mountains recently. So that's a very nice place to go to. It's a nice house. The Blue Mountains are about an hour and a half away from Sydney. It's volcanic soil. So there's a lot of flowers. It's springtime in Australia. So that's a place I like to visit. But having lived in Brazil, that's a country that's still very close to my heart. So I always like going back there. And then in New York, I've lived in New York for three years. Since we've bought businesses in Canada, it's easy to just go to New York for the weekend when you're here or just sort of go back to Australia via New York. So I would say that's my favorite. Those are my favorite places to visit. 

Will: I tried to visit the Blue Mountains when I was over in Australia, actually. And it was the worst weather they had for years when I went. This was the early 90s. We couldn't see anything , all the beautiful views and everything they were all. Yeah we couldn't see anything so that was annoying.

Halina: That's also part of the charm though I mean there's always a lot of fog in the in the blue mountains and that's part of the charm yeah you're right I mean nothing beats an amazing day in the blue mountains and going out and looking at those wide and vast views a few weekends ago we were there and there was a garden festival and so private gardens then opened their gardens to the public and we went to this house on the cliff and it was just breathtaking the views from that house and it's a private house no one ever sees it so I was glad that we had chosen that house on our trip in the garden festival.

Will: It's an excuse for me to go back. 

Halina: Yes, yeah.

Will: Believe it or not, we're nearly at the end Halina, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you, but I'm going to ask you one sort of final question which we always ask, and it's specific to this topic, but what, what would your one piece of advice if I could nail it down to one piece that you could give your peers in marketing and BD roles who want to maybe adopt a bit more of this disruptive or innovative approach, what would your one piece of advice be to them?

Halina: To always believe in yourself and and position yourself on the same level as partners because we are at that level we have experience which is different to them believe in yourself and that will come across and have your facts ready to influence that's the one piece of advice that I would give and it's probably two or three pieces.

Will: That's a good one. Halina as I said it's been an absolute delight having you, on thank you so much for your time.

Halina: Likewise, Will.

Will: Catch up very soon, thank you. 

Halina: Thank you for inviting me.