Will:  Welcome to the CMO Series Digital Masterclass. My name's Will Eke. You'll probably remember tone from the other CMO series podcast. I've never done a digital masterclass, so I'm really excited to be here as well. Today we're gonna be diving into how firms can centralize their thought leadership by bringing their lawyers onto a single platform. And today I'm really excited and happy 'cause it's been very hard to nail this person down. Introducing Chris Yates. He's a digital marketing manager at Bristows. Chris has been really integral at Bristow to reshaping how the firm approaches thought leadership and content marketing. And since joining Bristow, he played a crucial role in evolving the firm's digital strategy, whilst also focusing on consolidating all the content platforms and make the thought leadership at the firm more streamlined, impactful. 

Charlie: CMO Series Digital Masterclass is brought to you by Passle, the creators of CrossPitch AI, which makes cross-selling happen. Switch it on and try it today by visiting passle.net. Now back to the podcast. 

Will: Chris, thanks for joining us. Welcome today. 

Chris: Hi Will. Thanks very much for having me and thanks very much for that lovely introduction. I'm really excited to have a chat with you today. 

Will: Brilliant stuff and before we do delve into it, just wanted to say with and big you up even more. Chris, you'll be pleased to know, but at Bristows, since Chris has joined, or in the last sort of few years, especially, Bristows has seen really amazing success in terms of getting lawyers producing content. We had a little look and I think you've now got over 150 authors, which are the fee earners contributing more than 900 insights that actually, you know. Great vanity metrics, but I know this does move the dial on sort of client relationships as well, but there's been over 330,000 views, which is obviously great. It's something tangible that you can take and feedback to the business. Today, we're gonna be delving into that a bit more. We're gonna discuss how Chris recognized this need for change. There's a bit of transition in terms of centralizing the thought leadership in one platform, and also what we speak to a lot of firms about. This is how Chris has done it really well, is using certain strategies to engage lawyers, get them interested, get them writing. We're also gonna explore a bit more about how internal comms plays into that and how it's really contributed to the success at Bristow. Without further ado, Chris, you were at Linklaters previously, but when you first joined Bristows, what did the firm's thought leadership strategy actually look like and what sort of platforms were being used at the time?

Chris: Yeah, so I think Bristows has always benefited from a really engaged population of creatives or others. I think when I joined, I was really happy to see that there was a healthy flow of content that was being created and published across the firm, whether it's the business group led or sector group led. And that was not just written content, but also prerecorded webinars, live webinars, podcasts, short and long form content as well. The various ways in which we're putting our content out there, and it was aligned to our core sectors, which are life sciences and technology, and there were what we referred to as micro sites at the time. So for life sciences, we had on the pulse and for technology, we had the cookie jar. I hear certainly with the cookie jar, they started off essentially as email distribution lists for a decade ago evolved over those years, to moving more to web based microsites where you had content as well as more information about our expertise in those areas, but also emerging technologies and how we're really focusing on, not that we just advise on the legal stuff, but we are really entrenched in those sectors, whether it's tech or life sciences or further. We also had, those were part of the content management system, but they were also part of the website, but they did sit quite distinctly to some of the other main site content because of the way in which those pages were branded. We also had more standard, long piece thought leadership articles that were another part of the website as well. Then also we have Passle. So there are essentially four ways in which we could get our content out there, and it wasn't that they were just there for the sake of it. They were all being used and actively being updated. And there was, like I said, the healthy flow of content always coming through. So when I arrived, we had just, I think Passle had been in the firm for about a year. And we, I think literally the month before I joined, they just rolled out the client connect module as well. I would say at that time, the majority of the pub content was still being published through the WordPress, sort of original CMS parts of the site. And the Passle side of things was reserved for the quick reaction, shorter pieces, which I think was. That's what Passle was originally brought in for, even in terms of its USP anyway, so I think we were using it in the right way at that time, but as we'll come on to later, we saw that there was an opportunity to take what we were doing with Passle and then leverage it even further. 

Will: Yeah, and you, you identify that, Chris, that is often the way firms do it. They realize they're missing that maybe that reactive speed to market piece, and that fills the gap in terms of how Passle used to start with. And then it's more that maturity curve that we're gonna come onto, of which, talking about that. So you come in and then you're like, okay, we've got all these different, you've got four ways of getting content out there. They're all actually being used. At what point and how did you identify that? Consolidating all of that, and the thought leadership and the different platforms was the route to go down and was probably the best route to go down. Did you do an audit of everything or were you looking at metrics?How did you work that out? 

Chris: I think the real turning point for me was when I couldn't accurately answer the question, where should we publish this? That we would often receive an article, the author, put together for us and then they'd send it over to us in a Word document. And then they would say, I've drafted this for X, or Do you think this should go on this on the crypto chart or on the pulse, or whatever it might be. And I couldn't accurately say, actually, this should go on this platform for this reason. And it made me think that if it's confusing for me as the kind of sponsor of these platforms. If it's confusing for me and it's clearly confusing for the authors 'cause they're asking where it should go, then it's inevitably gonna be confusing for the reader and ultimately the end user of know the kind of people that are consuming this content. And we really didn't want to do that. It went against the idea of having Passle, which was to reduce friction, when actually we were creating our own friction by having these multiple. Platforms. That was a turning point for me. 

Will: Your point about where should I publish this, what should I do? You can have editorial guidelines in there and you can shout about 'em until you blue in the face. But actually lawyers are busy people and they've got their head down. It's hard to get them to change their behavior, which again, will come onto, but we often hear it a lot about things like LinkedIn. I'm just gonna post this on LinkedIn. Why do I need to post it on the website? And then of course, the argument there is. Your contacts on LinkedIn are gonna see it. Actually. That's your brand. Great. But you also work for Bristows. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Will: And Bristows need the asset and they need clients to come back to the website, which is your real estate, isn't it? 

Chris: Absolutely. And just on that point, will, just anecdotally I had, just in terms of the amplification piece, is that I had a article that came through quite late last night and the partner message to say, could you know, could we get this published? But by the time we'd done it, we missed the boat in terms of getting it out on socials just because of the time of day that it gotten to. But what we were able to do is, because if you are. When you are publishing it on Passle, you know that at that time it meant that, and I could say to the partner, we've published it now, we'll promote it first thing in the morning when engagement will be higher, but also because we've done it tonight, it'll start dropping into subscriber inboxes. So it's there. There is that kind of, if you did it, it gives you that flexibility. And like you say, LinkedIn is a great platform, but there are other ways in which people can engage with content, and if it means their people are checking their emails on their way into work or whatever they might do, we've hit that in time as when it's going live on LinkedIn rather than doing it all in one go. Because if we published that this morning on Passle, it would still be able to be on LinkedIn, but it wouldn't drop into subscriber inboxes until at least tomorrow morning when it's, it was a reactive piece anyway. So we wanted, we didn't wanna hold off and we needed to get it out there to people as as soon as we could.

Will: Yeah, that's a good point. 'cause it is, it's a great channel, LinkedIn, but it is just one channel. So actually reliant. If your clients aren't on it at that particular time, they're not gonna get it. So you do want it delivered on different channels as well. In terms of what you've talked about. See, I would say you, yeah, you're trying to drive a bit of change here and it's hard to go about that. We often speak to firms and they don't know where to start because, and I'm looking at your example, cookie Jar Tech. Life sciences on the Pulse. Actually, you had two distinct brands that had already been built at Bristows, which is hard to unravel sometimes 'cause you often get partners that own it and they, and it's their sort of baby if you like. However, I would say the benefits that you had where you only had two of them, where you look at some of the firms and they've got 10 different cookie jars or whatever, and then it's really hard to try and drive that change. Yeah. But how did you approach it? Maybe you could talk us through. The steps that you took to streamline it and the strategy behind it?

Chris: Yeah, sure. And just to mention, there was, we actually had three, so there was also the clipboard, which was our focus on competition or, and IP, which kind of formed part of that, but it was more a practice group led and sector led, but it was ultimately the same as core. But in terms of approaching that change, it was a bit of a mix really, because the authors would often defer to us on where we thought the content would sit. So I guess in terms of. The authors would often defer to us somewhere best to publish it. What I started to do was to start moving away from just the short form content on Passle and also starting to put that sort of content on Passle, and then we were gradually moving stuff over to Passle because we, we were looking to do that transition, but we also needed to improve the concept as well. So I guess in a way, we soft launched the transition plan over to Passle without really doing it officially because we had been doing it in the background and really testing that concept, checking what the engagement levels were, et cetera. And once I was comfortable that we were going down the right path, that actually the move to publishing everything under was doing what I'd hoped it to do. That's when we started to put the more formal processes in place. I was always conscious that the microsites and those content channels had were well established. As I said, some of them had been around for more than a decade, and they'd certainly been here a lot longer than I had, so I had to be respectful of that and respectful of the brand equity that they'd built up over that time as well. And but also, I was also conscious that I was, I had been brought in as the digital marketing manager. And it was my role and within my professional remit to challenge the status quo where it's appropriate to at least, and not just continue with the status quo, just for the sake of it. So I felt like I'd be doing the, the firm and my colleagues and the content, and also the readers and injustice if we didn't at least explore the opportunities that, you know, consolidating everything could present us in terms of ease of use for everybody, and whether that's authors or or readers. Where that then took me to then kickstart that process in bringing it to the attention of the lawyers and initiating those conversations was I started off by speaking with my colleague Charlotte, who's the tech sector business development manager. Over a couple of months, we put together an initial proposal in terms of where we are, what we're looking to do, what some of the, what the benefits are of moving, whether it's moving over to Passle, and then also putting in meetings with the key stakeholder who's the main sort of sponsor for the cookie jar. So we did it in bite-sized chunks in terms of, we didn't go wholesale and say we're moving everything over to Passle in one go. We're gonna test it with one and then prove the concept and then look to roll it out, or a variation of what we're doing with this group across the firm. We put in a number of meetings with the key sponsor who's a senior partner or very senior partner in the firm, as well as one of the senior associates that was working closely in that sector as well. We put an initial proposal together. They came back with feedback and also some questions, which meant extra work, but actually was really reassuring to know that they had listened and taken on board what we were talking about and wanted to find out more. They were engaged with the conversation, but they felt like there was a little bit more information that they needed in order for us to make that final decision. So we went back to the dashboard, so to speak, had a closer look at some of those questions, and then presented that as well. Ultimately, the decision was made that they were happy with our proposal and we started to move everything over to Passle. That's when we took the decision that this can be scaled and then replicated across all of our content channels and in May last year, we took the decision to, like I say, streamline all of those content channels and push everything out. Any, anything insight related now goes out through Passle.

Will: I suppose I'm gonna retrospectively ask that question maybe because you've answered some of it, Chris, which is, you know what we always find, and we talked about it before, getting buy-in from lawyers, especially senior lawyers, can be really hard. You talked about a sponsor, which is actually something that is music to our ears. 'cause we always say that you need a sponsor. We've just launched through a very big law firm in the US and UK and we've had a very lofty sponsor from an ESG perspective take the mantle and say, we need to be, we need to be producing content in these areas and we need our, and it's mainly 'cause our clients want to hear from us. Yeah. So get that buy-in is, it's difficult, but when you get it, it can really help drive that change. And you talked about, you've already, you did that with one particular area. Have you then identified key sponsors around the business to keep that rolling out?

Chris: Yeah, definitely. So I think there's a variety of things that we've done, but I think I really have to dedicate this answer and also give a shout out to my colleagues in business development. So you know that they are, my eyes as important. So as important as the authors and the creators are in having a good, a good relationship with them, there is a mutual respect between the fee owners and the marketing and BD function. We've definitely seen as professionals and they trust what we deem to be the best course of action and our proposals for change. As it's someone that sits in more of a central function, I wouldn't have as much day-to-day contact with the stakeholders across the business as my BD colleagues do, who are working with them on various things, not just content and business development initiatives, directories and that kind of stuff. So I think having a strong working relationship with those colleagues, but also being able to draw on their knowledge and their experience of working with certain groups, certain departments who have different ways of working, they can structured slightly differently. They might have committees, bigger working groups leaning on. BD colleagues was really instrumental to understand how they like to operate and do these groups need everything to the N degree? Are they quite happy to have a high level proposal? What kind of information do you normally get asked for when you are making a proposal for change? So I think that was really key in leaning on those colleagues. 

Will: I think that's a really interesting point, Chris actually. I think all successful, especially from a thought leadership perspective, but I can imagine it working in many different projects, is getting that support from other areas of the business and BD seems to be a segue to the partnership really. Did you have to sell the virtues to them as well? 'cause we often hear that actually, the BD folk because they do have this regular contact with partners. They often have a monthly BD meeting or whatever, and they have, this is what's happened this month. It's quite nice to feedback. This is what you've produced in terms of content and these people have read it and this is what it's done. Did you have to sell the virtues of that? It makes them look good for them, to them become that segue to get to the partners or did, did you already build that trust with those guys before?

Chris: Yeah. I would say definitely the latter because Passle has allowed them to on demand give that quality feedback, say, in terms of being able to access those their readership stats or the engagement stats, whatever it might be. 

Will: The BD part is the missing piece for a lot of firms, and they, especially the bigger ones, they you got the centralized marketing team or digital team trying to push this out, and then BD don't engage with it. So actually it's hard for them to get close to the partners because BD don't either buy into it or just we're like, we're too busy.

Chris: Yeah. I think where they're able to provide some quality insight, and it is sometimes dependent on the, on the individual author as to what they see as valuable. Some people might say it, it's more about volume, but some people might say it's more about sort of the quality of what they're seeing. We give the BD teams the tools, they through their own reporting that they can see on their own Passle for instance, they can start to build those reports for people and it is much more self-service instead of having to rely on or come to a centralized function like digital to then go and grab the stats from Google Analytics or whatever it might be. So that's definitely given them the, it's certainly opened that up for BD colleagues to supplement what they're already putting together from across the business in terms of the other initiatives that they're doing. And this just provides like a really nice kind of compliment to everything else that they're doing.

Will: In terms of sort of internal comms that are involved in this, sometimes we hear that firms talking about reporting as you just have done there, Chris. Sometimes we're hearing that firms are taking data, feeding it back to the partnership in the form of building out their own dashboards with Power BI and things like that. Some firms send it, feedback round as a, I don't know, weekly newsletter where they say, this is what's happened this week. In terms of your thought leadership and what it's done, did you use anything like that in terms of internal comms to drive more traction but to showcase success? 

Chris: Yeah, I think so. As I said, been in the firm coming up to maybe three or four years now from when it was first adopted. And it's evolved over that time, both in terms of, uh, the modules that we use and obviously the offering that Passle give, but also in terms of how the wider population in the firm has adopted it and seen that grow as well. So it hasn't really been like a big bang as such because like I say, it's evolved over time, but I think there's some key points that have really helped with embedding Passle in the firm, and one of those things actually I think is the authors having their own account. It might seem like a small thing, but actually feeling like they are a stakeholder in this piece of technology. As I said earlier, we would typically get content out there because it had been drafted in a Word document and then sent over to us, and then we would copy and what needs to be in the CMS, but actually where they have their own account, they're able to work on it, they're able to collaborate on it. They have their own part of that solution and I think that helps with the buy-in as well. It isn't just something that is very specific to content generation and publishing that content. Whereas like for Word, it's something that they also draft a contract in, or it's something that they also, you know, whatever they might do in Word for instance. So I think it having that kind of ownership of their own part of the website essentially has really helped with driving that engagement. We do also hold regular training sessions, firm-wide training sessions. We're also making training materials available. We're also utilizing our intranet for those sort of communications around why we, when it's change or whether there's new features and training and stuff like that. One thing I just wanted to touch on as well, another initiative that we've also utilized recently to drive engagement with Passle, but also then to generate new content and build connections with our clients and contacts has been utilized in the Passle competition tool. So, we've ran a five week competition that was based in kind of the power of content in terms of driving. Stronger connections with our clients. So that has been a really successful competition. We've done that through internal comms. It was something that was originally brought up at our annual AGM that's delivered by our joint managing partners. So it had that gravitas in terms of it was something that was being announced at a firm wide level. So we've utilized that tool, which has been great. We've worked with Will and Sarah and the support team over at Passle to really get that working in the backend and then also understanding because it was all new. It was the first time that we've used it. So understanding how that works and also what information that we can obtain from that, and then sharing that with the wider firm on a weekly basis. And I think everyone's got a bit of a competitive streak as well. So it been nice to be able to share the weekly leaderboard because once you've set it all up, it's still automated. So it just means that we put some work in at the front end and it runs itself. But we then reap the benefits of that because we're seeing not just the engagement levels going up, but we're actually seeing targeted BD activity in terms of people sending out client connect invitations, those invitations being accepted, et cetera. People driving the uptick in social media referrals, the uptick in views as well. So I think that's been a really useful tool and it balances off what we've been doing with, there's only so much that you can say, this is what we're doing and why we're doing it, but actually in practice, It's a bit more of a subtle message and it also just adds a bit of a fun element to it and also a bit of a competitive element to it as well. 

Will: Trying to say that lawyers are competitive, Chris?

Chris: just a bit. I think it's just, yeah, just a tad. 

Will: Yeah, it does work very well. It's a good point. And you can be your own firm. You can change success metrics if you like the ones that suit you guys. So Yeah, it's a good point of driving adoption. I was looking at, we talked about the numbers at the start, some of the vanity stuff, but it's obviously working and it has worked really well. So you've done a brilliant job at Bristows. I was trying to see how many actual lawyers you've got, but I don't think it's much more than the 150 authors that we cited at Bristows, which is pretty unheard of in most centralized marketing teams. Say if we can get 30, 40% of our Fiona's writing, they're in dreamland. So it looks like you've probably got 80, 90% going, Chris, which is amazing. As we said, you've had these huge amounts of views and they've written a whole bunch of insights, nearly a thousand now. Have you received any sort of, and this is again, a difficult part of the process sometimes at firms because you are then reliant on the lawyers telling you or using a C-R-M, which I dare, I say it most firms have, but do they get used enough? Probably not. You are relying on the lawyers actually feeding back or the partners feeding back and saying. This is the impact. 

Chris: So in terms of the feedback that we've been getting, I would say that my sort of advice would be to take every author or every creator, don't just assume that everyone's level of knowledge is the same.I would say that it's important when you are speaking with individual authors, et cetera, that you are appreciative of their level of engagement and knowledge. And that isn't just for Passle. That might be LinkedIn or other marketing channels, and trying to tailor your advice and training to what they needed for. So I just wanted to pick on two examples here where there's different uses for individuals and where they're seeing the value, but then also some of the feedback that's come out of that as well. One example would be that I was speaking to one of our partners recently who was talking to me about wanting to do a bit of a series on a particular topic, but wasn't sure how he could group all of that content and It seems quite obvious that you would use tagging, which is something that Passle does really well in being able to not just tag topics, but also being able to create your own bespoke tags, which then allow you to create URLs for that content. So we discussed because it hadn't experienced that in terms of use in the previous ways of that, we publish content, so just saying we can actually create bespoke tags around particular topics or particular areas of law. Even just for just your content or your group's content as well. That's quite basic. But he was really pleased with that because it meant that he could then, you know, be able to segment his own insights, which was quite useful 'cause it has a broad area of specialism. Whereas on the flip side, we also had another partner that I ran a series of workshops with one of our larger departments in the firm where they were dropping sessions. I would just sit on a teams call, and in one instance, I actually just went and sat myself in the middle of their department and just allow people to come up to me. It was a drop in session. There was no agenda, there was no attendee list or anything. It was just Chris is gonna be online, or he is gonna be on the floor, go and have a chat with him. So one of the, if you've got any questions about Passle or LinkedIn or whatever it might be, and we, one of the partners came up to me and said, oh, I've written these couple of articles in the past could, could you just give me some insights on what, how well was it received? So I think he was expecting just some sort of, like you said earlier, was some vanity stats in terms of the readership numbers. But actually when I was showing this particular person with the dashboards that we're able to see through the Lexology integration, but then also client connect, we could then see what companies were reading that insight, what are they engaging with? And that really, really sold not just Passle to, to this person, but also the benefit of what those efforts are these content efforts are actually having, in terms of connecting with the either client companies or prospects. Which then complement everything else, not just the fee work in the client service that we're providing, but also there's value adds where we're perhaps not speaking to them on a daily basis 'cause we're not on a matter with them, but we're keeping, they're obviously still connected with us because we can see that they're still engaged with our content. And that actually then led to a follow up email from this partner to the entire department saying. If you haven't already, you must attend one of these sessions with Chris because they're really interesting, useful, and dare I say it, fun. And that was a real win there because for anyone to call Marketing Statistics fun that's a big green tick for me.

Will: It's a good story. It's anecdotal stuff that will be really valuable for people to listen to on this. But again, ultimately what you're doing there is you're building an advocate around the business that then has that gravitas to give this a go, which sounds like it's worked as well. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like there's multiple tactics you can use. Getting the BD teams on side, doing those drop-in sessions, training, but actually getting it to click for a senior partner. Yeah. Sounds like that really is worth its way in gold. You don't have to give too much away on this one, but do you know what's next for the thought leadership strategy? Obviously you haven't got a crystal ball to look into the future. You've consolidated everything. Is there anything else on the horizon from a thought leadership perspective that you wanna talk about? 

Chris: No, I think what we're looking to do now is really leveraging the work that we've done over the last few years, but most certainly that kind of tension that we've had in terms of getting everybody moved over to Passle is now to leverage not just the insights and as the analytics that I've mentioned to really take it to the next level. So saying, great, you are, everyone's using Passle, self-sufficient in terms of being able to generate and then submit it for approval, et cetera. What can you now do along with us who will report more? Picture stuff. How can you then take those insights to the next level in terms of your own individual or group BD initiative? So that's making sure that we're utilizing those dashboards, that we're making those subscriber invitations, making sure that where people are opting into additional marketing, that we're being invited to other events and other initiatives that we're holding across the firm. Then I think the other thing is to also start to, we've invested recently both in terms of time and resource and finances to build our multimedia offering as well. So you mentioned earlier about the writing, but also what we want to do is make sure that it's not just the written stuff that we do in terms of content. We've got multiple podcasts that we have. We also do. Video series and things like that. So I'm actually sitting in our newly created studio, so to speak, and recording this where we've taken an office and just changed it into a fully functioning studio, which is great. We want to ensure that we're able to offer a thought leadership outlet for everybody because some people may not feel comfortable. Just sitting and writing an article. They might not have the inclination to do it, but they might feel more comfortable to sit behind a microphone, which as this is my first podcast, I really have a newfound respect for anyone that sits on a podcast cause it's much harder than they make it look. And whether that's also video, et cetera. So I think it's really doubling down on that side of things as well. And really then just utilizing Passle’s abilities to be able to help us. How that content as well. Simple things like using beds and things like that. But again, just taking what we've done with the written stuff and then making sure that we are replicating that across other media as well. So whether that's audio, video, or whatever it might be. 

Will: You're showing off now with your recording student and everything. Correct. Yeah. Um, but I think it's a very good point. You mentioned it a couple of times, is that it isn't one size fits all with, especially with the FI because there is a maturity curve in terms of people writing. There's a maturity curve in terms of how comfortable lawyers are with different formats, and you're absolutely right. We hear it time and time again. Some lawyers, they're always, most of 'em are quite good at talking, but some are way more comfortable at doing things like podcasting. You can't get any. Writing out of them, but they might be brilliant on a podcast. Some of the other episodes that we've had, senior BD and marketing people I've been speaking to recently are saying that for the podcasting format has been revolutionary for them and it's changed the behavior of how lawyers can speak to their clients and they want a platform that's agnostic of all of those formats so that it is all encompassing. So again, we're finding something that the lawyers are happy with and then of course, that their clients are happy with. That's the other side. What do your clients want? How do they want you to give them information, which I'm guessing could also be on the radar for you guys. 

Chris: Yeah, definitely. And, it just goes back to that. Original point around, if it's confusing for us, then it's confusing for everyone else outside of the firm, which goes against everything that we're trying to do. So, having a channel that can, regardless of whatever you are doing it, it's essentially the same. It's delivered in the same format. It's not a case of, if we've got an article, then you'll get that in your inbox, and then if we're doing a video, then you need to go over to our YouTube channel or you have just released a podcast to make sure that you subscribe to it, which are all fine. But anything where it's requires someone to think about where they have to go to to get that. It's just perhaps one step too many and it's a little bit of that friction that I mentioned earlier. So essentially anything that's insight related, not firm news or anything like that will all go out through Instant Passle because it is just consistent then and, and that just means that when someone subscribes to one of our channels, they know that anything that we've put out in that space, regardless of whether it's written or spoken or recorded or whatever it might be, it's gonna come to them in the same format so they know that they're not missing anything. Yeah, that's what we've tried to achieve. 

Will: You guys have done a brilliant job, Chris, spearheaded by yourself and also well done for your first podcast. Thank you. I'm gonna ask you one last question, and you've given the listeners lots to think about in terms of how they can drive usage, they can drive stats around the business, they can build ready made adopters and hand raises around the business. If you were to nail it down to one piece of advice, if you could, what would you give your peers at other firms in terms of how they could try and centralize everything, how they can drive this adoption?

Chris: One of the eureka moments for me was when I came to the Passle CMO event in London, I think in 2023. Where it focused around composable architecture and that kind of, and I've spoken many times to will about these Lego bricks, which were informed part of my spiel across the firm ever since. In terms of, don't feel like you are confined to the monolithic structure of your website. It might sound obvious, but actually when you think about it, having the website with your content management system. What are you trying to achieve with what you are doing, whether that is insights or whether it's recruitment, or whether it's showcasing your expertise in a particular area. Have you got the right software plugin, whatever it might be that can support that? And it was after that event that I thought, actually, like I said, it was a bit of a eureka moment because I knew that what we were trying to achieve with publishing insights and the amount of time and effort that goes into creating them, what we were trying to achieve, may not be as well supported by using the ready out the box stuff that our CMS might offer, and having that validation that actually it's okay to have like a third party solution that's integrated with your website. Because what you're ultimately trying to do is provide insights without the friction to build stronger connections, et cetera. And if that is another solution, then don't be afraid to go with that, because whether it is lead generation when using forms or whether it's like I say content or whether it's something completely different, I think having the mindset of composable architecture is a really useful thing for me, so my advice would be to don't feel like you are just because your website or your content management system doesn't bother, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are confined to it and that your ideas should just fall by the wayside or be compromised. You don't have to compromise on that. You just need to find something that kind of works for you and works for the website. 

Will: It's more about getting the infrastructure in place and then you can build on that. You don't use the excuse that your current setup isn't working. You can plug stuff in and then you can go and do all the hard bits that you've done in terms of consolidation, strategy, energizing everyone, and then keeping it going. 

Chris:  Aside from the point that I just made around the composable architecture. I would also say, another thing is to really ensure that you are leveraging the working relationships that you have with your BD colleagues, invest in those relationships with your BD colleagues as well. What I've found is that although the processes may be the same in terms of what you're looking to do. My experience of even just rolling out or trying to transition some of these microsites has been different in terms of the approach that the partners have taken, the kind of information that they want. Some of the questions that I received, some of the pushback I received as well, and just being mindful that as with everything that we've mentioned earlier, there isn't a one size fits all and there isn't necessarily a one size fits all in terms of transitioning and consolidating to bring everything into one streamlined platform. So I think ensuring that you is a centralized function, you wouldn't necessarily have. As greater oversight or insight into how those groups operate day to day in terms of their decision making. But the people that typically do are your BD colleagues that are working with them, as I said earlier, with not just digital content, but also everything else as well. So they can really guide you in terms of this is how, perhaps how you should approach, or, I know that this is what I've received before. So in terms of questioning or pushback. So I think really investing in those connections with your BD colleagues is invaluable. 

Will: I think it is really important that you're basically leveraging the relationships, the expertise within the team.

Chris: Yeah.

Will: But don't underestimate that you've built that trust with the BD folks so that they do that on your behalf. 

Chris: Yeah

Will: Because that's the missing connection is that you are not always gave that a great example of that partner that did meet you on a sort of one-to-one session and then you show them, you sit down with them and that was really powerful, but. That's sometimes few and far between. At firms, they don't have the relationship. So actually you do have to rely on the BD folk. Brilliant. Chris, you've given us a whole raft of ideas. Thank you so much for answering every question really thoroughly and giving us an insight into how you've driven a real change and bristow and amplified that sort of thought leadership impact. So thanks again for your time and for jumping on. 

Chris: No, thank you. It's been a pleasure Will, and thanks for your time.