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Cross-selling in law firms is rarely a knowledge problem. Most lawyers understand it matters, but far fewer feel confident doing it consistently, and even fewer firms build the culture, infrastructure, and momentum needed to make it stick. In a recent CMO Series webinar, I spoke with Raya Blakely-Glover, who leads business development, sales, and client function at Bird & Bird, and Mo Bunnell, founder of Bunnell Idea Group, about what separates firms that talk about cross-selling from those that are doing it well. 

Raya’s perspective was refreshingly practical. Her message to marketing and BD teams was that real progress starts when you stop treating cross-selling as a vague aspiration and build the systems that make it easier for lawyers to act. At Bird and Bird, cross-selling became more urgent when the firm launched its first five-year strategy and set a public growth goal of wanting to try to double the revenue of the firm over five years. From there, the focus moved to unlocking growth within existing client relationships, supported by data and behaviour change.

A key turning point was leaning into client-led selling, and helping partners hear what clients are already telling firms, “You’re not meeting our needs. You’re not reaching out proactively.” Raya underlined that the issue is rarely ill will, it is often hesitation, lack of confidence, and uncertainty about what to say. Her approach is to dismantle common internal objections, “I don’t have time, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know the right people in the organisation,” and replace them with structured support, training, prompts, and leadership sponsorship. She gave the brilliant example of a sales resource and training app that Bird & Bird developed in-house. 

Mo broadened the lens across professional services and described how cross-selling maturity tends to progress through what he called the three Ps: Presentations, Projects, and Programmes. Many firms never move beyond a short internal push, but lasting impact requires culture change, “Think about three to five years because that’s what it’s really going to take to get this done.” The most effective programmes are evidence-informed, repeatable, and designed around lowering the barrier for the busy relationship partner.

Mo’s most tactical contribution was the Give to Get concept: packaging a specific, valuable, no-charge offer that an expert would deliver, making it easy for another partner to introduce. Instead of a vague, high-risk introduction, the relationship partner can offer something concrete: “Would it be helpful if we blank.” Done well, this moves cross-selling from an awkward referral to a client-focused value exchange, and creates a pathway from small wins to larger matters.

For marketing and BD leaders, the big theme was clear: make cross-selling client-led, measurable, and easy to execute, then communicate wins relentlessly.

Five key takeaways from the session

1. Start with the client’s agenda, not your services. Raya’s anchor was the “voice of the client,” and the discipline of listening before proposing solutions.

2. Treat cross-selling as a programme, not a campaign. Mo’s warning was blunt, “A presentation” is not change, and programmes need a long term  (three to five year) view.

3. Remove friction for lawyers with scripts, assets, and prompts. Raya reframed “selling” as service, “good sales when done right is finding out what somebody needs and helping to give it to them.”

4. Use “Give to get” offers to lower the risk of introductions. Specific, time-bound gifts reduce hesitation and speed up action, “it’s really clear when you offer specifics, you get a yes or a no right away.”

5. Measure and broadcast progress to build belief. Raya summed it up, “we tracked everything… and we just keep showing everybody that it’s working,” and scepticism drops when proof is visible.

If there is one message that I took away from the session, and what marketing and BD teams can implement at their firms, it is this: cross-selling does not scale through persuasion; it scales through infrastructure. Make it client-led, make it easy, measure it, and keep repeating what works.