By Tom Kane (Reprinted from Tom’s LegalMarketingBlog.com dated July 6, 2016)

Why is cross-selling difficult? First, because many corporate clients do not want to put all their eggs in one basket.  For political, financial and/or relationship reasons, they want to spread the work around.  Sure, a number of major corporations are reducing the number of outside law firms (often doing so to better manage administrative headaches).  However, rarely will they reduce the number of law firms to one.

Reasons within the law firm itself are just as likely to make cross-selling difficult to pull off. Since I have written on the topic numerous times in the past, I thought I would refer to just four of my posts.  Hopefully, they will shed light on why it is so difficult to cross-sell, and offer ideas on how to overcome the difficulties:

Why Your Partner Won’t Cross-Sell You!
After 25-plus years in marketing lawyers, it continues to amaze me that some lawyers do not understand why cross-selling so often doesn’t work.  The thinking seems to go, “I’m good at… (fill in the blank), we’re partners, and they should just refer ‘their’ clients to me so I’ll have more work.” The question is “why …Continue Reading

Is the Lack of Cross-Selling Your Fault?
Are you to blame for the failure of your partners to cross-sell you to their client contacts? Not necessarily, but you could be part of the problem. Clients select lawyers they know, like and trust. Referral sources, including your partners, send you clients for the same reason. Since they know, like and trust you, they …Continue Reading

Cross-selling By Any Other Name
Semantics sometimes get in the way of some good advice. When you try to convince clients (subtly or otherwise) to engage your law firm for additional services not previously rendered, I think it is silly to argue about whether you are cross-selling or cross-marketing clients. I’ve known and admired Bob Denney for many years. He’s …Continue Reading

Why Cross-selling Doesn’t Work, But Could
There are obstacles to cross-selling that explains why law firms are so bad at it. But with the right kind of leadership and incentives, the obstacles can be overcome. It isn’t easy though. When I was an in-house legal marketer, I actually saw cross-selling work – maybe 1% of the time. An article on Law360.com …Continue Reading

Cross-selling can work in law firms, but it isn’t easy.  It takes knowing, liking and trusting one another among partners, and… a client’s concurrence, of course.

YLS is off to a great start! In the month of September, we stuffed 87 backpacks for the comfort backpack program at Backpack Beginnings. Afterwards, we had our member kickoff party at Pig Pounder. Thank you to all YLS members who joined us. If you missed the opportunity to connect with YLS in September, we hope to see you at the Swearing-In Ceremony and/or reception on October 14, 2016.  More details on our upcoming events are included below.

Book Buddies

Book Buddies is a volunteer program that YLS created and supports every year.  The program pairs lawyers with classrooms at Hampton Elementary to read aloud to the class for thirty minutes to an hour.  The great thing about the program is that it’s flexible—once you’re paired with a classroom, you work with the teacher to schedule mutually agreeable reading times.  Our goal is to fully staff Hampton’s pre-K through second-grade classes and expand to another Guilford County school. To find out more about Book Buddies and how you can volunteer, please email Whit Pierce at whit.pierce@smithmoorelaw.com.

Swearing-In Ceremony/Bridge the Gap Program

Please mark your calendars for Friday, October 14, 2016.  We would love for GBA members to join us and support our newly licensed attorneys. Our Bridge the Gap Program starts at 9:00 a.m. and provides a great opportunity for new lawyers to tour the Federal, State, and Bankruptcy Courts.  If you are interested in signing up for the Bridge the Gap Program, please contact Grant Sigmon at gsigmon@bbflaw.com.  Our Swearing-In Ceremony will begin at 3:00 p.m. at the Commissioners’ Room located on the second floor of the Old Courthouse (301 W. Market Street) with a reception at Churchill’s to follow.  To access a PDF copy of the application, please click here.  Applications are due by October 7, 2016.

Website Launch

Do you want more information about upcoming YLS events or how you can get involved? Check out our new website:  http://www.greensboroyls.org/.  We look forward to connecting with you!

At the September 14, 2016 meeting, the Board of Directors for the Greensboro Bar Association unanimously approved as a Greensboro Bar project the construction of a Habitat for Humanity house.  Our Bar has previously completed construction of seven houses (1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2010, and 2013), and we look forward to the eighth.

Our Habitat projects have afforded us a unique opportunity for positive interaction.  In addition to benefiting the homeowner family and community, these projects allow our members to work together and develop relationships totally removed from the stress and often adversarial nature of our professional lives.  During construction, we work on a common project involving senior and junior members of our Bar, members of the judiciary, clerk’s staff, and Elon law students.

The homeowner will be selected by Habitat for Humanity and will work with us in the construction of the house.  These homeowners are required to attend more than 30 hours of classes on budgeting, home maintenance, and finance to prepare them to be homeowners.  They work a minimum of 350 hours during construction and repay Habitat through interest free loans with a typical monthly payment of $650 to $800 (no more than 25% of their income).  These funds allow Habitat to acquire additional property and build additional homes.

This project will require both labor and funding in the amount of $75,000 to complete the house.  Of this amount, $60,000 has already been committed ($25,000 in anonymous contributions from your fellow Bar members, $25,000 in credit from Habitat for Humanity based on contribution of pro bono legal services from our Bar to the organization over the years, and $10,000 from the Greensboro Bar Association Foundation), leaving the sum of $15,000 to be raised from our membership.

We will kick off the project at our October 20, 2016 Bar lunch meeting, and plan to begin construction in the Spring of 2017.  Please indicate your willingness to contribute funding and/or labor to this project by e-mailing Diane Lowe at jd18gba@greensborobar.org.  Like most undertakings, you will get out of this project in proportion to what you put in – do take advantage of this project to enrich and expand your relationships with members of our Bar!

On April 1, 2016, the NC Equal Access to Justice Commission launched the NC Pro Bono Resource Center with the hiring of inaugural director Sylvia Novinsky. The newly-established NC Pro Bono Resource Center is one of only a handful of statewide pro bono resource centers in the country. The goal of the NC Pro Bono Resource Center is to increase pro bono participation statewide.

Rule 6.1 calls on all lawyers to provide legal services to those who are unable to pay. To assist lawyers in fulfilling their professional responsibility to provide pro bono, the center will serve as a clearinghouse of pro bono projects and will partner with legal aid organizations, local bars, law schools, community groups, and others to develop new projects to help address unmet legal needs. To that end, the center welcomes attorneys to learn more by visiting ncprobono.org or emailing Sylvia Novinsky at sylvia@ncprobono.org for more information.

To view current pro bono projects, visit ncprobono.org and click on “Find a Pro Bono Opportunity.”