An ideal business development technique is to know what your clients want. All clients will tell you that they want added value for their legal services. It isn't enough anymore just to get the work done. Recent research shows that clients define value in three ways:

• Efficiency
• Predictability
• And cost-effectiveness.

The more you can incorporate these magic words into your conversations with clients, the better.

1. Efficiency can be staffing cases lean with fewer personnel, or applying years of experience to get to the heart of the matter. Consider offering a project management approach to the next legal problem.

2. Predictability means being up front about your costs so that clients will know how a case will play out. The idea is never to surprise a client with the cost of the work.

3. Cost effectiveness means applying key performance indicators and benchmarking data, and giving a client measurement & tracking tools so they can tell that they got good value.

In the delivery of legal services, high quality work is assumed.  But you can build a brand around these three “magic words.”

This is Larry Bodine, and you can get more marketing tips at LarryBodine.com