Building pricing competence & confidence

A Case Study

Positive Pricing worked alongside this firm’s Pricing Director to train partners on how to negotiate fees more confidently. This resulted in an average 5% increase to average billing rates, more panel appointments and matters, and stronger relationships with high profile clients.

Background

Our client is one of the top tier legal firms globally with a strong reputation for innovation, quality and superior client service.  They also had a price position which under-represented the value they delivered to their clients (validated through both external surveys and client feedback).

The firm’s Executive team wanted to more fully prepare, equip and instil greater commercial confidence in partners to hold pricing and client fee negotiations, ultimately improving profitability.

Positive Pricing was asked to work collaboratively with the Pricing Director to deliver a pricing training and development program whilst retaining their focus on innovation, quality and client service.

Positive Pricing Approach

Working alongside the firm’s Pricing Director, we developed and delivered a series of targeted training materials for the firm’s partnership and wider professional service teams over a period of approximately six months.

A number of the key materials and training sessions developed and delivered included:

  • a presentation to the global partner conference, attended by over 800 of the firm’s partners
  • a series of half-day ‘Pricing and Profitability’ workshops
  • a number of discrete awareness sessions at key firm client partner events

Training was held across a number of the firm’s key office locations and regions, with strong sponsorship and support from the firm’s Executive team (attendance at the half-day partner training sessions was deemed mandatory).

To further re-enforce the key themes addressed within the training, a short ‘pocket-sized’ handbook was developed and provided to all training session participants. Some of the training materials used were also subsequently developed into a standalone app by our client to provide partners with additional ‘point of need’ support on pricing and profitability related queries.

Key Findings & Results

Following the training sessions, pricing, profitability and client value became ongoing topics of regular conversation amongst partners within the firm, leading to more comprehensive and commercial approaches when responding to client fee requests.

Key outcomes included:

  • an increase of over 5% to average billing rates and an associated contribution to profitability
  • fresh approaches to negotiating fees with clients
  • more panel appointments and briefs from high-profile clients
  • stronger relationships with clients

A number of additional pricing opportunities were captured throughout the training series for Executive review and subsequently prioritized for future implementation.

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Pricing Review Results

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Billing rates up

Average billing rates increased more than 5%

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More high profile work

The firm was appointed to more panels and briefed on work from high profile clients

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The Pricing Masterclass provided practical strategies to help us win work, analyse pricing risks, and promote value internally and externally. It presents all sides of the equation: clients, partners, back office, and more. We immediately capitalised on what we learned. Thanks for a fantastic and interactive workshop.

Peter Lane Secor
Director of Strategic Pricing and Project Management
Pepper Hamilton, Boston

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