By Ari Kaplan with Phil Thurner.
Ari Kaplan speaks with Phil Thurner, the founder and CEO of Nexl, the Revenue Operations cloud platform built to support the business development initiatives within law firms.
Ari Kaplan
Tell us about your background and the genesis of Nexl.
Phil Thurner
I am from Austria and live in Australia. My background is in business and tech. I have been working within legal for the past 10 years and have fallen in love with the legal industry. My mission is to help the legal industry innovate so I have spent the last decade helping lawyers and law firms all around the world adopt technology and to think about it differently Prior to founding Nexl, I was consulting with law firms and in-house legal teams. During that period, I always wanted to create a technology platform that would have a global impact and helps law firms around the world. Given that law firms are primarily relationship driven and a firm’s growth depends on those contacts, I saw a massive opportunity to transform the field. When I realized how important these relationships are to firms and how little effort they invested in managing them, I approached several firms and asked them how they manage their relationships. The technology was limited and lacked the functionality to create outcomes that drive revenue growth. As a result, every single firm leader with whom I spoke asked me to build a better CRM and Next is the result.
Ari Kaplan
What is the current state of business development within law firms?
Phil Thurner
Law firms have traditionally focused 80% of their revenue generating efforts on marketing and 20% on business development. And that portion of business development is often ad hoc and left to administrative professionals, rather than to the lawyers. Even though the partners are ultimately responsible for growth, they hire professionals to focus on marketing to build the firm’s brand and generate leads. That is changing because concentrating 80% of the spend on marketing is not actually the correct approach. Now, everyone and every law firm has a newsletter or creates some amount of content. It is very noisy out there and marketing alone is not likely to make the same difference. The industry needs to shift its approach to spend 20% on marketing and 80% on business development. The challenge is that a single team can manage all of a law firm’s marketing centrally. For example, with the click of a button, you can send 2,000 emails. It is easy, but not as valuable anymore. The real focus needs to be on business development, which is harder to coordinate and scale.
Ari Kaplan
What are the challenges of converting relationships into revenue for law firms today?
Phil Thurner
The biggest challenge is that it takes time and effort. It is also a long process that does not produce immediate results. It requires consistency and focus. Firms need to help partners scale their business development and relationship-building activities. And they need to seamlessly collaborate with a high level of transparency. The obstacle is gaining complete access to their relationships and understanding how and when to follow up, as well as the context of that follow-up.
Ari Kaplan
What is Revenue Operations and how does it help firms address their business development challenges?
Phil Thurner
Revenue Operations bridge the gap from
wanting to do more to actually achieving it by operationalizing business development initiatives and revenue growth. It aligns a firm’s overall go-to-market strategy with the individual engagement of its professionals with clients, colleagues, and prospects. The coordinates those efforts in a more focused and proactive manner, which facilitates collaboration between the marketing and business development teams. Revenue Operations reflect this alignment and operationalization.
Ari Kaplan
Can you share some examples of Revenue Operations growth initiatives?
Phil Thurner
Many firms are establishing sector-focused practice groups to target specific types of work. Law firms are, however, typically structured in silos so coordinating the efforts of different practices without Revenue Operations is challenging. Revenue Operations helps the partners focus on the correct go-to-market message, apply proven client engagement plans, and identify the strongest relationships that can truly make an impact. Firms that increase transparency through a digital collaboration space can earn a competitive advantage. Another example would be law firms that highlight and capitalize on market changes, such as shifts in the regulatory landscape. Being proactive, organized, and coordinated can lead to new revenue initiatives when centralized on a digital platform that reveals patterns in relationships among clients, colleagues, and prospects affected by the change at issue. By creating lists, assigning responsibilities, and stablishing targets, the growth initiatives can yield material results quickly.
Ari Kaplan
How does Nexl’s Revenue Operations Cloud align with your vision of Revenue Operations within law firms?
Phil Thurner
We are providing the data needed to help law firms execute on their business development plans by understanding the depth of their relationships. This transparency facilitates collaboration. We are also providing a collaboration platform that aligns action and creates accountability.
Ari Kaplan
How do you see Revenue Operations helping law firms evolve their growth initiatives?
Phil Thurner
Mature law firms have business plans in place, but they still struggle with execution. No one follows through and implements them. In this competitive market, we see firms producing more focused, action-oriented plans that feature targets and objectives. They are no longer simply talking about market changes and potential opportunities. Rather, they are assigning KPIs to their objectives. As a result of this progress, we see Revenue Operations further supporting law firms in the creation of go-to-market strategies and digitized business development structures.
About the Author
Ari Kaplan (http://www.AriKaplanAdvisors.com) regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change, and introduce new technology at http://www.ReinventingProfessionals.com and his series at Legal Business World
Listen to his conversation with Phil Thurner here: The Value of Revenue Operation