Creating an Effective Business Development Plan

We’ve come to the end of our journey. In this lesson, we’ll take a look at how to write an effective business development plan. If the lesson seems duplicative, that is intentional. If you’ve been doing the activities in each lesson, you already have an outline for a BD plan.

Some firms require attorneys to write and submit a personal business development plan in a specific format, with detailed goals and milestones. Many attorneys fill them out at the last minute, submit them and don’t look at them until they need to update it for the next round of reviews.

I’m more concerned about the plan you make for yourself, the plan that will result in you gaining clients you like and doing the work that you want to do. In this sense, your business development plan is really a career plan. In today’s activity, I’ve posted a template for a business development plan. Use it, or find your own format, but do take the time to plan out your steps to be successful in marketing and business development. Here’s the lesson:

Activity

Your final activity is to write your personal business development plan. Click on the link below to download a template. The first part of the template provides an outline, and the second part is a narrative explaining each section. Some of the components may not apply to you or your practice. If that is the case, focus on the parts that do apply. Here’s the link:

Additional Resources

Here are a few articles you might find helpful:

Writing Your Annual BD Plan, Sally Schmidt

Setting Practice Priorities, Sally Schmidt

One Big Thing, Sally Schmidt

A BD Plan in 10 Simple Steps, Mike O’Horo