NAVIGATING RESOURCE GAPS.

• Author: Wells, Toni

Is there a legal marketer who hasn't faced this all-too-familiar situation: It is 5 p.m. on a Friday, and a call comes in from an attorney asking for assistance on an RFP that is due the following Monday. And then the scramble begins. You review the RFP and do the best you can to cobble together responses to the questions. If those responses hinge on gathering information from other firm departments, you hope that you can get the required information by Monday--or cross your fingers that you can get an extension.

What can make or break your work product in these situations is the availability of resources. Unfortunately, the right tools and resources are often not available to handle these types of situations efficiently and effectively. With many firms on limited budgets, lack of resources is an issue that some of us will be dealing with for the foreseeable future. While there is not a simple answer to navigate the resource gaps, there are a few tips that business development professionals can use to ease the frustration and consistently deliver high-quality work.

Set Up a System

If you are operating with little to no firm-wide technology, it is critical that you set up your own systems and templates for proposals, research requests and other common deliverables. You don't want to reinvent the wheel every time you get a request, nor do you want to hunt through documents to find past examples of work that may or may not apply to your current request. Setting up templates and your own process using spreadsheets and other existing technology can also help make a case for an increased budget and dedicated tools in the future.

Key organizational items can include an FAQs worksheet where you store the answers (or the resource to access the answers) to the most commonly asked questions. Typically, this can include information that appears frequently in RFPs, such as the year the firm was founded, the tax ID number or other general questions where the response will not change.

In addition, you can store information that is frequently requested during the course of daily operations. Over time, you may commit many of these responses to memory; however, you don't want to become the single repository for information in the department. An organized system of storing information in a central repository will not only aid your colleagues if you are not available, but will also help ensure that everyone has access to the most accurate and up-to-date...