The 2021 Thomson Reuters Marketing Partner Forum (MPF), though not as busy as usual, was once again an incredibly well organised and professionally run event, with great opportunities to dive into the happenings of the sector and hear face to face what Marketing and BD people are experiencing. At both MPF and in our day to day relationship with firms some themes regarding proposals and pitches come up consistently in recent months:
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Firms are seeing an increase in demand for proposals
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Turn around request times for these proposals is becoming shorter and shorter
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They have the same or similar amount of staff trying to get these proposals out
With demand up and competition steep, firms have two options: hire more staff or use better technology. Good proposal writers who can pitch the intricacies of legal work to specific audiences are tough to come by. Using the best technology available rather than the “good enough” method that many firms seem to have settled for in the past, is the answer for staying competitive and winning deals.
How to choose the right technology for pitch generation
There are many different criteria that can help firms assess what solution is the best fit for them, but these are 4 aspects that must be on top of every evaluation list:
Ease of use – too many firms too often fall into the trap of buying a shiny new tool with big promises but it’s ultimately making the original process more complicated or the tech itself is not intuitive enough to fulfil its main goal of making things faster and easing the workload.
Integrations – any technology becomes truly powerful if it has the ability to talk to other systems. If the software can’t pull the information it needs organically, so that a large proportion of the manual copy pasting remains, the associated costs would likely outweigh the benefits.
Security – it goes without saying for any piece of tech, but especially in light or some major cyber breaches recently across the globe, no firm can afford to choose a solution that they would fear to bet their money on.
Speed – in the pitching context this is an extremely prominent consideration but luckily, it’s also very clearly measurable. Even if a piece of tech can make a proposal look better or is very easy to use, if it doesn’t considerably reduce the time spent creating it then it’s likely not worth the money and effort implementing it.
These considerations were also at the forefront when PitchPerfect was created. With it’s native MS Word and Power Point interface, powerful search function that allows reusing components of past proposals and pre-created on-brand templates that take all the effort out of formatting it ticks both the ease of use and speed boxes. Integrations with all major legal CRMs, Experience Management Systems, Content Management Systems, Document Management Systems and Financial Systems are seamless and the Microsoft Technologies, upon which it was built, guarantee the security.
Pitch and proposal automation software is one of the few technology purchases law firms can make in which they can see and measure a quick and direct return on investment. If it isn’t in your budget for 2022 you should re-evaluate, especially in light of what the Marketing and BD teams are largely experiencing.
