In the past week, 3 professionals asked me to review their partner business case. Every time, I gave the same advice, and here it is for you.
Add in numbers and evidence to your partner business case
Words can tell a good story, but there is nothing quite like numbers to give the evidence of your achievement, effort, involvement and suitability to be made up to partner. Remember that being made up to partner is not just another promotion. It is where your partners trust you enough to give you a slice of their business. Yes, it is their business. They own it. You owe it to yourself and to them to clearly demonstrate what they will get in return for letting you in. This means putting some numbers around your targeted KPIs and Objectives.
- How much will you grow your practice to?
- How much will come from existing clients and how much from new clients?
Typically the more numbers and evidence that you put in, the stronger your partner business case will become. Click here to download the our free guide to creating a cast-iron business case (email required)
Make it easy to see ‘why you?’
The typical form that most firms make their fee earners fill in to demonstrate their partner business case can often lead to long unwieldy documents stuffed full of text. Often, after reading these documents, I’ve lost the will to live and forgotten the key points. If I’ve done that, think about what your partners are thinking after they have read multiple partnership business cases.
Therefore, treat the first part of your business case as an executive summary. This executive summary is ideally about 2-4 paragraphs long and very succinctly captures why you should be admitted to the partnership at this time. It is probably based on your 3-sentence sell. (Have a go at putting together a one page talk sheet to help your partners see ‘why you’?)
Then, throughout the rest of the partnership business case form, use the 3-sentence sell to theme and structure the rest of what you want to say. Everything should lead back to these 3 key reasons why your partners should make you up to partner this time around.
In summary
Remember that often less is more when it comes to words for your partner business case. Use numbers, graphs/charts to evidence your achievements and predicted future results.
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- 2 things which will significantly increase the impact of your business case
- Mistakes lawyers make with their business case for partnership
- Tips to write your business case in a weekend
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- The most important tool to talk about your business case for partnership
Download this free guide today to take the fear and mystery out of writing your business case for partnership.
Click to here download the guide (email required)
