What data do you need in your Business Case for partnership?

What makes a strong Business Case for partner?

The best and most effective partnership Business Cases continually verify and quantify all the statements within them. In this article, I discuss what data is required and how to use it to strengthen your Business Case for partner.

What is your evidence that you can win business?

Previously, I have discussed the 7 types of Business Case for partner. Six of those Business Cases rely on you demonstrating you will be instrumental in helping the firm win new business. If the type of work you do, such as internal arbitration or large deals, is the type of work that only partners can win, you will find that your firm will be looking for evidence that you see business development as part of your day job AND that you have a track record of winning work.

If you need help to create, put together or pitch your Business Case for Partnership then download our FREE guide, How to create a cast-iron Business Case for partnership.

Explain your figures

It is not enough to put your figures down in your Business Case for partner. You must explain any anomalies or where your figures have not been up to scratch.  For example, if there was economic turbulence or you had a period on maternity or paternity leave. The opposite also holds true. If you have brilliant results, don’t forget to explain what you did to achieve them.

If you are reading this and feeling despondent. Don’t worry, most lawyers, accountants and consultants like you are taught to be great technicians; not great at business planning and putting together commercial and persuasive documents. After all, your Business Case for partnership needs to feel very commercially sound AND persuasive. To help you do this, we put together our course “How to Build a Cast-Iron Business Case for Partner”.  It’s included within our subscriber-only site Progress to Partner. This course is one of the most downloaded of any of the 150+ resources within Progress to Partner. 

How does your practice measure against the metrics your firm cares about?

Your firm will have several key metrics that they really care about. These typically include:

• revenue generated by you for the firm,
• recoverability,
• personal utilisation or team utilisation,
• lock up and WIP, and
• write off.

You need to have these numbers to hand and have them by year for the last three years. You may find that the form you must complete to articulate your Partner Business Case will require you to provide this kind of detail. A good way to find out what metrics matter is to book time with your firm’s finance team or talk to your partner or mentor.

How robust is your client portfolio?

Your partners only want to admit new members to the partnership if they have got a robust and sustainable Business Case for partner. Therefore, they will be interested in:

• The revenue you have billed for your top 5-10 clients for each of the last three years.
• The projected revenue for your top 5-10 clients for the next 12 months and your activities to achieve this figure.

How valuable is your network?

Of course, if you offer a distressed service, such as litigation, or a transactional service, such as corporate finance, you may not have the luxury of long-term client accounts. Therefore, the value of your network is crucial. Your partners are likely to be interested in the following:

• The value and volume of work your top 10 referrers have sent to you, either to be serviced by your team or the firm generally. This should be for the last three years broken down by year and the split between referrals into the wider firm and referrals to be serviced by your team.

A winning Business Case for partner doesn’t have to be long or packed with every piece of information you can think of. It needs to be compelling, punchy, and impossible to refute.

If you need help to create, put together or pitch your Business Case for Partnership, then download our FREE guide, How to create a cast-iron Business Case for partnership.