Marketing Your Firm to Laterals
Part Three
By Adam
Radzik
Consultant to Professional Firms
In the past two issues of our newsletter, we have covered 20 concerns and issues that must be addressed by the lateral recruiters within your firm prior to having the very first conversation with any lateral candidate or, for that matter, prior to meeting and retaining any executive recruiter that you would like to assist your firm in your recruitment efforts. 
If you were to sell your home, wouldn't you need to know the number of bedrooms you have, the size of the living room, the age of the furnace, the quality of the school system, and whether the neighbors are friendly or not? Of course you would know these facts and 50 other pertinent issues, because you would be trying to present your home in the most positive light in order to sell it. The same is true in the recruitment of laterals: you have to know your facts, you have to be organized, you have to be able to anticipate objections, etc. If the firm is not properly prepared, the lateral walks out mumbling to him- or herself, "They don’t know their own firm! They are disorganized, amateurish, unprepared! I am certainly not going to cast my lot with this bunch!"
The firm needs to prepare, and that means hours of challenging and sustained work -- there is no easy shortcut. You may be thinking, "Very interesting, Adam, but this doesn't apply to us. We are a very prestigious firm with a long and illustrious history; everybody knows who we are! We don't need to prepare." If you are thinking such thoughts, you have unpleasant surprises ahead of you in getting laterals to come to your firm and even more unpleasant surprises in keeping good laterals in your firm. A national firm lost 150 professionals from its ranks because it failed to do the lateral recruitment job properly -- 150!
The following are 10 more areas that laterals are interested in:
- What is the quality of the social environment of the firm?
- What program does the firm have in place to ensure the successful integration of laterals?
- What is the level of political activity within the organization?
- Is there rivalry, feuding, backbiting, browbeating, jealousy, territorialism?
- What are the expectations in terms of billable hours, originations, administrative duties and total hours to be devoted to the firm?
- What is the compensation/benefit system? Can individual activity influence compensation, or does it not make any difference?
- What will my housing situation look like? May I see my intended office?
- What is the internal education/training/mentoring program?
- Is marketing coaching available to the professional staff?
- What type of assistance can I anticipate from the marketing team?
The questions go on. Who will be my secretary? How long does it take for expenses to be reimbursed? Is there a help desk for computer assistance?
Preparing for the recruitment of laterals will greatly enhance your probability of succeeding. No reasonable person would agree to spontaneously stand up in front of 50 people and start telling jokes; one would have to prepare for that. If you would prepare to tell jokes, you must certainly prepare to convince someone to put his/her entire family's future on the line and sit at the desk next to yours.
Comedy Corner
Sam and his wife, Edith, were 85 years old and in good health, due to the wife's insistence on healthy foods. On vacation, their plane crashed and they ended up at the gates of heaven. An escort was waiting and took them to a beautifully furnished mansion with its own waterfall, saying, "Welcome to heaven. This is your new home. It is free, as is the championship golf course it faces." Next he showed them the free clubhouse with every imaginable cuisine laid out before them. "The best part is you can eat and drink as much as you like of whatever you like, and you will never get fat or sick!"
Sam glared at Edith and said, "You and your damn bran muffins! We could have been here 15 years ago!"
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