Page 33 - Law Society of Hong Kong MPMC Manual v8 - With checklists (1 March 2018)

Practice Management Course | Unit 4
Client Development

has you in mind, especially given that the client understands that the relationship-
building process with a new practice would be time-consuming and uncertain.

6. The costs of winning work from existing clients are generally lower than those
involved in winning work from new clients. New client development will generally
require more awareness building, more competitive proposals, more presentations
and more marketing.

7. Existing clients are potentially more profitable as they can be less fee-sensitive.
This reduced fee-sensitivity may be due to greater confidence in your work product,
or may simply be a matter of internal policy regarding external procurement.
Further, once your organisation has gained the client’s trust, some clients may be
open to their work being done by more junior people in the department, so matters
can be more profitably leveraged.

8. Existing clients can contribute to building intellectual capital as well as fees. If you
want to increase your experience in a particular area of work, an existing client that
trusts your work product is more likely to assign such work to you; on the other
hand, new prospective clients are likely to be on the market for specific, specialised
skills and thus are less likely to have available work in your specific area of interest.

9. The ‘J’ curve diagram below is a visual representation of why marketing to existing
clients is of such importance from a cost-benefit perspective.

© The Law Society of Hong Kong (2018) Page 29