With ever-tightening budgets in 2009, professional services firms are looking for identify new business - but not spend a lot of money doing so. One often-untapped resource are social networking tools. LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs, Facebook… we've heard a lot about them, but often aren't using them in any meaningful way to identify and win new business.

In this free education seminar from the LexisNexis Business Development Academy, Jeff Willinger of Rightpoint Consulting will share his insights into ways that the modern firm can leverage these "Web 2.0" technologies to cheaply and effectively grow the business. Specific topics will include:

• An overview of the capabilities that social networking tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, and others provide
• Understanding the etiquette of what content you should post to these sites, when to request and accept connections from others
• Strategies for integrating these tools into the firm's overall marketing and business development strategy
• Tools and techniques for applying the "who knows whom" data from these social connections to marketing campaigns, newsletters, RFPs and business pursuits
• Creating meaningful measures of success, benchmarking progress against goals

About our Speakers

Jeff Willinger, Business Development Analyst for RightPoint Consulting, is a frequent speaker and expert on using Web 2.0 technologies and social media to build better business relationships

JD Miller, PhD, LexisNexis' in-house scholar on CRM and Analytics will moderate the discussion, with an emphasis on making sense of social networking and business development techniques.

In a time when professional services firms are watching every penny spent, a critical piece of the money equation is accurately predicting when money will be coming in the door. While a variety of firms experience periodic "busy seasons" where they deliver a lot of services, this activity is fruitless if the work is not being performed profitably, or is being delivered to clients who don't ultimately pay the bills.

This free education seminar from the LexisNexis Client Development Academy series will explore the drivers of profitability as well as how to ensure timely collection for services rendered. Topics to be covered include:

• Key metrics for measuring the health of your firm's billing and collections process
• Strategies for turning around the billing and collections process to get ahead of forecasted revenue
• Budgeting and Forecasting billing hours and cash in hand
• Understanding your clients' payment patterns
• Evaluating the ability of clients to pay, and strategies for dealing with top clients who are past due
• Working with the firm's partners to understand and affect the state of your cash receipts

About our Speakers

Russ Haskin, Director of Consulting Services for Redwood Analytics brings experiences with more than 100 professional services firms to bear in his recommendations on how to segment your clients, determine profitable contacts, and increase collections.

JD Miller, PhD, LexisNexis' in-house scholar on CRM and Analytics will moderate the discussion, with an emphasis on seeking practical solutions to the problems today's Services firms are facing.

In today's economy, AEC firms are finding that their principals need to do more business development than ever before. While the recent economic stimulus package includes a fair bit of spending for infrastructure projects, firms nevertheless understand that they will need to position themselves with their clients to insure that they get their share of the pie.

The level of effort needed in this challenging economy requires broad participation from the firm's professionals. However, in the up market that we've experienced in the last ten years, the problem wasn't getting work; it was finding people to do it. Consequently, many firms got "out of shape" on the business development side and today the firm's leadership is faced with rebuilding their professionals' marketing skills.

In this free education seminar from the LexisNexis Client Development Academy, Bob Glassen of Morrison-Maierle will share his insights into ways that the modern firm identifies and wins new business, including:

• Maximizing returns on your firm's business development investment
• Re-creating a business development culture in a technical services firm
• Helping "sellers/doers" do more business development, without turning them into "salespeople"
• Eliminating confusion between partners, offices, and others who may be inadvertently calling on the same prospects and even cross-bid on the same piece of work
• Turning cold calls into warm leads by leveraging your firm's relationship intelligence
• Developing a targeted plan for prospecting, identifying opportunities and closing new business
• Creating meaningful measures of success, benchmarking progress against goals

About our Speakers

Bob Glassen, P.G., is Corporate Director of Business Development for Morrison-Maierle, Inc., an engineering consulting firm with revenues of over $40M and 10 offices in the Rocky Mountain West. Bob draws upon over 25 years' experience in technical consulting and business development to oversee business development and client service activities for Morrison-Maierle.

JD Miller, PhD, LexisNexis' in-house scholar on CRM and Analytics will moderate the discussion, with an emphasis on seeking practical solutions to the problems today's AEC firms are facing.

In today's economy, accounting and management consulting firms are finding that their clients' project budgets have been drastically slashed. At the same time, the firm's own budgets for business development activities have also been drastically reduced — making business development professionals feel like they're panning for gold in the desert.

This free education seminar from the LexisNexis Business Development Academy series explores ways that your firm can identify compelling new business opportunities by:

• Efficiently focusing marketing activities on high-probability targets by identifying the companies, partners, law firms, and decision makers that fit your industry expertise, niche specialization, or area of strategic value
• Leveraging a variety of sources of news and business information about those prospects to craft compelling messages that will gain attention and client wallet share
• Using executive relationships and biographical information nuggets to quickly create the kinds of relationships that turn cold leads warm
• Intelligently using publicly-filed documents like M&A activities, SEC filings, litigation filings, or patent information to identify opportunities for your specialized accounting, forensic, litigation, IT audit,change management, or other services

About our Speakers

John Ford, Director of Technology Consulting for FTI Consulting will discuss ways that his firm is validating their market offerings and validating high-quality prospect lists.

Chris Whitmore, Director of atVantage Planning for LexisNexis will discuss the role that a variety of information sources plays in such initiatives at firms he's worked with.

JD Miller, PhD, LexisNexis' in-house scholar on CRM and Analytics will moderate the discussion, with an emphasis on seeking practical solutions to the problems today's accounting and management consulting firms are facing.