ele purpose

We’re focused on marketing and business development

So, you’ve got a great CSR programme. You’re donating thousands of pounds to charity each year. But are you struggling to work out how to translate this into making a tangible difference? Are clients asking difficult questions about operational activities and your commitment to ethical business practises? Is your tendering and pitching starting to suffer because you don’t know which framework to apply and how to report accurately under it?

Being a purposeful law firm, chambers or professional services business isn’t just about appointing a sustainability consultant to review your operations. You need to understand how to communicate all of this internally and externally. How to enrich client and workforce relationships. How to focus your efforts in the ways that best contribute to achieving strategic goals. 

we can help you with

• Understanding the different sustainability and ethical frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, B Corp or more niche, sector-relevant frameworks. Working out what each covers and what’s most important for your organisation.
• Working towards B Corp status, using the B Impact Assessment.
• Reviewing the UN Sustainable Development Goals to work out how you’re performing across your organisation, as well as setting out targets.
• Reporting in a more comprehensive and meaningful way in your annual reports, perhaps even across the Triple Bottom Line.
• Reviewing how you manage client relationships to introduce benchmarking against ethical metrics. This might even mean considering how you select new clients and the decision-making process for assessment. Introducing metrics on purpose and responsibility into client care reviews.
• Internal stakeholder research to understand priorities for activity and development – what areas of environmental and societal purpose are your internal stakeholders most passionate about?
• Competitor benchmarking, to understand how your competitors are acting and their priorities for responsibility and purpose.
• Industry-specific product and service reviews, mapped against frameworks and standards, to identify opportunities as well as requirements you might not now meet.
• Business development opportunity spotting, due diligence and development in a purposeful and benchmarked way.
• Expansion of CSR to move towards a more purposeful way of working. Moving away from straight charitable giving to understand how this contributes to your strategic plan and goals.
• Reviewing your tone of voice and messaging, particularly within tendering and pitching, to ensure terminology is accurate and relevant. Even considering whether your existing mission, vision and values are accurate and aligned with this evolving focus.
• Reviewing your marketing activities to identify areas that purpose and responsibility can be better reflected in what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. This could include a joined up plan to revise your key account management programme to better reflect your values, introducing a client forum to challenge management on strategic adherence to the new values/mission/vision, strategic partnerships with with organisations through 1% for the Planet as well as a full programme of internal and external communications including thought leadership PR on the new areas of work we identified.
• Reviewing your marketing function to identify areas for improvement in terms of ethics – be that website design and hosting in a carbon neutral way or supplier management and selection, for example.  

Our purpose audits are fixed-fee, contained projects that can look at all of the areas set out above – either in isolation or as a combined project.

But it isn’t just navel-gazing. We work hard to set out clear findings and associated action plans setting them all out as a R(ed) A(mber) G(reen) report – the best way to highlight the things that are critical, important and going well, respectively. 

What sets our services apart from other professionals in the sustainability space is that we REALLY understand law firm and professional services marketing.

We are careful not to cross over into the areas that HR and sustainability consultants will cover but frequently take their recommendations and translate them into practical plans that contribute to the overall success of your strategic objectives. In short, we’re focused on marketing and business development – both internally and externally… We just happen to be the only agency that does this from a purpose and responsibility perspective and that knows the professional services space inside and outside.

WE ARE PARTICULARLY RESPECTED FOR OUR WORK WITH PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ORGANISATIONS SUCH AS LAW FIRMS, CHAMBERS, ACCOUNTANTS AND CONSULTANCY PRACTICES.

ELE’s founder, Helen Foord, is one of the best-known experts in professional services marketing and business development. Drawing on almost 20 years’ experience of working for organisations across this sector Helen has built an international team of professional services experts with skills in both strategic and tactical areas.

Unlike many other agencies ELE’s innovative, flexible and international structure means that our professionals are true experts in their field, rather than being ‘good all-rounders’ that have been trained up. Many members of the team have in-house experience, having held senior roles in global firms or suppliers to the industry.

In short, at ELE you not only get the best expertise, but you get insight born of genuine experience of having sat on your side of the table.

Our work spans Responsibility & Purpose, Growth & Change, Strategy & Planning, Client Relationship Management and Content & Communication.

Some of our recent projects for professional services organisations have included:

• Complete marketing and business development audit commissioned by barrister’s chambers – leading to board discussions/action on clerking and administrative restructuring, new incentive schemes and recruitment.
• Digital marketing audit commissioned by major City law firm, leading to brand review and strategic planning exercise.
• New business review and planning for barrister’s chambers, including opportunity spotting/research and proposals.
• Client care and Key Account Management programme for barrister’s chambers, including research, surveys, procedures and reporting.
• Strategic planning exercise for major law firm, post-merger – addressing branding, development and growth opportunities.
• Content review for major law firm – including review of all documentation, creation of new ‘tone of voice’ and development of complete suite of written marketing materials, including website content.
• Development of thought-leadership plan for a number of law firms and chambers, focusing on development of profile in core areas. Including development of content (white papers and shorter content), press outreach, event organisation, awards and media training.
• Introduction of management reporting and CRM restructure for law firm, to better support board-level discussions on new business development.
• Introduction of outbound marketing and telephone appointment setting programme for niche law firm, with reporting against all areas of marketing and activity.