If you want to make partner in your law firm, accountancy firm or consulting firm, you will be asked to submit a business case for partnership.
Do you know what you will need to demonstrate, evidence or prove in your business case for partner?
Wouldn’t it be nice if your firm provided a sample business case for partnership for you to see what they are looking for? Unfortunately this is rarely the case.
However, if your accountancy firm or law firm has a standard form or template that it expects you to use, that can help you understand what you need to include in your business case for partnership.
In this blog post, based on the real business cases for partnership I have seen, here is what I would expect to be seen in a business case for partnership – regardless of whether you are in a law, accounting, consulting or engineering firm.
Sample business case for partnership
Your firm may or may not have its own way that it wants you to present your business case. Even if it doesn’t provide you with a sample business case for partnership, most firms are likely to require these details to be included in your business case:
Outline of your current practice
Your partners want to understand the value of your current practice. This means you will need to help them understand:
- The services you offer to your clients and the value you help them achieve
- If you are deliver a distressed service or transactional service like insolvency or litigation, then the value of your current referral networks. This means identifying your top 10 referrers and breaking down the value of the work they sent to you.
- The revenue you have billed by year for your top 5-10 clients for the last 3 years
- How your practice measures up against the metrics that your firm cares about? E.g. recoverability, billings
- The current size of the team within your practice
Sometimes firms ask their future partners to produce a business case in less than a fortnight. This has happened to at least 2 of my clients. Yes, seriously. Therefore, to help you if this happens, it is always good to keep up-to-date headlines of what your current practice is worth to the firm.
Click here to download my FREE guide to building your Business Case for Partner
How you plan to grow your practice over the next 3 years?
This is where you draw a picture of the opportunity that the partners have with your practice. In this you will need to show:
- The markets and geographies you plan to target and why you have chosen these. I.e. what is the opportunity available to firm for targeting these markets and geographies?
- The services you will offer to your clients
- How you will compete and differentiate yourself from your key competitors
- How you will fuel the growth of your practice? For example, will this be by growing more of your current client portfolio? Winning new clients? Cross-selling your services to the firm’s clients?
- What are your overall objectives, which the partners could measure you on, which will demonstrate how you plan to grow your practice?
- Revenue and profit for your practice for the next three years, broken down by year
- Potential known risks which will stop you achieving your business case
- The team and people resources you will need to deliver the promise of your business case
One of the 14-self-study courses in my Progress to Partner Academy is called “How to Build a Cast-Iron Business Case for Partner”.
It’s a must-have in your arsenal of tools and guidance to help with your career progression. There is also a section in Progress to Partner Academy on the Partnership Admissions process with guides and recordings to help you find your way through the system. Find out how Progress to Partner Academy can help your career progression here
12-month marketing plan
This is your marketing plan to help you grow your practice to achieve the growth figures you are predicting for your practice. It will contain:
- Key account plans for the clients, which you plan to grow materially in the next 12 months. These account plans will identify the opportunity with the client and your activity plan to realise this opportunity.
- Your prospect list and your activity plan to convert these into clients
- Your networking strategy to strengthen your referral networks
- How you plan to build general awareness of you and what you do in the marketplace?
Why not sign up to my weekly tips here and you’ll find out what you need to be working on in your career development (and how to make the time for your career development) to progress your career in your firm.
Critical success factors
This is where you identify:
- The support and budget you need to achieve your business case
- Any issues preventing or hindering the delivery of your business case? E.g. staffing, marketing budget, skill gaps
Executive Summary
This is a 3-sentence sell which succinctly articulates the commercial opportunity for the partnership with your business case. It’s also the first page of your business case (you may need to slightly ignore what your firm’s actual form for your business case asks for.
Click here to download my FREE guide to building your Business Case for Partner.
In summary,
Most business cases for partnership – regardless of whether you are at a law, accounting, consulting or engineering firm, are asking for pretty much the same stuff. I.e. any sample business case for partnership will tell you:
- Value of current practice
- How the practice will grow and the strategy to do this
- What opportunities you plan to target and why
- Overview of your 12-month marketing plan
If you are serious about making partner in your professional service firm, you should really consider joining my Progress to Partner Academy. Packed full of the information, 14 courses and over 100 resources (videos, recordings, guides, workbooks) that you’ll need to build your partner-sized client portfolio, show you can lead and manage a team and build your business case for partner.
“How to Build a Cast-Iron Business Case for Partner”. It’s a must-have in your arsenal of tools and guidance to help with your career progression. There is also a section in Progress to Partner Academy on the Partnership Admissions process with guides and recordings to help you find your way through the system. Join Progress to Partner Academy here
