Glenda C. Raley
Chair, BUSINESS PARTNER RELATIONS COMMITTEE

We have wrapped up the season of Regional Conferences — what an exciting time. Legal education was abundant along with opportunities for members and business partners to network in an atmosphere of support and appreciation. Regional Conferences offer members a great educational experience in a smaller, more intimate setting than a national conference with the same quality of high level programming and exhibitors. Our business partners, through their support both regionally and nationally help make this experience affordable and worthwhile for members and their firms.

Law firms differ in their needs for products and services and finding the right fit is not always easy. Providing diverse venues for connecting can be the key to match ups that will turn into longtime business relationships. Regional Conferences and National Conferences provide unique experiences to develop these partnerships.

I love hearing how a chance meeting at a conference event or a demo at an exhibit booth turned into a success story for both a firm and a business partner. Our support of each other demonstrates the true value of partnership. We all want to do business with people we like and trust. What better way to get to know each other than at an ALA conference? Our members know the partners who are exhibiting know and support our association so the first barrier to "like" and "trust" has already been removed. It also allows for sharing experiences with others who have done business with our partners. Face-to-face meetings in a comfortable environment is a great way to start or build on a relationship.

Our business partners have been very supportive of each and every Regional Conference held over the past couple of months. We encourage our members to show their appreciation for this support by spending some time learning about their products and services, getting to know and trust them and making a commitment to call them first when they have a purchasing need.

I hope you all enjoyed the Regional Conferences and keep those partnership stories coming — today’s connections turn into tomorrow's successes!
 

The Power of Partnership

Finding the Right Partner
By Martin R. Gooding, CLM

In late January of this year, Tom Garigen from Algonquin Studios, an ALA Business Partner, contacted me to make an introduction and ask if we could utilize their services. I explained to Tom we had just completed the redesign of our website with another business partner and didn't have a need for Algonquin's services at the time. After we went live with our new website, we quickly encountered some real road blocks. More than two months after the site launched we were experiencing issues that weren't being fixed. Our web site kept crashing, sometimes for 30 seconds, sometimes for 30 minutes. Promises weren't being delivered on by our current vendor and we were repeatedly told the issues were ours, not the vendor's. Our business development team would try to make simple updates to the website only to discover they didn't have access to necessary areas of the content management system. Instead, we'd have to contact the business partner and wait for them to make the changes...often a long process. We also perceived a real lack of commitment and professionalism from the first developer; if we encountered an issue at 2 p.m. on a Friday we could be reasonably sure that no one would be available to help us until the following week.

After struggling with this unsatisfactory level of service for a few months, our team recognized the need to cut our losses and change vendors. We began the vetting process with a new series of business partners. I suggested we contact Tom at Algonquin. While I had no experience with Algonquin I felt confident (as I do with other ALA Business Partners) that their investment in ALA is an indication of commitment to our industry and our members. Our website committee was understandably cautious as we began the vetting process a second time. Tom’s team at Algonquin was very patient and responsive. Though we honed in on Algonquin's capabilities, support and professionalism very early on, it ultimately took us several months to move forward. During our vetting process we were given the opportunity to speak to members of Algonquin's sales, marketing, web development, technical support and executive management teams, including a company co-founder. "At Algonquin, our goal is to be a real resource for our clients. We already know that we can build great web sites and develop successful software platforms but it can be tough to translate that knowledge into reassurance for firms that have been burned by previous vendors," says Tom Garigen, Algonquin's dedicated ALA sales consultant. "That's why partnerships, like the one we have with ALA, are so important. They help pave the way for us to build real relationships with firm administrators; relationships built on trust and an honest exchange of ideas and information. Getting to know ALA members, learning their pain points, working collaboratively to create solutions, and pursuing a better way to do things — that's how we do things here at Algonquin and I’m so pleased that it’s worked with Vandeventer Black."

Tom is right. Not only did they prove themselves very capable, they truly have become a business partner with our firm. Beyond the obvious core capability Tom cited ("We already know that we can build great web sites...") they won us over because they think like we do. Algonquin had invested significant time long before our engagement to understand how law firms work and think and had in fact built platforms and capabilities into their product options that we had conceptually kicked around as "nice-to-have's". Seeing our ideas already exist in their platform was a huge win and convinced us Algonquin took seriously their commitment to the legal industry.

As a member of the ALA's Business Partner Relations Committee, I often comment to people that I like to support ALA Business Partners for two reasons; first, I simply like the fact they invest in our association which, in turn, supports everything ALA offers to its members. But second, and more important, my primary obligation is to my employer. When a company makes the commitment to become a high profile ALA Business Partner, that company is putting their name on the line with our entire member base, for better or worse. I believe ALA Business Partners demonstrate a level of commitment to our business and our firms that is not easy to find outside the ALA Business Partner program. We've been nothing but impressed with Algonquin's professionalism, technical and consulting expertise. Their consistent delivery of truly helpful information and informed, educated opinions about our web project, even prior to a commitment of work from us, made it obvious that Algonquin was the right partner for Vandeventer Black.

This was a definite win for my firm, Algonquin Studios and for the ALA Business Partner program.

2012 Fall Conferences

As mentioned above, the fall conferences gave ALA an opportunity to hold focus groups with many of our business partners. We sure learned a lot. In the next issue of ALA Means Business, you will find a culmination of ideas, suggestions, and opinions shared during these focus group sessions. In the meantime, if you were not able to participate and have any overall suggestions for the Business Partner Relations Team, we encourage you to send your thoughts to Jane Mundell.
 

Be on the lookout! The 2013 ALA Marketing Guide for Business Partners will be in your inbox very soon. Please contact Jane Mundell for information on how you can maximize your company's marketing dollars by bundling exhibit, sponsorship and advertising opportunities.
 

Advertising Information

Contact Robert Leighton at 847.267.1379 for pricing information and space reservations.
 

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