www.howtomakepartner.com
A guide to creating a
cast-iron business case
for partnership
A guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnership
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Contents
1. How and when to use
2. Sample Business Case
3. Strategic Context
4. Your Business Plan: How you will achieve your
Business Case
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A guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnershipA guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnership
In this guide, we look how you can create a Business Case that demonstrates
how you will make your rm more protable by being admitted to the
partnership.
Be aware that you will need a Business Case AND a
Personal Case. Your Personal Case is distinct to your
Business Case, and is often not written down. This is
the work you do to demonstrate you are:
• acting and thinking like a partner,
• building your influence within the partnership,
• seen as a member of their exclusive club, and
• gaining advocates for you from within the
partnership.
Remember that you won’t be present at most of
the partner discussions about your suitability for
partnership, so you need some influential partners
fighting your corner and promoting your cause and
business case.
As you think about preparing your Business Case,
make sure you involve key stakeholders within the
firm. They can give you essential feedback, but also
it helps them feel as if they are involved. This in turn
builds the buy-in from the stakeholders to your
Business Case. The Business Case is one of the key
documents included in the partnership nomination
pack for your promotion to partner. Your ability to
manage and grow existing clients, as well as winning
new clients, is essential for a successful partner
career.
A word of warning, your Business Case should not
be a fairy tale! It should be believable, based on
reality and you should avoid embellishing your plans
and projections. Doing this will only aggravate the
partner interviewing panel and potentially lead to a
more difficult time at your interview with them. Keep
it evidence based and provide examples of what you
have done to date that demonstrates that you have
the ability to not only make partner but to become a
successful one with time.
For your own sanity, if you haven’t already started to
do so by this stage, you must do everything that you
can to build and develop your own client base and
following. Creating a Business Case enables you to
do the following:
• To make your “pitch” for partnership by
setting out what you believe you can and will
contribute to the partnership.
• To communicate and explain the services,
clients and practice that you intend to build
and develop as a partner in the next three
years.
• Identify the key areas for development, the
resources and investment required from
the rm to help you promote and grow your
practice.
• It should show how you propose to generate
revenue and nancial prospects for your
practice.
Moreover, your Business Case provides the basis
on which your partners will be able to assess the
strengths, weaknesses and future potential of your
practice to the partnership. Don’t hesitate to ask for
help from where ever you need it, but don’t leave it
until the last minute as people may have
less time to find the information that
you need to help you create a great
Business Case.
Your Business Case should be
linked to your department’s
business plan, presented and agreed with your
head of department and your partners.
You should also see Part 5 in the
book “How to Make Partner and
Still have a Life”.
How and when to use
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A guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnership
(The following is an abbreviated version of a real Business Case and partnership admission
process that a rm uses. Ask your partners to see what they use for your rm in this process.)
In this guide, we will be looking at Katie Smith’s new partner Business Case (this is an example based on a real-life
business case for partnership):
Your sponsoring partner:
Typically every candidate for partnership will have
a sponsoring partner. This may be your Head of
Department. Your business case for partnership will
typically be written by your Head of Department with
your sponsoring partner.
The Sponsoring Partner is normally the partner who
has worked most closely with you. Their role is to
support you through each step of the process and to
provide feedback on progress at key stages.
The first part of any Business Case is normally
financial information detailing the individual’s
personal financial performance. Depending on your
firm’s process this maybe many years of data, or just
a couple of years of data.
Here is Katie’s personal financial statistics:
Before you go any further, find out what key financial
metrics your firm uses to analyse performance.
Your finance department can help you with this.
You should make sure that you fully understand the
impact of your financial performance on making
partner. After all, no partnership wants to willingly
dilute the share of the cake they all receive.
If your key financial metrics for your performance in
your firm don’t stack up against the criteria that your
firm is using, then it is unlikely that your firm will read
much more of your business case.
Sample Business Case
Name of Candidate
KATIE SMITH
Division / Business Unit
Commercial Projects
LocaBon
London
Specialisation
Projects
Proposed for Junior Equity
Partner (JEP) or Equity
JEP
Sponsoring Partner
DAWN THOMAS
KEY
PERSONAL
STATISTICS
FY
2012/13
Actual
31
December
2013 YTD
31 April
2014
Target
Client
Billings
660,806 395,955 500,000
Matter
Billings
660,806 600,173 800,000
Personal
Billings
297,597 183,033 275,000
Lockup
Days
76 181 100
Capture
Rate %
56% 58% 70%
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A guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnershipA guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnership
A partnership is typically looking for a new partner to bring something extra to the partnership,
and something which helps the rm grow strong - or weaker if they were to lose you to
another rm. This is often called the strategic context part of the business case.
Every partner within your firm will be given individual,
team and departmental targets to achieve. These as
well as other potential candidates for partner, inside
and outside of your department, will be taken into
consideration by the partners at this stage of the
process. Most candidates for partner don’t yet have
a large client portfolio. Part of the Business Case is
justifying where your client portfolio will come from,
without cannibalising revenue or profit from any
other areas of the firm:
For example, in Katie’s firm they are aiming to achieve
the following benchmarks:
Profit per equity partner (PEP): £525k
Net income per equity partner (EP): £1.5 million
Profitability: 33%
Here is the figures, numbers and commentary on
Katie and her department, required by her partners
for her Business Case.
Strategic Context
2010/11
Actual
Current
Year
Forecast
2012/13
Budget
2013/14
Projected
Profit per
Equity
Partner -
London
Projects
439 744 357 500
- Division
371 461 289 470
Net income
per Equity
Partner -
London
Projects
1,497 2,043 1,200 1,300
- Division
1,375 1,653 1,366 1,625
Profitability:
- London
Projects
29% 40% 30% 38%
- Division
27% 28% 21% 28%
COMMENT on the Strategic Context for this proposal
(this is an abbreviated version) Projects has been
identified as a key growth area for the firm and as one
of the practice areas which will play an important role
in delivering our strategy through to 2012-2014.
It is essential that a Projects Group which competes
with the leading firms in this sector has a strong
Private Sector practice which includes both sponsors
and banks. The Projects Group strategy includes the
objective of generating income on a 50/50 basis as
between the Public and Private sectors. This objective
is a Group objective and the ratios in the three sites
will vary.
Katie (on promotion), and Dawn Thomas, will be the
only Projects partners in London who are currently
working primarily for Private Sector clients. Although
Nigel Jones has a background in Private Sector work
he currently is fully committed to the Treatment Centre
project and this is unlikely to change during the course
of the next two years.
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A guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnership
Your Business Plan: How you will
achieve your Business Case
Your rm may have its own template for business plans. Your business plan is where you
set out exactly how you plan to achieve your Business Case. You may nd it useful to use
this business plan, which is based on some real rm business plans, to think about your own
business plan.
The Market for Services in your area of practice: what does this mean?
This is your opportunity to demonstrate your
knowledge and understanding of the market in
which you practice and to identify the areas of
opportunity. It should outline the context for building
and developing your practice. It should include the
following:
• Evidence that you know your market i.e. the
key players, trends (strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, threats); how will you respond to
them?
• Trading conditions and economic outlook ,
supported by research, either your own or
other sources
• What changes or additions would you like to
see in the portfolio of clients that you work
with?
• Within this context, a clear explanation of the
opportunities that you have identied – this
might be directly relevant to your specic
skill sets, or could be an opportunity for your
practice which you would lead, build and
develop
• A clear explanation as to why you believe this is
a good opportunity for you, your practice and
the rm and worthy of investment
Tips
• This is not an extended essay – it is a business
plan. Don’t pad or waffle!
• You must be able to provide evidence and
examples to support what you say/claim.
Potential Sources of Work
• This should include both existing and potential
clients who you intend to target and the
strength of the relationship i.e. 1= strong,
2=good, 3= recent
• Your track record of attracting and retaining
(where applicable) a following.
• Companies and sector – explain why you
believe you will be able to attract clients in
specic sectors both existing and potential.
Information Required
• Your market prole (do you have one?)
including areas of recognised expertise,
reputation and following.
• Existing clients you have/are developing.
• Potential clients that you intend to attract and
what action/steps you will take to win their
business.
• Billing history in the last 3 years split where
relevant between you and the team.
• Projected timescales for delivery and
achievement of the above.
Practice Area Financials
This part of your business plan shows how you and
your team plan to contribute to the profitability and
revenue of the practice. Including:
• Your current hourly rates (do you charge
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A guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnershipA guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnership
CONTINUED
Your Business Plan: How you will
achieve your Business Case
variable rates depending on the client or
sector?)
• Proposed nancial targets for year one
• Proposed nancial targets for year two
• Proposed nancial targets for year three
• Longer term nancial goals
Financial targets
Including:
• Your budgeted hourly charge out rate
• Your annual chargeable hours
Team
As a partner you will need a team to deliver the
work that you bring into the firm. This is not an
easy exercise, however, doing it will help you to
understand the step change involved in becoming a
partner. You need to explain how you plan to grow
that team by providing the following information:
• Size of existing team (number of partners,
senior associates directors/associates/
managers/assistants and secretarial support)
• Budgeted hourly charge out rates for partners,
senior associates directors/managers/
assistants
• Budgeted annual chargeable for partners,
senior associates directors/managers/
assistants
• Realisation rates for you and the team for the
last 3 years
• Utilisation rates for you and the team for the
last 3 years
• Lock-up days history for the last 3 years
• Debtor days history for the last 3 years
• WIP days history for the last 3 years
Proposed Team Structure from year one to
three including:
• Number of partners, senior associates
directors/managers/assistants
• Other sta and secretarial
Commercial Viability
This part of your business plan is where you set down
the arguments (in your favour) for the commercial
viability of your business plan. It will contain a
significant amount of your marketing plan, but also
the thinking behind your marketing plan. This should
include the following:
• What business development activities do you
see yourself involved in over the next three
years?
• What areas of sector specialisation do you
want to develop or maintain?
• What evidence do you have that there is a
market for the opportunity that you have
identied?
• Who will be the buyer i.e. existing clients, a mix
of existing and new clients?
• Will this bring wider cross selling opportunities
for others within the rm?
• What changes or additions would you like to
see in the portfolio of clients that you work
with?
• What is your unique selling point (USP) in
relation to marketing this opportunity?
• How will the rm price this opportunity? Is
there an accepted market norm or will an
innovative pricing strategy create the USP? If
so what is it?
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A guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnership
CONTINUED
Your Business Plan: How you will
achieve your Business Case
• How will your pricing strategy change over the
next three years?
• Which pricing models deliver best value to your
clients?
• How do they demonstrate that value?
• What are your forecasts regarding revenue,
income and market share over the next three
years?
• What targeting and proposal making skills do
you think you need to develop?
• How well do you think you identify client
opportunities and needs, propose solutions
and close agreement?
Tips
• Ask for help from your Business Development
team and then make sure you follow their
advice.
• You must be able to provide evidence and
examples to support what you say/claim.
Barriers to Success (likelihood of success)
Nothing in life is guaranteed, and your partners will
be exposing themselves to a certain level of risk by
admitting you to the partnership. For these reasons,
your partners will want to know what could stop
you from achieving your business plan, and what
contingencies you have thought of to minimise the
risk or impact of them happening. Including:
• What might prevent you from realising the
opportunities that you have identied i.e. risks
etc.
• How will these be overcome? Who needs to be
involved in addition to you?
Competitors (if not covered in detail above)
In this part of your business plan, you need to detail
your competitors and how much of a risk they pose
to you achieving your business plan.
Including:
• Who they are and their geographical spread.
• What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• Do they have recognised experts below
partner level?
• Who are their key clients?
• Do you know the size of their market share or
fee income from this market?
• How do you intend to win more of their market
share?
Tip
Be realistic – if the competition are market leaders,
and your market share is minimal, don’t say that you
will increase your market share by 50% over the next
three years if you have yet to establish yourself as a
“go-to” expert in this market. You must be able to
provide evidence and examples to support what you
say/claim.
Resources and Investment (including personal
development) that you will require to
implement your business plan
So that your firm can assess the level of investment
required to realise the opportunities that you have
identified, you need to work out the resources that
you will require in terms of:
• People i.e. more team members/new recruits?
How soon i.e. year 1/2/3?
• Technology: IT support/new processes and
software?
• Business development budget? What are the
priorities and on what will it be spent?
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A guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnershipA guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partnership
CONTINUED
Your Business Plan: How you will
achieve your Business Case
Your personal development, including:
• What business development skills do you need
to develop to help you achieve your business
plan?
• How well do you lead and manage a team?
• Are you good at coaching sta?
• What additional selling skills do you need to
development
Tip
Be realistic about the resources that you need to
build your practice, including your own development
needs.
Why should your firm make you a partner
rather than hiring a new partner from outside
the firm?
Your firm does not have to make you a partner. They
could choose to make you wait for longer, promote
someone else within the firm, or hire a new partner
from the firm. This is your chance to summarise
why you deserve the opportunity to be made up to
partner. e.g.
• What will you do dierently as a partner
to deliver the opportunities that you have
identied?
• Why should the rm invest in you, not a lateral
hire with a following?
If you are struggling to write or articulate any part of your Business Case, how about giving us a call (01234 48 0123)
to see how we can help you articulate your potential for partnership
