This May the Legal Sales and Service Organization (LSSO) will announce the global winners of its sales and service awards. Law firms can nominate both teams and individuals. And I think the judging criteria give any professional services firm an interesting tool for assessing the performance of their own sales or BD teams.

To be considered for an award, both teams and executives need to demonstrate a specific sales achievement over the past year. LSSO states that examples of this include:

• Retaining an “in jeopardy” client

• Growing a client by introducing them to other practice areas of the firm

• Leading a client team that delivers improved relationships or revenue

• Developing a substantive new client relationship.

It makes an interesting departure from the normal award criteria - one that I think goes straight to the heart of what good sales and business development people do.

So, what do you think? Are these criteria something your firm should be giving more weight to?

You can read my article on measuring ROI on BD and sales teams here.

And if you’d like your law firm to be considered for the awards, you can download the nomination form from the LSSO website. 

Sue-Ella is a member of the editorial board for LSSO, a US-based organisation that delivers education and resources for law firms to improve their sales and client service skills.