The art of selling “Fondia type of legal services”

Traditionally lawyers established a law firm, informed their area of expertise, and waited for the customer to call or enter into the office with his or her problem. But what if you have to sell the new way of providing legal services?

For us in Fondia, having developed a new service concept, the traditional way of winning customers would not do. We offer companies preemptive and proactive legal help through our Legal Department Service Agreement. With this agreement the customer’s legal foundation is kept in a good condition and the legal risks are managed in professional way. We take responsibility of the client’s legal matters and let the business managers concentrate on the business. The Legal Department Service is a continuous service just as if the company would have a hired business-minded in-house counsel. The service can be called “Fondia type of legal service”, as no other company offers a similar service, at least not in Finland.

Several companies wonder why they should hire a lawyer or establish a permanent relationship with legal service provider? Management in many companies think that a lawyer is needed only occasionally to go over a major agreement and to give advice in HR matters or other legal problems. If a court case arises, the help of a lawyer is, of course, welcomed. They do not always realize that professional preemptive legal work would prevent them from many costly problems.

When meeting with companies’ management, like CFOs or CEOs, I hear their worries related to their business. One of the main challenges for them is to keep the costs as low as possible and run the business in the most effective way. They want to avoid any additional fixed costs and are willing to pay even more on a case–by-case basis. There you are with your thousand good arguments why a proactive outsourced legal service would minimize risks. After they hear that 97 percent of our customers would recommend our service to their friends they start to think if Fondia’s way of providing legal service could be worth buying.

When telling about our concept to any company, with or without an in-house lawyer, they prefer an outside counsel who can give professional advice related to their industry; knows the company’s business and is business-minded. This is what Fondia can offer; many of Fondia’s lawyers have experience as an in-house counsel from different businesses.

Rather than selling in the traditional sense, I consider my role to be more about telling potential clients about our way of helping them achieve better results. It is great to get to meet people and have conversations about their ways of working. I continuously learn more about business and people.

Anyway, it is an art to get the buyer to understand how the proactive legal help can make it easier to avoid legal risks. We are so passionate at Fondia when telling business managers and in-house lawyers about our “Fondia type of legal service”, and our work seems to be paying off as already nearly 100 companies have chosen Fondia’s Legal Department Service as their way of managing their company’s legal affairs.