Unmet, Unaddressed, and Unrecognised Needs Are Business Opportunities

Clients have needs: some recognised, others unrecognised. Among 1972 Topps baseball cards Stretch Armstrong they recognise, some clients may have unmet needs - needs for which they have not yet found a professional service solution. Unmet needs present business development opportunities for an expert professional.

By implication, unmet needs can be classed as:

those which are unsatisfied - no satisfactory service has been availed

those which are unaddressed - no Transformer has yet been sought

those which are unrecognised - they don't yet know they have a need.

Unsatisfied needs are great business opportunities since the client understands what they need and is likely to be open to a well-conceived solution. Unaddressed needs yield the myriad benefits Care Bears greenfield opportunities for an imaginative and persuasive professional. Unrecognised needs only become worthwhile opportunities for professionals prepared to do the groundwork to create need recognition with an action-oriented client.

In the legal services sphere, our research reveals several clusters of unmet needs. These include:

intellectual property

commercial dispute resolution, without recourse to litigation

information technology services

communication and entertainment technology services

compliance awareness and training for front-line client personnel

streamlining multi-handled processes involving internal and external resources and expertise

workforce risk reduction and legal barbie com for best practice in human resources

financial risk reduction

small business structuring and risk management

family financial arrangements, estate planning, and intergenerational wealth transfer

part-time outsourced general counsel.

Rather than battling for market share among clients whose widely understood needs are already being satisfied by others - and possibly with a long queue of aspirants jockeying to competitively displace the incumbent - why not create business development leverage by pursuing unsatisfied, unmet, or even unrecognised needs ?

Linda Julian is acknowledged as a leading authority on strategic practice development and how to win business for law firms.

Since 1979, she has consulted with lawyers and other professionals throughout Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific, and Asia on a wide range of business acquisition, client retention, and strategic management issues.

Her book The Passionate Professional: creating value, success, and prosperity has sold in 13 countries and has received wide acclaim. Linda lectures in strategic management and marketing professional services at post-graduate level. She leads the small and highly specialised Julian Midwinter & Associates consulting practice.

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