Business Development Specialist

Benesch Law•Chicago, IL

2d•$79,000 - $89,000•Hybrid

About The Position

At Benesch, a firm recognized for exceeding expectations and building trust with clients and employees, we are committed to providing the highest level of legal service and fostering a positive work environment. Benesch consistently earns placement on Chicago and Cleveland's Top Workplaces lists and the AmLaw 150. The firm offers a hybrid schedule, career development, transparent leadership, and celebrates diversity, equity and inclusion. Benesch is one of the fastest-growing firms in the nation with offices in Chicago, Columbus, San Francisco, New York City, and Wilmington. The firm is opening for a Business Development Specialist in its Chicago office, offering a hybrid schedule with work-from-home flexibility. This role is for an experienced business development professional with 3 or more years of experience in a professional services environment, looking to expand their skill set and take on a more independent role with project ownership. The Business Development Specialist supports client development, assists attorneys and practice groups with business development and marketing, prepares pitches and proposals, ensures content is current, provides competitive intelligence, maintains pipeline data, assists with training, supports conference preparation, and tracks and analyzes data.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in marketing, business administration, communications, or a related area.
Three to five years of experience in business development or marketing roles, ideally within a professional services environment (legal, accounting, financial).
Experience with Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, Outlook).
Exceptional attitude to meet the needs of internal and external clients.

Nice To Haves

A working knowledge of client relationship management software is preferred.

Responsibilities

Supports business development managers in the pitch and proposal process from planning through submission, including working with attorneys and other firm personnel in the development and execution of proposals, presentations, and team rosters.
Identifies most applicable content and edits existing content for proposals and pitches.
Assists with RFP/RFQ responses, including document assembly, proofreading, coordinating attorney input, and deadline tracking, and helps to maintain proposal language library.
Serves as a liaison between the business development team and the marketing communications team to ensure proposal content is captured and repurposed across marketing collateral, practice group tear sheets, the firm website, and attorney biographies.
Conducts company and industry research, fulfills competitive intelligence research requests, and helps to create and customize individual attorneys' news alerts.
Reviews and analyzes intelligence to help inform business development strategies.
Populates, monitors, and tracks firm pipeline data.
Assists with monitoring action items and reports progress to business development managers and the director.
Utilizes firm CRM and other platforms to run queries and pull data on relationships and client interactions to help leverage connections and identify new business opportunities.
Attends attorney and lateral partner discovery and coaching conversations with senior business development staff to capture action items and assist with follow-up.
Helps in planning and executing the firm's internal BD training programs, including coordinating with the events team, professional development staff, and external presenters on logistics, scheduling, and any related materials and follow-up.
Proactively maintains and consistently updates various firm collateral pieces used for business development purposes.
Responsible for verifying that such information is kept current and is readily available for use in directory submissions and proposals.
Assists with input of experience matters into the experience manager database and onto the appropriate proposal and collateral pieces.
Coordinates the preparation and distribution of collateral materials for conferences, events, and individual timekeeper requests.
Works directly with attorneys to help them optimize use of LinkedIn and other social media platforms for business development.