At the mention of cross-selling partners everywhere nod enthusiastically but cannot hide their blushes.

More often than not, a firm's largest clients are also its most under-exploited in fee terms: the sort of client who likes the firm for its particular specialisation but never seems remotely interested in the other relevant services that it has to offer.The central paradox is that the clients with the greatest cross-selling potential are the very clients most likely to resist cross-selling initiatives.

Research consistently shows that clients buy legal services from individuals rather than firms and that they expect their solicitor to be a specialist in the matter in hand.

Clients with a range of legal needs and with money to spend increasingly expect to deal with a different solicitor in each distinct area of need.

They are likely to be wary of a personal injury lawyer, for example, who claims to have in-depth knowledge of pensions law as well.As far as such clients are concerned, there is usually no point in maintaining an exclusive relationship with a single firm.

A firm may offer a property service which is second to none, and yet be perceived as distinctly unimpressive in matters of taxation.

In the course of Competitive Marketing's independent research into UK companies' attitudes to solicitors, a senior buyer of legal services in a financial services company explained: 'I believe in going to the right person to solve a given problem.

I don't want to be told: RGo to our X department - they can handle that.S'Nor are clients' reasons for distributing their favours among several firms purely eclectic.

Clients who practise such a 'horses for courses' approach observe that it keeps firms 'on their toes' and helps to regulate prices.

There is no point in even trying to cross-sell a service, therefore, unless it is a match for the very best that competitors have to offer in terms of quality and value for money.Client loyalty presents a further obstacle to cross-selling.

Research shows that clients place a very high value on their relationships with trusted advisers.

As one manufacturing client puts it: 'It's important to get to know people.

Our business is difficult to understand.

You don't ditch someone once they get to know your business.'Cross-selling to an established client often means ousting a well entrenched competitor.

Most clients will not even contemplate changing advisers unless there is a fundamental breakdown in an existing relationship or they are convinced that the potential benefits of switching to the new adviser comfortably outweigh the risks.

Simply being as good as one's competitors is not good enough.

For a service to be effectively cross-sold, it must offer tangible competitive advantage in terms of quality of advice, quality of service and/or value for money.

And yet there is often little to distinguish one firm's service from others, as one office services client observes: ' When it comes to selling, they're all bad.

They're all selling the same thing.

Why don't they at least try to say that they're different?'Cross-selling is therefore a tall order even before we begin to consider the barriers within firms themselves.

The crux of the problem here is the infamous 'my client' syndrome.

Partners readily acknowledge the need for cross-selling, but they are noticeably less enthusiastic when it comes to doing it.

There is a widespread reticence to refer work even to one's most trusted partners for fear that their service, for all its excellence, might fall short of the 110% the client has come to expect.

Worse, the client might actually prefer dealing with another partner of the firm, which would not greatly benefit one's self-esteem, let alone one's career.For all the difficulties, though, cross-selling is not a dead duck.

There will always be clients who suddenly find the need for legal services they have not previously required, who will look first and foremost to the firm which has satisfied their legal needs in the past.

There will always be clients who are not fully satisfied with the advice they are receiving elsewhere, who will be susceptible to approaches from other firms which they already know and trust in another specialist capacity.

And finally, even the most sophisticated 'horses for courses' clients are frequently willing to try out additional solicitors in their never-ending quest for 'state-of-the-art' advice and service.Effective cross-selling, therefore, requires careful planning and a concerted effort by partners.

The ultimate goal is to have each major client of the firm develop relationships with a team of partners who support the lead client partner and who collectively represent the full range of relevant specialist services on offer.

As well as increasing the firm's potential for fees, the team approach has the further benefits of strengthening major clients' links with the firm, building succession in client relationships and providing the back-up and continuity which clients so often crave but do not always receive from their solicitors.Fundamental to cross-selling success is partners' willingness to invest non-billable time in planning the development of client relationships.

Client development teams need to spend many hours working together to identify opportunities for further business with the client and to devise an effective plan for exploiting the opportunities.

Nor is it possible to limit the exercise to one client at a time.

Partners cannot be expected to open up their principal client relationships to others unless they enjoy reciprocal access to others' relationships.

In short, there must be a number of client development teams working in parallel under the central direction of the firm's management committee or board.Experience shows that client development efforts often begin with a tremendous wave of enthusiasm, only to fizzle out with an embarrassing paucity of results.

At first, partners are thrilled by the challenge of identifying new opportunities for business with their own clients, or with clients who have hitherto been closed to them.

Documents emerge, charting the history of the client relationship, summarising the legal problems and opportunities facing the client and setting out the team to be fielded to the client.The client is invited to lunch to meet the team and to discuss issues of mutual interest.

The client responds positively but no business comes.

The client development plans gather dust on the shelf.

The client development teams disband a nd return to business as usual.A common cause of failure of client development planning is busy partners' tendency to rush headlong into the course of action they know best - the client lunch - without stopping to consider whether their action is even likely to be effective or what could be done to improve its effectiveness.

Every partner knows that 'hard selling' is likely to be counter-productive, so they do not do it.

But the 'soft sell' rarely works either.Many clients do not like their solicitors to sell to them at all, like the broadcasting company executive who says: 'A few [solicitors] try to sell to me.

I don't like it.

I'm old fashioned.

I can get what I want and I know where to go.' You will need to do a lot more than create a favourable impression if you are to persuade a client to instruct you, an unknown quantity, rather than stay with a tried and trusted competitor whose advice has stood the test of time.

The lunch may be a useful step on the way to adding a second string to the client relationship, but it is no more than a step.Proper client development planning requires a more scientific approach.

Partners must identify not only the opportunities for further business with the client but also the barriers to gaining that business, and how those barriers may be overcome.

The client development plans must include consideration not only of the client's existing solicitors for each of the services the firm wishes to provide but also a detailed evaluation of the firm's services against those of competitors and a frank analysis of the steps the firm must take if it is to beat the competition.Winning the business may require anything from a new legal angle which other firms have overlooked, to an innovative approach which offers greater cost-effectiveness without compromising quality, or demonstrably better service, such as faster turnaround or improved matter management.

Advantages like these do not come easily, of course, but they may prove well worth the investment of time, particularly if the same formula can be made to work with a range of existing and potential clients.

Indeed, any firm which is not willing to invest the time to develop competitive advantage or even to admit that there is such a thing as competitive advantage in legal services, should not be particularly surprised to find its business slowly dwindling away in an increasingly competitive market place.Only when the partnership has successfully defined and put in place a clear competitive advantage worthy of the client's attention can the work of cross-selling begin in earnest.

The question now is how to persuade the client that your service really is superior, and indeed sufficiently superior to justify trying it out.

The lunch may be the thing, but only as long as there is no danger of it being seen as a blatant bid for the business.

How much better if the recommendation to use your service comes from your clients rather than yourself.

For example, a social gathering in which satisfied clients of all parts of the firm have a chance to talk to one another about you may be infinitely more productive than a lifetime of self-promotion.Nor should you be disappointed if the first instruction is small, or does not enable you to show off the full range of your capabilities.

Never forget that you are only as good as the last job.

If you give the impression that the tentative first instruction is infra dig, you can be certain that there will not be a second instruction.

Pull out all the stops, and do your utmost to show the client that you really are the best in the business, and the real work will follow in time.