Christian Kessel knows what he’s talking about because he himself has acquired clients every day as a partner. This legal street credibility is important to me. I was therefore happy to benefit from his experience and appreciate his pleasant, calm and persistent way of asking questions, listening and giving me new ideas. I am happy to recommend Christian Kessel to new partners and experienced partners alike.
Business development is a core skill for anyone active in the business of law, no matter on which level of seniority. It is fair to say that, nevertheless, many lawyers give little attention to systematically and strategically developing their business. Most of us live in the moment and react to opportunities under the real or perceived pressures of client work and looming deadlines. Christian breaks with many prejudices in this area and teaches easy steps and proven methods to improve one’s skills – from networking baby steps to developing a market leading practice. Having been involved in business and client development initiatives in a global law firm and now also from the perspective of a specialised boutique law firm, I highly recommend Christian as an advisor, coach and teacher in this area.
Christian conducted a transformative workshop for our new business consultancy company, focusing on empowering both individual and collective growth in Business Development. Through his expert guidance, our management team not only forged stronger bonds but also unearthed invaluable insights for the road ahead. Personally, witnessing my team members embrace the belief in their potential for success in business development, while staying true to their authentic selves, was a monumental achievement. As regards business development, our team transitioned from initial hesitancy to genuine enthusiasm, now eagerly embracing the challenges of relationship-building and actively approaching the market and its players with newfound vigour. Christian’s workshop catalysed a profound shift, leaving an indelible mark on our approach to growth and collaboration.
We know Christian Kessel from a business development seminar in December 2022, in which he gave us valuable advice both on how to better assess the business case and the business development experience of our candidates and on our own company’s further development and expansion. The seminar developed into a stimulating general discussion and was found to be very enriching by all participants; it was also a lot of fun.
We can warmly recommend every ambitious colleague to exchange ideas with Christian on the subject of Business Development.
We would then be happy to take over the sounding out of the law firm market with concrete options in order to jointly find the individually perfect setup for the partner track.
Christian understands how the legal communities work and the challenges we face in rising through the rank. His coaching sessions are of enormous help to me in opening up a new mindset to approach problems. His advice is practical, solid, and very effective.
I often indulged in a bad situation and concluded end of hope quickly, Christian pulled me out to focus on the solution.
I would vouch for his coaching wholeheartedly and highly recommend his coaching to lawyers at all levels.
Christian Kessel’s coaching on business development is a valuable way to benefit from his many years of experience in successfully developing business in different industries and markets. He supported me in validating and optimising my business ideas in order to strengthen competitive advantages. His coaching method is based on proven principles and tools.
BD coaching sessions with Dr. Christian Kessel are highly professional and also fun. Christian has a huge wealth of experience and a very remarkable knowledge of the German legal market.
Christian‘s business development coaching teaches skills in an area where advice is usually given in empty phrases. With his experience both in his own business development and in coaching others, Christian‘s coaching has added real value to my legal practice.
Having known Christian initially as his client and then later working with him day by day as his colleague, I have always been very impressed by Christian‘s strategic vision and clear focus on building his practice and involving me and the whole team actively in it. He was always very good at explaining why this initiative or that activity should be undertaken and I (and we as a team) learnt a lot about strategically and practically pursuing targets and winning new clients.
Christian has always been brilliant and very successful in identifying both clients‘ core needs and how to develop new service offerings for them. He has also been on top of likely future developments in the sectors he has been active in. I have always valued his advice and greatly benefited from it on how to successfully respond to such needs of clients as well as industry developments and how to successfully expand my own business as a partner of an international law firm.
Following my move from an in-house counsel position to joining an international law firm Christian has helped me greatly by regularly talking me through the issues of developing my own practice and leading me towards successfully building a business case for partnership. And as a young partner he has challenged me regularly with some very pertinent questions on how to further expand my business, build lasting client relationships and develop and grow my own team of associates.
I have been very lucky and am grateful for having Christian supporting me as my personal and strategic mentor.
