Professional services firms buying digital or AI
For partners, marketing leads and finance directors in law firms, financial services firms and broker networks who have been told they need a new website, a transformation or an AI tool. The questions run in the order they usually come up, from whether you need anything at all to how to buy it without paying twice.
Working out whether there is a problem
-
Do we actually need a transformation, a new website or an AI tool?
- Nobody needs a digital transformationTransformation is a budget, not a plan. What organisations actually need is specific problems fixed in a sensible order, which is harder to sell.
- Your website is probably finePublishes 28 September 2026
- AI will not fix your process, it will speed it upPublishes 5 October 2026
- Process before technology: why 'which tool should we buy?' is the wrong first questionPublishes 24 September 2026
-
Is our website working, or are the numbers flattering us?
- The website metric that is quietly flattering your numbersHow a single mis-attributed referral can make a website look five times better than it is, and how to catch the same trick in your own analytics.
- What counts as a lead? Most law firm marketing reports can’t tell youWhy your agency report and Google Analytics disagree on lead numbers, and how to fix it. A working definition for marketing leads at mid size UK law firms.
- Your agency's monthly report is a sales documentThe people you pay should never be the only people measuring their own work. Why agency reports flatter, and the one change that fixes it.
- Five things that show up in nearly every law firm digital auditFive problems that show up in almost every law firm digital audit, with a quick self check for each. For marketing leads without audit budget.
-
What do our clients actually use the website for?
- The four things people actually do on a law firm websiteServices, sectors, lawyer bios, contact details. The four things clients actually use a law firm website for, in priority order.
- Why the insights section on your law firm website probably isn’t worth what you’re spending on itOne firm had 2,631 indexed insights pages driving one per cent of traffic. A close look at whether that investment pays for itself.
-
Who can we trust to advise us, when everyone selling has a reason to say yes?
- The consultant who tells you what not to buyMost digital advice quietly pushes you to spend. Here is the case for the opposite: an independent consultant whose job is telling you what not to buy.
- The hidden cost of vendor-led adviceThe advice you get is shaped by what the adviser sells. That is not dishonesty. It is structure, and it costs organisations more than any single bad decision.
- Why AI multiplies judgement rather than replacing itAI has removed the production constraint from a lot of work. It has not removed the constraint that mattered, which was knowing what was worth producing.
- Digital Skills; how far can outsourcing go?Outsourcing as strategy Companies increasingly outsource specialist services and logistics; Accounting, HR, Delivery, server hosting, advertising etc. The | 1968 Consulting
Weighing it up
-
How do we find out what is wrong before we spend?
- When your own staff call the website 'frustrating', listenThe research a firm skips before a website rebuild is the research that should decide it. What staff, branches and clients reveal that design never will.
- A review with no actions is an invoiceConsultancy's most reliable product is the report nobody acts on. What a review actually owes you, and how to tell paper from progress.
- How to challenge your agency without falling out with themA practical playbook for marketing leads whose agency report keeps showing green arrows. How to push back constructively without losing the relationship.
-
What should we ask before we buy a website or an AI tool?
- Buying a website: the five questions that save you from spending twicePublishes 29 September 2026
- The questions to ask before your firm buys legal AILegal AI is being pitched hard. A plain set of questions to separate the tools worth buying from the expensive noise, before your firm commits.
-
Should a traditional firm let clients do more online?
- Should a traditional firm move to online self-service? Deciding with evidencePublishes 6 October 2026
-
How do we write a brief an agency can price properly?
- Most law firm websites get rebuilt because nobody could write the briefProjects that overrun and disappoint usually share one thing. Nobody wrote the brief before briefing the agency. What to write instead.
- Why your CMS choice matters less than your agency choiceWordPress, Drupal, Sitecore, Umbraco. The platform debate matters less than most people think. The agency that builds on it matters more.
-
Why do technology projects fail, and how do we stop ours?
- Why technology projects fail before implementation startsMost failed technology projects were technically fine. The decision that sank them was made months before anyone wrote a line of code.
- 'The team will adapt' is how good technology failsPublishes 2 November 2026
- What happened when the consultant stopped helping…...and the agency didn't deliver the brief We took on a project the autumn of 2013 acting as web strategy consultants/web project managers for a business | 1968 Consulting
Deciding and buying
-
How do we run the agency selection?
- The RFP is the workMost marketing leads treat the RFP as a formality at the end of discovery. It is the document that proves you know what you actually want.
- How to read eleven RFP responses without losing your mindEleven agencies. Eight working days. The scoring matrix that lets you read every response with the same eye and end up with a defensible shortlist.
- A pitch day is for probing the gaps, not for repeating the briefThree agencies, forty five minutes each, eight hours. How to use pitch day to probe the gaps rather than hear the RFP read back to you.
- Give the unsuccessful agencies a feedback callHalf a day of structured feedback calls to the agencies that didn't win your RFP. Why it matters and how to do it well.
- Free pitching is the industry's worst habit, and clients pay for itPublishes 19 October 2026
-
Should we take the cheapest bid?
- The cheapest bid is the most expensive decision on the tablePublishes 21 September 2026
-
How do we contract and govern the project once it starts?
- Why your contract should have the RFP response stapled to itHow attaching the agency's RFP response to the contract stops scope arguments six months into the build. A few hours of work, years of value.
- How to run a law firm website project without wasting moneyA practical order for running a law firm website project: understand the site, brief it properly, then choose an agency. How to avoid an expensive mistake.
-
Do we need someone senior to own this?
- When a fractional digital leader is the right answerFractional leadership suits a narrow set of circumstances. Here are the signals that point to it, and the ones that point somewhere else.
The evidence
- How a mid size regional UK law firm grew online enquiries by 190% without rebuilding their website
- Eleven responses. Three on the pitch day. One agency appointed in eight weeks.
- A stockbroker whose own staff called its website "frustrating", handed a plan to catch up.
- 140 websites, an in-house team at capacity, and a plan to hand it all over cleanly.
Not sure where to start?
Most clients begin with a conversation. No pitch, no hard sell.
Just a straightforward discussion about where you are and whether I can help.
Book a free 30-minute call