Principal, KHS People
Executive Search for Legal Marketing
Chicago, IL
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KHS People is an executive search firm founded by Kate Harry Shipham in 2017. She works all over the US and is based in the city of Chicago. Her niche business is placing senior level business development and marketing people into professional services firms, with a specialization in law firms (Kate is a former attorney). Kate cares about giving back to the community and has partnered with Grateful for several giving purposes. She has been a client with Grateful since Spring 2022.
KHS People were seeking to align their business goals with a professional software solution for their client gifting. As a former lawyer in Australia, Kate is very tuned into KHS People’s clients from a personal and specialized perspective. By listening to others in her field (mostly law firms), she noticed they were leaning into social responsibility, or ways they can give back, with gifts to their own clients. Keeping her own business goals in step with client goals, she looked for solutions to meet this challenge their clients faced as well.
“I’ve learned a lot about working with lawyers over the years, and one thing in particular is that if you are doing the same sorts of things that they are doing for their own clients, you show you are listening and reciprocating. Details like that really resonate, and shows you know who your client is and what matters to them.”
KHS People work in a very niche component within the legal industry, so are constantly innovating, improving, and positioning themselves as leaders. Kate saw Grateful's mission aligned readily with theirs.
"When I looked at Grateful, I saw an opportunity to use a progressive, innovative tool that allowed me to do something with my clients that no one else was doing. There's really not too many people who do what I do, and I'm the only one who really does this very small slice, so I market myself as a thought leader, innovator, and as a thoughtful professional, just like how my clients have to market themselves. That's exactly the approach I felt when Grateful came to me. There's a professionalism and thoughtfulness that I try to practice in my own business, as well as being flexible and willing to come up with new solutions and applications that are needed."
Additionally, giving back was already personally important to Kate, however like most in the legal field, time is not on her side. Juggling a full-time career, being a mother, and serving as a board member with the Legal Marketing Association, Kate wanted a way she could give back given her time constraints that was easy and 100% customizable. About a year ago, at the same time Kate was looking at ways to gift something to her clients and candidates, she received a note from Grateful's outreach team that answered her question of, "how do I say thank you for working with me, thank you for your business?"
“I was trying to think outside the box. Sending flowers or wine is nice, but standard. It also didn’t feel to me as though I was capturing the significance of the work we were doing together. I take a lot of pride in the amount of dollars that has gone towards it, and how it goes towards causes where money and support are really needed.”
Today, Kate uses Grateful for many different reasons and applications, including sending gift cards to:
Kate notes that within many law firms there is a lot of innovation and growth.
“I saw Grateful as an innovative and fast-growing company that’s addressing something that means so much more to clients because it shows them that you get who they are. This personal touch and intentionality is critical right now in this industry and with these people. Grateful matches all of that”
"Overall, I rate Grateful really highly - it quickly and easily does what I want it to do. I enjoy that I can put the dollars in a report that shows how much was spent and with which organizations. Grateful also worked with me to add two charities here in Chicago that were important to me, and I gift to these charities as much as I am able."
Part of the KHS People brand is the attention to detail and the thoughtfulness of always giving back to those within their network. Kate notes she’s had a lot of good feedback from just about everyone who’s received a gift card, saying, “This is really cool” or “Hey, thank you for that, this is different and I love it!” Kate notes that Grateful quickly and easily does what she wants it to do. She customizes everything in terms of software and branding– and the Grateful team made it easy to customize her colors, logo, and more significant yearly gifts to simply say thank you for your business to certain clients. She says it feel highly personalized and therefore in alignment with the KHS People brand.
“I take a lot of pride out of looking at where the money’s gone and how that is being used. I also love sending a quick little gift through to people who surprise me. Adding kindness into this world should happen wherever we can make it!”
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