Archive for year: 2016

You probably have a list of tasks you must accomplish before the end of the year. Wrapping up some billable work, making a few final holiday get-togethers, perhaps a few last-ditch but gentle calls to encourage clients to pay their invoices before year’s end.

Adding these two year-end tasks will significantly benefit you as you start the new year: 

• Revise your biographical sketch to reflect this year’s accomplishments, and
• Do a simple review of your 2016 business development activities to guide next year’s efforts.

Your biographical sketch is almost certainly the most-viewed page on your website. Updating it isn’t busywork: it’s a way of letting people know that you continue to improve your professional reach and achievements. An out-of-date bio sketch suggests and out-of-date practice. Review this post I wrote in 2009 and Chapter 4 of the The Reluctant Rainmaker to walk through the steps to ensure that your sketch does what it needs to.

End-of-year planning can take many forms. Here are a few questions to consider:

• What was your objective and top priority this year? You must start with this question, because results are meaningful only in the context of your objectives. For example, my goal this year was business maintenance and writing while caring for a family member who is in home hospice. Achieving maintenance would feel completely different had my objective been to grow the business.
• What worked? What got you closer to your objectives? What required the least effort while bringing good results?
• What didn’t work? Which activities either didn’t bring you the desired results or required effort that’s out of measure with the results attained?
• What’s your objective for this year? I like to boil my objective down to a single word that can act as a litmus test when I’m deciding what to do. As noted, my 2016 word was maintain. It kept me from drawing back too far or pushing forward too strongly. I haven’t yet committed to a word for 2017, but candidates include growth (growth in my business and professional growth), reach (growing my platform), and communicate (building stronger professional relationships and also writing and speaking more).
• What will you continue, stop, and start doing to meet your objective? Your 2016 analysis will give you the first two answers, then you can brainstorm your new routes to 2017’s objectives.

The key to planning well is to make it a means to an end. In other words, what comes from your planning should be a document that you will refer to and tweak throughout the year, not a “one and done” effort.

Set aside some time to complete these two tasks now so you can enter 2017 with a clean slate and a clear direction. And then, enjoy your holidays!

How do you ask for business?  We all know intuitively (or through training) that those who don’t ask typically don’t get business. However, many lawyers are leery to come out and ask for business explicitly, and rightly so.  Asking can disrupt a relationship if the answer is “no,” and, under some circumstances, asking can even be an ethical violation. Even when those concerns are not in play, some lawyers may feel pushy if they ask for business. And yet, the inner voice cautions, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

When working with clients, I offer many approaches to the “challenge of the ask.”  A few examples are:

• Listen to your gut.  Very often, if you’re sensing that an explicit request for the business may be too pointed, you’re correct. A more gentle approach (“I’d love to help you with that,” for example) may blunt the approach and yet get the message across.
• Notice how often your gut tells you not to ask. The flip side of the previous suggestion is that it can offer carte blanche to those who are disinclined to ask for business. If you always feel that asking would be too pushy, it’s time to do some work on your comfort level. What conditions would have to exist for you to feel comfortable in asking for business?
• Look for the win / win.  Lawyers often use somewhat violent language for business development: “eat what you kill” compensation systems, “killer instinct” in pursuing new work, and “bagging a client,” for instance.  Using that language casts the lawyer as the hunter and the potential client as the victim or the target. Fortunately, few lawyers actually regard their potential clients in that way. The fear of being perceived as a ruthless hunter, however, may prompt a lawyer to hold back in conversation. Sometimes, it even prompts lawyers to ask for business in a way that implies that potential clients would be doing the lawyer a great favor when the truth is that a good representation offers benefits for both parties. Look for that benefit and focus on it, and then weave it into your request.
• Listen to the concerns and offer some feedback, leading naturally into an offer of further help. If you take this approach, be sure that you don’t stray into giving legal advice without sufficient knowledge of the facts. You can suggest potential avenues or approaches for consideration, though, and offer to help if your contact would like to explore them.

As these approaches suggest, asking for business requires both the right mindset and the right words or technique. Think about your current “low hanging fruit,” or the potential clients most likely to retain you right now.  What approach would be most helpful for them, and what approach will open the possibility of working with you most effectively, without running a danger of damaging your relationship?

If you’re uncomfortable asking for business, you’re not alone. The Reluctant Rainmaker:  A Guide for Lawyers Who Hate Selling includes a full chapter on whether, how, and when to ask for business, with an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide to developing the skills that will support your business development efforts. (Click here for a free sample of Chapter One.)  If you’d like to move even faster with your rainmaking activity, please contact me to arrange a consultation.

If you’re in the US, chances are that you’re either out of the office today or working hard to clear your desk so you can leave the office to celebrate Thanksgiving. So, I’ll be brief. Thank you for the opportunity to share ideas and information with you each week. Our in-boxes are all jammed these days, and I never take it for granted that you’ve allowed me entry into yours. 

Do you have questions or topics you would like me to cover in future issues of this newsletter? Just leave a comment on this post. Your responses go directly to me and I personally read each and every one.

In case you have business development on your mind this week (as I’d imagine many of you do, whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving this week or not), here are a few good articles I found and recommend for your review:

• 10 Commandments for Better Networking I tend to be wary of articles that promise 10 easy steps to anything, but this one has 10 simple reminders for good networking. You probably won’t find anything earthshaking here, but at the article functions as a good pre-networking checklist. (Holiday parties, anyone?)
• Linkedin Engagement on the Rise for Lawyers LinkedIn has long been a “must do” for lawyers, and as Kevin O’Keefe argues, the imperative just gets stronger. While supporting his case for increased engagement, O’Keefe offers some good suggestions for initiating engagement. LinkedIn is not a silver bullet, but especially if you take steps to move online relationships offline, you’ll find that it can be quite helpful. (Just please, please don’t make this mistake when you send a request to connect with someone new.)
• Knock Down Theory Although this post discusses how to “prove we belong at the adult table,” its brief points are quite applicable to how we show up in a business development conversation. Arrogance is unattractive; contribution is appealing.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate, and to those of you elsewhere in the world, happy Thursday!

One of the best things about business development is also one of the worst: you have multiple strategies and tactics at your disposal to grow your practice. Sure, you can boil down all business development to just a few actions: get known for work in your area of practice, meet people who need your help or who know others who do, and communicate and, when and where and how appropriate, ask for business. But how do you get known? Who needs your help, and who is in a position to refer others who do? And how do you get into the kind of conversation that might actually lead to business?

If you answer each of these how questions, you will likely find that you have numerous potential routes to follow. For example, if you do family law, you might market directly to the clients who might hire you by speaking at community gatherings, writing a column in a local blog or newspaper, having a recurring segment on the radio or a podcast, etc. Or you might market to family therapists by sponsoring and speaking at their conferences, by attending events that they attend and building relationships through networking, or by offering useful information that therapists might pass on to their clients. And the list goes on and on and on. You will almost always be able to identify several groups of people who could hire you or refer business to you plus plentiful avenues to reach those groups.

How do you choose what to pursue and what to put on the “maybe later” list? If you have data about what has worked well for you in the past, that’s likely the best guidance. (If you own The Reluctant Rainmaker, check Chapter 5 for a method of collecting that data.) But if you don’t have that data, it’s a tougher decision.

Many lawyers, natural overachievers that we tend to be, try to pursue all or most of those options and end up diluting efforts with equally diluted results. And that tends to feed into the “I’m just not cut out to be a rainmaker” fear or the “I am too busy to do this stuff” resistance, both of which tend to lead to a drop-off in effort and a corresponding drop-off in results.

Instead, look critically at your options and ask these questions:

• Where are your most natural opportunities? If you’re deciding whether to pursue clients in the aerospace or medical device industries, which most naturally matches your background? Which industry is easier to get into as an outsider? Where do you already have more contacts?
  
• What offers the greatest continuity? As a general principle, if you’ve been successful in one area, you’d be wise to expand into related or similar areas rather than to do something completely different.
  
• What sounds the most appealing to you? If you’d rather poke out your eyeballs than talk with accountants or if you don’t have the time or interest to follow up with people you meet in connection with a speaking opportunity, those are not your best bets. Choose something that interests you, that you’re willing to pursue. You don’t have to love it, but you have to be open.
  
• Where is your competition? Years ago, I looked into joining a biotech-related industry group that offered an associate membership for those outside the industry. As I read through the list of representative members, it was like a directory of firms that competed directly with mine. That isn’t an absolute “no,” but it prompted me to check out other opportunities and to find one with less direct competition.
  
• What offers the greatest likelihood of moving into a network that might lead to other opportunities? At the bottom, people are your greatest resource for new business. Look for routes that will allow you to develop a network of people who might hire you or refer business to you, who might introduce you to other opportunities and other groups, and who might function as your champion in some way. The easier that development, the more likely you’ll succeed in the process.

While you’ll want to consider other questions, these five will help you to narrow down the available opportunities. Once you’ve sorted through them in this way, choose one or two and focus on those for a period of six months, then evaluate your results. Sticking to a limited focus for a period gives you the best opportunity to concentrate your efforts and give it your best shot. If you see signs that you’re going down a path that will not be profitable, you can always draw back, but don’t get pulled into wondering if the other strategy you thought of would be even better until you’ve given the one you’re focusing on a fair trial. After six months (or less if you see signs of disaster), evaluate your results and decide how to shift your approach.