Let me start with the big news: this is the final post you’ll be receiving from me. I’ve been working with lawyers on business development for nearly 20 years, and it’s time for a new adventure. Next month, I’ll be moving to 40 acres just west of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and everything within me tells me […]
I’ve written over and over about the importance of knowing why you want to build your own book of business. Why gets to the root of your motivation. It will carry you through the difficult times when business development work seems like too much on top of your billable and other responsibilities. It will give you […]
Are you visible to your referral sources and potential clients? Are you credibly visible to them? We all know that in order to land business, you must be known to those who will send you work, either directly or indirectly. That much is obvious. And so in business development we talk about strategies to help […]
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for any time, you know I often urge you to review your business development plan and your BD progress. The reason is simple: it’s easy to focus on what’s right in front of you (whether that’s a success or a failure) and therefore easy to let other activities or […]
The quality of our relationships often has a significant effect on how satisfied we are with our lives, including our work lives. Relationships are critically important for business development and in day-to-day practice, since they can open the door not just to new business but also to a wide variety of professional opportunities and resources. […]
The tide of video viewership has been rising for years now, but it’s crested in 2023. Video ranks as the most popular type of online content, expected to amass nearly 83% of all web traffic this year. Many people find videos to be highly engaging and seek them out in preference to articles. When you […]
How often do you lift your attention from the day-to-day to check your Business Development progress toward your goals? I often see well-intended, focused lawyers who develop a solid BD plan in December and don’t revisit that plan until the next December. And I get it: balancing billable work, practice-focused nonbillable work, and other commitments […]
If you’ve read this newsletter for a while, you know that I’m a fan of looking outside the legal industry for good ideas. Hearing the same old, same old tends to numb us to the wisdom that’s there, but looking to other industries and figuring out how to apply their good ideas to your Business […]
I talk with a lot of attorneys about their business development successes, failures, hopes and pains, and I hear one comment perhaps more than any other: “I’m tired of feeling like the Lone Ranger when it comes to business development.” (Don’t worry: this is not a sales pitch where I neatly end with, “so hire […]
The term thought leadership has been a buzzword since the mid-1990s, when Joel Kurtzman first used it to describe people who “who had business ideas that merited attention.” It’s now a phrase that people use in their LinkedIn profiles (I wouldn’t recommend that) and something that many lawyers aim for as they work on growing […]