I hadn’t taken the time to pull back from the work I’ve been doing to check on how effectively I was navigating toward my goals in the last few months. Life has been very busy, both professionally and personally. I’d put my head down, my nose to the grindstone, and I focused on the client […]
Several potential client consultations over the last few weeks have put me in mind of the old story about the tortoise and the hare. We all know the lesson, that slow and steady wins the race, and the same is true in business development – though consistent is a more accurate word here than slow. […]
You’ve no doubt heard the advice to track “low-hanging fruit” as a part of your business development efforts. That fruit is easy to identify if you have a hot prospect, someone who has a current unmet need that you can fill, who already knows you, and with whom you’ve already had a conversation about how […]
I didn’t think I’d be the type to scream if I ever saw a mouse in my kitchen. Turns out I was wrong. You see, I lived in an old house (built in the late 20s) and we had mice coming in for a few months. One time, I was standing in my kitchen and […]
Pop quiz: Who are your best referral sources? List the top 10 right now. If you are a more junior lawyer in a law firm and don’t yet have your own clients, list the senior lawyers for whom you do the most work. How easy did you find it to make this list? This information […]
Life has a way of throwing curve-balls. Sometimes they come in the form of emergencies that demand attention, sometimes they’re staff departures (planned or otherwise), and sometimes they’re opportunities that you just can’t pass up, even though jumping in will eat every bit of time and energy you have. Curve-ball or baseball photo here, please […]
A potential client called to discuss how I might help her with her business development activities, and I asked what she’d tried. As I often discover in those conversations, she’d tried a number of approaches, all to no avail. On her list: writing articles, teaching seminars, advertising, attending networking events, posting her profile on various […]
What greeting do your clients receive when they contact your office? Do clients feel that they’re welcome? Or are they ever left with the impression that they’re interrupting something more important? How your staff handles client contact (or how you handle it, if your practice doesn’t include staff members) will have a significant, though probably […]
When a law firm hires me to work with a junior associate, very often one part of the engagement centers on the associate’s leadership presence and self-confidence – how he or she presents to others. (Of course, that focus is not by any means unique to junior associates.) Although reviewers may use a variety of […]
What happens to your business development activity when you get busy? If you’re like many others, you may find that it slips. I’ve had more than a handful of clients who hire me to ramp up their rainmaking, and they succeed – right to the point that they’re so busy they pause and start backsliding. […]