Have you ever had the wind knocked out of your business development sails? That can happen when you expect to land some new business and it doesn’t happen, when you hit a few closed doors in a row, or even when you lay out your business development plan and feel exhausted just looking at it. […]
What’s wrong with status quo? Maybe nothing. But here’s what you need to keep in mind when you’re considering whether to make a shift of some sort: Status quo doesn’t get attention. Status quo doesn’t delight anyone. Status quo doesn’t get talked about. Status quo doesn’t feel fresh or tailored. Status quo… just IS. In […]
Consider this short exchange: What have you decided to do to grow your practice? Are you actually doing it?
On one level, clients are looking for different things as they choose and work with attorneys. Some want a budget provider who will do the minimum necessary or collaborate closely with in-house counsel or business people for DIY completion. Others want to hire the most prominent, best known, most expensive lawyers to appease the Board […]
Last week, I had two strategic planning sessions with private clients. As usual, writing (articles, blog posts or comments, newsletters, client alerts, etc.) featured prominently in both of the business development plans we created. And also as usual, my clients each asked why they should bother writing, when so many other lawyers are already writing […]
Despite the best of intentions, it’s easy to let a relationship slide. You may not appreciate the value of maintaining professional relationships, or you may simply get too busy to keep up with an effective follow-up contact schedule and system. It’s all too easy to allow a relationship to atrophy. So… Can you resuscitate an […]
A friend recently ran her first marathon. She didn’t know how it would feel to run 26 miles, and she was concerned about giving up partway through if she started to feel too tired. She even used a marker to write on the inside of her arm, “Your mind will give up before your body. […]
Susan Cain launched a national conversation about introverts with her 2013 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, and that conversation continues three years later. Even the ABA Journal recently jumped into the introvert discussion with its January cover story Introverts in an Extrovert’s World: Most lawyers are introverted, […]
I do a lot of reading about business development, and I share reviews of some of the best books with you. For this week’s celebration of the 10th anniversary of Fleming Strategic, here’s a review of my all-time favorite business development book, which I first shared in 2010. But first… Did you grab your complimentary […]
We made it through the holiday season! But there’s one more to celebrate, and it’s pretty special to me. Fleming Strategic (originally known as Life at the Bar and then Lex Innova Consulting) is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this month! At the end of December 2005, I left my last full-time law firm position, and […]