Archive for category: Business Development

When you think about business development, do you think more of “yes” or “no”?  Most people seem to think “yes.”

• YES, I’ll attend that networking meeting
• YES, I’ll write that article or blog post or newsletter
• YES, I’ll meet with that potential referral source
• YES, I’ll get another certification or specialists’ certificate
• YES, I’ll speak at that seminar
• YES, I’ll serve on that board
• YES, I’m on Twitter… And Facebook… And LinkedIn… And App.net… And Pinterest… And Google+… And YouTube… And….
• YES, I can take a call at 9 PM
• YES, I’d love to meet for breakfast

And so on, until there’s a shift to… Yes, I’m spread too thin.  Yes, I’m feeling stressed.  Yes, things are slipping through the cracks.  YES, I’m burned out. 

“Yes” is undoubtedly a crucial word for business development.  Saying yes to strategic, carefully selected activities creates more opportunities that open the door for results.

But time and energy are finite.  That means you need to choose wisely how and where to spend your time and energy.

Every “yes” is in effect a “no” to one or more other opportunities.  You can’t be in two places at one time, you can’t invest your business development hours on all the activities you might like if you’d also like to have time available for your clients, your professional activities, and your personal life.

Rather than saying “yes” to everything that seems like it might possibly be a good opportunity, pause and critically evaluate the openings that come your way.  Ask yourself these questions:

• What’s the cost of doing this?  Consider time, money, and political or relationship costs.
• Does this opportunity move me closer to what I want to accomplish?  A strategic lunch will move you toward your goals.  A “random act of lunch” will feed nothing but your stomach.
• What’s the potential upside?  What might you get from doing this activity?  Getting business is a significant upside, of course, but don’t overlook other potential such as developing relationships, creating exposure for yourself and your practice, or learning something that will support your practice.  Launching a blog can help you to get business.  It may also lead to referrals, collegial conversations, other writing opportunities, speaking engagements, enhanced insight into issues in your practice area, and even friendship.
• How valuable is the potential upside?  In the blogging example above, the potential includes not just new business but also increased substantive knowledge, new and enhanced relationships, and a higher professional profile.  That’s rather valuable.
• What’s the likelihood of realizing that upside?  You may not be able to answer this in detail, especially if the activity you’re considering is new to you, but you should have some qualitative sense of the likelihood of success. If you take up blogging, your deeper knowledge of the subject area is entirely within your control; put in the time, you’ll develop the knowledge.  That means acquiring more substantive expertise has a high likelihood of realization if you’re committed to blogging.  Landing a speaking gig is less certain, simply because it will take time for you to meet the right people through your blog, to develop the requisite perceived expertise, and for the speaking opportunity to exist before you’ll be offered the chance to speak.
• What must you say no to, if you say yes to this opportunity?  You might give up other business development opportunities, billable time, or sleep.  You might have to give up cash.  This is another way of looking at the cost, but it puts the issue into sharp focus.  If you decide to commit two hours a week to blogging, you will be unable to spend that time in face-to-face meetings.  That may be a deal breaker or no big deal – but you’ll know only if you ask the question.

It’s easy to see positive potential and to overlook the costs.  Doing so may keep you from making strategic choices, however.  Especially if you’re newer to business development, take the time to evaluate before you accept an opportunity.  By necessity, you’ll always give up something.  They key is to make sure you’re saying yes to the right opportunities, no just every one that comes your way.

Sometimes, you’ve gotta say NO so your practice can grow.

A business seminar, I attended recently, focused on hiring and managing employees. I was surprised that the program started by asking us attendees to identify our business vision and what we stand for. I was even more surprised to find how difficult that was to do!

You may have heard the distinction between working in your business as opposed to working on your business, popularized by Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth. The former is what you do to earn money, and the latter is what you do to design and build your business.

Marketing lives and thrives, however, when you’re working on your business. That’s when you come up with a new way to talk about what you do and identify an under-served client sector that needs your services. That’s when you come up with a great idea for an article, you write that article, and you consider who might help you land a speaking opportunity to develop further and share what you wrote in the article.

So, here’s today’s question: how much time are you spending on your practice? And is the time you’re spending effective?

Effectiveness is driven by not just the degree to which you’re able to raise your professional profile and the business you bring in, but also by the number of smart ideas you have and implement. As Seth Godin writes, “Pretty good ideas are easy. The guts and persistence and talent to create, ship and stick it out are what’s hard.”

Take some time today to work on your business. If you don’t know where to start, start with asking what is your vision for your practice. Consider your practice area, your sub-niche within that area, the clients with whom you work, how you serve those clients, and your practice setting, for starters.

One of the top concerns for most lawyers is time management.  We all have so much to accomplish in so little time, and it often seems that we’re always trying to cram more activities (whether professional or personal) into the non-negotiable 168 hours we have each week.  Most of my coaching clients bring time management issues to the table at some point, and time pressures are largely responsible for the high levels of stress that many lawyers face.

One distinction, “urgent” versus “important,” can form the basis for effective time management.  Urgent vs. important is a simple distinction that applies equally to the substance of a lawyer’s work as well as to practice or career management.  Stephen Covey has written about time use and devised a four-quadrant chart to help us judge where we spend most of our time:

QUADRANT I
Urgent and Important:  Crises, problems, deadline-driven projects.  Preparing for a client meeting that will occur in a few hours is a Quadrant I activity.  Hallmarks of Quadrant I activity include intense focus, high stress, and limited opportunity for review and reflection.

QUADRANT II
Not Urgent, but Important:  Preparation, problem prevention, planning, relationship building, values clarification, true recreation (”re-creation”).  Preparing for a client meeting that will occur in several days is a Quadrant II activity.  When you’re operating in Quadrant II, you’ll likely be focused (because your task is important) but you’ll feel less pressure and you’ll have more opportunity to consider all aspects of what you’re doing simply because you’re not staring down the barrel of a deadline.

QUADRANT III
Urgent, but Not Important: Interruptions, some phone calls, some meetings, some email.   When you’re forced to deal with something that’s not especially important at a certain time, you’re in Quadrant III.

QUANDRANT IV
Not Urgent, Not Important: Junk mail, spam, busywork, trivia, “escape” activities, mindless web surfing, etc.  We all spend time in Quadrant IV, but spending time on those activities produces little or no meaningful results because the activities by definition are not meaningful.

Where do you spend most of your time?  While it’s undeniable that Quadrant I requires attention and Quadrant III calls for attention (though the call may be illusory), Quadrant II is the critical zone.  That’s where the real work occurs that truly moves us forward.

Clients appreciate lawyers who work in Quadrant II.  All too often, lawyers send important documents to their clients and request a fast response.  That’s disrespectful of the client’s time.  It creates the impression that the lawyer simply couldn’t get his or her act together in time to plan in advance and complete the work early enough to allow the client time for meaningful review.  Clients appreciate lawyers who handle matters during an emergency, but they tend to resent those who act as if every event is an emergency.  Living in Quadrant II will increase the quality of your client service.

I worked with a client I’ll call Sheri, who was having a great deal of trouble getting everything done that she needed to in the office.  She found herself staying at the office later and later, then going in earlier and earlier, and before long she was exhausted and angry that her personal life had disappeared.  We started with the urgent/important distinction and looked at the kinds of tasks on her “to do” list through that lens.

After our first conversation, Sheri cut Quadrant IV activities completely and worked to get better at identifying Quadrant III activities so she could eliminate as many of those as possible.  And then she looked at the Quadrant I tasks she’d listed to see whether any could be delegated or otherwise handled.  And then our focus shifted to Quadrant II.

Sheri developed a schedule that guaranteed her planning and strategizing time (pure Quadrant II activities) and found that by spending time on those tasks, she was able to prevent problems and facilitate the orderly accomplishment of important aims.  Her stress level decreased, as did the number of hours she had to spend putting out fires.  Most importantly, when she did have to put out a fire, it was a real emergency, not a self-created one.

Your assignment for the week: look at how you spend your time.  Review this week’s task list and mark every item according to its quadrant.  If they’re all Quadrant I, you have plenty of room for improvement.  And then, take a moment at the end of each day to look back at how you actually spent the day.  Did you spent 30 minutes looking for a file or other document?  Did you spend so much time sending “one quick email” that you didn’t even get to your top five tasks for the day?

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!

Failure is often a difficult topic for high performers. After all, those who achieve much do so by making it a habit to avoid failure.  More than a few times, when I’ve talked with my own coach, the conversation has ended up with me saying, “Well, that’s fine, but failure just isn’t an option for me.  I don’t do that.” How ridiculous – and also, perhaps, how familiar.

I’ve failed plenty of times. When it comes to business, my goal is to fail quickly if I’m going to fail.  When a task is important, failure often leads to a better-informed next attempt, which usually leads (directly or not) to success.  So, when failure is inevitable, fast failure is the way to go.

And yet, failure is still unpalatable to me.  Is it to you, as well?

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a client and out popped what I believe to be a truism: You cannot succeed unless you’re willing to fail.  This was reinforced in a story I read recently about a ne’er-do-well door-to-door salesman.  He’d march up to someone’s doorstep, extend his finger to press the doorbell, and then pull back, muttering, “She won’t buy anything.”  And he’d turn around, guaranteeing his failure on that potential sale.  No wonder he was a ne’er-do-well.

Now, most of us don’t do door-to-door sales, but the principle is just the same. You must take a risk to have any chance of success.  Whether it’s reaching out to a potential client, asking a current client how they think things are going, or stepping onto a stage (literal or figurative) to make a presentation to some of your ideal clients, if you don’t risk, you don’t get.

Where is your aversion to risk causing you to stop? After I talked with my client, I challenged myself to write down all of the things I’m holding back on doing because I realistically think I might fail, and then to come up with a way to mitigate that risk.  I quickly produced a fresh to-do list.  Even though I might fail, I also may succeed on my first shot with those items, thanks to this five-minute exercise.

Today, I invite you to do this quick exercise yourself, specifically in the realm of business development: 

1. What are you avoiding for fear of failure? List three to five items, both general (attending a networking luncheon) and specific (calling the promising contact you met last week who promised to call you but didn’t).
2. What are the consequences if you do fail? Consider the financial, professional, reputational, and emotional risks.  Don’t overstate them; despite your first response, chances are good that you won’t actually die.  However, if a misstep could constitute professional suicide (with an ethics violation, for example), you need to get absolute clarity before you move forward.
3. How might your mitigate the risks? Consider steps such as running a limited test, having a conversation to try out your idea on clients and/or former clients, or launching your idea in phases.  If you’re not sure what to do, seek help from a mentor or consultant.
4. Choose one or two actions to take, with the modifications you made in step three. 

I don’t encourage failure. However, as hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  Take some calculated risks. If you fail (as sometimes you will), make it your practice to just back into action quickly, with a better appreciation of what you might do differently so that each attempt increases your chances of success.

Clients often tell me that they socialize with friends and acquaintances who would make wonderful clients and/or referral sources.  And yet, no one wants to be that awful person who’s always shilling for business from social contacts, missing the “leave me alone” vibes.

But what a waste to nod along with a zipped lip when you might be able to benefit your contact and yourself by bringing business into the conversation.  We’ve all had the experience of wishing we could turn up some help with a thorny issue, and if you can offer the help, shouldn’t you?

The truth is that it’s easier to stay silent and avoid any chance of giving offense.  But what if you could briefly share what you do and suggest that you might be able to help, then turn back to pure socializing?

Mastering that art will benefit you, in getting a new opportunity, and benefit your contact, in finding a useful resource.  So, how can you talk business at a social gathering without risk?

1. Discover the opportunity.  When you hear something that makes you think you might be able to help, listen for whatever your contact is sharing.
2. Share your observation.  Whether you’re talking to your best friend or a complete stranger, there’s a good chance that she doesn’t know or hasn’t realized that what she’s discussing has any overlap with your practice.Your comment can be as quick as, “You know, I handle issues like that for my clients all the time.”  Or in a referral-related setting, perhaps you’d say, “It sounds like there’s some overlap in the kinds of clients we serve (or issues we address).”
3. Watch the reaction.  You may get an unmistakable “tell me more” signal that invites you to proceed with business conversation right then.  Or you might get a polite, “Oh, is that so.”
4. Offer to meet at anther time to talk about your shared interests.  Even if the person with whom you’re talking wants to go into a deeper business conversation on the spot, I suggest that you make an appointment to meet at a later time for that conversation.By doing so, you’ll separate business from social conversation, avoid having someone overhear a private conversation, and eliminate the risk of offering free, off-the-cuff advice.  Even if you agree to step outside the party or to move to your host’s home office, be sure to create a physical separation.

   A simple invitation is sufficient, such as “This isn’t really the time or place, but I’d love to talk with you and see if I might be able to help with that.”   You’ll gauge your next steps (exchanging cards, setting an appointment to talk again, or moving to another location) based on your contact’s response. 

5. Approach the business conversation as an extension of a social relationship.  Even though you’ve moved to separate the business context from the social, your conversation will likely retain some familiarity.   At the same time, your business relationship must exist apart from a social relationship, and it’s likely up to you to set the appropriate professional boundaries.

As you move into summer socializing (whether that’s now or in six months from now), look for opportunities to spring from pure social contacts into business, and look with a light touch.  When done deftly, you’ll find that all of your relationships benefit as a result.