Enthusiasm matters in rainmaking and in client service

How enthusiastic are you about building your practice? Not how motivated, how determined, or how skilled, but how enthusiastic? 

Enthusiasm has a bad reputation in our society and in professional circles specifically. It’s often knocked as naive or overly eager. But the truth is, we enjoy enthusiasm. Don’t you want to work with and for people who are lit up about what they’re doing? 

Your clients want to work with someone who’s enthusiastic about working with them. Whether you’re representing individuals or the largest corporations in the world, your clients want to know that you’re invested and even proactive… In other words, that you aren’t just dialing it in.

When I was in law school, I had a professor who was so enthusiastic about tax law that he infected all of his students. We did the reading and showed up to class engaged and looking forward to his lecture and our discussions. About tax. (The now-me shudders just a little at the thought, but I was drawn in like everyone else at the time.) In contrast, I had a few professors who were smart and knowledgeable, but their lack of enthusiasm left me feeling eh about their classes. And I suspect that was ok with them. 

Enthusiasm engages audiences and motivates action. 

And that carries through to rainmaking. Sure, it’s easy to create a “paint by numbers” business development plan that you execute without any particular sense of relish. But when you find a way to get fired up — whether it’s because you are passionately interested in your work or your clients — that’s when you become invested and when things can shift on a dime. 

So, how enthusiastic are you? It isn’t an idle question. Read the featured quotes below as you give this some thought. 

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, which takes the imagination by storm; and, second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.
~Arnold J. Toynbee 

[One] can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.
~Charles Schwab 

For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough.
~Zig Ziglar