Posts

What’s your agenda?

/0 Comments/in /by

One of my favorite questions is, “What’s your agenda?” I’ve noticed, however, that we tend not to ask that question of ourselves often enough.

Setting an agenda is a classic time management strategy. If you’re looking to make meetings shorter and more productive, circulate an agenda in advance and expect everyone to come prepared. If you want to make your day more productive, set your own agenda. Of course, other issues may arise in the course of the meeting or the day, but if you set your agenda first, you’ll at least know what you intended to accomplish and you won’t lose track of necessary tasks.

Knowing your agenda is critical for networking. Meeting new people requires you to have a sorting agenda in place: do you want to meet lawyers, bankers, or parents? Are you interested in officers in closely-held businesses, or would you prefer to meet officers in public corporations? Knowing who you want to meet will help you to identify the best groups to investigate and to target the right people for follow-up, which is where the networking magic happens, if at all.

Having an agenda is the difference between effective follow-up meetings and purposeless coffee dates that accomplish nothing. If you have some idea of what you’d like to discuss during a follow-up meeting, you’ll be able to tailor your conversation to be sure that you ask the right questions or offer the right information. It’s easy to wing it for follow-up meetings, but taking a few minutes to think about what you want from the meeting will make you much more effective.

Finally, when you’re talking with someone with whom you’re considering joining forces (for marketing or to form a new practice, for example) ask them directly (or ask yourself) what their agenda is.  Poorly phrased, the question is a bit confrontational, but the more you know or intuit about someone else’s objectives, the better your decisions will be.

Take a few minutes to answer these questions (or others that fit your circumstances):

  • What’s your agenda for today?
  • What’s your agenda for your practice?
  • What’s your client’s agenda?

Share your best ideas with your best clients.

/0 Comments/in /by

When do you share your best ideas? BTI Consulting, a group known for its deep research in client satisfaction and preferences, reports that:

“[j]ust over 2/3 of clients tell us the best new ideas they see coming from law firms happen during an RFP process. Somewhere among the sea of bland boilerplate submissions lies one scintillating idea, suggestion or nugget. One firm invested the time and energy to simply blow their potential client away.”

Being the firm that came up with an amazing nugget is great, but as the BTI article continues, “why wait until an RFP to strut your stuff?” RFPs may be a necessary part of business, but preserving—and perhaps expanding—client relationships is critical to a prosperous practice.  (The article is directed to large firms, but the principles adhere to small firms as well.)

Read the article for a suggestion on how you can do better by proactively sharing your best ideas with your best clients. In the meantime, ask yourself…

  • How often do you offer the “scintillating idea, suggestion or nugget” in an RFP? How can you increase the frequency?
  • How often do you proactively bring an idea, an insight, or an approach to your clients? The BTI article focuses on corporate counsel, but regardless of your practice area, you must spend time thinking about what will make things better for your clients. For example, a litigator might recognize a trend in litigation and offer that to clients to help them avoid unnecessary suits.
  • If you tend not to have repeat business from core clients, identify your ideal client profile and ask what would blow that kind of client away. In other words, is there a new process or resource that would be incredibly helpful?
  • More globally, what do you do when you’re trying to win business that you might do to strengthen the relationship with your current clients? Building a relationship with a current client will, in general, deliver much better results than trying to land a new client. (That doesn’t mean you need not pursue new business, though.)

Offering something eye-catching in an RFP is good, but bringing the nugget to a current client is even better. Read the BTI Consulting article, then apply it.

Business Development Trades in Promises

/0 Comments/in /by

Sales. Selling. Sales pitch. How do those words come across to you? Positive, negative, or no charge at all? Studies show that a significant number of people have some bad impression about selling, though most people have no negative association with buying. (See Daniel Pink’s To Sell Is Human for more on this.)

But if you’re to grow your practice, you have to be able to secure new work, and that requires sales skills. I know, you didn’t go to law school to sell stuff (nor did I)… And yet, if you’re uncomfortable in a sales conversation, your potential client will perceive that discomfort and may think you’re uncomfortable with the matter or the client, or even that you’re trying to hide something.

I’m always on the lookout for alternative ways of looking at sales because you must master your comfort with the idea of sales before you can master the skill itself. And I found a new perspective in a recent article that you cannot afford to miss.

Here’s a teaser: “What we’re really trading in is promises.”

Take two minutes to read the post, then five or ten to contemplate its implications. It’ll change your perspective on both sales and client service.

 

Plans are useless, but…

/0 Comments/in /by

I see two huge mistakes among lawyers eager to build a book of business:

  • the urge to jump into action without designing a plan, and
  • the tendency to plan and revise and plan some more without ever moving to action.

Today I’ll offer another perspective on planning, from Dwight Eisenhower:

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

In other words, when circumstances change and disrupt your carefully-laid plans, the process of assessing all of the factors that affect your practice will show you how to adjust. (Want to know more about how to create a plan? Check Chapter 3 of The Reluctant Rainmaker.)

How effective is your practice planning?

Progress or excuses?

/0 Comments/in /by

One simple question for you today: are you making progress toward your business development goals… Or are you making excuses?

Here’s the tricky part: progress doesn’t necessarily require massive action, and action doesn’t necessarily equate to progress.

Take a minute and get honest with yourself. If you don’t like what you discover, do something different today. Making progress can be as simple as picking up the phone to call a strategically selected contact.

Are you reactionary or responsible?

/0 Comments/in /by

After I finished writing last week’s article on the relationship between the generative power of language and your business development activity, I remembered several other articles discussing a similar topic. I highly recommend you check Michael Hyatt’s 3 Ways You’re Giving Up Power with Your Words: How the Way You Speak Can Sabotage Your Success. Hyatt’s discussion of how words like “I’ll try” give us an automatic escape from whatever you say you want to do:

“When we agree to a commitment by saying, “I’ll try” or “I’ll give it my best shot,” we’re saying the opposite. At least that’s what people usually hear.

The problem is that it not only undermines our credibility, it also lowers the chance we’ll make good on the commitment because it’s a subtle denial of our own agency.”

After you’ve read Hyatt’s post, check out this one from Seth Godin. Godin’s upshot:

When you decide to set the agenda and when you take control over your time and your effort, the responsibility for what happens next belongs to you.

And that’s why you must take an entrepreneurial approach to your practice. Change is going to come, and you can be reactionary or responsible. The choice is yours, but only one of those options will lead you to success.

You’ve Got to Conquer Your Resistance. Here’s How.

/2 Comments/in , /by


Until recently, I was most familiar with Steven Pressfield as the author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, though he has written a number of other well-received books.  And then a year ago, I ran across The War of Art.  Curious, since I’d just finished The Art of War, I started reading and found myself drawn into a world that I quickly recognized as my own.

“It’s not the writing part that’s hard.
What’s hard is sitting down to write.”

“Most of us have two lives.  The life we live, and
the unlived life within us.  Between the two lies Resistance.”

Pressfield’s thesis is that we all have something within us that both seeks and runs from expression.  The book is written expressly for creatives, but even a cursory read reveals that it applies to everyone who has a big goal or calling of some sort.  Pressfield speaks specifically to divinely-inspired genius, and the latter part of the book delves into the role of the divine in genius and talent.  Whatever the source of this talent, however, Pressfield’s focus and his brilliance lies in explaining the role of Resistance and how to recognize and ultimately vanquish it.

Pressfield defines Resistance as “the enemy within”, a “repelling force” that “prevents us from doing our work”.  Resistance comes in many forms:  procrastination, personal drama, and “plausible, rational justifications for why we shouldn’t do our work”.  As I read, it became clear to me that “our work” refers equally to writing or any other form of art and to the work of practicing law, including building a book of business.

In The War of Art, Pressfield introduces the pro, meaning one who combats Resistance and is determined to do the work.  The pro knows that “if he caves in today, no matter how plausible the pretext, he’ll be twice as likely to cave in tomorrow.  The professional knows that Resistance is like a telemarketer; if you so much as say hello, you’re finished.  The pro doesn’t even pick up the phone.  He stays at work.”  In Turning Pro, Pressfield further distinguishes the amateur from the pro and offers insight into making the shift.

The concept of Resistance (and Pressfield’s specific identification of its dangers) prompted me to read The War of Art through a lawyer’s eyes.  As I did, I discovered that Pressfield describes almost every one of the key mistakes I see among would-be rainmakers.  For example:

  • Would-be rainmakers often plunge headfirst into activity, frantically doing everything that seems like it might lead to new business.  Pressfield identifies the cause of this hyperactivity as Resistance:  “Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion.  It knows we can’t sustain that level of intensity.  We will hit the wall.  We will crash.”  Instead of the pedal-to-the-metal approach, he counsels, look on the work as a marathon, and prepare for the long haul.
  • Likewise, engaging in over-the-top activity leaves little time for study and developing skills.  Like firing up a new gadget without reading any of the instructions, jumping from one activity to another can yield superficial success but will never lead to the level of success that results from truly mastering skills.  “The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.”
  • Fear can paralyze the aspiring rainmaker, resulting in too much planning and little, if any, action.  We lawyers don’t often talk about fear in a professional setting, but the truth is that stepping up to build a book of business can arouse fears of saying or doing the wrong thing, looking dumb, seeming pushy or desperate, being rejected, being perceived as unprofessional, and so much more.  Preparation can reduce some of those fears, but as Pressfield observes, anyone who succeeds in doing the work “knows that once he gets out into the action, his fear will recede and he’ll be okay.”  The only way out of fear is to move through it.

What’s in it for lawyers?  The War of Art and Turning Pro both address a problem that often goes unaddressed in the business literature.  Self-sabotage is rampant, and Pressfield nails both the why and the solution in his description of Resistance.

While you may not feel that your practice rises to the level of a calling, committing fully to becoming a rainmaker (through study, planning, and action) requires deep dedication to the goal and a compelling reason to continue despite the inevitable setbacks and difficulties.  Success requires conquering Resistance.

Nearly every successful author adheres to the discipline of daily writing.  Even if the writing for the day is dreadful, the act of writing makes the flashes of inspiration possible.

Parallels exist for every pursuit you might imagine.  In the context of business development, daily activity ensures that something happens each day.  On some days, that something may be fairly meaningless, but showing up and doing the work every single day creates the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time to meet a key contact or to have a conversation with a potential client just after an unmet legal need has popped up.

The War of Art and Turning Pro are poetic, juicy books that might be best consumed on vacation or over a glass of wine.  They speak to the mind, but they influence the heart.  Having read the books, you will be better able to identify and combat Resistance.  You’ll also find yourself inspired by the drama that Pressfield describes.  Although the books are somewhat light on step-by-step “how to” instructions, you’ll find gems throughout.

Opening the Vault

/0 Comments/in , /by

 

Five of the most useful articles I’ve read this month.

1. Five Secrets to Successful Rainmaking. In addition to five great tips, this article briefly explores why rainmaking matters especially for woman and those interested in working flex-time. (Gentlemen, this article is good for you, too.)

2. How to Adopt a Sales Mindset. A short article with 13 reasonably obvious (but easy-to-forget) tips; qualifies as one of the week’s best reads because of the final sentence: “A salesperson tells, a good salesperson explains… and a sales superstar demonstrates.”

3. Rituals – how leaders can get things done(Leadership Frame #2) I frequently talk with clients about creating systems, and this article hit home with this passage: “[I]t is wrong to think that to get things done we must constantly or consciously think about them. The opposite is true – we should instead increase the number of things we do without thinking about them. So the counter-intuitive secret to getting things done is to make them more automatic, so they require less energy. Develop rituals — highly specific behaviors, done at precise times, so they eventually become automatic and no longer require conscious will or discipline.” Read and apply.

4. Communicating with Clients through Invoices. I’ve yet to talk to anyone who enjoys timesheets. This article, which explains how invoicing is actually a written conversation about what you’re doing for your clients, might just change your mind.

5. Finally, from my “to watch” list, a short video from my friend and colleague Carolyn Herfurth on how to handle that moment when you recognize that the potential client you’re talking with isn’t your ideal client.

Book Review: UnMarketing

/0 Comments/in , /by

UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.

“Marketing happens every time you engage (or not) with your past, present and potential customers.  If you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business.”

Scott Stratten is a marketing consultant who excels in viral, social, and authentic marketing, which he refers to as “unMarketing”. His philosophy is that you can share your knowledge and expertise while engaging with those who are interested in what you do, and that you’ll be top-of-mind when a need for your services arises.  UnMarketing expands on that philosophy.

In 56 short chapters, each of which is freestanding and reads almost like an oversized blog post, you’ll get an overview of “new-school” marketing. While some of the tactics shared with you may be new to you, you’ll probably get the most impact from the book’s overall flavor.  In [very] brief:  don’t lead with a “me” focus, don’t use expensive, scattershot advertising, and don’t market to others in ways you hate to be marketed to.  Instead, learn to build relationships and share your expertise so that others come to trust you.

Stratten’s focus on relationship-building and marketing by sharing useful information (“content marketing”) is appropriate for any professional. One of the most eye-opening lessons in the book comes on page two in the form of a pyramid that illustrates how people make decisions on whom to hire to provide a service.
(You can find the graphic here, on Stratten’s Ryze page.)  If you think marketing or business development primarily means meeting strangers and convincing them to hire you, you’ll experience a seismic shift from this graphic alone — and the rest of the book will show you how to take the next steps.

One of my favorite chapters deals with “new school” networking. Stratten argues that networking is best accomplished when you’re stepping into a room of people you already know, perhaps through social media, so that “[t]he event isn’t the introduction; it’s the escalation of the relationship.”  Stratten identifies the four types of people you’re likely to meet in “old school” networking:

  • The Great One: the consummate networker, who listens, connects with others, and makes sure not to monopolize the conversation.
  • The Awkward One: someone who’s uncomfortable in networking and accordingly does everything by the book.  Because this person is so uncomfortable, they tend to attach themselves to one person, and escape is difficult.
  • The Dude with Scotch: this is the man who uses hard liquor as social lubricant with predictably disastrous effect.
  • The Card Collector: the person whose primary goal for attending a networking event is to make sure that every person in the room receives a card.  Unfortunately for The Card Collector, because there’s no real engagement, no one actually wants to receive a card.

Stratten, a heavy Twitter user, prefers to meet people online before the event so that there’s a pre-existing relationship and a conversation already underway. The best tip from this chapter is to use Twitter (or other social media) to meet people before attending a conference so that you’re among acquaintances (if not friends) by the time you get there.  If you don’t use social media in this way, consider reaching out by telephone instead for a quick “get acquainted” conversation.  You’re limited to establishing pre-meeting contact with those you already know or know of, but it can still be quite effective.

UnMarketing is a delightful read in part because of the humor that Scott weaves into the book. By sheer happenstance, I purchased a hard copy rather than a Kindle version, so glancing at the footnotes scattered throughout was simple.  These are not law review style footnotes (read:  necessary but dull).  These are asides that are fun, funny, and illustrative, the kind of comments that you might imagine being delivered sotto voce as you drink coffee and learn from a regular guy who really knows his stuff but doesn’t take himself too seriously.  This is not a “guru” book, although Stratten could easily qualify as a guru in his field.

Why should lawyers read the book? Lawyers traditionally have little or no knowledge about marketing, and there’s a great deal we can learn from marketers.  Thanks to the rise of content marketing, we can draw analogies from approaches and tactics used by a wide variety of other service providers.  Lawyers are trained to be experts, and one place we often fall short in marketing that expertise is in placing the focus on our clients rather than on our own expertise, and UnMarketing offers an eye-opening perspective on why that’s a fatal mistake and what you should be doing instead.  Plus, it’s fun.  You won’t regret picking up this book, and once you pick it up, you’ll find it difficult to put down.

WRA 12/10/09: Finding out who’s naughty and nice

/1 Comment/in , /by

It’s the time of year for holiday specials, and last night’s offering was Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.  And while I enjoyed the story and the theme, I was dumbfounded when I realized that there’s a bit of a link between Santa and client development!  If you remember the lyrics to the song, you’ll know that Santa is “making a list and checking it twice, [and] he’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.”  And we all know that Santa doesn’t reward the naughty.

Do you reward naughty potential clients by letting them hire you?  Just about every lawyer has had the truly awful client: one who doesn’t pay or pays so slowly that the process is agonizing, one who blocks your efforts to get information you need to handle the representation, one who’s routinely rude or unduly demanding or critical, and so on.  Unfortunately, naughty clients come in a lot of flavors.  The good news is that you can avoid many of them if you know what to watch for during your initial conversations.  A few red flags:

  • You’re the third or fourth lawyer this person has consulted or (worse yet) hired on this, or a closely related, matter.  Clients fire lawyers for good reasons sometimes, but you should explore to find out what went wrong.  Trust your gut as you listen to the explanation.
  • The potential client balks at your fee.  As I discussed with a client yesterday, a negative reaction to your fee may be sticker shock, or it could be a sign that the potential client isn’t going to value your services and will argue every step of the way.  Listen carefully.
  • The potential client misses the first appointment, is very late for it, or arrives unprepared.  This isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker because, as we all know, sometimes life interrupts the best-laid plans.  But pay attention.  As with dating, the behavior you see early is likely to be the best behavior you’ll see in a representation.
  • The potential client seems to have unrealistic expectations and is unwilling to hear a contrary point of view.  Clients often expect a more favorable result than their lawyer.  If you explain counterveling considerations that make a matter less certain or less favorable and hit a brick wall, think carefully before you proceed.
  • The potential client blames everyone and everything for his or her problems.  Chances are high that you’ll end up on the blame list, and possibly on the wrong end of a malpractice claim or bar complaint.

None of these red flags necessarily means that you shouldn’t accept the matter, but if one arises, you need to listen carefully to what is and isn’t said and to pay attention to non-verbal communication.  And trust your gut.