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Weekly Rainmaker Activity 9/7/09

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What kind of language do you speak when you’re talking with potential clients and referral sources?  I don’t mean English or Spanish, but whether you use “jargon” or “regular” language.  As with most anything else, each has its place, but you must select the appropriate language intentionally.

If you’re talking with lawyers or legally sophisticated consumers, carefully sprinkled jargon may have its place.  Those who are familiar with the area of law you’re discussing may expect to hear certain buzzwords.  If they don’t hear them, they may not be confident that you’re fully up to speed and skilled in the revelant area.  Dropping a word or two of jargon (a reference to a code section, perhaps) indicates that you are likely competent in the area of practice at issue.

If you’re talking with laypeople, however, sprinking in even a small amount of jargon may confuse the listener or — worse yet — may come across as if you’re talking down to him.  With some care, you can address even complex issues with clear, simple, and jargon-free language.  No one wants to feel stupid, and potential clients (or clients) may be reluctant to ask questions that reveal their lack of familiarity with the subject.

Lawyers often cross the jargon line in introducing themselves.  Think back over your recent introductions.  Do you use the appropriate amount of jargon?  Do listeners immediately understand what issues you address in your practice?  For the purpose of this week’s WRA, focus solely on the language you use.  Next week, we’ll look at a few other aspects of introductions.

Who Is Your Ideal Client?

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While in Teton National Park last week, I noticed a trend among serious hikers.  I parked at several trailheads during my vacation, and I noticed that the parking lots for the more intense hiking trails featured a surprising number of Subaru cars, all with outdoorsy names like Outback.  I’ve never seen so many Subarus in one place, and I’m not at all sure that I’ve seen more than a handful elsewhere.  I was curious, so I did a quick Google search and turned up a Subaru Outback user forum that includes lots of photographs, many (if not most) of which show the Subaru in an outdoor sports setting (with a canoe strapped to the roof, camping in the woods, etc.), as does much of the advertising for the Subaru Outback.

Subaru Outback and outdoor enthusiasts apparently go hand-in-hand.  I imagine that further research would turn up Subaru sponsorships of outdoor events, advertising in hiking and mountain climbing magazines, and so on.  Subaru seems to have its finger on the pulse of this market, and the market appears to have responded.

What does this have to do with practicing law?  Like Subaru, you must identify your ideal client to a level of great specificity and deep understanding of your ideal client’s interests, preferences, and activities.

When working with lawyers on business development, one of the first questions I ask is, who’s your ideal client?  It’s a marketing truism that it’s much easier to direct your services to a well-defined group of potential clients, because doing so allows your ideal clients to recognize you as their ideal lawyer.  By focusing specifically on a particular group and their legal needs, you also develop your expertise and your reputation for expertise more quickly.

How specifically should you define an ideal client?  Some lawyers stop at a fairly high level – estate planners, for instance, may focus only on those who have estate planning needs, which is an adequate description but lacking the full body that can prove helpful.  Others delve more deeply and might hone in on new parents who have never done any estate planning before, parents of special needs children who have particular estate planning needs, or those who want to arrange for pet trusts, for example.  The more narrowly you can draw your niche, the more accurately you’ll be able to tailor your message – and, or course, nothing says you must restrict your practice to a narrow group.

When you begin to define your ideal client narrowly, you can consider psychographics in addition to demographics.  Demographics include information such as age, gender, occupation, education, and so on.  Psychographics describe the attitudes, values, and motivations that your ideal clients hold.  What interests them?  What magazines do they read?  What groups do they join?  Where do they vacation?  What are their hobbies?

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that psychographics are irrelevant if you represent companies rather than individuals.  Individuals make the hiring (and firing) decisions for companies, and individuals acting together determine company strategy, goals, and planned outcomes.  While you may be less interested in the personal psychographics of corporate representatives, looking at the psychographics in their professional capacities will provide valuable information.

When you’ve analyzed your ideal client psychographics, you may find that you’ve created a roadmap of forums for publications and presentations, networking activity, and so on.  You may notice connections that had not been apparent before, or you may define known connections more clearly.  Whatever the level of revelation, you will certainly find information that you can use to better reach out to your ideal clients, which will in turn help you target your business development activity.

Uncertain about how to describe your ideal client?  The Reluctant Rainmaker includes a step-by-step process to help you discover who your ideal clients are and how to reach them.  Check out The Reluctant Rainmaker: A Guide For Lawyers Who Hate Selling.

Weekly Rainmaker Activity 8/31/09

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A primary benefit of being active online (by having a website with a biographical sketch and having articles relevant to your practice published online, for example) is that potential clients have an opportunity to learn something about you before meeting you.  Whether your name surfaces by referral or by an internet search, it’s a safe bet that almost every potential client will search on your name before contacting you.

Do you know what these potential clients will find?  I recently read an advice column in which the writer was struggling with how to tell her doctor that his son, who shared the doctor’s name (plus a “junior”),  had posted “obscene” photographs on Facebook and that patients were finding those images and associating them with the doctor.  I imagine that the doctor and his son had a rather frank conversation after that revelation, but the questions go a step further: how long had the doctor’s reputation been damaged by his son’s online antics?  And more importantly, how could he recover his professional reputation online?

Your task today: perform an internet search on yourself.  Start with Google, as it’s the most popular search engine, but be sure to check Yahoo!, Ask.com, Excite.com, MSN, and so on.  What do you find?

You may disover that your profile on a social media platform is high on the result list.  If so, one of the quickest ways to ramp up your online presence is to be sure that your profile is complete, accurate, and up-to-date.  If it’s difficult to find yourself online, getting a LinkedIn profile is a quick and easy way to make sure that those who search for you will be able to find something useful.  And if you find results that conflict with your professional persona, consider how you might address them.

Weekly Rainmaker Activity 8/17/09

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Studies show that a prospective client must be exposed to you 7-9 times before they’re ready to hire you.  (Those statistics are not specific to law, granted, but I have no reason to believe they’re off the mark for lawyers.)  The reasons are simple: most potential clients don’t have a current legal need, are already represented, or aren’t sufficiently familiar with you to entrust you with their current legal matter.

The solution should be clear: continue the conversations with your potential clients and potential referral sources.  That’s how you will become known, liked, and trusted — and it’s how you’ll get clients.

So, here’s your assignment this week: Look at the stack of business cards you’ve been saving (you have the stack, right?  Tucked “somewhere safe,” in a desk drawer, or near your computer?) and select 3-5 people with whom you should follow up.  Then, get in touch with them.  Offer something of value if possible — an article likely to interest them, for example.  Alternatively, just pick up the phone (or perhaps drop an email) and let your contact know you were thinking of her and want to know how she’s been since you last talked.

Some contacts will be dead-ends.  Others will hold promise for future business.  But you’ll never find out which are which unless you continue the conversation.

Do you sponsor? (And WRA, resurrected)

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Do you know how to get the most from your sponsorships?

Getting in front of a group of potential clients can mean different things to different people.  These are some of the considerations I recommend you evaluate if you’re contemplating taking on a sponsorship:

  • Who will be present?  Potential clients or referral sources are good; the general public is less likely to produce measureable business results.
  • What recognition will you receive as a sponsor?  Will your firm name be on the signage, on the event website, on bags or t-shirts?  Will you be mentioned during the event itself?
  • What perks will you receive as a sponsor?  Look for opportunities to mingle with attendees at sponsored luncheons, coffee breaks, or cocktail parties.  You’re more likely to be able to meet selected participants if the sponsored event is not open to all comers.
  • Who will attend from the firm, and what is the strategy for making the most of the opportunity?  As usual, without a plan, your efforts are likely to produce little.  The strategy will depend on your business development goals, the nature of the event, the attendees, and more, but you must be able to identify at least the basic strategy before you commit to sponsorship.

Sponsorships aren’t dead, by any means, but it’s just a waste of money to take on a random sponsorship without a defined objective and a clear plan to reach that objective.

WRA, Resurrected!

Back in January, I launched a new weekly blog feature: the weekly rainmaker activity.  I described it this way:

One of the keys to being a successful rainmaker is making a habit of consistent client development activity.  I recommend that lawyer doing something designed to increase business every single day, whether it’s writing a 2-minute email, hosting an hour-long lunch, or attending an all-day industry meeting. I’m launching a new blog feature this week: the Weekly Rainmaker Activity.  I’ll offer a weekly business development task.  Those who choose to accept that challenge will make the time to engage in the activity of the week at least once.  If you’re so moved, please post a comment (anonymous is fine, of course) to let me and the other readers know what you’ve done this week.  Healthy competition of this sort can benefit everyone.

And then I started writing The Reluctant Rainmaker, thus effectively putting the blog on hiatus.  Ooops.  But now, it’s time to resurrect the WRA, and the first task will be posted Monday.

Renewing lapsed professional relationships

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I gave a 1-hour presentation about rainmaking last week in the Chicago office of a large law firm, and following the presentation, a lawyer approached with a question: Is it ever too late to rebuild professional relationships that have languished?

The short answer is that it depends on the relationship. The deeper the relationship, the more likely it can be resurrected.  If, however, you meet once and fail to follow up, or if you follow up only once or twice, the relationship will lack the firm footing necessary to allow it to flourish following a period of silence.  That said, it never hurts to try to rebuild a relationship, particularly if your sole reason for reconnecting is to re-establish communication and not to seek a favor.

So, what can you do to rebuild a connection that has faded? The simplest, and often the most effective, approach is to do precisely what you would do with a friend you haven’t seen in a long time: pick up the phone and say, “I realized it’s been a while since we’ve spoken, and you’ve been on my mind.  Is this a good time to talk for a few minutes? How are things with you?  What’s new?”  If several months have passed since you were in touch with this contact, you may even begin the conversation by re-introducing yourself.  (This is where my recommendation to maintain a database of contacts proves especially helpful: you don’t have to try to remember when and where you met.)  You may experience a few awkward moments as your contact gets back into the connection, but most people will pick up relatively quickly.

If, like many lawyers, you’d rather do nine hours of painstaking document review without a coffee break than pick up with phone, you do have other options. For example, you might consider the following:

  • Send an email to reconnect. You might suggest talking by telephone and either arrange a time or let your contact know you’ll be calling.  While you’ll still have to pick up the phone, you’ve created an expectation that you will call, and chances are good that you’ll avoid an awkward beginning.  If you suggest that you’ll call, though, you absolutely must do so – or run the risk of looking like a flake.
  • Send an article or other resource that will interest your contact. The resource may address a legal or non-legal issue, but it must be tied in some way to a conversation you’ve had with the contact.  Attach a note that says, “I remember talking with you about [topic of resource] at [wherever you had the conversation] and thought of you when I saw this [resource].  Hope it’s useful!”  By doing so, you not only reconnect by offering assistance, but you do so in a way that will bring your conversation back to your contact’s mind and refresh the relationship.
  • Issue an invitation. You might invite your contact to an open house or to attend a CLE or other seminar of interest with you.  Be sure to attach a note, if you deliver an invitation by mail or email, saying that you look forward to reconnecting; this personal touch will indicate to your contact that your interest is genuine.
  • Seek out news about your contact. This may be a more challenging approach if you’re seeking to reconnect than to maintain a relationship, but it’s worth a quick search to see whether your contact has been in the news recently.  You may find news of a professional event (an honor awarded, a trial won, a leadership position attained) or a personal event (a new marriage, a new baby, a recreational or community activity).  Such news offers an ideal reason to get in touch again.

Take a few minutes this week to review your list of contacts. With whom should you reconnect?  Choose three to five people and reach out to them.  Building and maintaining your network is always a valuable activity, and keeping relationships alive will often pay off (often in unexpected ways) over time.

What’s the best way to grow your practice?

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One of the keys to success is efficient and effective action.  We all know that’s true in billable work, and we study time management and time mastery to find ways to optimize daily activity.

Nowhere is this principle truer than in business development.  Most lawyers don’t get excited at the prospect of undertaking rainmaking activity, and thrashing about aimlessly (meaning, inconsistenly and without a solid strategy) is almost guaranteed to produce poor results.  And poor results tend to produce a heavy sigh and a, “See, I knew I’m not destined to be a rainmaker” attitude – which tends to doom future action.  It’s a nasty cycle, and avoiding that cycle entirely is much easier than breaking it once it’s started.

So, it follows that the best way to grow your practice is by taking consistent, strategically determined steps toward your goals for you practice.  Once you become aware of the importance of consistency and strategy in rainmaking, you’ve unlocked the first key to business development success.

However, you still have to know what to do, and that’s the source of the popular question, “What’s the best way to grow my practice?”  It isn’t possible to give a blanket answer for every lawyer and every practice.  Advertising, for example, is a good tactic for some practices, especially those that depend on immediate and urgent need and a high volume of matters.  It’s less likely to pay off for practices that center on more complex matters that are ilkely to generate high fees.

One rainmaking tactic, however, tends to perform well no matter the practice area:  making personal contacts.

As Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals, wrote, “All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust.”  In other words, the more people who know you and think well of you, the more likely you are to receive business and referrals.

While you might argue about whether all things are ever equal, think about how you select any servicee professional you hire.  Whether you’re looking for a dentist, a house painter, a baby sitter, or a lawyer, chances are that you check with at least one or two or your contacts to get a referral, and a significant number of clients who seek your services will do the same.  Knowing more people increases the chance that someone in need of your services will find out about you.

Likewise, your current and former clients know and, one would hope, like and trust you.  They also have had the experience of working with you, so they know how you serve clients and may be able to evaluate, to some extent, your legal ability.  As a result, current and former clients may be even more likely to refer business to you and, where your practice is amenable, bring you additional work themselves.

So, the bottom line is that the more people you know, the more likely you are to bring in new business.  And it follows naturally that, without knowing any information about your specific practice or your strengths, my top recommendation for growing your law practice is to work on increasing your network of contacts, consistently and strategically.

Consider these questions to kick-start your networking:

  • Are most of your clients referrals, or do clients contact you directly?
  • Where do your ideal clients congregate?
  • Where do your ideal referral sources congregate?
  • What organizations offer a natural fit for your practice, by virtue of subject area or membership, and how can you get involved?

If you’d like to learn more about where and how to network, you may want to investigate The Reluctant Rainmaker: Business Development for Lawyers Who Hate Selling.  You’ll find step-by-step recommendations on how to begin networking and how to become a master at growing connections with the right people to advance your law practice.  Visit TheReluctantRainmaker.com to learn more and to pick up your copy today.

Three Obstacles to Rainmaking Success

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I’ve been doing a lot of speaking and coaching lately on business development, and someone asked a great question: what are the top obstacles to rainmaking success?

I’ve identified three universal challenges.  Do any of these sound uncomfortably familiar to you?

1.  “I don’t know what to do.”  There’s so much information out there about how to bring in new cases and clients and, even more importantly, how to ensure that your current clients are satisfied — no, delighted — with the service you provide.  Sometimes, having lots of good information is overwhelming.  When I work with someone on rainmaking, one of the first things we focus on (after clearly identifying the goal at hand) is to simplify tasks, according to a targeted plan.  Don’t flail around and try “the latest thing.”  Figure out what works well for you and do it consistently.

2.  Mindset challenges.  The challenges that we create up for ourselves (and please note that I am including myself here!) vary dramatically.  I’ve heard all of the following:

  • Rainmaking is easier for them (men, women, lawyers in big firms, lawyers in small firms, litigators, transactional lawyers, and on and on and on).
  • Everything I do has to be perfect, and I’m busy getting ready to get out there.  (This crops up a lot with lawyers who see speaking, writing, and holding leadership positions in an organization as a good route for business development.)
  • I have to do it all myself, so I’m going to clear the decks and then get started.
  • I’m too young.
  • I’m too old.
  • I tried [insert an activity here] and it didn’t work, so why should I bother?
  • My technical skills are so good, I don’t need to market.

There may be at least a grain of truth to each of these rationalizations (and the infinite variations that exist), but buying into these statements is a huge red flag.  These “reasons” justify a lack of success and perhaps even a lack of effort.  Neither leads to great results.

3.  “I don’t have enough time to get my work done and live, and now I should add on business development activities?  You’ve got to be kidding me.”  This obstacle is the most valid and therefore the most insidious.  It also plays into the mindset obstacles, because very often a lawyer who holds a negative belief about client development will sink more and more time into fruitless rainmaking activity.  Imagine, for instance, a lawyer who polishes an article to the point of “perfection,” only to find that it’s no longer newsworthy.  Fortunately, you can implement three steps to create time for business development: prioritization, systemization, and delegation.

What blocks your rainmaking efforts?