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What’s their “why”?

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I’ve written over and over about the importance of knowing why you want to build your own book of business. Why gets to the root of your motivation. It will carry you through the difficult times when business development work seems like too much on top of your billable and other responsibilities. It will give you the reason to persist even when your effort isn’t yielding the results you’d hoped. Most importantly, it gives you a way to measure whether what you’re doing is moving you toward satisfaction or away from it. If it’s been a while since you’ve given this some thought, I’d encourage you to spend some time with your why soon.

But today, let’s focus on the why your client or potential client holds. Their why matters on two levels:

  • Level One: the substantive purpose (what they hope to accomplish through the work you’ll be doing) For example, if you’re a litigator and your client or potential client is contemplating filing a breach of contract claim against a supplier, the substantive why is addressing an issue (quality, cost, etc.) that arguably violates the terms of the agreement. If a criminal defendant is considering hiring you, their fervent desire is for you to show that they aren’t criminally liable for their actions.  This is the kind of why we learned about in law school, it’s the why that determines the strategy we use to approach a matter, and it’s the kind of why that we focus on day in and day out.
  • Level two: the motivation that underlies the matter, which may speak to a larger strategy or an emotion For example, the breach of contract claim might be lodged to clarify rights and responsibilities in an ongoing relationship, it might be lodged to terminate a relationship, or it might be designed to seek recompense for problems in a relationship that’s irretrievably broken. The criminal defendant might want simply to avoid liability, or they might have taken the steps they did because they want to test the validity of the underlying law.

The secondary why often plays the stronger role in business development. Why is this business development client/potential client approaching you to discuss this matter? What do they hope to accomplish through the representation?

When you understand the motivation behind the contemplated action (or the desired secondary outcome in the case of a litigation defendant whose first goal is obviously to avoid liability), you’re better positioned to demonstrate that you understand your client/potential client. You’ll be able to present your relevant experience and to discuss the approach you might take considering the underlying motivation. You can slant the conversation toward the underlying desire. Sometimes the desire won’t be attainable or shouldn’t be pursued (revenge fantasies, for example), but when you demonstrate you understand the business development client/potential client’s motivation, you let them know they’ve been heard and that you’ll work toward their objectives as best you can.

The why also comes into play when a potential client expresses reservations about the cost of hiring you. When you understand their motivation underlying the matter, in addition to explaining your methods of cost containment, you can connect the motivation to the cost of the desired outcome. Budget is often an issue for a routine matter, but if the motivation underlying a matter is particularly critical, you can use that to explain why the costs are as they are. (To be clear, I’m not suggesting a premium for a matter that’s particularly important; this is simply a method to help explain the budget you might propose.)

Finding your client’s/potential client’s why is as simple as asking questions. What would you like to take away from this transaction? What matters most to you about this? Why would you or wouldn’t you consider settlement, if we can find common ground? In negotiating this deal, is there anything you must have or can’t agree to give up?

Both business development and successful representations require you to understand your client’s motivation. Start laying the groundwork when you meet new business development contacts. As you’re learning about them and (where appropriate) their business, ask questions that will help you to understand their values, their emotional temperature, and the reason they do the things they do. The more you know, the better you’ll be able to position yourself for BD, and the better you’ll be able to represent and/or manage your clients and their matters.

On Credible Visibility

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Are you visible to your referral sources and potential clients?

Are you credibly visible to them?

We all know that in order to land business, you must be known to those who will send you work, either directly or indirectly. That much is obvious. And so in business development we talk about strategies to help us become visible to referral sources and potential clients, such as:

  • Networking
  • Staying in touch with contacts
  • Writing articles
  • Speaking at conferences and CLE meetings
  • Teaching (formally or informally)
  • Blogging/using Substack
  • Podcasting or being a podcast guest

Let’s narrow that field a bit today to ask the critical question: are the business development strategies you’re using to be visible doing so in a way that builds your credibility?

Again with the obvious: you won’t gain anything that’s likely to lead to business if you do these activities with the wrong group of people. If you represent employers on labor and employment issues, you probably won’t get much out of attending a solo entrepreneurs’ networking group. They don’t have employees, and employment law is likely not relevant to them. Sure, you might run into someone who could refer business to you or you might hit it off with someone who will send you business years down the line, but that’s luck, not strategy. Effective business development requires strategy.

When you spend time in the right circles, whether in person, online, or via your writing, you build credible visibility as part of your business development strategy. You become visible in ways that are connected to your practice, ways that will help people recognize you as someone active and knowledgeable in your area of law.

Here are some ways to make sure you’re working in the right business development circles:

  1. Unless you represent lawyers, don’t spend your time with networking with or speaking or writing to them and call it business development work. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve spoken with a lawyer who said they were active with the local bar for business development, I’d have a nice pot of cash. If I had a dollar for every time a lawyer told me that strategy had delivered as they’d hoped, my pot would be close to empty. Yes, you might occasionally get a referral due to a conflict, but that too is luck rather than a business development strategy.Networking with or speaking or writing to your competitors rarely pays off as a business development strategy.
  2. Focus on attending conferences and networking groups populated by people who either (a) work in the same industry or (b) address the same issues you do from another angle. For example, if you represent dentists, you’ll want to move in their circles. If you do IP work for start-ups, you’ll want to network with investors. When you focus on these two ways of defining what’s a right audience for you, you’ll be able to define a good-sized circle of referral sources and clients who share an interest in your area of legal interest. And, of course, as an integral part of your business development strategy, you may consider writing and speaking to these same audiences.
  3. If you’re in a larger firm, try cross-selling. I prefer to think of cross-selling as cross-servicing, since the effort should not be designed simply to sell something to a colleague’s client but rather to identify other legal needs the client has that are not currently being addressed. Focusing on service rather than selling aligns you with the client and removes an “ick” factor that some lawyers feel when contemplating this activity. By engaging with another lawyer who’s addressing different legal issues and helping to spot ways you can help, then following up with your colleague and, if appropriate, with the client to continue to deliver useful information, you can better support both your colleague and the client while working to bring in new business. (Note that success with this business development strategy often depends in large part on firm culture—but that’s a topic for another day.)
  4. Look for unique ways to reach the right people. If you’re active and building credibility through the usual channels (as discussed above), think about new ways to reach out. Could you publish an article in your college alumni magazine or join a targeted alumni group that will include many people who are potential clients or referral sources? Could you join a board of directors for a nonprofit that has some connection to your practice and meet other directors who would be useful business development contacts? Think out of the box but stick to the “relevant to my practice” parameter.

Be sure to distinguish your efforts to build credible visibility from your efforts to develop relationships in your business development strategy. Credible visibility requires you to be centering your attention on issues relevant to your practice while connecting in some way to the audiences who may send you business, directly or indirectly. Building relationships for business development purposes will include business discussions (otherwise, you’re just becoming friends—which is great but not a path to bringing in new business); it will also bring in conversations designed for you to get to know, like, and trust one another.

When you’re having well-focused conversations (spoken or written) about legal issues relevant to your practice with the rights audiences, you’ll raise your professional profile. Your contacts, potential referral sources, and potential and prospective clients will be more likely to know about you and to view you as someone knowledgeable about the issues they need addressed.

Are you credibly visible in your market? If not, lay your plans to shift that using these business development guidelines and suggestions, and get to it. It’s never too early to start. You can make substantial inroads on this in Q4. The wind is at your back.

Midyear Business Development Check-In

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How often do you lift your attention from the day-to-day to check your Business Development progress toward your goals? I often see well-intended, focused lawyers who develop a solid BD plan in December and don’t revisit that plan until the next December. And I get it: balancing billable work, practice-focused nonbillable work, and other commitments can be tough.

But here’s the thing: if you fail to check your Business Development plan, it’s easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day that you lose sight of the bigger picture. You don’t get the opportunity to adjust your plan according to your actual results and you lose the chance to evaluate how new activity you’ve added fits into your plan. As a result, you can be busy with BD activity and not discover that your efforts aren’t paying off until you’ve invested a lot of time. Nobody can afford that error.

Take this month to check your Business Development progress. Questions to ask include:

  • Have I brought in new business? If so, what’s the source? Can I trace that business to something on my BD plan, and if so, do I need to change or refocus to take advantage of a trend I’m seeing?
  • What progress have I made on building or expanding my professional platform? Review your plans for writing, speaking, teaching, etc. Have you kept to the frequency you’d set for those activities? Are you reaching the audiences you’ve intended to reach? What results are you seeing? What new opportunities exist now?
    • On platform building results: don’t fall into the trap of thinking that this activity is unproductive if it hasn’t produced new business. Platform-building activity is designed to build your professional credibility. It’s important that you reach the right audiences, but in most cases, new business won’t be traced directly to your one-to-many outreach.
  • How well am I keeping in touch with my network? This is the time to review your A/B/C lists, ensure that the right people are on each list, and confirm that you’re keeping in touch as often as you intended. For your A list, consider too the balance between requests to meet, sending information relevant to your contact with some kind of personal comment, and outreach on topics more personally interesting to your contact.
  • Am I meeting new people to add to my contact list? If you’ve been networking, are you meeting the kinds of people you’d identified in your Business Development plan? Are you going beyond first meetings to develop relationships? If you’ve been involved in a group for a substantial chunk of time (four to six months), are you seeing results in terms of beneficial new relationships, introductions, referrals, invitations to professional opportunities, or new business? How’s your LinkedIn activity working?

Finally, do the Traffic Light exercise. Based on your Business Development plan and review, list your green lights (productive activities you want to continue), yellow lights (activities that aren’t producing the results you’d hoped but that may benefit from more time or refreshed effort), and red lights (activities to discontinue because they’re unproductive or so unenjoyable that you aren’t giving them the effort necessary to see results). Wrap up by looking for new lanes: avenues, activities, or relationships that aren’t on your BD plan that seem attractive. Determine which you might add to your plan, with a careful eye toward balancing the activities you’re removing with those you’re adding.

This review shouldn’t take more than an hour or two, in most instances. Investing that time will help you to ensure that you’ll put the next six months to good use so that 2023 will be a year of Business Development success for you.

If you need help conducting this review (evaluating your results, for example, or identifying missing pieces in your Business Development plan), please reply to this e-mail. I’ve set aside three spots for limited BD plan review and refresh, plus one spot for a new client to begin work this month. I’ll be happy to arrange a 30-minute complimentary consultation to see how I might help.

How to Build Your Business Development Habit

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If you’ve read this newsletter for a while, you know that I’m a fan of looking outside the legal industry for good ideas. Hearing the same old, same old tends to numb us to the wisdom that’s there, but looking to other industries and figuring out how to apply their good ideas to your Business Development process will get your brain working in a whole new way. Check out these two articles.

    1. This article about how to get your writing done, and substitute “Business Development work” for writing. You’ll find some fresh takes on how to advance your BD, starting with how to set and track your goals and how to find harness your working tendencies to make progress on those goals each month. You’ll see immediately how to use this for the writing parts of your Business Development efforts, but it’s more broadly applicable as well.
    2. Since we’re talking about writing, let’s dive into creativity in Business Development activities. What role does creativity play in your business development efforts? Many lawyers I speak with respond to this question with an awkward laugh and the words, ummm, none really. It’s as if creativity has no place in law, but we know that isn’t true. Creativity comes into play in litigation and in transactional work as we work to build persuasive arguments and well-structured deals. Boundaries that reign in legal creativity do exist, but lawyers who aren’t even trying to design an ingenious approach to a vexing issue arguably aren’t doing their job as well as they should.Why should Business Development be any different? Establishing your value proposition usually requires a creative approach (what makes you different from the other lawyers in your practice area?), as does identifying prospective clients and referral sources and how you might reach them and finding the right ways to stay in touch and build a relationship with a high-priority contact—among other times.So, how can you unleash your creativity rather than looking at your BD efforts as just more items on your to-do list? This article from the Harvard Business School blog does a nice job of making the case for creativity in the workplace, offering seven tips to encourage it. While those tips are intended for a team setting, they’re equally applicable to support your individual BD creativity. My two favorite tips are Don’t Try to Measure Results Too Quickly and Foster Collaboration. Last month’s newsletter discussed how to find one or more Business Development partners, so if you’d like to increase collaboration, take another look at those ideas, and consider other ways you might collaborate with colleagues at your firm.

I’d love to hear what thought or outcomes these articles spur for you.

Your Decisions Determine Your Business Development Success.

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Making and executing decisions is a key part of practicing law. Litigators decide what strategy to follow on a case; negotiators decide where to stand firm and where to compromise; partners decide which associates are right for an assignment and advancement; patent lawyers decide which features of an invention to claim… And so on.

In fact, decision-making is one of the first practice skills we learn in law school. Did you ever witness the disaster that often followed when a student didn’t stick with an argument about whether and why a case was correctly decided? The professor would show that changing lanes repeatedly often leads to flaccid, half-baked arguments that fall apart. The student under questioning would discover just how accurate the phrase “hot seat” can feel, ending up exhausted and embarrassed. Sure, sometimes we make a mistake and have to correct it, but making and remaking a decision burns time and energy and rarely ends well.

Decision-making plays an important role in business development in two essential ways:

  1. Deciding to focus on BD and grow a book of business
  2. Deciding on a course of BD action and following through

Let’s look at each of these decisions and how they may fall by the wayside, undoing potential success along the way.

Deciding to focus on BD and grow a book of business

Most of us didn’t enter practice thinking, I can’t wait to do business development! Instead, something happens that prompts us to turn our attention from billable work to the process of bringing in that work. And we decide to focus on BD and growing a book of business… or do we?

The word decide comes from the Latin decidere, which is a combination of two words that mean to cut off. (See the brief discussion about the meaning of the word decide.) In other words, to decide on a course of action is to cut off other options.

But when it comes to focusing on business development, many lawyers reverse course when they get busy with billable work and deadlines. Far from having cut off the option of not focusing on BD, these lawyers justify why they have to step away from BD “for now” until they get past a busy period. Sometimes they never resume BD focus, and sometimes they repeatedly dip in and out of focus. In either case, they never come close to reaching momentum.

Deciding that things are just too busy to focus on business development feels like a valid decision, perhaps even a necessary one. After all, you can’t slack on billable work to chase new work, and meeting deadlines is crucial. This can feel like an inescapable Catch-22, but there is a solution.

Decide on small, discrete steps you can take to keep your business development work going even when you’re busy, and then do them. These steps may feel too small to matter, but they’ll keep your BD work alive until you can resume focusing on it. Read more about how to use Teeny Tiny containers to accomplish your BD goals even when you’re too busy to do as much as you’d like.

When you carve out a “no matter what happens” block of time for business development, even if it’s just a few minutes, you’re affirming that BD is a top priority for you. You’re executing the decision you made to focus on BD and grow your book.

Deciding on a course of BD action and following through

When you began focusing on business development, you probably created a BD plan to execute an underlying strategy. (If that isn’t how you began, we should talk so you can set yourself up for success in 2023.) Your plan likely includes several buckets of activities, such as networking to meet potential clients and referral sources, following up with key contacts so that you remain top-of-mind, writing and speaking to build your professional profile, and so on. You started executing your plan, but something happened…

Perhaps you didn’t see the results you were expecting or perhaps you had a new idea that seemed like a better approach. Maybe a colleague mentioned something that led to new business, or you read an article with some fresh ideas, and you think you should shift your plan to incorporate those ideas. After all, you don’t want to waste time on something that isn’t working when there’s something better to try, right? Well, yes and no.

Landing new business takes time. How long this takes depends on a wide variety of factors, but most lawyers find that establishing a flow of new business takes longer than they’d dreamed it might.

Business development success lies in having a solid strategy and consistently executing actions to affect the strategy. It takes time to see the results of your actions, but it also takes time to put in the effort necessary to even hope to see results. Frustrating but true.

I recommend my clients work on their business development plan for three months and then evaluate what results they’re seeing. Sometimes that’s measured in new business, but especially for more high value/low volume practices, that’s measured in a wider network, in more conversations about business and how to get in line to pitch a new matter. The three-month evaluation is about whether you’re seeing results, not whether you’re getting new business. If there are no results, then we have to evaluate whether it’s the plan/execution that’s faulty and a change is required, whether skills development is needed, or whether there’s something else going on. If there are some results, I counsel my clients to keep going.

The second evaluation period comes at six months. Are you seeing measurable results that indicate that you’re on the right track? Have you been invited to pitch or join a potential client’s panel of law firms? Have you built inroads in a group of potential clients and begun to develop strong relationships? Are you speaking on a bigger stage (which might be literally speaking at larger gatherings or possibly in smaller groups of carefully targeted contacts)? Have your relationships with your A-list deepened?

After engaging in this analysis, the next question is whether the results are strong enough to indicate that you should stay the course. It’s a more quantitative time in vs. results out inquiry.  Finally, you look at the list you’ve been keeping of other ideas and determine whether you should stop something you’re doing and try one of them instead.

If you try a new idea before giving your old plans a fair trial, and especially if you do that over and over, you won’t hit momentum and you will undercut any potential of harnessing the power of consistent execution. Instead, you’ll jump from one plan to another then to another, expending lots of energy and investing lots of time and getting few results.

The Bottom Line regarding your BD plan

Take consistent action with your business development plan. Decide to engage in BD with consistency, and you’ll see results. But if you keep changing plans midstream and discover that your results are lacking, question the strength of your decision first.

 

Biz dev is a marathon.

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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. Don’t stop.” She not only finished: she finished almost 15 minutes faster than she’d imagined she might.

Her tip? Don’t let the mind run the show when it’s tired, stressed, and worried. Make a commitment to action and keep going even when it gets hard.

That approach works for literal and metaphorical marathons. And that’s another reason why it matters so much that you have a business development plan with clear interim and ultimate goals: you’re less tempted to stop even when it gets hard if you can look to your interim goals to mark progress and focus on your ultimate goals to provide continues motivation. (Your ultimate goal means not originating and/or serving $X of business, but doing that so that you can make partner or pay cash for your kids’ college tuition or stay at the Four Seasons on your next vacation.)

Here’s the bottom line:

How do you distinguish yourself?

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Do you ever feel that you’re just one lawyer in a large sea of clones?  Hundreds or thousands of other lawyers may occupy the same niche that you do, and you may wonder how to set yourself apart. The challenge lessens if you have specific expertise in a niche, but re-emerges for everyone at some point in business development.

Here’s the bigger problem: lawyers’ websites often read almost identically. Everyone has “years of experience” that will “create value” for their clients through “excellent client service.”  Important, necessary, but oh-so-very-dull, isn’t it?  In today’s economy, if that’s all you can say about yourself and your practice, you’re in trouble.

If you fail to differentiate yourself from other lawyers and law firms, you’ll fail to capture attention—or if you get attention, your audience may not be able to remember who you are. Of course, you must follow certain ethics rules, but looking like everyone else will do you no favors.

So… How can you differentiate yourself? While the options are potentially limitless, three examples may help you to create your own ideas.

  1. Narrow your niche. You can speak to a specific audience (same-sex parents for estate planning purposes), a specific legal need (helping closely held or family businesses navigate sale or purchase), or a specific part of practice (appellate litigation). When you go narrow in scope, you must go deep in focus so that you become the leading voice in your field. Going deep offers strong content marketing opportunities, and you can distinguish yourself by speaking with laser focus
  2. Create a unique experience for your clients. What can you offer clients that other lawyers can’t or don’t? The opportunities vary widely by practice area, but any value-added service is a good step toward differentiation.
    And remember: how you practice is just as important as what you do in practice. Be attentive to the habits that may set you apart from others. Opportunities to set yourself apart abound: quick responses to telephone calls and emails, regular case updates, and educational resources on topics such as how to prepare to give deposition/trial testimony or what to consider when getting ready to make estate plans, to give a few examples.
  3. Become active and visible in the community. Volunteering, serving on boards, or working with non-profits in other capacities is a good way to become known. It provides a context and opening for conversations that reluctant networkers may find more comfortable. Your pro bono work may even present you the opportunity to offer guidance and suggestions that serve as a taste of the service you offer clients. Moreover, you may have opportunities to speak or write through these channels, both of which will serve to raise your profile. Just a caveat: if you expect this community work to support you in building your practice, make sure there’s a logical nexus either by topic or overlapping audiences.

What’s not on this list? General descriptors that suggest you’re smarter or savvier than other lawyers without something specific to back it up. Your strategic insight may in fact differentiate you from others, but your target audience won’t believe you if you tell them. Demonstrate these qualities by sharing representative matters or an article that share your strategic approach.

Successful lawyers are clear about what makes them different from others, and they know how to communicate that persuasively. If you want to differentiate yourself from other practitioners, it’s imperative to connect with an internal compass that will point to what does indeed make you different. If you don’t know what that is, you won’t be able to convince anyone else. Get feedback from colleagues, clients, and/or an outside source.

Not the same year-end pablum again!

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We’re at the tail-end of the year, a busy time whether you’re celebrating with family or pushing to meet a year-end matter deadline. This time of year, the ‘net is awash in articles about evaluating last year and prepping for the new year that are just warmed-over from previous years. Ugh! Who has time? But…

Here are two articles worth making time to read this week because they’ll challenge your way of thinking:

  • Paying the Smart Phone Tax by Seth Godin. I essentially run my business from a smart phone, and I rely on it for critical news about a terminally ill family member. When I saw the title of this post, I immediately worried about a financial tax on my phone, but the post itself points out a much more significant price to pay from overusing it.
  • The Four Hardest Questions to Answer at the End of the Year by Michael Bungay Stanier. We all reflect on the closing year as a new one approaches, and our questions tend to scratch only the surface. As Stanier argues, asking only “what did you do” and “how did it go” allows you to avoid going deeper into what’s really going on. He recommends four alternate questions:
    • What do I need to kill off?
    • Where have I stayed stuck?
    • How did I let myself down?
    • Where are you really headed?

Read the article for further explanation of these questions, and then answer them honestly to gain deep insight leading into purposeful action. I particularly like Stanier’s suggestion that you answer the questions out loud to a trusted friend or colleague.

These two articles got me thinking in a fresh and challenging direction. I’ll be working on Stanier’s four questions next week. Will you join me?

Project Your Power

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Leadership presence, which includes the ability to project power, is critical in any kind of interaction, whether you’re speaking with one person or to a crowd of 1000.  Failing to exhibit the kind of power that demonstrates self-confidence may leave your audience uncertain about your skill, but overdoing a display of power may come across as arrogance, which is a turnoff for almost everyone.

Amy Cuddy’s presented her research on “power poses,” which demonstrates that adopting or even just visualizing a confident pose delivers self-assurance in one of the most viewed TED talks of all time.  One of the fascinating aspects of that research is that taking a “power pose” can affect levels of testosterone and cortisol. In other words, this is not just a “fake it til you make it” shortcut: taking a powerful stand causes physiological effects that can change how you present yourself and thus how others perceive you.

Stanford professor Deborah Gruenfeld, who spent years studying the psychology of power, discovered that simply understanding the research is not enough to reap its rewards. She eventually teamed up with a theatre instructor to teach a Stanford Business School class called Acting With Power. Watch her micro lecture Playing High, Playing Low and Playing It Straight on YouTube, and you’ll pick up tips on how to project authority and approachability. It’s a worthy investment of time if you’ve ever felt a lack of confidence if you’ve ever received feedback that you come across as tentative, or if you’ve ever worried that you’re coming on too strong.

What does this have to do with business development? Simple: no one wants to hire or refer business to someone who may not be able to handle it. While leadership presence isn’t necessarily indicative of actual professional skill, it’s the stand-in that others will evaluate (consciously or not) as they decide whether you’re trustworthy.

Take a few minutes to check out these resources, and if you’re uncertain about how you come across (especially in situations that are uncomfortable to you), ask a trusted colleague. Your presence will have a significant impact on your career, so don’t delay.

P.S. Mark your calendar for the next installment of the webinar series, Mastering Your Time for Greatest Profit: Blending Year-End Billable Responsibilities and Holiday Relationship Development to Build Your 2021 Foundation. 

The webinar will be held on Thursday, November 19 at 1 PM ET/noon CT/10 AM PT. 

Click here to register.

Getting real about connections

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He spent the first 45 minutes typing on his phone.

My college friend Helen came to visit me recently, along with her partner of four years whom I’d never met. Tom pulled out his phone as soon as he sat down and kept it out for almost the whole evening. When we tried to draw him into the conversation, he’d respond and then return to his typing, and when Helen prompted him to talk about his work, he pulled out his phone to show us some videos related to his job. Tom has a great smile and friendly eyes, but I didn’t get a feel for who he really is. Technology prevented the connection.

Now, you’d never spend time typing on your phone when you meet someone new for business development purposes, right? But think about these instances in which one might unintentionally let technology block a beneficial connection:

  • You’re attending a conference and you spend breaks checking your email and voicemail to avoid getting too far behind instead of chatting with someone new.
  • You make a new connection on LinkedIn (or other social media) but don’t take the relationship any further.
  • You email a client or contact instead of picking up the telephone—not because you know that the person you’re communicating with prefers email, but because it’s easier for you.
  • You have a follow-up plan in place for new contacts, and it relies primarily on email or social media.
  • You’re so busy processing email during a flight that you don’t even notice the person in the seat next to yours, much less speak to him or her.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these scenarios, but if they repeat frequently, you’re probably missing out on opportunities.

Especially in the early stages of building a business relationship, you’ll benefit from making the effort to interact face-to-face or by voice. Think about the contacts you plan to make this week and ask yourself whether a visit or telephone call would advance the relationship more effectively than an email.

P.S. Mark your calendar for the next installment of the webinar series, Mastering Your Time for Greatest Profit: Blending Year-End Billable Responsibilities and Holiday Relationship Development to Build Your 2021 Foundation.

The webinar will be held on Thursday, November 19 at 1 PM ET/noon CT/10 AM PT.

Click here to register.