Tired of being a Lone Ranger? Find free BD support.

I talk with a lot of attorneys about their business development successes, failures, hopes and pains, and I hear one comment perhaps more than any other: “I’m tired of feeling like the Lone Ranger when it comes to business development.” (Don’t worry: this is not a sales pitch where I neatly end with, “so hire me!”) Being a Lone Ranger is exhausting because it means the entire effort is on your shoulders from strategy to building a plan of action to identifying opportunities and executing on them. Some people prefer to work solo, but many of us need some kind of assistance with these efforts.

Try identifying one or more business development partners to alleviate the pressure of working alone. Business development partnerships can assist you directly with landing new business or indirectly by helping you to think through your business development strategy and plan, to expand your network, or to connect you with beneficial opportunities for speaking, Board service, etc.

Consider these categories of a business development partnership strategy:

• Referral sources: Referral sources (or perhaps referral partners) are people who work with or otherwise frequently interact with people who may be your ideal clients. As you meet people working in areas complementary to your practice (business accountants or marriage counselors, for example), you’ll come to know, like, and trust some of those people. When the opportunity arises, you’ll tend to send business to those people. The reverse applies, and those who come to know, like, and trust you will send business your way.

  Referral sources need not be formal referral relationships (consider ethics rules, as always), and in most cases you’ll discover that these business development partnerships function best when they’re a natural outgrowth of a good relationship grounded in trust and respect.

• Network of allies: Your allies are people who can connect you with platform-building opportunities. You may find overlap between referral sources and a network of allies, but you’ll also find people who can help with your professional visibility but won’t be able to refer business to you. When looking to build a network of allies, consider who is likely to be a member of a planning committee for conferences where you might speak, who might be aware of openings on Boards and able to help you be considered, who might feature you as a guest in a podcast and introduce you to other hosts, etc. A network of allies is composed of people who want you to succeed and who can ease your path in some way.
• Mastermind groups: One of my clients has been a member of a mastermind group for many years, and it’s opened opportunities for everything from help with business development planning and accountability to introductions to opportunities for partnership and office sharing. A mastermind group is usually composed of 6-8 people who commit to gathering on a regular basis. Each member presents a challenge they’re experiencing and gets input from the rest of the group. Because a group of people brings the different perspectives of each member, the group is wiser than any one of its members and the feedback received almost always contains valuable insights and ideas.

  Putting together a mastermind group can be tricky, but when you gather a group of lawyers who are committed (key word!) to regular meetings and a “one for all, all for one” approach to mutual support, they can contribute to both business growth and personal/professional satisfaction.

• Accountability partner: Sometimes there’s external business development pressure, such as the promise of a business development partnership with a certain book of business or a lateral move that carries the expectation of portables and a certain amount of new business. More often, BD is a solo pursuit that requires balancing the perhaps uncomfortable development of new skills with an already full plate of billable work and personal commitments. Under these circumstances, it’s easy to delay business development activities—especially since BD can be a long game, creating the perception that one day’s delay won’t matter. Delay after delay does matter, though, and yet it’s an easy habit to fall into.

  Accountability partners can help avoid this problem. Find one or two people, perhaps in your firm or friends from law school, who are willing to commit to accountability check-ins. You might meet for coffee or via Zoom weekly for a check-in, or you could agree to exchange check-in e-mails on a certain day with responses due within 12 hours. The questions are as simple as, what did you intend to do last week? Did you do it? What do you plan to do this week? The magic in accountability partnerships is in the commitment to share where you are with your business development efforts and your partners’ commitment to encourage you to keep your commitments even when you’re busy, perhaps by brainstorming ideas of ways to keep moving forward despite the press of business.

Each of these types of partnerships can help you move forward without feeling like a Lone Ranger of business development. Take a minute to identify which type(s) of business development partners would be helpful to you, jot down a few names that come to mind, and schedule a time for conversation. You’ll thank yourself later.