Friday, February 4th, 2011
If you are feeling like you would like you would like to get better at business development here are five steps to get you started:
1. Update your contact list. This contact list will include your clients, past-clients, contacts and referral sources. Once you’ve updated it, review the list and develop your “A” list of contacts. This is a short list of the most important people in terms of new business opportunities. While there are many people we care about and we would like to invest time in, the “A” list simply helps us to prioritise. In many cases people on the “A” list will be clients and past clients. In some areas of practice such as commercial litigation they may be referral sources.
2. Make yourself a weekly connect with list. Many of my clients develop the habit of setting aside some time on a Sunday afternoon or evening to think about who they want to take action to connect with in the coming week. It helps to have at your fingertips your short list of priority contacts. Action for a local contact may be to set up a face-to-face coffee or lunch meeting. Or it may be to connect with them in some other valuable way. Is there a legal update you can send them? The guiding question to consider is “how can I add value?”
3. What gets scheduled gets done. This past year has been about schedule mastery both for my coaching clients and for my own practice. Get your commitments into your calendar. Block off time for them. AND respect the time you have blocked off for these commitments by not scheduling over it. Schedule time for connecting with people.
4. Focus on listening. This is one skill that seems easy and yet is surprisingly difficult. The more our minds are filled with deadlines, the more our blackberry buzzes, the harder it gets to listen. In your business development meetings put the emphasis on listening and learning about what’s going on for your contact personally and professionally. What challenges are they facing? What are they most excited about? What’s most important to them? Seek out opportunities to help and to add value.
Put your blackberry away so that you can turn your full attention to the conversation. A key step in business development is “discovery”. That means asking open ended questions and learning all that you can over the course of one meeting or many about your contact and his/her business. This is how you discover where the opportunities lie.
5. Track your actions and your time. Make a commitment to invest a set number of hours weekly on business development. If you want to dabble then give it 2 hours a week. If you want to make a serious effort then set aside 4 or more hours. (This includes time spent planning, emailing, lunching, attending networking events – everything!) Keep a running list of who you are connecting with and what you are learning. Review your notes to ensure you are following up when and where you need to, and to evaluate what’s working and what is not.
And here are some other great resources to explore:
When you have listened and uncovered opportunities it is time to talk about the benefits of you or your firm’s services. Here’s a helpful post from Theda C. Snyder that explains features and benefits.
Check out Susan Van Dyke’s post on 10 tips to revitalize your practice with healthy legal marketing habits.
And finally, don’t miss Paula Black’s recent post tip Be yourself.
Posted in Business Development, Marketing | Permalink | No Comments »
Monday, November 29th, 2010
Experience lists are a crucial part of a lawyer’s on-line profile because they provide clients and prospects with concrete examples of work that has been done. I just came across an elegant approach to experience lists from legal and business writer Doug Stern. What he recommends is shifting the emphasis from the work done to the client served.
BEFORE (1)
Acted for a clean energy company in multiple rounds of venture capital led financing.
AFTER (1)
A clean energy firm engaged [FIRM’S NAME] to help the start-up through multiple rounds of venture capital-led financing.
BEFORE (2)
Representing a health sciences company and its European subsidiary in an action for infringement of two European patents for evacuated, plastic blood collection tubes brought against members of a competing health sciences group in the Patents County Court.
AFTER (2)
A health sciences company and its European subsidiary engaged our firm to assist them in an action for infringement of two European patents for evacuated, plastic blood collection tubes brought against members of a competing health sciences group in the Patents County Court.
By shifting the primary focus to the client and away from the law firm the experience bullets are more interesting to read and less repetitive. Next time you revise your practice group or personal profile on the web I recommend you read Doug Stern’s post on and try out his recommendation.
Posted in Marketing | Permalink | 1 Comment »Thursday, May 8th, 2008
In this crazy world of competing deadlines, priorities, sound bites and instant communication technology it sometimes seems harder than ever to nurture the important relationships in our lives. We are all under such pressure to perform and to achieve there is little time left in the day to reach out and show someone that we care. For a list of tips on how to keep in touch with the important people in our lives check out my article on Slaw.ca this week. And please, if you have some additional tips to share with the readers post a comment here or on the Slaw site.
Posted in Client Relations, Marketing, Solo and Small Firms | Permalink | No Comments »Saturday, March 29th, 2008
Part Two
I first blogged on this topic in December. Today I will continue where I left off and provide my top ten list of steps for launching a successful associate marketing and business development training program:
- Segment your training to target lawyers of a particular year of call, or practice area, so that the curriculum content is appropriate to their skill and knowledge level and can be put into immediate practice.
- Conduct strength assessments with the associates taking part in the training program. These assessments provide a measure of where they are starting from, help frame the business development process, and serve as a point of departure for developing their personal business plans.
- Launch the training program with a Mindset component. Mindset means aligning the business development approach to the strengths and values of the participants, framing business development in the context of career success, and clearing up any misconceptions about what business development is all about.
- In keeping with the active learning emphasis, hold monthly meetings, with actionable homework and feedback components.
- Connect the content of the monthly training sessions to each associate’s goals and business plan.
- Use the training program and homework items to support associates in developing the habit of integrating regular business development activities into their weekly schedule.
- Track results.
- Small groups provide the opportunity for discussion. Each training component is followed by an action item. For example, after the networking session the associates each attend a networking event. Following the event they prepare a brief memo on what worked, what didn’t, what contacts they made, how they will follow-up. At the next training session the first minutes of the class are then spent reviewing the group members’ experience of the networking event.
- Integrate partner experiences into the program through holding partner panels, or collecting business development stories from the partners for inclusion in the training sessions.
- Integrate client experiences into the program through holding client panels, sharing client survey results, or by creating opportunities for the participants to speak with clients of the firm.
Just like learning to improve a golf stoke, lawyers can best develop business development skills through putting knowledge into practice and receiving feedback on performance. Training programs require more than just the seminar component. They require action assignments and the opportunity to debrief with colleagues and a coach or mentor after the event.
Developing a successful business development training program takes time and effort, but the rewards are substantial:
¢ A training program with measurable ROI
¢ A team of lawyers who all business develop
¢ Increased retention of associates
Done right, programs that teach the participants new business development skills, encourage new behaviours and have measurable goals and results will have a fundamental impact on profitability and retention.
For further reading on this topic don’t miss the Hildebrant Article: Masterclass: Adopting A Business-Development Attitude: A Shared Responsibility
Posted in Business Development, Marketing, Training and Retention | Permalink | No Comments »Monday, October 15th, 2007
Clients want lawyers with niche expertise.
At a client panel I took part in last month one of the big themes that emerged was that clients want to hire a lawyer who “gets them” – who has a depth and breadth of knowledge of their industry, their profession, their business, or in essence their issues.
So a great way to build your practice is to focus on developing some niche expertise and getting known for it. The question for a lot of lawyers is how do I find my niche?
Kevin O’Keefe of Lexblog has a helpful post on finding your blog niche (which was inspired by a freelance writer’s post on finding your writing niche). In addition to his handy niche questions I have a few to add of my own:
Think about your background. What jobs did you do before becoming a lawyer? What degrees do you have? Does your family run a business? I was working with one client who casually mentioned his parents, his uncles, and his brother were all in the same type of manufacturing business and that he had worked for them before becoming a lawyer – that became his niche.
Kevin says “find what inspires you.” I agree. What is it that fascinates you? How might you draw the connection with your legal practice? Here in British Columbia one lucky lawyer dominates the ski hill business and another has secured the winery niche. There must be some nice perks with clients like those.
Another question to consider is what kind of clients do you like working with most? What do they have in common?
Ultimately finding your niche is about discovering what you like best about your legal practice and getting more of it. And for associates it’s an effective strategy for gaining ground rapidly, raising your profile, and securing your own clients.
Posted in Client Relations, Marketing | Permalink | No Comments »
Thursday, May 31st, 2007
I was chatting with a lawyer friend over breakfast this morning and she recalled for me, with a shudder, a business development torture session from her days as a first year securities lawyer. She was told to attend a basketball game with a group of stockbrokers. I can’t stand basketball, and the stockbrokers were appalling. I couldn’t understand why I was there. All I got out of the experience was being asked out on a date that I didn’t want to go on.
What was wrong with this picture?
Alignment. Business development is effective when the lawyer’s goals, values, interests, and strengths are in alignment with the business development activity. In my friend’s case there was no fit beyond the fact that she was a securities lawyer and those were securities clients. This was a case of the classic rainmaker turn off.
One associates basketball horror story would be another’s great night at the game.
Sometimes you get just one chance.
So often when we are introducing marketing and business development to associates we really only get one chance. As soon as you make the mistake of sending the wrong person to the basketball game you are sending a powerful message to that lawyer. The message they get is:
Business development is a painful and useless activity.
This is not me.
I don’t do this.
Business development becomes something other people do.
Values are important. I have found that the clearest statements on personal values come from lawyers when you are trying to get them to do some business development activity that is in conflict with their values.
For example, one associate told me he couldn’t stand going to a particular industry networking event. There always seemed to be more lawyers than potential clients and it appeared to him that the non-lawyers in the room were surrounded by a pack of lawyers with carefully prepared elevator speeches and business cards at the ready.
So does this mean this associate is not a rainmaker? Does it mean that he is going to have to get over his inhibitions and jump into the fray?
No. In further conversation it became apparent that he values relationships. He values sincerity. He is truly interested in the industry and is interested in getting meaningfully involved. It’s simply a question of developing opportunities for him to meet with people from the industry that support his own further education and give him a chance to interact with the potential clients in a different setting. We found just the thing for him but as it is still in progress I can’t reveal more!
All of this is to say that there are many different paths to business development.
One partner I know in Victoria got involved in a cooperative daycare program when she had her first child. She got to know all the parents, contributed her one day a week at the centre, and no surprise, the parents who chose to trust their children to her care naturally decided to trust her to handle their legal affairs as well.
There are as many unique paths to developing business as there are individuals. The key is to support lawyers in building an approach to business development that aligns with their own goals, distinct skills, interests, and values.
Ban meaningless acts of business development. If it turns your stomach or makes your skin crawl you know that it is not for you. Instead, discover what is for you, and set it in motion.
Posted in Business Development, Marketing, Thought provoking ideas, Training and Retention | Permalink | No Comments »
