Join us for this week’s rainmaking recommendation from trainer and coach, Jaimie Field.
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It’s a bit weird, but I have recently been revisiting what I had written in the past when I began my blog in 2009 to see how much of it is still applicable to my Rainmaking Training and Coaching. I wrote the blog you are about to read almost seven years ago, and it still stands today, but it has been updated.
I have begun working with several new attorneys who have asked what is the most important thing they can do to become Rainmakers. The number one thing that I explain is that they have to develop habits and systems that enable them to consistently and continuously perform the tasks necessary to become a Rainmaker.
For example, with a number of my clients, both current and past, one of their most significant issues are documenting their billable hours. They wait until they have to get it done, resulting in them trying to recreate the amount of time they spent on various clients’ works. This subsequently causes them to underestimate their hours spent on a particular matter and, thus, underbilling the client. Instead, if they got into the habit of capturing all of their billables at the end of the day, they can send their clients accurate bills.
As part of my promise to them, I send them a reminder email every single day. Recently, one client said that February was the first month she did not have to spend the last day of the month trying to remember what work she did for clients, and she has accurate bills for them. Within six months, another client captured 275% more billable hours than in the same time period the year before just by creating a habit of capturing his billable hours each day.
The point is that habits and systems are essential. And there are three that I think are probably the most imperative to you becoming a Rainmaker.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle
In Rainmaking Recommendation 101, I wrote about building a Rainmaking Habit. A habit is something we repeatedly do without the conscious knowledge of having to do them. Anything, good or bad, can become a habit.
There are three habits you need to develop if you want to become a Rainmaker.
The Goal Setting Habit
If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. – Jim Rohn
Goals: Type in the words “goal setting” into a search engine, and over 1 billion results pop up. You have heard of all of the reasons to set goals –
- they give you direction,
- they provide clarity to what you want,
- they take your dreams and turn them into a reachable path, and
- they provide accountability.
There are so many wonderful reasons you need to create your own goals, but most importantly, you get to determine the directions you want your life to take.
You have heard it before, but how many of you actually have set goals in your life – in all areas of your life?
Start developing goals in all areas of your life: Financial, Career, Family, Social, Intellectual, Spiritual, Physical, and Health. They all interconnect. For example, your financial goals will affect your career and family goals; your social goals can affect your career and financial goals; your intellectual goals will impact your social and career goals; your physical and health goals will impact every area of your life.
Rainmakers also know that creating a goal-setting habit will help them continue to grow. When they have achieved that first goal, they set newer, bigger, and higher goals. It’s just their habit to do so.
The Planning Habit
Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them. –
Stephen Covey
Just as Stephen Covey says above, you also need to have a plan to achieve those goals. Just having a goal to lose 50 lbs is terrific, but if you don’t have plans on how you will do it, the chances are that you will still have 50 lbs to lose. You need to know what steps you are going to take and when you will take them.
Start by putting your goal – which must be specific, measurable, realistic, and have a deadline on it – at the top of a piece of paper. Then list all of the steps you could take to achieve that.
So, using the example of losing 50 lbs in 5 months:
- Eat healthy and smaller portions
- Start walking
- Work out at Gym
Yes, this is a bit basic, but now you have the start of your plan. Notice each of these can then be given small steps and turned into goals. For example:
- Eat healthy and smaller portions
- Go to the farmers market once a week for fresh fruits and vegetables
- Learn new healthier cooking techniques
- Measure food
You can keep breaking each and every one of these steps of your plan into smaller steps. The cool thing about that is that you can cross off the ones you get done.
However, it would help if you put deadlines on each of the steps you want to take, or it will never get done.
Get into the planning habit. Know the steps you are going to take to help you achieve the goals you wrote.
The Taking Action Habit
Deadlines aren’t bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it. – Harvey Mackay
You have goals and a plan; now you have to execute it.
The plan often sits on the corner of the desk or gets buried in your computer files. Instead, it would help if you started scheduling or planning when you will do the steps necessary to achieve your goal.
Rainmakers take action on a consistent and constant basis. They understand that they need to keep Rainmaking all of the time to avoid the feast and famine stages of their business.
Action breeds action. You will build this into a habit if you work the plan you developed with the goals you want to achieve.