This week’s rainmaking recommendation from trainer and coach, Jaimie Field, dovetails nicely with my second tip from this week’s post on “Fixing the Two Biggest Networking Blunders that Lawyers Make.”
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For almost 20 years as a Rainmaking Trainer and Coach, I have been saying the same thing: It’s not about you. It’s about them. “Them” being the prospective, current and former clients.
None of us are perfect networkers/relationship builders.
Yes, it seems to come more easily to some than to others, but it’s not an exact science. For the most part, it’s an ever-adapting process that we’re constantly refining based on our current goals and our target’s needs.
But there are a couple of areas that we tend to go astray with building relationships, and that’s where we’re going to focus today.
Does this sound familiar?
An event comes up that you’d like to attend, so you register to go. On that evening, you show up, meet a few people and share some conversation. You may even get some business cards, and hand out a few of your own. You return to work the following day, and you don’t hear anything from anyone that you met. You had a nice time, but that was it.
Continuing with the theme of International Networking Week is a post from rainmaking trainer and expert, Jaimie Field, who’s bringing you ten best networking practices for networking events.
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Apparently, according to my friend and colleague, Lindsay Griffiths, the Executive Director of the International Lawyers Network, it’s International Networking Week. I had no idea that there even was such a thing until last year. It is to celebrate how networking helps business professionals grow their businesses.
It’s February 4th, and that means it’s International Networking Week (I know you all had it on your calendars already!)
Apparently, January is a prime time for networking burn out, and that makes sense. It follows on a long season of holidays and entertaining, when we’re trying to fit in the last of our CLE requirements, meet up with family and friends, and rush to finish all of our end of the year work. So as we kick off February, who is really feeling fresh enough to network again in a way that’s going to effectively develop business for you and your firm?
In today’s rainmaking recommendation, trainer and coach Jaimie Field gives lawyers ten things that may be holding you back from rainmaking success. Do any of these sound familiar to you?
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For years, you’ve promised yourself that you were going to take control of your legal career. You know that in order to do so, you need to have a book of business.
A book of business that would give you negotiating power with your current firm to become an equity partner; a book of business that would allow you to lateral to a different firm if you so choose; a book of business that would let you start your own law firm. Whatever the reason, you know you need a book of business in order to be in control.
Now that it’s 2020, I think (read: I hope) that we’ve all come to the conclusion that it’s important to develop a strong plan that identifies the goals that we have for business development, and the tactics and strategies that we’ll use to develop those goals, right? I have a sneaking suspicion that there are still a few people out there who are throwing various ideas up at the wall with the hope that some of them stick, and this is the year to stop doing that. Really, I mean it.
Sometimes, you need a good wake-up call to help get your on your way to success. Rainmaking trainer and coach, Jaimie Field, addresses that concept in this week’s rainmaking recommendation.
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“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.” – Robin Sharma
For better or worse, we’re all uber-connected these days, between our desktops and our smart phones and our tablets. While many of us can and do (and probably should) take technological time outs for holidays and weekends and evenings, responsiveness is a key factor in keeping clients, potential clients, and yes, even referral sources happy when reaching out about business. And yet, it is STILL one of the most overlooked (and easiest to fix) complaints that I hear about relationship building.
In today’s Rainmaking Recommendation, coach and trainer, Jaimie Field talks about the importance of touchpoint, and why they matter even in legal.
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It has been a basic principle of marketing from time immemorial that it takes seven “touches” before someone will respond to your call to action. It was a concept began by Dr. Jeffrey Lant who is considered one of the godfathers of marketing.
Among my most popular posts last year were those dedicated to talking about LinkedIn, which tells me that it continues to be the tool that resonates most in the legal industry. I know that it’s in part because it’s become such a robust and useful platform, but I also suspect that it’s in part because some of us are still hoping that there’s a silver bullet out there when it comes to networking and relationship building. I hate to tell you – there isn’t. Even when you’re using social media, which can supersize your efforts, you still need to have goals, develop a plan, and invest time and effort in order for it to pay off for you.
Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network. For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, Arthur Li of our member firm Lee and Li in Taiwan, China. In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?...… Continue Reading
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