Tips for making the host of holiday gatherings

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Networking is always a popular topic for lawyers who are engaged in rainmaking, and the reason is simple: the people who know, like, and trust you will have an enormous influence on your success in practice.  And there’s no time like the holidays for networking, because so many organizations and groups arrange holiday gatherings.

If you’re an introvert and the very thought of attending a holiday gathering to develop business relationships makes you want to dive for the nearest rabbit hole, keep breathing.   Networking doesn’t have to be painful — not even for introverts.  How’s that?

Good networking involves relationship-building.  Most frequently, networking establishes the opening stages of a relationship that will mature over time.  Introverts can excel in establishing these relationships because so often, networkers are eager to talk about themselves, but introverts tend to be more comfortable asking questions and letting their conversation partner talk.  Introverts will distinguish themselves by focusing on the other person.  Ask questions like these:

  • What is most exciting in your business right now?
  • What concerns you most about what’s going on in your business or industry?
  • What do you want to see happening for you in 2009?

Asking questions and listening with genuine interest to the answers you get will benefit every networker in two ways: first, it takes the spotlight off the introvert, and second, you’ll have an opportunity to learn so much about the other person that you can connect him with beneficial resources, which he’ll appreciate.  Of course, you’ll need to say something about yourself as well (more on that in the next post) but you’ll find it much easier to talk about who you are and what you do after you’ve established rapport with a conversational partner.

A few additional thoughts on how to network well:

  • Be prepared with something to say. Know what the bignews story is, the key sports results, and have a thoughtful comment.
  • Be prepared to introduce yourself in 30 seconds, without stumbling. Use the template, I am [name], I do [kind of work] with [kind of client] so they can [get specific results].  Use clear words without jargon and invite curiosity.  If it’s boring to say, it’s boring to hear.
  • Carry business cards and have them easily accessible…..
  • ….But don’t offer indiscriminately them at the beginning of a conversation.  It’s far better to chat for a while, to know someone about the person, and then to ask for his or her business card. What if, horror of horrors, they don’t reciprocate and ask for yours? Not a problem. Send them one when you follow up after the event.
  • When someone offers you a business card, look at it before you put it away. A card is the tangible representation of the person with whom you’re speaking. Look at it, accord it due respect, and then carefully put it away.
  • Pay attention to the conversation. Don’t be one of these “power networkers” always looking over the shoulder of your conversational companion, looking for someone more interesting.
  • Listen. That deserves a separate bullet point. When your companion is talking, that’s your signal to listen to what they’re saying, not to be composing your witty rejoinder. It’s easier to be interested than interesting, and it’s also more attractive.
  • Think about how you can help the person with whom you’re talking. Make a contact, offer a lead, or just ask how you might recognize a terrific potential client/customer for her.
  • Set your intentions before you go (i.e., I will leave with 3 business cards of people I plan to contact again). Aim for quality over quantity.
  • Follow up with your contacts after the meeting.

To make the most of a networking event, you must follow up with the key people with whom you speak. Don’t overlook standard follow-up tactics like sharing a meal or coffee, a golf game, or a sporting or cultural event.  Think about other opportunities as well:

  • Follow up with some of the people you meet at a networking event with a handwritten note, tailored to the recipient. Then follow up on your follow-up with articles, resources, and the like, that are relevant to that person. Not so much that it’s obnoxious, but enough to make the person feel that you’ve really taken an interest in who they are and what they’re doing.
  • Reserve a table for 6 or 8 for lunch or dinner after your event (if it’s a cocktail party, for example) and invite several of the people you meet to join you.

The most important approach to making the most of the holiday gatherings you attend is to engage people.  Don’t hang around with the same people you see every day or every week: make it your goal to meet new people, to reconnect with those you no longer see regularly, and to set yourself up with some new business relationships to grow in the new year.

Bad news in the legal job market…

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Anyone who hasn’t been living underneath a rock for the last few months is aware that the legal market is down for new hires and that law firms are cutting lawyers.  Proof?  The lateral market is “officially flooded,” and legal recruiters and law students are being hit hard.  Where’s the good news?  Some IP firms are hiring, and lawyers are hoping that new regulations (and billable work) will spring from the Obama administration.  Oh, and helpful articles suggest signs that perhaps you’re about to be laid off, so perhaps you can avoid the shock and get a head start on updating your resume.

Aspirin, anyone?  Or antacid?

What’s a bright lawyer to do under these circumstances?  Here are my top 3 suggestions.

1.  Focus on building relationships.  Building relationships both inside and outside your firm will help in several directions.  You’ll be known and you’ll build a reputation, and you may put yourself in a position to receive assignments you might not otherwise.  Because relationships are the key to rainmaking, you’ll be laying groundwork there.  And you’ll develop your network, which you’ll almost certainly need at some point.

2.  Build your skills, especially in business development.  If you’re slow now at work, take the opportunity to invest in yourself.  Attend CLE programs or read up on your area of practice, your clients’ industries, and business generally.  Write articles.  Seek out opportunities for business development training.  Get a mentor and get personalized advice on what you should be doing, given your level of seniority, your area of practice, your goals, etc.  While brief slowdowns are great for taking vacation, this slowdown is a different animal and should be taken as an opportunity to develop yourself.

3.  Keep your resume up-to-date.  We should all do this at all times, because there’s no telling when that “perfect opportunity” will arise.  Realistically, we’re usually caught up in other pursuits and have to scramble when it’s time to submit a resume.  In this environment, although many more lawyers will keep their jobs than be laid off, it’s wise to have a resume ready to go.

For most lawyers, I’d put rainmaking training and activities at the top of the list right now.  Relationship-building and reputation enhancement takes time, and regardless of whether you’re a first-year who’s never even thought about how to bring in business or you’re a sixth-year wondering if your skills will be adequate to permit you to make partner, rainmaking is a key skill you should begin working on NOW.

Get satisfied… Or get out.

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Monica Parker (author of The Unhappy Lawyer) and I recently hosted a teleclass entitled, Should I Stay [in the Law] or Should I Go?  Nearly 100 people registered for the free preview call, and we ended with a lively discussion. We named the call  Should I Stay or Should I Go? because that’s the question that we both hear all too often from clients, potential clients, and lawyers who just want to release a burden by talking for a few minutes.  And all too often, the answer becomes, “I really want to leave practice but I can’t because…

This morning, I read a story  on the ABA Journal website, in which a former Baker Botts associate left practice and became (after a few interim steps) a Dunkin Donuts franchisee.  His turning point came after several years of frustration when he asked a colleague about to make partner whether it’s true that practice gets better with time:

“The colleague responded, ‘No, it doesn’t really get better. You just resign yourself to [the notion that] this is what you do, you resign yourself that this is an easy, safe way to make a living,’ ” [Michael] Weinberg recalled in an interview with Texas Lawyer.

Weinberg said the advice “was just one of the most depressing things I’d ever heard. And I remember thinking, ‘I gotta get out of here.’ “

Talk about a turning point.  Here’s what I’d like to remind dissatisfied lawyers: law isn’t for everyone, and choosing to remain in a career in which you experience only minimal satisfaction is a waste.  Many frustrated lawyers can improve how they feel about practice by making changes that range from small tweaks  (learning to use time more effectively, for example) to seismic shifts (such as changing areas of practice).  I specialize in working with lawyers to develop successful, satisfying, sustainable practices, and there are two moments I especially relish in my work: when a lawyer finds satisfaction and chooses to stay in practice, and when a lawyer decides that law really can’t be the right fit and chooses another career instead.  Get satisfied or get out: life’s too short to tarry in misery.

The next two or three posts here will focus on how to make the decision of whether to stay or to go, along with the changes that may improve your satisfaction.

Survey says: increase intimacy, not fees.

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It isn’t news to anyone that we’re in a tough and uncertain economy.  Nor is it news that business is slow.  The real question is, what can lawyers do today to weather this economy?  Summarized in yesterday’s AmLaw Daily, the answer is to develop client relationships.  The Advisory concluded that the substantial growth in law firm business over the last six years (growth that Hildebrandt called unprecedented) is due primarily to 6-8% annual fee increases.  So now what?  From the AmLaw Daily article:

Over the next 45 days, 10 percent of firms will announce rate increases, and 10 percent will announce no change. The other 80 percent will wait and see. Clients will aggressively push back on the increases, and many might be rolled back, either explicitly or via discounting. Those 80 percent who’ll be watching from the sidelines will take their cue from the no-changers, leaving those making increases adrift on a fast-melting ice floe. Even if they roll back, those increasing rates will have sent a clear message that they are out of touch with client reality in a way that will preclude any efforts to improve intimacy….

Seeking to improve client intimacy is both safer and easier than sticking to a diet of price increases. Until the last decade or two, any business school discussion of customer intimacy would have started with law firm business practices. Web 2.0 technologies make intimacy easier, but why not just start by inviting retired partners, especially the name partners who built the firm in the first place, to talk about how they did it ‘back in the day’? Reflecting on best practices, requiring every partner to talk to their top ten clients, sending senior management on the road to meet with clients and to discuss how to work together better is all pretty basic stuff.

In other words, talk with your clients.  Get to know them as individuals.  Go to their offices, ask what their concerns are, and offer to help where appropriate.  Building relationships doesn’t have to be difficult, and when approached authentically (in other words, not by faking sincerity), you will be on the road to becoming a trusted advisor.

Back to blogging; finding opportunity in chaos

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It’s been quiet here at the Life at the Bar blog recently.  I’ve been updating the blog platform, which pretty much brought the blogging itself to a standstill.  The new blog is up and running now (though it will be difficult to see any noticeable changes, I promise, they’re running in the background) and so it’s back to the regular schedule here.

I don’t imagine it’s news to anyone that our economy appears to be in financial crisis.  Despite a few rallies here and there, the trend goes in one direction: straight down.  I’ve noticed quite a bit of fear in the lawyers with whom I’ve been talking: fear of layoffs, fear of firm dissolutions, and the like.  There’s little doubt that we’re in uncertain, turbulent times, but I’d like to present the other side of the story.

While I was on my Wyoming retreat, I spent an afternoon by a remote lake.  (The photo to the left shows the view I got to enjoy.)  At one point, I looked across the lake to see a man fishing, with his dog at his side. The only sound I could hear was the peaceful lapping of water and the wild Wyoming wind.

And then, the dog’s bark broke the peace.  Just a double or triple “woof,” not a big deal.  Because of the mountains encircling the lake, though, the dog’s bark echoed.  And when the dog heard the echo, he barked again, clearly thinking that another dog had dared to trespass on “his” lake.  The barking escalated, as the barks and their echoes crossed, and the dog worked himself into quite a frenzy, despite his owner’s best efforts to quiet him.  The dog faced no threat, but he was ready to fend off an army of intruders.

The economic news over the past month in some ways reminds me of that afternoon by the lake.

There’s no question that today’s economy is difficult.  The U.S. (and much of the rest of the world) is experiencing a significant downturn.  People are losing jobs and homes and savings, and I would never suggest that anyone in that situation is imagining the trouble.  I suspect we’ve all held our breaths as news circulates about 400, 600, or 800-point drops in the Dow.  What’s happening is not an illusion.

At the same time, I’ve noticed some hints of the backing echo.  Those of us who haven’t been affected (or affected much) worry that it’s just around the corner.  We start talking about the fear, it gets echoed back to us (from worried others or from the media), and then the fear grows even bigger and stronger.  I have to wonder to what extent our fear is exacerbating the economic situation that’s caused the fear.

Leaders will be taking another view of the crisis.  By leaders, I don’t necessarily mean those at the helm of business or government, but those who possess strong leadership competencies and hold or assume a position to lead others.

The leaders’ view of the economy will be realistic – pain and fear exists, and so this isn’t the time for mindless acquisition – and it will also be realistically hopeful.  I’m not an economist (nor do I play one on TV) but I’m aware that when people and businesses quit spending money because of economic fears, the result is more lost jobs and more economic trouble, not less.  A meeting point must exist between the practices that led to this crisis and the practices that (in concert with many other factors) will help to pull the economy out of crisis.

Leaders know that opportunity arises even in chaos, and they’ll be watching for sensible ways to spend money.

What does this mean for lawyers?  This is the time to invest in your practice and your professional development.  Skeptics may roll their eyes and think that of course I’d say this is the time to spend money on development, since I offer services and products that support professional development.  I can’t argue!  However, the truth is also that I’m investing heavily in my own professional development now.  I’m practicing what I preach because I believe it to be a solid approach.

If you’re going to spend money, ask what expenditures will make sense over the long run.  I’ve observed a lot of  “comfort spending”: dinners out, new electronic gadgets, and the like.  I have nothing against those consumer items, but unless they bring real pleasure or are used in some way to develop a relationship (for instance, taking a current or potential client to dinner), they’re of no ultimate, lasting value.

Notice your reaction when you have an opportunity to invest time or money into something that will strengthen you personally or professionally.  Is your immediate reaction that you don’t have the time, or you don’t have the money?  If so, the message you’re broadcasting is that your professional or personal life doesn’t merit the investment.  Without an investment of time and/or money, it’s tough to develop professionally, and the justification becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Like the dog at the Wyoming lake, the echoes of the bark become the threat, and they appear to be absolutely real.  Remember the words that appears in the comic strip Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  That isn’t the whole story, but it is a part of the story.

My top recommendations to weather this difficult time and position yourself to thrive when the economy picks up, as it surely will:

1.  Invest in your professional development.  Attend skills enhancement programs.  Read the books you’ve been meaning to read.  Find a mentor or a supportive peer group or a coach and lay a strategy for growing your practice and yourself.

2.  Strengthen your relationship with your best clients.  They’re worried, too.  Talk with them about their concerns, and explore how you might be able to help.  Ask what their plans are to move forward.  At a minimum, you’ll do service and develop a stronger bond by asking the questions and genuinely listening to the answers, and you may even pick up some legal work.

3.  Invest time and money in your business development activities.  This is not the time to pull back and wait for a restoration of balance.  The legal market is competitive.  Hiding from competition until it’s more convenient or affordable to participate is a mistake.

Follow the news, and look for the silver lining as well as the cloud.  What opportunities can you spot?

President Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed this far more eloquently than I could ever hope to do, so I’ll close with his words:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

(Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933)