Leftfoot - Legal Business Development

– So You Know How to Sell Your Services. Nicole chats with Peter Aziz, Founder and Managing Partner, Peter Aziz Associates. Strengths/habits that have led to success: If you don’t know the answer ask, people want to help. Growth strategy: Best form of advertising is a client you already represented, treat clients right so they will refer you. Tactical best practices: Peter introduces himself, gives out cards and does an email follow-up. The Internet and social media have made the world smaller. Success story: Gave a driver in Texas his card, the driver gave it to a CEO of a large company who is now his largest client. Advice you’d give to someone starting out:  Map your professional identity, so people know your purpose. Enjoy about work: Doing something for a client they didn’t think could be done. Last word: If you don’t know how to do something ask. If you still can’t do it, hire someone to figure it out. https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-g-aziz-esq-5a146526 (Bio Peter Aziz)  

Law Firms Have to Think Like Businesses Nicole chats with Ajay Raju, Executive Chairman/CEO, Dilworth Paxson, LLP Ajay talks about how all great law firms are built at the intersection of relationship, value and judgement. Strengths/habits that lead to success:   Provide counsel vs. focusing on the delivery of legal work. Growth strategy: Technology is changing the way law is practiced. Clients want value. Act offensively – create profit while embracing an environment of disruption. Tactical best practices: Quality starts with the finest lawyers doing the best work possible then a niche or value prop that makes you and your firm unique. Success story:   White shoe firm absorbs change with enthusiasm. Millennial, Mobile, Global: Millennial professionals have a native fluency with technology and are impatient. They are best equipped to take advantage of how technology and innovation will transition the industry. Last word: Working with new concepts and in new industries has created excitement and energiz

We’re Talking to You Professionals Nicole chats with Aaron Ross, best selling author and founder of Predictable Revenue.com. Check out his latest book, From Impossible to Inevitable. All growth uses the same principals: including professional services. Nailing a niche: where you’re truly unique from others. Become a specialist: approach the market with a specialty. It’s about focus: who needs you and will pay for your services. Real growth: comes when you get business from people who’ve never heard of you. They have a need in your ‘niche’. Build a system beyond your current network. Doing great work is not enough: you can learn how to grow your business, but you can’t hide. You need to do it over and over as long as it takes until it works. Grit:   will separate the people who double or triple their income versus those who grow 5% per year. From Impossible to Inevitable: Frustration is part of it. If you’re not sobbing in a corner or pounding on the floor at some point your probably not doing new thing

BATNA – Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement: Nicole chats with Danny Ertel, lawyer; founding partner of Vantage Partners; and Senior Researcher at the Harvard Negotiation Project. Learn what we’re solving for what’s important to both parties – what each is trying to accomplish or avoid. Negotiation frustration: games and false fronts meant to throw off a negotiation. When a negotiator is a messenger with a demand vs. a party with a vested interest. Avoid the haggle: Pricing high and leaving ‘room’ for a concession. It teaches the client not to trust the first thing you say. Scope and fee changes: Should be managed together as part of an ongoing decision making discussion versus tabled for the end of the project. It’s about leverage. Historical data lead to portfolio pricing success: 5 plus year relationship provided significant experience and revealed patterns within the organization’s matters. Certain cases were sortable by criteria and could be categorized for pricing and staffing e

Find Clients That Would Benefit From Your Strengths: Nicole chats with (name, title, company): Steven Horowitz, a partner at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. Strengths/habits that have led to success: Listen and be aware that clients with similar business issues may have different interpretations of a successful outcome. Growth strategy: There is a great deal of randomness in acquiring clients including being in the right place at the right time. Tactical best practices: Build on the strengths of your firm and use them as an entree for cross selling. Success Factor: Law firms are organized by specialty while clients are unlikely to make intellectual boundaries. Lawyers and law firms that are intellectually flexible can most effectively respond to the client business problem or goal. What Steven enjoys about his work: Helping young lawyers learn what the client cares about and where they can compromise. Last word: To build a relationship opt-in to verbal communication – it’s difficult to de

Provide Value and Help Others: Nicole chats with Paige Zandri, Attorney Network Director at Priori Legal https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigezandri (Paige Zandri Bio) Being prepared and practicing: is Paige’s personal success habit. Tactical best practice is logging notes: Remembering the small details that make a difference and build trust. Do quarterly 360s:  In a high growth business; look at your own work as if you’re evaluating a team member. Legal tech has influenced significant change: Ethics rules and the rules of professional conduct require that lawyers know how to use technology and show competency. Technology can trim fixed and embedded costs: A savings that can be passed on. Create a scalable market presence: using technology to be high touch while remaining primarily remote. Trial and error:  was necessary to limit and define who to go after and who to turn away.

Double Your Listening and You’ll Double Your Revenue:   Nicole chats with Mark Maraia, author of Rainmaking Made Simple and Relationships Are Everything! Brief intro: A pioneer in combining coaching with training in the legal profession, Mark has worked with thousands of lawyers field-testing his ideas. Technology’s role in networking: Approach meetings thoughtfully – use the tools you have to gain insight and ask interesting high-energy questions. Invoices advertise: Invoices create an opportunity for a business discussion on value. Be genuinely interested: Lawyers who think like entrepreneurs provide value to their clients. On networking: Put people together for their mutual benefit.    

Control Business Development and You Control Your Career: Nicole chats with Ian Turvill, CMO, Freeborn & Peters, LLP. Brief intro: You’re not selling to people, you’re not selling yourself, you’re demonstrating your capabilities. Habits that lead to success: Persistence – without being overbearing. Growth strategy: Understand your client as a business person and understand the challenges within their business. Tactical best practices: Niche and get the business for which you’re best suited. Millennial, Mobile, Global: Do great work; maintain the connections you made in law school; pick a niche and build a reputation and intellectual capital in that niche. Last word: If you’re passive around biz development you’ll never have control.    

You’ll Hear ‘No’ a lot! Nicole chats with David Kaprielian, a Principal, with Mercer.  Growth strategy: Ensure current clients are solid. You want to grow not just fill gaps with new business. Tactical best practices: With strong technical skills you can rely on yourself to look at information and make decisions. It’s important to have a client team with separate and distinct skills. Less than Success Story: Assigned to an unhappy client David used focus and effort to turn negative feedback positive. Then it wasn’t, he had become complacent, had reduced his sense of urgency, and hadn’t asked for feedback. Today he asks frequently and brings others in regularly to check client satisfaction. Fixed Fee Pricing: To get from point A to point B with a fixed price you assume a straight line. In reality projects twist and turn – they add time, which equals money. If you can ask the client for more, they feel nickel-and-dimed. If you hold to your price, you feel nickel-and-dimed. How is business development in pr

Don’t Recreate the Wheel Nicole chats with Marcia Wagner, President and Founder, The Wagner Law Group. Strengths/habits that have led to success: Boldness – not being afraid to succeed; and subject matter expertise – being detail oriented. Growth strategy: It’s about being a thought leader, being on the cutting edge of trends – reaching out and having people reach out to hear how to proceed. Tactical best practices: A lawyer will always have his or her own way of growing their business. It’s more art than science. Success story: Survival. Necessity drove the need to look for growth opportunities where the money was. They became extraordinarily expert in a specific area related to their core competency. Pricing Strategies: Clients are reasonable. Stick to your word on pricing, and budgets.  If the client wants to work with your firm, work to get the cost reasonable so that all parties are satisfied. Innovation in the Legal Profession: The Wagner Law Group is asking for and receiving payment f

It’s Said Law Firms Move at Glacial Speed.  Nicole chats with Jeff Berardi, the Chief Marketing Officer of K&L Gates.  Strengths/habits that have led to success: Looking outside of the legal industry for ideas and information. Growth strategy: K&L Gates is communicating to specific industry groups. Clients don’t care how the law firm is structured they are focused on whether the firm understands their business, their industry. Tactical best practices: Not solely focused on the largest accounts – they look for opportunities and potential across all their clients. Success story: Their strategy includes being helpful and providing resources to clients and potential clients without being on the clock. Created a digital destination K&L Gates HUB, which is organized by industry to be more intuitive for clients. They also created a CLE center where anyone can register and take courses. Next up is a HUB resource that is more bespoke – showing content the client needs and wants to receive. Mille

Learn the Power of Listening:  Nicole chats with Nick Araco Sr. Director of Growth Strategies and Business Development at Drinker Biddle, and CEO of the CFO Alliance. Strengths/habits that have led to success: In this ever-changing noisy environment where time is the asset everyone is managing – be a qualified connector and break through the noise the C suite operates in. Growth strategy: Position yourself as a trusted connector and your clients and prospective clients will come to you for advice and counsel – even outside your area of expertise and technical background. Tactical best practices: Create meaningful dialogue – spend time learning what the firm does, how it’s delivered, and what it means to the clients you serve. Success story: To assist a highly respected lawyer in the corporate and securities world, Nick identified a dedicated business development director to go deep from a focus perspective. After meeting a firm client, a PE firm. After evaluating the firm’s investment criteria, he u

With Intentional Content:    Strengths/habits that lead to success: Not giving up after 2 or 3 connection attempts. It takes 9 on average to establish a connection. What have you seen that’s innovative: What’s happening in digital marketing. We have the ability to watch how someone is consuming information and give them more information using those same preferences. Tactical best practices: It’s important to ensure the voice of the client is heard. Avoid jumping to solve the first pain presented. There are pains clients are unwilling to solve. Growth strategy: With tools like LinkedIn you’re able to build a network and communicate messages to that network building credibility in a way we’ve never had access to before. Millennial, Mobile, and Global: Learn to be comfortable in conversations. Listen to what is said – and tailor your response to conversation content. Be polite and courteous. If you’re a jerk, no matter how smart you are, they won’t want to do business with you. Continuously rein

Break Through Convention  Nicole chats with Brian Miske the CMO of KPMG MSLP. Strengths/habits that have led to success: Creativity, curiosity and strategy, drive what Brian does on a daily basis. Creativity: is the capability he’s used in professional services on a consistent basis. Use creativity to accelerate something fantastic.   Connect disparate pieces of information that break through convention. Predictive analytics: Get creative in trying to understand the story behind the data. Confirm what you expected to see and note the interesting things that deserve another look. 3 to 4 different generations in the workforce and all process information and learn differently. Data is the one fact base for all. Owning the conversation: marry statistics and marketing with creativity.   Having synchronization between the value proposition and the differentiators make it relevant for those buying the services. Truly address the perceived value of what will be delivered. A true renaissance in learning is occurr

You Can Teach Yourself to Be a Better Networker   Nicole chats with Michael Schwamm a Partner at Duane Morris in NYC.   Brief Into: Get to know your clients, spend time with them. Make sure your billing practices aren’t pushing them away. Strengths/habits that have led to success: Responsiveness, preparedness, persistent consistent follow-up that provides value. Growth strategy: Become a trusted advisor and they’ll come to you and want your opinion beyond legal matters. Tactical best practices: Before the first meeting gain an understanding of their needs, ask and do research – bring the right team. Success story: “I’m the poster child for networking” – hints on how to be a better networker. Millennial, Mobile, Global: The people you know today may be your strongest connections in the future. http://www.duanemorris.com/attorneys/michaeldschwamm.html (Michael Schwamm Bio)

Providing Proactive Counsel:   Nicole chats with Rania Sedhom, Managing Partner, Sedhom Law Group, PLLC.   Rania and her team take pride providing practical and efficient solutions to complex problems. Strengths/habits that have led to success: Perseverance and being friendly. Growth strategy: Provide value, be cost effective, show your client you’re economizing. Demonstrate your strong business sense and knowledge of their industry, their business. Tactical best practices: Have a plan, calendar business development activities. Success story: 90% of our clients are on retainer. We act as General Counsel, our client’s partner with us – and are engaged fully. Millennial, Mobile, Global: Your best differentiator is you. Let people get to know you – through events, speaking etc. Last word: “We’re kicking it old school” – similar to when the legal profession started.   “We meet our clients regularly; there is trust; we provide proactive counsel to solve business problems.” http://www.besp

Selling is Part of Everything: Nicole chats with Terri Combs, a Partner at Faegre Baker Daniels. Strengths/habits that have led to success:  Having success helps grow your business. Deliver expertise and value. Align the business you go after with what you’re good at. Growth strategy:  Show both credibility and professionalism by being 100% clear. You’re contacting them because you’re looking for clients. Tactical best practices: Market flexibility – adapt to changes, show you’re willing to adapt. Success story:  Called out the client on what was turning into an adversarial relationship – it turned around. Millennial, Mobile, Global:  Don’t sit around waiting for someone to tell you what you should do. Look for open space. Where there’s opportunity and go towards it. What she enjoys about work:  You’ll be dealing with people in extremely stressful situations that are highly personal and you may be involved with them for many years. Helping them can be wonderful and rewarding. Last word:  I went to law

Stop Networking with Other Lawyers:   Nicole chats with Sigalle Barness – Lawyer, Faculty Member, and VP of Programming at Lawline. Whole new areas of law have developed in response to changes in technology; innovation; and the law itself. Share your knowledge and expertise in a helpful way that will resonate. Business education where practitioners talk specifically about their practice area as it applies to an industry, i.e. drones and the legal issues surrounding drones. Shared services economy clients are buying time and lawyers are looking to efficiently and effectively use that time to support their client. Expand globally using a shared services partnership to go local for knowledge and advice. Stop networking with other attorneys network within a community you enjoy, you’ll connect with them better because you’re there for a reason – and it will be more interesting and effective. Get out there and share your expertise within ethical marketing rules – add value to others a

Think Long Term:   Nicole chats with Jennifer Kennedy Park, a partner and leading securities litigation lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb. Strengths and habits that have led to your success: No fear; not being afraid to take risks – ask questions; ask for work opportunities. Growth strategy: Focus on 10 or less clients from a wide spectrum of industries; get to know the businessperson and specific issues they are trying to solve. Tactical best practices: Look for areas where you can make suggestions on how to do something better, more effectively, with reduced risk. Jennifer sees alternative fee arrangements as innovative. For a certain amount each year this is what you’ll pay. It’s how most companies deal with litigation – they budget for it. Success story: Think long term versus short term and over time less than profitable short-term decisions will likely result in long-term profitable client loyalty Millennial, Mobile, Global: Develop relationships early in your career and keep them. You’ll

You can’t practice in a bubble:   Nicole chats with Jennifer Newman Sharpe, an Entertainment, IP and Media Lawyer. Take a genuine interest: clients want their attorney to know who they are, what their interests are so you represent those interests when you represent them. Be a connector: connect people with each other, with opportunities, think about others and help generate business for others through introductions and connections. Narrow in on the clients in your niche: be where they are as a speaker or by contributing content – when they need services they’ll think of you and your perspective. Important not to be a jerk: represent your clients zealously and firmly while treating the opposing party with respect. Opposing counsel is your peer: remain courteous; peer relationships follow you as long as you’re practicing in that region and practice area. Social media and providing content: creates an avenue with new audiences that wouldn’t be aware of your services otherwise. Be confident: a