Bettina Rutherford, The Daily Record Newswire
Building relationships is the foundation of any successful business-development effort, and you’re undoubtedly aware that you should nurture the contacts you made in law school, follow up with people you meet at networking events and conferences, and send interesting articles and tidbits to stay top of mind with those people so that you’re well positioned to get the work when they’re ready.
But what can be hard for many lawyers is turning the ongoing conversation of a friendly relationship into a transaction that actually results in new work. It feels awkward, almost as if you were taking advantage of the goodwill created through years of authentic interest in their well-being and success.
In fact, the opposite is true. That accumulated goodwill forms a strong foundation of trust on which you can build a mutually beneficial and long-term business relationship.
Here are six tips to help you make that shift:
1) Start with the basics.
Before you can begin to turn the conversation to how your contacts might benefit from your services, you need to know that they really would. Learn as much as possible about their company, its competitors, industry trends, and opportunities and threats they may face. Understand how changes in regulations, markets and geopolitics affect the business.
Engage your contacts in a discussion about their critical challenges. At this stage, investigative skills are most important. Asking the right questions deepens the relationship and shows a genuine concern for their success. With a greater focus on risk management than ever before, clients are looking to advisors who are more engaged and deeply knowledgeable about their business in order to limit exposure and reduce unpredictability.
2) Provide insights.
Once you’ve gained a thorough understanding of the world in which your contacts operate, it’s time to bring some value to the table. Identify areas where you can provide insights, ideally in areas your contacts hadn’t realized existed. Offer a unique perspective, present a new way of looking at something, educate them on new issues and outcomes, and inform them about what others in their space are doing to mitigate specific risks or prepare for the future. Establish yourself as someone who is intimately knowledgeable about the industry and cares about helping them identify and navigate pitfalls or take advantage of opportunities. In other words, up the ante. Start to push your contacts into understanding that they have a need and that you can help fill it. Focus on adding insights and value related to their business until they start asking questions about how you can help them.
3) Offer solutions.
Demonstrate to your contacts that it’s not about what’s in it for you, but what you can do for them. Understand their particular objectives and value-drivers and use that knowledge to position your expertise effectively and speak directly to their needs. It’s critical to retain the trust you’ve developed over the years by recommending only those services that are a great fit for their situation. If you’re not the right person for the job, can you introduce them to someone else who can help solve their problem? Generosity breeds reciprocity.
4) Don’t give up.
It is said that less than half of what is presented in a typical pitch meeting is remembered a week later, which sounds discouraging, but really means that continued follow-up efforts are not wasted time. Continue to nurture your relationships and try to ensure that you impart some learning into each encounter to reinforce your position as a trusted advisor. It can take years to turn an existing relationship into a new client, but persistence will pay off in the end.
5) Understand the right measure of success.
Success isn’t always measured in dollars, although that is, of course, the ultimate goal. When trying to shift the relationship from personal to business, the theory is to advance through a series of “next steps” to get closer to your objective. As long as there has been tangible progress and some planned future activity, you’ve made positive strides in turning that relationship into revenue. The process doesn’t necessarily have to be slow, but it might be, so it does have to be steady.
6) Ask!
Perhaps the biggest mistake a lawyer makes in developing business from a friendly connection is to expect the business simply to drop into his lap. Yes, you’ve laid the groundwork, uncovered a need, and positioned yourself as the logical solution, but have you asked for the business? That seemingly simple act is often the catalyst needed to turn a longtime contact into your newest client.
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Bettina Rutherford is the business development manager in the Boston office of K&L Gates.
