For most lawyers, this answer is an easy “yes.” Sure, there’s a small cadre of lawyers for whom business development is energizing and gratifying. Most others, however, would rather do anything else. The words most lawyers use to describe the business development part of their jobs include “draining,” “uncomfortable,” “difficult,” and “intimidating.”
What if all it took was some time and effort at your computer, and a strategic approach that requires only the skills that already make you a successful lawyer?
The good news: That’s the whole answer. Your “lawyering” skills are the only ones you need. You don’t have to become a “schmoozer.” Whatever personality your clients already like while you’re performing legal work will also serve you incredibly well when getting legal work.
As for the traditional sales behaviors you wish to avoid like the plague? Those are good instincts. Such behaviors are counterproductive; buyers find them just as distasteful as you do. Nobody wants to be targeted, pitched, or closed.
Think about the problems that create the kind of work that really gets your juices flowing. The matter or case for which you’re qualified, that you find really challenging and intellectually stimulating, and for which you can bill at a healthy rate that the client will happily pay.
Prospects are out there with those problems and need a lawyer like you – but they just can’t find you. If you don’t provide them with an effective way to associate you with their particular problems, they’ll never know that they need you, specifically.
That’s what the lawyers we’ve trained experience every year, and what you’ll learn with RainmakerVT.
You want prospective clients to know who you are and to associate you with a specialty. You’ve probably tried communicating that message to your audience through traditional media, social media, or articles on your website about a recent legal development. You’ve also probably done a Google search a few days after your article appeared…only to find that hundreds of lawyers around the country had written a very similar article to yours. Why does this happen? It’s because…
The topics with which you’re trying to associate yourself virtually ensure that you’re going to disappear into the crowd of lawyers attempting to do the same thing. RainmakerVT teaches you to look at your subject matter differently, and broadcast it in a way that inevitably distinguishes you from the crowd.
That’s what the Getting Found section of RainmakerVT is all about. It shows you just a few simple, sensible, and strategic tweaks you can start implementing immediately. Many lawyers we’ve trained have responded by calling this approach “genius.” What they’re actually thinking, however, is: “This is so simple, and makes so much sense. How is it that I never thought to do this before?”
For a limited time, gain free access to “Lunch With The Coach,” a bi-weekly webinar with Mike O’Horo, who’ll discuss one RainmakerVT strategy and answer questions from subscribers & followers:
Getting Found by prospects on a regular basis is exciting, but you still have to transform prospects into paying clients. That’s the essence of our Getting Chosen section — a private, virtual world where you learn to master client procurement by doing, not by merely reading or listening.
You’ll manage an avatar through simulated sales and marketing activity, e.g., networking events, prospect calls, beauty contests, etc. As each scenario unfolds, as in the real world, you’ll face a series of junctures at which you must choose what to say or do next.
With each choice you make, you get immediate feedback in the form of context-sensitive video coaching that explains the nuances and subtleties of why that choice isn’t — or is — optimal. Choosing the optimal response causes the scenario to progress to the next decision, and so forth.
According to detailed feedback from lawyers just like you, the best part is that, in the virtual world, there are no witnesses to the mistakes you’ll inevitably make as you learn, and the only clients you’ll lose are virtual ones. The only thing the world will see is the confident you, succeeding by applying the skills you’ve mastered online to real world situations.
Because of all the time you have to spend practicing law, you might have only two or three legitimate sales opportunities per month in the real world. Such scarcity means two things: It will take a long time to get any good at this, and the stakes for each opportunity are too high to use any of them for practice. RainmakerVT’s virtual world enables you to gain far more experience than the real world can allow, given the limited time you have to market and sell.
RainmakerVT provides you with a Practice Mode that lets you do just that — practice. In just 5-10 minutes before going to a real-world networking event or sales call, you can refresh what you learned previously and go out there with confidence.
All of this is available from any Internet connection, 24/7, in bite-sized chunks, on your schedule.
When do you prefer to learn?
At night, after putting the kids to bed? Early morning, before the day’s demands take over? During lunch, or while taking a break between tasks? Or, maybe on your iPad while waiting for your flight to board? You decide.
Here, much of what we’ve learned over the past 20 years helping lawyers get clients (about a billion-and-a-half dollars worth, they tell us) is free. Take advantage of as much as you can.
Subscribe to ResultsMailVT, our weekly marketing and sales tip. Just for subscribing, we’ll send you a free copy of our eBook, “The One Mistake that Keeps Lawyers from Doubling Their Income” (a $59 value).
Or register for or our biweekly “Lunch with the Coach,” a live coaching/Q&A session where Mike O’Horo will answer questions you submit about the challenges you face daily.
Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Quora. Subscribe to the RSS feed to follow our blog and participate in the conversation in the Comment area.
Stick around for awhile. Get to know us.
Decide for yourself if the way we approach getting great clients — and preparing you to do it well, and painlessly — is comfortable for you.
"Your material is a godsend! I was attending 2 or 3 networking events a week with nothing to show for it. Who would have guessed that a six-sentence summary, written at my desk, would turn me into an attorney thought leader on a new technology? Now I'm filtering incoming client calls, rather than making them."
-Alex R. Transactional Lawyer, Akron, Ohio
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