Jaimie Field – Enlightened Rainmaking

When you go to a networking event, what’s the inevitable first question that you get asked or that you ask another?

“What do you do?”

The fact is that this question implies that you are only interested in what they do for business and what they can do for you, not who they are as a person.  And vice versa.

Networking is about creating relationships which can lead to business.  Sales is about closing the deal and no one likes to be sold.  So instead of inquiring about “what do they do”, start with questions which really ask them “Who are you?”

The questions can run the gamut from asking about family, hobbies, and their favorite sports teams (please stay away from the controversial three topics – politics, religion and sex).  You can ask questions about what brought them to the event in the first place.  Compliment them on their shoes, ties, clothing and style. Ask where they bought those items.

When you show interest in the person, rather than their business or what they can do for you, then people will begin to show interest in you.

Inevitably you will get to the question: “What do you do?”  But it doesn’t have to be the first one.

Did you know you can schedule an in-house, customized Rainmaking training workshop for your law firm? begin telephone or Skype individual rainmaking training from wherever you are in the world with Jaimie? Call or email for more information.

Look on the corner of your desk or open that top drawer – is there a stack of business cards you’ve collected during networking events?

Pull the cards out and start going through them.  Do you remember who any of these people are?

First, cull through the list of cards and throw out any card of any individual you truly cannot remember.

Then start contacting those who you do remember – send an email, make a coffee date, call to catch up.  Start creating the relationships which will lead to new business.

And make a promise to yourself.  That you are no longer collecting cards just to have a stack of cards sitting on your desk (in your drawer).   When you go to a networking event, bring a pen and just jot down a few things on the back of the card to help you remember your conversation. Put the date and the event and you will never forget about that person again.

But most importantly, do not just stick that card in a drawer on in a pile wrapped with a rubber band on the back corner of your desk.  Find a way to organize them that makes sense to you.  Use 3-ring binders with 8×11” card holders, do it electronically, but make sure that it is a system you are going to use.

Finally, contact the person you met –  ask if you can put that person on your newsletter list, send a referral, invite them to learn more about your practice, find out what they do.

It isn’t a contest to see who collects the most cards – you might as well just wallpaper a closet with them if that‘s the case.

It’s about creating relationships which lead to new business for you both.

Rainmaking Recommendations are sent the first and third Wednesdays of the month.  They are bite size tips that when implemented will cause you to make rain. To learn more about Rainmaking, Goal Setting and Achieving the Life you want as an Attorney please contact Jaimie B. Field, Esq. If you want them sent directly to your email box, follow these directions.

Did you know you can schedule an in-house, customized Rainmaking training workshop for your law firm? begin telephone or Skype individual rainmaking training from wherever you are in the world with Jaimie?

Call or email for more information.

What type of law do you practice?  What industry do you target?  

In each area of practice there is a list of people who work in the same in industry who do not practice law.  People like accountants, psychologists/therapists, and other vendors who concentrate on the same group of people/businesses you are trying to reach who will not step on your legal toes.

Create your own ad-hoc networking group.  Gather these people together to meet at least once a month, whether in person, via Skype or conference call, and create relationships with them.  Make sure that each person’s business compliments but does not compete with the other.  Each of these people and businesses has the ability to refer more business to you without feeling like they are competing with others who do the same thing that they do for a living.

In addition to referrals, this group can also provide competitive intelligence about the industry you wish to target.

Where do you find this group with which to network?

Search the industry with which you want to work.   Find the publications, magazines, websites that people read to keep up with the industry and see who is writing the articles and advertising in these publications.  Contact them and ask if they would like to be a part of this group to help grow all of your respective businesses.

What’s the worst thing that can happen?  They say “no?”  If this happens, there is more than one person who can take their place.

Rainmaking Recommendations are sent the first and third Wednesdays of the month.  They are bite size tips that when implemented will cause you to make rain. To learn more about Rainmaking, Goal Setting and Achieving the Life you want as an Attorney please contact Jaimie B. Field, Esq.

Did you know you can schedule an in-house, customized Rainmaking training workshop for your law firm? begin telephone or Skype individual rainmaking training from wherever you are in the world with Jaimie?

Call or email for more information.

Lindsay Griffiths is a friend of mine.   She is also the Director of Global Relationship Management for the International Lawyers Network (ILN), a consortium of independent law firms across the world.

In March, Lindsay went to the Legal Marketing Association’s annual convention in Grapevine, Tx and blogged about her time there.   In one of her blogs about the General Counsel Panel session which featured  featured Ron K. Barger, the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Archon Group, Jeffrey W. Carr, the Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary for FMC Technologies, and Janet L. Dhillon, the EVP, General Counsel and Secretary for J.C. Penney Company, she listed a series of quotes from the panel which she found most informative and which you can find here.

While she has some amazing quotes which lawyers and law firms would be smart to understand them all, there are just a few from that list that I would like to address for Rainmaking and Marketing purposes:

• “If you send me a brochure, I throw it out. Get rid of them.” – Ron K.Barger

Too many law firms and attorneys spend ridiculous amounts of money on brochures, glossy packages, and “marketing collateral”. While I have been saying for years that most of these documents are filed in the round container under the desk, it is nice to have someone say it out loud.

Too many attorneys mistake “marketing” for rainmaking.  Rainmaking is about creating relationships with people and then having those relationships morph into new business – whether they refer business to you or retain you personally.   As I always say, people do business with people they know like and trust.  A brochure or other marketing collateral doesn’t necessarily convey who you are and what you can do for this potential client.

Do not spend your money on printed materials.  It is unnecessary.  We now live in a world where anything anyone needs to find out about you is located online. However, this brings me to quote number two for this discussion.

• “I pay zero attention to your website, unless there’s a tool I can use.” – Jeffrey W. Carr

Just having a website is about as effective as having a brochure.  If the information doesn’t change, if there is no useful information on it, then it is relatively worthless other than as a place to find your name and contact information.

Blog!  Show the world what you know and let them see your personality.  However, if you decide to blog, you must be committed to updating the blog on a regular basis.  In a landmark study of in-house counsel conducted by Green Target, they say that “76% of respondents say they attribute some level of importance to a lawyer’s blog when deciding which firms to retain.”

• “Be pleasant with all my staff. Don’t save your best behavior for me.” — Janet Dhillon

Just because there is aVIP you want to impress, do not think for one second that treating his/her staff poorly will reflect well on you.  First, the VIP will find out how you treated his/her assistants and staff.  And second, there is no one who is “below” you.  That assistant may one day run a multimillion dollar company – think rags to riches stories and you will understand.   Since you never know who may refer or become your next best client, it behooves you to treat everyone you meet with the utmost respect and create relationships with everyone.

Lindsay includes some wonderful posts on her time at the LMA conference.  Please go over to her blog at Zen and the Art of Legal Networking to read them.

So you went to a networking event.  You met some really wonderful people.  You got their business cards. You think there is some way that you can potentially do business.  You left the event after having a great time. You went home.  And then… you did nothing!

You didn’t write a “Nice to Meet You Note”

You didn’t send an email.   

You didn’t call to make a coffee date.

You didn’t connect with them on social media sites.

You didn’t let them know you were interested in getting to know more about them or their business.

You’ve broken the chain.

Think of Rainmaking as a “Relationship Chain” – a chain of links which ends in business.  Sometimes these chains are short just a few links long and you get business almost instantaneously.  But sometimes these chains stretch for long lengths.

Just because you have met someone, or connected with them on a social media site (Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest) doesn’t mean you have a relationship chain.  Chains are built one link at a time and you need to continually build this chain until it is strong enough to create a relationship which results in business.

If at any point you break this chain, you break the ability to further this relationship and it is relationships which bring in new clients and referrals.

Rainmaking Recommendations are sent the first and third Wednesdays of the month.  They are bite size tips that when implemented will cause you to make rain. To learn more about Rainmaking, Goal Setting and Achieving the Life you want as an Attorney please contact Jaimie B. Field, Esq.

“Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” – Dale Carnegie

Rarely do people spell my name correctly.  Even more aggravating to me is that I am constantly getting correspondence addressed to Mr. Jamie Field (note incorrect gender AND incorrect spelling).

While I no longer get bothered by either of these issues, if you are trying to sell me something, I am less likely to be interested in what it is since you have not taken the time to address me properly.

However, I will say that I am always pleasantly surprised when I receive an email or letter from someone who has spelled my name correctly.  The fact is that I have many friends who, for decades, who still don’t spell my name right.

As the Dale Carnegie quote above states, a “person’s name is the sweetest and most important sound (and I will add sight) in any language”.  Not only are there a lot of unusual names out there, including hard-to pronounce surnames from various countries, but there are variations on spellings for many typical names (like mine).

Learn people’s names, spell them correctly, say them correctly – even if you have to ask, them how to pronounce it the first time.  You will find that people whose names are often butchered will be extremely grateful that you took the time to learn this.

P.S:  In the spirit of full disclosure, I sometimes also make mistakes but always try to correct it immediately.

P.P.S.:  By the way the correct spelling of my name is J A I M I E

Rainmaking Recommendations are sent the first and third Wednesdays of the month.  They are bite size tips that when implemented will cause you to make rain. To learn more about Rainmaking, Goal Setting and Achieving the Life you want as an Attorney please contact Jaimie B. Field, Esq

Simply put, marketing is communicating what you can do for prospective clients by creating awareness.

Rainmaking is converting those people into prospective clients by creating relationships.

Marketing educates your prospective clients and referrals sources about the services you can provide to them.

Rainmaking creates the relationships which allow your prospects and referrals to know that you can provide these services just for them.

Marketing uses a lot of reactive tactics to generate awareness of your services.  For example (this is not even close to an exhaustive list – there are more than 100 ways to get your services known):

• Advertising
• Blogging
• Websites
• Newsletters
• Articles

Rainmaking uses proactive tactics to get to know people personally which will allow them to make the decision to hire or refer you.  For example (Again, this is not even close to an exhaustive list – there are more than 100 ways to create relationships which will get you clients):

• Networking
• Referral Systems
• Entertaining for business (coffee/lunch appointments)
• Social Networking (yes, even online networking can be used for Rainmaking Purposes and will be covered in future blog posts)

So while Marketing will get you known, Rainmaking will get you clients.

Rainmaking Recommendations are sent the first and third Wednesdays of the month.  They are bite size tips that when implemented will cause you to make rain. To learn more about Rainmaking, Goal Setting and Achieving the Life you want as an Attorney please contact Jaimie B. Field, Esq.

Did you know you can schedule an in-house, customized Rainmaking training workshop for your law firm? begin telephone or Skype individual rainmaking training from wherever you are in the world with Jaimie? Call or email for more information.

This article, which originally appeared in the New Jersey Law Journal December 3, 2009, has been reproduced here. Although almost a year old, the article still resonates today.

The recession that began in 2008 caused mass devastation in the legal field.  We watched the annihilation of venerable law firms, like Heller Ehrman, Thelen Reid and Wolf Block.  Other law firms decimated their staffs by laying off thousands of attorneys, paralegals and support staff.    Small, Mid-size, Large – no law firm was immune to the financial issues and cutbacks that this recession caused.   We learned that the profession of law, which was once thought to be recession proof, is not immune to a downturn in the economy.

However, the attorneys who were able to bounce back immediately, or to whom the recession has had little effect are . . . The Rainmakers.

So what can YOU do to become a Rainmaker?

Believe it or not, becoming a Rainmaker is simple; there are only two steps to becoming an effective Rainmaker.  First, rainmaking is a function of relationship building; second, rainmaking is a function of great follow up.

Rainmaking can be taught; it is a matter of knowing the various business development tactics that exist, for example, networking events, online strategies, seminars and referrals.  Rainmakers understand how to use these tactics to promote themselves, their practice and their firm and develop relationships.  (The tactics are beyond the scope of this article, however, each is a method used to create relationships.)  Every attorney, regardless of personality can become a Rainmaker in his/her own right.

Thereafter, follow up is crucial.  The type and amount of follow up will determine whether prospective clients will actually work with you.  In fact, this also applies to current clients as well.  The main reason that clients state they leave their attorneys is because of a lack of response by their attorneys.

To be an effective Rainmaker, it is strongly suggested that you have a formal, written and personal Rainmaking plan consisting of the goals you want to achieve, the clients you wish to target and the strategies you are going to execute to do this.

While the steps in Rainmaking are simple, the process is not easy.  It takes a commitment on your part to bring clients into your practice on a regular basis and to keep them.  Solo practitioners who do not market their services consistently will find that they will be struggling for clients.  Mid-size and Large Law firm attorneys who don’t create books of business will find themselves as the people who grind out the work for those who do bring in new business.  This is not a position one should desire.  You limit the amount of control you have in your law firm:  control over the direction your individual career takes, or even control over the fact that you have a job (as we have seen in the recent past).

You can have the most brilliant rainmaking business development plan, designed and written for you by the greatest law firm marketing genius, but if you do not take the action necessary to implement the plan it is a worthless document.

How do you spell Rainmaker?   A . . . C . . . T . . . I . . . O . . . N!

A  = AM:  Wake up earlier. Waking up a half an hour earlier adds three and half hours per week which can be used for rainmaking.  Imagine an extra 182 hours per year to connect with former, current and prospective clients by writing a blog, submitting an article, follow-up calls, or attending one more networking event.

C  =  Cut Out Time Wasting: Determine how much time do you waste during the day?  If you are like most people, you are wasting time in a myriad of ways like reading (or deleting) emails you don’t need, chit-chatting ineffectively, and procrastinating on the one thing you could be doing to bring in more clients, or even doing more work for the current clients you have.   Then, learn to delegate, delete or downsize the task.

T = To-Do Lists: Write it down and prioritize:  Yes, a To-Do list.  Include everything!  If you don’t write it down, things fall through the cracks and the time it takes to fix the mistakes takes away from Rainmaking activities. Prioritize which activities are going to be the most helpful to you.  Cross out the tasks you have accomplished.  There is a sense of satisfaction from putting an X next to that item or running a line through it (even electronically).  Further, you have the opportunity to see how much you have accomplished.

I = Integrate your entire life: A true Rainmaker makes rain all of the time, even when they are doing things you wouldn’t consider to be “business development” activities.  For example, does your Dentist know what you do for a living?  He/She could be referring clients to you if they did.

O = Organize your plan: Take 15 minutes on Sunday Evening to plan your week.  Start by writing in all of the appointments you have.  Then plan the rest of your days in blocks of time.  For example: block out time to run errands,  to exercise, to have fun with family and friends, a chunk of time to perform one rainmaking activity per day, a chunk of time to work.  Realize that you don’t have to schedule yourself minute by minute as this will cause more stress if you exceed the time you thought it would take.  By planning in chunks, you can respond to “emergencies” which arise and you can fill in the activities in the blocks with what’s on your to-do list. But treat each “chunk” of time as a true appointment.  One that you cannot break.  If you have scheduled an hour to write a blog post as your Rainmaking Activity for that day and you finish in half that time then perform another task (following up with a prospective client, for example) or take a quick break.

N = Now, Take ACTION! : Once you have a schedule, keep it!   If you find yourself procrastinating for any reason, break the major task into its attendant pieces and perform one of the bite size pieces. There is an old adage:  How do you eat an Elephant?  One bite at a time.   When you do this, you find that the task get’s accomplished much faster than you realized.

Rainmaking is about creating relationships, which requires ACTION, and following up, which further necessitates ACTION.

How do you spell Rainmaker?  A . . . C . . . T . . . I . . . O . . . N.

It’s simple but certainly not easy.

Did you know you can schedule an in-house, customized Rainmaking workshop for your law firm?  begin telephone or Skype individual rainmaking training from wherever you are in the world with Jaimie? Call or email for more information.

Make a list of ALL of your clients, both current and former.

Which one of these people have not heard from you in a month?  In a year?  In more than a year?

You are missing valuable new business sources if you have ever lost touch with a person you have met in the past, even if you have only lost touch for short periods of time.

There is an old adage – “Out of sight, out of mind.”

These are people who can refer business to you or provide new matters to you or your firm.

Make a list of these people and start getting back in contact with them regularly.

Rainmaking Recommendations are sent the first and third Wednesdays of the month.  They are bite size tips that, when implemented will cause you to make rain. To learn more about Rainmaking, Goal Setting and Achieving the Life you want as an Attorney please contact Jaimie B. Field, Esq.   Sign up to have these delivered right to your in-box.

As the summer comes to a close and vacations come to an end, more and more networking events are scheduled during the fall.

Get out of your office and begin networking.  This is one of the best rainmaking activities in which you can take part.

Remember to bring your business cards!  But more importantly, remember to ask for other’s cards.

• While at a networking event, carry your business cards in your left jacket pocket.  Please take them out of the fancy business card holders to make it easier to access.
• Put the cards of the people you meet in your right hand pocket.  This makes it easier at the end of the event for you to keep them from getting jumbled with yours.
• Also, carry a pen so that you can jot down some pertinent information on the back of their card so that you can remember something special about the person you have just met.

Within 48 hours of meeting someone with whom you would like to do business (or may be able to refer you business) take a few minutes to dash off a note/email about how wonderful it was to meet them and make mention of that special fact you jotted down on the back of their card.

Following up with a person you met at a networking event is the only way to continue to build a relationship which will eventually lead to business.

Rainmaking Recommendations are sent the first and third Wednesdays of the month.  They are bite size tips that, when implemented will cause you to make rain. To learn more about Rainmaking, Goal Setting and Achieving the Life you want as an Attorney please contact Jaimie B. Field, Esq. If you wish these to come directly to your in-box sign up here.