Get to Know Those in the Know

There is one area of the business of law that is more important to the starting and building of a law practice than any other.  It comes as no shock to many if not all solo attorneys that I am talking about the "getting clients" portion of the business plan.  After all we can be the best technical practitioners in the world, but if no one retains us we will be nothing more than a starving artist.  I also consider it to be the most important area because all other business or practice related issues fall by the wayside if we don't have a sustainable revenue stream.  In other words, it will not matter if our firm is structured as a sole proprietorship or a professional service corporation or whether we design a office network based on Macs or PCs if we have no clients to serve.  It is readily apparent that the task of acquiring clients is an art form that is not even remotely addressed in the hallowed halls of legal education.  We are expected to learn the craft as we begin our legal careers in a sort of apprenticeship under the tutelage of our managing partner at our first place of post graduate legal employment.  That is all well and good except for one or two main issues that inhibit this process.  First, managing partners are often very busy themselves and quite possibly they are inept in regards to teaching these skills.  Second, the law firm has competing motives.  It is not always in the firm's best interest to enable its associates to be "rainmakers" or to teach associates the "tricks of the trade" since it will make it more difficult to keep the empowered associated in lock step. 

The reality is that once our name is on the door or towards the top of the letterhead it is absolutely essential that we succeed in the area of client acquisition.  I was fortunate to have a great mentor as a managing partner when I first moved to Appleton, Wisconsin.  He took every opportunity to teach me not only the substantive areas but also how to develop and nurture professional relationships, which is the lifeblood of a referral based practice.  However it is difficult and unreasonable to expect that we will see results immediately upon implementation of these pearls of wisdom.  It is often said that it is common to see law firms commit to a marketing plan when work slows down instead of committing to a more constant campaign.  The reason a more consistent and methodical approach works is because we need to stay at the front of the minds of our centers of influence.  Sporadic contact is simply burst advertising that may produce short-term results, but it will never produce a sustainable source of business.

The purpose of this particular post is to address one component of what I deem to be an effective marketing approach.  There is no denying that the more contact you have with men or women who are powerful centers of influence, the better chance that you parlay those contacts into additional business.  I refer to these folks as the people in the know.  For me the highly sought after contacts are successful financial professionals, CPAs, trust officers and other attorneys.   Different areas of law breed different centers of influence.  The core principals are the same regardless of what type of law you practice.  It is unreasonable to belief that clients will simply find you once you hang out a shingle.  Our task is to find the best way to reach the client and often times that may be through a referral from another trusted advisor.

Identify the people in the know that you want to get to know and take steps to get in front of them.  The first meeting may be nothing more than an introduction or it may be a business lunch.  Whatever works for you and the desired contact.  I try not to spend much of our time in the first meeting talking about business if at all possible.  My main objective is to get to know each other and to get to know what each of us do.  If it comes across as simply a sales call I am not sure that would be very effective.  After the introduction follow-up and stay in touch.  You'll have plenty of time to talk business on an ongoing basis in the future.